We all know that our minds' capacity is not hardly used. Even the smartest of individuals use only a small percentage of the available capacity in the mind. The mind makes decisions all the time. Many of those decisions are based on reason or past experiences.
We may decide to eat a food item based on prior experiences. We decide when to pull out into traffic based on reason - is it safe. These are easy decisions to make that may stem from a perception, but there are some more difficult ones in life.
Being someone's friend may take on a whole new set of decision making rationale. That brings us to this week's quote...
Negatives and positives are most always based on perception and tend to rent space in our minds and largely dictate our reaction to situations. ~ M. Raymond Sheppard
If you decide to become a friend to someone, it may seem easy in some situations. However, what about a more difficult situation? Say when a new person comes into your life - through moving, job, school, church, etc.? How do you determine if you are going to be their friend?
Are you going to look at their outer covering - how they dress, hairstyle, tattoos, piercings? Are you going to look at how they walk - somber, confident, cocky? Are you going to look at how they talk - "Dude", "Yes, Ma'am/Sir", "I ain't got one"? Are you going to look at the car or house they own? Are you going to look at their occupation?
All these questions, and probably many more, will be answered in the first few interactions you have with an individual or group. You are going to base a perception on the positives and negatives you see from these interactions. Also, the past will have something to do with your decision making - whether you've had a positive or negative view of this situation in the past.
Yes, we will make decisions based on the perceptions we have from the past, but be wary of how you may "jump" to conclusions based on those perceptions. You may want to give some things a try, regardless of past perceptions.
No comments:
Post a Comment