How do you change the world?
Think about it, How do you change the world?
It is funny to sit and think about all the thoughts that just went through your head, excluding of course the ones that immediately mock the question. I imagine that this is something that we all think about on different levels, defined by our individual approach. We first have to define which world we are changing; whether it is your world, my world, or this collective world. The collective world automatically leaps forward as the most complicated to solve, it is knotted up worse than a five-year old using an open reel fishing rod during a wind storm. This is where I love the macro approach with the micro mindset.
In order to change this giant world that we live in, the most effective way is to change the world you live in. We see this world differently than one another on a fundamental level and you are going to have to be able to convince someone why your view of the world is of more value than theirs. We inherently cling to our belief in the face of overwhelming evidence that is to our own detriment all the time, because the easiest person to lie to is ourselves. We want to be convinced, we want to be shown that the things we fear in this life have no teeth…but we’ve built our whole experience around the fact that those teeth are real, and very sharp. You cannot get someone to believe that there is no monster in the closet by explaining it to them, you are going to have to show them. In order to change the world, you must change your world first.
We are all an individual cog in a great machine, all just players on a stage holding different roles to paraphrase Shakespeare. We all probably value our role in this machine a lot higher than everyone else would if given the opportunity, and towards this end we naturally distrust the views of others. The ironic part of this is that we often shape our inner self-view based on the contributions of the people we distrust. We have the people who make fun of us because of the giant mole on our face, but we also begin to see the giant mole as a hideous thing because those people say so. The beautiful part is that when people overcome this perception, they are the ones that we point out as beautiful. Example? Sure, why not. Chantelle Young (1) [Link for picture after the article] This woman suffers from Vitaligo, the same “disease” that had Michael Jackson invest a ton of money into plastic surgery. Most people with this affliction are emotionally scarred because of the visible flaw they are forced to display. All Chantelle Young did was enter the Top Model Contest.
I like that example because what she did was change how she saw herself, and by doing so she has a better chance of changing how the world will view her. We admire those who show courage to overcome daunting obstacles, because it is such a rare example. We like to believe we have courage, but allow ourselves to fear the confrontations necessary to show our courage. We admire this courage in others, believe that if we had to we could also display courage, then lie to ourselves about why we may fail. I am definitely not saying that overcoming fear is as simple as just trying, because we may fail over and over again…that is ok, we should be allowed to.
Society views failure as the first sign that this person is flawed, that they are no longer perfect at overcoming every challenge thrown their way and somehow are inferior as a human being. It seems a bit ludicrous when I put it that way, but that may be because I find it to be a bit ludicrous. No one is perfect, we all agree on this, but we view failure as such a hideous mark on our record…a mark that we all share. Thomas Edison said “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” (2) Now, you can certainly question Thomas Edison’s moral character, but I think we can agree that he is one of the successful inventors in American History. We could use him as a definition of success, but he defined success by being able to accept failure as something which is natural and continuing beyond it. We destroy ourselves, because we allow our failures to define us and we see this as a negative thing. The more you fail, the more you try, and like Edison said…the more you try, the more you guarantee that eventually you will succeed. It is our flaws that make us beautiful, our imperfections make us perfectly unique…works of art. It all depends on how you view it.