Attitude means perspective or viewpoint, the mental framework, which we use to frame our view of life, to give events and experiences a consistent meaning.
Your Attitude is how you interpret your life experiences — your individual take on life in general — how you make sense of reality.
Attitude is a part of the personality, that enables us to interpret reality in a consistent way. People primarily form their attitudes from underlying values and beliefs.
Think of it as the 'lens' through which you see your life unfolding.
Every Attitude is, in effect, a ‘bias’ in how we interpret our life experiences. For example: Realism is biased towards paying attention to the solid facts and their consequences. Cynicism is biased against non-facts.
In fact, there is no way to mentally construct reality without one bias or another. Our everyday life is more chaotic and uncertain, a jumble of events and experiences, one after another. Our Attitude is how we join together our experiences to form a coherent mental picture or story of life as we live it.
By way of example, let's consider one has the Attitude of Idealism. He/She tends to look at life in terms of how perfect it could be. He/She looks for ways in which life is good, or better than it seems, or could be made better than it is. His/Her mental framework automatically reconstructs everyday life events so that they fit some perfect, ideal pattern.
Research has identified seven ways of framing life (seven types of lenses). You can probably relate to all of them to some extent, but your personality will be marked by one dominant Attitude (one lens).
Your Attitude is how you interpret your life experiences — your individual take on life in general — how you make sense of reality.
Attitude is a part of the personality, that enables us to interpret reality in a consistent way. People primarily form their attitudes from underlying values and beliefs.
Think of it as the 'lens' through which you see your life unfolding.
Every Attitude is, in effect, a ‘bias’ in how we interpret our life experiences. For example: Realism is biased towards paying attention to the solid facts and their consequences. Cynicism is biased against non-facts.
In fact, there is no way to mentally construct reality without one bias or another. Our everyday life is more chaotic and uncertain, a jumble of events and experiences, one after another. Our Attitude is how we join together our experiences to form a coherent mental picture or story of life as we live it.
By way of example, let's consider one has the Attitude of Idealism. He/She tends to look at life in terms of how perfect it could be. He/She looks for ways in which life is good, or better than it seems, or could be made better than it is. His/Her mental framework automatically reconstructs everyday life events so that they fit some perfect, ideal pattern.
Research has identified seven ways of framing life (seven types of lenses). You can probably relate to all of them to some extent, but your personality will be marked by one dominant Attitude (one lens).
Stoicism - Stoics refuse to allow any experience of life to disturb their inner peace and calm. “There’s no need to get excited.”
Skepticism - Skeptics refuse to accept false ideas, so they put dubious-sounding ideas to the test, or simply reject them outright. “I’ll believe it when I see it for myself.”
Cynicism - Cynics challenge non-facts; they refuse to be misled by bogus assertions. “Anything you say that isn’t a proven fact is nonsense.”
Pragmatism - Pragmatists just take in whatever information is useful right now and then move on. “That’s all I need to know.”
Idealism - Idealists conceive of reality in terms of ideas that express a sense of great perfection or inherent possibilities. ” Truth is beauty, and beauty, truth.”
Spiritualism - Spiritualists make sense of life in whatever way brings greater comfort and joy – this usually means believing in something esoteric which gives life a higher meaning. “I believe everything happens for a reason.”
Realism - Realists like to turn their experiences into “actionable knowledge”. They look at all the facts to assess the most plausible explanations and reasonable predictions. “The more facts we know, the better we can understand the past and predict the future.”
Understand that none of these viewpoints is right or wrong. They are all limited and biased in their own ways, and they all have the potential to be used positively or negatively, but they are all valid and they all give life a consistent sense of meaning. Seen as working together, they provide a rich picture, a kind of tapestry view of life.
Author and Credits: Barry
Edited for easy understanding.