One of my mostly highly admired authors, Stephen Covey, said when people look at the world, what they see is not the world "as it is" but "as they are", or words to that effect.
What we see are people or objects, and in themselves, these do not really have any meaning, except the meanings that we, the individual observers, attach to them. And each individual will attach a meaning based on their own background. The same situation viewed by two observers will be get two different meanings.
A story is told of a salesman working for the shoe company Bata, who went to a remote village in Malawi with a van load of shoes. When he got to the village, he was disappointed and sent a message to his manager, which read, "No hope of selling shoes here. All the villagers do not wear shoes. I coming right back with the van, still loaded."
A short while later, another salesman, who had been deployed to a different area, strayed into that village. He sent a different message to his manager, which read, "I have just arrived in village so.. so, nobody has shoes here. There is plenty of opportunity to sell our shoes. I have already sold some and I have run out. Please send a driver with another van load of shoes!"
The same situation interpreted differently by different individuals whose attitudes are different. One was negative and saw the situation through negative lens. The other one saw it through positive lens. It all boils down to attitudes.
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