We all think we are important, and the things that happen to us are important. But in reality we inhabit a 7inch diameter World. Its located just above your shoulders, and it goes with you wherever you go.
Lets distinguish between absolute reality and relative reality.
Absolute reality, you I exist, people can see, touch, hear, and smell(!) you.
Relative reality is the world you think you inhabit. Its how you perceive yourself, family, friends, the people you interact with, your home, belongings and everything else.
Someone says “leave me alone”; you interpret the words, give them meaning (positive, negative, neutral), you react not to the words but to the meaning you have placed on them.
This week I have blogged about being excluded from a message board. A spectrum of feelings, reactions was open to me - I could feel offended, hard done by, indignant, hatred, vengefulness, amusement, indifference, apathy. I could fill the page with a list of possible emotions. My feelings and subsequent actions depended on what I had perceived had happened in my relative world.
Its always advisable to periodically take a reality check. Yesterday I asked you to identify the person in the photograph. I would guess that a very small minority of the people who read the blog would know the position he holds, and an even smaller minority will know his name. He looks oriental, looks healthy, well dressed - perhaps he’s the chief executive of a motor manufacture or electronic company. In fact he is Hu Jintao president of the People’s Republic of China and chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission. The leader of the fastest growing economy in the world, and ruler of approximately one thousand three hundred and fourteen million citizens - that’s a lot of people!
If ever I think events become daunting I think about the 1,314,000,000 Chinese and ask - how important do they think the events are? It’s an effective reality check, when you realise more than 99.999999999% of the worlds population don’t even know that you exist. In fact, unless you live in a small village, more than 99.9% of the residence of your home town don’t know you exist. It’s even more sobering to realise how many people you come in daily contact with would react with derision at your over reaction to a trivial event.
I’ve already noted how futile it is to plan. But we still deceive ourselves that we are the centre of the Universe - time to take another reality check!
By the way this is a photograph of the leader of a country with a population of over 1,000,000,000. - and they’ve never heard of me as well!
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