Perception Is Reality, or is it?

Imagine how it feels if you are walking down the street, and as you walk past a fellow, he trips you up. You pick yourself up and turn to look at him and you see a big guy in biker leathers laughing at your misfortune. Now, imagine the same scenario, except that when you turn back to look, you see a blind man with a cane. Immediately, your perception is altered. In the first instance, the feelings you had would have been one of upset, anger or even rage. In the second, I would wager that if anything, you feel guilty about not having noticed him before and apologetic that in your hurry, he managed to get his cane tangled in between your legs. At the root of the two ways you responded, is the context. In the first place, your perception formed your context, and you experienced a flight or flight response. In the second, your perception formed your context and instead of fight or flight, your response would have been one of remorse.

At the root of this dichotomous response structure, is the intent of the other person. Your response is in reaction to your perception of their intent. It’s so often in relationship that we respond to someone before we understand or know anything about their actual intent. The truth is, that in relationship, we often experience disappointment with our partner’s behavior or lack of behavior based on our perceived intent without knowing if that intent is valid or accurate.

Am I saying,. “You do not have the right to feel aggrieved by the behavior of my partner?” No. I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that before you feel aggrieved, check out their intention. Lets take this out of the hypothetical, when I was a much younger man, and my wife and I had our first home, we had raspberry bushes at the house. We had a new baby, so my wife was a stay at home mom. I created an expectation in my mind that my wife would pick raspberries and make jam with them, or alternatively use them to bake. One day I went out to tend to the yard and found that the raspberries had moved past ripe and were no longer really edible. I was very upset. Did I have a right to be upset? No I did not. Why not?

It was unreasonable for me to be upset because I did not share the expectation I had with my wife, she did not agree to it and in fact, she had no idea what was on my mind. My upset was invalid.

My perception was that my wife did not care for me or for the yard or for using the food we grew in our yard in our meals. I was upset about her lack of using her time wisely and so on. I had a whole array of very good reasons for my upset. But, perception is not reality, I did not check her intent. If I had first of all shared my desire for her to pick and use the raspberries, that would be one thing, assuming she agreed to do so, but I had not shared my ideas, and she had not agreed to them. In effect, she was the blind man with the cane tripping me up. My upset was based on a perception that was not reality at all.

Take the case that there is a good chance you do not know your partner’s intentions around this or that. It occurs to me that seeking clarification is a good place to begin a conversation where you have a consideration on a behavior or lack of behavior that you expect.

Expectations are always fraught with the possibility that your expectation is dependent on a context or intention that you are not aware of. With that in mind, it seems obvious that seeking clarification is the best place to start. Saying something like, “Honey have a question for you, ….” Or, “I am telling myself a story I want to check out with you….”

Perception is perception, but its not necessarily reality!