Tuning Into Your Environment

“The more you know about your environment, the better you adapt to it; the better you prepare for uncertainties.”

The 21st century has brought with it numerous technological advancements, each asking for more and more attention from the user while looking to make their lives easier. Think about it; cellphones were originally made to make calls, right? Then came the ability to send each other text messages, which became the next big thing in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. It was in this time that the world of tele-marketing came to light as well, as people started calling and texting to promote their products and services.

Around 2010, the world of technology changed again, as social media platforms came to life and platforms such as Orkut, Yahoo and others failed to give room to Facebook messenger, Viber and WhatsApp.

All these platforms encouraged us to live in the moment, share what we were doing with each other, take breathtaking landscape photographs, however, we did the exact opposite of that. Instead of sharing enjoying the moment, we started focusing on “liking” and sharing other people’s lives. Text messages also lost their value, as people started chatting through them.

Chatting is fine, but the main problem is that people usually only retain what a text said for a short while. It became the norm to just forget about what was said and when it was said. People also became more and more engrossed in screens, forgetting about what was going on in their surroundings. People only noticed their surroundings if they had something “sharing-worthy.”

It is important to note here that I’m not saying that social media or mobile phones are bad influence; quite the opposite actually. People became more inter-connected, knowing what is happening half-way across the country or even the world, thus being more “aware” of the world; only at the expense of what was going on around themselves.

This meant that people got caught unaware more often than not.

How often do you see people engrossed in their cell phones or laptops when you’re on the beach, in a restaurant, or even on the bus?

The following principles discussed in chapter 1 (N.O.T.E.) apply when trying to keep an eye on your surroundings:

1.????Look at the stable factors

a.????Look around; get a good feel of the area in general

b.????Look at the people; see if there are any trouble makers that you need to be wary of

c.????Look for safe zones; these can be easily defendable places, places where you can run away from, and others

d.????Look at your baggage or people relying on you

2.????Look at the steady factors

a.????Look at the people; those coming in or leaving

b.????Listen to dialogue, but don’t listen in!

c.????Analyze the weather and make plans accordingly

3.????Look at the volatile factors

a.????Look out for any changing moods or situations around you

b.????Keep an eye on your escape routes and any changes to them

c.????Keep calm and think about your next step once you’re no longer in any immediate danger

To be more self-aware, you need to tune into your environment. It is good to know what country has elections next month, when NASA will launch their next probe, or even when the next model of your favourite car will come out; but what good would it do if you can’t walk around or through your own problems, right?