Changing the lens changes the outcomes.

There’s a moment most of us recognise, even if we don’t name it. We’re in a conversation, or watching something unfold, and someone sees it completely differently. Not slightly differently, but enough that it feels like we’re not even looking at the same thing. What tends to follow is subtle but familiar. We assume they’ve missed something. Or misunderstood. Or are bringing something of their own that’s distorting what’s obvious. Because from where we’re standing, it is obvious. And that’s often where meaningful conversation stops.

What’s easy to overlook is that they are doing the same thing. From where they’re standing, what they’re seeing also feels obvious. It doesn’t feel like an interpretation to them either. It feels like what’s there. This is what makes disagreement difficult. Not the difference itself, but the sense that one version must be closer to ‘how it is’ than the other.

Underneath this sits something we don’t often pay attention to - the beliefs we hold about the world as a whole. Not specific opinions, but broader assumptions. Whether the world is generally fair or not. Whether people can be trusted. Whether things tend to work out or not. These aren’t ideas we consciously apply. They are an unexamined backdrop or context. And because they sit in the background, they don’t feel like beliefs. They just feel like the way things are.

This is why the same situation can be experienced so differently. An email can be read as neutral, critical, or dismissive. A comment can feel like feedback, judgement, or rejection. A stranger can be seen as friendly, unpredictable, or threatening. The situation hasn’t changed, but the lens through which it is seen has. Most of the time, we don’t question the lens. We move straight to explaining the situation, or the other person, without considering that what we are responding to might already be shaped by our own background, beliefs and interpretations.

This shows up most clearly in our relationships. The tension with a colleague. The frustration with a partner. The repeated disagreement with a friend or family member. It’s easy to focus on what they are doing, or not doing, without considering what we are bringing to it. When we do pause long enough to consider that there might be a lens at play - ours and theirs - something shifts. Not necessarily agreement, but a change in how fixed things seem.

If we see the world as a place where people are likely to let us down, we will find evidence of that. If we see it as a place where people are generally doing their best, we will find that too. Neither position is neutral. Both shape what we notice, what we expect, and how we respond. This isn’t about deciding which belief is ‘right’ but recognising that beliefs are already shaping how we interpret what’s in front of us.

From there, something else becomes possible. We can begin to hold our own view more lightly and become more curious about how someone else has arrived where they have. It becomes less about proving a point and more about understanding other perspectives. And recognising that both of us are working from something that already seems to make sense to us. Choice is often present but not always exercised. Until we notice and observe ourselves, it doesn’t really become choice in any meaningful sense. When we’re certain about what we’re seeing, we tend to move quickly to conclusions, responses, and ‘locked in’ positions.

That awareness is easy to miss, but it matters. It creates space to respond differently. To ask rather than conclude. To stay in the conversation rather than closing it down. And in that space, relationships tend to shift. Not because the world or the circumstances changed, but because we are no longer relying on our first interpretation as the final one. Remembering that we are always seeing through a lens - and that others are too - changes how we listen, how we respond, and how quickly we reach conclusions. It doesn’t remove difference, but it opens up choice – and with choice, comes our growth and our freedom.

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