Abstraction, try it, its free
Most people cannot think from above themselves. It can be laziness, egocentrism, or just lack of interest. Often, people commit two mistakes that are highly connected and do it for the wrong opposite mistakes. Let me be more clear, in one hand, people use to think that most of their problems only happen to them and hard hardly or impossible to solve; and the other hand, people strive to ignore the real problems of the others. For simplicity, let’s call ego-problems to the first ones and awareness-problems to the latter.
The ego-problems and awareness-problems are hardly connected. For instance, people tend to think that their problems (that usually are simple) are the worst problems in the world (ego) and at the same time they can see real problems (war, famine, deaths, catastrophes, etc.) and don’t relate with them.
Every time I am dealing with some ego-problem I try to abstract from myself see the things in perspective. It is like spreading a lot of photos on a table a see the history from above.
Then, think of similar problems that you or someone related to you that already solve. Then, go higher and relate your issues to the world’s real problems. This second exercise is connected with the awareness-problems.
The occidental human being uses to look at the others problems from the pedestal of the developed democratic war-zone-free country. Therefore, our judgment is biased by the lack of experience we have on feeling the others’ pain. We ignore all the history and think that we were born civilized, free, without wars, etc.… this is terribly wrong. We, like everyone, were born from a process of historical evolution. People ignore that not long ago Europe was in a war, the main capitals of Europe were destroyed.
We are like everyone, and we are the product of our history and environment. The key takeaway from this post is to strive to abstract for yourself every time you think that your problems are bigger than the others. Every time you think that everyone is against you, that the world is against you. Try to smash the ego and see the problems from above. Then, it becomes easier to solve the issues (that is a topic for another post).
May 8| 365 Days of Writing Prompts | The little things: Describe a little thing — one of the things you love that defines your world but is often overlooked.
