2024 September 17 Learning to love our imperfect world

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Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website about reimagining your life. If you like what you hear today please leave a “Like,” subscribe, tell your friends, and send me a message! 

Thanks for joining me tonight to talk about how we relate to the world around us, the way we group our beliefs. Plus a little more on ageism in AI Language Models.

We often think of our relationship with the world as a single, monolithic thing. But the truth is, we hold multiple, sometimes quite contradictory, relationships with our environment, our society, and even ourselves. You might love your job but hate your commute. Or you could adore your city's culture but despise its traffic. These aren't contradictions – they're the complex reality of our real world experiences.

Recognizing these multiple relationships allows us to appreciate the nuances in our lives. It helps us understand that it's okay to have mixed feelings about things, people, or situations. This understanding can lead to more balanced perspectives and healthier interactions with the world around us.

But how do we group unrelated beliefs together? Does it make things better or worse? Our brains love patterns and connections, even when they might not exist or make sense. We’ve talked about this in terms of our habits and self-beliefs and a stronger bias towards believing things that we already believe.

Sometimes, this can be beneficial. It can help us form a coherent worldview or make quick decisions.  For instance, if you believe in capitalism, you might also support animal rights and charitable causes, even though they're not directly related for many people, but they are related in your own view of the world.

However, this tendency to group beliefs together can also lead us down some unusual and unexpected paths. We might associate unrelated negative traits with a group we dislike, or assume that because someone agrees with us on one issue, they'll agree on all issues. This can lead to inadvertent stereotyping and polarization. The key is to be aware of this tendency and critically examine our belief systems. Are these beliefs truly related, or have we just grouped them together out of habit or convenience?

The common phrase is correlation does not equal causation. This means that just because two things seem to happen together, it doesn’t necessarily mean that one of them is causing the other one of them to occur. We humans are very susceptible to finding patterns, and assumed causation, in the most unusual places. This includes things like lottery winning numbers, finding a lucky coin, weather, and basically every other thing that happens in our lives.

Many times it’s just fun or silly, but if we forget to do a reality check on our brain we start to form undesirable habits that hold us back from reaching our goals. Moving on in our relationship to the world, we often forget a very important point at the most inopportune times. Nothing, and no one, is perfect. Not you, not me, not our leaders, not our idols. And that's okay. Instead of seeking perfection, which is an impossible standard, we should focus on finding the best parts of our imperfect world. 

This doesn't mean ignoring problems or settling for less. It means appreciating what's good while working to improve what isn't. For example, a friend might not be perfect, but they might be incredibly loyal. A job might have its frustrations, but it could provide valuable experience. By focusing on these positives and keeping realistic expectations, we can cultivate gratitude and resilience. That in turn can motivate us to work on the aspects that need improvement. As I was recently working on some other projects using the latest shiny new AI tools, I came across a topic of which I have been speaking more of recently; ageism, but this time in AI.

Now it's no shock that AI systems, trained on vast amounts of human-generated data, reflect societal biases – including ageism. This manifests in various ways. You may have seen stories about how AI sometimes struggles to recognize or accurately categorize older faces. But far more insidious is that language models often generate content that reinforces stereotypes about older people. 

Here is one to think about then. Do job recruitment AIs then inadvertently discriminate against older applicants? With more and more AI being used in every aspect of our lives, especially in medicine and in the workplace, this has the potential to become a very serious problem. 

This issue highlights two important points: AI systems are only as unbiased as the data they're trained on and the humans who design them. We need diverse teams, including people of all ages, working on and training AI to help mitigate these biases. Addressing ageism in AI isn't just about fairness – it's about creating technology that truly serves and represents everyone in a fair context.

Finally, one of our favorite topics—the power of opportunity and attitude. We’ve talked about manifestation—the idea that by focusing on positive thoughts, you can bring positive realities into your life. While the idea of literally manifesting things through thought alone isn't strongly scientifically supported, there may be a bit of truth here. 

It's not necessarily making things magically appear, but rather about keeping an open mind and focusing on opportunities that align with your goals. When you maintain a positive attitude and stay focused on your objectives, you're more likely to notice opportunities that you might have otherwise missed or dismissed, have the confidence to seize those opportunities, carry on in the face of setbacks and challenges, and attract like-minded people who can help you achieve your goals. So while we can't necessarily control everything that happens to us, we can control our attitude and where we focus our attention, and that can make a world of difference.

That's it for the evening. So how can you navigate these multiple relationships with the world, and what belief groupings might you need to re-examine?  Remember that you can find value in the imperfect world around you. Life may not be perfect, but by focusing on your vision and your goals you will be more able to live your life in a way that leads towards your vision of happiness. Don’t believe everything AI says; it's just the world’s biggest gossip, essentially repeating all that it has learned, sometimes, good, sometimes not so good!

Your homework (always optional) is to think about some of the things you just know. Things about cultures, things about types of people: Oh, he’s a judge. I’m sure he wouldn’t ride a motorcycle! Extra points if you then look for things that contradict that belief and see if maybe what you just knew wasn’t quite correct.

Please remember the many wars currently active in the world. In Ukraine, the Middle East, Africa and everywhere there are disasters or suffering. If you are able and interested, the page of Ukraine donation links is still up at UKR7.com.

Remember and pray for the aid workers from WCK who died. You can donate to the World Central Kitchen, WCK.org, which is José Andrés’ group. They are totally humanitarian, providing meals for people in need. Remember that one of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others.

As always, thank you for stopping by! If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along, subscribe and hit that Like button. If not, please drop me a comment as to what you would like to hear. 

Have a great week! Remember to live the life you dreamed of, because that is the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com.