Worldview: How Your Perspective Shapes Your Perception
Two lenses that shape how you understand and interpret your world
Two lenses, working in tandem, shape your perception and interpretation of the world. These are your perspectives and perceptions.
Merriam-Webster's dictionary captures the two as follows.
Perspective is;
a: the interrelation in which a subject or its parts are mentally viewed
b: the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance
c: the appearance to the eye of objects in respect to their relative distance and positions
On the other hand,
Perception is;
a: awareness of the elements of the environment through physical sensation//color perception
b: physical sensation interpreted in the light of experience
Perception is how you interpret and make sense of the stimuli you receive from your five senses — what you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. Your interpretation of these stimuli depends on your experiences, beliefs, and biases.
Perspective, however, is the unique viewpoint or frame of reference through which you observe and comprehend the world. How you see things is influenced by your attitudes, background, and values. These factors, in turn, influence how you perceive events, interpret situations, and view other people.
In a Time Magazine article dated June 8, 2016, Daniel White recounted an incident involving Virgin Atlantic's CEO, Richard Branson, who responded with good humor and humanity upon discovering an employee asleep on the job.
Having your boss catch you sleeping on the job is an employee’s worst nightmare — but can you imagine if they took a picture, too?
Virgin Group founder Richard Branson did just that on a recent trip to visit the Virgin Australia offices, according to a post on his Virgin.com blog.
“I popped into the office and the airport to say hello and check in to see what the team are up to. This guy wasn’t up to much at all — I caught him sleeping on the job! Wow, did he get a shock when I woke him up,” the billionaire wrote. “He must have thought he was dreaming because he went straight back to sleep. To be fair, he was on standby, getting some much needed rest.”
Perspectives and Perception are key drivers in life.
While Richard Branson sees his employee as tired and needing some rest, another boss somewhere might have seen his employee as sleeping on duty, promptly declaring, “You’re fired!”
Key Lesson: Be openhearted and always make time to view things from others’ perspectives. Moreover, always put a human face to every situation.
Sources
Perception vs. Perspective - What's the Difference? | This vs. That
Richard Branson Caught an Employee Sleeping on the Job, So He Trolled Him With This Photo
Thanks for reading. This story was originally published on Medium.
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