Right. Wrong.
Good. Bad.
Happy. Sad.
Sometimes nothing in front of us has changed at all.
Only the place we are standing.
PAUSE.
Those labels can stir up the pride and ego pretty quickly when somebody challenges the way WE see things.
Why?
Because much of what we call truth in everyday life is filtered through our own experience.
What happened to me.
What I learned.
What I fear.
What I prefer.
What I was taught.
What I remember.
That is SUBJECTIVE.
For a moment, let us rise above all of that.
Not easy.
LOL.
But worth trying.
We want to become more OBJECTIVE as we journey through this very brief time here on earth.
Objectivity gives us a little distance from the automatic:
THINK.
FEEL.
REACT.
It allows us to simply observe what is actually happening before we add the drama, mini-series, exaggeration, prediction, judgment, and background music.
LOL.
Just see it.
Receive it.
Then respond.
Sometimes life works much better when we stop trying to paddle upstream every five minutes.
It can become more like a canoe trip.
The river moves.
The wind blows.
The current carries.
And sometimes our job is simply to steer.
POINT-OF-VIEW SPECIALIST
THE SPIDER
The spider makes a pretty good teacher on perspective.
Look at what that little creature can do.
Floors.
Walls.
Ceilings.
Corners.
Windows.
Then off it goes through the air using strands of web and currents we hardly notice.
What a wild ride.
Imagine the spider’s point of view.
LOL.
It can experience the same room from angles you and I rarely consider.
Above.
Below.
Sideways.
Upside down.
And depending on the species, spiders may have several eyes helping them detect what is happening around them.
The lesson is not really about spider anatomy.
The lesson is:
THERE IS MORE THAN ONE ANGLE.
We get ourselves in trouble when we convince ourselves that the angle we are standing in is the ONLY one available.
BACK TO BEING HUMAN
Human beings have tremendous ability to observe.
But we also have tremendous ability to interfere with what we observe.
We add.
Subtract.
Interpret.
Predict.
Judge.
Compare.
Small children often do something much simpler.
Show a child something completely new and watch.
They stare.
Wonder.
Ponder.
They have not yet decided what everything means.
They are receiving before interpreting.
That is a beautiful state.
ADULTS
Then adulthood arrives.
Now we must analyze.
Calculate.
Measure.
Test.
Compare.
Protect.
Hesitate.
There are very good reasons for that.
Experience teaches us to be careful.
But there is a downside.
If everything has to be analyzed before it can be enjoyed, life gets pretty heavy.
You can think yourself right out of an experience.
LOL.
There is a difference between living thoughtfully…
and thinking life to death.
We still need some of that childlike ability to see something without immediately demanding that it fit one of our old categories.
POINT OF VIEW
Everybody brings something to the conversation.
Education.
Experience.
Opinions.
Preferences.
Culture.
Memories.
Bias.
And the mother of many human dynamics:
FEAR.
Nothing wrong with sharing your point of view.
That is how people learn from each other.
The trouble starts when sharing becomes:
YOU MUST SEE THIS THE WAY I SEE IT.
Now we have moved from communication into recreation.
We are trying to recreate somebody else in our own image.
Parents do it.
Teachers do it.
Bosses do it.
Friends do it.
Partners do it.
Sometimes with the best intentions.
But eventually every person has to experience life through their own eyes.
Our parents had their turn guiding us.
At some point…
it becomes our turn to discover who WE are.
PEOPLE PROJECTION
People project.
Most of us do it more than we realize.
We place our beliefs, fears, expectations, and experiences onto somebody else’s situation.
Then we add emotion to make the point stronger.
If that does not work…
here comes guilt.
Judgment.
Pressure.
And sometimes the famous:
“I TOLD YOU SO!”
LOL.
People can wait years to cash that one in.
What a terrible prize.
Sometimes being right becomes more important than being loving.
That is when right becomes wrong.
EVEN IF YOU ARE RIGHT
Here is the difficult one.
You may actually be right.
Completely right.
Facts on your side.
Experience on your side.
History on your side.
And you may STILL need to back off.
Why?
Because another human being has the right to see, learn, experience, and discover for themselves.
Life requires YOU to show up personally.
Not just your programming.
Not your baggage.
Not the voice of everybody who told you who to be.
YOU.
One of the greatest things you can do for another person is not tell them what to see.
It is:
HELP THEM SEE FOR THEMSELVES.
HELP THEM — AND YOU — SEE FOR THEMSELVES
This takes patience.
More than giving orders.
More than giving advice.
More than solving everything for somebody.
It takes loving kindness.
Trust.
Restraint.
Questions.
Listening.
And one thing many of us hate:
TIME.
LOL.
Helping somebody see for themselves takes longer.
But when they finally see it…
the lesson belongs to THEM.
That is very different from merely borrowing your conclusion.
TEACHERS TEACH FROM INSTRUCTION MANUALS
Schools have curriculum.
Teachers are trained to follow standards, plans, lessons, assessments, and objectives.
Structure is necessary.
Otherwise every classroom becomes its own little country.
LOL.
But structure can also become rigid.
That is why certain teachers stay with us forever.
They taught the lesson…
but somehow gave it LIFE.
They found a way to stay within the structure while opening a child’s curiosity.
You remember those teachers.
Not always because of what they taught.
Because of how they helped you SEE.
That is the difference between delivering information and awakening somebody.
Some private and specialized learning environments can offer more customization, but regardless of the system, the finest teachers know that education is not merely putting information INTO somebody.
It is drawing understanding OUT.
SUBJECTIVE IS COUSIN TO OBJECTIVE
“I am hot.”
“You are not.”
“I am cold.”
“You are comfortable.”
Both can be true at exactly the same time.
That is subjective experience.
And it matters.
Your feelings.
Your preferences.
Your reactions.
Your personal experience.
They belong to YOU.
Now objective reality is different.
The thermometer may say seventy degrees.
That is information.
Whether seventy feels warm or cold to you is personal.
Both matter.
Problems begin when we confuse them.
“My experience is true for me”
is very different from:
“My experience must therefore be true for everybody.”
There is the Pearl.
RICHIE SPEAKS
Sometimes nothing in front of you has to change.
You just need to move where you are standing.
LOL.
And another Richie one:
Before arguing over who has the better view…
check whether you are both looking through different windows.
PEARLS INSIGHT
Perspective shapes experience.
Objectivity helps us separate observable facts from personal interpretation, while subjectivity reminds us that every person experiences life through a unique history, personality, and point of view.
Wisdom is not choosing one and rejecting the other.
Wisdom is knowing which one you are dealing with.
PEARLS CONNECTION
This connects directly with identity, awareness, role reversal, communication, and hindsight.
ROLE REVERSAL asks us to stand in the other person’s shoes.
HINDSIGHT teaches us that what looked one way yesterday may look completely different tomorrow.
PERSONAL AWARENESS teaches us to notice our own reactions before assuming they belong to reality itself.
The thread running through all of them is perspective.
How you look at something changes what you are capable of seeing.
FINAL THOUGHT
How you look at another person can create distance…
or intimacy.
Judgment…
or understanding.
Conflict…
or curiosity.
When we genuinely come to know somebody, judgment usually begins losing its grip.
We start saying:
“Now I understand why you see it that way.”
That does not mean we agree.
Understanding and agreement are not twins.
LOL.
It simply means we have become big enough to allow another person to have their own view.
Life is a once-in-a-lifetime journey.
Look around.
Change positions occasionally.
See it from the floor.
The ceiling.
The other person’s chair.
Maybe even the spider’s corner.
You may be amazed at what was there all along.
Depends how you look at it.
— Richie
Pearls for the Soul
when you feed the soul, you feed everything.
https://pearlsforthesoul.com
Been expecting you