Wealthy and privileged people lack the education that people who have struggled, and had a system built against them, know and understand. Giving advice from a rich seat of power to those whom haven’t been lucky by birth, and societal structure and bias, tends to be fucking stupid as hell. However, learning from those who have and are educated is keen in changing one’s stars. And what effects a person most strongly in this world, is not the hand they were dealt but the perceptual limits to how they can use it and then the will to follow through in the face of resistance surfing the unknown.
Humans learn the majority of what they know and what they are from their parents and community. This doesn’t mean the words in one’s head, but it does mean the words in one’s head. You are in control of creating sentences, responding, commentating, speaking out from your own freewill. But what you know linguistically, what values have been available, how they have been presented and the scenarios and paradigms that your mind has developed through, as all things your community and your family presented to you. We are herd creatures, no human has anywhere near the cognitive capacity to figure out even the simplest of lives on purely their own accord. The rogue genius is a very romantic figure in that its the ego vs the world, but it’s also childish in that it is pretend.
Understanding climbing the framework of wealth and power in the world requires a pretty constant ego check. The majority of what holds most classes back from growing is the capacity to see and say they were raised wrong; nothing can be learned if one won’t hear new ideas. The other half of the ego check is that once admitting and accepting one’s ignorance, one must also have ego for fervent drive to learn more. Being able to see the world, markets and businesses objectively without ego but as buttons that pressed do functions, is brilliant and mildly inhuman. It can be learned and it is how one steps outside the ratrace our species is all choking down kool aid for.
The simplest and most concrete, repeating concept in growing beyond one’s privilege or one’s marginalization defensiveness is an inherent, trusting and confident sense of belonging that encompasses ignorance as a chance to learn rather than a pain or inadequacy. Ask yourself,”what would a person who gets this job done, feel and think and be treated and hold themselves and see themselves like?” because then what you’ve done is step into the judicator position instead of the applicant, and here you hold all the cards of complaints and criticisms; from there you can reverse engineer success on a more human level. People treat you as you treat yourself and humans fall into roles because they fit that role exponentially more than because they want or work hard or are trying for that role. We are a herd and the herd flows, so to end up where you want to be in society you must allow yourself to fit places in the most human of ways along with skillsets. The key here, perceptually and to allow yourself growth and freedom emotionally, is to shift the idea of society, of companies, college, of teams, of all human groups from any preconception you may have, into the concept of a bunch of friends and family who want to help you and whom you can help.
Redesigning this perceptual story key-pin creates fluidity in how asking for what you want becomes not just words or greed but a relaxed give go of situations. As you trust them and see what you want as something everyone wants, with them on your side, then shifting your behaviors triggers part of the human brain to friendliness and concentricity. Asking questions becomes fun, giving advice becomes caring instead of conflictive, and stepping up to shift the machine becomes the right thing to do instead of pressured and scary. Growing in a human society is very hard when everyone is battling but its very easy and wonderful when you allow yourself to know you belong.
