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Perception vs Perspective
Perception and perspective are two completely opposing forces. Perception is how you see something. It's your take on the current situation based on your life experience, what you know, what you don’t know, what you believe, and what you don’t believe.
Callum Carver
March 19, 2024
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Man is not worried about real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems"
PERCEPTION VS PERSPECTIVE
510 Words | 1 Min 51 Sec Read
Perception and perspective are two completely opposing forces.
Perception is how you see something. It's your take on the current situation based on your life experience, what you know, what you don’t know, what you believe, and what you don’t believe.
Perception can be and usually is filtered through a lens of bias and untruthfulness, as it's entirely based on how you’re feeling, what mood you’re in, and what happened earlier in the day.
Perspective, on the other hand, is a bird's-eye view of the situation; it's the actual factual perspective on what's happening, taking in no bias, no emotional reaction, no favour, or anything else of the sort.
But, why should you care?
Well, you always see life through your own perception. You see two men arguing in the street, and you have your own perception of why they are arguing, what they are arguing about, what's going to happen next, and who is in the right; however, the perspective of the situation may be entirely different.
The reason this is important to know is because your perception is based on your life experience and your emotions, which leads to a biassed point of view in any given situation. Take this story into account:
“Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell.
The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities.
Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, "Light, bearing on the starboard bow."
"Is it steady or moving astern?" the captain called out.
Lookout replied, "Steady, captain," which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship.
The captain then called to the signalman,
"Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees."
Back came a signal, "Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees
The captain said, "Send, I'm a captain, change course 20 degrees."
"I'm a seaman second class," came the reply. "You had better change course 20 degrees."
By that time, the captain was furious.
He spat out, "Send, I'm a battleship. Change course 20 degrees."
Back came the flashing light, "I'm a lighthouse."
We changed course.
In that story, it was the captain's perception that there was a stubborn battleship that wouldn’t change course; however, the perspective was that it was a lighthouse, not a battleship at all.
This perfectly outlines how your perception is typically faulty, and you can’t rely on it without taking into account the perspective of the situation.
ACTIONABLE NEXT STEPS:
Instead of blindly trusting your gut when it comes to making decisions based on how you perceive something, instead take into account the entire perspective and ask yourself, ‘What do I not know?’
This will help you make wiser and more rounded decisions that benefit you greatly.
LESSON OF THE DAY ⤵️
“How to minimize social media usage.”
There are countless different methods to use in order to minimise your social media usage.
You could try by pure will or lock your phone in a box. It depends on how extreme you find your social media usage to be.
Your best bet is to try and replace it with something else. If you use your phone as a distraction and a method to pass time, then try to find something else that can replace your phone.
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