Yes, Your Life Is What You Think It Is

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” — Henry David Thoreau

There are two fundamental ways to look at life. Life sucks. Life is awesome. Both are true.

When Corona happened and everything went downhill, I got upset. Stupid virus. People die, the gyms are closed, my grandparents are confined to their home and in danger, and the festivals, language course, and seminars I had planned this summer were canceled. Ugh.

I wasn’t the only one whose plans and mood was spoiled. People went apeshit. Life sucks.

But instead of succumbing to the suckiness and having my summer ruined by a global pandemic, I said to myself what I’ve been saying for years. Life is going to be awesome.

And life became awesome. Instead of complaining about closed clubs and bars, I used to the time work on myself and my dreams. Instead of fearing for my grandparents, I took it as an opportunity to call them more often. Instead of being miserable and viewing everything as a shit show, I decided to be more positive about it all and focus on the good.

The situation itself didn’t change one iota — lockdowns were still in place. But my perception took a 180-degree turn for the better.

There Is No Reality — Only Your Perception

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

— Robertson Davies

There is no universal reality. Well, there might be, but none of us can see it. We can only look through our own eyes. And although we see the same things, our brains and our egos perceive them differently.

We all see the same clouds, but you see an elephant and I see a dog.

We all hear the same music, but you love the vocals while they annoy me and I’d rather listen to the beat.

We all listen to the same speech, but while it inspires you, I think the speaker is full of himself.

We all see someone waving on the street, but you think they flip you off while I smile and wave back.

And this only accounts for humans — while we have three color receptors, a mantis shrimp has twelve. Bees can see ultraviolet light. Their “reality” is entirely different from ours.

Do you see where this is going? We all receive the same visible, audible, and kinesthetic information — but the way we process it is different. We all build our own, unique reality.

Your ego, which is the accumulation of experiences and perceptions in your brain that make up who you are, determines what the world looks like to you.

To show you how powerful and deceiving our perception can be, look at this photo of a hollow mask.

It is concave (pushed in) but it appears to be convex (pushed out) because we expect faces to be convex. The most impressive thing is that even if you know about this, it’s still hard to perceive it accurately.

Don’t believe me? Focus on the bottom, where the shirt meets the frame — you’ll realize it’s actually pushed in.

The image hasn’t changed one bit, but your perception has.

Altering your perception of life isn’t easy but it’s one of the reasons why the self-improvement movement has become so popular. By becoming more productive and crushing your goals, you see yourself as more capable. By practicing gratitude you learn to see, perceive, and appreciate everything great in your life. By figuring out your values and direction, you perceive yourself as someone who has found his life purpose.

Although these improvements are all real and measurable, the crucial thing is how you perceive yourself.

There are tons of people out there who have made it by any objective measure but still view themselves as failures — because their perception is different. They don’t see the tons of money they have, but not enough money. They don’t see the beautiful woman on their side, but someone whose face could be a little prettier. They don’t see a fit and healthy body but fat on their belly.

Your perception determines everything.

The Self-Fulling Prophecy

Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.

— Wayne W. Dyer

The interesting thing is that this does not only work in retrospect. Yes, your past experiences shape your current perception. But at the same time, you can also change your attitude to influence how you perceive things in the future.

In his bestselling book Psycho-Cybernetics, author Maxwell Maltz speaks of our subconscious as a mechanism that will guide us to what we set it to. It’s an inner navigation system we can neither see nor control — our conscious mind sets it up with a task and then it does its thing.

If we expect life to suck, it will suck. We will focus on the negativities, the adversities, and inevitably fail and live a shitty life because we make that our reality. We will see someone wave and think they flip us off.

But if we expect life to be awesome, it will be awesome. We will focus on the positives and awesome experiences. We will live a great life. We will see someone wave and smile and wave back.

Have you ever met someone who is a real sunshine and nothing can bring them down? It’s not that their life is awesome all the time — but they perceive it that way. They focus on the positive even in times of adversity. It’s a conscious decision that turned into a subconscious attitude over time.

I know what you’re going to say. Some people are like that but I’m more of a realist. I worry about things, it’s who I am.

Every time someone tells me “It’s just who I am”, I feel the strong urge to high-five them. In the face. With a chair.

Yes, that is who you are. But it’s your decision if you want to stay that way.

Change Your Perception, Change Your Life

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

— Jim Rohn

Changing your perception and attitude towards life might not be easy, but it’s worth it. There are obvious mental benefits, like living an awesome life. But a cohort study found that higher optimism is also associated with lower mortality risk — even from specific causes such as cancer, heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, and infections.

So yeah, a positive attitude towards life is the hot shit. But how do you achieve it? By working on the small things. If you’ve had a negative outlook on life for years, it will take more than a couple of meditation sessions and some scribbles in a journal to change that. But it’s a good start.

Be grateful for what you have. Tell yourself that today will be a good day. Focus on the small things that make life worth living.

Your perception shapes your reality, whether you like it or not. If you want your life to be awesome, you have to see it that way.

Living a great life isn’t only about adopting a positive perception and attitude. It’s also about avoiding behaviors that hold you back.

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