9.09.2010

on my mind for days.

"none of us see the world as it is, but rather only as we are." 
-unknown


back in my freshman year of college i was in a student success class and we were learning about filters. these consist of things that contribute to how we personally see the world. the professor had us each right down our personal filters & i wrote the following:


girl
mormon
18 years old
oldest in my family
red personality
republican
single
american
college student
living on my own


each of these things had a huge impact in how i viewed other people, made choices, & interpreted the world around me. my professor then told us that a lot of people don't even realize they have these filters & its important to realize that we do so that we can try to better understand other people. 


sometimes i think i have been so closed in my own filters that i haven't taken enough time to look outside them and see how others see the world. not that i necessarily need to change but that i need to expand them. that just maybe i could take a step back from my filters sometimes & consider the world through someone else's. i would gain a new understanding of that person. and add to my own understanding of the differences of people around me. because: 


"There are as many ways to live in this world as there are people in this world, and each one deserves a closer look." -golly


sometimes i am sitting in class zoned out of the lecture just thinking about how big the world really is. it overwhelms me. (but, in a good way). i just feel that there is so much out there to learn, understand, & experience and i have only touched the surface. maybe this doesn't bother other people as much as it bothers me but for some reason i have found this huge desire to expand my knowledge. to consider all ways. i almost think i'll never feel fully satisfied until i do.


"we don't see things as they are, we see things how we are." -also unknown

4 comments:

  1. I remember sitting in Central Park on a Sunday afternoon and looking at all the different people from so many places with so many stories to tell, then I noticed that every family had spread a blanket about six inches from the next family. When that many different people have to learn to live in such close proximity to each other they have to be SOOO much more liberal minded and tolerant than we do in the west where when you go out for a picnic you don't want anyone in the same canyon with you. Anyway, if that makes sense, I think where we live totally shapes us. Similarly, London was such a melting pot of nationalities, languages, food, how could any one person ever feel like they had life totally figured out. Sometimes, even a trip to Downtown SLC opens my eyes to new way of seeing the world (ever been to the Farmer's Market?) This is such a great post--I will need to think again about the filters that I look through.

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  2. I love this post so much.

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  3. that was a really good post linz! I try to do this almost everyday. That is something that Jeremy and I do all the time when looking at how all these people live here. For example, the other day Jeremy was telling me a story about this mega yacht that came in and they bought gas. Gas was 2.79 and that got 30,000 GALLONS! for their boat, so that they could just go cruise somewhere. To me this was mind boggling. How someone can spend that much money on a recreation thing. When I have to budget myself when going to the grocery story and when we can eat out. So I always try to think about the people that do more than I when budgeting or just how different everyone's lives are. I do think that I do a pretty good job trying to understand other people's world view.

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