Remember this picture and how it stirred debate for recently? Well, I want to use it to illustrate my Thought for the Day.
No one has a truly objective view. With all the commentary in the news and on social media since before even the last election, it demands an understanding that non one, not you, not me, no one can claim to be truly objective. We all look at the world through a lens that is comprised of the cumulative experiences of our lives. These experience shape that lens in good ways and in flawed ways. As no two people’s lives are exactly the same, no two people’s lens in which they view the world is exactly the same.
As a result, it is of little surprise to me that we are so divided and see things so differently. You cannot win an argument with someone by explaining / yelling / demeaning them about what a situation, event etc. looks like through your lens. They cannot see it through your lens. They are looking at it through their lens and it may appear very different to them. Could it be that you are looking at a specific event / situation through one of the flawed areas of your set of lenses?
So, what are we to do given the fact that we will never see things the same way. It’s impossible, so let’s stop arguing about it. The best we can do is through civil discourse attempt to understand what these specific things look like through another person’s world lens. Truly seek to understand. Ask them to explain it to you like you are a blind person asking someone that can see what a tree looks like. As Steven Covey says, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”
I think if we just follow that simple piece of advice much of the divisiveness we see escalating would begin to diminish. We can disagree, and still be civil with one another. If we accept the fact that we are looking at things through differing lenses it becomes easier to consider another viewpoint rather than attack it.
