Understanding each other

I think that the most difficult thing for us lately is understanding each other. Why do we have so many different opinions about everything? Well, no two people are expected to agree on everything, that’s true. But what can we do to start understanding each other better? Here goes some suggestions.

Recognize that we see the world subjectively

When I was young I heard about an experiment. I don’t remember if it was in a book. It could have been on the TV or at school. But I decided to try it by myself. It consisted in filling three buckets with water. The first was at room temperature, the second was ice cold, and the third was warm. Then I was supposed to leave one of my hands in the ice cold water. The other hand went in the warm water. Both stayed there for a few minutes until I felt they were not cold or warm anymore. After that I put my two hands together at the bucket at room temperature. I was surprised to see that the ice cold hand felt warm. The warm hand felt ice cold. And both were in the same water!

This illustrates how we don’t perceive reality objectively. Everything is affected by the circumstances we are in at the moment, and our experiences are subjective. This influences how two people might be having different impressions of the same event. These two people are like the two hands. They are living the same occurrence, but they didn’t get there the same.

Understand that other people may have different information

When we acknowledge that other people may have different information than we have, we start to understand why we think differently. Additionally, when we concede that they are not irrational, we begin to realize something important. They may actually be as intelligent as we are. They are simply reasoning logically from different premises. That also explains a lot. Finally, they may not be as biased as we think they are. They can be really honest in their assumptions. They may be searching for the truth the same way we are. At the very least, we can give other people the benefit of the doubt. We should not assume that they are ill-intentioned in their beliefs.

Even with the same facts and experiences, two people might see things differently

No two people are raised the same. There are differences of age, beliefs, cultural upbringing, social-economic backgrounds, among many others. Not even twins are exactly the same. There is something in their constitution, in their molecules, in the food that they ate, or the books that they read that makes them fundamentally different. And this is OK.

I believe these are some good approaches for us to start understanding each other. But what about you? Do you agree or disagree? I promise I will try to understand your opinion!