Reality Is Perception

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Imagine this scene if you will. In fact, if you can, close your eyes and really step into it.  This may be a problem if you are reading this at work and your boss thinks you are studying the latest financial reports, but if that is the case, find an old pair of glasses and take the glass out so you just have the frames. Now get a ping-pong ball and cut it in half. Draw ‘wide awake eyes on each half and then glue one to each side of the glasses. Place the glasses on and you can now close you eyes without anybody noticing. Trust me this is a surefire method to catch up some well-earned shuteye as well as doing the occasional visualization like this one. Nobody will ever notice, honest. Warning: Do not try this if you are a truck driver.

So if you are ready we can get on with it. You are a miner stuck in a mineshaft. A wall has collapsed and you are stuck tight and have been for 3 days. There are no major worries because you have clean air and the rescuers can get food and water to you. It’s just that it’s time consuming and boring waiting for them to drill you out. Think of what it’s like waiting for somebody to get found in Lost and you’ll know what I mean.

Eventually on the 4th day you are rescued and out you come caked in grime and coal and other stuff I’m much too polite to mention. You have the round of TV interviews, hugs with family members and arguments with management who say that’s you took unpaid leave, but eventually you get to go home.

You go upstairs away from everybody and run a shower. Now imagine getting in that shower, really imagine it. The feeling of the warm water on your skin and then on your face. Seeing the soap dissolve the grime and watching it cascade down your body and then through the plughole. Massaging the shampoo into your scalp and feeling some of it run down your face. Hear the noise the shower makes and then the sound of the water hitting the shower base. Are you enjoying that? Are you in the moment? Well snap out of it because you’re at work and those fake glasses aren’t going to fool anyone you know.

Now imagine this. You are late for work you slept in a little and you need to take a shower. You jump in and you are already thinking about what you have to do when you get to the office, hoping that the traffic will be easy and that your partner hasn’t left you with an empty gas tank. You are actually toweling yourself off before you even realize that you were in the shower in the first place. Was that a pleasant experience? Were you in the moment?

The events listed above are exactly the same. Admittedly the second maybe somewhat shorter but the fact is in both situations you simply took a shower.

That is why reality is perception. It’s not the event itself that dictates whether we enjoy something but the interpretation we put on it. You have the power to decide in every moment whether you want to enjoy it or not. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like that and sometimes it’s not really fitting to enjoy certain events, but the power is still yours to use at your disposal. Are you using it wisely to squeeze the most out of life?

By the way, I could have used a meal as an example by having a person go without food for 4 days but that was too easy. Even though many of us (me included) bolt our food and never really savor it, so could benefit from this exercise, I wanted to demonstrate that even an event as mundane as taking a shower could be a cause for enjoyment.