“We see the world not as it is, but as we are”
Origin Unknown
As humans, we are constantly forming interpretations, creating a v rsion of events that helps us to make meaning of the world around us. Every interaction, situation or event becomes a story for us. In turn, our stories provide us with rules and guidelines for interacting with others and responding to our various life experiences.
A simple example of this might be our learning of manners as children. We all have our own experiences of how the adults in our lives reacted when we did and didn’t use our manners. Those experiences helped us to create stories, not only about how we should be when we interact with others, but also about how others should be when interacting with us. In my own upbringing, manners were so ingrained in me that I would say please, thank you or sorry even when they weren’t required. Sometimes, I still do!
There was also a time when I would judge others who didn’t say please, thank you or sorry when I thought they should, because my learning as a child was that only a rude person would forget their manners. Without realising, my “truths” about manners were informing how I was seeing myself and others in everyday life. And so, the person who didn’t say sorry when they accidentally ran into me was a rude person or a bad person, or an arrogant person. In reality, how they really existed in the world was as a person. Any labels of rude, bad, arrogant (or even polite, good or humble), come from how our experiences of the world inform our learning and interpretations.
So what?
When we assume we are seeing the world as it is (and not how we are), we create truths that can close down possibility for us. And, if we are unaware that we are doing so, we may not easily be able to reopen those possibilities. This may or may not be useful for us. It may even create suffering that we don’t quite feel equipped to deal with.
Recently, I experienced a couple of days where I felt very busy. Whenever I turned around, another task jumped on my task list, while none seemed to be jumping off. We’ve all had those days, I am sure. I am still fairly new to my job, and I feel as though I have worked hard to make responsibility and accountability the foundations of my personal brand at work. When I wasn’t meeting the commitments I had made, I automatically placed a massive amount of pressure on myself. I started creating stories about how I really wasn’t reliable or accountable, and how I was letting everyone down. For me, the truth about the world at that time was that I was operating completely outside my personal brand and people would be seeing me as unreliable or not holding myself to account. I had shut down the possibility of me being a good employee who was living a solid brand, and replaced it with the possibility of me being unreliable and operating out of my integrity.
It was a colleague who helped me realise that what I was seeing as “how the world is” was not how everyone else was seeing as “how the world is”. He pointed out that he wasn’t seeing me as unreliable. Rather, he was seeing me as busy with something unexpectedly important that had come up, and he knew I would get back on track once that passed.
My colleague’s perspective was interesting. To him, my missed commitments were a glitch, not the end result. To me, I was failing. The reality of how the world was, was that I didn’t get some tasks done. My colleague and I were each creating our own meaning from that reality, and the meaning was very different.
This, I think, is an example of how we create our own truths about how the world is, judge ourselves according to those truths, and then create suffering for ourselves because we don’t realise that our view is not the only view. We see the world not as it is, but as we are.
I wonder how it would help for us to ask ourselves: How am I being right now to see this situation how I am seeing it? How could I be that would help me to see it differently? When I asked myself this question after speaking with my colleague, it occurred to me that perhaps I could be a colleague to myself rather than a judge and jury.
Deanne Duncombe is an IT professional with a qualification in ontological coaching and a keen interest in helping people to navigate the challenges of everyday life. Her first book, “What if Life Came with a User Guide? How to overcome negative self-talk, deal with difficult people and adjust to challenging situations” is planned for release in September 2023.
An Ontological Life 