Perception
Imagine it's raining outside, and suddenly, you notice someone running after you to tell you how beautiful you are. Depending on your perception:
If you find them attractive, you might interpret this encounter as romantic and flattering.
If you don't find them attractive, you might perceive it as creepy or intrusive.
Everything in life is about perception. We often judge others based on initial impressions. Everyone judges a book by its cover.
Learn to be likable.
Learn to be charming.
Learn to look presentable.
Embracing our strengths and understanding how others perceive us allows us to leverage those perceptions to our advantage.
We all wear different masks for different tasks.
If you could choose to be irresistibly charming or unwaveringly authentic, which would you pick and why?
Perception is even more complicated when you throw our and other's projections into the mix. It takes an extraordinary amount of self awareness and self honesty to realize our projection is our own and not blame others when they don't fulfill our projections. Enough said do with that what you will.
I was chatting to a friend about this very idea this morning over coffee. ‘It’s all about perception’ - was a quote from a very drunken friend at a party in the 90s. I didn’t get it at the time but as the years have gone by, clearly there was wisdom in his drunken madness. The worry these days of course is that it has gone too far the other way and that there is no longer any room for truth, whatever people perceive that to be.