Perception

'Put yourself in his/her shoes', they said; 'Take a walk in them', they said; 'Before you lay any judgement', they said... Yup, these are some of the hackneyed phrases which we hear from time to time.

Look out the window, take a look at someone far away, and notice how small he/she is, but if you think about it, in his/her eyes, you appear to be very small too. Same difference, I should say. No matter how meaningless this little example is in your perception, I believe it explains my point.

In any relationships in our human Life, we are plagued by this curse of perception. Most often than not, our outlook on things is based only through our own eyes and not others. It is difficult to picture how the angle of the other party may appear completely diffierent from ours. That's where one of the sources of friction occurs.

Unknowingly, we may offend people; portray a image that is 360 degrees different from what we wanted; or even frighten away people. And when these people have these kinda reactions, they too, fall under the curse as they fail to look at it from another point of view. Aahhh... perception is such a dangerous and contagious thing.

Sometimes, we may forget to think about how others may feel or how others perceive things differently and simply act on our own accord. This is probably 'cos humans are of an individualistic nature. No matter how selfless everyone wants to think they are or want to be, deep down, there will always be the presence of a 'little me' that thinks for himself/herself and with a desire to protect himself/herself. A little cynical thought though, I might add. But this makes it all the more worthwhile when we see actual cases of selfless-ness happen in our everyday Life, doesn't it?

Imagine... one day, you were walking along in a field and accidentally knock down an ants' nest. First reaction! Jump around in a bid to scare off or kill any ants that have emerged over their demolished nest. Subsequent reaction! Run off or carry on walking. I don't think anyone would even think twice about what they had done. It was only an ants' nest anyway.

Right, now imagine... you are watching television, playing that favourite video game or having lunch in your cosy home. Suddenly, someone, much stronger and much powerful than you, comes into your house and wrecks the h*ll out of it, and that someone proceeds to burn it down to the ground without any regards to your existence at all. All of this is happening for no-good reason as well, with you standing helplessly in a corner. Would this incident be classified as only just your home being burned down?

I don't think so...

I decided to bring up these two scenarios from two different perspective to bring two different kinds of feelings. The seriousness takes a very very drastic change just by taking a new perception to it.

Of course, I'm not saying everyone should be so careful of everyone else by learning to perceive this and perceive that. Nothing good will come out of it anyway, as I know if I do that, I'll be so tired of being with people, I'll just find a convenient cave somewhere and practice isolation for the rest of my Life.

Even though I've mentioned that perception is an important factor in any kind of relationships, it is but a mere thought to take into account and not to take it into practical use at every single opportunity.

I believe the beauty of any relationships occurs when you can throw the idea of perception away because both parties know each other very well already. Most of the time, you can just act yourself 'cos you know the other party wouldn't perceive it the wrong way. And it works vice versa. Okie, I wouldn't say the idea of perception is gone, but rather, it has kinda melded together with the realtionship to become one. No holds barred, I guess. That's the way it should, be it between good/best friends or intimate lovers or any other kind of relationship you can think of.

With that, I shall end this post on a lighter note -

"Before you judge anyone, put yourself in his shoes and walk a mile in it. Even if you judge wrongly, you'll be a mile away from him already anyway." haha! Cheerios!! ^^