Perception
Perception is the personal interpretation of circumstances that influences our emotional responses and actions. By controlling our perception, we can gain power over our reactions to events.
THE IDEA
Perception
Perception is the personal interpretation or mental impression of a circumstance or situation. How we react and how we conduct ourselves depends fairly heavily upon what our perception of things turns out to be. If we perceive that everything is fine, we take a more relaxed approach to going about things. If we perceive that things are not going well, we may adopt a more tense or problem-oriented approach.
Perception can really change your entire worldview and the way you respond to everything you've ever experienced. In Hamlet, William Shakespeare wrote, "...There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Think about this with me for just a moment. If we take an event that is seen as sad, like your dog running away from home. Dogs are great companions and losing one has been known to be very unfortunate. However, you hold off on being sad for a day or so and you put up posters. Someone calls you and tells you they've found your dog!
You meet up with this person to get your dog back and hit it off with them really well. Now that person and you are friends! What a joy. Sometime later, you find that your new "friend" stole the dog in the first place. Well, now, how are you supposed to feel? You're being jerked around by your perception of the intrinsic meaning and emotional baseline for each of these events.
By taking each of these moments as they come, and by refraining from automatically assigning an emotional response to them, you gain more control over your response to things as they happen. You'll be in a position to ask yourself, "How do I want to feel about this?" From here, you can respond accordingly.
When you keep yourself reserved from feeling an automatic emotional response that's dictated by societal perception of events, it can lead you to a line of thinking that might be less than appealing. Emotions and feelings are the essences of life. If you don't feel anything, what's the point of living? Emotions are equal to meaning. If the things we go through have no meaning, why live?
This is, funnily enough, partially the point of this. Emotions are not equal to meaning. An event or occurrence can mean the world to you, but you dictate your response to that meaning. In addition to this, the circumstances you cannot control in life will no longer own you. You will have the freedom to experience what life has to offer without being subject to the emotions that supposedly "come with" them.
Once you have the power over your response to the events that are happening around you, you'll find a strength to keep going in the face of staunch adversity. To do this is, in essence, to flip the entire narrative of your life. Go from being the person everything happens to, to being one of the first people to bounce back from the worst that life has to offer.
When to use it
When receiving negative feedback at work, instead of feeling defensive, consider that your perception of the feedback determines your response.
When faced with a disappointing outcome in a personal project, reframe the experience as a learning opportunity rather than a failure.
During a conflict with a loved one, step back and examine how your perception of their actions might be influencing your emotional reaction.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
The Stolen Dog
A person's dog runs away, causing sadness. They put up posters and get a call from someone who found the dog. They become friends with that person. Later they discover the friend originally stole the dog. New information can shift the perception of each event (sadness, joy, betrayal). One can choose a different response instead of assigning emotions automatically.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
How can you apply the idea that 'there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so' to a current situation in your life?
Think of a recent event that triggered a strong emotional response. How might you reinterpret that event to change your response?
What steps can you take to pause before automatically assigning an emotional reaction to an event?
References
- Hamlet — William Shakespeare (1601)
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Thinking in Systems and Mental Models Think Like a Super Thinker (Dawson, Marcus P)