Finding The Best Fit Narrative

When dealing with living life, everyone needs some kind of narrative in order to navigate and cope based on our individual predispositions and learned ways of doing things. In an ideal world, each person would find the narrative that best suits them and helps them live life as best as they can.

"Choose experiences over items." "Be positive." "Open space for others." "Find your passion. Find your voice." "Live your life to your fullest." "Just do it." "Sacrifice and hard work for others." "Be innovative." "Think outside of the box." "Think inside the box." "Get out of your comfort  zone." "Stay true to what is tried, tested, and true." "Respect those who came before you." etc, etc, etc...

Sometimes it can be a maze to find out which sets of narratives work best for an individual or a group. Each tends to promote a specific mindset that works better for some, but not others. The "Golden Rule" of do unto others as you would want them to do unto you... often can have disastrous results because people often want or prioritize different things.

Mixed Messages on Mental Health

On one hand: "If you're hurting, feeling lonely, depressed, suicidal, etc... talk to someone." encouraging people to open up.

On the other hand: "Stay positive. Cut out negative and toxic people out of your life." encouraging people to stay positive, while simultaneously and unwittingly stigmatizing and shaming people who experience difficult uncomfortable "negative" emotions.

For those who experience heavy uncomfortable emotions, knowing who to trust becomes a tricky endeavor to navigate. (spoken from firsthand experience) As social beings, the threat of being ostracized can be quite scary.

Thought Containers

Within all of us we have collections of Thought Containers... From preconceived notions, to learned ideas, to ways of thinking related to both nature and nurture... Our cultural myths, stories, narratives, and norms... Our beliefs and how we understand the world... The signs, symbols, words, gestures we have come to know, along with their explicit and implicit meanings...

All of these thought containers affect both how we take in and further understand the world, and how we interact and take action within the world. So often we abide by what we know and what we have come to know without question. We take action without too much conscious thought, taking comfort in, and relying on what we know for guidance. Our notions become a way of life with widespread implications, some intended and some unintended. We all have our "Red pills and Blue pills," often without knowing how or why our conceptions came to be...

Social Value Exchanges

Often times it is very difficult to know where we stand in the eyes of others, what kind of value we bring to their lives. We often need others to reflect back out value in the form of feedback. The actions we take in relationship to others is valuable. And so is the feedback we offer to let others know of their value to us. Very abstract Social Currency is made more concrete in the form of feedback.

Reconciling Seemingly Conflicting Cultural Messages?

Sometimes I wonder how on earth do we reconcile what seems to be conflicting cultural messages. In the U.S. a big message is one of engaging in competition... Be ruthlessly competitive! On the other hand, when someone dies, all of the sudden everyone says to make sure you tell people you love them.

I feel like a lot of holding back on love has to do with competition... We fail to give more of ourselves because we want to hold on to as much status as we possibly can. To acquiesce is to potentially lose some ground, when on an unconscious level, we are desperately fighting for survival by trying not to give in.

So often by putting one's best foot forward in one area, it potentially means taking a step back in another area...

Wanting to See How a Story Plays Out and Unfolds

There is something very human about our desire to see how a story plays out. We'll binge watch a series to see how everything unfolds, even if we know the most likely ending to the story. If possible, we want to see how a series comes to conclusion... and find we are left hanging if the series gets canceled before a sense of resolution. We want those hanging notes to be feel resolved.

Tenacity, Ferocity, Focus, Drive

My college years were filled with admiration for the one I saw to have massive amounts of tenacity, ferocity, focus, and drive. I idolized and hoped to emulate those qualities. A mindset that helped me get through different things... A borrowed mindset, but a helpful one nonetheless...