The ability to create a paper-based reality is great fun. To ‘visit’ different times and places and imagine events in the body of someone else. But what about our day to day lives? Turns out, creating our own reality can be a bit like taking photos through a rather filthy lens!
Everything we see, hear, smell and touch is filtered by their importance and then further filtered by our state of mind and experiences. Our brain removes nuisance items like inconsequential background noise and peripheral images – do you remember the last time you saw your nose (other than in a mirror)? Nope, because your brain filters it out that knobbly protrusion of yours! Other filters, like those related to our emotional state, are also applied. These create additional context for a positive or negative response. For example, a baby crying on a plane just before take-off can be viewed with sympathy or horror, depending on the individual in question and their perspective.
Perception then is our own custom-made version of a reality, presented back to us as a greasy-lensed, sticky fingered, version of the truth.
So what part does this perception play in our overall lives, our long-term reality. Why are there characteristically happy people and, conversely, innately unhappy people. I’m sure you have met one or two, I know I have (you know who you are ‘wink-wink’). Energy givers, people that lift the energy of a room, creating spaces of comfortable comradery versus the energy vampires, sucking our will to live into their cheerless vortex of misery. In business, the latter are the most challenging types of people to have to deal with. Mainly because it’s not as easy to just walk away.
You would think that circumstance would make people one or the other, that they were taught in some way. But no, these two types of individuals (and there are varying degrees in between of course) can have the same background, ability, opportunity, and upbringing. So, what then? Maybe the difference is that they choose to focus on different aspects of the same life experience. Making their perception of reality different. I am of course not suggesting that Person A is happy all the time or that Person B is unhappy all the time, what is important here is that they are either of these options most of the time.
You become what you think. Positive thinking leads to a positive happy life. Negative thoughts lead to disturbance, unhappiness and frustration. The choice is yours to make. You can either live wisely and be extraordinary, or live unwisely and against nature and you will die someone quite ordinary.
Business Growth Mentor
Emergence theory (a favourite reference in our home) suggests that “All time affects all time all the time”, meaning that every moment is creating every other moment, right now, in the future and in the past. I love to think about this theory and in reference to this blog, it really supports the premise that how we experience reality right now, influences how we experience our reality over all time… all the time.
The takeaway for me?
…Polish the lens with which you view the world, and polish it often!
Have a great day folks and chat soon!
Janine (J9) Nijs
Janine Nijs Online 