I See What You Mean, Or Maybe Not
Last Christmas while I was visiting part of my family in Texas,
my sister rented a movie that she thought I would "love". She,
her husband and all three of her kids had seen it twice before
and just loved it. They thought it was one of the funniest
movies they had seen, so they rented it again so I could see it
too.
As we ate popcorn and the movie played, they all laughed
hysterically as I merely chuckled. I didn't understand how they
could find it so funny. And of course, they didn't understand
how I couldn't. I remember going to sleep that night feeling a
bit disconnected and somewhat sad.
How could it be that we all watched exactly the same thing at
the same time on the same TV, and we had two totally different
views of it?
The answer I believe is - perspective.
My sister and I are only 15 months apart. We grew up in the same
home with the same parents and siblings, were taught the same
values, went to the same schools, ate the same meals, went on
the same vacations, often had the same haircuts and even shared
some clothes for 17 years. And yet, as forty-something women, we
are two very different people.
How could this be? What happens in our lives to make us separate
from others, even though we have shared experiences and even
though we are still ultimately connected? Where does the
connection begin, and where does it end?
Our lives, and more specifically, our viewpoints, are the sum
total of every experience we have encountered. They are the sum
of each person we have met, each book read, each movie watched,
each conversation had, each job done, each step taken, each
mountain climbed, each slice of pizza eaten - the list goes on.
Even in the same room with the same people watching the same
movie - we see it through the eyes and brain of the person that
we are. For each of us, there truly is no other way.
Even when we try to "see it through the eyes of another", and we
think we know how they might feel, at some level we must
realize that we are still seeing it through our own eyes,
and projecting our own views, as we think they
might see them. As Bijan Anjomi, author of Effortless
Prosperity says, "I do not know the real meaning of what I
see."
If we could simply step back and be open to understand that even
that which we think is the same, is perhaps a different
experience for another person - and then allow the difference -
we might more readily accept that we truly are all connected and
equal and the same - only different.