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Key Thought for this session:

“My worldviews are what make me think, feel, and act as I do.”

This story raises questions about how our worldviews influence what we believe to be reality, and how our conclusions may or may not align with what the story teller actually intended for us to know. You can also see that you might feel differently about situations depending on where you are in the situation. Actually, there are 20 different possible combination of answers to these two questions that we just reviewed together. And, believe it or not, there is such a variety of worldviews among those around you that all 20 of those combinations could be honestly answered by someone.

How do you relate to people who would respond in a way that is different from you? Can you see that different THINKING would cause them to FEEL differently about the situation than you do? And then their different feelings will lead them to ACT differently from what you would do? And its all tied into the fact that their worldview is different from your worldview.

This realization may be a bit challenging as you try to figure out what to do with its implications about how you develop and maintain relationships, or at least interact, with others.

And actually, you are not alone. This analysis does a good job of pointing out well how a person’s worldview can dramatically affect how they see and respond to a situation. And, back to the story, we can SEE that if we have a different worldview from the story teller, then we would understand the intended main point (or truth) about the story differently from what the story teller actually wishes for us to know.

It is no surprise that everyone does not view reality in exactly the same way. So, who is right?

How do you settle on one perspective as true when people reach different conclusions based on how they experience a situation? How would two people with different perspectives ever come to agreement? Does it matter if two people see the same thing in two different ways? We will let these questions just hang around for now. The answer is not simple.

What I’d like to do is take a few moments to talk with you about something related and significant. Since everyone does not see the world in the same way, how do differences in peoples’ worldviews affect success when people try to do something together?

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