Perception Versus Reality
I Wish I Could Be That Pretty
Suppose you get home on a Friday afternoon and pull up Instagram to see a picture of your classmate. She just posted it 7 minutes ago and ALREADY has 32 likes! You think to yourself “She’s so pretty. I wish I could be that pretty and popular. Maybe then I would be as happy as her.” That, my friend, is perception. To assume that your classmate is happy based on the number of likes on her photo, her looks, and the size of her friend group suggests that you PERCEIVE that pretty people are happy people.
A Faulty Assumption
This, as you know, is a faulty assumption. Marilyn Monroe was pretty and very popular and she died of a self-administered drug overdose that was ruled “probable suicide”.* Perception is tricky business. It’s a mental impression, a stencil for the mind. You could also think of it as a set of lenses by which you see something thru. It's like a set of virtual reality glasses in that it distorts the facts. We assume that what we see or hear is absolute truth. First, our senses pick up the information and began to form a picture. Oftentimes the picture is incomplete. The tricky part comes when our brain starts to make meaning out of the picture. The meaning we attach (the lens or our perception) is generally based on our circumstances, our beliefs, and our experiences.
Thoughts Become Perception Become Reality
That pretty classmate may be smiling to cover for the insecurity she feels or perhaps she smiles as a way to hide the fact that her parents are going thru a divorce. You perceive that she “has it all” because you live in a world that puts those “pretty girls” all over magazines and runways as if that’s the way to achieve true greatness. William James said: Thoughts become perception, perception becomes reality. Alter your thoughts, alter your reality.** Remember this the next time you are tempted to make a faulty assumption about someone or something. I’d love to hear some other examples of how your perception has misguided reality. Write in to share your experience!
**http://www.azquotes.com/quote/1465090)
*http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/marilyn-monroe-is-found-dead