I once had a boss who told me there were three sides to every story; “your side, their side, and the truth.”  Sometimes our preconceptions or frustrations influence our perception of an experience.

A classic examples is visiting the local driver license office.  Sometimes as an outsider standing in line you see the license official acting kindly and professionally, but the person in front of you–who is yelling at the clerk, sees something very different.  I drew a simple cartoon to illustrate.

This sadly happens between friends, and family as well.  We perceive something very different from what happened when we get upset, or because we are afraid.

My friend Daniel and I went someplace together and we were turned away.  As we left and discussed what happened, his perception and mine were very different.  I was frustrated and he was quite content.  Once I looked at the situation again from his perspective I felt foolish–because he was right.