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Circumstances tell us about us!

By Bamboo In The Wind
Our biases make us interpret everything around us in a way we have been raised to think about them. If we are taught to respect elders and if someone is seen not to respect elders, we think it's wrong behavior. What if we see this circumstance only through the lens of our prior beliefs? The circumstance of disrespect may stem from the disagreement in point of view and the elderly may be countered by the younger person with a different logic. Such a circumstance does not amount to wrong behavior. All it means is there is a differing point of view between the two people regardless of their age. And that they are dealing with their different backgrounds and different experiences of the same situation. Biases create expectations and expectations are always unilateral.

Clearly, circumstances are based on biases. Undoing biases is thus a very powerful tool that makes us see things rather neutrally. It takes the practice of empathy to remove our biases. It takes guts to take personal criticism in the right stride. It also takes exposing ourselves to paths that we do not know about and will experience dangers, and wrongs of the world, and learning from them.

Until we see with an open mind, open eyes, and openness to thinking that things may be different from how we have known them for years, circumstances will look bad, consequences will look dire, and the world will appear a hopeless place to live and do something meaningful.

Reading circumstances neutrally is quite some work on how are taught to think and how we can stay away from biases that come because of the way we know to think.

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