Ever notice how perceptions can vary vastly between two people or more? A good example happened yesterday between me and my daughter Maddie. Her opinions about someone we both know well was vastly different than mine. Usually Maddie and I see eye to eye on many things, so I wondered what could have happened to make her perceptions of that person differ so much from mine?
I find the person in question to be kindhearted and giving, with a penchant to make sure that everyone around them is comfortable and doing their best. Sometimes overzealous, they can, on occasion, get on your nerves if your opinion about what is or isn't acceptable differs from their own. Overall, I find the person's shortcomings to be dwarfed by their good qualities. It ends up that my daughter had recently had an argument with that person, where some of her own shortcomings had been pointed out to her.This jaded her view of the person's motivations and caused her to have negative feelings towards them. Were Maddie's feelings justified? Yes.Did this make her perceptions correct? No. Her perceptions of the person's motivations were being influenced by the argument she had just had with the person. I always try to teach my daughters to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated. Unfortunately, this doesn't work well, if the other person does not also follow this rule.Sometimes, this leads to treating the other as they are treating you at that moment. Both of you may feel bad about it later. Still, we shouldn't let our feelings for that person at that moment deceive our perceptions about the person's true motives. Some times frustrations lead us to act in ways that are not always appreciated by another. Instead of lashing back at the person that has hurt you in a way that is public and cannot be easily defended against by the other, approaching that person directly and talking through your feelings once both of you have calmed down may be a better answer. We all have perceptions, both true and false. Sometimes, we may need to examine our own motivations to see which of our perceptions are really true.
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