How To Deal With Disillusionment As You Grow Older

“随着年龄的增长，我如何应对幻灭？从某种意义上说，我现在认为世界是一个相当冷酷而苛刻的地方，充满了只关心自己的利益的人。

This is in stark contrast with what I used to see the world as: a place with immense potential for good, lots of opportunities, negligible discrimination, etc. People used to be warm but now human interactions are diminishing. The hope and happiness that I used to have just by thinking about the world have turned to cynicism and depression.”

Recently, I saw this question onQuoraand decided to answer it here.

随着年龄的增长，我能理解感到幻灭。在过去的几年中，我对博客行业感到失望。我开始创建网站1998年，并于2008年创立了个人卓越万博max手机版app万博体育足彩成就，然后人们出于对他人创造和赋予价值的热爱而创建了网站。但今天，blogging is all about profiteering，如何创建电子邮件Funnels以及如何最大化销售。虽然我们绝对应该为我们的工作赚钱，但今天的人们的重点似乎是获利作为主要目标，而不是赋予价值。

我’ve been disillusioned with online negativity. Sometimes I don’t post anything as I find it easier to hide rather than to deal with people’s snarkiness and unhappiness. Rather thanshame and create fear，我们可以做更多的爱与积极性。如今，愤怒和讽刺似乎无处不在，看到人们接一个地在网上攻击。

我’ve also been really disillusioned with society.

• 当今的现代世界造成了如此多的浪费。您是否知道我们每天创造350万吨的固体废物，每年在海洋中造成数十亿磅的塑料，破坏了海洋生态系统？^{[1这是给出的[2这是给出的[3这是给出的}我nstead of fixing these issues, capitalistic economies continue to create waste on a massive level.
• 即使在据称是“发达”的地方，人权也缺乏。人口贩运，贩运儿童和儿童卖淫仍然是严重的问题。每年有120万儿童被贩运，而2100万受害者被困在现代奴隶制中。^{[4这是给出的[5这是给出的}
• There are still so many people trapped in poverty. Nearly 1/2 of the world’s population live on less than $2.50 a day even though our world is richer than it has ever been.^{[6这是给出的}
• 在我去过的几乎每个国家，总是有非常贫穷的人努力实现生计。对我来说，这意味着，一路上的某个地方，该国的治理失败了，人们以这种方式结束了。
• When you dig into society’s structures, many of them exist to serve the super-rich, not humanity.

然而，尽管有这些感觉，我相信每个人都在意识的范围内尽了最大的努力。

许多人陷入了社会的矩阵，因此成为周围力量的受害者。当一个国家的领导人对人民的苦难感到冷漠时，也许是因为这根本不在他们的意识上照顾他人。对于我们作为公民的人来说，这取决于我们需要教育，为更好的领导者投票，或者更好地成为我们想要看到的领导者。对于那些似乎不关心正在发生的事情的人来说，也许是因为他们正在努力解决他们现在无法脱离的问题。

After spending the past two years of my life feeling extremely disillusioned, I realized that disillusionment doesn’t change anything. It will only kill you as you look at the world in pain. So how do we deal with disillusionment in a positive way?

1）Recognize that disillusionment is better than ignorance

首先，知道幻灭（虽然令人不愉快）远胜于无知。

So you’re disillusioned because you discovered many problems in the world.这是一件好事。Because as opposed to living in an illusion, you have broken out of it.While it may feel jarring at first, this is normal as you come to terms with reality.

For me, I would much rather know the ugly truth rather than hide in a web of falsehoods. With the former, at least I know what is happening, after which I can do something about it. With the latter, I may be “happier” but I don’t know what’s going on. This was exactly what was happening before I became disillusioned. Even though I was “happier,” the issues were around me.我更快乐，因为我不知道问题存在，不是因为世界没有问题。

通过了解丑陋的真理，我对世界和人们的运作方式有洞察力更好。知识是力量，知识将帮助您提前计划。即使可能不会立即发生变化，意识是第一步。

2）Turn your disillusionment into action

当您第一次了解这个世界的问题时，感到悲伤，沮丧甚至生气是正常的。

Know that anger will not change the world. Neither will sadness or apathy. You can feel angry all day long or spend your entire life feeling upset with the world, but it will not change your life in any way. It will only bring you down and make life miserable.

您需要做的是采取行动。将您的愤怒和失望变成行动。问问自己这些问题：

1. 您到底对什么幻灭了？为什么？
2. What can you do about this?
3. What role can you play in the bigger picture?

对我来说，我相信今天迈出了许多问题的第一步是从教育开始，从而提高人们的意识。当某人不知道发生了什么事时，他们将不能成为解决方案的一部分。Worse still, they become part of the problem as society’s default structures today lead people into low consciousness behaviors（例如materialistic behaviors like endless shopping，，，，eating junk food, and buying things we don’t need).

通过教育人们对话andsharing your thoughts on social media。我nvolve your friends and colleagues in a non-intrusive discussion while respecting their views and personal space. This is infinitely more powerful than empty gossip or banter.

Let’s say you have talked to the people around you and you are ready to take things to the next level. Think about what you can do next. What can you do to drive more awareness and create change? For example, can you start a business? A blog to share what you know? A YouTube channel? A foundation to initiate change? A meetup group to engage others? An initiative where you involve others to make a difference? Or something else?

Example: Bill Gates, solving world’s poverty

我们都知道比尔盖茨,微观的创始人之一soft and one of the richest men in the world. After trying to bring computers to impoverished areas of Africa in the late 1990s, he realized how ridiculous that idea was when he saw their living conditions. He said, “Hmm, which is more important, connectivity or malaria vaccine?我f you think connectivity is the key thing, that’s great. I don’t.“^{[9这是给出的}

Around that time, he visited a South African hospital for treating people with tuberculosis, after which he called his wife Melinda. She said in an interview,

“We often call each other when we are the road. Almost every day. But it was a different call. Bill was really quite choked up on the phone … Because he’d seen firsthand in a TB clinic hospital how awful it is to have that disease … He literally said to me, ‘It’s a death sentence. To go into that hospital is a death sentence.’ ” (Read:为什么比尔·盖茨成为慈善家）

Subsequently, they decided to start a foundation to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty. TheBill＆Melinda Gates基金会自1997年以来一直表现强劲，截至2014年，其捐赠金额为443亿美元，并向发展中国家的许多地区提供了数十亿美元的资金，例如传染病控制，疟疾控制，HIV/AIDS控制，结核病控制，结核病控制，结核病控制，结核病控制，结核病/生殖医疗保健，基本营养等，从而保护数百万儿童免受可预防疾病的死亡。^{[10这是给出的[11这是给出的}As of 2007, Bill and Melinda Gates were the second-most generous philanthropists in America, having given over $28 billion to charity. They plan to eventually donate 95% of their wealth to charity.^{[12这是给出的}

示例：个人卓越，帮万博max手机版app万博体育足彩助他人成长

Some of you may be thinking,我不是比尔·盖茨（Bill Gates），我没有他拥有的那种钱。我无法做出任何改变。Like what I shared in一个人对世界的影响，，，，you can’t underestimate the power of your actions. I started Personal Excellence in 2008 with no startup capital, no contacts, no industry knowledge, and no external aid. Today PE has over one million pageviews a month, reaching out to people from over 200 countries and territories around the world.

最重要的是，它使我能够与您联系。认为我们的行为对他人没有影响是谬论。在这个世界上，我们都相互联系，今天比以往任何时候都更加如此。借助互联网和全球化，我们的行动和购买会直接影响哪些业务蓬勃发展和失败，以及是否可以收到急需的信息，这可能会永远改变他们的生活。

Example: Lauren Singer, zero-waste living

Here’s another example. Lauren Singer was 21 and studying Environmental Studies at New York University when she saw the discrepancy between what she was studying and what she was doing in real life. Around her, she saw fellow students creating lots of plastic waste with single-use plastic disposables (straws, plastic bags, takeout containers, plastic fork/knife), while she herself was creating lots of plastic waste too — something that all of us are essentially doing today.

She said, “I felt like such a hypocrite. We’re supposed to be saving the planet, and here you are making all this trash.”^{[13这是给出的}

This was when she decided to change her lifestyle and live a zero-waste life. At the age of 22 (in 2013), she started her blog垃圾是为了折腾她教人们过着零浪费的生活方式。她开始了她YouTube channel2014年，今天拥有超过74,000个订户，此后由CNN，BBC，MSNBC，ABC News和AOL介绍。她在过去4年中创造的垃圾融入了一个小梅森罐子，，，，while the total trash generated by an average person in一天is easily 20 times of that! Lauren started her businessThe Simple Co在2014年，它使有机的纯素食清洁产品可用于您的身体和环境。她只有26岁（截至2017年）。

You can’t assume that you’re not in a position to create change. Neither can you assume that what you want to do won’t have value. No matter your age,年轻人或老年，您有能力影响和影响他人。那里有人在等待受到影响，这始于您。时钟在滴答作响。如果您可以做些事情来影响他人，您会做什么？你会对他们说什么？

3）Be empathetic to others

随着行动，共情。彼此尊重人类。认识到我们所有人都有我们的个人需求，恐惧，希望和梦想，而我们不是要使用的无情对象。彼此相爱。

Growing up in Singapore where its annual GDP grew by more than 14 times and its population more than doubled in the past 30 years to the point where common spaces are intensely congested^{[14这是给出的[15这是给出的}，我注意到了一些东西。As a society becomes intensely urbanized, where more greenery is stripped from the land and people are filed into pigeon-hole environments to pursue never-ending material goals, I find that we begin to (a) associate less value with a human’s life and their emotions, and (b) assign more weight to objects, material wealth, and a person’s status. A nation’s relentless focus on economic growth shapes its people’s identity in more ways than you know.

As a nation pushes on with endless GDP goals, I feel that people start to lose their humanity, in the same way that I feel that the people in Japan and South Korea are losing theirs.

• At the moment, Japan and Korea have one of the highest suicide rates in the world.^{[16这是给出的}最重要的是，世界上最低的出生率之一（截至2017年，新加坡现在的生育率替代率最低）。^{[17这是给出的}在日本，每天平均有70名日本人自杀。人们通常会通过在火车前跳下来自杀，这是一个常见的公共火车延误。^{[18这是给出的[19这是给出的}
• Large segments of their populations have lost interest in being in a relationship, citing lack of time, economic reasons, and no interest in the opposite sex as reasons.^{[20这是给出的[21这是给出的[22这是给出的[23这是给出的}
• 相反,日本单身人士转向(a)古董al dating apps with video game characters; (b) services like cuddle cafes, host clubs, and purchasable dates; and (c) porn/erotica to fulfill individual elements of their relationship needs.^{[24这是给出的[25这是给出的[26这是给出的[27这是给出的[28这是给出的[30这是给出的}When you dissect parts of people’s life and push them to pursue material objectives independent of their personal needs, people also start to dissect their individual relationship needs and fulfill them in transactional ways.
• 我n Japan, there are deep social issues like child exploitation andhikikomoriwhere people withdraw from social life and seek extreme confinement instead, where they don’t leave their home for over 6 months.^{[30这是给出的[31这是给出的}

我ndividually there is nothing wrong with some of these behaviors as some people may simply prefer to live that way. But when entire segments of a population start to recluse, opt out of social and romantic relationships, or even opt to死，这显然是一个宏观问题，而不是个人选择的情况。那时，领导人，尤其是过去的领导人需要认真思考自己的国家方向所做的一切。

除上述内容外，还有互联网已经使互动不人道化，因为我们现在可以轻松地接触到计算机屏幕后面的大众。对于某些人来说，随着人们不再以真实的人出现，无礼已成为一种自动行为简单地使用个人资料图片在线处理。

我们能做的最好的是首先善解人意 - 对他人的感受和困境敏感。将人们视为人，而不是对象或工具。即使他们看起来很困难，也表现出对每个人的关心和关注。微笑。实践情感慷慨。当我们关心他人时，他们也会开始敞开心hearts。

Read:

• 8个提示对他人的同情心
• The Secret To Meaningful Social Relationships
• 狗万10万提款 ，我的高级计划在短短30天内变得更好

4）尽力而为

Last but not least,尽力而为。

有一段时间,我真的很生气我的问题was seeing in the world. I was angry at the fraudulent folks in my industry, misrepresenting products and causing people torun in circleswith theirfalse claims。我对我国的社会不公正行为感到生气。我很生气，人们如何如此冷漠，无私，甚至对他们面前的问题一无所知。作为一个了解媒体力量的人，当我看到媒体反复用来传播宣传而不是提高人们的意识时，我感到非常失望。

But ultimately, I was really angry at myself. I felt angry for being so powerless over these issues. I felt paralyzed by the size of these problems. Around me, everyone is apathetic and disengaged, interested only in things like material purchase and self-interests, but not social issues, human rights, or world problems, which are far more important in the long run.

但是很长一段时间后，我意识到这种感觉毫无意义。即使许多问题在未来10年内可能不会改变（有些问题可能会变得更糟，它们会变得更好），但至少我可以首先处理可以控制的事情。我可以努力改善自己的生活和福祉。我可以继续追求自己的使命来帮助他人成长。我可以触摸我日常生活中看到的人。我可以通过我的博客继续与大家联系。我可以将自己的努力献给那些可以从我的帮助中受益的人。

The same goes for you. While the world isn’t perfect right now, there are many things you can do at your level.Educating yourself. Educating others. Starting a blog that rallies people into action. Starting a socially-conscious venture. Spreading empathy. These are changes that you can make at your level, among others. Do not assume that you can’t make a difference, because you can. And it all starts with you and me.

You’re not the only person feeling disillusioned with what you see in the world. There are many people who are disillusioned and working to improve things too. Many are fighting to make a change — environmental / human rights / animal rights activists, coaches, counselors, healers, doctors, scientists, socially conscious entrepreneurs, philanthropists like Bill and Melinda Gates, billionaires like Warren Buffett who has pledged to give away 99% of his wealth to philanthropic causes^{[32这是给出的[33这是给出的}与其他人一起捐赠承诺。

You are not alone fighting this battle, so don’t feel that you are alone.

梳洗。从您可以首先做的事情开始。为自己和周围的其他人改善事情。

准备好后，就开始真正考虑自己可以做什么。没有人太小而无法改变。没有影响并不重要。考虑一下您可以创建的第一个更改。然后，下一个。继续采取这些行动，一次。

我ndividually, we may not be able to solve all the world’s issues. But together, we can make a big difference.Hopefully, by taking the maximum action at an individual level, we can positively impact others to do the same. Hopefully, by working together, you and me, we can make a difference in some people’s lives. When enough people join forces to reverse local and global issues, that’s when we’ll see the world’s problems being reversed, one at a time.

Read:

• Feeling Disconnected
• 小变化的力量
• 一个人对世界的影响