Nearly every single one of us lives in what I call "The Bubble."
The Bubble is the world we know, and it's a very narrow world. It's where we are comfortable, and it's where change rarely exists. It's our values, it's our beliefs, and it's our dreams. It's our ideas, habits, lifestyle, and passions. In the bubble, we are insulated from things that do not seem to matter to us, or at least from things we feel like we have no way of controlling. The bubble is a happy, carefree, place- well, most of the time. Sometimes bad things sneak into our bubble and we have to deal with them. The Bubble is normalcy. It's just about as good as it gets, actually. Or is it?
Still don't know what I'm talking about when I say "The Bubble?" Let me get more specific. The Bubble is the human beings you regularly interact with- your family, your circle of friends, your co-workers, the strangers you pass by on the street or the supermarket. The Bubble is all of the places you go on a regular basis- your home, where you work, your favorite coffee shop, the gas station. It's where you live. It's your religion or political ideology.
The Bubble is your hobbies. It's basketball, because despite the fact that you are horrible at the sport, you still watch it and play it because it's been so engrained in your life since you were 4 years old. It's your favorite type of music, which you only listen to because your friend was wearing that Green Day T-shirt in sixth grade. It's playing the piano, only because you started taking lessons when you were 8 years old after you were jealous of your brother always coming home with candy after his lesson. Ok, obviously I'm talking about myself here- but all of our favorite things we like to do came from somewhere.
The Bubble is what you regularly consume. It's your Netflix instant queue, your Pandora stations, and your Spotify playlists. It's the same five TV stations you always watch, or the same five websites you regularly visit. It's the food you buy from the supermarket. It's the clothes you wear. It's the car you drive and the house you sleep in. Or, more specifically, the bed you sleep in.
It's your culture. It's your way of life.
And you may ask yourself...how did I get here?
That really isn't relevant to this. My plea to you is to get the heck out of your bubble. I'm not saying your bubble is not good enough, but I am saying you should never limit yourself to your bubble. There's a great big universe out there, and you're likely missing out on a lot.
How do you get out of your bubble? Quite simply, experience new things. It could be something as simple as trying a new food you've never tried before, taking a different way home, or walking up to a stranger (or as I call them, future friends) and talking to them.
Travel some place new. Anyone who has visited a foreign country- and I mean actually visited, not just hanging out at a resort or a military base- will tell you that it was one of the most meaningful experiences of their lives. You don't have to travel to another country- it could be a new neighborhood in your city.
Learn a new skill that very few people know. Look for a new job even when you don't think you want one. Go to a local band's concert without ever hearing their music before. Watch a film from another country. Stumble upon a new website.
How people use the internet is a perfect example of how we live in The Bubble. In 2010, the average person visited 89 different websites a month. According to this, there are currently around 630 million websites. What does that mean? Well, most people who open up their Internet Explorer are not really exploring the internet at all. I guarantee you that most of my friends visit the same ten or so websites on regular basis. Unless I am researching, I can definitely be guilty of this. In fact, the majority of time I spend on the internet is on one site: Reddit. Reddit makes your bubble even more insulated because the only web pages that appear are the ones who have subscribed to, based off your interests. Any social media site poses the same dilemma- you only tend to see in your feed what you want to see.
Imagine walking around in real life and everyone you encounter agrees with you 100 percent about everything. This, of course, is not realistic, but it is exactly what we've come to expect on the websites we visit. Not only that, but when people are looking for answers on new websites, say in a Google search, they tend to have what is known as confirmation bias. This means they are interpreting any new information to match their already existing beliefs.
Basically, we have never, in the history of the world, ever had it easier when it comes to access to information. We can access anything we want on the internet, and most of it for free, yet we tend to only look at a sliver of a sliver of a sliver of what is available to us. Say you visit 10,000 different websites in your lifetime, which might be a good estimate of what really will happen. Well, there will still be over 1 billion websites you never checked out, accounting for the fact that 51 million new websites are created every year.
So what's the biggest excuse for this? It's just easier to visit the same few web sites you already visit, especially if you're happy with the sites. But what if you're missing out on the greatest website of all time? You would never know unless you start exploring.
Some people say that ignorance is bliss, that sometimes you can know too much because it just overwhelms you so much that you're completely stressed out. I call bull crap. You can never learn enough, and you should never stop learning. Younger people tend to be more curious, and thus tend to learn more. They rarely are as trapped in their bubbles as older people, who become far too comfortable in their bubbles. However, never underestimate the power of The Bubble which is created by the parents or guardians of children.
I was in a very insulated bubble growing up, but then, like so many teenagers do, I began to question things. I found out there was a great big world outside of my little world. The more people I met who were radically different than me, the more brand new experiences I had, and the more new ideas are was exposed to made me so much better of a human being.
But this should never stop. Why do so many people stop experiencing new things? Usually there is a risk experiencing new things, and usually your old way of life is challenged. But I am telling you this a terrible thing.We need stop following the world we know.
Get out of The Bubble. Not only that, force other people out of their bubbles. Are you opening the door for conflict? Possibly. Is it a scary thing to get out of your bubble? Definitely. But it is always worth the risk. Where do you begin? It doesn't have to be a huge step. Start small. How about visiting that Thai restaurant you were always curious about?
If everyone got out of their own bubbles, they might finally begin to understand each other, and realize that we all have much more in common than we think.
The Bubble is the world we know, and it's a very narrow world. It's where we are comfortable, and it's where change rarely exists. It's our values, it's our beliefs, and it's our dreams. It's our ideas, habits, lifestyle, and passions. In the bubble, we are insulated from things that do not seem to matter to us, or at least from things we feel like we have no way of controlling. The bubble is a happy, carefree, place- well, most of the time. Sometimes bad things sneak into our bubble and we have to deal with them. The Bubble is normalcy. It's just about as good as it gets, actually. Or is it?
Still don't know what I'm talking about when I say "The Bubble?" Let me get more specific. The Bubble is the human beings you regularly interact with- your family, your circle of friends, your co-workers, the strangers you pass by on the street or the supermarket. The Bubble is all of the places you go on a regular basis- your home, where you work, your favorite coffee shop, the gas station. It's where you live. It's your religion or political ideology.
The Bubble is your hobbies. It's basketball, because despite the fact that you are horrible at the sport, you still watch it and play it because it's been so engrained in your life since you were 4 years old. It's your favorite type of music, which you only listen to because your friend was wearing that Green Day T-shirt in sixth grade. It's playing the piano, only because you started taking lessons when you were 8 years old after you were jealous of your brother always coming home with candy after his lesson. Ok, obviously I'm talking about myself here- but all of our favorite things we like to do came from somewhere.
The Bubble is what you regularly consume. It's your Netflix instant queue, your Pandora stations, and your Spotify playlists. It's the same five TV stations you always watch, or the same five websites you regularly visit. It's the food you buy from the supermarket. It's the clothes you wear. It's the car you drive and the house you sleep in. Or, more specifically, the bed you sleep in.
It's your culture. It's your way of life.
And you may ask yourself...how did I get here?
That really isn't relevant to this. My plea to you is to get the heck out of your bubble. I'm not saying your bubble is not good enough, but I am saying you should never limit yourself to your bubble. There's a great big universe out there, and you're likely missing out on a lot.
How do you get out of your bubble? Quite simply, experience new things. It could be something as simple as trying a new food you've never tried before, taking a different way home, or walking up to a stranger (or as I call them, future friends) and talking to them.
Travel some place new. Anyone who has visited a foreign country- and I mean actually visited, not just hanging out at a resort or a military base- will tell you that it was one of the most meaningful experiences of their lives. You don't have to travel to another country- it could be a new neighborhood in your city.
Learn a new skill that very few people know. Look for a new job even when you don't think you want one. Go to a local band's concert without ever hearing their music before. Watch a film from another country. Stumble upon a new website.
How people use the internet is a perfect example of how we live in The Bubble. In 2010, the average person visited 89 different websites a month. According to this, there are currently around 630 million websites. What does that mean? Well, most people who open up their Internet Explorer are not really exploring the internet at all. I guarantee you that most of my friends visit the same ten or so websites on regular basis. Unless I am researching, I can definitely be guilty of this. In fact, the majority of time I spend on the internet is on one site: Reddit. Reddit makes your bubble even more insulated because the only web pages that appear are the ones who have subscribed to, based off your interests. Any social media site poses the same dilemma- you only tend to see in your feed what you want to see.
Imagine walking around in real life and everyone you encounter agrees with you 100 percent about everything. This, of course, is not realistic, but it is exactly what we've come to expect on the websites we visit. Not only that, but when people are looking for answers on new websites, say in a Google search, they tend to have what is known as confirmation bias. This means they are interpreting any new information to match their already existing beliefs.
Basically, we have never, in the history of the world, ever had it easier when it comes to access to information. We can access anything we want on the internet, and most of it for free, yet we tend to only look at a sliver of a sliver of a sliver of what is available to us. Say you visit 10,000 different websites in your lifetime, which might be a good estimate of what really will happen. Well, there will still be over 1 billion websites you never checked out, accounting for the fact that 51 million new websites are created every year.
So what's the biggest excuse for this? It's just easier to visit the same few web sites you already visit, especially if you're happy with the sites. But what if you're missing out on the greatest website of all time? You would never know unless you start exploring.
Some people say that ignorance is bliss, that sometimes you can know too much because it just overwhelms you so much that you're completely stressed out. I call bull crap. You can never learn enough, and you should never stop learning. Younger people tend to be more curious, and thus tend to learn more. They rarely are as trapped in their bubbles as older people, who become far too comfortable in their bubbles. However, never underestimate the power of The Bubble which is created by the parents or guardians of children.
I was in a very insulated bubble growing up, but then, like so many teenagers do, I began to question things. I found out there was a great big world outside of my little world. The more people I met who were radically different than me, the more brand new experiences I had, and the more new ideas are was exposed to made me so much better of a human being.
But this should never stop. Why do so many people stop experiencing new things? Usually there is a risk experiencing new things, and usually your old way of life is challenged. But I am telling you this a terrible thing.We need stop following the world we know.
Get out of The Bubble. Not only that, force other people out of their bubbles. Are you opening the door for conflict? Possibly. Is it a scary thing to get out of your bubble? Definitely. But it is always worth the risk. Where do you begin? It doesn't have to be a huge step. Start small. How about visiting that Thai restaurant you were always curious about?
If everyone got out of their own bubbles, they might finally begin to understand each other, and realize that we all have much more in common than we think.
1 comment:
Great idea for a blog! I just discovered it, as I just decided to leave the Facebook bubble - for posting anyway. So here I am, exploring new bubbles. Great idea for a blog, for kids and adults.
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