Points of View

I recently had a conversation with one of my friends from the US. The topic was on how people looked at things. At that time, she was writing a paper on the religion of the Argonauts (don’t ask me what this means because I’m as clueless as you) She was saying that they practised magic but took it as their religion but some people felt otherwise, that this was not religion but black magic practise. And I said, “Well, different people look at things differently” and she agreed.

All of us have different way of looking at things. One of the famous adage would be the “half full” or “half empty” glass perspective. To some, the glass may be half empty but to some it may be half full. It is all a matter of perspective. No one is wrong or at fault for looking at things the way they see it. How we look at things are conditioned by our upbringing and social exposure. Just because someone sees things differently from us doesn’t mean they’re wrong and we are right and vice versa. It is all a matter of perspective.

One of the things that helped me to look at both sides of the coin is a subject which I learnt in the first year of my seminary training. It was called TA – Transactional Analysis. This has nothing with financial transaction or analysis. This analysis helps us to look at the three levels of behaviour a person might be communicating from. Labelled PAC, they are Parent, Adult and Child. Being able to analyse from which level the other individual is communicating from and also looking at where we are communicating from will help us to bring the level of communication to the same level. Of course, this is easier said than done.

Perhaps it would be easier if an example is given. Let us say that A and B are talking to each other. As the conversation progresses, it becomes more and more heated and there is danger of eruption on both sides. At this instance, either A or B needs to see where the other person is coming from. If one of them know how to analyse the way the other way is talking and acting, then he/she can determine at level the other person is at. Let us say that A is talking at the level of an adult and B is talking at the level of a child, the challenge then would be for A to bring B up to the level of an adult or A has to lower himself to the level of a child. It is only when the two parties are talking at the same level that effective communication can take place.

Of course, the best level of communication would be between adult and adult. Parents often sound more authoritative and commanding and a child very often acts, well, like a child. So to have a fruitful conversation, both parties must be brought to the adult state. This is, of course, difficult to do as many of us do not know how to do it. I personally find it hard at times too as my ego kicks in and I start fighting fire with fire. But this will not help because emotions often cloud our rationality and we will not be able to see the other person’s point of view. We would think that we are in the right and the other person is in the wrong. And we would go all the way to prove that the person is indeed wrong. This is why so many relationships and friendships breakdown because we would not or are unable to see the other person’s viewpoint.

In the gospels, Jesus says something about seeing the point of view of others. “Why do you observe the splinter in your brother's eye and never notice the great log in your own?” (Mt 7:3) We usually have the tendency to think that we are right and others are wrong. But not everyone is like that, all of us, however, are like that to a certain degree. Whether we like it or not, this is what we are and we have to learn to accept that sometimes we just don’t want to see the other person’s view.

The greatest challenge would be for us to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes and see things from their perspective. It is very difficult to do so because many a times, we do not know what exactly the other person is thinking about. But if we can make an effort to try, the result would be amazing. I have experienced this before and it is indeed very rewarding to be able to see and understand where the other person is coming from. The question still remains, will we or would we want to see the point of view of others? That is the $50,000 question.

To conclude, I’d like to include a quote from a therapist I used to see during my seminary days – her name is Sr Cyrilla Baptist, FMDM. She used to tell us to “phrase our words or questions in such a way that would help both the parties to grow” Indeed, when we are able to see the viewpoint of others, we will be able to help ourselves and the other party to grow too. If we are able to do that to every person we meet, we can help in making this world a better place to live in.