Perception Is Everything

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Perception: The act of perceiving by means of the senses or of the mind; cognition; understanding.

It has taken me most of my life to realize that we all perceive everything very differently.

Light, color, smells, sounds, taste and even our reading of others’ emotions are impacted by our unique way of seeing and being in the world.

Originally I believed everyone was seeing the world much as I do. A few experiences have taught me how wrong this perception was. I met a man with color-blindness once. He told me what he saw, and I was shocked. He was certainly not seeing the world I was looking at. Colors shape my world and make it feel better. He was not seeing the same colors I did.

Then I met Mike at age 49. This experience was shocking in that he saw the world so much like I did. We saw things so similarly and reacted in the same way to these perceptions. As we checked with each other over and over again, we were seeing things in such a similar way. It was stunning!

Now I wonder how I could have ever believed the world felt and looked the same to everybody, and I see just how out of sync most of us are.

Being a human being is not one big generic experience. We are born with certain ways of perceiving and then our upbringing also has so much to do with the way we react to everything and everybody. As we age we also decide how we feel about life. Our way of perceiving evolves.

Most of us have a strong desire to bridge some of our differences and connect in some authentic way with others. It is such a blessing when we meet one other person who sees the world in ways similar to ours.

I now see what a gift it is to connect meaningfully with just one other human being. To feel like you belong with someone else is a triumph. It is what we all seek in this lifetime.

Laura Lee Carter, MA Counseling Psychology, the writer behind the popular online blog How to Believe in Love Again, has been helping others turn midlife difficulties into opportunities for personal change since 2007. Besides working as a psychotherapist, Laura Lee has authored a number of books and e-books on midlife transformation.  Don’t miss her new book: Find Your Reason to Be Here: The Search for Meaning in Midlife. Follow her on Twitter: @midlifequeen.