Having an account and browsing the social media LinkedIn would expose us to updates and news about our connections’ milestones and achievements. How do we respond to such news and information? Are we sincerely happy for them; does it lead us to introspect our life and accomplishments thus far; does it motivate us, or do we just ignore it?
Conceptually, we might know it would be better not to compare our well-being and accomplishments with others. Nevertheless, it might not be that simple in practice as it is relatively easy to retrieve external news about other individuals’ well-being and accomplishments through social media. Even though that kind of news should not affect our lives directly and rationally, we are often affected by that information for any reason. So, how could some external news affect us? It might mainly be because the news is relevant to our concerns, such as careers or relationships. For instance, one might have a career aspiration to work in a certain field and get some information about other individuals’ progress in their careers in the respective field.
How do we isolate ourselves from external noise and distraction? In other words, the way to be content with our lives and to be full with ourselves. There might not be a simple answer to this question. Yet, the general idea still holds: find something meaningful to do related to our concerns so that the specific external information related to our concerns might be turned into beneficial for us. For instance, information about one’s accomplishment or goals related to our concern could be turned into motivation and a reminder to stay focused on things we could do given our resources. In this case, we could shift the focus from the other individual to ourselves and use the information affecting us negatively to initiate actions that pave the way to clear our concerns.
How do we overcome situations that unintentionally and indirectly negatively affect us? It might be useful to rationalize our minds and beliefs and shift our perspective to get closer to the positive spectrum. Instead of asking why it seems like we are not progressing enough, optimizing our decisions, or not in the right position that we could be at the present, we could start asking what is something that we can learn from our situation and others for the better next steps in our courses of action.
It is worth noting that as we are human beings, there might be negative emotions that could catch us at any time, even by a random trigger, posing challenges in our effort to keep going on with our goals and solving our concerns. The challenges might come in several forms. First, a mindset bias of overgeneralizing a situation or an opportunity. The anxiety that a relatively minor event will lead to a significant impact that might not necessarily happen and the thinking that there will not be another chance in the future if we are unable to take it now is misleading.
Another bias might appear in terms of a fixated mind as if there is only one way to solve our concerns or to achieve our objectives. Events and chances might be way too complex for us to entirely comprehend, which in turn, could intimidate us and lead to the thinking that there is only a certain path that has empirically been proven by other individuals’ cases. Conversely, there might be multiple ways to reach the endgame as long as they are not considered violations. Each individual with a relatively similar endgame could end up at that point through different processes and approaches. It might be more of our response that would play a considerable role in whether or not we arrive at the desired endgame.
To conclude, the saying that all roads lead to Rome might hold to a considerable extent. At least, it leads us to avoid an overgeneralizing bias and a fixated mindset and encourages us to keep going all the way to our endgame.
hope. 