We see the world as we are, not as it is

Nathaniel Branden once said; “The quest of reason is the non contradictory integration of experience”. – Very eloquently put: When we search for reason we look for things that confirm our experience. We then regard that reason as ‘truth’.

Another way of putting this – We see the world as we are, not as it is. This means that in a situation where we feel isolated or anxious, that becomes the lens through which we interpret our experience. So, if we are in defensive mode, we may experience (interpret) the actions of someone else as a threat, an attack. We then search for reasons (“he’s a prick”) and label people as enemies. That satisfies us because it doesn’t contradict our perception of our experience.

We then interpret everything that “enemy” does as a purposeful, intentional attack-further building our belief, confirming we are right – he is an enemy.
From that point, we make no allowance for human error or human “inattentional blindness” (google it). We hold on to our right-ness.

Yet we expect others to forgive our mistakes.?

What if, before we look for reason (to confirm our perceived experience) we look for alternative explanations for our perceived experience?

What if we assumed good intent? Would that broaden our perception?

What if we took a moment to think, using compassion as a guide – if we treated others as we want to be treated?

After all, we want others to understand that we ourselves sometimes make mistakes, that our behaviour sometimes does not reflect our intent, don’t we?