Perception - See me as I am not as you are..

"What I perceive is my reality

What you perceive is your reality

There is no reality as such

Only perceptions!"

Ever wondered how we see things? We as humans have been endowed with multiple senses. And that is how we complicate things! Whenever an event, story, person, thing, incident presents itself infront of us, we try to go beyond what meets the eye. We try to interpret and analyse the information or situation on hand…and that is how we nail it. Like we say curiosity killed the cat…

Every information presented before us is incomplete or ambiguous in some way most of the time. We try to fill in the gaps in the story. We try to seek to simplify and reason with whatever means we have. This is where the process of perceiving starts.

Perception happens so effortlessly, that most of the time we are not aware of how our perception is making us wrongly interpret information. We ourselves are skewing our perception. Some of the factors which affect our perception are so deeply imbibed in our lives, that we mistake these factors to be a part of who we are. The way we see this world shall weave our reality. And who wants to live a false reality!

Our past experiences, our beliefs about religion, morals, values affect our perception. We see each situation in light of these factors. Since this is an unconscious effort, we do not realise the impact it has on how we interpret things. The flaw lies not in the process of perception but in being aware of the factors influencing our perception. We need to go back to analysing these factors everytime we try to make a decision. We need to make sure that our illogical or irrelevant thoughts do not skew our perception of the situation at hand.

The easier option is to empathise and listen. Listen to the opinion of others. It is nothing but their perception. It does not mean that you become submissive to other’s ideas. It is just another way of seeing the same thing in a different. When you accept other’s perception you are minimizing the chances of errors in your judgement. This is what I would call keeping an open mind.

The key to taking just decisions is to challenge yourself, challenge your fears, your perceptions, and your beliefs. You need not change your beliefs but you need to take a look at the larger picture.