Perception is……

I have always heard the statement that perception is everything.  That can be true, but it isn’t that simple.    In my younger days, I believed what I perceived because I was more trusting.   As I matured that was no longer the case.   I did more critical thinking as I grew older and didn’t take things at face value. 

Many times, you don’t know if your perception is correct and you will never know.  I learned so much from my story I tell below that you never know the circumstances.   I didn’t make it up or embellish,  it actually happened.

A couple of years ago, while riding the BART Train home from San Francisco one evening, a man sat next to me on a crowded train.  He had 4 young children with him which I assumed were his.  The kids screamed, pushed people as they ran around the crowded car.  The children were out of control.  I thought to myself, what brats.  And all he is doing is sitting and staring into space.    Does he never discipline his children?   I thought about moving seats but knew I would probably have to stand most of the way home, so I buried my head in my Kindle and kept reading.   I had to take a deep breath so as not to make a rude comment to the man, but I didn’t and just kept reading.  Then he turned to me and started to speak.   That is when my perception changed completely.   He said, “Forgive me, my wife just passed away in the hospital.  She has been ill for quite a while and I am worried about my children.   I don’t have much energy right now and I know my children are upset.   I talked to the man until he got off a few stops later.   I’ll never forget our conversation because it really made me think about perception.

Perception isn’t always about the other person.   It can be about how you are perceiving yourself or the type of day that you are having.   Years ago, when I worked in a large office, my boss, and her boss seemed very quiet and quite distant one day.   I had just finished a large project and started to think, did I do a poor job?   Are they not happy with my work?   Generally, they were both very chatty and upbeat, but that day they were very quiet. 

I tried to keep busy and keep my head down.  I was sitting at my desk, when my boss asked me to go to the conference room and said she needed to talk to me.   I thought, oh no, this is worse than I thought.  With that she opened the door and there were 20 people in the room and a big birthday cake on the table.   What made me think the worst?   I don’t remember at this point, but there was no reason for me to be so worried. 

In today’s world of social media and the need that many people feel to respond immediately without thinking or giving any thought to their actions, I do my best to thoughtfully hesitate and think before I respond.  It is so easy to take things personally when in actuality a person posting is thinking more about how smart their response is, not how you might take what they are saying.  It is so easy to respond with a flippant mean-spirited response.  Don’t get me wrong, I am all in for a good debate, but not a bash fest.  

I guess I would say that perception is many things.   In fact, I could say you are what you think, just as you are what you eat.  Perception is many things from many viewpoints.   It just isn’t that simple.