Tag Archive for 'belief systems'

Trust30 | misery loves company

Published on June 8, 2011 in personal growth. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

winding roadphoto © 2009 Matt MacGillivray | more info (via: Wylio)In my family, misery loves company.

One relative that hates his job has been counting down to retirement for over a decade, preferring to stay in a high stress job that takes a physical and psychological toll than float a resume or two to headhunters, even when the economy was booming. Another can spend hours agonizing over the interminable drama of tertiary relatives, rather than focusing on the aspects of life that she actually has the power to change and improve. A third goes through the same repeated motions, without ever considering new tactics, acting as if the world conspires against him, when he just isn’t ready to do the work.

It’s an exhausting co-dependent network. To call out the fearful behavior would be opening the door to addressing one’s own boundaries and limitations.

So it’s just not done.

Stretch goals and dreams are imagined lottery wins and alternate realities in which the possibilities are endless. They are fanciful what ifs that remind you of what is not, rather than opportunities to develop game plans to achieve objectives.

And I just can’t live as though the best of what life has to offer is only for everyone else. What is the point of struggle? The uphill slog helps you learn and grow, and often times you find a better destination off the map as you go.

While it’s frustrating to still be unemployed almost 9 months after a layoff, I have been busy exploring a variety of avenues that could lead to new adventures. Countless webinars, trainings and conferences have provided insight into my interests, the good life and the community-at-large. When one road doesn’t feel right I pivot and apply for different types of jobs. And along the way I’ve been picking up new information, contacts and advice that’s helping me fine tune.

Having found the sweet spot for me — where technology and human connection intersect — it’s a matter of teasing out how I can plug my skills into the space.

While I’d prefer any job hunt to be fast and easy, I know the meandering road is more likely to lead to a life that is of my own making, not one of shared inaction against situations I actually have the power to change.

The above is my second entry in the #Trust30 for the Ralph Waldo Emerson self-reliance blog challenge. The task: What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

It’s not too late to sign up and participate.

Is there an echo in here? Living in the bubble.

Published on October 18, 2010 in Technology. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

photo by scion_cho

Over at Beyond the Times, Walter wrote about the inevitable echo chamber effect that would follow the introduction of a news aggregator into Facebook update streams.   Given all the “likes” assigned a variety of content on the site, it would be an easy feat to develop an algorithm to direct relevant news  that fits an individual user’s world view, eliminating any challenges to that perspective.

It’s not as though such formulas aren’t already pervasive on the intertubes.  Netflix regularly recommends a variety of films within subgenres that I frequently view, and Amazon.com is constantly tweaking its suggestions to me based on my purchases, viewing and rating of titles.

Eli Pariser recently discussed the filter bubble phenomena with Lynn Paramore of the Roosevelt Institute:

Since Dec. 4, 2009, Google has been personalized for everyone. So when I had two friends this spring Google “BP,” one of them got a set of links that was about investment opportunities in BP. The other one got information about the oil spill. Presumably that was based on the kinds of searches that they had done in the past. If you have Google doing that, and you have Yahoo doing that, and you have Facebook doing that, and you have all of the top sites on the Web customizing themselves to you, then your information environment starts to look very different from anyone else’s. And that’s what I’m calling the “filter bubble”: that personal ecosystem of information that’s been catered by these algorithms to who they think you are.

This technology-induced bubble is particularly problematic in that it is human nature to accept facts and opinions that align with  personal beliefs and disregard information that clashes.  A recent Yale Law School study published in the Journal of Risk Research found that regardless of political leanings,

Individuals systematically overestimate the degree of scientific support for positions they are culturally predisposed to accept.

Social technology is making it effortless find and follow preferred sentiment and these sites are increasingly becoming the go-to places for news.   Forty-two percent of respondents in a Retrevo Gadgetology study admit to checking and updating their Twitter and Facebook feeds first thing in the morning, with 23 percent of iPhone identifying these feeds as their morning news.  In a recent Oxygen Media study, more than one third of women 18-34 years old reported checking Facebook before getting out of bed in the morning.

What happens to society when people can no longer have informed discussions of reality and data because of a refusal to acknowledge the very existence, let alone the validity, of information that conflicts with our own world view?  Does it increasingly heighten the notion of an “Other” that could destroy a preferred way of living?  Should marginalized religions, races and cultures expect increased persecution for being an outlier of mainstream thought?

And most importantly, how do we find ways to be more receptive to ideas that challenge our own? New solutions to old problems could emerge from the discussion that follows.