“…two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. It’s not logical; it’s psychological.” Stephen R. Covey, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”
Take a brief moment to look at the picture of the lady. What do you see? Is what you see objective or subjective?
Do you see an old lady or a young woman? Do you see reality as it is or as you perceive it to be?
When the above picture is shown to a large group of people there is usually two perspectives on what they see.
One group sees a rather ugly Old Lady and the other group sees a Young Beautiful Woman.
Who is right? You see what you see. Do you see what I see?
“…two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. It’s not logical; it’s psychological.” Stephen R. Covey, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”
The truth is that both are correct. After some discussion both groups can usually see what the other group sees. This illustration is as simple as the world gets. It is a black and white sketch with basically two perspectives. Think about the complexity of our world and the years of conditioning we have experienced that affects how we see everything. And we will often fight to the death over our perspective without ever being willing to hear a different perspective.
The point of this simple illustration is that we see the world not as it necessarily is in full reality, but through our unique perspective. Our past circumstances and conditioning greatly affect how we experience the world, our values and our beliefs.
There are two primary take a-ways.
1. We each see the world differently and in many cases there is not a hard set right and wrong way to see it. One person loves the thrill of a great roller coaster ride and another person is deathly afraid of the ride. One person loves apple pie and another loves chocolate cake. Unfortunately, we often deal with one another in absolutes in areas that are not absolute. So, we end up in disagreements over things that are much more subjective than we realize.
It’s like getting a pair of prescription eye glasses and thinking that everyone needs to use our glasses to correctly see the world. They make things clear to us, but they make everything blurry for almost everyone else.
Learn to hear people out and to understand their perspectives. You may not ultimately fully appreciate what they appreciate, but you will come to appreciate their uniqueness more.
2. It is important to challenge your closely held beliefs and perspectives on the most important matters of your life. This can be very hard to do, because we often times have built our lives on them. In this area, again there can be varying opinions, but there are also many hard and fast truths that hold up regardless of our perspective. Examples-
Gravity.
If you consume more calories than you burn you will gain weight.
If you spend more than you make you will end up in debt.
If you sow love, you will in most cases reap love.
2 + 2 = 4
So, over the next several days we will take time to challenge our deepest held beliefs, values and purpose to make sure our compasses are set to truth north in the essentials of life. And learn to have grace for others in the non-essentials of life, by caring more about people and less about being right.
“Each of us tends to think we see things as they are, that we are objective. But this is not the case. We see the world, not as it is, but as we are- or, as we are conditioned to see it. When we open our mouths to describe what we see, we in effect describe ourselves, our perceptions, our paradigms. When other people disagree with us, we immediately think something is wrong with them.” Stephen R. Covey
76. What are your deepest held beliefs about life?
77. What are your most closely held values that conform to these beliefs?
78. Share these beliefs and values with your accountability partner, a loved one or friend and ask them to lovingly challenge your perspectives and to offer their thoughts and ideas. (Listen to gain new perspectives, not to defend your position.)
“We tend to see the world through the randomly crafted lenses given to us by the people who have had the most influence on our lives, not as it really is.”