One event. Multiple Stories. Why? pt2

Because of the tint applied to our vision there are things that happened that I will not have seen but you will and vice versa. And there are things that happened that neither of us will have seen.

Finally and probably the biggest one of them all is generalization. Life is complex and intricate. We would run out of time and get nothing done if every time we spoke about an event we started from the beginning and filled in every single detail of what happened.

For example, I can tell you I made a sandwich. Or I can tell you each step involved in making my lunch, every ingredient that went into it, where I found each one, how I decided what went into it and what did not, and how it compared with other sandwiches, that I have eaten. All of that data is relevant and I might share it once, but not every time I make or eat a sandwich, because I know you don't care about most of those things and through your own process of deleting, distorting and generalizing, most of what you are going to remember is that I told you a story about a sandwich.

Each day is made up of thousands of such events. Our mind breaks these complex sequences of events down to the most important most relevant details and generalizes the whole experience into the simplest to remember.

To sum up, we actually destroy the truth and replace it with a similar but much more convenient lie. And that is why one event with multiple witnesses will have multiple different stories, depending on who is called to task to tell the story.

Through the use of recording devices we can often get a more clear picture of things and that is one way of getting to the truth. But is is also possible for us to modify the delete,distort and generalization process so that our own story is closer to the truth. In fact, that is part of what self empowerment is about, being more conscious of what is going on around you, being better at observing and remembering what you experience. It does take conscious effort and will but I think it is worth it.

It is my personal mission in life to make my experience, my memory of everything that happens to me  be as close to the truth as possible as often as possible. Being able to tell the truth about something when asked what happened is important to me. Does it matter to you?

If it does, then make a new decision for yourself. Starting today do everything in your power to be more conscious of things that are going on around you. Be more present and aware of things as they actually happen. Make a conscious effort to remember things in as vivid of detail as possible. It may not happen immediately, but over time you should get better at recalling what actually happened.

Who knows? Maybe one day seven or eight out of ten people might actually be able to tell the same exact story about an event and have it be the truth.