Recent Posts1
Positivity / It is all about perspective!
« Last post by Ace on Today at 12:03:36 pm »Building on some earlier posts I made, I wanted to expand upon my argument that everything is about perspective, and that most things aren't objectively good or bad. Once we realise this and cognitively reframe we can avoid a great deal of unhappiness. I'll give two examples of what I mean.
Example 1: You live in the UK and you earn the national minimum wage (about 11 pounds per hour). If you compare yourself to other people in the UK you might end up in despair that you earn such a small amount compared to others, however if you reframe you will see that you are earning more than the majority of people in the world. What reason then do you have for sadness? Should All the other people in the world be depressed because they earn less than you?
Example 2: Single mothers are pretty universally regarded as being less desirable by men than women without children when it comes to dating, however, consider a man who doesn't have any family or responsibilities of his own. He may well experience loneliness. Being able to marry a woman who already has some children may well provide him with exactly the family and structure he is looking for and bring him happiness and the family structure he needs in his life. Think then what a tragedy it would be if he were to pass up on this potential happiness because he's been socialised to think single mothers are undesirable.
We see in both of these cases, the material facts didn't change. All we changed is the framing perspective to see something positively that we saw negatively before. I believe by reframing in this way we can make ourselves more happy.
Example 1: You live in the UK and you earn the national minimum wage (about 11 pounds per hour). If you compare yourself to other people in the UK you might end up in despair that you earn such a small amount compared to others, however if you reframe you will see that you are earning more than the majority of people in the world. What reason then do you have for sadness? Should All the other people in the world be depressed because they earn less than you?
Example 2: Single mothers are pretty universally regarded as being less desirable by men than women without children when it comes to dating, however, consider a man who doesn't have any family or responsibilities of his own. He may well experience loneliness. Being able to marry a woman who already has some children may well provide him with exactly the family and structure he is looking for and bring him happiness and the family structure he needs in his life. Think then what a tragedy it would be if he were to pass up on this potential happiness because he's been socialised to think single mothers are undesirable.
We see in both of these cases, the material facts didn't change. All we changed is the framing perspective to see something positively that we saw negatively before. I believe by reframing in this way we can make ourselves more happy.
