What's Your Perception?

It’s been a busy summer.   I took a job as a substance abuse counselor at a county jail here in Massachusetts and it’s been quite a while since I have worked in a correctional facility.  Although the money isn’t great, the job suits me because it allows me to work with men, many of whom lack any knowledge about emotional management.  I have come to believe that most men who find themselves incarcerated are there because they reacted to negative feelings, rather than thinking about the way they feel and taking the time to assess and strategize a response to those feelings.  

I’m fond of telling guys that our perceptions are our realities.  We react to various stimuli that come at us from every direction based upon our assumptions and our past experiences with those stimuli.  Through our experiences, we often develop biases about people, places, things, and events.  For example, I had a bias about correctional officers before I began working at this particular facility, and that bias told me that most correctional officers were cynical and unfriendly people.  I attributed their cynicism to the nature of their jobs, and my opinion was based upon my experiences working at other facilities where I found many correctional employees wearing their negative emotions on their sleeves.  

Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the overwhelming majority of correctional employees here at the facility that currently employs me are not only friendly, but they will go out of their way to help when help is needed.  One young officer even approached me two days ago and introduced himself to me by name, and that was something that I had NEVER experienced in a jail before.   As a result of my new experiences at my new place of employment, I have had to rethink my biases about correctional employees, which has taught me that perhaps some prisons and jails are more pleasant places to work at than others.  

Bias can certainly be a cause of negative thinking, but there are many more.  Buying into labels can be just as damning.  For example, perhaps you have set a goal for yourself in the past and have told others about it, only to be told that you weren’t pretty enough, smart enough, ambitious enough, or strong enough to accomplish that goal.  Or, maybe someone has called you lazy or unmotivated in the past, and you have allowed those labels to sink into your brain and influence the way you see yourself.  I see a lot of that at the jail.  Many inmates have been labeled losers, or junkies, or addicts by their families and their “friends” following their troubles with law enforcement and consequently have learned to see themselves as those labels.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Your perception is your reality.  If you see yourself as a loser, then you most assuredly have the potential to live up to that label.  But what if you refused to buy into the negative labels others have place upon you, or you have placed upon yourself?  

The last thinking error I will discuss today is rationalizing.  When we rationalize, we are basically finding a way to lie to ourselves that in turn allows us to either do something, or not do something.  Rationalizing allows us to break our own rules.  If I tell myself at the beginning of the week that I am not going to spend any money on coffee at the many coffee shops in my hometown, and then two days later I find myself in the drive-thru line at Dunkin Donuts after telling myself I deserve “this one coffee” because I only slept four hours the night before, I have rationalized away my commitment to stay away spending money unnecessarily at coffee shops.  Or, if I tell myself that I am going to go the gym on Monday night after work and then I talk myself out of it by telling myself I would have a better workout the next morning rather than on Monday night, then I have rationalized my not following through on my commitment to myself.  In essence, we end up changing our perceptions of the importance of our goals in order to free ourselves up to not follow through with them.  

Although I am not always successful, I strive to perceive people places, things, and circumstances in a positive manner because looking at them negatively does not help me accomplish my goals.  I’d be the first one to tell you that our perceptions usually do not change overnight, but they are worth considering because the way you look at things, or at yourself, may be holding you back from reaching your true purpose in life.  After all, we only go around once here!