Stepping Away From Comfort
Finding something that you prioritize over yourself
I saw a note posted on Substack this afternoon. It was from a man who was making mention of how emotionally he was affected by the movie “The Wild Robot”. One thing that he mentioned about the movie is that sometimes we have to step away from our programming.
This really spoke to me. I only saw that movie once but it got me thinking about the current political position and how we are all, in a way programmed. We grow up being influenced by our surroundings. Surroundings like our parents, our faith, our education, our climate and what we see in the media.
Ultimately we find ourselves in a place that we see ourselves in this state of what we should be. Our mind likes to know what to expect so we can repeat what we see which is what we do to learn. We copy what our parents do and then our children copy what we do and so on.
I think it is important that we all look at ourselves and examine our programming. I think we may find suppositions that are incorrect about many things. Whether you’re a liberal or a conservative, if you’re honest with yourself we can all certainly be wrong about a lot of things. Just because we want things to be a certain way doesn’t necessarily make it right. Examine your programming and consider what may have influenced you to think a certain way.
Instead of automatically siding with where your bias lays, think about what brought you to this conclusion. Did you look into this question? Did you confirm the particular item you saw in the news from multiple sources? Did you seek advice from people that maybe you don’t necessarily agree with? Did you think that maybe your automatic response was part of your programming?
I’m not telling you not to trust yourself. What I am saying is that maybe there is a deeper reason for why you justify a particular viewpoint. What I am asking here is to maybe examine your way of thinking when perhaps you agree with something that may not be super comfortable. There may be times that you can agree with both sides of a topic.
I am certainly not perfect and I lean in a predictable way towards political topics. Just look at the name of my newsletter. You can probably assume where I lean politically but I have topics that may not necessarily be part of the liberal program.
If we are going to come together as a nation, part of the answer would be to be more introspective. Examine your bias’s, consider where the person you are talking to is coming from.
Right now we need to be open hearted and not shame people if they find themselves in a position of being wrong even if we are angry at that person. The alternative right now is to remain divided and not get anything done.
Love you all,
Erik
Credit: Thank you so much for your for sparking my inspiration for this article Becket Johnson, Quantum Nomad
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I deeply appreciate this. The world needs more voices willing to spark reflection, and if my note played even a small role in igniting this piece, I’m truly honored. Your courage to write, to question, and to invite others into deeper thought speaks volumes about the kind of person you are. Thank you for taking the step so many shy away from—you’re making a difference.
Excellent points. I once heard a story about an award where the recipients were severely limited on the number of words they could use in their acceptance speech. I can't recall what the award was for, or who won this particular one, but their acceptance speech was, "Examine your hidden bias." Honestly, that's all I needed to remember from the story. I had to realize that even I, someone who has always tried to be as accepting and supportive as I could be, could also have hidden bias. Well, I do. I'm still working through some of them because the conditioning that led me there is strong. One of my friends recently pointed out that we're going to need all of us and all of the folks who now regret their vote in order to resist what's happening in our country today. I firmly believe there are enough people out there who didn't vote the way they did for nefarious reasons to make a difference.