It's All A Matter Of Perspective

Look at the fire extinguisher below, looks like any other extinguisher right? Wrong, if you look carefully on the text, you can see that it's actually a fire lighter. This extinguisher is only about 10 cm high. Just as an aside, this lighter was given to me, although I don't smoke, when I mentioned to a friend that it was really cool. I collect key rings and small items such as this. Hence, I was pleasantly surprised when I was given it since I liked it more than they did.

Back to the topic, I wanted to use this photo as an example of how things look different depending on what perspective you have. Things taken out of context can have a totally different meaning to what was intended by the other party.

I'm writing about this because of something I heard today. It was a story told to me about some trivial issues, but the spin that was put on the story made the other party sound like it was all their fault. Some people tend to put more spin on their stories, but we all do it. When we tell a story, we tend to twist the facts a little so that we sound in the right and the other party in the wrong. You leave out small details or take words out of context and if you only hear one side of the story, you get a very biased view.

The media is very good at taking things out of context and trying to convince us to think how they want us to think. They have an agenda to push and are also trying to sell something. We do it for the same reasons. We have an agenda to push as well. We want people to support us in an argument, or to see us in a particular way. We're trying to sell an image of ourselves to other. Because, as we all know, perception by others is a big deal for most people. There's a running joke at work that "It doesn't matter if you do any work, it's whether people think you're doing work that matters".

I tend not to believe everything people tell me and try to look at it from many perspective before making a decision. I question the supposed facts and for the people who like to add a bit to their stories, the stories keep changing and you quickly learn who's words you can trust more than others. It doesn't necessarily mean they are purposely lying to you or trying to deceive you, it just means that you need to question the facts more before accepting them as truths.