As mentioned before – it’s Christmas time. And we are now, more than ever, supposed to think about others rather than ourselves.
This can be confusing. Are we supposed to put our own feelings aside – forget ourselves – and care for others instead? Why should we do this?

Well, partly because it would be a natural thing to do. And partly (since we are now all about ourselves) because it will make us feel a lot better.

We are living in an individualistic society where the following scenarios are very likely to happen to us:
– We are seeing a friend’s newly born baby for the first time. We watch those miraculously small fingers and inside our head a calculation of the likeliness of ourselves getting a perfect family within the coming year is starting.
– We are listening to a concert with an amazing lead singer. We stand in the crowd, completely absorbed by a burning wish that we also were able to sing and that it was us who were standing on stage.
– We are listening to someone telling a story without really hearing it, being too busy trying to figure out one that could match it.

We are comparing ourselves to others, we are competing and we are fighting our way through life.

Or “Now, we are all made in Bangladesh”, as we recently heard someone say. In the theatre “Made in Bangladesh” the actors showed that it’s not only factories that are designed to produce as much as possible while paying extremely low wages and suppressing the rights of the workers. It is us too. We are turning our whole life into a fight to be smarter, faster, better, stronger.

And honestly, this has to stop.

Because there are billions of people in this world, and even though every one of them might be important, not a single one of us is everything. Neither are our morning jogs, our new set of glasses nor our promotions.

We need each other. We feel good together. And it seems kind of healthy to get a break from our own lives and get involved in someone else’s every once in a while. (It might also save the world. Subject – to be continued.)

So, let’s try that.

Let’s think about others – for once. For real. And maybe, at the same time, forget just a little bit about ourselves.

Maybe this will make us confused.
Maybe this will make us happier.

Once again – as it is about to end – MERRY CONFUSING CHRISTMAS!