Perception and Reality, is there really a difference?

This is one of my favorite writings from my friend Naz. He is such a talented writer. He writes truth and doesn't stumble on telling it; when he speaks he is straightforward and I really appreciate that attribute in people His writings are all his, all original. ~Liz

As the story is told a young boy appears before his father with tears in his eyes. His father, a caring man asks his young son what’s the matter? The young boy tells his father that he has a paper due at school and is struggling mightily because he just can’t find the answers he needs and is afraid he will fail.

His father tells his young son to settle down, explain his problem and he assures him that he can help.

The boy wipes the tears from his eyes and explains to his dad that he needs to write a paper about the difference between perception and reality and he just can’t figure out the difference. Every time he thinks he knows he realizes that what he thought was true really was not.

His father tells his young son not to worry as the answer he seeks is really quite simple. He tells his son that his mom is down in the laundry room doing some laundry and tells him to go down and ask his mom if she would sleep with a total stranger for a million dollars.

A few moments later the young boy appears before his father and says mom said sure. The father smiles and tells his son his older sister is up in her room doing homework adding he should poke his head in her room and ask her the same question.

A few moments later the young boy returns to tell his father that his sister said yes as well.

So the father sits his young son down and tells him to listen carefully.

Son, the perception is we are millionaires; the reality is we live with a couple of sluts!


I never got a lot of advice growing up but one thing I was told was that it matters not what you really do, what matters is what people perceive you to do. I know many who will vehemently disagree with that advice but when you really look at it is it good or bad advice?

A corporation has a policy that states dating between co-workers is grounds for termination. A male and female employee enjoy each other’s company and conversation and find themselves going to lunch together every day. In no time at all the perception in the office is the two are having an affair. The reality is they are just friends and do nothing but talk and eat at lunch. Perception gets them terminated.

The difference between perception and reality often times gets so skewed that we ourselves begin to believe the perception we have and before we know it we think it’s reality.

Our perception is that the economy is horrible, everything that can go wrong is going wrong, and frankly our life just not fair right now. The reality is thousands of people just lost their lives and loved ones in an earthquake in Haiti and we should feel thankful that we were not there at the time.

Our perception is our boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, or significant other is totally in love with us and we will live happily ever after. The reality is they are in love alright but with somebody else.

I could go on and one with example after example and the perception would be that I make a great point but the reality is I’m not saying anything you don’t already know.

The difference between perception and reality is actually so important that two people can look at the very same set of circumstances and because their perception of what happened is different they have diametrically opposed opinions of what they believe to be true.

My father, may he rest in peace, and I did not speak for years. We were and are two hard headed Italians neither willing to give on our opinion of what we believed and neither willing to see the others point of view. My perception was my father didn’t care what happened to me, didn’t have time for me, was selfish, and only cared about him. His perception was I was a hard headed kid that didn’t want to listen, thought he was always right, and wouldn’t take his advice even if he gave it so why bother.

The reality turned out to be that what my father wanted was for me to learn to be independent, strong, and able to take of myself so his indifference or what I perceived to be his uncaring was really nothing more than his way to force me to think my problems through and figure out the solutions myself whereby learning not to rely on others to make it through life.

Many of you who know me know that I have a brother that has been a lifelong drug addict in and out of jail, shelters, and living on the streets. My perception of him has always been he was lazy, spineless, and ran away from life’s challenges via a bottle be it alcohol or drugs. His perception was that society didn’t understand him, he didn’t fit in, and he could not get along with people. The reality is, now that he is in recovery, his health deteriorating at a rate that will not allow him to be with us much longer, is he has realized he as a person has never given society a chance because they never met him. They only met the drugs he was taking. I’ve recently learned the reality is my brother has more courage in his little finger than I could ever have in a lifetime.

I watched my brother listen intently as the doctors explained to him that the elective surgery he was about to undertake may well kill him. In fact the doctor told him “If I had to give you my top ten all time list of patients I would least like to operate on you would be on the top of the list”. You see, my brother recently fell and broke his hip due to a stroke which occurred from an operation back in September. The cause of the stroke was his failing livers ability to get his blood to clot. Nothing had changed in the past three months so the chance of another stroke with his new surgery was extremely high.

After hearing the doctor explain to him that surgery may well kill him but lack of surgery would mean he would never leave his bed again, my brother looked me in the eye and said “bro I’ve lived my whole life on drugs and I have to get out there and let people know how bad they are, I can’t accomplish that goal from bed” let’s do this thing.
So the next time you find yourself with your head in your hands feeling sorry for yourself, feeling sorry for someone else, wondering how life could be so unfair or how someone could do such a thing to you, don’t forget to ask yourself is what you are so worried about your perception or is it reality. And by all means if your worries involve another person make sure you talk to each other open and honestly about your perception and theirs because more often than not you will find you don’t disagree at all, you simply have different perceptions of reality.
Then when you’re done ask yourself was the advice I received as a young man really that bad?