Tag Archives: perception

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Satisfaction Guaranteed

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Does the fulfillment of one’s wishes, expectations, or needs and the associated pleasure you derive from achieving what you seek depend on other people and events?

That is, are you able to personally guarantee living a satisfying life?  Is satisfaction within your control or is it dictated by others?  The simple answer is you have absolute control, unfortunately though it is probably a bit more complex.

Freedom to Interpret

No doubt your own thoughts and perceptions are influenced by external factors like the behaviour of others and events outside your control like the weather.

How you view the impact of those external factors can be completely within your conscious thinking abilities to decide.  Are the external occurrences satisfying and what can be done to make them satisfactory?   The answer, your reaction, is yours to control?

Fulfillment

Simply deciding your life events are fulfilling does not make it so.  This probably seems like an unrealistic approach, after all shit  does happen and pretending it does not is a bit myopic.

Well it is true our lives are varied and full of happenings outside our direct prevue, some things distasteful and unsatisfying to us, when taken as a whole can be perceived in a way satisfactory to ourselves.  It is a personal choice.

Two Worlds

In 1968 the band Sweetwater released a song titled “Two Worlds” which highlighted for me some of the thoughts expressed here.

The chorus lines “I can’t stop livin, I never get tired” epitomize the   positive attitude, that when undertake,  guarantees  a full and satisfying life.   It is your choice.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Choose Happiness

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Sometimes I envy my friends and colleagues who are always in a bouncy and up mood whenever I encounter them.  Thinking about it though I realize they probably do not have anything that I don’t.

I understand intuitively and logically that they take pleasure in all they do and so their life is filled with joy.  It is just a choice and probably a simple one at that.  But everyone does not choose that path.

Simple but Complex

Choosing pleasure over pain, deciding it only makes sense to find the joy in everything, and behave accordingly does not seem to be the kind of thing rocket science is needed to figure out.

Yet, I find it requires effort to be happy.  Doubt, fear, worry to name just a few of the less desirable emotions seems to occur even when not desired.

This is not just a personal observation but widespread among people I regularly interact with.  It is too rare and always enjoyable to run into someone who has chosen happiness and joy.  You want to talk to them, the good feelings are contagious.

It would appear simple to choose to be in a constant state of pleasure yet, surprisingly, that does not appear to be the case for most folks.

Perspective

Each of us can choose our own particular attitude toward anything.  Our way regarding something, that is a point of view.  This is of course influenced by our environment and other people.

We need to work hard to choose the best perspective, perhaps the optimistic joyful view, when pitted against many obstacles.  This is why even though it is the logical choice we do not always choose a happy perspective.

The key is to pause and remember regardless of the circumstances, it is your choice.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Telling the Story

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Often it is not the facts that dictate what others perceive, when you are relaying information to them.  Most significant is how you tell the story.

The way you filter the facts reflects your own views and is instrumental in dictating the way you will craft the story.  It is not so much about the facts as it is the message you want others to take away.

For Example

A colleague was recently sharing with me some stories he had heard about recent events in Hong Kong.  These were both first hand from friends and relatives living in Hong Kong and news feeds he had read.

The stories began from the protestors perspective and clearly portrayed  the police as being the instigators and at fault.

Typically in these types of conflicts the facts can provide justification for all parties actions.  The stories sounded rather one sided so I asked if he could relate some of the incidents from the police perspective.

My thought was this would result in a more balanced view overall.  I quickly realized how you tell the story often includes your personal bias.

Unsurprisingly I suppose, even when told from the polices perspective the villains of the tale were still the police.

Developing Conclusions

Regardless of how gripping or well told the story is probing questions based on an unbiased and balanced view can help you be more likely to come to a fair conclusion.

Remember we all relate facts as simple and straightforward without even realizing that they are coloured by our bias.  Often you need to do some work as the listener in order to get the accurate story.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Frustration

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Most of us experience a strong feeling of annoyance or upset because of a strong believe you lack the ability to change or achieve something, from time to time.

This sense of frustration typically  occurs for example when a doctor keeps you waiting past your scheduled appointment perhaps even one or two hours.
Or maybe you are in a line to make a purchase and you have been waiting an hour.  Whatever you are buying it must really be something  to make it worth the wait.

Avoiding Frustration

Being frustration rarely results in good behaviour.  Unfortunately many of us our known to pass along our frustrations to others in loud, sharp and disrespectful ways.

I believe this to be a strong argument to avoid things that can lead to frustration.

This is not always easy and does require some planning but it is a good approach not only for you but particularly for the others whom might become innocent victims of your negative emotions at some point along the way.

Selecting Options

Most of the common causes of frustration relate to other people.  How dare they make appointments, shop and drive at the same time as me.

This can be overcome by simple steps like picking the first appointment of the day to avoid later delays, driving at timesoutside rush hour and picking shopping hours that few others do.

The benefit of being relaxed and happy while you full-fill your needs without frustration will become quickly apparent.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Continuous Understanding

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Understanding requires knowledge of the facts and information about a thing.   Knowledge is based on skills used to acquire information through experience or education.

A key aspect of continuously improving your knowledge (and thus your ability to understand) arises from sharing, without sharing a vacuum can be created.

Don’t you want to share what you know and thus build on the quality of your understanding of things, rather than keep it to yourself and live in a fantasy world?

Communicate Openly

Two-way communication is a critical requirement for building knowledge and creating understanding.   You can initiate this by being completely open, regularly sharing all you know.

This practice, sharing openly with others, encourages others to share openly with you.  Your knowledge and experience increase leading to a greater level of understanding.

Filtering

As you gain perspective from the stories and facts others pass on to you it is important to remember, the interpretation of the shared information is owned by you, subject to your filters.

The value of what you learn by listening and observing others, whether spontaneously shared or prompted by your own sharing behaviours, is yours to determine.

You need to apply your own personal knowledge base against that of others to generate new unique and useful knowledge.

The most valuable knowledge is not that you copy or assume from others but rather that you work out yourself by thinking through the facts and information you have gathered.

 

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Attraction

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For the majority of males and females there is a specific physical look that makes the opposite sex attractive.  

This look is often leveraged in fields like marketing (models) entertainment (actors) and similar activities.  The point is to use physical attraction to get our attention.

Instinctive

Although there is a clear personal aspect to what attracts each individual there are some common body characteristics (e,g.,shape and weight) for which the majority of people have an unconcious favourable bias.

That is to say certain body types have a universal attraction while others do not.  This perception is typically not taught or experienced but rather part of human nature (i.e., genetic)

We have a natural instinct for what basic physical appearance we find attractive in other people.  Of course, this is superficial and can be quickly overriden as you go beyond just outward appearance.

It is this inate instinctual bias of body types we must overcome to prevent insulting or disaffecting others.  Albeit our natural behaviour is to admire and covet percieved beauty.

Body Shaming

Currently, around the world there is an active cultural shift toward overriding our genetic coded behaviours and to recognize the superficiality of physical attractiveness.

That being said, cleary the body beautiful still has a place in our societies that is unlikely to be completely eliminated.  

Use of attractive people to send messages, support causes and sell stuff is part of every culture world wide.

 Many societies are seeking a balance and promote things like body shaming as a bad thing, but admiring the body beautiful is still a real strong and persistant behaviour..

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Understanding

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When we percieve or interpret a communication, event or object in the way it was intended, we are said to have understood.

The definition of understanding is fairly straight forward.  Philosophically the concept is a little more complex.  For example, what makes your percieved understanding correct, assuming it is different from mine?

Absolute Meaning

Does every communication or observed object have a singular and absolute meaning? Ergo, is their a correct intepretation or perception and incorrect one?

One way to answer this question is from the perspective of consequences.  Our interpretation may result in unexpected consequences from those we had logically and intuitively derived from our understanding.

For example, say a shop owner tells you to go ahead and take some merchandise.  You do so without paying and are arrested for stealing as you leave the store.

Despite your protests at this unexpected, and from your view incorrect, consequence, it is clarified you misunderstood.  

The merchant intended for you to understand the merchandise was yours for the taking if you compensated him (paid for it).  

Depending on the details of the communication arguments could be made for both perspectives and each parties understanding possibly has some validity.

Validation

While it is not always effective, the above exaggerated example highlights the value of validating your understanding.  

This can be through questions or actions but can avoid cases where misunderstandings lead to unexpected and perhaps unpleasant consequences.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Enlightenment

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An enlightened state is probably more a concept than a reality.  That is, to achieve freedom from all ignorance and misinformation, enabling full accurate comprehension of everything, is more something to seek than to actually find.

The search for enlightenment requires acceptance of reality.  Philosophically we can question reality as a concept, does it really exist and if so what is it?

For me, reality is neither derivative nor dependent but exists and is tangible.  True enlightenment must be based on reality, ergo, to be enlightened you must accept that reality exists.

An Alien Experiment

It has been postulated humanity is simply an experiment devised by a super intelligent alien race.  Of a pre-programmed series of events generated by a computer where the players are just computer simulations. 

The potential for alternate theories of existence is obviously broad, perhaps infinite and can be fun to contemplate and explore, however, at some point reality intrudes. 

Pragmatically, be guided by what’s real

If we focus on the tangible, what we know and can prove, the reality we construct can guide our comprehension of everything, leading us to an enlightened state.

The underlying principle is we must accept reality, that is to say, although possibilities exist beyond the tangible, it is the tangible that has the real impact on what we do, how we behave, how we feel.

We ignore reality at our peril and our chances of success in our continuing quest for enlightenment (a stretch goal probably never to be achieved) is diminished.  

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Maximizing Pleasure

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A life without purpose or meaning probably results in a low level of motivation to act.  When there is no reason to do anything (purpose or meaning) so one does nothing.

The exception to this is when doing nothing is your goal, i.e., it is what motivates you and so your behavior is geared to enabling you to do nothing.  If this meets your purpose, it is perfectly fine.

Your goal is yours to select, however, there is a primal driver that overrides your choice of purpose, meaning or lack thereof.  “Pleasure”.

Seeking Pleasure

Pleasure is simply a term to describe a state in which you have a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment.  That is, pleasure feels good.

I theorize that pleasure is the primal driver forming the underpinning of my own personal motivation (and probably that of most people).  Simplistically, seeking maximum pleasure is a component of everything we do (i.e., feeling good).

It’s all about me

Pleasure seeking does come with some constraints.  If someone else is suffering at my expense I do not feel pleasure.  Fortunately, this is true for most of us.

Those who derive pleasure without regard to context are usually labeled as deviant even criminal in their nature.   Intrinsic to the human condition is a level of empathy.

Some are more empathetic to the plight of others, possibly influenced more by nature over nurture.   Generally though (excepting the aforementioned deviants and criminals) everyone exhibits some level of empathy toward others.

Embrace your inner desire to seek pleasure

For me, seeking maximum pleasure (as long as it’s not at the expense of others) is natural behavior and there is no reason not to both recognize but also embrace it.

Random thoughts – keeping you on your toes

Reputation

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What others believe (their opinion) of you informs your personal reputation.  Reputation generally applies in a broader sense to what groups or collections of people think of you.

Different groups or random collections of people will often view a persons reputation differently and not surprising most often from their perspective.

Who Cares

Reputation is a powerful tool to leverage in achieving your goals.  Ideally you are keenly aware of your own reputation as it applies within a specific group or collection of people.

Understanding the required reputation to support your goals, coupled with an understanding with what your reputation is, allows you to modify your behaviour in ways to enhance your reputation to what you want it to be.

The viewing lens

Of course a critical aspect of knowing how to change your behaviour is understanding the audience.  If you are playing to an audience of folk music fans, playing electrified rock and roll will affect your reputation.

Bob Dylan did exactly this at the Newport Folk festival in 1965.  Predictably, on the whole the initial impact on  Dylans reputation  was negative.

For Dylan, he was fully aware of the effect this behaviour change would have on this audience, however, his personal goals required him to change his reputation.

History supports his decision.  His fame grew and he cemented his reputation across multiple music genres and fan bases.  Dylans approach was simple, he wanted to change his reputation and so planned and executed an approach to do so.

Of course this might not have worked, had that been the case I am pretty sure he would have tried another approach, until he achieved his goal.

More on this topic tomorrow.