Perception

As I arrived at the Florida airport, I jumped out of the car to the warm sensation of humidity hitting my cold skin. People who live in the south really do love their air conditioning. Considering I’m from the north, I long for the warmth.

As I walk towards the entrance I noticed a man leaving the building. I guess the air had hit him the way it hit me, but for him it was different. He started looking around, I suppose to see if anyone else was as dreaded as he was by the heat. He picked up his shirt, up and down to fan himself as if he was getting hot. I thought “Uh, it’s not even hot outside” and then it hit me.

Who am I to perceive someone else’s reality? Who am I to say if it’s hot or cold outside when I’m in a different body? Their weight, their genetics, what they’re wearing, there are a lot of different factors in determining what makes someone hot or cold. So, who am I to declare?

I like to think of myself as an open-minded person, but there I was. I realized I could only understand from my level of perspective. In that moment, I could not understand what that person was feeling because I was not feeling that sensation at that time. I caught myself soon after my thought, but the simple matter is we all do this.

We all immediately judge and discriminate. We all make assumptions and think what that person really should be doing or feeling. We minimize people to our level of understanding, because we simply do not understand. We do not understand that person’s life or their thoughts or merely anything else they are going through in that moment. We can only understand from our experience level, our point of view of life, our level of perspective. Most importantly, what we are currently experiencing or the obstacles we currently face gets filtered throughout our reality.

Whatever we appear to be experiencing is being filtered through our own perception lenses. Our reality is completely different than the person right next to you’s reality, even if we might be experiencing the same thing. We are all experiencing different versions of the same reality.

Think of your sibling. You share the same house, the same food in the pantry, the same parents, maybe even the same bathroom, yet your lives are completely different. Whether it be your gender, or placement in the family, your current age, friends, etc. Everything is completely different even though you’re in the same setting. So if we all are experiencing different things and perceive in different ways of reality, how can we ever understand another? Fully truly understand each other and connect on the same level or thought process?

I would like to believe we would be able to. Perhaps if we could explain preciously in detail, but then again how can we truly know? How could we ever possibly know that anyone else even understands you when we are all so different? Emptying isn’t it? To think that you’ll never been understood. Or maybe it’s refreshing. That we are all different, all cohabiting trying to work together and create peace with all different perspectives, personalities, backgrounds, cultures, and experience.

It makes me feel that much more grateful when I do feel a connection. Thankful that whatever the universe is doing magically aligned us together for that moment. Even if it is just for a moment, a mere intersection of all the other crazy thoughts racing through our heads, it lead us here. You and that person. It’s a beautiful experience and shouldn’t be anything less. It doesn’t matter how long it was for, just that it happened and meant something. As it always should.

Isn’t that why we’re here, for human connection and interaction? To understand different perspectives, to always learn and teach others. We’re always growing, evolving. Nothing is ever the same, the only constant is change.

Think about all the infinite possibilities and different decisions you could’ve made to lead you into different paths. But no, here you are. Right here, right now. Where you are, is where you are supposed to be and it’s as simple as that.

Appreciate when you connect with someone. Of all the billions of people out there and numerous possibilities of where your paths could’ve taken you, you landed here. With the people in your life and the challenges you are facing right now that has shaped you into you. To grow and learn from endlessly.

There is no better place to be than where you are right now.

Image by Danielle Noel