Perception & a New Reality

You’ve undoubtedly seen those mind-bending images, where you look at an image and see one thing, while someone else views an image and sees something else entirely.

You know, like the image, below:

What do you see? Do you see a young woman, looking away from you, over her right shoulder, her left ear and jaw line soft on an elegant neck? Or, do you see an older woman, with an elongated nose and chin, looking forward, forlorn?

I see the younger woman. In fact, even knowing this picture, I have trouble finding the older woman – it always takes me a few seconds.

I see one thing. You might see another. And, since our perception is our reality, we’re both “correct.”

The weird thing is, people being people, we spend an enormous amount of time and energy trying to convince those with differing perceptions that they should adopt our own perceptions. They’re wrong and we’re right. 

We tend to go from perception immediately to judgment.

I’m not certain it’s ever been worse.

With all our access to information through technology, we think we’re smarter. Most of us aren’t of course. Most of us read what we want to read, watch what we want to watch, listen to what we want to listen. 

What we want, not what we need.

Part of that is human nature. Part of it is technology. We’re fed what channels/networks/platforms think interest us most. If you click on conspiracy theory stories, you’ll get fed a steady stream of conspiracy theory stories going forward. 

If you haven’t seen The Social Dilemma, I highly recommend it. Check out the trailer, below:

When I was first diagnosed with multiple myeloma, it was a wake call to me, personally. A much-needed wake up call. 

I, like I’m sure so many others, had been guilty of taking too much for granted. I took relationships for granted and I took time for granted. I took tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and even next decades, plural, for granted. 

Hell, I was going to live forever. And, my relationships would still be there when I got back around to them, eventually.

Now, I knew better, intellectually, But, I pushed that aside, emotionally, because I couldn’t handle thinking about it. 

For several years of my career, I facilitated a time management course from Franklin Covey. One of the exercises I ran participants through was a timeline. The task was simple: draw a horizontal line, and with the left representing your birth and the right representing your death, put a dot on the line where you think you are.

The idea was to get participants thinking about what was most important to them and getting it done. Now. Goals. Dreams with a deadline. 

My diagnosis changed a lot. It hasn’t changed everything, completely. I’m certainly a work in progress. I still live teetering in denial, dipping my toes, and, to be honest, much more at times, into the pool of denial. But, I also spend much more time as a realist, recognizing when I take things that are important to me for granted. And, when I recognize that, I try to be proactive and positive, and do something about it.

After all, if not now, when?

My cancer diagnosis has changed my perspective, and for that change in perspective, I’m fortunate. I’m not quite there in thinking I was fortunate for my diagnosis, of course. But, there have been positive ramifications.

My life is more full now. I have additional roles, each of them with purposes. I still have all the former roles I had, but now I’ve added patient community and patient caregiver advocate roles, and I find each of them rewarding. 

And, with my changing perspective, I’ve adjusted what means most to me, and what’s truly important. Where do I want to spend my time, with whom, and with what? 

Conversely, where do I not want to spend my time?

I actively avoid spending time around negative energy. I refuse to go down the rabbit hole of spiraling despair, either in conversation or in reading. 

It’s not that I avoid bad news. I’m just not going to feed on it, regurgitate, and repeat over and over. What I look to do is acknowledge the news as the “So what” and think about the actions necessary to answer, “Now what?”

We’re all inching toward the right on our timelines. We’re not promised tomorrow, and today’s coming to a close with each passing second. Do we really want to spend our time on the relatively trivial and damage the relationships with the ones we care about the most?

Some seem to prefer that route. Me, well my perspective has changed. I’m going to take the road that I too often didn’t travel throughout my life. 

It’s not that one perception is right and the other is wrong. They’re just different. We each have one that is right for us. Maybe we share perceptions, maybe we don’t. But, can’t we all agree that we don’t really need to be such outright assholes to those with different perceptions?