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What is Real?

February 3, 2009 by 7 Comments

I am intrigued by the concept of perception and reality. When I had my first job out of college, at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, I busted my ass. Every day I worked 8-10 hours as an entry level employee at a non-profit. I was filled with passion and verve, but I would get comments about “how I could work harder.” I never quite understood it.

One day, I went to talk to our President. “Why dont people believe I work hard?” I complained.

“Because perception and reality are two separate things.” he replied.

This lesson is something I have hung on to ever since. It sometimes doesnt matter WHAT you do, its how people PERCEIVE you did it.

One of my favorite game shows, The Newlywed Game is based on the perception/reality dynamic.


Newlywed Game – Watch more Entertainment

When I interview someone, the last question I ask is: “If I were to ask the person that knows you best, what word would they use to describe you, and why?”

While the answer is secondary, I often wonder what would happen if I actually asked that other person. Would the word selected be the same?

The “7 things that people dont know about you” and the “25 things about me” memes that have floated around got me thinking about this again. What if someone else was asked to post a list of 10 things (or 5 things) that they thought everyone knew about me. What if I did the same thing at the same time, and the two posts were put together and posted on a blog (maybe both blogs)?

How close would the 10 things be?

How do we make this work in the blog world? Is there anyone that would like to help me get this started? Basically, its a buddy post. You select a friend. You ask them to list out 10 things they think everyone knows about you. You do the same. And then put the two lists together in a single post.

See how close the two lists are…..

What do you think?

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Hayes/4813233 Chris Hayes

    I love this idea, Micah.

    Of course, I'm more than a little obsessed with perception/reality, myself… and pretty certain my intentions get lost in the perception of my actions all the time.

    I haven't gotten around to doing the two memes on facebook, yet, though I've seen them floating around. But I—like you—think the really interesting stuff is in this disparity. If I knew just a bit more about you, I'd offer to do a buddy post, myself.

    Also, I'm not a fan of Disqus, from my experience here – it would keep failing in Safari… and replacing the comment box with a frame with their error page in it.

  • http://www.davidspinks.com David Spinks

    I think you're going to cause the end of a lot of close friendships! Just kidding…kind of. That is to say that I absolutely think that a lot of the answers in the two different lists will be very different. It's a very frustrating situation when you truly believe that you work very hard when others perceive otherwise. It almost detrimental to productivity because people begin to try to be perceived as something when in reality they are not. I think a big part of the misconception of “hard work” is the great deal of focus put on numbers, or quantity over quality. Someone who pays close attention to detail and works very hard to provide quality results may be perceived to not be working as hard as others who put out as many results as possible without paying much attention to detail and quality.

    That's enough rambling. Very interesting discussion though. I will have to give it more thought.

    Dave

  • http://learntoduck.com micah

    Wondering if the questions should be leading… like Micah's favorite food is XXXXX; Micah's used a XXXX computer…

  • http://www.onebyonemedia.com Jim "Genuine" Turner

    I had a plaque on my desk when i worked for the man. It said “Don't Confuse Effort With Results.” I'm pretty sure my boss hated it.

  • http://alli.posterous.com AlliG

    After much harassment from friends who were offended that I hadn't responded to “25 things,” I tried to craft a list last weekend. I was completely immobilized because of this very issue. I started putting “things” that acknowledged my conflict, but then I just sounded neurotic. In the end, I abandoned the list. If I get more complaints about my failure to respond, perhaps I'll just invite those friends to write my list for me…

  • http://geekmommy.net GeekMommy

    I have some old friends (as in, known for more than 25 yrs now whoa) that every few years after we were in our 20's we'd sit down, just us, get drunk and “debyth the monks” (drunken interpretation of debunking the myths that stuck) and play the “OMG everyone always thought XXX about you…” “well, no… if XXX then YYY wouldn't be true. I was ZZZ.”

    My favorite I always remember fondly was several of them saying “We always thought you were so mysterious and unpredictable… 'will she show up to the party? won't she? will she come alone? or with other people?' You seemed to have no pattern…” My reply “yeah, that one? Really deep and mysterious – I showed up whenever you guys remembered to tell me about it and if no one else would give me a ride, I came alone. It wasn't mysterious – you guys sucked at remembering to tell me.”

    I'm of the firm opinion all good friends should debyth their monks on a semi-regular basis.
    :)

  • http://geekmommy.net Lucretia (GeekMommy) Pruitt

    I have some old friends (as in, known for more than 25 yrs now whoa) that every few years after we were in our 20's we'd sit down, just us, get drunk and “debyth the monks” (drunken interpretation of debunking the myths that stuck) and play the “OMG everyone always thought XXX about you…” “well, no… if XXX then YYY wouldn't be true. I was ZZZ.”

    My favorite I always remember fondly was several of them saying “We always thought you were so mysterious and unpredictable… 'will she show up to the party? won't she? will she come alone? or with other people?' You seemed to have no pattern…” My reply “yeah, that one? Really deep and mysterious – I showed up whenever you guys remembered to tell me about it and if no one else would give me a ride, I came alone. It wasn't mysterious – you guys sucked at remembering to tell me.”

    I'm of the firm opinion all good friends should debyth their monks on a semi-regular basis.
    :)