Viewing Others Through Newer Perspective

​

​​Some clipped statements from the video:

1. My father says I have to be a dentist or a doctor, because he says within a month I can get more than S$1000

2. My father usually tells me that i have to work harder in my exams, or else I would become the person who drives the garbage truck and those cleaners in the street

3. I don't really hang out with people from the Express stream in my school (it seems like an acceleration program for outstanding students), because most of the people in the express stream, they look down at us.

4. ... so they tend to see us like we're nothing.

This video is quite encapsulating my perception of how the current society is being constructed.

1. How narrow our perspective in valuing others

This video shows how we are built to think that there is somebody worth more and less than us. How easily people value and judge others based on their economic status, prestige, and academic merits. How these factors tend to shape a simplification on how we value the others on a black and white scenario (i.e. less and more) and force us to neglect valuable traits based on this point of judgment. We tend to over-appreciate achieving society, on the other side, we tend to overlook the value of being genuine, compassionate, and caring, something that I find more prevalent in less economically-capable society because money is not everything for them*. To put it on another way, we have a very narrow perspective on how we value the others, based on something that is superficial, money and appearance, for example. Making the others who are not having a financially-rewarding job, for example, is simply being put under the lower class, or in the video wording, looking people as nothing, without necessarily looking to the fact that that person has a good personal trait to offer.

The narrative of people can be easily defined as worth more and less than us is built upon because there is a rampant perspective in defining what being successful mean, that I believe, the majority of society, still define success simply means having a good job and good income/salary. This, again, narrows the perspective on how we define a particular profession or role in society that again we are defined based on how rewarding it is financially and socially. While it is not completely wrong to pursue self-prosperity, I believe the society has to be taught that choosing a profession or role in society has lots of things to offer more than that. Alignment with a personal mission is one of the examples. How choosing about a particular job is made under the consideration of how it is aligned with the purpose of living that he/she wants to make, such as empowering poor and disadvantaged people. While in many cases, we can not really choose our jobs, the perspective that we should build upon is, every job provides value to the society, and if we lose this particular profession, person, or role, there is a loss that the society needs to bear. Therefore, every job is meaningful.

The previous paragraphs aim to tell two things. First, from the other's perspective, it is not wise to judge and value others based on superficial elements, like economic status and appearance, because we often neglect valuable traits on them by depending on those factors. While it is not practically feasible and even misleading to value others' trait on the first sight, the best answer might be to not judge the others at all, try to know a person individually, and try to not view society in a hierarchical way, that we are all equal and there is no value in ranking ourselves. Second, as every profession or role, provides value to the society, we can start to value our work based on the value it gives to the society or simply how happy we are in doing this particular job, forgetting the financial remuneration and prestige. I hope that this may help us to redefine how we see ourselves and detach ourselves from the others' opinion; making ourselves to pursue our own dreams, besides the others' expectation on ourselves. This also helps us to redefine the etched perspective of success to be more personally-tailored and meaningful.

2. Our success is not always because of us

 

This video portrays the life miniature that some students are not academically performing. My first thought on this is, are they lazy and unmotivated? As I am learning to not judging others, I realize that we are also indoctrinated that our success and achievement is only because of us, leading us to always assume that the ones who are underperforming are lazy and unmotivated. Forgetting a fact that there are various factors contributing to what considered a good performance. Most of the time, we may not realize that we are always more privileged than the others. That there are people behind that should work twice harder to get the same result; maybe because they are not as privileged in terms of intellectual capacity, having a negligence family, divorced parents, or simply have more economic constraints. I recognize that, yes, the fact that, for example, I am not economically capable as others should not be made as an excuse towards personal progression, as a successful person does not make excuse. But, we can not deny that what we have achieved is never solely because of ourselves. The same case applies to those who are perceived underperformed, the fact that a student is underperforming does not simply mean that they are lazy. So after my first thought and learning to not judge others, I try to neutralize that thought, and open to other possibilities that lead to that condition.

This perspective will help us in learning a thing. We are more compassionate to others and preventing ourselves from so-called superiority, as the success that we have today is a culmination of factors that do not originate only from ourselves, that we need to understand that we are privileged in lots of ways, and therefore, we should show compassion to the less privileged ones. Also, it implies an educational policy implication that the policymakers should realize that each child is different and the purpose of education should not only teach us academically-oriented learning. Providing a class that resembles a life miniature and more active role of vocational study are one of the things that should be considered so that the various talent and characteristic can be satisfied through the educational experience.

3. Practice humility and take something meaningful from a success story beyond ourself

 

 

We also tend to show-off these things. From fancy pencil and bag among students like in the attached video  to luxurious cars and watches among working-age individuals, from an A mark in our exam papers to a placard of winning an international award, while building an image has a slim difference with showing off, people can still feel the difference. At the end, the question is, do we get this money, prestige, and good score simply because we are thirsty of others' recognition and external validation that we are living a good life and worth of respect? That we can be in a higher class of society by doing so? Or there is something beyond that is more personally meaningful, such as the thirst of knowledge, the interest of improving family' standard of living, feeding kids with nutritious food, and investing them with a good education?

*: I believe that the cultural factor of poverty or to another extent, economic development, is the fact that having economic progression is not always the concern of everyone. Making certain society less motivated to improve their economic well being, simply because they do not put the highest value on being rich or prosperous. This means, as long as, they can live in a way that they consider enough to fulfill their needs, they may not have the interest/motivation to increase their economic status. To put it more clear, certain society puts a higher value on religion for example, as they view living in a world as a human is a momentary condition and seeking for economic profit is not something genuine or sacred. So they are not motivated in the first place to improve their economic status, even if they may have the chance to do so.