One of my friends is known by his trademark dialogue “Perception is everything”. When I first heard I just shirked this off, everyone knows “Presentation is everything”. At least that is what I grew up believing but he was onto something, something big. This one is for him. BTW, I am back to serious writing bitches ;)
What is perception?
§ Well as you have realized by now. It is everything
§ Perception simply put is how you perceive things around you, how you understand everything is/was/will be in this world/universe
§ It’s about how you absorb information about everything which surrounds you
§ Perception thus defines what you understand, and importantly how we understand things
Why is perception so important?
§ To those of you who are supra-logical, it must be obvious that if perception defines what we understand, and how we understand things it is the basic step in our learning curve, our tastes, our experiences, and our decision making
§ Now walk with me for a moment here, perception forms the building block for your decision making! Every decision you make is colored by perception.
§ So now comes the next question?
How exactly does perception color your decisions?
§ Well, the very first thing is that we are humans we intake information about our surroundings through 5 senses but unfortunately our brains are not built to handle all the information which is actually available through our senses
§ So!! They compromise, well not compromise! They optimize. As we grow older we realize that some things are more important than others. We “give a fuck” about some things and not about others
§ Our brains then begin to focus on information around those areas and that is how our perceptions are shaped.
§ Now of course a large part of what we give a fuck about actually comes from our surroundings, or perceptions of our surrounding based on our education, genetics, our past experience. So our perception thus gets into a positive loop. Actually it is not so positive for many people but that’s for another day.
§ What happens effectively is that we end up having different “world-views” or models into which we try to fit everything we sense around us to make our decisions
Where is the issue here?
§ The issue here is that two people having different genetics (hence different senses), different surroundings while growing up will never perceive things the same. They might perceive them similarly but they will never make the same decision. They will never have the same tastes, and will never experience things in the exact same way!
When is this important?
§ This has never been more important! In the modern world as choices explode, expression of opinion becomes easier, and finding people with similar interest spread across the globe presents no difficulty.
§ We can either chose to isolate ourselves further by shunning everyone who does not dress our way, listen to our music, and know our knowledge… In abstract make the same decisions as us. Or we can learn to respect and allow to communication age to actually allow us to widen our perception.
Who should you be talking to?
§ Anyone who is not you! Well exactly, a little self-conversation wouldn't kill ya! It helps keep the head clear
§ But basically the idea is to converse with people having different perception than yours. People having made different decisions than yours, or people who are or will make different decisions that yours. Try to understand where they are coming from.
§ Talk about everything! – I know it’s comfortable to make polite conversation with people who have conflicting views and even more comfortable to reaffirm your beliefs in conversations with people similar to you.
§ But, that’s now how learning is done! That not how we realize our blind spots! So go find your blind spots.
