The Power of Perception

The way in which we regard, understand and interpret something, a situation or someone in our lives is how we create an image and a perception in our minds. Naturally, we have perceptions of the people around us, these develop from our analysis of them as a person; their physical appearance, their body language, how they communicate, how they react to situations etcetera, and the more we get involved and get to know these people, the more our perception can grow. We receive new information about the people around us daily, with an image of them that can sometimes alter and make your view of them different whether its positive or negative. However, the power of perception can be damaging for the mind when you believe something about someone that turns out to be false or different.

You have an idea in your head of how your family and friends are as people, we tell ourselves ‘oh, they wouldn’t do that’ or ‘they wouldn’t have a problem with that’ and when they do you are surprised and left disappointed. You’ve spent all this time thinking your perception of them was correct, however this doesn’t make it the truth, and this is how you become upset when someone doesn’t live up to what you believed they were.

Arguments or disagreements with people in your life are a great example of the power of perception working in full effect. Arguments come from a place of two people perceiving a situation or each other differently. Say if you confront a friend about how they acted in particular situation that you didn’t agree with, you are doing this because your perception of them wasn’t true in this particular situation – they  disagree and become annoyed by your confrontation, they don’t understand how you have developed this view – you explain your reasons why, they explain their opposing reasons, and still they don’t understand your thoughts – they become hurt and offended and now question their perception of you – the confrontation turns into an argument and ultimately negative feelings are felt about each other.

Your perception of each other has been damaged and so has the friendship, we spend a lot of our time explaining ourselves, justifying our actions and we constantly try and change people’s perceptions of us but still they don't, which is understandable, they have their idea of what happened, and you have yours, ultimately they have their story and you have your story. We experience mental turmoil when someone doesn’t understand us even after we’ve explained our point of view, but how can we expect complete understanding when someone’s story is always going to be different to our own. Perhaps if we were them we would understand their story but were not and that’s why we should never focus and give too much energy to thinking about why and how people perceive us.

You’ll drive yourself insane constantly attempting to understand and change people’s perceptions, views and ideas of you. Clinging to a negative perception of you is your own stupidity. Know who you are and you won’t feel the need to prove yourself.