perception

On some evenings the sunset is a deep orange and on other evenings it is a bright pink that fades into a dark purple. While watching the sunset it is sometimes with great sadness that I see a day ending and on other occasions I am filled with such joy to know that a new day will be upon us soon. The differences are not in the sky but rather in the perception of what it holds. Day to day and minute to minute one’s perception of the world is changing through actions and experiences. Sometimes drastically but more often times not. It is only when our perception alters our judgment that we become aware of the changes that have occurred.

Many people pride themselves on their ability to defer judgment because of their worldly perception, yet it is impossible to identify what makes a perception worldly. The very identification of someone’s perception is subjective to the perception of whomever is identifying it. It’s not as if any one person can have the same perception as another person because no two people have seen nor felt nor heard nor experienced everything identically. How you perceive perception itself influences your very perception of yourself in your world.

It was with great hesitation that I signed my form to attend a camping retreat and dropped it into the assigned mail box. Although the idea of a retreat sounded wonderful, the word camping in front of it was less than appealing. The last time I had gone into the woods for a retreat that was supposed to be a bonding experiences in the woods, I came out with more bug bites than worthwhile experiences. It was cold and rainy, I was with people that lacked the desire to make any real connections, and I was convinced that on a camping trip past a middle school age would not...

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... presence of it but now anyone who is in range of the media. It is nearly impossible to escape the influence of media and therefore the constant changes of perception caused by it. Perception is constantly being toyed with and exploited by companies to increase their profits, while the public lives with the repercussions of the constant changes in everyone’s perception.

The concept of perception is an unspoken characteristic that drives any other characteristic that a person may have such as honesty, kindness, generosity, courage, and many others. It is not without perception that we act upon our other characteristics. All around us the world is constantly changing, but so is our perception, and therefore we perceive it to change even faster than it is. Although we are not consistently aware of our perception, it alters our daily behaviors and actions every day.