How many times have you felt that a criticism has left you breathless? Or that a piece of news has unleashed more anguish in you than it really deserved? Many times it is not reality itself that weighs us down, but rather the way we interpret it. What we think about what happens is what amplifies, or lightens, our suffering.

Let’s now take a brief trip back in time. In the middle of a battlefield, in a war that seems to have no end, far from all his loved ones, is the emperor Marcus Aurelius. The only consolation is a diary in which you write down your reflections and thoughts, their Meditations.

This man, who because of his position could have everything, and because of his situation lacked what he wanted most, left us great lessons. Among them, this one helps us understand that reality is not always as we imagine it, and we should not allow our biases and emotions to dominate our perception.

The power of interpretation

The human mind is prodigious, but it is also deeply limited by biases that condition us. We believe that life is a clear and easily interpretable image, when in reality it is something like an optical effect. an illusion. Like Rubin’s Cup. Is it a glass or two faces looking at each other? The truth is that both options are correct.

This, which may be easy for us to understand when we refer to an image, is difficult to extrapolate to real life. And we should do it. Because the truth is that nothing in this world is black or white, and if we commit too much to our personal perceptions We run the risk not only of making mistakes, but of suffering.

Marcus Aurelius had to experience it in his eternal battle to protect Rome from the Germans and Sarmatians, who relentlessly besieged the borders of his empire. From his position of power, He had to consider that not everything he perceived was real. That the truth is something foreign to opinion, something foreign to emotion. Reality is not what we interpret. And so he wrote: «Everything you really hear is an opinion, not a fact. And everything you see is a perspective, not the truth.»

Opinions or facts

This may be one of the most basic distinctions that any human being who wants to undertake the humble mission of living a sensible life must make: differentiate opinions from facts.

Let’s take an everyday example. You arrive at the parking lot near your house and see that there is no space to park. That’s the fact: there is no parking space. It is something you can verify and contrast. It’s a reality. From this fact, you could develop an opinion. For example, “there is no space to park because new neighbors have moved to this area.” It is a perception, an idea. Something that you should question and that you should contrast. If it is verified and it is true that more neighbors have moved, it would become a fact.

On the intellectual level, This exercise can help us live sensibly, make better decisions so that we do not venture to decide based on perceptions, but rather based on facts. In the previous case, instead of crying foul and establishing a terrible relationship with your neighbors, you could end up discovering that many of the parked cars do not actually belong to residents of the area.

Perhaps you could even ask your city council to limit parking to residents and thus resolve the conflict. But if you don’t question your opinions, you are condemned to live in ignorance.

Although what is really interesting about this principle is its application in the emotional sphere. Because just as on the level of thought, perception clouds the facts, Emotions tend to color our experiences.

The domain of reason

The Stoics, contrary to what some modern gurus try to sell us, They never said that we should neutralize our emotionsfar from it. They did tell us, however, that it was important to proceed with temperance. That is to say, that We cannot let emotion dominate us. And we shouldn’t, because the truth is that what we feel does not always correspond to reality.

Let’s imagine an everyday situationonce again, to exemplify it. You walk into the office in the morning, greet your colleague, and all you get from her is a brief murmur. You may feel hurt or scared by their reaction, and your mind may start to scheme. Could it be that he doesn’t like you? Did your comment the other day bother him? He is an unpleasant and rude person who responds terribly in the mornings, there is no doubt. Or not?

Emotions prevail over reasonbut Marcus Aurelius asks us to do a very necessary exercise. Take a step back, breathe and think… What are the facts?

The only fact is that your partner has not responded effusively to your greeting.. Everything else is opinions, conjectures and perceptions. But they are not reality.

With this simple exercise we can, on the one hand, protect our personal relationships from erroneous perceptions. And on the other hand, we will temper our emotions. Because once opinion is questioned, it is possible that what distresses us is not real. And then the emotion, the anger, the annoyance, the fear of being disliked, fades and calms down.