What are Our Perceptions?

Hello everyone I hope you had a marvelous week! I can't believe that it's almost October! This week I have

been learning a lot about perceptions. How do we perceive the actions of others? How do these

perceptions make us act towards others? What are some rules in our family that we may not perceive? Why do we

have them? Are they good for our family? It's interesting to me how all of these thoughts correlate. How the

small things we do each day can affect people so deeply we may not even know we have done anything.

I think as we look outside ourselves and try to understand things from other people's point of view we will

see that we are not as hurt by our perceptions as we were before and we will become kinder in a world

that is not always very kind.

What are some perceptions that we have in everyday life? Have you ever been texting a friend and then

when they don't text you back right away, you worry that they don't like you or that you have offended

them? I know I have. What about when your little sister is doing something to annoy you and you just

expect that she knows that she is annoying you? She is doing this on purpose so you just leave with

your feelings of anger. “She knows what she's doing. I don't need to explain myself to her.” These are the

small perceptions that I find myself having large reactions to,  even though I don't need to be reacting in

the way that I often am. Maybe the friend I was texting just got busy and I haven't deeply offended them

so they're angry with me. What if my sister is just clicking her pen because she's stressed about an

assignment and not deliberately trying to annoy or anger me. Sometimes what is happening in our head

is a lot more intense than what is actually going on. Our actions are not always warranted for the things

we perceive are happening. 

Sometimes our familial cultures can have a big effect on how we perceive the actions and motivations of

others. For example, in my family we are not really big on hugs. We're just not a super touchy family. For

a while I lived in a culture that is really big on physical touch. They hug each other all the time. At first I

was really uncomfortable and some people thought I was being kind of cold towards them. They thought

I didn't like them. It wasn't that I didn't like them, it was just that I didn't really love the hugging. Eventually

, I became a lot better at hugging and people didn't think I hated them anymore, but for a while people's

perceptions about my feelings towards them were not accurate. Do you see what I mean? Sometimes

the ways in which you are raised affect how different cultures and people will affect you. 

Another thing that can affect your perceptions of others can be different unspoken rules you have within

your family. What does your family do that is unique to mostly your family? Something for my family was

that we would always watch a movie on Sunday nights. Then my dad would make popcorn. Although he

would make a big bowl of popcorn, me and my sister would each have our own smaller bowls of popcorn

. So when I was hanging out with friends it was really weird to me that we would just share one big bowl

even at home. Another would be that my mom doesn't like it when other people drink from her drink or eat

out of her ice-cream bowl with her spoon, so we never really shared things like this. I found out that one

of my friends' moms had her cup in the kitchen and it would be full of water. Everyone would drink from

that cup. That was just super weird to me, it was so strange and just kind of weirded me out. It also

weirded me out that a lot of people are just fine with sharing ice cream spoons. It almost seemed

barbaric to me, but it was just how they were raised and how I was raised. So in essence our familial

unspoken rules affect how we see people because oftentimes we will think that their rules are odd and

they may make us uncomfortable. The same goes to others when they think about our rules.

Anyways those are some of my thoughts about perceptions! I hope you enjoyed it and please comment

what you think about it too! :)