Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Bad Day

Life is hard. We are always fighting against the challenges of life, such as stress from work, financial hardship and relationship problems. People deal with hardships through different means. Some travel to catch some fresh air, while others seek the support of a friend or loved one. Although we ought to be spending our days in the pursuit of happiness, instead we are more often trying desperately to find a way to escape misery.

Amongst all this, we forget a very simple fact. Others around us are going through just as hard a life as we are. A sad truth about the human condition is that in times of stress, we instinctively become self-preserving. At the end of the day, evolution favours those who are able to save their own skin. Because of this, we are always seeking support and kindness to help us escape our misery, while often turning a blind eye to other people’s misery.

When is the last time you asked a friend about what’s really going on in their lives? It is much more common for us to blurt out what’s troubling us than asking others about their own troubles. We could be complaining to our friends about something trivial compared to the strife they are going through, but we would not know because we had not asked.

Even worse, what about strangers on the streets? If someone was rude to us, it would sour our day. But if we were rude to someone because we were genuinely in a rush or having a terrible day, we excuse ourselves and do not think much of it. How do we know that that person isn’t having the worst day of their lives and we just made it worse?

Of course it is impossible to know of all the bad things happening to everyone. We can make an effort to reduce the burden of our friends by being supportive, but it is hard to do that for someone you meet for less than a minute on the streets.

So perhaps the solution is this: be generous with your kindness. You have no idea what situation the other person is in, but it is hard to do wrong when you treat everyone around you with kindness. At worst, you’ve expended a small part of your emotional energy. At best, you’ve become more empathetic and happy, while making someone’s day. Never forget how much difference you can make with simple acts and words of kindness.

Posted in Life & Happiness

Compassion Meditation

One way of achieving happiness is through compassion – the wish that other people will be happy and free from suffering. Empathy is a powerful tool and when others are happy, we tend to feel happy as well (but not always). But in modern society, people are so busy with their own lives and stresses that they do not have the luxury of caring for the well-being of others. The result of this is our compassion drying up, crippling our ability to be happy. Here is a simple meditation that helps train your compassion.

The first step of this meditation is simple: think of someone you know that is suffering and wish them good fortune. It could be a friend who has gone through a break-up or a family member who is ill. Wish that they will find the right one eventually or that they will get better soon. An important point is that you should be sincere with this, ergo it is easier to do it for people you care about. Over time, you will find that it is easier and easier to wish for someone to not suffer and it will slowly become almost a “habit”.

Once you feel yourself becoming comfortable with this, try it out on strangers on the street. If you see someone, think to yourself “I wish that person will have a good day”. It could be that you wish that person will have a loving family to go home to, or even a little thing such as someone complimenting them. Much like training an unused muscle, it will be difficult at first but you will slowly see your compassion grow and strengthen, as you genuinely wish the better for others. Perhaps you will even find yourself doing little things to brighten someone else’s day, such as giving a compliment, listening to someone’s problems or giving a small but thoughtful gift.

The ultimate step of this meditation is being compassionate towards someone you truly dislike. If you are able to wish good fortune on your worst enemy and sincerely hope that they would be happy, you would truly be a compassionate person. Like any skill, it takes much training and effort to train yourself to be this compassionate. But even if you cannot reach this level, every single step towards becoming a more compassionate person will make you feel just a little bit happier.

Posted in History & Literature

Watchmen

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Who will guard the guards?

One of the most basic instincts of a human being is to doubt. We do not easily extend our trust to strangers. This is a natural response that is very beneficial for your survival from an evolutionary perspective (consider the overfriendly dodos that were wiped out by humans). As civilisation has progressed and the size of societies grew, people devised legal systems to lower their vigilance against each other. This was because instead of wasting time being suspicious of others, we devised specialist roles who would do that for us, allowing us to live in peace with each other. These specialists who stay alert and guard us enforce the law and stabilise our society. However, what would happen if the people that protect us from evil become evil? Is it not a scary thought to think that there is no one that watches the watchmen?

Emperor Qin Shi Huang who united China to form the Qin dynasty divided up his people, setting up a mutual guard system to enforce his rule. Informing became a civil obligation. To not report illegal activities was illegal in itself. The system of informing was as follows: five families form a group with each group being watched by an official warden who reports on them. This official warden is carefully observed by an unofficial surveillant. Five groups come together to form a tribe. If it is found that at any level something was not reported, the blame was turned on every member of the group. Thus, a circle of surveillance is formed.

This method was extremely effective and Emperor Qin’s rule of terror was unstoppable. Crime rates plummeted while productivity rose. The problem was that the people’s quality of life was pathetic. Emperor Qin’s system of watching was later adopted by Nazi Germany. The people under the rule of the Nazis had to live in fear of being reported by their neighbours. This method is also seen being used by Big Brother in George Orwell’s novel 1984. Is this truly the best system to keep peace? Laws are put in place for the happiness and safety of the people, yet over-surveillance is an ironic concept that exists for those who hold power rather than the people.

How much should we trust another person? And who will watch the watchmen?

Posted in Psychology & Medicine

Stranger Danger

Babies first show “stranger anxiety” at between 8 to 10 months of age. As their brains develop rapidly, they also learn social-emotional skills and recognise the identity of “parents”. Thus, they do not trust any other adults that are not “parents”. This phenomenon usually disappears after two years, but they then receive education from adults that they should not trust strangers, or Stranger Danger.
Interestingly, most kidnapping cases are committed by an adult the child knows well.

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Another fact related to stranger anxiety is that it is dependent on how close the baby is to its parents. Take the Strange Situation Test developed by Ainsworth as an example:

Put a baby under the age of 12 months and its parent in the same room, then separate the two. Next, send in an adult the baby has never seen before, then after a short while exchange the adult back with the parent.

Normal babies become anxious and agitated when a stranger enters the room, but then they calm down almost immediately as the parent returns. Also, when the parent returns the baby requests to be held, as physical contact represents safety for a baby.
However, a baby that has spent less time with its parents, or a baby with unresponsive parents exhibit a different behaviour. In fact, they become more agitated when the parent returns, and often show avoidance. This is because there has been insufficient bonding between the two.
A more extreme case is of a baby that has been abused. These babies become extremely disorganised and disoriented upon the parent’s return. This is also due to improper socio-emotional development. Babies like these that were not intimately bonded with their parents tend to have trust issues even after development, which may lead to social problems in adulthood.