Everyday Canvas

Differences in Perception

Prompt: "It's funny how humans can wrap their minds around things and fit them into their own version of reality." Do you agree or disagree with this assessment of humans, and have you seen someone create their own version of reality when you actually know differently?

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I sure do agree with that assessment, and I have seen and even lived with people who create their own version of reality. In a way, we may all be doing that to a small degree, but there are those who give you an electric shock with the way they assess a factual event and come up with an imagined explanation.

Without naming names of pointing a finger to someone or other, the ones who tend to create reality are those who take their subjective beliefs as irrefutable, unbiased, singular truths. Similarly, some people assess a given situation or event in a far more different way than the way others see it, regardless of the available information on the subject. Moreover, some of those people have a powerful need to be right, and this need of theirs is as inflexible and limited as their thinking and their powers of assessment.

On the opposite end, a person who doesn’t have her or his identity or value systems invested in being right can lead a happier life and allow himself or herself opportunities for growth and learning. Not needing to be right can make a person to be a better listener to others because such a person is a secure one with a strong sense of self.

People’s reality is probably designed according to their needs; still, if a stone falls from a construction, it is a stone from a construction, not a devil in flight or God’s wrath upon the passersby. Any sane person would see it that way.

The way we all judge reality is a matter of perception, however. Those who adapt reality to their needy thinking are people whose perceptions rely on their past experiences, imagination, desires, or self-interest. There are also those with physical or mental disabilities whose problems create different perspectives. One thing to keep in mind is that no one can see everything in its entirety, and each person’s perception depends upon where she or he stands and the way he or she looks at life.