Building our dream world together

One of the major problems that arise when a society is pushed towards poverty and a lack of resources like food, money, houses and jobs, is that people tend to become more aggressive in their pursuit of those basic things that everybody needs to survive.  I know this very well because that’s what has happened in the last 30 to 40 years in my country, where the diminishing of opportunities and resources for people, together with many social problems, converted our society into an insane competition for those opportunities and resources. I have to point out that this not only happen in my country but in many others, wherever the society has been pushed towards poverty. In my opinion these brought two main consequences to my country, a good one and a bad one, with the problem that the bad one dominated the good one and became a sign of our way of thinking.

The good thing that happened is that most of the people there are very well trained to compete with any other person for their own resources, as most people can be called self-made people, those who learn the rules of life not in the school but in the real scenario, the street. That is, the lack of resources has changed their mentality to be very competitive in any area of their life. Also the lack of resources has been an opportunity for the growing up of many ideas and has definitely risen up the creativity of many people. A lack of resources has created an atmosphere for the development of the creativity of many people in my country, sometimes in ways that you may be surprised of the good things humans can create in those “extreme” situations, where resources are lacking and survival is needed. In fact, I consider this something very good for a country; for example, I believe that one of the things that has driven China to become an economic giant is that there is a huge spirit of competition between the Chinese people and also between China and other countries, and that great power of being competitive is driving that country to be a leader in the world. 

The bad thing in my country, and many others, is that competition for the resources made people forget about the others and focused in what they needed to pursue their dreams. This brought a main way of thinking that spread all over the country; it was taught to the children by their parents, in the school, in the streets, by their friends and soon became a part of the values of people. The new generations were taught to think about themselves first and over anything else, they should secure everything they needed before anybody else did it. That is how we started to lose the team spirit and a mentality of I win/ you lose became the base of our thinking. That’s how many people in many places think. They think that every action that can take them further in their pursuit of their dreams, no matter how badly it affects other people, is needed to be successful. When everybody started to think on their own with a mentality of I win/ you lose, the society and the values that kept it together started to fall down, in a spiral which lead to many social problems.

One of the foundations of society is the cooperative spirit between it participants, but in my country this has been lost during the years and the society has started to break down leading to a place where intolerance, disrespect, envy and many other defects prevail. People forgot that a team spirit is what can drive a nation to its development. There are many examples of that in the history and nowadays like the Japanese, Germans and United States people, countries that were built or rebuilt in the bases of unity and cooperativism.

In his book, the 7 habits of highly effective people, Stephen Covey shows us six manners in which people tend to act when they pursue what they want; he called it six paradigms of human interaction:

- I win/ you win                              -I win/ you lose                           -I lose/ you win  

- I lose/ you lose                           -I win                               -I win/you win or no deal

The I win/ you lose people usually are self centered people that only look for their own benefit without taking care on how their actions can affect others, the same as the I win people, who search for their benefit regardless of how that affect positive or negatively others. The more aggressive situation is when people don’t let others win if they cannot win (I lose/ you lose). Also there is the opposite people who sacrifice their dreams and what they are to let the others win (I lose/ you win). While, briefly explained, all this paradigms deal with people that is insecure and do not understand how their actions affect their environment, the paradigm of I win/ you win arise to show us that is possible, in any or at least many cases, to find solutions in the pursuit of our dreams which can not only benefit us but also the environment and the people that surround us, and through internalizing that paradigm in our heart and using it daily in our normal interactions with people we can contribute to the establishment of a new society that grows up guided by the force of the union of its individuals and not by the isolated efforts of them. The I win/ you win solutions can be the bases for the development of a country!

Is obvious that a society driven by the four paradigms in the middle, I win/ you lose -I lose/ you win - I lose/ you lose -I win, will not be able to grow up as society but instead will be destructed by the ambition of any of those who look for their personal benefit first, rather than for the benefit of society.

There is much to talk about this, but today I wanted to focused on the fact that to build the nation of our dreams or the world of our dreams, is necessary to start looking for solutions of the type I win/ you win, rather than I win/ you lose or I lose/you win, solutions that can drive our society further away, much more than if we act separately in search of our own benefit. So start to think today what you could do in your normal life to contribute to your society, your family, your friends, your neighborhood, your city, by thinking in win/win actions rather than I win/ everybody else loses. You can internalize this principle by remembering it every time you do a business or you deal with a problem in your family, just think of solutions that make the two counterparts win something! 

Growing up in solitude

One of the things that affect most dramatically a person’s will and desire to follow their dreams is solitude. When solitude comes most of the people are not prepared to confront it and, instead of taking advantage from it and using it as a positive stage in their life, they fall in an uncontrolled mixture of feelings that lead them to an obscure world where they become depressed, sad, scared and weak. Most of the people try to avoid being alone and find easy alternatives to get away of solitude, filling their empty spaces with friends, new relationships, work, etcetera, and even if this is sometimes good in the way that provides distractions, they don’t take the best of their solitude and do not dedicate time to know themselves, to get advantage of those free spaces that they can assign to grow up, and when solitude come again it hit them in their face the same or in a worst way than it did before, leaving them again in a state of depression, sadness, fear and weakness, and this become a cycle in their life. Also when trying to escape from solitude most people just fall into bad friends, bad relations or bad habits and what they thought was their escape from the pain of being alone becomes a bigger pain which now they have to deal with.

So, why not take a time to reflect on the good things that solitude can bring us in our way to follow our dreams? I have been a very lonely person most of my life and only a few years ago have become a lot more social than I used to be. My solitude came mainly from my fear of people, fear to think that I was not able to fix in this world and being accepted as who I am. I have lived extensive periods of loneliness, which I never liked, but that has taught me a lot about myself and my capacities.

When you are alone you have the big chance of getting to know yourself better than any other time in your life, is when you fight alone when you get to know your capacities and you strength your character, you get deeply in touch with yourself and if you use that time in the correct way you may have a greater power than many people that lives scared of the solitude when you finally stop being alone. For me being alone it has been a time of reflection, I have started to get in touch with my deepest self, and even if it has been really hard, those moments of solitude has gave more rewards than unhappiness.

One of the main advantages of being alone is the amazing amount of time you can spend to yourself, to your personal development and the pursuit of your dreams. For me being alone has represent the greatest investments on myself, I have travel everywhere I have wanted, I have chosen to do what I really enjoy to do and I don’t have compromises with any person, which not mean I have not wanted to be with somebody or my family on those moments of solitude, but I have learned and I am yet learning how to enjoy solitude.

When you are able to center yourself in principles and in your main purpose and dreams in life, being alone become a tool in your way to become what you want and you can get the best of it if you know how to guide yourself, whereas if you center your values and feelings in the necessity to be surrounded by others then solitude can become hell. Centering yourself in what is important for your dreams to come true keep you busy and motivated during your way in life when you have to be alone. Personally I spend 3 to 4 hours daily to the development of myself, I mainly do it by reading different kind of books related with my biggest dreams, or writing (which is one of my biggest dreams), or running (which is an activity I enjoy without the necessity to be accompanied) or traveling, which I learned how to enjoyed doing it alone. Also being alone is a great opportunity to know new people and make new friendships, I regularly spend some afternoons meeting new people in the street or at pubs with just the purpose of increasing my social abilities or capacity to attract women, things that I could not do when I am in a relation.

I personally believe that I have been alone when life has wanted to teach me something very important, and even if I want to surrender many times, I have tried to take the best of the solitude, and at the end life always finish to teach me something bigger than I expected; the moments when I have had the greatest changes in my life (for good) and when I have grow up the most is whenever I have been alone. At this moment I am living one of those moments and have found many great things about myself that in any other time in my life. If you change your view of solitude form sadness and fear to a time of personal grow and development, you will have a new great perspective of yourself and your life!