Blinkered Vision #45 #cong20

 Conscious personal fulfilment should be prioritized over social achievement

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1. The more we deny ourselves distraction, the more we deny ourselves the opportunity to be curious and discover.
2. How often do we ask ourselves if we’re happy and fulfilled?
3. The longer we stay in a state of disconnection – caught up in a culture that encourages striving towards milestone after milestone – the less time we give ourselves the chance to wake up.
4. Can we find the courage to get off the treadmill and follow our hearts into the unknown

 Founder and creative director of Artizan, a branding consultancy based in Dublin, for 16 years. I stepped aside at the end of 2019 to focus on painting. Doing what I love to do has give me an inner freedom that I have longed for – this experience prompted my post.

You can connect with Zanya by email, LinkedIn or visit her website.

By Zanya Dahl

Struggling to find the words to convey my opinion Society 3.0, I took up Eoin’s suggestion to express my opinion on canvas instead.

I chose to do a self-portrait wearing horse blinders as an example of how many of us live their lives within a social framework without ever questioning its design or our behavior within it. The idea of wearing blinders is to express a narrow field of vision. Interestingly I discovered while I was researching imagery for blinders, that Panasonic have developed human blinders for people to wear in an office to help minimize distraction. The more we deny ourselves distraction, the more we deny ourselves the opportunity to be curious and discover.

If you put your hand over the painting and cover each side of the face, you will see a different attitude. The left eye stares straight ahead, dull, lifeless and zoned out. The right eye is wide open, curious to see what’s beyond the blinder that’s been pulled back.

Society encourages us to follow a certain path – school, college, job, family – without ever taking a pause to check in and see if we feel fulfilled and happy. The longer we stay in a state of disconnection – caught up in a culture that encourages striving towards milestone after milestone – the less time we give ourselves the chance to wake up. Many people live their whole lives completely disconnected from who they truly are and what they truly want. We get stuck on the treadmill of life, moving towards goals and achievements with our blinders firmly focused  on what’s directly ahead.

It often seems to require a tragedy or a crisis before we are shocked out of the trance of daily life – waking up to the reality that we have one life. We start taking stock of where we are and breaking free from whatever holds us captive.

Can we simply choose right now, today, to take off our blinders and check if we’re on the right path, ask ourselves if we’re happy and fulfilled? If not, can we find the courage to get off the treadmill and follow our hearts into the unknown?

By connecting to our own value, we start to radiate happy, benevolent vibes. Imagine whole communities radiating energy, creativity and love. The collective benefits for Society 3.0 would be huge, not to mention the future of our planet.