What If Two People Can Both Be Right?

One thing I’ve been thinking about recently is how easily we assume that our perspective is the reality of a situation.

Two people can experience exactly the same conversation and walk away with completely different interpretations. One person might think they were being honest, while the other thinks they were being rude. Someone might believe they were giving another person space, while that person experiences it as being ignored.

What makes this difficult is that neither person necessarily has to be lying or deliberately misunderstanding what happened. We experience situations through our own emotions, previous experiences, expectations and values. Something that seems insignificant to one person might carry a completely different meaning for someone else.

I think perspective skills become especially important during disagreements. Instead of immediately trying to prove that our interpretation is correct, we can become curious about why the other person experienced the situation differently. Understanding their perspective doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with it either.

Maybe sometimes resolving conflict isn’t about deciding who was right and who was wrong. It can simply be recognising that the same situation looked completely different from the other side.

Have you ever been completely certain you were right about a situation, only to understand it differently after hearing someone else’s perspective?