The Curse of Awareness

We’re the most intelligent species on the planet. Given the most powerful brain, we have been able to not just survive the odds of being wiped out by the stronger, more brutal animals, but we have created a life of comfort for ourselves. This is the result of millennia of evolution, centuries of innovation, decades of technological progress, and years of shared knowledge. A century ago, information was scarce. Today, an event that occurs travels far and quickly, reaching the tip of billions of users’ fingers within seconds. Yet, one thing remains unsolved

Two of us may see the same thing. What it means exactly to each one of us differs vastly! That’s obvious! Each of us had a different upbringing, fought through very different challenges, and traversed very different paths to reach where we are. Some of us are aware that we differ in perspectives, whereas a lot of us believe that what we know is the absolute truth, completely oblivious to the other perspective, the other side of the story. And this contributes to the most pivotal battle which I call “The curse of awareness”

What’s this new thing? We all have heard of “the curse of knowledge” – it’s when one of us
knows a lot about a particular subject or topic, and we are able to share our knowledge because of this. But there are a whole lot of others in the room that have limited knowledge or understanding of the said subject. They either end up not understanding what we’re saying, or worse – our words resonate with them to the extent of their knowledge, justifying their limited beliefs about the subject, and validating anything that they orchestrate based on their belief. And that’s why we find ourselves constantly answering the question “How can I make this simple to understand?”

But the curse of awareness is deeper than that – it’s when we are aware of the world much more than the next person. We are aware of everything – emotions, strengths, soft spots, sweet traits, ugly traits, triggers, vulnerabilities, and many more. We are aware of our own, and we make it a point to build awareness of these aspects of those who matter to us. We make it a point to navigate through in a way that shows the best support in the way they need it. Yet, we’re not shown the same effort. Our triggers are ignored, our emotions get invalidated, our vulnerabilities get taken advantage of, our sweet traits go unseen, and our toxic traits get magnified. This is an unconscious effort to validate their own experience while ignoring the consequences of their actions, and we can’t point that out to them – because all that we end up with is more of this and more justification of why they were “right”. Oh lord!

I guess, we can never overcome this with most people. And it’s not on us to bring awareness to everybody who enters our life. It’s our responsibility to go out there and find people who are willing to meet us where we are. Not just the physical location, but the level of awareness too. It’s our responsibility to find our tribe, who is willing to embark on the journey of awareness, self-improvement, and progress – for having the right people around us is just as important as having the right vision and goal. We may feel we’re better off alone, but we are not. It’s hard, and I empathize with all of you that may feel that. But it’s hard to not find people and do things alone too. And we all have to choose our hard. And it need not be as hard as we make it to be!

If someone’s our type, welcome them in with open arms. If they’re not, smile, wish them the best, and move on! We need not let the actions of every single person affect us. We choose to do that because we’re not equipped with understanding how we can let go quickly, healthily and get back to our original state of peace. It’s a learnable skill, and it’s worth learning it! We have the power over our response to any external event. The response we choose decides whether we’re willing to raise our awareness or fall to the level of the awareness of the other person over time. Choose wisely!