So I guess I must say that I was born relatively privileged.
After all, I live in a first-world nation, with running water, enough money to pay for the electricity bills and plenty of food on the table night in and night out. Of course, I’ve had my “struggles”. But I guess you can say that they were first-class struggles. Such struggles included whether or not I felt awkward in class. Or whether I will get bullied and called derogatory names in elementary school. Or whether or not this attractive girl will like me or not in high school.
Obviously, those are not problems to sneeze at either. And I’m not trying to discount anyone’s issues, because I know firsthand that even those of us in the first world can have it extremely hard.
But I must say that it’s very easy for me to turn off the faucet of ambition. To not want more and more in this world. And it’s easy for me to demonize those who are labelled as “greedy”. The politicians. The car salesmen. The lawyers. The CEO’s. The people from other countries labelled as “bad” in the country that I’m currently staying at. And all those that don’t seem to know when enough is enough. Because do you really need $1 billion dollars in hand in order to live a happy and sufficient life? Do you really need to control everyone’s existence in order to feel like everything is okay?
We all know the answers to that. But again, I guess I can’t really think for other people, and I don’t really know where they come from or how they were raised. One man’s enough can be another man’s slim pickings. What one finds as treasure, the other can just as easily deem as trash. And on and on it goes.
Again, I would say that most of us are relatively privileged here in the first-world country because we get to worry about the so-called higher-level problems – like gun control, climate change, abortion rights, mental health, social equity, and honestly there is a laundry list of it all. We like to think of ourselves as saviors of the world because we want to make this place a better world than when we came into it. And obviously, there is nothing wrong with that and the intention is good.
But on the flip side, there really is nothing wrong with simply wanting the “simple” pleasures of life – like money, good food, good movies, and just random things that feel good in the short-term. Even though most of us educated people will deem these pursuits as trivial and shallow, the reality is how are we supposed to know how the other person is thinking?
Did they grow up in poverty? Did they grow up under a corrupt government? Did they have the mental bandwidth to be able to worry about some of these supposedly higher-class problems? Or were they simply trying to scrap and claw their way to survival every single day?
Those are questions that we all need to ponder. Because humans are tremendously good and tremendously flawed. They want to take care of their loved ones. They also need to take care of themselves. They need to feel like they are doing something worth doing. But at the end of the day, everyone is different. And it’s easy to demonize the other side, thinking that they are the bad apples, and we are the good ones.
Anyway, I feel like I am talking in riddles (lol). But sometimes, that’s just the way life is. You need to figure it out for yourself and it’s okay to not have all the answers out there in a matter of days, weeks, months, or even years.
Because people are different. Everyone has a different definition of what “enough” means. And honestly, sometimes there will never be enough for someone because of the inability to feel stable and secure with their place in society. Again, where do these feelings come from? I don’t know.
But for me, I guess I need to do a better job of empathizing with the other side. My enough may not be the same version as their enough. And honestly, sometimes enough isn’t even enough for me. After all, I still need to continue to make money (because of inflation). I still need to improve my skills (because of competition). I still need to nurture my relationships in a constantly evolving world (because of fear of loneliness). Otherwise, it will be me who will become obsolete.
So, I guess I’ve slightly opened my eyes to the discrepancies that are facing our society today and obviously there is no simple quick fix to it all. I admit that I may have unwittingly harmed certain people that I didn’t understand because of my ignorance. But I will do a better job of pondering how the other side comes to be. Because everyone has a story. Everyone wants their story to be told.
And hopefully that is enough. But even if it’s not, I will try my best to continue to learn and understand and evolve. Life is difficult for everyone. Yes, even for Elon Musk. Even for Jeff Bezos. Even for the Presidents of the most powerful countries in the world. Even for janitors. Even for cashiers. Even for car salesmen. Pretty much for everybody.
So, as we all go through this world, let’s try our best to strengthen out empathy muscles. And realize that we simply have so many blind spots that are not accounted for. So, when someone else rolls up to you and rubs you the wrong way or makes you question their “goodness”, just realize that they’re simply coming from a different place. It’s not necessarily from a better or a worse one.
But they are human, just like me. They deserve love and care and respect. Because everyone is simply trying their best to make something of themselves in this wonderful world.