The Art of Becoming – Chapter 6
“And the Other Saw Stars”
Dale Carnegie once wrote a simple verse that carved itself into memory:
“Two men looked out from prison bars,
One saw the mud, the other saw stars.”
Two men, same cell, same iron bars, same darkness. But their experience of that moment could not be more different. One man sees only the mud; the weight of reality, the filth, the reminder of where he is and why. The other looks up and finds the stars; distant and untouchable, yet proof that beauty and possibility still exist, even from behind the bars. The line is brief, but the idea is infinite: where you place your gaze changes everything.
It’s not the situation that defines us. It’s not even the suffering. It’s what we do with it, what we see in it, what meaning we choose to extract from it. Pain doesn’t always teach wisdom, and comfort doesn’t always lead to happiness. What shapes a life, in the end, is how we meet what happens, how we interpret it, how we respond, how we choose to look.
And this isn’t about pretending things are fine when they aren’t. It’s not about coating everything in positivity or smiling through gritted teeth. It’s about the quiet internal choice to see differently; not because it’s easy, but because it’s necessary.
We often believe our thoughts are facts. Whatever that voice in our head says, we take as truth. But thoughts are just thoughts. They are often reactions, old patterns, unexamined beliefs dressed up as logic. And if we don’t question them, they run the show.
Think about a day that started badly and how quickly it all seemed to unravel after that. That spiral isn’t fate; it’s focus. One bad moment colors the rest. You start looking for more things going wrong, and of course, you find them. Not because the day is cursed, but because your lens is smudged.
But there’s always the choice to look up instead of down. Not to ignore the mud, but to remember the stars are still above you. Sometimes, that shift is the most powerful thing we can do for ourselves. It doesn’t erase the difficulty, but it gives us back a sense of agency. Even in a prison of circumstance, you can reclaim your vision.
The shift doesn’t have to be huge. It can start with something small. Maybe you’re sitting in traffic, frustrated and late. But what if, instead of feeding the irritation, you put on a song you love or call someone you’ve been meaning to check in on? The traffic doesn’t disappear; but now, the moment holds something else. Something better.
We like to think that big transformations happen all at once, but often, they happen in the smallest pivots. A different thought. A different question. A willingness to ask, “what else might be true here?”
Of course, it’s easier to see stars when others around you are looking up, too. The people in your life shape your gaze. If you’re surrounded by voices that only ever talk about what’s wrong, it’s hard to remember what’s right. It matters who you share your space with. It matters what kind of vision they invite out of you.
It also takes time. If you’ve spent years looking at the mud, lifting your eyes can feel foreign. Hope can feel false. But the ability to look up is a practice. You build the muscle of perspective little by little, until one day, it becomes instinctive. Not because life has become easy, but because you’ve become someone who knows how to meet it differently.
There will always be mud. That’s part of being here. But there will also always be stars. And the difference between a life of despair and a life of true happiness is often no more than the angle of your gaze.
Each time you choose to look up, to search for light when it would be easier to sink, you are reclaiming your own narrative. You are not just enduring—you are choosing to become someone who makes meaning out of the mess, who finds beauty where others stop looking, and who, in doing so, becomes a light for others still searching through the dark.
I urge you to ask yourself:
When something goes wrong, what’s the first thought I usually have?
Can I think of a time when changing how I looked at a situation made it easier to handle?
Who in my life helps me see the stars, and who tends to keep me stuck in the mud?
Brooke Desieus 