Hi, This is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track. Welcome to the latest episode.

In this episode, I want to talk to you about a little thing that has a big impact on our life, and that is a thing called perception. Now I want you to imagine you're sitting in your car at a set of lights and the traffic's waiting. Then suddenly you hear this siren and an ambulance comes weaving through the traffic lights and the sirens going off.

It makes its way cautiously through the intersection, making sure that it's not going to collide with anything, and it takes off on the other side. Once it gets clear and you think to yourself, "Wow, they must be getting someone to a hospital", "Will that person is going to be okay", "I wonder what happened to them". You have all of these preconceived notions, a perception in your head based off information that you know about ambulances, what they do, how they conduct themselves when they're out on the road.

So you have this perception about them now, and at the same time as this ambulance is going through the lights, a convertible follows them through the intersection and you'll notice it's driven by this man and you think to yourself, "Look at this idiot. He's taking advantage of the situation. He's following the ambulance through the traffic lights. That's dangerous. He's a fool. I hope he gets booked. I hope the police nab him". You're looking around for the police, hoping that they will catch this bloke, and again, we have our perception.

Based off where you have road rules and you don't run through red lights and all these different things that contribute to the way that we see this situation. So we've now got two very different perceptions about the situation.

Now, I want you to freeze frame that the ambulance just getting to the other side of the traffic lights and this car following them through. So I want you to freeze that for a second. As you freeze it, you notice the situation. You have your perceptions of the ambulances taking someone to hospital and the blokes following in the car, taking advantage of the situation. That is your perception.

Now start the image again and imagine the doors of the ambulance fling open and inside, you see, it's a bunch of young people that have hijacked the ambulance and they're having a party and you can see them in there with drinks in their hands. And they're having fun now. Suddenly, the ambulance is the one that's in the wrong. It's being hijacked by a bunch of foolish idiots that are taking advantage of it. They're damaging property. That's worth a lot of money. They're risking people's lives. They're doing a lot of illegal things. So suddenly your perception's flipped on its head just by this little bit more information by the doors flying open and the car that's following through the intersection. You now look a little closer and you see a woman that slumped down in the seat and she's obviously in pain and she's screaming out, and you suddenly realise this man is following the ambulance because he knows that will get him through the intersection quickly so he can get his partner to hospital to get her the help that she needs.

Suddenly, that one little bit of information changes your perception about that, and so it is with many things in our life. We do the best we can with the knowledge that we have at the time, so sometimes our perception isn't quite complete. Sometimes we need just a little more information so that things make sense. We have a more complete picture of the situation. So can we can have a more complete understanding and make a more informed decision as to how to go forward. Now, you do have to be careful with this because if you try to seek too much information, you never move forward because you don't know if you've got enough information. So be aware that as you move forward in your life, there will be situations where you will see it is one way, and as you gather more information, your perception may change. It may alter. It may flip. It may strengthen either way. Be aware that your perception can change, that it will change over time.

Perceptions mellow or they can strengthen. It is up to you to decide about your perceptions, but no, the perceptions are malleable. I don't know if you've ever seen the little image that goes around of the two men looking at a number on the ground, and they're standing at either end of it and they're arguing over it, and one man is looking at it and he's saying very aggressively, "it's a six. I can see it. It is clearly a six. You're wrong". And the man on the other end is also looking at this number and saying very angrily, "I'm telling you, it's a nine. I'm looking at it. It's right in front of me. It's a nine". Now they're both arguing over the same thing. They just see it differently. So sometimes all it takes is to see it from the other perception from what the other person is seeing bearing in mind that their previous experiences their beliefs, their attitudes, their upbringing, all colour our perception and make it different.

So whenever you're having a discussion with someone and it starts to get a little bit heated, because maybe you don't see things the same way, understand that they are not wrong, they just see it differently. And this is a really important thing to bear in mind in relationships, in workplaces, in friendships, in families that you're not often going to see things the same way, you will see things slightly differently. But be aware that your perception is not always and will rarely be the same to someone else.

So know that your perception is not right and it's not wrong. It's just your perception. So be open to more information that is either going to strengthen your perception. It's going to alter your perception or it's going to flip your perception as it did with the ambulance and the car.

So today I just wanted to talk to you about that, because recently I've had some conversations with people where we had very different opinions, very different perceptions of situations, and through careful exploration, we found a more comfortable place where we could agree and still have our own perceptions, so understanding that neither of us was right or wrong, we just had a different way of looking at it. Therefore, we could find a common ground, agree on that and then also accept each other's perception and our own.

And that's basically all you can do. In life it's known that we have different perceptions. We have different understandings. We have different experiences, different beliefs, and that is okay. Okay, so that was it for today's. I just wanted to talk about that because I'd encountered that recently. A difference of perceptions, and that does happen regularly, and that's part of life. And it's part about learning about other people, their experiences, what they go through learning about different cultures, different religious beliefs, different upbringings, different experiences because we haven't been through everything.

Sometimes we have to rely on other people's perception to be able to understand it more, or to be able to get a grasp of it. So there you go, have a fantastic they look after yourselves and remember, here's to a good life.

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

Thanks for listening.