Perspective in Life

"When we look at a cup that is set down between two of us, we have the feeling that we are looking at the same cup, though actually, that is not so. You look at the cup with your vision, and from a certain angle. Moreover, you see it in the rays of light and shadows that come from you side of the room. This applies equally to me as well. In a very rough sense, we proceed to separate the reality of the situation by entertaining the idea that we both see the same cup. This is what I mean by the fabrication of ideas.
"In the same way, we assume that there exists a world which you and I experience in common with all other human beings, that this world existed prior to our births, and that it will continue to exist even after our deaths. But again, this is nothing more than an idea. Not only that, we wind up thinking that we live and die within this world of fabrication. This is an utterly inverted way of looking at one's life. My true Self lives in reality, and the world I experience is one I alone can experience, and not one anyone else can experience along with me. To express this as precisely as possible, as I am born, I simultaneously give birth to the world I experience; I live out my life along with that world, and at my death the world I experience also dies."

~How To Cook Your Life: From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment, Dōgen's classic Instructions for the Zen Cook with commentary by Kōshō Uchiyama Rōshi 

Wow, talk about personal responsibility. There's got to be something deeper to this as well, deeper than "your life is what you choose it to be, what you see it to be" that I understand at the moment. This is one I'll have to think over for a very long time. 

You've got to admit your life has a direct effect on other people's lives, whether they're your little sister, your great aunt, the lady at the check out counter in Wally mart, or the little girl who made the fashionable t-shirt you just purchased. And that's not even factoring in grandchildren or the people who will live in your house in the future, after you've moved out. 

But the world is how I see it? Entirely unique to me? That makes a lot of sense, even though that starts to feel a little lonely when I start to think about it a little too much.