Right vs Wrong: How Your Perception Dictates Your Reality

Shattering the Illusion of Right and Wrong

Some will label it as a failure, others celebrate it as a moment of liberating freedom.
The event itself? Innately neither in nature.

It’s startling to realize how much of our suffering is not born from what happens to us, but from the labels we attach to what happens. We call something “bad,” and suddenly it becomes a wound that defines us. We call something “good,” and we cling so tightly that the fear of losing it begins to consume us.

The paradox is this: there is no inherent right or wrong in life. There is only the meaning we choose to assign and it is in this meaning (not the experience itself) that dictates how much peace or torment we carry within us as we navigate the world around us. As well as, the way in which the world appears to us in any given moment.

The Prison of Labels

From the moment we are born, the world hands out labels. Right choice. Wrong move. Success. Failure. Sin. Virtue.

Parents, schools, religions, and cultures draw invisible lines in the sand, telling us where we must stand to be loved, accepted, or seen as worthy. Over time, those lines seep into our bones until we no longer question them. We spend years performing, chasing “rightness” and running from “wrongness,” terrified of being cast out from belonging.

But this prison of labels is entirely man-made and only exists in the realm of perception that dictates how we filter information and decipher whether it’s good or bad. The universe itself does not keep score. That “Information” we decipher is just that.. Information until we label it, therefore everything outside of that moment of judgement is neutral until we decide it’s not. The trees don’t label themselves as failures if they don’t bloom in spring. The ocean does not call itself wrong when it storms. Yet we do and all for what, to be accepted? We cannot seek acceptance from lifestyles, people and societies that feel like a poison that slowly kills the integrity of our being. How can we truly feel the acceptance of others when we've never given it to ourselves to begin with.. it is exhausting. Trying to run towards something that has been dragging behind you this entire time, just waiting for you to notice.

Perception Is the Painter of Reality

Reality, in its rawest form, is neutral. It simply is.

But we never meet reality directly. Instead, we filter it through the stained glass of our conditioning: our beliefs, values, traumas, and hopes. What reaches us is not pure reality, but a version of it colored by perception.

Rejection, for example, can feel like abandonment to one person, confirming their deepest fear: I am unworthy of love. To another, the same rejection feels like divine redirection: The universe is steering me toward alignment. Neither is wrong. Both are true because both are rooted in perception. That perception dictates how you experience the world around you at any given moment.

So it may be said that the world is not happening to you; rather, the world is simply happening and it’s up to you to decide the meaning of it.

We don’t see the world as it is. We see it as we are, reflected back to us in various ways; through people, situations and experiences.

The Liberation of Subjectivity

Here is where freedom begins: the moment you realize right and wrong are not absolutes carved into the cosmos but interpretations carved into your mind.

When you stop fearing mistakes, you see that what you once called failure is simply an experience offering wisdom. When you release the obsession with being right, you stop living life as a constant performance.

Growth lives in the decision of choosing to reclaim your power and decide how you want to frame your reality. Life stops happening to you and begins happening through you the moment you decide it does.

Choosing Your Lens Consciously

You may not control what happens, but you always control how you interpret it, how you respond and navigate through it. So often we tightly grip onto things outside of us and cast blame onto ourselves when we could not change what was never in our control to change.

A breakup can be “the worst thing that ever happened to me.” Or it can be “the space that gave me back to myself.”
Failure can be “proof that I am not enough.” Or it can be “evidence that I tried and dared greatly.”

You are the storyteller. The pen has always been in your hand. The choice is not whether life will unfold, but how you will choose to see it unfolding.

Practices to Reclaim Perception

Philosophy becomes transformation when embodied through practice. Here are a few practices to help you reclaim the way you interpret reality:

1. Pause Before Labeling
   When something happens, resist the reflex to say “This is bad.” Instead ask:

What else could this mean?

2. Challenge the Filter
   Ask yourself: Whose voice is telling me this is wrong? My parents’? Society’s? Or my own values?
   
   

3. Try on a Different Lens
   Ask: If I looked at this through the lens of growth, what would I see? How might I benefit from this experience?
   
   

4. Release the Scoreboard
   Notice how much energy you spend tracking your “rights” and “wrongs.” What would shift if you let the scoreboard go?
   
   

A Radical Shift in Living

There is no invisible scorekeeper in the sky, tallying up your failures and successes. No cosmic accountant waiting to deliver the verdict of whether you lived “right” or “wrong.” That notion is a human invention, born from systems that needed order, control, and obedience.

If we talk about God and tie that in here, He too does not judge, rather discerns the intention, the growth and integrity of one's character throughout their journey.

It goes far deeper than good vs bad and right vs wrong. It's about learning how to take all the experiences that come your way and use them to reinforce the traits, qualities and gifts you want to strengthen.

Life itself doesn’t categorise. It simply unfolds. A sunrise isn’t “right,” a storm isn’t “wrong.” They just are and in the same way, your choices, your mistakes, your detours are not moral verdicts. They are experiences. And every experience carries the potential to expand you, if you let it.

This is where the shift happens:
When you stop needing life to be right, you start allowing it to be real. You soften into what is.

You stop forcing yourself into boxes of perfection and start living with presence.

You begin to notice that even the moments you once called “mistakes” were teachers disguised in pain. That even the heartbreaks that gutted you were doorways into deeper love.

Freedom is not found in finally getting it right. Freedom is found in releasing the need to. It’s in embracing the raw, unedited, imperfect humanity of your journey.

And when you do, life stops being a courtroom where you’re always on trial, and becomes a canvas where you’re free to paint, unafraid of the mess.

That is where your power returns, where wholeness begins and where you meet yourself, fully alive.