A Short Post About Perception

"Hay man, don't think of it as 'drowsiness.' Think of it as a 'buzz.'" I said that to a coworker when he complained about being sleepy after taking a dose of Benadryl. Of course, the statement was made in jest and we both laughed but I was half-serious. With drowsiness, the person that I was working with would be unhappy, with a "buzz" he would be having fun on the job. In many cases, the way that we perceive things can make a pretty extreme difference in how we experience an event. If something is perceived as negative (whether it is or is not) it will almost certainly be experienced as negative. I tend to shy away from statements like "keep a positive attitude" or "look on the bright side" because I find them to be a bit too simplistic and they don't account for the gravity of many of the difficult situations that we might find ourselves in but sometimes it is legitimately helpful to try to view things in the best possible terms. Our perceptions are a powerful, driving force behind our experiences and interpretations of our lives and the world that we inhabit and if we are able to master them (or, at least, exert some of our will upon them), we can greatly reduce our general level of stress and increase our overall contentment.

Searching for that nugget of good in the bad is not going to help a person who is experiencing a serious, genuinely negative event, like the loss of a loved one, but it doesn't need to do that in order to be beneficial under other circumstances. We should avoid thinking about changing perception as a "cure-all" approach to overcoming of life's difficulties. Some things are harder to deal with than others and telling someone who just lost their baby in a house fire to "see the positives" will likely get you punched in the face. However, we do stress ourselves out about a bunch of nonsense, all the time. I am guilty of this in traffic but it is a pointless and unhealthy exercise. Yelling obscenities at the elderly woman who is slowly turning (in a painfully methodical manner) into her church parking-lot doesn't do any good for anyone. It upsets the old lady and it sends my blood pressure through the roof. I might literally die sooner if I don't chill-the-fuck-out. It is these sorts situations where looking at things differently can be helpful. "Sure, the terrible take-out that I settled for after an exhausting day on the job will be a little worse when I get home but this small delay might cause me to avoid a terrible car accident a few hundred yards down the road" I tell myself, as my heartbeat begins to slow.

When we alter the way that we perceive the minor problems that we face, our outlook on the world improves which contributes to a more contented mind. "I could see my job as "back breaking manual labor" or as "extremely effective exercise that I get payed to do." With one way of perceiving things, I wake up dreading my day and with the other, I am eager to face it. Our perception plays a major role in how we feel about our lives. I firmly believe, that if we make an attempt to look at things from the best possible angle (when it is appropriate), we would worry about fewer inconsequential inconveniences and when we worry less, we are generally happier.

I have been up since midnight so I think I'll make this a short post about perception. Is it only being perceived as short? I can't tell which is true. Anyway, I have a couple of ideas in the works and I plan (time permitting) to try to post a little more frequently in the coming weeks. I can't promise anything but I would like to spend a little more time writing if I am able.

Peace.

All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website, unsplash.com.