Absolute

We currently live in a world where every decision being made is based on data and information. Businesses are seeing revenue growth which is through the charts. Be it in any field imaginable: marketing, finance, human resources; what have you; decisions are becoming more concrete and grounded than they ever have been.

However, despite all of the human experience, machine learning and artificial intelligence deployed across the globe ensuring things are done right, there is always a noticeable percentage of population who tend to disagree with the verdicts, resolutions and decisions being made. Why does this phenomenon exist? Let’s find out.

“Since nothing is absolute
There is no absolute silence,
Only an appearance
Of temporary peace.”

Dejan Stojanovic

Let’s face it, opining has never been easier in existence of human civilization than right now. Given the amount of information we scroll through every single minute, it would be harder to not have an opinion about anything than having one.

Furthermore, sharing your opinion with a potential audience of millions has also become very achievable, all thanks to my most notable nemesis, social media (Another example of the fact that I am about to state, the hypocrisy of this statement. Bear with me, we’ll get to it in a bit).

Due to this easy to access voice to the millions, people have started becoming empowered to say whatever they want about anything they want. While there is nothing inherently “wrong” about expressing your opinions, there seems to be real, tangible backlash about these issues. If we are not the ones participating in the backlash, we are at least witnesses to it.

The backlash involving Right & Wrong

Dealing with someone whose thought process is erroneous is probably one of the most frustrating experiences one can have in one’s life. It becomes even more irritating when said person is in a position of more control than you do. For those who are taking these words to cuss out your boss, I am not necessarily referring to a professional setting. Think policy makers, politicians, even parents for that matter.

They continue to make faulty decisions without considering the most basic factors. And all we are subjected to is the result of these faulty decisions, be it through an implicit or explicit enforcement. The result could be as small as a painful conversation, and as big as being transferred to another department in your job.

To make the illustrations a little clearer, tell me if you have ever been through an interaction similar to the ones I have highlighted below.

• “How dare he say Kobe Bryant isn’t the best basketball player who has ever lived?”
• “She is stupid if she thinks the latest celebrity wedding was not rushed”
• “It seems impractical to quit your day job to become a travel blogger”. (Well this one is actually wrong, but I don’t want to take sides here).

These are just bourgeois, everyday conversations I am referring to. However, we experience a similar sea of emotions with the bigger stuff as well. Think about any international level incident in any of the following categories where you tended to disagree with an outcome, which you had no direct control over.

• Political
• Economic
• Social
• Technological
• Legal
• Environmental

(P.S.: I know some of my friends are smiling as they are going through the list :wink wink:)

I am not talking about extremely heinous crimes here, but in everyday life, we have a weird tendency to draw swords at behaviors, actions and words from people which we consider to be “wrong”.

However, what we fail to realize is that there is a whole slew of factors we quickly run through in our minds before we label something as right or wrong. And those factors are a direct contribution of direct and indirect conditioning we have experienced all throughout our lives.

Another thing we don’t consider is that the decision makers we are referencing (and at times verbally abusing) have their own conditioning, based on which they conclude. So what is right according to us, may not be right according to others, and vice versa.

Simply put:

Hardly anything in the world is absolute.

Be it a self-inflicted or an externally enforced situation, hardly anything in the world will be 100% good or bad. There is always a grey area, which we more often than not neglect to tip the scale towards classifying something as right or wrong.

Let me put this mathematically:

Let ‘x’ be the percentage that we feel something is favorable

Then,

The “sword drawing” occurs when 100-x>50 (This number could vary on individual’s favor appetite)

I touched upon social media being my arch-nemesis little while back, and how it was hypocritical. The reason I mentioned that was, I dislike social media very much, but not enough to stop using it altogether. Every now and then something or the other pops up which makes me think about getting back on it. Writing these articles is one of those reasons. This is my grey area.

Conclusion

Why are we even discussing this?

The reason is, today, anything has the potential to become a “viral” commodity within a matter of hours, if not minutes. And we have discussed how opining is more easier than ever, this gives everything the potential to cause the right vs. wrong backlash.

What can we do to minimize the impact of this?

Be aware

Creating awareness and acknowledging the existence of these grey areas may have the potential for a more patient, calm and productive life.

Empathize

At the end of the day, putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes can help us gauge as to what may have caused them to decide, act or say something with a certain effect, thereby making a dent in the initial mass-hysteria based response.

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂