We would all like to believe that we are objective and see things as they really are.

We would all be lying if we actually believe we view things as they really are.

Stephen Covey wrote, “the way we see the problem is the problem.” One of his teachings was that we do not see the world as it is, but as we are. When something happens that causes us to see something in a new light, it’s called a paradigm shift.

I had one this morning:

I was driving to work and angry. I had been angry since the previous evening. Things had happened that were unplanned and unexpected, and I had hit my limit. I was at a point where I was essentially forcing my point of view on another person.

Then while I was driving, I used that wonderful human power of self-awareness to look at myself and my actions as if from an outsider’s perspective. I realized that, while I felt I was right and justified in how I was feeling and behaving, I was communicating to someone very close to me that I loved them conditionally.

I never said it, but my behaviors and actions were conveying a message:

“I will love you if you do things my way.”

That realization bowled me over: love is never supposed to be conditional. Once I had made the realization that I was unintentionally communicating this feeling, my whole frame of mind changed. I started to see the problem differently. I immediately apologized and let this person know that my love for them came without strings.

But words alone are not enough; anyone can say what I said. I had to go a step further and make it true.

I wasn’t just saying that would love unconditionally: I actually had to change myself and my feelings on the issue at hand. I had to genuinely accept that I was okay with a certain decision being made, even if I thought it was the wrong one.

That view, that I thought it was the wrong decision, was the problem itself. I realized that it was a decision, not a wrong decision; it was being made from a different point of view than my own. I had to genuinely accept the possibility of an outcome that I didn’t like because my relationship with another person was more important to me than getting my way.

This is one of the secrets to good living: look at the problem you are experiencing as if you were a stranger coming upon the scene. Imagine yourself as a third person looking in at an interaction between yourself and another.

To paraphrase Dr. Covey: how you see the problem is the problem.

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