Perception is simultaneously perhaps both the easiest and hardest thing to control of PEPP.
Why?
Because it relies almost entirely on you.
There's an old Taoist story about a farmer that goes something like this:
A farmer had one horse and one day that horse breaks out of it's paddock and is lost. The farmer's neighbors try to console him for his loss but he asks them "What makes you think it's so terrible?".
A few days later later the horse comes wandering home and he has a wildhorse following him. This time all the neighbors come to congratulate the man but again are surprised with his response, this time he asks them "what makes you think this is a good thing?".
The next day the farmers only son tries to break in the wild horse but is thrown off and breaks his leg. Again the neighbors express their condolences for the man's misfortune and again he responds by asking "what makes you think this is so terrible?"!
A week later army officials come through the village and recruit every able bodied young man, because the farmer's son has a broken leg they let him stay...
Now I'm not advising a taoist approach but the story highlights how you don't know how things are going to end up until after they've happened.
Perhaps one of the best advice I was ever given was "you can't control the outputs, you can only control your inputs".
Your perception and attitude are inputs.
You can control them.
When you choose how you perceive a situation it allows you to re-frame everything and enjoy the positives of that situation.
For an example of how drastically different a perspective of a situation can be, have a look at how right wing media sources cover the recent protests for any of the high profile police caused deaths versus how left wing media sources cover them.
They're both talking about the same events and probably have access to the same "evidence" and "statistics". Somehow they're telling two completely different stories (and if you understand anything about copywriting, design and subliminal messaging you'll see even further how they're driving different opinions of the events).
Now the authors of the opinions on either side probably feel they're being objective and reporting factual stories.
But they aren't. Because they already have previous biases and perceptions, they aren't seeing all the evidence for the other side. They're choosing not to subconsciously perhaps more than consciously.
Perception is perhaps more dependent on your subconscious than your conscious.
What are you doing to understand, develop and train your subconscious?
Why?
Because it relies almost entirely on you.
There's an old Taoist story about a farmer that goes something like this:
A farmer had one horse and one day that horse breaks out of it's paddock and is lost. The farmer's neighbors try to console him for his loss but he asks them "What makes you think it's so terrible?".
A few days later later the horse comes wandering home and he has a wildhorse following him. This time all the neighbors come to congratulate the man but again are surprised with his response, this time he asks them "what makes you think this is a good thing?".
The next day the farmers only son tries to break in the wild horse but is thrown off and breaks his leg. Again the neighbors express their condolences for the man's misfortune and again he responds by asking "what makes you think this is so terrible?"!
A week later army officials come through the village and recruit every able bodied young man, because the farmer's son has a broken leg they let him stay...
Now I'm not advising a taoist approach but the story highlights how you don't know how things are going to end up until after they've happened.
Perhaps one of the best advice I was ever given was "you can't control the outputs, you can only control your inputs".
Your perception and attitude are inputs.
You can control them.
When you choose how you perceive a situation it allows you to re-frame everything and enjoy the positives of that situation.
For an example of how drastically different a perspective of a situation can be, have a look at how right wing media sources cover the recent protests for any of the high profile police caused deaths versus how left wing media sources cover them.
They're both talking about the same events and probably have access to the same "evidence" and "statistics". Somehow they're telling two completely different stories (and if you understand anything about copywriting, design and subliminal messaging you'll see even further how they're driving different opinions of the events).
Now the authors of the opinions on either side probably feel they're being objective and reporting factual stories.
But they aren't. Because they already have previous biases and perceptions, they aren't seeing all the evidence for the other side. They're choosing not to subconsciously perhaps more than consciously.
Perception is perhaps more dependent on your subconscious than your conscious.
What are you doing to understand, develop and train your subconscious?
