How do you think the world works?

We think the world only exists through our phone or what we see on TV. But the world is much more complicated than that. There’s nuance to everything that you watch. Firstly, it’s a contrived image. It’s what someone wants you to see to explain a specific narrative. It’s never the whole story. It’s always cropped and edited in a way to shape an argument.

If you think of certain countries or locations, it’s a direct result of the media you’ve consumed about that place. Most of it has been ‘Americanized’. Look at when they do shows about the Middle East. It’s somehow always about violence or terrorism. It’s not about the struggles and the amazing things people are doing there. It’s also always from an American point of view, which can be hostile in certain parts of the world.

White people’s views of how things look are so biased. Historically these were the people that controlled narratives and traditional media. It lacks the nuance of what it’s like to be a person from that culture telling that story. More and more, I’m realizing that the media I’ve consumed my whole life doesn’t tell me everything about the world. It tells me what the creator wants to tell me, but it doesn’t tell me the whole story.

I remember hearing about the Syrian war when it was happening. Seeing the horrific pictures of what was happening and all the kids starving. Most people would’ve thought that the neighbouring countries and places around might be just as dangerous. Like ‘Oh man, there’s a war happening in this once place in the Middle East, it’s possible the neighbouring regions are not doing so great either.’ And then I went to Jordan, which shares a border with Syria, during the Syrian civil war and everything changed.

We spoke to people on the ground there about the war and although they were concerned with what was happening with their neighbours, they were just living their lives like normal. Going to their jobs, traveling around, eating at restaurants, going to bars, etc. However, from a western person’s perspective, we don’t tend to think these things are happening in those places.

This is what living around the world teaches you. Your view of a specific place is so biased based on the place you were from and the media you consume. I remember living in the Netherlands during Trump’s presidency, and people didn’t care. They shut him out. News organizations and newspapers didn’t talk about him 24/7. What was happening in America was irrelevant to them.

Sure, when Trump said certain things, people reacted. And in my business, it’s important to have a global perspective, but people didn’t care. Most Europeans think America is a terrible place to live. It lacks culture, everyone is fat, and people don’t have access to basic healthcare. Obviously these are generalizations, but you see my point. America is not that relevant to them.

When you see stories told by people who are from those places about the experiences that matter to them, it’s so fascinating. Look at Parasite. What an unbelievable movie to watch, no matter what language you spoke. Better than any Hollywood movie I saw that year. How he blends South Korean culture and design and architecture and family dynamics and timely comedy and drama and suspense and human struggle all from a perspective of someone who’s not American.

Those are the stories that are important to see. Actively looking and understanding stories outside of your domain is refreshing and needed because it gives you a more holistic view. Watch a Middle Eastern filmmaker discuss a story about his/her homeland rather than am American director talking about a CIA operation in that country. It paints those places in such a negative light like ‘Oh, that’s all that goes on in this place. It’s full of criminality, war and people doing bad shit.’ Yes of course that stuff happens but if you don’t see the other beautiful things that happen, you’ll always assume it’s a bad place.

This huge disconnect between Middle Eastern culture and America is obviously cultural and political based on recent history. The stories the media tries to tell Americans about the Middle East tends to have the lens that they are our enemy, because that’s how they went to war. If that’s all you saw on TV and you didn’t see the other things going on, how would you know what else is happening there?

You don’t. Unless you visit those places and fully immerse all of your senses in those cultures, you don’t understand what it’s like to be in those places. This is why traveling is life’s best teacher. The more you can put yourself in uncomfortable circumstances in places so far outside your comfort zone, the more you realize the world is not a scary place.

I remember growing up as a kid and dreading going to certain parts of the world like the Middle East or Africa because of what we saw growing up. My naïve understanding was ‘these are poor parts of the world filled with crime and people doing terrible things all the time’. But that’s not true. People are just trying to survive. They’re just trying to provide for their families, just like anyone else. They’re fighting every day for their livelihood.

If you don’t immerse yourself in those situations and realize that the human experience is shared across languages, cultures and backgrounds, your view of the world is skewed. You jump to conclusions and assume things without having really understood them.

This is why I try to keep as open a mind as possible about everything. I constantly want to be surprised. I want to know what different cultures are like and how other people in different parts of the world. I want to understand people’s priorities and why certain things are important in some cultures and less important in others.

For example, money in the US. Capitalism has pushed this narrative that you need to make a lot of money in order to be successful and happy. But that’s not true. That’s an idea built up by the media. “The American dream.”

If you go to Europe, people don’t care as much. They care about family and spending time with friends and experiences. Sure money is nice but everyone lives a reasonably good life. They have healthcare, their kids have access to good public education, it’s safe where they live, and money is just a means to keep doing those other things. But that’s culturally built in from when you were a kid, and as you live there.

My experience in the Netherlands was so unique because although you’re working at this international healthcare fund, the culture was still European. People respected your evenings and weekends. They wanted to be spending time with their families, not working. Work is just a means to survive but killing yourself by working so many hours doesn’t prove anything to anyone.

I remember hearing a story from a friend of mine there that talked about how Dutch people at his accounting firm used to look down upon American expats who worked weekends. They thought they were stupider than people who worked regular hours because why could you not get your work done in the hours that are in the day. They almost looked down upon you and thought you were lazy. That’s a stark contrast to America and certain industries where hard work = time spent at work. That’s not hard work, that’s just wasting time.

If people are productive during their hours during and they know they have flexibility, people are so much happier compared to if they’re required to be in an office working 12 hours a day. People don’t want to be working but they have to because of hierarchy and office politics and showing their supervisors that they ‘work hard.’ Yes it’s important to work hard and get your work done, but if you can do it in the hours during the day, why should you be doing them when you’re not working? There are more important things in life than answering emails.

Obviously this all depends on the circumstances you’re in and your situation, but don’t work for the sake of working. Don’t spend extra time on things when you don’t have to. Yea, sometimes you have to work longer hours to ‘get ahead’ but what does that even mean? To make more money? To get a promotion so you have a fancier job title?

Don’t get me wrong, that gives some people purpose and their job makes them happy. In my mind, there are way more important things than a job. Like being a good person. Donating your time to a cause you believe in. Supporting your friends. Spending time with your family. Playing basketball on a Saturday afternoon. Golfing at some of the nicest courses in the world. That stuff matters to me.  Everyone has to find what they love and a lot of it is determined by how they see the world.

Just know, how you see the world matters more than you think.