The Puzzle of Perspectives

How to Own Your Conditioning & Engender Growth

A simple sign of personal growth and mastery is the ability to be aware of your perspective and prejudices, conscious of your toxicity, and adept in choosing consciously —understanding that the world does not revolve around you.

This arrogant idea that everything that happens around us whether negatively or positively is designed as a weapon fashioned against us is overestimating your growth curve and underestimating your conditioning and colored view of the world and those around you.

As much as we would like to argue, everyone does have their truth—a lens through which they view the world, shaped by personal experiences and beliefs, serving to comfort their ego and provide a sense of security. Hence, in conflicts between two parties, neither can be deemed entirely wrong, for each perceives themselves as the victim, taking offense through the filter of their unique perspective.

Our view of the world, people, and circumstances is usually the mind’s way of protecting our ego and learned self where we’d rather be consumed by our thoughts and interpretation than given to true understanding of what is.

Sweet to say in theory. Beautiful to put in writing but a snake to grapple with in action.

Perspective is a puzzle.

A puzzle that requires piecing together as a significant requirement for true growth and transformation.

If you’ve been around my work for a while, you should be familiar with the idea that all that we are is who we’ve become through conditioning over time. Hence, what is proof of growth if you haven’t come to a place where you can own your conditioning, chart a definite course, and exert your free will and conscious choice in given circumstances?

Understanding that the world doesn’t revolve around you even though as a kid, you were unconsciously taught that — it becomes your responsibility as an adult to unlearn and consolidate new pathways for exploring diverse perspectives and building mastery by questioning your perspective per time, per season.

It isn’t always about you or what’s been done to you.

And, I think that in a bid to not be selfish and be protective of our spaces, we fail to realize that reality exists in duality. You have to be selfish to be selfless just as good produces evil. If you do not lean into your selfishness, you cannot express selflessness.

What that would mean is - to be selfish enough to critique your perspective for awareness, consciousness, and mastery. It is the consistency in this process that would then birth selflessness and empathy towards others.

However, when you run away from the uncomfortable truths - you create a demon in the process.

It’s like when you learn to always apologize without being conscious of the WHY of your actions. Apology might look like a noble and humble thing to do but it isn’t. Because you’d rather appear falsely humble than face the truth of your action which may be more unbearable.

An example is a coworker always taking credit for the work of others during a meeting or presentation called to order by a colleague. This coworker apologizes with humility, explaining how that it just happened and it was due to timing. The coworker in the moment would have felt repentant and sorry for his actions while ignoring the why of his actions which was to inflate his ego and assert his value because he felt unseen and unheard in the organization and, simply ignoring his colleagues in his presentation was a way to inflate his ego, assert his value and feel good about himself.

The reality is, when this coworker becomes consistently questioned for his actions, he may resort to victimhood where he makes it seem he had no wrong and the issue was time.

…Perspective…

We would bend the truth as far as we can to avoid the critique of our lenses.

How you see anything is usually a coy to preserve yourself from darkness. You’d rather stand in your view than change your position to see differently for accuracy.

It’s self-preservation but something even worse—self-destruction.

How do we not see that what we try to avoid, we create?

How can we not see that the level of protection we try to extend to ourselves is the very obstacle to our progress?

The idea of our humanness is an obsessive intention towards conscious evolution. Thus, the inability to look behind the walls of our opinions and perspectives slows down our evolutionary path, putting us locked into a prison of our own making for a long time.

You’re an adult and while I understand the conversation around re-parenting and re-schooling your inner child, it’s essential to know that part of growth is owning up to the role you played in perpetuating cycles of destructive behaviors and actively slowing down your evolution path.

To streamline the focus of this essay, this essay focuses on actively being a watcher of your perspective and how it could be a catalyst or impediment to your personal growth and fulfillment.

In a romantic relationship, a woman may perceive her partner’s communication about her shortcomings as a personal attack, regardless of his loving tone. Instead of investigating to understand her loyalty to that perspective, she withdraws, resorts to tantrums, and fails to engage with him. Choosing comfort over introspection, she neglects the part of herself that acknowledges the truth in his words, denying herself the opportunity to explore why she reacted as she did.

From relationship to relationship, it becomes a conversation about all men being the same or how she consistently attracts the same man.

Failing in examination, Consistent in results.

On the other hand, a person may interpret correction as an attack. Failing to investigate the part of them that feels attacked by a true correction. We make this numb by speaking of “how a person said it” rather than how we received it. And, while I understand the context. My question is - for how long would we demand what we can give ourselves from others? Why bother about how a person said a thing rather than considering why you received it in the way you did? Why focus on what it could have meant rather than why you thought it meant what it did?

Why give someone your power?

Perspective…

The significant puzzle that ruins a deck of cards...

Significant relationships. Glorious alliances. Powerful Elevations are surrendered on the bed of this puzzle.

Growth isn’t evident merely in the expansion of your money or the width of your ability. Growth is seen in the awareness of your self and the ability to choose consciously regardless of the discomfort it presents.

When we act like we are not flawed, we escape the path to true growth, meaning, and actualization. It’s funny how we all accept the flawedness of our humanity yet deflect to uphold perfection as a shield of the self because of how we do not want to be seen. We create avatars that deter us from being seen in a way that allows healthy growth, conscious evolution, and accountability.

It’s essential to understand that the puzzle of perspective isn’t first for others. It isn’t about others seeing you but about you seeing yourself. Being too carried away with what others may think, we fail to confront our true thoughts about ourselves. The reality is - when we eventually do, it’s usually because we are somewhat aware that what others think could be true and we’d rather shield ourselves from that truth than explore it to own it and evolve through it.

How else would you define willful transfer of power? 🤷‍♀️

Perspective built out of ego and not intentioned introspection is an anomaly that puts you and everyone around you at risk of your toxicity. The shadow of ourselves we fail to confront becomes the demons we are unable to control. What do you pick?

Un-examined Perspectives

Does it ever bother you (in the slightest way) that what you think and the opinion you have of anything at all (a person, situation, etc) is perspective that is unexamined?

Are you keen on going beyond the shadows of your inflated self to see the walls built behind your view and massage of your feelings?

Do you take the time to investigate the borders of your ego and sense of self and how it impede your ability to see without colors and with more clarity?

They are not questions to be answered just yet. But prompts to guide intense investigation.

Think about a tiff you’ve had recently and use that as a laboratory experiment for this discourse. Was your perspective thoroughly examined?

Now, don’t get me wrong. It’s okay to examine your perspective and still maintain your position. The goal isn’t to change your position but to be aware of what empowered your position and choose to exert deliberate choice to inform your outcomes.

People would intentionally hurt you regardless of your perspective. Examining your perspectives is for you—it doesn’t change the actions or perspectives of others. What’s essential is being aware and in control of whatever position you take. The goal is mastery, true growth, and fulfillment. Hence, this is FIRST about you. You cannot attribute your healing to another as you cannot attribute your growth to another. The onus is on you, for you.

The criticality of this examination is wielding control of your conditioning and owning your power. It’s uncomfortable but rewarding.

You see, it’s easier to go with how you feel failing in the context of examination because your feeling could be an offshoot of anything that is not in any way causatively or correlatively related to the situation or person you put in on.

Another individual cannot be blamed for triggering a trigger they have no idea was a trigger to you. Pinning that on them as the cause of your feelings is gross irresponsibility. Maybe we should shift from simply telling people to watch what they say to teach people to OWN their conditioning because watching what you say isn’t a sustainable practice.

What is good to one may be a trigger to another.

Of course, this doesn’t excuse unthinkable behaviors and the likes as I like to assume that readers of my work and avatars in my universe are in the least, genius at mind and can understand the context of a conversation that spreads across the wise and the foolish.

So, the question this essay should beg in your soul would be —do you examine your perspective? If so, how frequent? Is it dependent on how you feel? Are you selective?

You didn’t play an active part in the paintings on your canvas through childhood. However, it’s your responsibility to own your conditioning and evolve through it. Decide to pursue the path of mastery and be an oligarch in your universe.

Think on these things. It’s critical for the genius mind.

Remember, in a world where you can be anything..BE GENIUS.

– Faith “Genius” Ohio

Writer | Speaker | Thinker

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