I have wrote this blog today inspired by a video called The 21st Century Enlightenment you can view it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo If you wish. I have shared this with large groups of young people in an educational setting and held many interesting conversations.
I have watched this video maybe 20 times and I think now I fully grasp all its ideas so it is worth mentioning that for some a lot of the video will go straight over your head. That is not to say you won’t take some interesting points from it from watching it once, I am in a sense saying the more you watch it, the more you will understand about it and I personally believe this will enrich your thinking as it has done for me.
An interesting point is made early on about higher forces influencing how we should think, for example religion on the one hand for the most part will tell you that god created the universe, science on the other hand will tell you it was as a result of a big bang! (excuse my lack of scientific depth!)
Another example might be, Religion might tell you to help vulnerable people, science might outline the negative impact of not helping vulnerable people. Government on the other hand might see them as an easy target for cuts or legislation may be put in place to outlaw homelessness, as this becomes a blatant showing of its failings as a system.
These conflicting messages can create insecurities within us and we may even get sucked into thinking in a way that is convenient to us at the cost of what is right. An example of this might be in the media if someone is being shamed for their weight. This combined with constant news stories born out of science about the risks of obesity. It might be convenient to mirror this opinion because its more comfortable to share opinion than to oppose it. In reality though this way of thinking creates insecurities in people that might be happy with who they are but public opinion changes this for fear of not fitting in.
The animation says that as a society we are very bad at predicting what will make us happy and even what has made us happy in the past. Abraham Maslow backs this up by saying “It isn’t normal to know what we want. It is a rare and difficult psychological achievement.”
This could be born out of the conflicting messages we receive from the higher forces ie, government, science and religion. How many times have we heard of people pursuing something like a career, or certain car or new partner only to find that they are not happy. Whilst I appreciate these things vary quite significantly from one to another, but that is because I believe that the variants amplify the point.
Another really valid point made in the video is ‘we must resist tendencies to make right or true which is merely familiar and wrong or false, that which is strange.’
How I see this working in real society terms is as above if we sexualise young people that are smiling and looking thin and muscular in an attempt to sell products on a wide scale this becomes peoples right and true. This fuels a health and fitness industry that just gym memberships alone was worth 4.3 billion in 2015 (LeisureDB, 2015) that does not include cosmetics associated with the health and fitness industry.
In real terms though people often don’t reach their fitness goals or if they do, they find insecurity in some other characteristic ie skin colour, height or eye colour to name just a few of a long list of things people pick fault with themselves about.
So what happens when we make wrong or false something that is strange? This is the piece of us that as a society we mock or reject something that is not familiar and probably the birth place of discrimination. An example of how this can be blown out of proportion is the story of John Hetherington when he wore a top hat out in public for the first time in the late 18th century. It caused mass hysteria he was arrested and fined £500 for causing a ‘breach of peace’. In more recent times the stigma attached to tattoos seems to be ever diminishing as they have got more and more popular.
In today’s society I think it is difficult to grasp what it is to be a true self as we are constantly influenced by external things. This external influence is not likely to stop anytime soon as we are bombarded by media and advertising suggesting what we should be or what we need to make us happy. I believe the search for happiness needs to come from within after we have lifted off the influences of society. (Yalom, 1980) says ‘ Human beings must face up to the ultimate meaningless of their existence: ‘that there exists no “meaning”, no grand design in the universe, no guidelines for living other than those the individual creates.’
Perhaps if we strip ourselves of all the external influences and ask within without being influenced by anything other than how our gut feeling communicates with us. We can begin to discover what it is that makes us happy as an individual.
One of the slogans Brighter Pathways uses is ‘Helping individuals search for meaning and clarity in society and their everyday lives.’
I believe Counselling can be a way to really explore and get to grasp with who you are as a person, if it was not for the counselling and self-exploration I undertook whilst studying counselling I wouldn’t be the person I am today and I certainly wouldn’t have the self-clarity I have today.
Perhaps you would like to get to know yourself better, or maybe you want to understand yourself better. If this is the case perhaps Brighter Pathways Counselling can help, visit the website brighter-pathways.co.uk today and make an appointment.