Perception is reality. But is it really? Every day, we decide how we want to be perceived. Through our clothing choices, the way we do our hair, if we decide to wear makeup, even who we are hanging out with, all shape how we are perceived. With this, every day we are gazed at by outside people. We have no idea what they are thinking, if they are even thinking about us, or if they even noticed us, but when we see someone look in our direction, we immediately begin to think about what they might be thinking of us. We wonder how we are perceived to others and we jump to conclusions of their thoughts. But isn’t what we believe they are thinking about us actually how we think about ourselves? We come up with these ideas in our heads of how we are perceived to others but unless we are explicitly told, these are just ideas. They are actually just what we think about ourselves. It is our own thoughts coming up with our perception.

So, perception is not reality. Perception is how WE personally believe others are viewing us. It is how we choose to display ourselves and how we think that by us displaying ourselves in that way we are going to be perceived in a certain way. Perception is fully in our minds where if we think about something long enough, we turn that belief into reality. It’s a lens we put on ourselves through which we view our realities and what we think other people’s realities are. These perceptions allow us to focus, process, and act on reality. It causes a tendency to assume that how we are perceiving reality is actually how reality truly is. But it’s not. The lens is warped. It is warped by society, by our genetic predispositions, our past experiences, emotions, knowledge, notions and self-interest. People can argue that reality doesn’t essentially exist (many philosophers did), but it is instead a biased creation because we do not experience reality directly. Rather, we experience reality through a sense that limits how we process reality.