Two weeks ago, a friend of mine came up to me.
She was sad, distracted, deep in thought, her twinkling eyes were filled with tears, and you could tell that she was in pain from her chapped lips. I asked what the problem was, and she told me everything in her life was in ruins: her grades significantly plummeted and her dream of becoming a doctor is at stake; her athletic performance went down, she began to despise her beloved ones, and above all she became totally immersed in a complicated life. What I just heard from her completely opened an emotional closet that I have nailed to shut a long time ago, and feeling curious I asked her if she knows the underlying problem that is causing these major setbacks in her life. Biting her lips, she looks up at me horrified and said, “what if I don’t know the problem!” I have never seen my friend that sad, and the hopelessness in her face reminded me Aron Rolston, the main character of the movie 127 Hours, who becomes trapped by a rock in an isolated cave. It might seem a bit foolish to blatantly say I don’t know the problem that is heading your life like a bullet train, but I came to realize it is a phenomenon that is pretty much common in teenagers: getting into toxic relationships.
Sometimes in life we make choices that we think will forever maintain the state of our bliss. We live by those choices for a while and we experience their high levels of satisfaction to the point we become entirely vulnerable to their lure.
I, for example, decided to get in a relationship with FIFA a while ago. I honestly fell in love with the video game, and I came to this point where I would rather play FIFA than work on a problem set that is due tomorrow or the day after. Although I was intrinsically aware of its negative effects in my life, exaggerating the pleasure I get from the relationship prevented me from taking any action for a significant period of time.
So Why did I ignore? It is very simple: I didn’t want to think of myself as having a problem and I felt better about myself that way because I loved the game. This is precisely what Margaret Heffernan examines in her book Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore The Obvious at Our Peril. She writes, “We mostly admit the information that makes us feel great about ourselves, while conveniently filtering whatever unsettles our fragile egos and most vital beliefs. It’s a truism that love is blind; what’s less obvious is just how much evidence it can ignore. Ideology powerfully masks what, to the uncaptivated mind, is obvious, dangerous, or absurd and there’s much about how, and even where, we live that leaves us in the dark.” Fortunately, I was able to end my relationship with FIFA after a long hard-fought battle.
After processing and analyzing the personal information I had about my friend’s life, I figured that one intimate relationship in her life is the primary cause of her nightmares. Before she got into this relationship, she was an inexperienced girl and was already struggling with her life, but her keen determination and focus on success had always been her pillar of strength. The consequences that came out of her relationship are included a complete shift in her focus, attempts to emulate all the negative and positive qualities of her partner which diminished her slef-worth, became occuppied with a huge imbalance in her life, develped a persistent self-betrayal and basically surrendered her entire life to him in a way that she didn’t recognize, which I think is the biggest mistake you can make as a human being. I understand that an intimate relationship may be Justin Bieber’s music to the ears of someone who had never dated before in their life, but the theory of cognitive dissonance suggests that pretending to live happily while these predicaments are happening around you results psychological problems that could potentially cost the things that are most important in your life.
It takes almost five days for Aron in the movie of "127 hours" to finally address the reality of his situation, and he cuts off his hand which saves his life. The movie demonstartes a very powerful message: are you brave enough to step up and confront the very problems that are holding you back from everything you have aspired for so long, or will you will let them get you so badly to the point where you can’t even figure out what your own problems are? This is what I told my friend, and instead of appreciating my insightful input she just stopped talking to me.
I honestly wasn't shocked by the decision, but it just reminded me two things I already knew: that you can never make an ignorant person think regardless of all your efforts to give them knowledge, and that she was indeed in deep crisis.
