How Many People Do You Think Live in Your World?

"...how many people do you think live in your world? You say four billion people live in your world? Are you standing way down there on the ground an telling me that four billion people do not live in four billion separate worlds, are you going to put that across on me?" - Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

It's easy to say, when faced with the world's problems, that things are out of your control, that you've been staring things in the face for so long and are about ready to (or have) just grin and bear it, or, failing the grin, let the weight crush you. The various advice given helps and it doesn't. Some would say just to smile, others would say to look on the bright side. Your mother might invite you to have a cookie. In actuality, conventional wisdom isn't half wrong here.

It isn't quite that the problems you face as you head through life are bad, light, heavy, but when faced with them and the first few attempts to bypass fail, it can look bad. A pebble doesn't seem so bad until it lodges in your boot within the first five minutes of a long march. You can think, if you like, of dozens and dozens of people who have greater problems, how they have to dodge bullets, they've lost loved ones just yesterday... a whole range of horror. That's humbling yourself into accepting fate, which, if it works, by all means. Even this is related to conventional wisdom.

And, to make the range of advice somewhat complete, the harsh words of the rare person come to you: you got yourself into this mess, dig yourself out. Blunt, but it says almost the same thing as all of the above combined.

Hardship in life will not go away; experience comes from making mistakes, and you have to actually do something, try something, to gain that precious experience. It's an enriching, sometimes painful, experience, but it makes up who you are, which in turns determines what you will be. Let's take an example:

Two students, Anne and Roger, are faced with final exams. They've both studied the same amount, are both reasonably close to the same intelligence, have similar histories. There's not a whole lot there that assumes either of them will do poorly. Except for what each of them has done with the world that comprises their reality. Anne sees these exams as something like the Final Judgement, because of various reasons involving pleasing her parents and holding to a high standard that she's kept through the year. Worry over these tests dominates an entire week. Roger, however, knows finals are important for the semester, but he knows his grades have been good enough that a less than perfect grade on these tests won't bankrupt his young life and lead him to a career of crime.

So what's the difference? We know people like this in various walks of life. The example could relate to confidence, or an image problem. However, this is merely a mental game. Anne has prioritized getting good grades on the tests above just about everything, whereas Roger's distributed his priorities; he's getting sleep the night before because he figures cramming is going to make him tired and not too much wiser. In the end, the impact of the exams, as viewed by the teacher, is the same, but clearly the difference between the two individuals is profound.

Allowing trouble to dominate your mind in the way Anne let the goal of good grades control her is entirely, entirely a demon of your own making. So her parents expected things of her? So the grades would figure into, what, an already good record? Both of these are mental creations of your reality, such that outside observers might not understand why it's something to get worked up over (incidently, this is why gaining a fresh perspective on a problem is good, to get a viewpoint that doesn't have your demons' footprints all over it.) Let's try a more extreme example.

You're on your last ten bucks, there is a stack of cutoff notices, repossession notices and bills on your table. Income hunting seems to be crawling much slower than it's taking you to accumulate expenses you have no way of making good on at the moment. Anyone viewing this from the safety of their own realities would recognize this for a hard situation. That is your reality at that moment.

Denial of that reality is escapism, an attempt to get away from the reality by emersing in one that is better. Usually, the new reality is something the victim feels they can control. But that's the key. This is still a mental game. Now, you might say here 'mental tricks won't make the stack of bills go away' and you'd be right, but a shift of attitude will, as well as a reminder of your options to get through it. Options should always include tending to your mental well-being; you live in your head much more than you live in your rent-overdue apartment.

Options help spread out priority and prevent fixation on a loop that is misery over the actual problem. It's a productive activity, and even engaging in it makes one feel like there is movement, rather than stagnation. Consider the problem as a kink in a process. List out practical things that could be done: are you doing your best to job hunt, even for small ones that don't pay well (money is money)? Do you have any family or friends that seem willing to lend a hand (your support)? Are any of the expenses negotiable (the landlord may or may not understand)? What are you doing with the free time waiting for these possible solutions to pan out (hint: staring at walls is static, catching up on the reading you've meant to do but never had time is active)?

Treating problems as rocks in the stream, as obstacles you can flow around with some navigation is taking charge of life's bumps, big and small. From the death of friends to the breaking of a bone, keeping out of stasis and realizing, with your mind, that there is something beyond the problem is key to reshaping your own reality into something that helps you back, rather than remaining a bleak landscape through which you stumble.

Hope is the understanding that things have a path, even if it's different from the one you're used to. It's knowing and being able to use options to escape an entrapment external to your own actions. And often in your reality, you must know how to generate hope by recognizing and realizing opportunities to combat blockage in your life. There are few problems in the world that do not have at least one option, even if the options wind down to your mental well-being, or something more spiritual. Fortunately, religion does not have a monopoly on faith that there is a future past today's problem; it's the faith that you can find the best path and walk around that boulder that should be the High Religion of your world.