the good year
I will have to be at PS in roughly 10 hours' time. But damn. I need to capitalize on an inspiration picked up on facebook.
Why did I suddenly talk about this is that when I was lookin at some photos on facebook just a while ago, someone did a collate about his 2009 year, on how good a year it was. And I scanned through the photos, but could not detect the faintest of unhappiness in any of them. All smiles and laughter, hugs and tugs. So that flashed me back for a shortest flash the same thing which happened for 3 years running. Drinking and reviewing the year. It was in 2007 when I first did that. But came to look at it from a different perspective. And that's what I'm talkin about.
It reaches a certain point of time when just as you make resolutions for the new year, you look back at the past year and review it. It is all in us to not have excellent memories right, so we tend to remember prominent events. But in light of the scale, time, and impact of certain events, we tend to take a certain bias towards the desired outcomes, and adopt a generally negative POV when things do not turn out the way they 'ought to'. So when enough of things which do not turn up the way it ought to happens, the situation becomes more and more sour.
So what happens if enough sour things accumulate throughout the year? We will have to feel sad, dejected, a little remorseful, experience several counts of rejection, take some doses of disappointment, trip on some hurtful uncontrollable rage, and once a in blue moon, feel very green. Maybe not all of these, but definitely some of these. Bad experiences, wrong decisions, regrets, yea. And if we make enough bad decisions, and go through enough bad experiences, it will be an unpleasant year for us.
But true as it is, we are tended to generalize unpleasant experiences to be bad for us. Hence, we call these kind of years, bad years. Several exchanges I had with many of my friends reveal things like "broke up with boyfriend", "relationship disasters", "bad results", "fought with my dad the first time", "did not enjoy my holidays", "wasted time doing nothing" to be the reasons for why they call these years the bad years.
But the problem with this outlook is not that the person is pessimistic. It is the outlook, and the perspective. The perspective I mean will be to classify pleasant experiences, to be 'good', and unpleasant ones to be 'bad'. I won't say it's wrong entirely. It is very natural to adopt this POV because why one arrives at this classification is because of his emotions giving him enough warning to safeguard himself from going through pain again, hence sets up a barrier and a label to those things which lead to the unpleasant situation. Such that when they arise, the person will respond immediately to prevent further hurt (wonder why a certain sequence of seemingly unrelated events make you feel like deja-vu?). So it's the good-bad rule which we have within ourselves and many other traits and tendencies (something which classifies most things to either good or bad. For simplicity's sake and for self-defence's sake) which tend to be quick to judge, and sometimes unforgiving towards adopting a different perspective. So when something unpleasant happens to us, it is classified to be a 'bad' thing, both because of our experience, and to prevent further hurt in the future.
The paradox with this self-defence mechanism (SDM) lies not in its perception of the past, nor the purpose of its existence to safeguard our future by preventing more unpleasant things from occuring, but it lies in the alteration it makes towards our perception, such that we are not concerned with things that we could do and change within our powers, but more concerned with things we should not arrive at, and the hurt that it will deal henceforth. It is the endpoint-cautious and gut-triggered tendency of SDMs which, when overlooked, causes one to repeat the same mistakes, and sometimes, causes one to be paranoid, unreasonable, and pessimistic, and most the time, helpless.
Let's take this out for a spin. John went bankrupt last year, and he was reviewing his year to be a bad year. Why is it a bad year? Because he lost all his cash, and his pride to the bank. So is that bad? Hell yeah, it's like losing your freedom and your face, a large part of any man. Definitely a very unpleasant experience. That is definitely a bad experience.
For most, the story will end here. 2009 was a bad year for John. This is because he had a hell of an experience being bankrupt, and it really hurt him a lot, materialistically and emotionally. Why is it bad? This is because he had a hell of an experience being bankrupt, and it really hurt him a lot, materialistically and emotionally. Yes I mentioned the same thing. His gut was on high alert, reminding him of the scale of this unpleasant event, embedding it in his head so deep so to prevent him from being in that state again (imagine if we had no emotions, there will be thousands of bankrupts man. But catch is, when you get declared bankrupt, you don't feel anything. But the banks, if they feel something, will be damn pissed at you, probably hire the mafia). So whenever he recalls this event he will be reminded of the mishaps and probably the process which led to the mishaps. Even if he had found out the reason, what is the chance he will change the label the call it an "enlightening" experience? What is the chance that when someone mentioned about his bankruptcy, he will not go "would you mind if we stop talking about it please?"
Although our SDMs are here to prevent further injury, they could cause a fixated and concrete opinion and perception towards certain issues. One thing they could prevent is the takeaway of learning value from the worst of situations. We would rather avoid the entire thing, than the learn the reasons which caused the unpleasant shit to occur. We would rather shun it than to try extract as much learning value from it. Learning value which makes you a stronger person, learning value which could prevent further mishap, for you or anyone around you.
The good-bad rule is an excellent SDM. Without it, we will take very long to consider repeat situations, and fall into many more traps, mishaps than we should if we have them. While it is totally fine to label some experiences bad, let us not focus solely on the experience, but the other things which come with the process of the situation. Let us look at the learning values, the bad decisions and the rationale, state of mind when making those decisions. Let us look at the ways we can systematically prevent damage in the future, first, by removing the 'bad' label. Second, by looking at the process and development, rather than the emotional experience and how it made you feel. Let us be wary of why we feel certain ways. Why are we trying to achieve when you remember an unpleasant experience?
It is not so much of thinking, philosophy, or psychology. But perhaps some people's fingers are itchy so would need themselves to type out an essay for some mini analysis (there are more factors contributing to this, but this is just a few written here). What it takes is for one to adopt a different point of view. Instead of calling 2009 a bad year because you failed your exams, broke up with boyfriend, and totaled your Nissan GTR, remove the 'bad' from the year, and look at how these things have aimed to benefit you in the future. Don't just focus on how we feel, but think of how much we can take away. Let's not just look at how much we have lost, but how much we have gained.
So instead of continue calling all your past years which you have labelled 'bad years', look at them again and extract all the learning values from them. Look at how these unpleasant experiences can continue to help you, instead of how they had damaged you. Look at how all these shit had made you a better person. With this knowledge, think of how you can prevent others from going through the same bad experience you just had.
The good thing is this about emotions, especially when intense, is to prevent you from putting yourself in danger, or through something unpleasant (in short, BAD). The strange thing is that while feeling and experiencing intense emotions are meant to defend us, we are distracted by them and forego the actual learning values behind the defense, hence, not build a strong enough defensive wall. Sometimes it could be self-defeating. A weak defensive wall made of straw is easily burnt away, that's because someone forgot to claim the clay.
motivation
I can't spare two words to elaborate on any of the vast knowledge gained in the recent months :(
sorry guys.
But learnt so much on patterns, teen behavior, or maybe "the dumbest generation", counseling, blablabla...
Labels: damn baby
observant
Spend a moment down the streets and you could learn much. Study the walking, sitting, talking styles of different people, used in different contexts, which makes them repulsive, attractive, comfortable, or sexless.
Look at the way that pair talks, understand why laughs and fun does not equate to a strong and loving relationship. Look at older couple strolling, both turning and stopping together without another's bidding. Check out that couple in the shop, you could tell when the wife's interested while the husband is not, and detect that small gesture before they leave the store, or check the bill.
Sorry guys and girls if you feel your modesty was outraged. What's that tug in your heart the way that lady walks? What causes you to skip a beat when you see that lad stand against the traffic lamp? What contributes to her high head-turn rate, the way she moves? How did he dress to draw sheeps' eyes from the shy girls?
And probably the best part is, that you don't have to be a pro to take in your surroundings. It's a long journey of learning, and you can make your own conclusions. Then test the hypotheses on yourself and others, that's the really fun part.
