What you see is what you get!?

What you see is what you get!?

So why should you actually complain when you don’t get what you don’t want to see?

Isn’t that contradictory?

This article is an observation and personal reflection of the current society and its influence on the mental health for the average human, it might contain personal experience and will definitely be biased, it is up to the reader though to draw their own conclusions. You might want to ask why I picked this specific topic; well I have to admit that this was triggered by a documentary on TV.

We can barely influence our inspiration, sometimes it just makes things more difficult if we question where it does come from. What we can definitely influence is our very own way to gain and maintain the motivation to use that inspiration in a constructive way. It is always important to have an open mind and accept another perspective as well and question the own knowledge and understanding.

To say the least it is pretty difficult to actually write about this topic because it’s still a taboo in our society, a few decades ago it would have been even worse because a mental illness was almost as bad as Aliens from outer space. We have become more aware of the tendency and risk though, but the acceptance in the society is still a topic that most don’t want to touch to avoid raised eye brows and weird looks from the side. 

If you hear some comments, the term “crazy” is used pretty often even though it is very discriminating. It is a weak excuse when we do have the impression that someone does not meet the expectations of an average member of our society. But who defines the criteria and restrictions on how a normal human is supposed to act? Isn’t that understanding of perfection always based on the ideal of a very selfish society that likes to degrade everyone that is not as perfect as the ridiculous advertising that we see everywhere?

The whole imagination of perfection is so far from the truth, yet it creates an atmosphere of pressure and terror. We think we are by far more civilized than our ancestors because we are able to invent and use more advanced technology. What appears to be normal nowadays may sound like science fiction for our older generation and we will be faced by the same scenario when we get older as well. The general expectations grow more and more and if we are unable to reach certain goals, the society tells us that we are not worth it and shall try harder.

But not everybody is really that strong to compete in this race and in fact it is a race that we can never win. Because when we think we finally made it, there will be another difficult challenge. Does that automatically mean that we shall give up? Hello no, but one of our main goals is getting a better understanding of our own abilities and our role in the society. Everything happens for a reason and we can’t change our past, but we can learn from it and use that knowledge to make more reasonable decisions in the here and now as well as in the future.

Why does the society keep up that pressure and creates another ideal of perfection all the time? It is part of the human nature that we always like challenges and want to reach certain goals; this fake perfection will keep our motivation high even though we don’t realize that we don’t want to be perfect. We are telling ourselves that we want to be like someone else because that person is more successful or gets more respect and attention in the society than us. 

There is a saying: Nobody is perfect. Well, so if we somehow manage to be that super hero, we would in fact be nobody, huh? In my humble opinion, I don’t want to be nobody and rather be somebody … I might be less perfect, but I am also myself and not someone that I pretend to and don’t want to be. Some might appreciate it and don’t care about the consequences because they will get more attention and that is worth living a lie … but are they really honest with themselves all the time?

The worst and best moment that you will ever experience is the time when you realize that you need help and are not as good as you thought you are. Normally this has a very negative aspect, but if you see it from another perspective it will appear more reasonable than you imagine on first glance. You will feel weak and want to hide from everybody … but you will also know exactly where your limits are. And this understanding will help you to move on and find an inner balance that you need to improve. 

When you reach the point and feel totally burned out, when you can’t even handle the most common situation in your daily routine and break down, you will feel like the most useless person on this planet. If you try to solve this all by yourself, you will barely succeed and there might always be the risk to break down again. This whole experience is extraordinary and will have a huge impact on the rest of your life, the question is just if you are able to crawl out of the cocoon and seek help or not.

We tell us most of the time that it’s not as bad as it might look, but if we are not totally honest it might create a certain negative energy. You can’t just grab a patch and fix a trauma in our soul; it’s by far more complicated and not really visible unless you pay attention. If we wait too long, there is no guarantee that it can ever be fixed … no matter how bad it is, the process itself is always tough and will bring us near the limit of our mental and physical will power.

The most difficult step is realizing that there might be a problem and the tendency in our society nowadays is showing an increase of burnouts in the younger generation. It is not the 40 year old workaholic anymore that breaks down, it already starts in school and the early years at work. The overall pressure has a bigger impact on our daily routine as we want to admit, we don’t even notice it because it has already become a part of our life through the “education” of the mass media. 

But does the mass media really care about the average expectation? In fact they could care less because they want to attract their consumers and it doesn’t matter if the publicity is good or bad, if people talk about it, you have reached the goal. There has to be a tragedy or triumph, otherwise people would not pay any attention and we are always attracted by something special. Most don’t pay attention to the little things until they are not available anymore. 

What would you do if you see that someone is struggling, do you look away or do you have to have a certain affinity to that person in order to offer help? It might sound trivial, but sometimes it is not really that difficult to be there for someone and just listen, talking about problems helps to get a better understanding of what actually happened because you can’t tell the story without going back in the own memory. Often you will also get a completely different perspective and if you have an open mind, you will be able to evaluate the situation and make the most logical choice.

If you eat every problem up and never share it with anyone, you are either very lonely or give out a false impression to others and want to hide the reality. We always try to fit into a specific category because we are afraid of what might happen when we don’t meet the expectations. We live a double life and most of the time the perfect impression doesn’t reflect the inner balance, but we are barely able to maintain that all the time. Sometimes the masquerade reveals its identity or the inner balance breaks and this is the moment that we should fear. It can be avoided pretty easily though … just be honest with yourself and accept your leaks as part of your personality and identity.

You don’t have to be proud of it, but you should also not deny it … even though this means that you appear less perfect in the eyes of someone else. It’s not always yes or no … sometimes it’s also “and” – same with black and white, quite often we see a lot of variations of grey. We once have chosen a certain path and this has been our destiny for the rest of our life. The more experience we gain, the better of an understanding about our path we get and realize that the path that once seemed to be so promising might not be the best choice any more. 

Don’t look at that like a defeat, it is part of our learning aspect and we just recapitulate our progress so far and if necessary adjust the goals. We don’t have to stay on the path just because we once thought it would be golden, we make a lot of experiences in our life and our priorities might change. “What would have happened if I had already known that at that time” is just an illusion of the mind because there is no way that we could have had the same knowledge already back in the days.

We make good and bad decisions and how we handle the consequences defines our karma. Should we feel guilty that we have done something wrong? This might be the case but it happened and can’t be undone. But would we have gotten that far in our life as well if we didn’t make that mistake?  We are who we are and not who we want to be or pretend to be. Because sooner or later the truth will come out … and it will be by far less difficult if we are honest with ourselves.

In a certain way we all are a little bit crazy … because we can’t be exactly the same way like another person. We all have made our own experiences and picked up values and knowledge in a different way or have another understanding of everything that happened, currently happened and might happen. But does that automatically mean that we are worth less or more than someone else? That’s what the society wants to tell us, because without us they would be less perfect as well and we wouldn’t use our full potential to improve either. 

Thanks for your attention!

Christian Zetzsche / zedmaster84