Hitting Rock Bottom | Just World and Shattered Assumptions

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Great video, but did u/knowingbetteryt lose weight? Or does this hair color match and hair style match him very well to his facial structure?

Here’s the song he was talking about. https://youtu.be/sTJ7AzBIJoI

👍︎︎ 13 👤︎︎ u/Foxstarry 📅︎︎ May 19 2019 🗫︎ replies

Just curious, but what if you rebuild yourself in the wrong way? What happens when people are faced adversity and don't rebuild everything, just some things? Is it even possible to fully drop everything? Asking as a young person who hasn't had anything bad happen.

👍︎︎ 12 👤︎︎ u/Cyocat 📅︎︎ May 19 2019 🗫︎ replies

In this video he says many times about what made him hit rock bottom. Is that something he already discussed before, or something he doesn't want to talk in details? Just curious, it felt strange how he spoke about that many times but without going any deeper. I assume it could be to respect his privacy, or because he didn't want to lead the commenters to a war of "my trauma is worse than yours"

Anyway, great video as always. I only discovered KB a couple months ago, and I've fallen in love immediately, even if usually I don't like videos where there is only the guy talking. Keep up with the good work :)

👍︎︎ 11 👤︎︎ u/Banished_Peasant 📅︎︎ May 19 2019 🗫︎ replies

Thank you, u/knowingbetter.

I needed this video today.

👍︎︎ 3 👤︎︎ u/L4r5man 📅︎︎ May 19 2019 🗫︎ replies

Very awesome video. I love the ending too where he's essentially saying, "some of y'all have never hit rock bottom and it shows"

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/098712350987123 📅︎︎ May 21 2019 🗫︎ replies

I WILL BE YOUR FEMINIST GIRLFRIEND.! WE WILL TALK FACTS AND FERRETS ALL DAY! Just kidding. Great video, man!

👍︎︎ 2 👤︎︎ u/LogicalFury 📅︎︎ May 22 2019 🗫︎ replies

Being one of the few people in the world who doesn't live in the USA I'm always happy when you upload a psych video rather than a political one. This one is especially informative. I say this speaking as someone who went through a traumatic event - sadly a life-changing injury that didn't go away and allow the sort of post-trauma psych processing / rebuilding you speak of here. Still now I know better about what happened, have learned (or have had clarified) a concept or two and will incorporate some of what you said into my home-brewed CBT. Cheers.

👍︎︎ 4 👤︎︎ u/5haunz 📅︎︎ May 20 2019 🗫︎ replies

Nice video! Can’t wait for what’s next in the pipeline!

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/8thsinn 📅︎︎ May 20 2019 🗫︎ replies

Great video— definitely gave me a lot to think about!

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/princess_awesomepony 📅︎︎ May 21 2019 🗫︎ replies
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World War 2 destroyed most of Europe, cities were burned to the ground and entire governments collapsed. At the end of the war, along with physically rebuilding, the people came together and said: You know what, we need to figure out a way to stop this from happening again. Governments were restructured and entire constitutions were rewritten and intergovernmental unions were formed. And society reordered what they thought was most important. Many of the changes that took hold in Europe after the war were also proposed here in the United States. Had FDR not died, they might have been implemented. But unlike Europe, America was relatively untouched by the war, we didn’t need to rebuild entire cities and when it came to society: We won, why should we have to change anything? So we didn’t, America persevered through the war and came out the other side relatively unchanged, maybe a little more arrogant for being the only country to do so. Some changes eventually happened, but slowly… over time… and with a lot of push back. I’m not saying which path towards change after World War 2 was better – whether it be Europe’s or Americas. But that is objectively what happened. I want you to remember this story and those two different approaches as we talk about personal struggle through adversity. This video was brought to you by Audible. Most of what we know about how the world works comes from childhood. I’m not talking about complicated things like how to do your taxes. But basic foundational concepts that shape your view of how the world works. The base, upon which everything else you know is built. This is called the Assumptive World, and it’s not simple stuff like two plus two equals four or the sky is blue. It’s even more fundamental than that. Like that adults have it all figured out and they know everything – teachers, doctors, and especially your parents. When I was a kid, my dad was the smartest person in the world. Or that true love exists, there’s someone out there for everyone and once you find that person, your soul mate, everything is easy and works out perfectly. And that may have been the case for a few of you. But for the rest of us, that assumption was shattered rather early, we know that you eventually find someone who fits most of your criteria and you make it work. If I could offer you just one tip for the future – after wearing sunscreen – it would be that relationships are work. I blame Disney for putting that fairy tale notion of love in our heads, and no, I’m not bitter about anything… Why would I be bitter? Apparently, I have a new feminist girlfriend, which is great. Can’t wait to meet her. Another basic fundamental concept you learn as a child is that good and evil exist and are clearly defined. People are either good or evil, and we assume most people are good. You also learn the difference between right and wrong, and that every action you take is either right or wrong. This doesn’t come from religion – can we not have that discussion right now please? While we all know things like murder and stealing are wrong, we also have more complex moral issues to deal with – like lying. We all know lying is wrong, we’re taught that from the beginning. Except when someone gives you a present that you don’t really like… then your parents tell you you’re supposed to lie in order to make the other person feel good. So instead of good and evil being clearly defined there’s this little gray area in between. Then you forget to do your homework because you were too busy playing Podracer on N64, but of course you’re not going to tell your teacher that, so you say something like you forgot your math book in your locker. Or when you’re late for work, you can’t tell your boss it’s because you’re hungover, so It’s traffic. So lying is okay if it makes other people feel good or it protects you from getting in trouble, that little gray area between right and wrong becomes more of a… gradient? I feel like there’s another word for that but it escapes me right now. So you’re taking that fundamental concept and building on it as your understanding becomes more complex. But the basic foundation is still there. A similar thing happens to our view of good and evil as we get older, we realize that people aren’t purely good or purely evil, there’s a gradient. We still generally classify people as good or evil though. While we acknowledge there are shades of gray in between, we still have some sort of division between good and evil. Where that line is changes from person to person. If I were to ask you if your friend Devin is good or bad, you’re not going to say “Well, he’s actually somewhere in the gray, though he tends more towards-“ No, good or bad. This understanding comes with another idea, that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people, this is known as the Just World Hypothesis. It’s also known by other names like the Just World Fallacy. This is the belief that people get what they deserve, some people call it karma others call it divine justice, but you don’t need to be religious to believe this. Everyone believes in the Just World to some degree. It’s one of those things that we all know isn’t real and we tell each other it isn’t real. But deep down, we still believe it. We have a number of common phrases that help to reinforce the Just World and even resolve the cognitive dissonance that occurs when something challenges that belief, like when something good happens to a bad person. Oh, what goes around comes around, you reap what you sow, he’ll get his in the end. It sounds childish I know, but even as adults, many of us still hold onto this idea that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. We all know in the back of our minds that sometimes things cross over, but very very rarely – and certainly never to us. Things don’t just happen randomly, so if a bad thing happens to you, you must be bad, and if a good thing happens to you, you must be good. Say for example, you win a raffle. You go up and get your prize, you sit down and say “Wow, I can’t believe I won” and your friend looks at you and says “Hey man, good for you, you deserve it.” But… but it was random. There are numerous studies into the Just World where someone in a group is randomly chosen to be given a candy bar before a task, and then afterwards the group is asked to rate each other on likability. The person who was randomly chosen to be given a candy bar is often rated higher. Because if something good happened to them, they must be good, they must have done something to deserve it. For longtime viewers, this particular aspect is known as the Halo Effect. There have been other studies using monopoly, where one person started off with much more money, and they eventually came to believe that they genuinely deserved their advantage. Even though the game started off unequal, they believed it was fair. You see this in the real world all the time, rich people are rich because they worked hard or they must have done something to deserve it. But this also works in the reverse. We all accept that sure, sometimes random bad things happen, but we want to fit them into our Just World Hypothesis. Even if that means blaming the victim. We don’t want to believe that random bad things can happen to us, so if it happened to you, you must have done something to provoke it. Maybe you said something or you wore something? I hope you get what I’m hinting at here, but if you don’t, let’s switch to a different, less controversial example like… cancer. We all know that cancer is random, right? Well not really, if you have cancer, you must have done something – you smoked or ate asbestos or… used the microwave with the door open. Or you’re just a garbage human being who’s getting what they deserve. You might be thinking that you’re not that terrible of a person, but we all do believe this to a certain extent. When you find out that someone has cancer, your first question is often – how? Partly so you can avoid doing whatever they did, so you don’t get cancer, but also because… you think they did something. Sure, random things happen, but not to me. So let’s alter the example a little, let’s say your wife gets cancer, you know her pretty well you’ve been together for years, she’s a good person. You know she’s never smoked or been to Chernobyl. So you sit there and try to think of what she might’ve done or how this could have possibly happened, some people might tell you… “Everything happens for a reason” or “God works in mysterious ways”… which doesn’t help, since it kind of implies that God- You know what, let’s change the example, you get cancer. Now there is no wondering about what they might have done behind your back or in a past life to deserve this. Because you don’t believe in reincarnation and you know everything you’ve done. You know who you are, you know what you’ve done, and you know you’re a good person… but you also know that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. So if something bad is happening to you… There are only two options, you can’t resolve this with some colloquial saying, either you’re a bad person or this fundamental belief you’ve had about the world since childhood is wrong. This is the Shattered Assumptions Theory and it’s triggered by a Traumatic Event. If you think you might have had a traumatic event happen to you, you’re wrong. You know if you’ve had a traumatic event. A Potential Traumatic Event has to be sufficiently devastating enough to cause inward self-reflection, when you to question your entire reality. Your favorite pet dying, while tragic, probably isn’t going to do that. It also has to occur in adulthood, when you’re a child, this is your life – you have your foundations and a few pieces here and there, family, friends, maybe a few savings bonds from your grandma. Losing this wouldn’t really be that much of a setback. I’m not trying to downplay anything that may have happened to you that may have been traumatic, but when it comes to the Shattered Assumptions Theory, it has to occur in adulthood. When your life looks more like this. It took you decades to build this – it’s not perfect, but it’s also not done, you have a job, maybe a career, a family, maybe even a little savings. You’ve had to cut corners, skip a few pieces here and there. You’ve had to add pieces on that you didn’t expect to, but you made it work. It’s not great, but it’s the life you have. And then something comes along… and that’s it… everything’s gone. This is what we call hitting Rock Bottom… Roll Credits Go away CinemaSins, nobody likes you anymore. After my last video, many of you asked me what caused me to look at the world differently and re-evaluate my positions. And this is your answer. If I’m a good person, and something bad is happening to me… maybe I’m not a good person… or maybe this fundamental belief I’ve held since childhood is wrong. And if I’m wrong about that, what else am I wrong about? This process doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a reflective period that takes place over months or even years, it’s not like I was hit in the head and woke… actually, I was hit in the head, with a golf club. But that was years before and I’m fine now. Before the age of 25, if you had asked me if I had experienced a traumatic event, I would have said yes. And I would have listed them all for you. If you were to ask me today… the answer is still yes. But there’s only one. In 1999, Baz Luhrmann released a spoken word song called Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen), it’s amazing and I’ve come back to it several times over the last twenty years. Each time, I’m able to extract a little more meaning from it. I’m not going to play it for you because of copyright, but this particular passage is important: Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday. According to the Shattered Assumptions Theory, in order to hit rock bottom and question everything you thought you knew and re-evaluate your entire life, a traumatic event must be sufficiently traumatic. The kind that blindsides you at 4PM on some idle Tuesday. There are three paths available to you after a traumatic event sufficient enough to fit the Shattered Assumptions Theory. You could choose to be resilient. You knuckle down and push through it as you always have, you persevere and you don’t change anything. You chalk up the event to a random happening, an outlier. It doesn’t cause you to question anything or rethink your life, resulting in no changes. This is, by far, the most common approach and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Or, you can take a look in the mirror, assess the situation, and go through some cognitive processing or rumination. And you have an additional two choices here. If good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people, and something bad is happening to you… You might conclude that you are a bad person. This is called Intrusive Rumination and typically results in severe distress, depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Nietzsche was wrong. What doesn’t kill you doesn’t always make you stronger, sometimes it can break you. This can take years to reverse, if at all. Or you can decide that the Just World Hypothesis is actually the Just World Fallacy and is wrong. This is called Deliberate Rumination and leads to Post-Traumatic Growth. You throw out or reevaluate everything, the idea of good and evil? Gone, the gradient too. And you know what? All those people I used to point and laugh at for being wrong? Well clearly I don’t know anything anymore so… Tell me, what’s your deal? People who have gone through Post-Traumatic Growth are able to completely reorder what’s important in their life. Maybe career was too high up on the list and relationships were too low. They’re able to re-evaluate what makes them happy and what doesn’t, and they’re able to get rid of those things. It’s very difficult to break up with friends and family. But in this position, someone can say “this person has always been there for me, they have my back no matter what and I trust them unconditionally… but this person is toxic. In fact, I can trace all of my bad habits to this person.” After hitting rock bottom, you figure out who your real friends are. Along with re-evaluating your interpersonal relationships, you realize your own strengths, and you’re far more capable of handling future traumatic events. You also have a greater appreciation for life and perception of new possibilities. You get to pick up the pieces and rebuild them however you want, tossing out the unnecessary bits, and now that you’re an adult, you have a plan and you know what you want it to look like. Rather than haphazardly tacking on pieces as they come along. Jonathan Haidt’s book The Happiness Hypothesis puts forth two versions of what he called the Adversity Hypothesis. There’s the weak version… Adversity can lead to growth and self-improvement. And then there’s the strong version… In order to achieve the highest levels of growth and development, one must endure adversity. I personally agree with both and I don’t see them being at odds with each other. We all know someone who has never had anything bad happen to them, maybe the worst thing is their dog died. And those people kinda suck, don’t they? People who have been through adversity and either persevered or benefitted from it, are more empathetic and are generally happier. Some would also argue that they have more wisdom. Some of the wisest people I know when it comes to life are former addicts, which are the last people I would have guessed ten years ago. They’re the definition of hitting rock bottom. But they came out of it far better than someone who’s never been through anything and they were able to rebuild their lives into something much cooler. So I agree with Haidt that adversity is almost necessary for personal growth. Though I may be a little biased since I first heard about this hypothesis after my own shattered assumptions period. It was almost like he wrote that chapter specifically for me. If I were to pick the book that shaped my psychology and outlook on life as an adult the most, it would be The Happiness Hypothesis. And I’m not just saying that because Audible is sponsoring this video. I’ve recommended this book in the past and it was the primary source for several of my older videos. But you don’t have to physically read it, you can listen to it while you’re at the gym or out for a walk, which I’ve also done, by going to audible.com/knowingbetter or texting knowingbetter to 500-500. Where you can get a free 30-day trial of Audible, which includes two Audible originals and your first audiobook for free. I personally recommend The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt, but you can choose whatever you want. A lot of the books that I use as sources for my videos are actually audiobooks that I listen to on Audible. Sometimes I’ve read them before, other times you guys recommend them to me. Either way, you can do the same by going to audible.com/knowingbetter or texting knowingbetter to 500-500 to get started, you’ll also be supporting the channel when you do. If you’re feeling a little envious, like dang, I wish something terrible would happen to me so I can grow from it. Don’t, that’s a weird thing to wish for. Personal growth and self-improvement is possible without a traumatic event, it’s just slower and more difficult. The hardest life lessons can’t be taught, they have to be experienced. So while you can try to convince yourself that you maybe didn’t earn all your advantages and that victims probably didn’t do anything to deserve it, it’s hard, and it often takes blowing it all up. Remember our analogy from the beginning? I obviously don’t wish America was bombed into oblivion so we could rebuild like Europe and I don’t wish any ill will on any of you. But traumatic events will happen, both personally and nationally. And when they do, I hope you don’t just persevere – seize the opportunity to make meaningful changes in your life and possibly rebuild it into something new, because now, you know better. Spectrum, spectrum was the word I was looking for… I’d like to give a shout out to my newest legendary patrons, Kenn and Corina. If you’d like to add your name to this list of just individuals, head on over to patreon.com/knowingbetter. Don’t forget to shatter that subscribe button, check out the merch at knowingbetter.tv, follow me on twitter and facebook, and join us on the subreddit.
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Channel: Knowing Better
Views: 340,417
Rating: 4.8877192 out of 5
Keywords: knowing better, psychology, morality, morals, ethics, just world hypothesis, just wold fallacy, just world phenomenon, shattered assumptions, shattered assumptions theory, right and wrong, good and evil, karma, divine justice, afterlife, reincarnation, victim blaming, victim shaming, assumptive world, childhood beliefs, traumatic events, rock bottom, resilience, rumination, post traumatic growth, post traumatic stress, ptsd, moral dilemma, taken for granted world, approach, avoidance
Id: geSfK9PzEDw
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 16min 56sec (1016 seconds)
Published: Sun May 19 2019
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