Seeing is believing ….. Uh NOT!

So I know it’s been a looong looong time since my last post, and who knows how long it will be for another. However I was called to write this one so here it is.

Recently I have had 3 different experiences that brought home to me yet again, how my beliefs, expectations and assumptions colour my reality.

One was around how I coloured my world in regards to age. I have a close friend who is much younger than I am. They have a new partner and through their conversations with me about this new partner I had created a visual in my mind of what this partner would look like. So when I actually met this partner I was shocked that they were so young. Young in my mind was clearly about 20 years older than this person was. So how I coloured my world in regards to age was bam right in my face.

Another was in regards to not actually seeing what was right in front of me. I ‘read’ a name, my name I thought. However it was not my name, due to the cursive writing I had mistaken the first letter for an M which it was not. The next two letters of both names were the same and the last two letters of both names were the same but the rest were different. I didn’t actually read the name I had identified letters that were in my name and assumed the balance were accurate to my name ……. NOT! Now one might wonder how on earth someone could actually identify a different name as their own? Science however has actually proven humans tendency to do just this, we fill in what we expect from past experience whether it’s true or not. Hmmmm my bad, for not reading. Those of you who are ‘Why’ people here’s some research from Cambridge University: MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit.

Yet another one in the recent past was me assuming that something was a law when it wasn’t. Making me the ASSuming one, and costing me a bit of money.

All three different, all three enlightening me once again to take more care with my attention and where I put it. As you and I create our own worlds, it behoves us to take care with how we think, feel and act. Change any one of those and your world changes. How it changes is entirely up to you.