Life keeps rolling out lessons every year; some subtle, some hard. These lessons reveal themselves in a single shot or gradually in iterations. Some lessons are so profound that they change your physical and mental structure from within!
One such lesson or rather for the year that proved to be the most significant of all them is “Seeing things as they are…”
Not very difficult to understand, right? Yeah, indeed but it certainly is difficult to practice. But what does it mean? And what is it addressing?
Of course, a cat appears as a cat to everyone. But do we stop there? Not most of us do. For some, the colour of the cat reveals whether it carries a bad or a good omen with it. For some, the shape of the eyes reveals the cunning nature of the creature, the fur and the style of walking something else to the others.
At the times, the very reason a person loves a cat is the same for another to hate cats! What does that tell you? Why so many interpretations for the same cat? Intriguing, isn’t it?
And guess what, it isn’t only cats or dogs we form our interpretations about. We do it daily and never realize it! Need some examples? Here we go:
When watching the news, even the most unbiased ones (difficult to spot them!), we interpret it based on our preconceptions of the topic. We are quick to dismiss the quality of clothes of a brand that we don’t like and embrace the one that we love, ignoring the faults altogether. Don’t we also do it concerning people?
We are ready to ignore scores of red flags of the person we ‘like’ and on the other hand, quick to spot one anomaly based on the suspect because we don’t really ‘like’ them. We do that while choosing careers! And we also do that while picking the investments to make!
And does it affect us? Big time!
By the time we realize how much it has affected us, it’s generally a tad too late. This is obvious, as to why would you find yourself in the situation, if you had realized what was coming?
Feeling betrayed only after the cheating is caught. Feeling lost only after the career choice was made years ago and the impact starts emerging. Ending up lonely and broke after investing time and money in people and investments respectively, that only seemed wrong after you’ve received the cold shoulder or ‘sudden’ jolt! (Not so suddenly though)
Now the most obvious reaction for these scenarios is that of: “Don’t do it if you see it coming!”
However, it is way harder than it seems to be.
The other side of being too conscious or predicting far into the future based on a few observations is just as dangerous. If ignoring all the flags can lead to the doomed meadows, then holding on to each flag can be equally paralyzing and dangerous.
You could accidentally classify and judge people too early. You could dismiss the type of food because you ate it at a substandard food stall or judge the kind of people from a country because you met two of them from that country who disappointed you.
And we are not even considering the factor of luck or randomness in this! Do you understand now, why practising this skill is one of the hardest?
You are always walking the thin line between too much generalizing and too much specializing, all mixed with your prejudices and learned conceptions.
So, what can one do?
Introducing the buffer:
As the wise have always claimed, “Never make a promise when you’re happy and decision when sad.” And it turns out it is indeed a piece of wisdom.
Reviewing your moves, actions and thoughts requires time and a relatively unbiased mindset, just like the mud settles down after the jar of water is kept still.
Having a buffer between the occurrence of thought in your mind and the action you take can solve more than half of your life problems! It helps you disconnect your actions from your emotions at that moment. This gives it a chance of being as unbiased as it could be.
Viewing through the opposite angle:
Develop a practice to look and hear out at least one opposing point/aspect of every decision you make. This is unsettling and not for the weak-hearted. But hey! Hearts can get stronger!
Every action you take is a decision for something and a decision against something else. Follow an ideology? Take the argument of opposing/different ideologies seriously and try to answer them as unbiased as you can. Believe a way of life works, a particular method, an investment ideology, a definition of trust? Counter it yourself with an opposing viewpoint.
This can really clean up a lot of clutter from your mind!
Being humble but taking action:
Real wisdom lies in realizing that you could be wrong even after multiple evaluations. You could have been wrong in most cases but sometimes pure unlucky! It’s hard to digest this and can lead to paralyzing into a corner. To keep it moving and taking action, knowing that your judgements would not be a hundred per cent correct is the ultimate anti-dote against biased visions and actions.
The skill of “Seeing things as they are” can take a lifetime to master, and maybe we never would. But even reaching closer to that goal could be a great new year resolution! Perhaps a resolution for life? 😉
