Does anyone else ever look in the mirror and go “HOT DAMN! I look GOOD!” and other times you look in the mirror and you’re like “Holy Shit. Why do lifeforms even talk to me?” This is me from day to day or probably even hour to hour… I don’t really keep track of those thoughts, probably as a self preservation tool.
My point here is that if our own opinions of something as trivial as how we look in a mirror (which LET’S BE HONEST! is ALWAYS the same give take 1 lb or some makeup or a cuter shirt) then how ridiculous is it that we don’t realize how much perception dictates how we see people and the world around us?
How I see things literally differs in my own head depending on my mood and circumstances. I might wake up one morning and be THRILLED that the sun is shining – it’s going to be a beautiful day, and we’re going to do this and that and life is GRAND! I might wake up and the sun is shining and UGH it hasn’t rained in 12 days and I am living in SCORCHED EARTH and I have to close all my curtains and hide in the basement so me and my vampiric children don’t start sizzling.
Now apply this to social issues.
What I see is different from what YOU see, from what your neighbor sees, from what your mother or husband or children see. You might all be looking at a bush and you think “gross, that’s scraggly as hell. Ugh If I wasn’t SO busy I could pull that out and landscape that area – maybe next year” Your mother sees “Why hasn’t she trimmed that What have I done that she cares so little for where she lives I must have gone wrong somewhere?” Your neighbor sees ” That mother is always playing with her children, what a lovely family to live next door to.” your kid sees ” I am SO hiding in that! It will be hilarious! They won’t be able to find me!” Your husband sees nothing because men don’t give a shit about bushes.
Perception is everything. I once heard a quote and I have abided by it for many years. It was “just because they don’t love you as you want them to, doesn’t mean they don’t love you the best way they know how.” I apply this to my friendships, familial relationships, and even my marriage. People do their best. You do your best. Sometimes the way you love someone is completely different than the way someone else does but it means no less or no more. Some people show their love by words, other by physical means, other by actions. No one is right or wrong. We all do things in our own way in our own time. I feel that this way of thinking can truly cross bridges in rocky relationships. How often do we feel like so & so doesn’t reciprocate? But they usually are. Just maybe not in a way you’re picking up on.
Perception is all the difference in a good mood vs a bad mood. In productive vs I am watching netflix all day and crying.
I choose to believe that most everyone (MOST – gotta allow for the crazies!) is doing their best. That most everyone is trying to better themselves and the people they love. Some of us do a better job than others, but we’re all trying our best. At the end of the day, we’re all human, and we’re all working from our own frame of reference – it’s just that some of us have rosier glasses than others.