A vast majority of us live our whole lives solely based on the circumstances that we lived with, forming our own opinions on things, some strong, some weak. This is why, when we encounter people with differing opinions to ours, we oftentimes have a hard time understanding or even comprehending them. This set of ideas attempts to provide a personal framework to help us be more understanding and be more sensitive to things that revolve around us.

How to be more understanding of the world around us?

Based on several studies, it's found that we tend to retain and recall things better when provided in sets of threes. Following this, the framework can be broadly divided into these 'pillars':<ol><li>Awareness (A)</li><li>Perspective (P)</li><li>Consistency (C)</li></ol>Collectively, I prefer to call this the Framework of Understanding.

The pillars of the framework

The concept of awareness in the context of developing a better understanding revolves around mindfulness.The simplest way to be more mindful is to go about daily life as if someone is watching you. You can experiment with this. We tend to relax ourselves when we are alone and are conscious of our actions when we know we are being monitored.The output of this activity is to just be aware of the simplest of tasks we do regularly. For ex., brushing your teeth, having a conversation etc.Just think that you are being evaluated, and you'll be aware of everything that goes around you.

Awareness

"Put yourself in someone else's shoes", is better said than done, but it is the core principle behind cultivating various perspectives.Think of a candle in a dark room, first from the doorway, and then through a window. We see the same 'candle' but yet we see it differently.The idea behind this pillar is to apply perspective towards truth in our daily lives.Each time we ponder on what's right and wrong, having different perspectives would enable us to consider the possibility that the truth is probably like the candle in the dark room.

Perspective 

In order to evolve one's outlook, we also need the awareness of gaining new perspectives.The key to this lies in a simple reminder every 2 weeks to reflect on how you have been different from your 'usual' self over the last 2 weeks.You don't need to write it all down, but just admire yourself for all the times you acted out of the 'ordinary' because of all the new perspectives you had. And if you do write it down, one day you'll have a timeline of how you changed for the better.

Consistency

As it can be guessed at this point, the Framework of Understanding is itself evolving over time, and the pillars may need maintenance and reconstructing over time.:)

The Future

These ideas have come out pondering long and hard about how I could  be more empathetic in my day to day life. :)

How to be more understanding of the world around us?

Vivek Nair