On Eliminating Our Blind Spots

"The point is to try to eliminate your blind spots — the things that keep us from grasping the bigger picture. And look, even though I grew up in this neighbourhood — in this incredible, multicultural neighbourhood that was a little rough at that time — I find myself here before you as an American, white, male movie star. I don’t have a clue where my blind spots begin and end. But looking at the world as it is, and engaging with it, is the first step toward finding our blind spots. And that’s when we can really start to understand ourselves better ... and begin to solve some problems." - Matt Damon, MIT Commencement Speech 2016

A few days ago, I was having a conversation with my parents trying to understand how we grew up, our experience and ideas around us have shaped who we have become as adults. Even within the same family, I realised how differently my mother and I grew up as a young child and teenager.

I hardly had any clue about a life my mother had, as much as my mother could only have little idea about experience I've gone through as a girl from Monywa, Colorado to New York and then back in Myanmar.

My mother is a very strong woman, my role model, who always guides us with her great values. She grew up in a poor family, and as a second eldest of 9 siblings, she grew up babysitting all her younger siblings, and helping my grandmother in all household chores. She eventually had to drop out of school at 9th grade as all the family responsibilities and also financial situation did not afford her to continue school. 

I grew up in a lower middle-class household - my father was a junior civil servant when I was a kid. Both my brother and I went to a primary school in a poor neighbourhood of Monywa, a town in the middle of Myanmar. We had daily allowance of 1 or 2 kyats in primary school and only got to eat shrimps once a year. When I started dreaming back in high school about studying abroad, my friends thought I was out of my mind to dare to think of something "impossible". My father was also strongly against the idea because a young girl was supposed to be under his protection, and he also thought it was insane to forgo the medical school and try something completely uncertain -- winning a full scholarship from one of the top liberal arts colleges in the U.S. Anyway, to make the long story short, against all odds, I made it all the way!

Studying in Colorado for 4 years, and living in New York for a few years, I'd become complacent. I had no clue where my blind spots begin and end. I thought I had a pretty good idea about life and the world. Eventually, I had to painfully embrace the fact that I had no clue about who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. So, taking all the possible risks, I moved back to my home country nearly 3 years ago. In the beginning, I was in a series of shocks - I was in pain to know how clueless and ignorant I was for all those years. 

Through my own pain, I had a little bit of idea about how painful it must be to be rid of opportunities and resources to better yourself and improve your life chances, to feel uncertain and hopeless about tomorrow, and to be victimised for just being poor. I had a lot of questions about "what ifs" - what if I grew up in a poorer household, what if my parents made wrong choices about their life, what if I did not even have enough resources to try to get into a liberal arts college in the U.S. 

Since I moved back 3 years ago, I've been in this constant process of rocking the boat, both inward and outward, through reading, traveling, meditating, listening to others and watching documentaries. I've been trying to shake up all my beliefs and everything I held dear to my heart and mind. I've kept trying to understand alternative points of view and information even if those are so against my own beliefs. I've learnt to approach anything with healthy skepticism. 

Even then, I know that I'm still far from getting closer to the truth because I still have my fair share of blind spots -- biases, prejudices and intellectual limitations. In the process, I'm also aware that I'm subject to arrogance and complacency every now and then. 

Eliminating our blind spots, in the process of actively searching and learning, is a life-long endeavour. I hope I never stop learning and actively engaging myself with life and the world before me.