Generalisation and Perception

The way we lead our lives, make decisions depend on the level of perception we exude. The depth we bring in our observation of the life around us decides our ascent on perception path. Mostly we all play at the physical or sight level, supported by the cultural, regional and communal rules we are fed. These rules or expectation from society or community, unconsciously create many deep rooted generalizations in our thoughts. This subconscious conditioning decides 2 most important choices for us

• How we see others around us.

• How we conduct and show ourselves.

At the surface there are lot of such gender, occupation or regional belonging biases. However, there are some deep rooted ones which are mostly specific for all of us. Those are kind of our own personal rulebook points created over the period due to some teachings from people or experiences.

When we try to live life in more mindful manner, we can see this rulebook coming to play in our daily lives. These points are at times pivotal in our decisions and at times we may not be even able to register the impact these have created. From my experience if I say I have recently realized that somehow I have created an aversion towards affluence and wealth creation. The point I realized while reading the book recently “The Almanackof Naval Ravikant”. The book talks on the topic of earning and handling the money in detail, but to set the context referred here, below is the line from the book.

“Money is not evil, lust for money is evil.”

Looking back, I can see that how this aversion created in my mind towards affluence has caused me the discomfort in moving ahead and taking decisions in that direction. The reason for same was my one sided assessment of the matter rather than giving it a holistic approach and analysis. Reading the book gave me more holistic view and I could assess and improve my approach towards this direction of life.

We all have our own such rules set subconsciously which might be causing a lot of damage, much to our own surprise. We can prevent ourselves from causing this auto reaction based on some perception by observing:

• What are the facts considered in the opinion/decision just made?

• Is the mind mentioning the situation and person or the situations/persons in general?

Generalized observation and biasing on one way may be causing us to err on some major points in our lives. It also decides the way we grow as a person, how we see life and hence how we live it. The generalized biasing makes us hard, fixed and static at mental as well as sensory level. Through the fixed window of worldview, we add stress on our thoughts as well as our decisions. The way we behave and relate to other people is decided majorly by this.

Someone recently told me that differences are somehow the reason for evolution. If everything is same and static, the chances for life to evolve and grow will end. So at mental level if we all think and react in some expected set pattern life will be so mundane. Bring in your non-judgmental, unbiased perception to things in play to make the life colorful.

May be “Think out of box” can be applied to life in general.