Work on yourself. Make yourself happy. You are responsible for your life. If you do not feel good, have problems, are stressed or feel frustrated, find the roots in yourself and change it. Learn how to please a man of your dreams, how to communicate with people having serious mental disorders, bullies, how to handle hate, discrimination, how to find your way in a male chauvinist corporate culture, etc. Because, it is your mindset what is wrong, or you have not learnt enough yet.
Workshop, personalized coaching, mentoring, healing, work psychology, whatsoever. All available. Created for you. Just have to choose. Be the part of a community. The community of those – more accurately – who have similar problems, work on achieving something similar, and already been conditioned to believe in the same principles. One of which is that the root cause of all your issues is in you. Alone. Consequently, it is you, who have to do something. But first of all, you have to seek and find help. The right one. For a small amount of money, which is less than the price of your gym pass. With 100% money back guarantee.
Do they sound familiar? Of course they do. Have you ever considered to go and try? Even signed in to one or two? Of course, you did. And what did you find? What did you achieve?
In a positive case you may have learnt certain techniques, how to deal with certain events of your life, met some interesting – or at least familiar-looking – people and had some good talks. In a negative case you have become depressed by the perception of how weak you really are alone and how evil the world around you is. Thus, you may consider becoming or staying a member of some kind of a community, in order not to feel alone. At least.
Unfortunately, you may be completely on the wrong track though. As long as your feelings, your fears, your hopes, that you can change and become anything you want, are maintained and nurtured, you stay open for additional advice, mentoring, help, support, however you call it. And there will always be a right someone who may provide you the right thing in the right moment.
Do we have less bullies at the workplaces? Did social interactions improve in general? Do women have more appreciation? Did anything change regarding the gender inequality – apart from the demonstrative cases we see? Is there less violence? Probably, hundreds of similar questions could be listed here. However, the answer is most possibly: no. To all the questions. We rather have more and more negative examples. Why?
Imagine that the bullies have the justification of their behavior in their ‘community’, where they hear that they should not be afraid to stand up for themselves, to let their voice be heard, to be confident, put themselves on the first place, etc. People with mental disorders are advised to accept that they are different, outstanding, and they shall not be afraid of showing it to the world by their own means. Male chauvinists learn how to be the champion of something they would not be able to conquer (although they would like to). Gender inequality deniers learn how to engineer statistics to underpin their reasoning and how to escape form situations where they are confronted with a different approach. Women are advised to change their behavior towards men, to gain appreciation, to be considered attractive, by learning how to talk, dress, or simply exist. These all in the respective ‘community’. One question surely emerges though: are these ‘communities’ real communities?
Do we call a huge number of trees, in a given geographical location, necessarily, a forest?
Of course, not. They both miss the essentials: the balance of mutual reliance, contribution, diversity, the level of tolerance, to maintain that overall balance. All in order to survive.
What is the purpose of these ‘communities’ then? To find an answer to this question, we have to answer another one, first: can we really expect any change in community-level disorders by forcing people to internalize them on their individual level?
There are, and will be people who crave to become a valuable part of a community, to assimilate, to be supportive, or be supported, etc. The reasons may be very different, but the overall purpose is somewhat similar (to find their own balance, own happiness, own values, etc.). They may continuously seek the means for succeeding, and a ‘community’-level positive feedback may further encourage them. Both to continue and to stay.
Easy to recognize, that this is very practical for those, whose business model is built around these simple observations. They just have to nurture the roots, create a suitable ‘community’, where the necessary ‘part of something valuable’ feeling and regular positive feedback can be guaranteed. Such as in the ‘group of trees’. If they are watered, planted in a reasonable distance from each other to an acceptably rich soil, there would be enough wood for the required purposes. Everything looks fine, especially for those, who think that the purpose of having forests is to have enough wood… Is it really?
The results are already visible: communities here and there, basically for every possible topic. All with the purpose of providing the necessary feedback, right volume of interactions, and – last but not least – interactions with the ‘right’ content. In the meaning of a particular purpose. A purpose of someone. Whose business model may have been built around it…
The real outcome is what you see, if you are brave enough to look at your environment from a distance. Huge number of ‘communities’, without any meaningful interactions between them. Many groups of trees, providing their product. Even though those ‘communities’ are not necessarily in the same geographical location. The real trend is to decompose, disintegrate communities by emphasizing the significance, priority, or even superiority of the individual. Even by the means of faking the ‘community’-feel support behind this. Strengthening the role of the individual, by providing an instant justification of not being alone, but one of the very similar ones. ‘A’ ‘community’.
Our environment, the larger society, even the world has become so polarized, and in so many respects, that it may be called fragmented, instead. Consequently, we are no longer capable of leveraging on a balance of mutual reliance, contribution, diversity, and the level of tolerance, to maintain that overall balance. We are no longer one community, no longer a forest. It seems easier to create alternative ones, which serve our (or someone else’s) purposes than to cooperate, to compromise, in order to restore the original concept. So, we plant a group of trees. And seek and find ‘help’ to make ourselves believe that it is a forest. We just have to work on it…
