“The science of psychology has been far more successful on the negative than on the positive side; it has revealed to us much about man’s shortcomings, his illness, his sins, but little about his potentialities…”, observed psychologist Abraham Maslow.
It is far easier to focus on what is wrong than what is right. It is what Dennis Prager calls, “the missing tile syndrome.” You can visit a museum, study great works of art and become enraptured by the beauty that you see. But, if you happen across a mosaic, fantastic and magnificent in its artisanship and a single tile - out of thousands - is missing, our natural inclination is to focus on the imperfection, the one missing tile, and miss the grander picture. We are prone to look for flaws and focus on them instead of centering on what is right. All we see is the broken picture.
If this propensity was limited to artwork, it would not be so inditing, but we tend to do this with people as well. We see their warts, personality flaws, and limitations while ignoring the whole human being. What would life be like if we only saw what was best and admirable in people instead of looking for their shortcomings? Certainly, we would be less critical of others, and accentuate their assets rather than their deficits. Interestingly, most people would then live up to our positive observations about them: they would rise to our expectations and not live down to negative opinion. There is an additional incentive to this novel modality; we would be happier people.
Most of the world lives with the belief that through economic prosperity, buying and owning more stuff, they are happier. Wealth is generally measured by how much you have versus your neighbors. Yet, polls have consistently found that wealth does not correlate with happiness. Constant pitting oneself against others causes much heartache and dissatisfaction and the tendency to compare wealth feeds the propensity in us to undermine others, i.e., detailing their flaws, through defamation, character assassination or something more insidious.
Bhutan is a tiny country of about one million in the foothills of the Himalayas. In 1972 the government moved away from the rush to embrace the highest GNP to the GNH, Gross National Happiness. The populace of Bhutan is not rich, but the general sense of wellbeing and contentment outstrips other countries. They are happier people.
Robert Kennedy incisively said in 1968, “But even if we act to erase material poverty, there is another greater task. It is to confront the poverty of satisfaction...that afflicts us all." Unhappy people seek to validate their life by comparing themselves to others. That does not make for a happier life. The opposite. To note what is missing from another person's life, or absent in your own, promotes a sense of dissatisfaction.
Think about this the next time you compare yourself to another person or hear someone complain about how so-and-so is not a good person because.... This is "the missing tile syndrome." Life is greater than what we perceive as absent. The mosaic of life is colorful, grand, and each piece utterly unique. Everyone is broken. And everyone is as perfect as they need to be.
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