perception is reality.

a guy I used to know taught me that phrase--perception is reality. It makes me think of two other important phrases I have learned in life--one is "it all pays the same." the other is "agree to disagree."

these little nuggets of wisdom come in handy pretty often. and I have gotten VERY good at agreeing to disagree, and I still work on remembering, sometimes, that it all pays the same.

I think about how perception is reality really often though.

A couple of days ago a gal I knew in Tulsa and I had lunch. She was telling me how hard it was to live in her previous city--because of other peoples' realities. Like, she has the same kind of crazy ass conversations that I have with my mother or sister (e.g., explaining why, when you have $200 to your name, it is unwise to have a burger and fries delivered to your door, eat half of it, realize it was made wrong, ask for a new one and when they decline to give you one, go ahead and order another one. that's a $45 meal. for a BURGER and FRIES.). And then she told me how, right after being on the phone with her mom, who was in the midst of a ridiculous situation, a gal came to her door, one of her husband's coworkers wives, if I'm recalling correctly, and was in TEARS. In tears because she had told her parents, very specifically, exactly what kind of yacht she wanted, and they had gotten her a yacht that wasn't what she wanted, that it was a terrible yacht, and she was unhappy with it.

hellllllllllo perspective. and perception. and two very different realities.

anyway, it just made me think--about how I know everyone has their own crap with which to deal, and how I thought, today, as I cried a little in my cube, that normal people don't deal with the kind of family bizarro-ness that I'm experiencing. but then I remembered that, to them, it's the same crazy in a different packaging. and somehow that was oddly comforting. :)