Perception is Reality! Don’t Be Deceived!

Below are seven points to help you understand why perception is reality.

It may be hard to fathom, but if you are one of the people who believe that facts, logic, and truth dictate reality, you are wrong. Of course, you could make a logical argument that everything I am about to share with you is false. But here’s the problem: facts can be proven, and logic can be persuasive, but not everything that can be logically proven or argued persuasively using facts is true. Not all facts are accurate, and the truth is often a matter of perspective based on an individual’s belief or the beliefs of a group. It is a well-known fact that beliefs change from individual to individual and group to group. And just like history, the truth is but a fable agreed upon. The truth is nothing more than a gathering of shared beliefs agreed upon by those who agree.

What Is the truth but a fable agreed upon? It's nothing more than a lie in disguise.

If such weren’t true, there would be no need for courts, litigation, debates, wars, or conflict. We would simply arrive at the truth by logically reviewing the facts, and the world would be a better place. But it doesn’t work like that, and it doesn’t work like that because perception is everything. Your perceptions influence your beliefs. Your beliefs affect your ability to reason logically. Your perceptions and beliefs impact your desires, and your desires determine the facts you produce or decide to share or not share in making your argument of what is or is not true. But before we dive into that rabbit hole, let’s answer a few questions. These questions were taken from a recent teaching I did for a group of aspiring entrepreneurs in Tampa, FL.

What is perception?

Perception is one of the six intellectual faculties given to you at birth to help you succeed and navigate your way through life. Perception enables you to gain a mental picture and understand your environment by processing and analyzing the data received from your environment by feeling, hearing, tasting, smelling, and seeing.

Perception works in conjunction with your imagination, memory, intuition, and logic. It conceives and processes the external world of reality to help you arrive at conclusions and decide how you will or will not respond. It also aids you in determining what you will or will not do in response to the external stimuli perceived – the one we call reality.

What is the meaning of perception is reality?

It means that what you perceive to be true in your environment is true for you. It is your reality. And this would be fine and dandy if you were only a single individual experiencing your own-individual reality, but you are not. You live in a shared reality with many people seeing things from many degrees of perspective, each one slightly different than your own.

To help us better navigate this shared reality and coexist with others, we must come to conformities and give identities to our shared perceptions. We give things names like cars, trucks, and trains to better describe what we jointly perceive to be true. We educate and indoctrinate ourselves into a culture of shared perceptions and naming conventions. And we allow these things to become our reality. But it is only our reality because it is in agreeance to the truths that we have created for ourselves.

We have created a shared truth and reality that’s not always the same across cultural boundaries and borders.

Here’s an example: If you are an English speaker from America and travel to Germany, you point at a car and say this is a car. They will look at you strangely and say, dies ist ein wagen. You point again and say ‘car,’ and they say “no, wagen.’ In your reality, it’s a car. In their reality, it’s a wagen, pronounced vwagen. Who’s wrong, and who’s right? It could simply boil down to who has more power and influence.

You could stand there all day debating if the thing you perceived is a car or a vwagen, or you could simply get in and go.

How does perception influence people’s lives (their reality)?

Your perceptions influence your life because your perceptions create your combined picture of reality. They influence what you see and how you interpret it. They have a direct impact on how you experience life. How you experience life determines how you navigate life. And how you navigate life determines how you live. It determines your successes, your failures, and the opportunities that do or do not come your way. The problem is that your perceptions are not always accurate or shared by other individuals. That means you could be living and experiencing a slightly different reality than they are.

It’s like two Black kids growing up on the same block, in the same city, in the same household. One believes the world is inherently evil and racist, and as a result, it limits his personal growth, success, and happiness. It even limits his freedom. The other kid believes the world is a beautiful place full of good people who want to see him succeed.

He believes they want to help him, and as a result, his eyes are open to new opportunities and people who are constantly giving him a hand up and aiding him in improving his life. He is free, happy, and prosperous. And it all started with his perception of reality. But which kid was right, the former or the latter?

Of course, conditioning and programming have a lot to do with it, but that’s a subject for a different day because today, perception is everything.

How is perception different from reality?

Perception is different from reality only because reality exists in our shared consciousness. And in our shared consciousness, the rules are made by those with the most influence, backing, and support. And as I said previously, for us to coexist, we must conform and come to terms in the agreement of how certain things will or will not be identified and what is acceptable or what will be deemed unacceptable in our shared reality.

In truth, there is no reality outside of your perceptions. Yes, we experience a shared reality, and yes, you are excepted to conform to it. And if your refuse, you will find yourself in conflict with other members of the group or authority. But what you individually perceive as your reality is the reality for you. And then again, this strange thing also happens when you leave your group and go to another group.

Perceptions change, and realities change. Reality is whatever we agree it is, but our perceptions dictate to us what we think it is.

How does reality influence our perception?

Reality does not influence perception, perception influences reality. You see, reality is what it is. According to quantum physics, the science, reality is nothing. It does not exist. It is a mental construct that only exists in the perceiver’s mind and our shared consciousness. Now, I know that’s a lot to fathom, and again, I don’t want to dive into the rabbit hole, so let’s move on.

What is more important, perception or reality?

Perception is the more important because perception influences behavior, action, and will. It directly influences your success. It directly affects your wealth, health, and mental wellbeing. And it directly impacts your opportunities and experiences in life. So, it doesn’t matter what reality is. It only matters what you perceive it to be and how that perception influences your reality; your life.

Your successes, your opportunities, and your experiences are all affected by your perceptions of reality. And if you’re not quite getting what you desire, then the goal of coaches like myself and organizations like www.powerhousemotivations.com is to help you experience things from a different perspective. It's to open your eyes to new ways of seeing and experiencing new perspectives and opportunities that help you create and enjoy your best life before it’s too late.

What is the difference between perception and view?

The difference between perception and view, your point of view or perspective, is that your perspective brings clarity to your perceptions. It adds depth, angle, shape, and gravity to your perceptions. It brings your perceptions into focus and makes it easier to discern fact from fiction. It makes it easier to formulate your picture and analyze reality.

You see, if perceptions are simply an amalgamation of data points, then perspective is that thing that decodes the data and utilizes the information to produce a clear and visible picture.

Is truth based on one’s own perception?

This is a tricky question because the correct answer is yes and no. You see, the truth, or this thing we call truth, is very much relative and constantly changing. For example, at some point in time, this thing we call truth taught us that the world was flat. And those who didn’t believe or accept the truth were tared-and feathered or ostracized. At another point in time, the truth taught us that men were men and women were women, and those that didn’t believe or accept the truth were tarred and feathered or ostracized. Today those who state that men are men and women are women - are quickly being condemned by those who say that men can be women and women can be men, but who is correct? Which answer is true?

Is it possible that both answers can be true? Yes. Unfortunately, the truth is often a matter of perspective. And once again, perspective provides us with understanding. And part of that understanding teaches us that people really can be, do, and achieve anything they put their minds to. If a man wants to recreate himself as a woman, it’s possible. If a woman wants to recreate herself as a man, it’s possible. But will they really be the other sex? The answer comes down to our shared reality and how we determine sex, and what we deem the word sex to mean.

And so, if a person perceives themselves to be of the opposite sex, and they can convince the whole or at least a majority of the whole to agree with them, in a democratic society where the majority rules, then the new truth is now based on their perception of reality. Will there be problems? Yes, because the whole has not accepted their reality, or their truth is inconsistent with the old reality agreed upon, and their truth is not the truth perceived by the whole, but it’s the truth by which they have chosen to live their existence.

How does perception influence behavior?

Perception influences behavior because what you perceive determines how you proceed. And how you proceed determines everything else, from your successes and failures to your determinations and aspirations. It directly influences how you live and exist on this physical plane we call earth.

And to ensure your success and happiness and give you total control of your life, I give you this: I give you knowledge that,

You can control your perceptions, change your perspective, and perceive things however you choose or desire.

There are 360 degrees in a circle, and you can choose to view reality from any point in the circle. And if at any time you don’t see a reality that pleases you, if it doesn’t aid to your success and prosperity, if it doesn’t uplift and empower you, you can choose a different reality. You can decide to change your perspective and look at things from a point of view that’s more beneficial to you.

Move around the circle until you find a perspective more beneficial to you and your wellbeing.

In doing this, I must warn you that you will be ridiculed and ostracized if your point of view is vastly different than the one held by most people in your environment. And the old adage is true, misery loves company, and many people, especially those who will complain and criticize you the loudest, are often the most miserable people in your environment. You have to be tough to stand up and keep going despite their criticisms.

Don’t be swayed. Walk your course. Change your environment if needed. And create and enjoy your best life. Get started today.