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Perspective is everything.... to know that you don't know... I've been pondering the last couple of days... how much everything that we do is always based on our perception of things around us, and how frequent it is that our perception is based on incomplete or inaccurate knowledge and assumptions. It's so easy for a single piece of information that you don't know... to be the piece that would so entirely change your perspective on a situation that your actions would be utterly opposite. What about that snooty classmate you know who never bothers to talk to anyone else because they think they're too good for the rest of you? You might dislike them and spurn them. What if you found out that they're just unbearably shy and terrified to speak to anyone? What about that individual you saw in the forums, who was blatantly insulting someone else and trying to drag their name through the mud? You might feel contempt, and hope they get banned, and feel they deserve what they get. What if you were shown that the individual they were insulting had been taunting them privately for months, and perhaps goes to the same school as them in the real world and bullies them there as well? It doesn't make it right... but it changes your perspective. There is more than one possible explanation for nearly anything that you see. What you don't see might entirely change your perspective about the situation, or the people involved. Sometimes.... what you don't know is more important than what you do. This is something that I always try to keep in mind, and why I endeavor to treat everyone with respect... no matter how annoying or clueless they seem, no matter how much they rub me the wrong way or I don't like them. There's bound to be many things I don't know. What about you? Can you think of a situation where you learned something that changed your perspective on a situation or person?

Posted by: Kava Tue Jun 19, 2007 @ 06:02pm

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Xya
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Commented on: Tue Jun 19, 2007 @ 06:06pm


	eek Deja vu... heart

Commented on: Wed Jun 20, 2007 @ 02:29am


	Yes, and the change in perspective can be more positive, neutral, or more negative. An example of a positive change was when I learned that a classmate who was plenty smart but underperforming in schoolwork, was working a lot at a job, in addition to trying to stay in school. So, my opinion of her changed from "smart but lazy" to "smart but overworked." An example of a negative change was when I discovered that, on a group project, a fellow student in the group had evaluated us other students based on how much she liked each of us, rather than what we had actually contributed.

Breyer
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rayinte
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Commented on: Wed Jun 20, 2007 @ 02:32am


	I'd been friends with a person for a few months. We were all part of the same online social group and I liked the guy well enough. Polite, a bit reserved, but someone I tentatively considered a friend. As things happen, the group gradually split apart a little, we no longer spoke as much as we used to, but oddly enough, I ended up in a smaller circle of friends which included the guy's girlfriend. The group of us got to be very close over the course of a few months. Then out of the blue, the guy breaks the news to his girlfriend--an internet relationship of some five or six years--that he is really a girl. And used every low-down, dirty, manipulative trick in the book to guilt trip the girlfriend into keeping this secret. Before "he" managed to extract this vow, the girlfriend told two of our close circle, because, devastated, she had to talk to someone about it. Eventually word got back to me. Needless to say, as far as I was concerned, my friendship with that individual was over as of that moment. Relationships of any sort, be they romantic or platonic, must be based in trust. And if this individual could be so deceptive as to woo and romance someone, and maintain that fiction for six years under such false pretenses... then I wanted nothing to do with "him." I guess you're looking for examples of the opposite, the positive types of stories, but unfortunately, none such come to mind. I guess I have a negative mindset. In general I try to be understanding, I try to be empathetic, I try to see more than just the obvious side to any given situation. But all too often my first response turns out to be the appropriate one. confused

Commented on: Wed Jun 20, 2007 @ 03:43pm


	You can't seeeeeeeeeeeeee me ninja ninja ninja

Harbinger of Pandamonium
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