A Matter Of Perception

It was a gloomy morning, certainly looked to drizzle or rain later in the day and it did. It was a quarter to 8.30am and my (almost) 5 year-old was still not fully ready for school. It is a norm these days to rush, rush, rush, just to be on time. As a parent, do you experience the same? Anyway, I was planning to head out together in the car so that I could run some errands after dropping him off at school, but I decided to grab the bike instead and off we went. Taking the bike also means it takes only 10mins max on return.

To head home from the school, I usually take the neighborhood route which connects to the main road. As I was biking towards the traffic light (I was on the right lane of the bicycle path), a man on his bike came right into my direction and I just managed to maneuver my bike a tad bit away from almost colliding with him. Naturally, I threw him my rather shocked disposition. He was aware that that might happen apparently from the way he looked at me. He has that nonchalant expression on his face and even snorted out with a "uh-hmm..." (got to read this with an intonation likely coming from someone who actually suggests his/her demeanor is fairly justified). A soft breeze of consciousness brushed upon me to immediately check where my bike stood and... I was in on the right lane indeed.

Have you been in those moments when you tend to blame others when things don't go your way? I'd be surprised for any answer of "NO"! Do you remember how you feel so justified that you have continued success in finding various evidence to support your premise that the other person is at fault? Take a simple example of not able to find your jewelry piece (or, just about anything that you can think of, okay?) left on the dresser upon your return from work. You will likely start thinking back who was (allowed) at your home that day and go from there. It could be your friend, babysitter, maid/cleaner, family/relatives etc. You will start telling yourself from 'No, it can't be...(s)he is honest AFAIK..." to "OMG, I can't believe (s)he would steal from me...' and start convincing yourself that the latter seems SO true because you still can't find your jewelry piece.....until you spot it fallen behind your dresser on the floor. Then you would go on a guilt trip, feeling absolutely awful for blaming and judging the innocent. Talking about the confirmation bias!

Now, here's the question to check in: How do you feel when you blame or judge others? Do you feel good deep inside of you? Or perhaps, you feel pretty good for not having to take any responsibility? My take is, we are quite often feeling how justified it is to say someone else did something that is against our likings. In fact, if you haven't already known this, the entire world is what we make of it - it all boils down to perspectives! Try this, we naturally pass judgments whenever things don't seem to meet our expectations: Expectations with just about anything. For example, I expect (and like) everything at home to be neat and clean. Clutter throws me into utter dismay and frustrations. Some of you may label this as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). If you can live with mess and it does not bother you, I might, honestly, just don't get it how anyone would!

It is so much easier to blame it on others and rid ourselves off the need to reflect and the possibility of finding something about us that needs to change! Change is uncomfortable, but change is also necessary sometimes. Remember, when you point your finger at others, there are three fingers pointing back at you - we hear this all the time, yet isn't it perplexing that we keep doing what we know that does not serve us? It isn't asking us to turn it around and blame ourselves, but to just pause and think: What did I miss here? What can I learn from this? There are so much more to elaborate on this but I will keep that for another time. The lesson here is really to see things as they are and not worse than they are. Next, we should always see things better than they are. Trade expectations with appreciation. I should now ask myself this: What makes me think that the guy on the bike was judging me? He probably only was, if I strongly believe it. Who knows that his "snort" was nothing more than a "snort" that he does with everybody everyday? And I am here building such a nice narrative about the "incident". I should go get a life!

What about you - would you catch yourself next time blaming or judging others and take a moment to digest what might it try to remind you of? Note this, recurrence of any situation happens in our life only because we have not learned what we are supposed to. Drop your comments below and I'd love to hear what you have to say.