6 or 9? I feel, it's both.

She said that that is 6 but he denied and claimed that that is 9. Both of them they kept on fighting with each other till hours,over this. But they didn't realise that they were standing in front of each other and hence what was 6 for her was 9 for him and which was very natural and obvious.

This is not a story from any other planet. This is our 'common' story. We are so stuck to perceive things from our perspectives and to believe them as true that sometimes (actually very often) we deny others' reality. We are so 'sure' about our perspectives, opinions, thoughts that we often overlook and sometimes disrespect others' point of views. We see 6 and others see 9.

Who is at fault here? I think both the parties.

Being stuck at own perspectives and opinions and thus disrespecting and denying that of others is one of the root causes (or rather the only one) of most of  fights on this planet.

There is beautiful theory in Social Psychology, 'Contact hypothesis' which allows two parties to stand in each others' shoes and thus understanding each others' perspectives, opinions and thoughts. It's very near to the concept of 'role plays'.

Whenever we find ourselves opposing others, cognitively, emotionally or behaviourally; we should try to 'play their roles'. It will enable us to understand their point of views. It will make us understand why something is 6 for us and 9 for them.

But it doesn't mean that we should always take others' roles and lose our roles. No, I am not stating here that in process of understanding others, we should lose our reality. I am just saying that we need to respect each others' perspectives and thus reality so that there would be less fights, less violence, less misery, less sadness, less bitterness in the world. And respecting others' perspectives, opinions, world views without completely dropping down ours is possible, though difficult.

I wish we would reach a state of healthy tolerance so that the world would see more peace.

Take care.

Have a peaceful day.

- Dipti S. A. Shinde

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