One of the most frustrating experiences you can have, is for people to make assumptions about you and then to stick with those assumptions no matter how much you try to tell them or show them otherwise. Usually they learn one little thing about you and then think they have you all figured out. Not only that – but they also start treating you differently based on their own assumptions. It’s like you’re standing right in front of them, but they can’t see you, no matter how hard you wave your arms and yell: I’M RIGHT HERE!!! Because all they’re seeing is their own perceptions of you, their own assumptions of you, their own judgments of you. All you become in their eyes is what they’ve made up their minds to believe you are.
Find just one moment in your life like that… remember how utterly invisible you felt… sucks right?
Then think of all the times you’ve done it to others. I know I have. You get an ‘impression’ from someone, and now you think ‘they are this kind of a person’. Think of when you walk into a crowd and are looking for who you’re going to socialize with – you’re going to do it based on perceptions – what people look like, how they’re holding themselves, the color of their hair, the color of their skin.
Mostly we aren’t even aware of doing it… we do it automatically and we don’t take a moment to even question whether our perception holds any truth, sometimes we don’t even know exactly WHY we think a person is a certain kind of person, we ‘just do’. And we’re even less aware of the consequences of our perceptions, labels and judgments, how it changes how we treat people, how we interact with them, and how we’re blatantly ignoring and disrespecting them – not even acknowledging their existence, only our own beliefs of them.
Why can’t we put 2 and 2 together? If that is how we feel when someone makes assumptions about us – then why do we do it to others? Why do we allow media to influence us in believing that the safest assumption to make is that all Muslims are terrorists, that all socialists are communists, that all those who can’t make ends meet are lazy? Those are the questions we can ask ourselves when reading stories about Ahmed who was wrongly suspected of having made a bomb when he brought his self-made clock to school. Those events are here to show us our own human nature. It’s not about THOSE police men, it’s not about THAT school, it’s not about THOSE teachers. It’s a mirror for what we do to each other on a daily basis. Inviting Ahmed to visit the White House or the MIT campus are not solutions – that’s clever PR. It doesn’t change anything, though.
It’s in the smallest of moments, our inconsiderations, our automatic thought patterns that we shape this world. Those are the exact points that Desteni investigates and what the Desteni ‘I’ Process courses are all about. So, if you’re ready to find out and face the truth of yourself – join us on the forum, start your own free DIP Lite course – and take the first steps of taking responsibility for the mad world we live in.