I'm the legacy of my mother. I have always been perfectly perfect to her and I aspired to be her. I always blush and blink with amazement whenever she says that my eyes sparkle like stars, my smile and my kindness are as beautiful as a rainbow, that I sound as a singing bird spreading bubbly joy in the air that I am actively smart and brilliant like a scientist and at the same time calm and peacefully hard working like a butterfly.
I believe that all perceptions are coloured with emotions and our true happiness is based upon the truth who we are. My childhood memories are the bed rock of the architecture of my identity. I think my mother's perception of me is a reflection of herself and my reaction to her perception, is an awareness of me. I appreciate the famous lines from Ramcharitmans by Tulsidas: Jaki rahi bhavna jaisee, Prabhu murat dekhi tin taisee . How beautifully he has described the people's perception about others i.e. the eyes see only what the mind is prepared to comprehend and the doors of perception lie in between the known and the unknown. We know that perception is real even when it is not a reality. And in my case perception of many has converted into my identity. Leonardo da Vinci once aptly said that all our knowledge has its origin in our perceptions. This rings so true, as perception comprises the processes of selecting, organising and interpreting information; how we perceive people and objects around us affects our thought process and responses. I think we organise information based on a certain idea of difference, assuming that the people or objects look or act different from the rest don’t belong with the group.
Interpretation process is attribution, in perceiving others we make impressions about their personality, likeability, attractiveness and somewhere in our mind it is set that first impression is the last impression. My cultural identity also affects my perception, sometimes being conscious of the effects and sometimes not. My perception of myself influences my own making and how do I present myself to others in ways that maintain my sense of self or challenge how they seem.
Long ago one of my friends sent me an illustrated list of five things she didn't gift me on my birthdays, and my favourite was the "I love myself" mirror. Looking into it I passed on the message to myself and not wait for the outside world to announce my specialness. Of course the mirror is harmless enough, helping me to perceive myself as a valuable human being. As an author and researcher, I don’t divide the world into weak and strong or successes and failures, instead I divide the world into learners and non-learners. I'm oriented towards learning and need accurate information about my current abilities in order to learn effectively. My work has allowed me to transform my work with my research students and see research through a different lenses of multiple perceptions. One day one of my doctoral students and I were trying to understand why some students were so caught up in proving their abilities while others could just let go and learn. Suddenly we realised that a changeable ability can be developed with self-perception along with learning and our perception is clouded with mistakes and failures. My perception about my student's intelligence is that the intelligence is something that we have to work for….. it isn’t just given to us. This leads me to understanding the truw potential of my research student, because I think potential is someone’s capacity to develop their skills with effort and guidance over the time. How can I know where my efforts, guidance and time will take any one of my students? I perceive that research opens the doors to think differently to new ideas, possibilities of creating new knowledge and changes our perceptions, leading to transform into an identity. I constantly persuade and motivate my students to publish their research papers as I do, which add validation to their identity.
The essential perceptions of our cultural life are architectured within the fond arms of a family, ensuring the smooth journey of family members to the next stage of existence and reaffirming the social ties as well. Psychologically family mentors typically experience intense emotional attainments, occupational prestige of my family member and subjective perceptions of social status. I know the socioeconomic status ensures a certain quality of life and is attributed by privileges of the family.
In my father's mind there had been a perception of myself being an ideal daughter. Since my childhood I sensed his perception. He gave me room to grow into a full human being who will make contribution to society in a way that excites them. And now looking at me, with a beaming smile he says “I’m amazed at the incredible person, my daughter has become.” Everything I've said about my parents applies to my teachers and my mother in law as well.
My perception about my life partner is based on the belief that "we are like one". My partner knows what I think, feel and need and I know what my partner thinks feels and needs. Although it appears to be difficult but both of us put efforts to fine-tune our relationship and move it to next level .
My friends' perceptions of me and mine of them, set the stage where we get opportunity to enhance each others' development and to validate each others' identity, encouraging each other to make decisions that'd help us grow as human beings, reassuring each other of our fine qualities. I really am thankful to my friends for letting me know of their perceptions about me. Understanding that everyone has a perception allows us to understand these persona. Everyone of us has a journey to make, starting by accepting that we all have perceptions eventually transforming ourselves into a meaningful identity.
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