“How was Japan?”, someone asked me at a conference a few days ago. “It was amazing, it became one of my favorite places in the world. In Tokyo and Kobe everything is well organized, clean, the infrastructure is properly developed, without any apparent traffic jams, the trains come on time, and the people… I liked them a lot. There were 200 people at the Brain Summit, and they made each of us feel like we were welcome guests in their homes. I fell in love with Japan.” “That it’s not true”, someone said. “It’s horrible, all that attention to detail, that humble way of behaving, they gave me a false and artificial feeling”.
I was a little taken aback by this reply. It seemed too negative, harsh, unrealistic, somewhat mean.
A few days ago we had an event about Mental Models, about the filters through which we perceive the world. Those metaphorical goggles are partially genetic, partially a construct of our own experiences, and the human interactions throughout our lives.
After all, neither that person nor I have seen all aspects of Japan, but just a few.
I let myself be seduced by this country, by its people; the other person saw it more with a critical eye. I was in some contexts in which ‘the planets aligned’ and everyone around created favorable contexts; maybe she was in other contexts.
Our natural tendencies are to defend our perspectives. It is similar with the moment you have an idea, you present it to others, you support it, you fall in love with it; it is your idea, the product of your mind, like a ‘child’ of yours. You defend your idea to the bitter end. You cannot see other perspectives because you are in love, seduced; not by something else but by your own idea.
I know, reality is perception – hers, mine, others’. If however, beyond our understanding, we accept that there are other perspectives, that reality is the one seen through my eyes, yours, hers, theirs, if we were a little more willing to rethink our way of thinking, to build other neural pathways, our level of flexibility will increase, and we will adapt faster to our everchanging environment.