What Should You Learn When The World Stops Making Sense?

Knowing the truth and doing what's right is never the whole story...

Just because you think you know something does not mean that people will understand you or care about what you say. Earning the right to be understood and inspire others to action does not require you to be 'right'. It requires you to feel something so strongly that others end up believing and feeling the same things you do. If that's the way of the world then where does 'knowing the truth' and 'doing what's right' fit in?

I struggled to answer this question because no matter how much I read about senseless people and terrible events these past few months there wasn't much that made sense. The media ecosystem made me feel hopeless. Headlines act as bait for us to read content that helps big news corporations make money, similarly, social media is reinforcing biases that help rub the inflated ego of others. Not all of these are adding to the fear, rage, and confusion out there but most of them are. What's worse is that almost none encourage our society to ask enough questions, learn new things about what we think we know, and take action on what matters. History has something to tell us about this topic. 

Learn to question anyone and you will question everything you learn regardless of how much sense it makes.

On October 30, 1938 a 62 minute radio program reportedly caused widespread panic in the U.S when the presenter claimed that the country was being attacked by invading Martians. It turned out the radio broadcast was simply telling the dramatized story of The War of the Worlds, by HG Wells. For many decades after it was believed that this did in fact cause thousands of people to flee their homes and crowd the streets waiting for the impending war against the Martians. Turns out that the American people, and the world, were fooled more than once. 

When a radio ratings survey conducted a telephone poll asking people what program they had been listening to only 2% said they were tuned into The War of the Worlds. Most people had been listening to a highly popular comedy show and knew nothing about the Martians invading the country, at least not until the newspapers printed the story the following day. Even though the show had carried a warning about its fictitious nature no one seemed to mention that. 

What ended up happening was a war between the newspapers and radio, competing for the hearts and minds of American audiences. It was the headlines of October and November 1938, over 12,500 articles, that popularized the myth of mass panic and blamed radio was unprepared and unreliable in handling the 'truth'. The agenda of newspapers was to compete against this new technology for advertising dollars and so they sensationalized a story without caring how ridiculous it sounded. This agenda against radio took over and the rest was history. The story is so compelling that even though we have most of the facts today many people don't bother to look for them, still believing the stories about mass panic that were published nearly 80 years ago. Ambition and deceit can win over facts and logic. How we react to fear can be even worse.   

The world stops making sense when you embrace fear and reveals itself more clearly when you see through the eyes of others.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order that would pave the way for the mass relocation of over 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry. With very short notice whole families uprooted their lives, leaving their homes and businesses abandoned. They were sent to relocation centers, far away from everything they knew and cut off from the rest of the world. It was difficult for Americans to make sense of a surprise and horrifying attack on their country and so the Japanese internment camps was an early attempt to ease those fears. 

In January 1944, a Supreme Court ruling put an end to the detention of Japanese Americans and allowed them to return to their homes and rebuild their lives. This was of course no easy task for thousands of families who had gone through great physical and emotional pain and now had little or nothing left. Although the country was setting them free it was doing nothing to acknowledge wrongdoing and make amends.  

It took the Civil Rights Movement to inspire subsequent generations of Japanese Americans, and many different government debates, to bring some closure to the suffering. People were finally taking a hard look at themselves and listening to their hearts. President George H.W Bush issued a formal apology on December 7, 1991 on the 50th Anniversary of Pearl Harbor and a total of $1.2 billion was paid out to the families. This probably after many years of what he, and many Presidents before, knew was the right thing to do. Unfortunately for many the process took too long. The President claimed that such a 'great injustice' will never be repeated but many today still suffer great prejudice and racism. Fear can still win over what we know to be right, in some cases it takes half a century or more to mend the damage that causes. Admitting our mistakes is sometimes the best path towards learning. 

Accept your vulnerabilities and you will never depend on the 'truth' of others and will not hesitate to continue searching for your own truth.

An article by Harvard Business Review, Learning to Learn, talks about the four attributes that people who learn effectively demonstrate: aspiration, self-awareness, curiosity, and vulnerability. It focuses on these attributes to provide an answer to the ever changing environment that we see in organizations, industries, technologies, and consumer behavior.

The article shares this quote, "The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage." After reading this I believe the HBR article could have gone well beyond the world of business.  I would say the ability to learn more effectively throughout our lives may be the only sustainable human advantage. 

In these critical times of political upheaval and societal breakdown we need to rethink the way we learn about things and each other. This starts with asking questions about ourselves and challenging what we've learned. 

1. Is our aspiration leading us to do new things and break old habits, or are we repeating the mistakes of the past through our selfish ambition?

2. Do we have enough awareness of our own limitations and what's holding us back, or are we simply plugged into the awareness of others?

3. Are we curious enough to defy our own biases and listen to new voices, or are we too comfortable to change anything about who we are?

4. Most importantly of all, can we accept and embrace our vulnerability so we can get on with asking the necessary questions even if it means accepting our worst mistakes?

If the answers to these questions can't help us change the whole world they can at least help us change our whole approach to making sense of it. 

...because today more than ever the whole story depends on us learning beyond the truth we're told. 

I was inspired to write this article after the endless flood of articles about Brexit, the U.S political race, and the terrorist attacks around the world. Not simply sharing another opinion about them but thinking much more broadly about my own approach to my work and life through some of these topics. 

I write about topics that fascinate me in the world of business, education, creativity, innovation, leadership, and career development. What motivates me is helping my customers, friends, and readers find the inspiration necessary to achieve more for their businesses and careers. My endless curiosity helps me keep asking better questions and my eclectic interests beyond the world of work helps me find better ways of living. I believe strongly that finding a job you love puts you among the most fortunate people in the world, and that is why I focus on helping people change how they think about work. To follow this and more you can find me on Twitter @MiguelAngeloi.