A distorted lens

One of the most important things to remember in life is that we are all viewing the world through a distorted lens.

We see what we see through many distortions in our lens.  The lens starts to become uniquely our own very early in life.  The first distortions come at birth.  What circumstances are we born in?  Are we very poor?  Are we very rich? Are we born or adopted into a nurturing family, or are we born to those unprepared and unskilled at parenthood? Does our skin color match the predominant skin color on the continent we are born on?  Are we born or adopted into a family that adheres to a faith tradition? By the time we have learned to roll over and sit up, our lens is already distorted.

And the distortion continues.  Do we go to school with other children, or are we schooled at home?  Are we large for our age or small?  Are we athletic and coordinated?  Are we very verbal?  Are we introverted or extroverted?  Do we go to bed hungry or cold?  Are we the child who has everything, or the child who never has the school supplies they need?

Do we have a physical characteristic that makes us different?  Do we have glasses or braces or a wheelchair or a walker?  Do we wear hearing aids or have a service animal?

Each day of our life adds an experience that changes and distorts the lens that we see the world through.

And that is in an ordinary life.

There are other things that distort our lens that are far from ordinary.  Do we suffer from a natural disaster, like a hurricane, flood, wildfire or earthquake as a child, or as an adult?  Do we lose someone we love in a natural disaster?  Do we lose someone we love in an accident?  Do we lose someone we love in a violent crime?  Do we lose someone we love to suicide?  Do we lose someone we love to disease or illness?

With all the diverse experiences that distort our lens, we all see things differently.  Not the right way or the wrong way, just a different way.

Once we embrace the reality that we all see things differently, we can start to let go of believing that we all share one reality.  Once we embrace that we are all living in a different reality, we can start to let go of believing that we know best.

It is really hard to argue with someone about what they believe if you believe that each of us lives in our own unique reality, shaped by all the life experiences we have had up to that point in time.

Accepting that everyone sees things differently means that you learn to explain what you believe, and allow others to explain what they believe.

You don't have to see things the way other people see them.  It is perfectly acceptable to ask questions about how someone got to the belief system they embrace.  But it isn't okay to tell them they are wrong, or stupid, or misinformed.  It is perfectly acceptable to offer suggestions for good reading material on any subject, but not to suggest that reading the material will somehow "fix" the other person.

The best way to share your worldview, the view from your distorted lens, is to be asked by someone to share it.  If you never show interest in what others see and believe, they have no reason to be interested in what you see and believe.

The best way to find common ground to build on is to understand where another person's view came from, what life experiences shaped the lens through which they view the world.

It is true that I will never fully understand how you see things, because the life that shaped you is different from the life that shaped me.

But I can understand the experiences that shaped how you see things.  I can listen to your stories, I can understand what hurt you and what helped you, what made you strong, and what brought you to your knees.

And when I invest in what made you who you are, I can find the value in our differences, and the value in our shared humanity.

When it seems like all the differences do is lead to argument and anger and hate, remember that you have the power to ask about differences in a non-threatening way.  And when you seek to understand, you can understand.

You may never embrace the anger and hatred, I know I hope I never will.  But if I try with an open heart to understand what happened to that person in their life experience to make them feel that anger and hatred are good choices, maybe I can point them to a path where anger and hatred aren't necessary.

And maybe I can't.  But if I don't open my heart to them, I'll never even have the chance.  And I want to have that chance.  Because I want to live in a world where anger and hatred are choices made in the past, and not in the present.  And if I don't actively work on that world everyday, I know that there is no way for it to exist.