Let's take a simple case in point: The photo on the left represents part of my harvest of veggies from my small garden. My perception is that my harvest was a very satisfying one. Considering I didn't put hours and hours of work into it, I was extraordinarily pleased to have lots to eat, freeze and share with others. Someone else might have a different perception. A master gardener given the same opportunity, plot of land, northern summer, might raise five times my harvest and thus have the perception that my harvest is meager. Where is the truth? The truth is something wider: when it comes to gardening your time, effort, and expertise make for a different harvest. (The weather makes a big difference too!)
Our perceptions are often coloured by unresolved emotional or subconscious issues. These can obscur the truth of what is in front of us. If someone has been bullied as a child, they may perceive a situation in a school yard as bullying more readily than someone who never had that experience. That doesn't mean the particular situation is bullying. If the incident involved children who are equals in power, it is a conflict and not bullying. An investigation of the facts would let one know whether it was or was not a bullying situation. Misinterpretations abound due to limited perception, yet truth remains.
Staying positive in a sea of other people's perceptions demands a centred core of understanding about who one is. People may perceive things about you (Or think they do!) and while their perceptions are worth checking out, they are not necessarily truth. A job situation, while seen by some as hopeless, is seen by another as a challenge and taken on with relish. The person who sees it positively is often successful after a time, while the one who saw the situation as hopeless and kept reinforcing this belief by telling others how nothing could be done to rectify it, is incredulous faced with the other's success. Positive thinking is the simple outward sign of a deeper creation process at work here. In truth our existence is often devoid of negative or positive until we pass judgment on it. If our subconscious mind or our experiences colour it negative, then we see it that way, if not then we are open to the positive aspects.
Perception is not truth. Truth is truth. But perception colouring our reality can make that perception become our reality. Then it would true enough, I suppose. Comments?