Here’s a magic mantra that changed the way I looked at people completely.

“We can never see people the way they actually are. We can only see them the way our mind creates them.”

No information goes into us without our mind filtering it. We see what we want to see. What we see is very selective and our mind is very clever at sorting out what it wants to let in and what it wants to block.

Let’s take an example. Jack has a complaint about Susan. He feels she is not supportive. Mary on the other hand feels Susan is very supportive towards Jack.

Now whether Susan is or isn’t supportive isn’t the point. What matters here is that Susan ‘occurs’ differently to Jack and differently to Mary. It’s not about how Susan behaves, it’s about how Jack and Mary ‘see’ Susan. It’s about the filters in their minds that ‘change’ who Susan actually is.

No two people can see Susan the same way. No two people can see you the same way. Neither can you see anybody the same way somebody else does. And of course you cannot see anybody the way they actually are. It’s almost as if there is an invisible pair of spectacles permanently fixed to our eyes that keeps out
‘What-really-is’ and lets in ‘Our-occurring-of-What-really-is’. It’s all part of the way we all are wired up inside our heads.

Conflicts and misunderstanding often stem from the lack of this perspective. Jack says, “Susan, can’t you see what you’ve been doing?” The reality is, even Susan can’t see herself the way she actually is, leave alone the way Jack sees her. There is ‘What she’s doing’ and ‘Her occurring of what she’s doing.’ There is a huge difference between the two. How we occur to ourselves is different from who we really are.

The same thing applies to how we see situations in life. If you share a particular situation with ten people, each person will see the same situation from a different perspective. So which is the ‘right’ perspective?

There is no ‘right’ perspective. Each of them is just a perspective. Period. If it was ‘right’, it wouldn’t be called a perspective. And if you need to take a decision based on one of those perspectives, why not pick a perspective that works for you and leave out the rest, rather than labeling each as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. A ‘What-works’ and ‘What-doesn’t-work’ approach will cause far less conflict and pain than a ‘What’s-right and What’s-wrong’ approach.

Even the awareness of this reality is life-changing. Often I catch myself complaining about somebody else. When I do, I remind myself that the complaint emanates from the way I see (more correctly how I CHOOSE to see) that person. Just because I see the person that way does not mean that that’s how that person actually is.

Does my thinking this way change the situation? Does dropping the complaint change that person?

No. But this awareness eases the conflict inside me. It keeps me open to a conversation with that person. It helps me communicate clearly with that person in a non judgmental way. And more often than not it leads to an outcome that is far more positive than if I had stuck to the way I was seeing that person earlier.

I spent nearly 15 years of corporate life complaining about ‘nasty’ bosses and ‘insensitive’ clients. I didn’t have a shortage of complaints against family and friends either. There is a regret, that had I ‘chosen’ to see things differently then, work and personal life would have been so much more enjoyable.

However, the past has passed. Going forward, I am convinced that I can surround myself with people who are kind, sensitive, friendly, empathetic, co-operative.. whatever. All I have to do is surround myself with people and ‘create’ them the way I want to.

This article was reprinted with permission (as is, but with a different title) in “The Strategist”, the management supplement of Business Standard in their Best Blog Spot section. See it here.

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