Perspective & Reality: 1. How does perspective shape your reality?

Understand how our reality is shaped by perspective, and the dangers of fixed mindsets

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Attitude is the combination of your intention, belief, thoughts, values and actions — it is the manner in which you react to the world around you. On the other hand, #perspective is the manner in which you perceive the the world around you.

Like #attitude, perspective acts like a filter that affects how we see a certain situation. This manner of #perception (perspective) interacts with our manner of #reaction (attitude) to shape how we feel about a situation, how we respond to it, and how we may further act on it.

Both attitude and perspective shapes our personal realities of a situation. Understanding the interaction of both will help us formulate more appropriate actions.

How you perceive the world reflects how your reality presents to you. This is your very own map of reality. Bear in mind though that everyone has their own maps, meaning everyone’s version of reality will be different from yours. So, it would be virtually impossible for two people to have the same map or look at the world in an identical manner. You can even learn to redraw your map using a different set of parameters (i.e. rules, beliefs, boundaries, thoughts etc), which would therefore change your representation of reality.

It is all about perspective

Perspective relates to how we perceive a situation from various angles. Different

perspectives give rise to different insights and responses towards the same situation; hence

our response is directly related to our perspective. Your perception of the world can be shaped by a combination of factors that may include: sense perception, memory, imagination, faith, intuition, reasoning, language, and emotion.

Different people prioritise different types of perspective to varying degrees. And naturally, the

ways in which you perceive the world will act uniquely with your attitude. There is no right or wrong way of perceiving the world, but you can empower yourself by recognising how you form your own perceptions, and being open to seeing perspectives that may differ from your own normal ones.

Ignorance

Ignorance, on the other hand, is about having a limited perspective of how we see and understand what is happening around us, or not being aware of the ways in which we perceive the world.

Put simply, being ignorant is being unable to perceive from various angles. It traps you in the limiting confines of your own perspectives and closes you off from looking at alternate ways of understanding and experiencing life.

So, the trick is to explore different ways to look at the same issue. Frame your understanding of it differently, examine the facts from more angles, and modulate your emotions in other ways than usual. This will let you access different understandings of a situation, which will help you make a more informed decision on how to act upon it. One way to do this is to view the issue from different angles through mentally assuming different roles in turn:

1. The (other) involved party

2. An active observer

3. A distant passerby.

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