Perception- A version of Reality

 

One of my favourite learning in life is, the fight is never between right and wrong. The fight is always between my right versus your right, which is what brings me to our definition of perception- in very simple terms, is the ability to make sense of the world.

As head of the HR department in an organization, I used to have my team stressed about dissatisfied employees and how they were unhappy with the work situation. They were approached by employees across organization talking about how frustrated they felt, and how unhappy they were, sometimes with their managers and at other times with peers or sometimes generally about the work scenario. Given the role of HR, my team used to lend them an ear, but sometimes it used to get them overwhelmed. After a series of steps that we could take to allay some of the concerns, we realized that not all problems required solution at least from us. So we started going back to them with a standard question, ‘I understand that you are frustrated and we empathize but do you want us to do something about it’. More often than not employees answered in a negative. My team came back saying that now they feel a sense of closure but were not sure of the reason why?

What they perceived to be a problem was only sometime a need to talk, or small talk or even gossip, a need to exchange information.

This clearly is a case of mistaken perception, to perceive something which is not there. We constantly live in the world on mistaken perceptions, sometimes as a way to understand the world and at others to justify our actions. Amita Parwal, Communication coach stressed on the need for unbiased perception, which led me to think about the role of objectivity of perception and furthermore what is not perception?

Going back to the definition of perception it is the sensory input which is then processed based on our knowledge and experiences. In that context can we say are all sensory inputs convert to perception.

The answer is No. The sound of a clock ticking or traffic, is a sensory input but often we do not convert it into perception because somewhere we get used to it. This process is known as sensory adaptations and is important for us to go through the everyday humdrum of life. Imagine being perceptible to every sound or movement, our brain will be on an overload mode all the time. Sensory Adaptations is our brain's ways of tuning out unnecessary information.

The second and more important point I found about perception is that perception is not reality. Reality is facts. Perceptions are interpretations of facts for our convenience. To be it crudely it is more a distorted version of reality to suit our needs at any given point of time.

2020 made us especially susceptible to perceptions. We were glued to television, internet, videos, to see any signs of improvement. We wanted things to improve and were prone to panic and fear. We held on to every ray of hope that promised us respite. We got inspired as we perspired and yet at the end, we managed to emerge winners. Despite the initial shock, we marched on and that is the power of perception. On one hand, perception is something that makes us weak,  but at the same time, it makes us persevere.  

So let me ask this, what's your perception about tomorrow?