(7 minute read)

Image by Freepik

(From the previous post) Imagine you are about eight or nine years old walking alone in a field.

It’s a beautiful day. The sky is clear. There is a soft wind and the tops of the trees are moving like waves in the ocean. The smell of spring flowers are the air. It has been a really long winter and it feels especially good to be outside again. Just as those thoughts come to mind, you look down. You see a long, black, shiny, slender object in the sun. You know exactly what it is and your body reacts quicker than you can say the word.

SNAKE!

What Happens In That Split Second? 

Our mind races. The heart pumps faster. Our blood pressure shoots up. Our airways open up, increasing oxygen to the lungs. We start to perspire. Meanwhile, the body is pumping out a number of chemical cocktail elixirs. These elixirs prep us for the instinctual fight or flight response.

Just as we are ready to decide which action to take we take a second look and sigh in relief. Oh, it’s a stick! Our second reaction is usually a laugh. Then a little inner dialogue. Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. 

“You dummy.”

No matter how true that statement is, “it was only a stick.” When we first encountered it, we couldn’t tell our body or brain that. One of those survival instincts took care of us. Our ancestors handed it down to us long ago. In this case, it is one of those instincts that makes it difficult to be hard on ourselves. After all, it could have just as easily been a snake.

Our ancestors who couldn’t recognize dangerous situations did not survive. They were removed from the human gene pool much earlier in the ascension of the human race. We are descendants of those ancestors who survived. The instincts they left us with allowed us to live another day. We can now fight or flee any “anaconda” tree branches that come our way. 

Was it ever a snake? No, of course not. But the perceived danger seemed real enough, didn’t it?

That same fight or flight instinct that keeps us safe can also be triggered by perceived threats. This can cause us anxiety and fear. It can lead to moments of making bad choices. It comes in handy when fighting real and perceived snakes. What do we do, however, when we face complex decisions? We have to try harder to perceive fact from fiction.

Perception is Real …Until it Isn’t

If our perceptions cause fear, it can be a great motivator in a time of crises. Ask anyone who has been labeled a brave person. They will usually tell you that they feel fear just like anyone else. In spite of that fear they remain clear headed and choose to do the right thing.

A few days ago marked the 15th anniversary of Capt. ‘Sully’ Sullenberger miraculous US Airlines Flight 1549 Hudson River landing.

Just after takeoff, the plane hit a flock of geese. As a result, both engines of the Airbus 320 jetliner lost power. With 153 people on board Sullenberger radioed the airport.

“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! This is Cactus [1549]. Hit birds. We’ve lost thrust in both engines. We’re turning back towards LaGuardia,”

Seconds later, he radioed the airport. He didn’t think he could make it back. He said, “We may end up in the Hudson.” The aircraft then indeed land on the Hudson River. The next four hours were rife with peril until all 153 aboard the plane were rescued. Sullenberg was the last to leave the plane.

On the 10th anniversary, in 2019, Sullenberg told ABC news, “I focused solely on controlling the flight path. I solved each problem in turn. Finally, we had solved them all. But we weren’t calm,” he would go on to say. “We couldn’t be calm. The stress was too intense, but we had that focus … to be able to do the job in spite of how stressful it was.”

While fear can be a motivator it can equally cause paralysis or skew our perception. This is especially true under prolonged periods of stressful times, when we have too much time to think.

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”

Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search For Meaning, Touchstone, 1970

Human beings do not just simply exist …we don’t appear here on this earth only to be passive participants. We get to decide at least SOME of what our existence is now and will be …how we spend our time here, what we will be, whom we will be with. We may not have control of everything in our life. We can pick and choose our friends, for example. However, we can’t pick and choose our families.

For the most part, we really have a lot more control over the decisions we make. These often determine whether we live a happy life or not. We can control our perceptions of people, events, and life deciding to face them rather than running away.

Perceptions Power

The thing about perception is it is much easier to change our own. However, it is very difficult to get someone else to change theirs. Ask the president of PepsiCo if that is true. The thing about perception is that we can be so convinced that we are right. Sometimes, this conviction remains even if we are proven wrong.

“To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the cheif thing that philosophy in our age, can still do for those who study it.”

Bertrand Russell, A History Of Western Philosophy, Simon & Schuster/Touchstone, 1967

Socrates constantly admonished his students not to take for granted the things “they knew.” During times of debates he would challenge them with the question, “But why do you think that?” Eventually they were pushed to admitting that they were making assumptions. What they thought “they knew” was based on what others have said, not necessarily something they concluded themselves.

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing,” is a central tenet of Socrates philosophy.

“I don’t know anything, I never did know anything, but now I know I don’t know anything!”

Scrooge, Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

The morning after the three ghosts visit him, there is a powerful bit of dialogue. It sums up the exhilaration that Scrooge feels after his redemption. His transformation is also encapsulated in this moment.

“I don’t know anything, I never did …but now I know…

People have long criticized Dickens’ classic for being trite. But the tale serves as a reminder on the power of changing our perception for a lifetime.

“The way we look out at the world changes how we see these things. Is our perspective truly giving us perspective or is it what’s actually causing the problem? That’s the question.”

The Obstacle Is the Way, Ryan Holiday, Portfolio, 2014

The most powerful words we can speak to ourselves is “What if I’m wrong?” in any of the perceptions and assumptions we make of life. That flexibility doesn’t mean we walk around indecisive about events, people, or places. It simply means we are willing to look at things with an eagerness to learn more. We need to consider the perceptions of others while also considering our own.

PepsiCo fought long and hard to remove the tarnish of a scandal. This incident happened through no fault of their own. They had to endure 18 long months before the general public deemed their product safe again. Only then did customers return to their normal purchasing habits. It was a short-lived crises but a long-lived recovery.

Scrooge lived a long life of selfishness and greed. He perceived the world as a harsh and cruel place. Despite the longevity his new perception was strong enough to cause a dramatic internal change that gave him new life.

As we daily walk through life we will occasionally perceive sticks for snakes. Often the difference in a healthy and happy life is as simple as a slight change in our perception. If you cannot identify sticks from snakes, you may live an angst-filled life. A prolonged period of perceiving sticks as snakes will eventually remove you from the gene pool.

Sources

• NYT, Monday, June 14, 1993 (retrieved online 1/23/2024)
• NYT, Wednesday, June 16, 1993 (retrieved online 1/23/2024)
• NYT, Friday, June 18, 1993 (retrieved online 1/23/2024)
• ABC News, January 15, 2019 (retrieved online 1/23/2024)
• Man’s Search For Meaning, Victor Frankl, Touchstone, 1970
• The Obstacle Is The Way, Ryan Holiday, Portfolio, 2014
• The Certainty Trap, Ilana Redstone, Pitchstone Publishing, 2024