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Your Unique Perspective
Perspective:
1) the state of one’s ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship: You have to live here a few years to see local conditions in perspective.
2) the faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship: Your data is admirably detailed but it lacks perspective.
“perspective.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 08 Jan. 2011.
One Perspective
Imagine a world where everyone shared the same perspective. We would truly see things through the same set of eyes. We would all agree that black is black, white is white, and gray is gray in every situation. We would universally agree on right and wrong. There would be no need to argue. We would all agree on everything. Heaven or Hell? Utopia or boring beyond belief? The totalitarian and fascist track records are not pretty on this account.
I don’t believe we have any chance of a universal perspective sweeping like a virus through humanity any time soon.
Your State of Mind
We each experience a unique state of mind or perspective. Let’s begin with a closer examination of our first definition of perspective, “the state of one’s ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship.” When we blend our ideas with what we know as “facts,” we risk forming misperceptions. Are our ideas really valid? Are our facts truthful? Do we have enough information to have confidence in our conclusions? Can we trust our perspective? Flat-earthers, conspiracy theorists, and UFO fringe groups come to mind as possible candidates for misperception. But who really can tell?
Is Perception Reality?
Is your perception your reality? I would say yes, it is, from the perspective of the person experiencing the situation as real. How we experience a moment is what allows us to process our sensations and manufacture ideas about the situation and blend it with what we believe factual in our situation. A difficult question to answer is, what really is reality? Is so-called reality separate from your perception? A psychotic person experiences a much different reality than the non-psychotic person and the non-psychotic community judges the psychotic’s perceived reality as fictional. But does this non-psychotic judgment make the psychotic’s perceived, even if delusional, reality any less real to him/her?
Our perceived definition of reality is formed when two or more people can agree that their perceptions of a moment are similar. The more similar their perceptions, the more real they will judge their experience of the moment. They confirm their ideas and facts against the other people’s ideas and facts and begin to trust their perceptions as reality.
Is Perception Relevant?
Our second definition of perspective, “the faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship,” is also problematic. Is it ever possible for someone to see all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship prior to forming a perception? Who can objectively and accurately decide what qualifies as relevant data in a given moment? Yet we all do it all the time without giving it much thought. We know what we saw. We believe it when we see it. It just sounds right to me. These are the things we tell ourselves to make a judgment on our perception and to move on.
Living In Our Own World
I have come to understand that we each live in our own world of our uniquely created perceptions. Our ideas, facts, experiences, emotions, senses, and even biological makeup all contribute to how we perceive each moment we live. I do not believe that any two people process all of the inputs that are generated by experiencing a moment in the same way, so it is nearly impossible to expect that any two people will perceive a moment totally the same way. We might agree on some similarities between our perceptions, but on close examination, there would be differences as well.
Different=Bad, Wrong and Crazy
Our innate need to feel connected to others and to confirm our sanity drives us to form relationships with like-minded people. Spend any time on any online discussion board and you can experience this natural phenomenon in action. We validate each other’s perceptions and then happily live our lives viewing each moment as a true reading of reality based on the fact that others share a similar perception, so ours is correct.
A potentially dangerous environment is created when we come across someone with a different perspective. We are immediately shocked that someone could hold a different perspective than our own. (We are totally right, after all.) In trying to support our sense of correctness and sanity, we immediately judge and dismiss the other person’s different perspective as being bad, wrong and possibly crazy. After all, we think, how could any rational human being perceive something differently than I do? It’s fight or flight time. Let the arguments, coercion, influencing and preaching begin…
My Way or the Highway!
Our judgments of others’ perceptions are lightning fast. When others’ perceptions conflict directly with our cherished perceptions called beliefs and values, we tend to react on a more emotional level than in a logical way. We defend our perception and try to persuade the other person to see things our way or prove ourselves right and them wrong. If that doesn’t work and we believe our way of thinking is threatened, we can become frightened, frustrated and angry. This is a toxic emotional cocktail that we instantly drink and can result in pronouncements such as “I cannot believe you feel that way!” We issue ultimatums such as, “It’s my way or the highway,” “damn you to Hell,” or worse, “condemn you to death.” Our response to a radically different perspective that we judge as threatening to our perceptions becomes a battle of wills or a war for mental self-preservation.
Different is Different, Not Bad by Definition
One short line of logic has the power to form a mental circuit breaker that can keep us from drinking our toxic judgment cocktail. That statement is: “Different is by definition different and is not automatically bad.” Difference has no innate evaluation of good or bad. Difference requires a judgment of our perceptions for us to think of a difference as being bad or wrong for our existence and perceived reality. We must accept as fact that people perceive reality differently than we do, because we have enough evidence to suggest that it is fact.
If we can add this mental circuit breaker to our rational, logical thinking process, then we have the potential to deploy our most powerful weapon in our intellectual arsenal, our curiosity.
Curiosity as a Safety Valve
If you can learn to master your curiosity, then you can subdue your natural, emotional tendency to leap to conclusions and quickly judge other perceptions. Curiosity has the power to defuse potentially explosive perceptual differences. If you can view perceptual differences as opportunities to learn something new, or as positive challenges to confirm your own perceptions, then you don’t need to judge others’ perceptions as invalid or wrong. You can disagree with a different perception and still stay curious about how the other person processed information and formed the values, ideas, and beliefs that led to a perception different from your own. In short, you might learn something beneficial and learn to appreciate a different perception, even if you disagree with it. Since we all have evidence that we have made mistakes in our perceptions, why not always assume that our perceptions are incomplete and subject to change with more information? By asking yourself, “What if I’m wrong?” you can stay curious and at least attempt to fully understand a different perspective without rushing to judgment. You can use your curiosity as a safety valve to defuse your own visceral response to a difference and seek first to understand it before trying to be understood.
You can check your intellectual honesty by asking yourself, “Do I really have enough true information to be 100% confident in my perception?” If you can imagine a single piece of information that might change your perception, then you must logically conclude that you don’t have enough information to be certain of your conclusion.
All Perceptions Are Subject to Change With New Information
If all of our perceptions are subject to change with other information, how can we function? As you stay curious about potential revisions to your perceptions, you test them more often and can decide whether they are true or false from your perspective. The more often you confirm your perceptions, the more confidence you can have in them. Confidence and certainty are not the same thing, much like faith and fact are not the same. By staying open to at least evaluating different perspectives, you can avoid many fears, frustrations, and angry or violent conclusions. Why fight over something when there is a good chance your perception of it is inaccurate?
Time Will Tell
Which perceptions are right and wrong? Time will tell. Additional experience is the magnifying lens that lets you see 20/20 in hindsight, if you are willing to reflect and revise your perceptions. By learning to stay curious, you increase the chances of a much more interesting and rich journey through this series of experiences called life.
There are some truths that I believe have withstood the test of time. When in doubt, I have my faith.
My perceptions may ultimately prove to have been totally wrong, but in the end, I will have lived a better life as a result of my faith either way. Time will tell if I was correct. I am confident enough in my faith to live on curiously.
Seeking and finding truth is not easy and may be a major purpose of our life’s journey.
Time will tell. You must wait and see for yourself.
I wish you a wonderful adventure!
Ready to fire up your work and your life? I’m an executive coach from Indianapolis, and I work one-on-one with executives and managers, in person for local clients or via Zoom. If this post raised a question about your work or your next step, we should talk. The first discovery call is free and confidential. Book your discovery call, or call or text me at 317-643-0058, Monday through Friday, 9 to 5.
