Living in a bubble

Introduction

When I went to Thailand last year, arguably the biggest thing that I realised was that the vast majority of us live in a bubble. When I refer to the phrase “living in a bubble”, what I mean by this is that our world is very small. The fact that we live in a bubble means that we aren’t exposed to the wide range of opportunities that are out there, and we don’t always get the chance to gain new perspectives. In this blog post, I will talk more about the corporate world bubble, explain the drawbacks of staying in your bubble, and talk about how I have looked to get out of the bubble.

The corporate world bubble

One example which illustrates the concept of living in a bubble is the corporate world bubble. I am from London, and over here it feels like everyone I know is doing a corporate 9–5 job. I myself also do a corporate 9–5 job. What this means is that a big part of my weekly lifestyle is based around my full-time job. Furthermore, as my full-time job is a big chunk of my week, a good amount of the people I interact with on a weekly basis are people from work. In addition to all this, the majority of adults that I know are doing a corporate full-time job. In summary, my full-time corporate job is a big part of my weekly routine, and the majority of people that I get exposed to are also doing full-time corporate jobs. Therefore, this makes me part of the corporate world bubble.

The drawbacks of living in a bubble

Even though a lot of us live in a bubble, it is important to be aware of the drawbacks of it. One of the drawbacks of living in a bubble is that we end up being in our own world. It is so easy to get caught up in our own world. However, being caught up in our own world means that we don’t make time for the small things that matter. We all say that we are very busy with work and all, but a lot of us are actually too caught up in our busy schedules to the point where we almost forget about these small things that matter, such as reaching out to friends. Another way of looking at it is that by being in our own world, we can fall into the trap of our busy schedules effectively taking over and dominating our lives.

Another drawback of living in a bubble is that it can become too comfortable and repetitive. This is something that I only really realised when I was in Thailand and away from the day-to-day London life. When you are in the corporate world (but also applies to other stages of life), it is easy to have the same routine every week. If your routine is the same every week, it can become repetitive and it can be hard to get out of that repetition. Furthermore, once you do the same routine every week, that routine becomes comfortable and familiar. Having a familiar routine sometimes leads you to stay in your comfort zone more than what you should be doing. Moreover, living in a bubble means that it is also easy to be speaking to the same familiar people week on week, which can also keep you in your comfort zone.

How Thailand made me realise that I was living in a bubble

When I went to Thailand, I was backpacking. Whilst backpacking, I was able to interact with people from all over the world and from so many different walks of life. Some people were doing extended travelling trips, some people were travelling as part of their gap year, whereas other people left their jobs to go travelling. Being able to interact with such a wide range of people meant that I was exposed to so many different perspectives. Furthermore, most of the people I spoke to were doing things completely different from a corporate job as a living. This was a stark contrast to London, where it feels like everyone I speak to is doing a corporate job. Being able to interact with people from so many different walks of life made me realise how much of a bubble I was living in back home. This is because when you are in a corporate job, there isn’t always that opportunity to interact with people from different walks of life.

Since I have come back from Thailand, one of the things I have aimed to do was to seek opportunities to get out of my bubble as far as possible. The biggest way I have looked to do this in the past few months is by building connections and interacting with people that have very different lived experiences to me. The reason why I wanted to do this because I felt that the only people I was interacting to were other people with corporate full time jobs, which made my world feel very small. The main way I have gone about this is by proactively reaching out to people via LinkedIn and networking events. Interacting with a wide range of people with very different lived experiences to myself has been extremely rewarding, as I have been able to learn lots from others. Furthermore, I have been exposed to lots of different perspectives and views, which has sometimes led to me challenging my own views in a healthy way. All of this has helped me get out of the bubble to an extent.