I am always amused whenever my daughter would have her sights zoomed into her favourite things when we go out - she would shout out in glee when she sees a playground when we are on a taxi or bus. Everything else around is insignificant.
It is true when we say we see what we want to see and that our sense of reality is certainly connected to our perspective of life. A three year old doesn't know anything else except playgrounds, toys and cartoons and to a three year old, this is what life is all about.
When we look around us, we see different people with different interests, people with different levels of understanding of reality, people with different levels of psychological and mental clarity, people with different levels of physical bodies and so on. And what this means is that everyone will zoom into what they are most interested in and what serves their interests.
To a person with money issues, money is constantly in his/her mind. For a person who is looking for a life partner, every man/woman becomes a potential life partner. For this reason, everyone has different opinions about things for everyone sees things from their own perspectives, and most of the time these are varying perspectives. Is it any wonder why there are misunderstandings in the world?
The way to get around this is really to learn to see things from other people's perspectives as well and not to be limited in one's own perspective of life. In the couple counseling that we do, often times, the husbands have one perspective, and the wives another. Neither are wrong, just different. The problem is each partner is trying to force the other partner to see things from their perspective and to do things their way, which in truth, only causes more conflict.
The development of Compassion, a term that is commonly used in some religion/spiritual institutions, is really about developing Understanding. To have Compassion means to come from a level of understanding of others in unconditional love and non-judgment. If people have more compassion for themselves and for other people, there will certainly be less conflicts and greater understanding.
As I observe my daughter's current preoccupation with playgrounds, I am thinking about how her understanding of the world will expand and how her interests will change with different levels of development. I hope that she will grow in her understanding of the world and learn to develop a clear perspective of life.