Opinions, Perspective and Conclusions

Everything you see and the way you see it is just information that has been passed to you through your own perspective.

If I write the singular word ‘Asses’ in a message to you, what would you think?

I want you to open your mind and think about it and all the possibilities that  single word could mean.

Perspective 1

An easy interpretation, due to the perspectives of most individuals, would be that I meant I am in fact pissed off at a particular group of people. Perhaps I am calling them all asses and I will elaborate on the subject in my next message or later on in person. Your response might be, “Who are asses? Are you ok?” or if you have seen me rant about asses before you might think..”Not this again…”

Perspective 2

Asses, so, he means he is looking at pictures of hot girls on the internet. Particularly women with nice asses? Your response might be, “What???? Why are you telling me this?!”

Perspective 3

That could have been a typo, perhaps he meant to say assess. Assess what? Did you mean you were going to assess something?

Perspective 4

Is he talking about the animal? Has he just come across some wild asses?

The way you respond has everything to do with the information you have collated throughout your own experiences. What knowledge you have gained about me and what you think you know about me before I say that single word will affect your apparent conclusion. For example, perhaps you didn’t know I was in Africa, so you most certainly wouldn't have picked perspective 4 as a conclusion. But let’s say I was. Your conclusion would be wrong. In just a few moments you have misjudged a simple situation because you didn't have all of the relevant information to come up with an accurate conclusion.

My point is that there are many ways of looking at the same thing no matter how simple it may seem. Just one word that gets misinterpreted can change the conclusion your mind might try and establish. Once it becomes established in your mind, your emotion might have trouble letting go. Be it stubbornness, hurt, hope or anything like that. Try not to let those feelings take hold too much, even if you think you are sure of your conclusion.

Now apply this thought process to more complicated situations involving emotions and multiple personalities, for example a group of people arguing about violent video games. It makes it almost impossible to collate enough information to truly know enough to come up with conclusions; because everyone is looking from a different perspective according to the things they have heard, seen, read or experienced.
If we don’t try to understand more than one perspective we can never truly be open minded. If you close off your mind because you allow your own personal perspective or opinion of disagreement to be too strong, then you lose the opportunity to understand and gain knowledge and experience.

Don’t close people off because your perspective is different. Once you have tried to understand someone you previously didn't like, you could realise that they were in the right all along or that you actually just misunderstood them before. So don’t limit yourself, and learn to understand.