In cultural psychology, being WEIRD is something most of us probably cannot avoid. The acronym describes people from a Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic society. Most of you reading this blog will fit into that category. This is relevant to what I'm about to talk about because most of us Westerners hold a drastically different perspective of our world than do people of East Asian cultures. Specifically, the literature shows that there is a tendency for East Asians to hold a more holistic worldview such that they expect life to be made up of both positive and negative things. Think, yin and yang type mentality. In contrast, most Westerners believe that life should be made up of primarily positive events, leading us to see more of these things in our daily lives and hold more optimistic visions of our futures.
How likely do you think it is that you will be diagnosed with some type of cancer in your lifetime?
How likely do you think it is for the average person to be diagnosed with some type of cancer in their lifetime?
If you're like most people, your answers to these questions are quite different. Specifically, you've underestimated how likely it is for you to be diagnosed with cancer compared to the probability of someone else obtaining that diagnosis. (Statistically speaking, you are more likely to be average rather than above average so these probabilities should not differ).
In our individualistic culture, this is beneficial to your well-being because it keeps you from becoming too demoralized to go on living when you're less likely than our East Asian counterparts to receive social support in your down-times. In most non-Western cultures, interdependency is the norm and people can and do rely on one another to maintain their well-being as a collective.
However, this bias to expect mostly positive events has been getting me down lately. In the past few weeks, I've dealt with a dead pet cat, a car with crapped out brake lights, the same car breaking down in the middle of an intersection mere days after spending 150 bucks on it at the shop, wiping out epically on my way to the bus stop, briefly losing my purse at the ballroom, a buttload of midterms, overwhelming school assignments, and a neck pain that even the best muscle relaxants can't seem to kill.
I'm having trouble seeing the positive side of these events.
So, I'm doing what we all do when we experience some uncomfortable cognitive dissonance... I'm reframing my attitudes.
I've decided to take a page out of the East Asian book and am learning how to take the good with the bad in life. So yeah, I'm feeling burnt out and overwhelmed. Life keeps throwing curveballs when I'm trying to study for midterms. But these things happen and all I can do is accept them and move on.
So, I'm accepting these things, but I'm also accepting and recognizing the positives. For example, reading week is almost upon us and I'll be headed to Seattle for some epic dancing, I didn't die in that intersection Sunday night even though my car tried its best to make it happen, I won a free coffee with the Timmie's Roll up the Rim event, and I still have access to a Keurig coffee machine.
Things could always be worse. Look on the bright side of life. Etc. etc. But also keep in mind that shit happens and Murphy's law still exists. If you don't, you might just be extra disappointed when things go wrong...because they WILL go wrong.
It all balances out eventually. Stay strong, peeps!
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