by Elaine Sihera

Created on: April 01, 2008

Why it is Very Difficult to Appreciate The World of Others

As human beings, we do more than merely experience our world we also perceive it, forming opinions about it, then using that perception to define situations and events and also to judge others. To cope with the varying stimuli which bombard us every day, we have to make sense of our world; make inferences and then draw conclusions which are often biased in our favour. They reflect how we have been raised, where we came in our family structure (whether first child or last), what we value in our lives, and what we want to be. Perception, stereotyping and self-fulfilling prophecies are all powerful forces that affect communication and human relationships in different, often negative, ways. Our interpretation could be wrong but what we perceive is our reality, one that is dictated primarily by our gender, colour and age, regardless of what others may think about it. Most importantly, our feelings and actions grow out of these perceptions to confirm, sustain and reinforce that reality.

That is why it is often very difficult to understand and appreciate the world of someone else if you do not share it. You cannot empathize with their views, which might be meaningless to you. In fact, if you do not appreciate the values and beliefs of others, they have no relevance, they become difficult to deal with and are likely to be perceived as threatening. Only familiarity and knowledge provide meaning but you would have to share another's gender, experience or culture to appreciate their perspective. Until that time, you will always see life only through your own lens and make judgements from that perspective which might seem illogical, or even irrational, to others who are different.

Different realities
That accounts for the degree of personal conflict we feel relating to difference. We never know how to treat difference and will either try to ignore it (like being colour blind'), level it to being the same' as our culture or experience, or adopt a superior attitude and treat it negatively. We do not share the same reality with anyone else on earth, even when we are in the same room, the same house and the same relationship. Yet parents, for example, go to lengths to treat their children the same, to dress them the same way and deny their individuality, especially twins. Some twins might look and behave the same in 95 per cent of instances but there is still that five per cent which makes each individual unique and marks them out as special. That unique five per cent needs to be respected.

We think we all see life in a uniform way, and are often impatient or intolerant of those who do not share our personal view of the world. But this approach is very limited and has far-reaching effects. The differences in outlook make the individual's perception the most important element in a relationship. Being governed by confidence and self-esteem, perception can be either positive or negative, pessimistic or optimistic, gloomy or bright. Bearing in mind the two different genders involved in the majority of relationships (which seldom see eye to eye because of their individual make-up), perception is most dangerous to partnership longevity. It not only breeds fear, which shrouds the relationship in negativity, it also controls an invisible element, expectation, which tends to be the silent killer of even the best unions.

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