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William
Blake stated so clearly, “If the doors of perception were
cleansed everything would appear to man (kind) as it is,
infinite.”
In Psychology "perception" is defined as so:
Perception can be defined as
our recognition and interpretation of sensory information.
Perception also includes how we respond to the information. We
can think of perception as a process where we take in sensory
information from our environment and use that information in
order to interact with our environment. Perception allows us to
take the sensory information in and make it into something
meaningful.
Where perception falls short is when our perception of someone,
a human rather than environment, is perceived by us to be the
truth about that person. I will always remember and never forget
the Human Resources Manager who told me that "you must always be
concerned about other's perceptions of you." Wow! What do you do
with a statement like that? How would we ever truly know what
other people's perceptions of us are? To be thinking constantly
whenever we have contact with someone what their perception of
us is would become just so much craziness. I think I prefer
Terry Cole Whittaker's statement, "What You Think Of Me Is None
Of My Business." She wrote a whole book about it.
The error in relying on our perceptions of people is found in
the fact that each and everyone of us is multi-dimensional.
Often how we act and react to different individuals varies;
sometimes greatly. I definitely have experienced this in the
past on more than one occasion in both my work and in my
personal life. When people find out that I am an Ordained
minister, their perception of me changes sometimes drastically.
And usually their perceptions have nothing to do with who I
really am.
William Blake is absolutely correct in his statement. If our
perceptions were cleansed of our personal judgments, biases, and
personality, we would indeed be able to see the multiple
dimensions in others more clearly.
Keep the Faith!
Rev-Bates
(Reverend Dr. Henry Lee Bates)
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