April 22, 2022.
Have you ever wondered whether what you see is the truth? Maybe you’ve heard people talk about the differences of perception versus reality.
Here is my experience with perception versus reality
One Saturday morning, I walked into the bathroom, looked down and saw a shoeprint on my mat. At first, I was infuriated because I have a strict no shoe policy in my apartment, especially in the bathroom. But then I thought, where did the shoeprint come from? I would never wear shoes in here. Have you seen how dirty New York streets are? I always feel like buying new shoes after walking outside. I left the bathroom and started planning on washing the mats as well as figuring out who had put that shoeprint there. I went back to the bathroom to pick up the mats and the shoeprint was gone. How? Am I seeing things? Was the shoeprint ever there in the first place? I don’t believe in ghosts so that was not an option.
I often think about this incidence including today. Have you ever searched for something that was right in front of you and just when you are about to give up, you realize it’s been right there all along? What’s going on in your head when this happens? When this happens to me, I would have told myself what I’m looking for won’t be in said location and so I don’t see it even if it’s there. Maybe this is true for you as well. The brain lives in the dark yet it allows us to see, hear, smell, and feel whatever is in our environment. It has the ability to create and filter out information. What we see is what the brain has deemed important to us, like a random shoeprint. Maybe my brain just wanted me to do laundry and decided to be funny about it. I will never know.
Why does this matter?
We have more blind spots than we would like to admit. Therefore, we must always ask ourselves: do I have the full picture? This is true for things like shoeprints as well as opinions on reality and the truth.
Question of the day:
- How do I know what I see or think is not an illusion?
Comment your thoughts and share with a friend who might benefit from reading this!