Rule Breakers

After reading NML's blog Baggage Reclaim for a couple years now there's one thing she says over and over again.  We are not the exception to the rule.  Exceptions happen in fairy tales and romantic comedies.  Human behaviour is incredibly predictable and routine and it will rarely be the case that the "it could happen" actually happens.  We expect to be the exception.

So many conversations about our partners - girls talking about boys in particular - revolve around the hopes and dreams we place on them.  The things we want them to be, rather than the people they are.  We dream up the rom-com scenarios and imagine our guys moving away from normal and into an exception. 

Apparently the rules don't apply to us.  Every single one of us.  So if the rules don't apply to us, who the hell are they applied to?  Rules don't exist unless there are people to follow them.  Yet you can put a group of girls into a conversation and there will be multiple exceptions.  It cannot possibly happen! 

The idea that we will be the expectation is there to prevent us from realizing what is actually happening.  A form of denial if you'd like.  "It's going to happen/change I just know it!" Sounds a lot like avoiding the inevitable to me.  We need to stop expecting to be the exception and start following the rules.

Whose reality is it anyways?

Perception truly is everything, so is it fair for me to presume that what someone else perceives cannot be reality?  Is my viewpoint so informed and clear to state that I am right and they are wrong?  I certainly hope so at least some of the time.  I'd like to think that I possess a level of awareness and understanding to know when reality is really reality.

Countless times I have been listening to someone's perception of a scenario or person and thought, "you just don't get it" or "this makes no sense" or "how could you possibly think that way?"  Then again I'm sure people have thought the same thing with something I've said.  So who is right?  Does it matter?

In many cases I think it does matter if you believe the other person needs a reality check.  If someone's perception is obviously skewed by their emotional state, looking at it from an objective standpoint you should be able to see what they can't.  Yet how do you explain to someone else that what they are seeing isn't reality?  But again how do we know that it is reality.

I recall once listening to someone describe paint colours in a home.  I saw the colours for myself and what we saw was the complete opposite.  The complaint about one colour being too brown I saw as more of a green and vice versa.  But who was right?  I used previous experiences with the same person to figure out who was seeing things correctly.  One particular example is seeing a shirt on them and remarking how well the colour suited them.  Yet the disagreed completely and suggested a completely different colour that supposedly looked good.  I have to trust that my perception would be more accurate than their perception.  It is usually the case that others see us for us while our brains will skew things in our own head.

The best solution I have found so far is to pick my battles.  Take a stand when I truly believe someones perception is flawed and allow them to believe a false reality when it isn't hurting anyone.  It's just hard to figure out whose reality is flawed and when it is time to let them know.