{"id":3420,"date":"2025-08-17T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/?p=3420"},"modified":"2025-08-12T18:08:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T01:08:14","slug":"changing-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/17\/changing-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Changing Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My trip to Utah was already going to start different this time around compared to the past\u2014
Instead of my usual route, I was going to stop in LA first to drop off my tigers for the upcoming Odd Folk & Fables<\/a><\/em> show, and then make my way east to Utah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was so lovely to briefly catch up with Cassia and Eric at Giant Robot, and by the time I was ready to start my trip out of LA, it was rush hour traffic time! I was mentally preparing myself for bumper-to-bumper freeway traffic as I set up my GPS. But as I started following the directions, I realised I was nowhere near the freeway entrances. I kept turning left and right, street after street, and had zero idea as to where I was going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was completely at the mercy of my GPS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was starting to get frustrated because I didn’t want to zig-zag through the streets of LA like a mouse in a maze. I wanted to be on the freeway. Even if it would’ve been absolutely maddening sitting in traffic, at least the freeway was a more familiar and comfortable path for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then I decided to change my perspective.
I started thinking to myself about how much of a treat it was that I got to see different parts of LA.
Instead of asphalt and the bumper of the same car for hours, I got the opportunity to see a small glimpse of day-to-day life in parts of LA. I also got to venture briefly into Koreatown and it made me a little homesick for Korea as I was suddenly surrounded by Korean billboards and business signs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Finally reaching a freeway entrance, I was once again mentally bracing for time in traffic.
But my GPS surprised me and took me on a rather nice (and uncrowded) route through the Angeles National Forest. It felt like a nice reward from the Universe for changing my perspective and being a little uncomfortable for a moment by taking a totally different path traveled.
As I was driving the winding road, I decided to do something I would think about doing but never actual did\u2014until now. I took a moment to stop in a lookout area and take in the view.

Had I just stuck to the familiar\u2014albeit frustrating\u2014path that is taking the freeway, I never would’ve gotten the opportunity to see not only other parts of LA, but also some of the beautiful, wild lands of the Los Angeles area.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

This was definitely much better than sitting in traffic on a freeway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My trip to Utah was already going to start different this time around compared to the past\u2014Instead of my usual route, I was going to stop in LA first to drop off my tigers for the upcoming Odd Folk & Fables show, and then make my way east to Utah. It was so lovely to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3403,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,27],"tags":[28,25],"class_list":["post-3420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventures","category-brain-dump-2","tag-brain-dump","tag-for-me"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3420"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3438,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3420\/revisions\/3438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lioninthetrees.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}