The Setup

Going inward and challenging yourself can be an important way to improve your self-awareness and self-understanding. By examining your thoughts, feelings, and motivations, you can gain insight into your behavior and how you relate to others. This can help you become more self-aware, and individuals are typically better able to manage their emotions, form meaningful connections with others, and make more effective decisions. Additionally, challenging yourself can help you to grow and develop as an individual, allowing you to become more confident and capable in various areas of your life.

These changes in thinking affect how you see the world and how others in your life engage in the world. The ripple effect of someone who can understand their emotions and manage them effectively will also change how others live. You may also be a compass or guide for others dealing with similar issues.

The Approach

• Recognize that in any given situation, every person involved has a different perspective and that no one’s frame of reference is absolute.
• Heal by seeing your imperfections and failures as something to highlight instead of hide.
• Manage your emotions in any situation by sitting with feelings of jealousy or envy rather than acting on them.
• Consider psychological phenomena in any group setting where people mimic others’ behaviors and perceived norms.
• Increase memory using interval techniques that help you retain more.

​The Latticework

• Relativity is the idea that everyone has a different perspective, and no one has an absolute frame of reference. You can approximate reality more closely by acknowledging that your viewpoint is limited and that by combining multiple perspectives, you will reduce blind spots.
• Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold or other precious metals to highlight the cracks and fractures instead of hiding them. The practice illustrates how humans can become stronger, more beautiful, and unique in healing.
• Jealousy and Envy Bias is at the root of many interactions when it comes to humans because people like to be seen as worthy and want to be loved. It’s not about conquering these challenging emotions forever but rather allowing them to exist when they arise.
• Social proof is a psychological phenomenon in which people tend to mimic the behavior of others to fit in or conform to the perceived norms of a particular group or situation.
• Spaced repetition is a learning technique that involves increasing the intervals between subsequent reviews of previously learned material to improve retention and memory.

​The Deep Dive

​Relativity​

Everybody has a different perspective, and no one has an absolute frame of reference. Galilean relativity asserts the laws of motion are the same in all inertial frames. While reality exists, there are infinite ways to observe something. In physics, for example, someone drives past a pedestrian in their car. The driver sees themself as stationary as they are not in motion, but the pedestrian watches them move horizontally. Each frame is valid but substantially different; that’s relativity. Reality is seeing beyond one’s perspective and encompasses a broader range of inputs. This includes others’ views, new observations, and factors that cloud one’s judgment. In discourse, folks might disagree and be comfortable keeping their opinions, but that would miss the point of what relativity offers: an opportunity to inform discussions with shared understanding. Obtaining agreement is overrated compared to what mutual understanding can deliver — the same result without the cost.

​Kintsugi​

Kintsugi, golden joinery, is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery by putting the pieces together with gold, silver, or platinum—a metaphor for embracing imperfection. Instead of hiding or concealing repairs, the method accentuates them and their inherent beauty. Repairing broken pottery using this method celebrates the breakage and “scars” of its past. The golden cracks make the work more valuable than when it was unbroken. The practice illustrates something true about humans: in healing, they can become stronger, more beautiful, and unique. One radiates inner beauty by embracing the painful parts of life, the golden cracks. Recognize pain, fear, and struggles. Visualize them as golden cracks and you as a mended piece of pottery. You remain intact, despite the breaks. Society might seem to expect perfection, but it admires those who have persisted and struggled to find themselves. Use Kintsugi as an antidote to perfectionism by applying it to your past.

​Jealousy & Envy Bias​

Jealousy is the desire to keep what you have, whereas envy is the desire to obtain what you do not have. These feelings are a biological survival mechanism built into the human condition, now less useful in modernity, that upend relationships, society, and the world. At jealousy’s core is a human requirement to feel needed. At envy’s core is a human necessity to be worthy. Jealousy involves fear of loss and distrust, fear of losing someone, uncertainty and loneliness, low self-esteem and sadness over perceived loss, and being suspicious or angry regarding a perceived betrayal. Envy involves feeling inferior, resenting your circumstances, dismay towards other’s achievements, yearning to possess another person’s attractive qualities, ill will towards another and often guilt concerning those feelings, and motivation to improve yourself. Recognizing where jealousy stems from and how to manage it positively improves relationships, professional aspirations, and goals.

​Social Proof​

Individuals are influenced and mimic what others around them are doing — monkey see, monkey do. That effect becomes more pronounced when folks are uncertain, stressed, or confused. Regardless of how individualistic people believe themself to be, most folks have an innate desire to conform. Humans assume others understand the situation better than they do and tend to exhibit a herd mentality. The behavior stems from a natural disposition to behave correctly and fit in.

Interestingly, people are affected by this principle, whether they are with others or alone. Look at how you act in a group, and notice when people agree with each other too quickly. Are you or individuals using social queues to influence how you act or react in a situation? Being conscious of the invisible ways our mind naturally works can be enough to know whether to maintain or modify a behavior.

​Spaced Repetition​

Spaced repetition is a proven memory technique that helps folks recall knowledge over progressively more prolonged periods. The concept combines two approaches. Spaced Practice requires learning in short sessions on a longer time horizon. Retrieval Practice involves regularly testing knowledge. In practice, individuals divide learning time into brief sessions and actively retrieve information on a spaced schedule. So, instead of studying or re-reading knowledge in large chunks, the learner focuses on testing themselves in short sessions to retain information better. The more they practice, the less often they need to see the information. Testing learned knowledge continues at increasing intervals. Memory is like a massive library. There is space for all kinds of information, but the catalog plays a paramount role with such vast content. Staying on top of where the information is and how to access it is where to focus your attention.