I read this quote on an everyday blog that I read:
Awareness = our ability to see things as they are vs. how we want them to be
— Rohan Rajiv
Well, that is one way of looking at it. And it has been noodling in my head for the last couple of days.
One of the things as humans is that we see things as we are rather than as they are. It is just one word, but it makes an enormous difference. We are limited by what we know, our sum of experiences and practices. We cannot know what we don’t know so essentially our awareness is limited by things that we are not aware (pun intended) of. And also we perceive things. And perception is based on feelings, not facts.
The dictionary definition of awareness reads as knowledge or perception of a situation or fact.
Knowledge or perception.
Which goes down to this. We need to be aware that in most situations that we are not sufficiently aware. That we are missing a variety of perspectives. Or missing knowledge of facts.
Beware that awareness is often flawed. That our knowledge and perception could be inaccurate. That one thing changes everything.