Tag: observation

There are a ton of things going on in the world that bother me. They range from mildly inconvenient intrusions into my daily life to global demigods that threaten the end of our existence. The everyday intrusions I’m learning to deal with. What’s harder is the wave of moderate to high, national and global issues that inundate my mind at the speed of light. Literally, light carrying information from the multitude of screens I’ve allowed to infiltrate my existence directly into my thought stream. I’m angry with many things people do in my world. Rather than list them all, I can sum them up into two very simple actions. 1. People treating others without compassion. 2. People treating their world with contempt.

Within this constant download of outrage from social media and the 24/7 news cycle, there is one person in the world who is damaging us all by relentlessly surfing the waves of light we recklessly allow to flow into our view. I’m angry with the world for not only allowing it but for propagating it. I don’t even want to use his name because that’s what he wants. Instead, I’m going to refer to him as The Great Disruptor.

The Great Disruptor, via traditional and social media, is destroying our thought patterns. His every move, great or small, is reported in a way that no other world leader has been subject to and the constant appearance of stories related to him, the constant disruption is corrupting normal thought processes. It’s very important to respond appropriately to the outrageousness of his actions, but equally, it’s important to remove him from our stream of consciousness as a constant form of unpredictable energy. The Great Disruptor needs to be compartmentalised. His intrusion into our consciousness should not be at the expense of caring about other people or self-nurturing. The Great Disruptor aims to leverage our fear as he aims to validate his self-worth by the accumulation of wealth and power.

By disrupting our thoughts, by intruding into our conversations, by infiltrating our social media feeds as well as our mental processes he is taking our thoughts away from where they can do the most good. He is undermining our ability and our right to create a sense of self-security.

I like to think I have a strong will, but I’ll admit I’ve been mentally fractious since The Great Disruptor came to prominence. My peace of mind is slowly and surely being eroded. But now that I can see the negative influence of the constant news stream I can take steps to disrupt the Great Disruptor. For me, this is taking the form of reading less news and reconnecting with what’s happening in the immediate world around me. I’m turning off the internet and phone for a few hours every day and when they are back on engaging with them less.

We can and should have our moments of protest. They are vital. Our voices can and will change things. But along the way, it’s essential to also protect our thoughts. To allow ourselves the time and space to evaluate and to contemplate. We can grow meaning in our lives and hold true to what is of real value when we tune out the noise. And right now, The Great Disruptor is simply the noisiest child in the room. We can’t allow his cries for attention to be our undoing.

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road To Nowhere

Street signs are always telling us what to do. We have stop signs, give way, slow, reduce speed and so on. We have walk and don’t walk signs and we have traffic lights controlling our movements, but don’t get me started on traffic lights. My point is, we are pretty used to reading signs and then as a result altering our behaviour.

An unexpected interchange in a DVD store made me wonder if the sign reading skills we have collectively developed could also be applied to people? I was travelling at the time, feeling relaxed and in particularly good spirits. I had discovered a secret store filled with hard to find cinematic treasures and was very happy with my choices. Generally, I’m a friendly person and when I buy something I’m always respectful. Perhaps it was my relaxed mood, or the lack of any obvious way in which I may have triggered the response, but when the sales guy was suddenly very rude to me, rather than get upset, my inquisitive nature fired up and I started observing. What was making this guy so unhappy? Life had, for whatever reason, put him in the situation where he was at work and he was cranky. I was not the problem. He didn’t know me. I was just the latest in a line of people who had appeared before him who required him to do his job.

So I didn’t react. I just read him. He clearly didn’t like his work. He didn’t like people buying DVDs from him. He was annoyed at every aspect of the process; how long it took to remove the security device, the time it took me to take out my credit card, the speed of the transaction over the telecommunication system, the hard to open paper bag, the frustrating tape dispenser to secure my items and the receipt in the bag. I suspect he was also annoyed there was someone else behind me, ready to make him relive the same process over again. What I was reading was a great big sign-post. It wasn’t telling me what to do, rather it was telling me what not to do.

After his huffing and puffing, eye-rolling and general looks of contempt I began to notice lots of people moving about the world doing things they didn’t like, being people they didn’t want to be. Not seeing the plethora of opportunities before them but remaining stuck in their rigid outlooks of life. It’s easy to be judgmental when someone is rude to you, but actually being rude is a very unpleasant feeling and is a key indicator that someone is, at some level, suffering.

I don’t know what led this guy in the DVD store to be so unhappy. I don’t know his life circumstances. I don’t know how trapped he feels by those circumstance or if he is just trapped by his own mindset.

What his suffering provided was an opportunity to anyone willing to read it. I for one was grateful for the warning. When I looked beyond my own offence at the behaviour I was moved to feel compassion. From my perspective here was a person going through something stressful just so I can get the message. Of course the message was there for him to see as well and I hope that at some stage he is able to see what I saw. What I did with that message was to start paying attention to my own behaviour, particularly when I was feeling tired and cranky. I noticed just how easy it is to act out, especially around those closest to us. They might be the most forgiving but it doesn’t mean they should have to suffer our bad behaviour.

Signs are literally everywhere. Reading people is naturally extremely subjective and if you take some understanding away from anything you witness, it doesn’t change what that person has experienced. They will probably never know the effect they had on you. But looking at others is a great starting point for looking at ourselves.

Evan Shapiro
Author – Road To Nowhere

‘Looking at the world through rose coloured glasses’ is an expression that has fascinated me since I was a child. I had a baby sitter who actually had rose coloured glasses and said she preferred to see the world through them than the harsh reality she saw without them. She let me try them on once and I found it amusing to flick them up and down, comparing my reality to her rose tinted version.

The phrase implies a world view that is ignorant to the truth, but could it be seen another way? There isn’t anything inherently wrong with wanting to see things better or perhaps just differently to the way you naturally perceive things. Putting a rose tint on everything isn’t any different from filtering all you perceive through your own mind and body. ‘You’ are what you have to perceive the world. Your mind and body are essentially your mechanisms for perception. Your world view and your self view completely influence how you see things. So, consciously adding a tint is quite possibly more aware than simply going through life taking in information and not recognising how you are altering information as it comes in.

In science this is called the ‘observer effect’, that by the act of observation, the observer actually changes what is being witnessed. If we have low self-esteem, poor self awareness then pretty much everything you think and do will be altered by that ‘reality’.

There have been times in my life where I have felt embarrassed to say what I think, too shy or concerned about what other people might think about my opinion. To people who know me now this must seem ridiculous. Yet I’m aware of how these patterns can corrupt my experience of the world. Over time, through self examination, I have learned to be accepting of myself and this has unlocked a degree of confidence. But I know people who are consumed by what they perceive as their failings. If perhaps they realised they could remove that filter and choose a different way to look at things who knows how their observations of life might change the world before them.

Evan Shapiro
www.amazon.com/author/evanshapiro

Spending a week away camping with my family recently was both deeply relaxing and at times extremely frustrating. As I experienced moments of frustration, though I couldn’t always stop them, I could however observe myself as the feelings took over.

Why was I getting frustrated in the first place? This was a family holiday, camping right on the beach with amazing wildlife all around and nothing to do but swim, nap and find a good spot to read and relax. I have one word that explains it. Family! I love them, but sometimes they trigger my frustration like no other human beings can. Our interchange with each other is based on years of behaviour. We all have our likes, dislikes and oddities. We can make each other laugh hysterically but we can also drive each other crazy.

I set my agenda early. Reading. I wanted to sit and read. And I told them, I told them all, don’t hassle me because I want to read this year. I’d seen others in the group do it, why couldn’t I?

As I sat in my camp chair in the shade of our makeshift living space determined to enact my chosen course of relaxation my loved ones around me had other ideas about what constituted relaxation. I love having a good chat, but can’t they see the book in my hand? Food preparation, an understandable distraction. Outings; can we go to another beach? Can we go for another swim, can you come out with us and catch waves? Yes of course, I love all those activities, and naturally it’s only fair I take my turn shared among the adults for beach safety. BUT I WANT TO READ!

Everyone had their time table and it seemed that their plans for one reason or another required action by me to enable their desired outcome. This is not a complaint, it’s just what I observed, more about myself than about them. I looked long and hard and wondered how I had contributed to being an enabler, a provider, a necessity to others, a conduit they had to pass through in order to obtain something. How did I come to hold that position? I wasn’t the only one of course. There were a few of us in the group that also filled a similar role for our respective dependents. Did we create this way of being because we want to be in control? Was it just a side effect of being a parent? Was it because I take my responsibilities seriously and I like to make sure those around me are looked after? If so why was I frustrated by it? I’m not one to shirk my responsibilities. On the contrary I would feel guilty when attempting to enact my own desires to relax to the point that, when the opportunities to relax arose, I found myself asking if anyone needed anything? I invited interruption. I maintained the structure of dependency equal to or perhaps even more than those I was ‘responsible’ for.

It wasn’t my wonderful crazy family after all, well not totally. It was me. I was responsible for how I interacted with them and it was up to me if it was going to be different.

Let’s see what happens next year when I sit in my camp chair, book in hand. I think I’ll make a few signs to hold up to help re-educate my loved ones and myself.

‘I’m not moving but I’m actually really busy right now’, ‘Before asking me, ask yourself’, perhaps just ‘Do Not Disturb, information download in progress’ or ‘I love you, but please go away.’

I guess I’ll see how it goes. Ultimately it’s my choice to go with the flow, swim against the tide or step out of the water.