A bird was searching for a home to lay her eggs so they’d be safe during the coming rainy season. In her search, she saw two trees, so she went to ask them for shelter.

When she asked the first tree, it refused to give her shelter. Disappointed, she went to the second tree.

The second tree agreed, so she built a nest and laid her eggs.

Then the rainy season arrived. The rain was so heavy that the first tree toppled over and was carried away by the flood.

The bird saw this and laughed. “This is your punishment for not offering me shelter.”

The tree smiled. “I knew I wasn’t going to survive this rainy season. That’s why I refused you. I didn’t want to risk your and your children’s lives.” And it drifted away.

The bird got tears in her eyes. Now that she knew the reason, she felt gratitude and respect for the tree.

How many times have we perceived the wrong scenario, or perhaps the wrong reason for a no? A rush to judgment can lead to disaster, or at the very least, regrets. It’s so important to give your brain time to consider all the available facts before taking action that is difficult to reverse.

A variety of factors affect your perception: what you can actually see, hear or feel, previous experiences, opinions of others, even concerns about how you might be perceived. How you perceive a thing determines how you receive a thing. If you perceive something as negative, that’s exactly how you will receive that message. In other words, your outlook often determines your outcome.

“We must look at the lens through which we see the world, as well as the world we see, and that the lens itself shapes how we interpret the world,” wrote Stephen R. Covey in “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change.”

That’s why it matters whether you have enough good information to make a judgment about a particular situation. If you are operating on faulty premises or preconceived notions, your response may be completely unreasonable. Look at what you complain about and see if a change in perception can help you.

Therefore, it is critical that you develop your perceptive abilities so that you won’t reach the wrong conclusion. The power of perception can change your life.

There are several strategies you can practice that could help you develop more precise perceptions.

Look at yourself as others might see you. Past experiences can evoke powerful memories that guide your perceptions. For example, a particular negotiation with a difficult customer has made you dread doing business with them again. But move to the other side of the table: maybe that customer has had some bad experiences with quality, delivery or price that affect their perception. A little empathy can go a long way.

Know what triggers your responses. Certain smells or songs can remind you of good times or unhappy memories. Remind yourself that you are in the present situation and try to ignore some of the factors that color your judgment.

Ask for others’ opinions. We all see things through our own lenses, and different perspectives can help you shape your perceptions incorporating things you may not have noticed. You may not agree with their observations, but you will have a broader range of possibilities.

And finally, don’t overlook the obvious. Quite often, the truth is right in front of you. When the facts all add up, it’s reasonably safe to conclude that your perception is accurate. You can trust your intuition when you have good information. Second-guessing yourself when you have good information is an exercise in futility.

An old story tells of two cowpokes who came upon a man lying on his stomach with his ear to the ground. One cowpoke said to the other, “You see that guy? He’s listening to the ground. He can hear things for miles in any direction.”

“Really?” The other cowpoke got down off his horse and approached the prone man. “Is anything nearby?”

The man looked up. “One covered wagon,” he said, “about two miles away. Two horses, one brown, one white. A man, a woman, one child and a piano in wagon.”

“That’s incredible! How can you know all that?”

“Simple,” the man replied. “It ran over me about a half-hour ago.”

Mackay’s Moral: What you see may not be what you get -- but maybe it is.

Someone once asked a great philosopher what he would rather have -- a gift of money or a gift of friendship.

“Friendship,” replied the philosopher, “because money is spent, but friendship can last forever.”

Maybe this is why our greatest wealth is not measured in terms of riches but in our relationships. Friendship is the cement that holds the world together.

Friendship is so important we celebrate it several times during the year. February is International Friendship Month, and Old Friends, New Friends Week is the third week of May.

The first Sunday of August was declared as a U.S. holiday in honor of friends by Congress in 1935. Since then, World Friendship Day is celebrated every year on the first Sunday in August.

As novelist George Eliot describes it: “Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words.”

That’s a fancy definition for what we all know is central to our happiness. I can’t imagine a life without friends.

I cherish the friends I’ve known since childhood. Along the way I’ve met friends through business, travel, sports and the community. They enrich my life and, perhaps just as important, know they can count on me to be there for them.

One of the best books I’ve ever read and learned valuable lessons from is Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” Carnegie wrote: “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

To drive home the point, Carnegie tells how dogs have learned the fine art of making friends. When you get within 10 feet of a friendly dog, it will begin to wag its tail. If you take the time to pet the dog, it will become excited and lick and jump all over you to show how much it appreciates you. The dog became man’s best friend by being genuinely interested in people.

Last September, we lost an NFL legend in Chicago Bears running back Gayle Sayers. I’m old enough to have followed his short but brilliant career. Yet what I remember most about Sayers is the memorable friendship he had with a teammate named Brian Piccolo, memorialized in the movie “Brian’s Song.” Sayers was black, and Piccolo was white. They were roommates when the team traveled, which was a first for race relations in professional football.

The two became very close friends and challenged each other. When Sayers hurt his knee, Piccolo helped his friend through a grueling rehabilitation. During the 1969 season, Piccolo was diagnosed with cancer and was in the hospital more than on the playing field. Sayers was often at his bedside.

After that season, Sayers was awarded the prestigious George S. Halas Courage Award as “the most courageous player in professional football.” Sayers, Piccolo and their wives had made plans to go together to the annual Professional Football Writers’ Banquet in New York, but Piccolo was too sick to attend.

At the banquet, Sayers struggled to speak and said: “You flatter me by giving me this award, but I tell you here and now that I accept this award not for me, but for Brian Piccolo. However, Brian cannot be here tonight. He is too ill. But Brian is a man who has more courage than any of us here tonight. I love Brian Piccolo, and I’d like you to love him too. When you hit your knees tonight, please ask God to love him too.”

Shortly after that memorable night, Brian Piccolo died. These two tough football players had developed an unforgettable friendship.

Mackay’s Moral: Good friends are like toothpaste. They come through in a tight squeeze.

Even though President Abraham Lincoln was in office during one of the most turbulent times in American history, he became famous for his ability to use humorous stories and anecdotes to make a point. His talent often saved difficult situations from escalating to deep divisions.

To explain why he used stories so frequently, Lincoln said: “I believe I have the popular reputation of being a storyteller, but I do not deserve the name in its general sense, for it is not the story itself, but its purpose, or effect, that interests me.”

Lincoln explained: “When I tell a funny story, it has the same effect on me that I suppose a good square drink of whiskey has on an old toper. It puts new life into me. The fact is, I have always believed that a good laugh was good for both the mental and the physical digestion.”

One tale Lincoln was fond of telling on himself was about two Quaker women in a railway coach who were overheard in a conversation about Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy.

“I think Jefferson (Davis) will succeed because he is a praying man,” said the first.

“And so is Abraham a praying man,” said the other woman.

“Yes,” said the first, “but the Lord will think Abraham is joking.”

Lincoln was determined from his teenage years onward to advance his general knowledge. He pursued a rigorous program of reading, study and self-improvement, often by the light of an oil lamp. Lincoln’s law partner would later describe his ambition as “a little engine that knew no rest.”

In 1841, 20 years before he became president, Lincoln doubted whether his life would amount to anything. He confided to a friend, “I would be more than willing to die, except that I have done nothing to make any human remember that I have lived.” His bouts of melancholy were well-known, but even during those challenges, he maintained a wry sense of self-deprecation.

When others tried to insult Lincoln, as during his famous debates with Sen. Stephen Douglas, the orator pointed out that Lincoln used to run a store where you could buy whiskey. But Lincoln turned the tables quickly: “It is true what Mr. Douglas said, that I did run a grocery store, and I did sell goods including whiskey.

“But I remember in those days, Mr. Douglas was one of my best customers. Many a time I have stood on one side of the counter and sold whiskey to Mr. Douglas on the other side. But the difference is that I have left my side of the counter, but Mr. Douglas still sticks tenaciously to his.”

Lincoln had to endure much vicious criticism as president. He accepted that it went with the job, explaining: “If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, 10 angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”

Amid multiple challenges of the Civil War, Lincoln once told a group of scaremongers the story of a young boy who accompanied his father on a hunting trip. While sleeping on the mountainside, the boy awoke to see a meteor shower. Frightened by the sight, he ran to his father and woke him up, pointing at the sky.

The father looked at his son patiently and said, “Son, don’t be concerned with shooting stars. Keep your eyes instead on the fixed stars that have long been our guides.”

The moral of that story is as true today as it was 160 years ago.

The president was once criticized for referring to the Confederates in kind terms. A woman asked him how he could speak so generously of his enemies when he should rather destroy them.

But in characteristic fashion, Lincoln demonstrated his strategy. He answered her, “Why, madam, do I not destroy them when I make them my friends?”

Isn’t it interesting how the more things change, the more they stay the same? We are still learning from Abraham Lincoln.

Mackay’s Moral: America is a better place because Abraham Lincoln helped shape it.