Smart Quote of the Day

“We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.” Anonymous

I came across this quote years ago. It resonated with me then, and it feels even more true now what with all the turmoil going on in the world. It proved impossible to  track down the origin of the quote. It has been attributed to the Talmud, the writers Anais Nin or Stephen Covey, the philosopher Immanuel Kant, and others. I went too far down that rabbit hole and have decided to let it be.

Back to the quote.

There is no one right way to view the world because as we grow we change, and our view of the the world–people, events, history– changes as well. This is why I rarely share how I feel about people and situations. What I think today will surely evolve as I grow and age and as I pick up and let go of prejudices.

We experience the world through our personal filters. Everyone's filters are different from anyone else's because they are an amalgamation of our life experiences. Our parents are like no one else's parents, our childhood is like no one else's childhood–even siblings experience different childhoods.

The things which give us joy and the traumas that shape us combine to create our own personalized and filtered perspective of the world, a perspective that changes with the constant accumulation of experience.

An event will give rise to an endless multitude of viewpoints. Some of those will be close to our own, some will be diametrically opposed, and some will land in between. They are all valid. Each one will tell you more about the person and yourself than about the event. Every one of us believes we are objective in our viewpoints–and every one of us views the world through our prejudices.