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During the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations 2021 (HPAIR), I had the opportunity of listening to keynote speeches, fireside conversations, and panel discussions of tens of influential figures and world leaders. As a higher tier delegate, I even got the chance to be part of smaller executive seminars and heard personal stories of many of those figures. Out of the many wonderful takeaways, since leadership and leadership development is a key skill I want you to develop and be informed about, I’ve decided to share those spectacular learnings with you so you can accelerate your leadership journey.
Executive Seminar with Julian Tse
Leaders who are passionate about the role they have and go the extra mile in pulling it off successfully and trying to evolve themselves go a long way. Additional to that, leadership that is accompanied by a cause that the leader and their team is passionate about is another major plus. Your passions should guide you towards a bigger picture while you also seek goodness in the little things that come by. Through passion, you can also connect the effectiveness and need for ‘servant leadership’, as Kevin Sneader (Global managing director of McKinsey & Company) calls it. For good leadership to sustain, it must serve those whom it impacts. Gone are the days where fascist and dictatorial leaders sustain.
Great leaders are able to ensure that they do justice to their passions by converting it into a vision and mission for themselves and their team to follow. Without a vision and mission, an attempt to lead would be like shooting an arrow into the void. Almost every speaker at the Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) recommended the adoption of a vision and mission in leadership so you should too.
Kevin Sneader further reminds us that there is no single framework of leadership that can be followed everywhere as the actions and perspectives that need to be taken into account differ as per the situation and context. Having studied Business in high school and now pursuing International Studies (politics and its cousins), I fully understand how different contexts shape leadership differently. To be a good leader whose leadership is valued constantly and not just sometimes, you should know when to do what tailored to the scenarios at hand.
Only dead fish go with the flow. Leaders are confident individuals that go the extra mile to make sure their goals are achieved and are done so mutually with the goals of the team.
A picture from a training session I gave to educators
Self-doubt inhibits action. Corresponding to the previous characteristic, leaders are also confident individuals who are not afraid to voice how they feel and do what they think is right. However, while you adopt this thought, know that it should not be confused with being rude, uncompromising, or egoistic. To be an effective and confident leader, you should know where to draw the line.
Many of the speakers gave emphasis on integrity as a good characteristic of leadership when asked about the values they look for in their hiring process. Good leaders can authentically represent themselves and prove worthy without having to craft a new personality. Their sense of ownership allows them to maintain good relationships with others, and more importantly- with themselves. Ownership is an important characters for success in any field and not just leadership as it will allow you to craft authentic interpretations of internal and external factors that contribute to your successes and failures and the next steps that you should take.
In today’s world, a dictatorial rule sprinkled with punishments does not sustain in the long run. Good leaders show tolerance parallel to mentoring, calling out, feedback, etc. The only intolerance you should have as a good leader should be intolerance towards intolerance so that your environment can remain tolerant, e.g., opposing discriminatory ideas to keep your team inclusive and safe.
I saw this characteristic be exercised by a group of people in a group chat. An individual had messaged a few others privately with harassing messages and stalker-like behaviour. Many group members immediately stood up for each other and messaged the perpetrator privately with strong warnings. A group of tolerant and budding leaders had to show intolerance to continue maintaining a safe environment.
Apart from being able to say ‘no’ at the correct times, leaders also have the strength and adequate back up plans to deal with being said ‘no’ to.
At HPAIR, many speakers emphasised on this by recommending budding leaders to have back up plans that they can fall back on in case the first one doesn’t work out. Additionally, the co-founder and inventor of Siri, Adam Cheyer, said that life is like a book and is comprised of different chapters. Each chapter is a different stage in life and the transitions between them can be beautiful but also daunting. Yet, what is important is your perseverance and ability to embrace change.
To be an empowering leader, you should break out of any boundaries that you might create for yourself by adopting a growth mindset and not a fixed mindset. Additionally, you should also have the mindset to develop and exercise the other skills mentioned in this post. That way, you also create an environment inductive of those learnings in your team members therefore being empowering.
The founder of Radii, Brian Wong, laid down a ‘Leadership Quotient’ as the sum of Emotional Intelligence, Intelligence Quotient, and also, Love Quotient. Impactful leaders create a warm and comfortable environment around them with compassion and kindness. Adopting this equation to your leadership quotient will make you even more effective.
Reflecting after a recent big project of mine where I found certain areas with scope for improvement, a Coursera course on ‘Leadership and Emotional intelligence’, and learnings at HPAIR helped me realize that while my emotional intelligence and IQ employed may have been great, developing a more compassionate environment would have produced much better results.
The primary mindset you need to work towards good listening skills is to listen to understand the speaker instead of listening to respond. Don’t plan your replies before the speaker is done. Focus on trying to empathise with them, and then respond accordingly when they’re done.
To be considerate of the team, you need to know what’s there to consider. For that, the previously mentioned good listening skills play a major role. As you find out what to consider, being considerate and collaborative is an easy decision you can make. To start off, it may take time and practice but the growth mindset has taught us that it is not impossible!
Of course, I understand that being a good leader does not mean the same as being a yes-person (someone who fulfils ALL requests). Being considerate and being a good listener enables you to deny and modify proposed ideas in a manner that won’t offend your team which would likely have been the case if you did not have those skills. Sometimes, more important than the message is the style in which it is delivered.
Hari Nair, the Vice President of Procter&Gamble presented 5 principles of borderless leadership. One of the five characteristics was “the ability to find common ground.” He also mentioned that despite all the diversities, people inherently have very similar needs and wants. One of the tasks of a leader is to find those similar needs and wants to create a sense of community in their group. In most simple settings, the common ground can be found by addressing elements of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
(Source)
Even then, you should remember the third lesson from this post (contextual application) and be prepared to understand the situation instead of attempting to apply the same framework everywhere.
To be an inclusive, approachable, and 21-st century adaptable leader, you need to be inclusive and judge people for controllable factors like what they bring to the table and can bring to the table instead of uncontrollable factors like their gender, ethnicity, and identity. Even semi-controllable factors irrelevant to the cause and goals of the team like physical appearance should not be taken into account.
Some worrying statistics:
If you end up in the corporate world, your goal should be to make sure you don’t account for that 67% or be responsible for the mentioned wage gap.
Hari Nair also listed “deliver wins” as one of the principles of borderless leadership. Your wins don’t have to be successfully beating major world records or reforming the United Nations. Small wins are still wins. And as long as those wins have brought more value than any mishaps, you’re good to go! P.S. don’t use this as an excuse to avoid proactively working on rectifying the mishaps.
Janice Lao, the ESG director spoke at length on why she did not give up on her dream to be an environmental scientist in a world where women in STEM were few and were not regarded. Ms. Yang Lan spoke about how she tested her boundaries and forged her career. Instead of feeling intimidated in the world of gender biases. Citing these, among many other examples, a delegate – Lorinda Adu-Gyamfi from Ghana says that HPAIR2021 taught her to “be the architect of her own life.”
Janice Lao also talked about her experiences in life as an Asian. Something a lot of us can relate to, is how we are always taught to “respect our elders.” Many times, this also translates as “never disagree with your elders.” While I’m not here to discuss the validity of this claim, what Janice and I can tell you is that it affects our ability to disagree with people who are hierarchically senior to us. The ideology has its effects both ways. This means that even elders or people in senior positions may sometimes dismiss the opinions of a junior if they are opposing. Despite this, she was determined to work a way around this instead of giving up to the thought of not being able to persuade others. Without resilience, she would have put an immediate full-stop at her career. The next point will teach you how she worked around this!
To bypass the difficulties created by this belief, you have to once again employ the idea that “more important than the message is sometimes is its delivery.” This is where the art of gentle persuasion comes in. Instead of being directly opposing, which will trigger decades of upbringing and even an emotional defensive response, you can get your points across by asking carefully crafted questions that will direct them to your point or ease them into the bomb you’re going to drop ahead.
I can actually relate to this from one of my recent roles. As I mentioned earlier, I did a course on Leadership and Emotional Intelligence. While employing what I learned, as my role of content director for a blog post prompt, instead of outright disagreeing with certain ideas my team had, I asked them questions like “what will the readers take away if we adopt that style?”, “how do we effectively segue into the next item if we mention that here?”, etc. and it helped bring changes while keeping the atmosphere calm and considerate.
There is yet another important value embedded in the adaptation to the difficulty of belief and persuasion.
Bonus point! Even though Julian Tse and I talked about this quite a bit. I guess it went without saying for the qualified atmosphere at HPAIR, but reflections are a very important part of success in any field of life, not just leadership. Starting from HPAIR itself, if a delegate e-walks out of the conference without reflecting even a little bit on what they’ve learned and how they can apply it, their chances of retaining the value in a few weeks are minimal.
But even beyond that, reflecting over your successes and failures gives you a better idea of why the glass was half empty, or why it had water in it, what you can do to add water to it, and lastly- how you can make sure that the glass remains full, and yet another bonus- how you can learn to fill different types of glasses.
Bonus point. I mentioned in my previous post that I’d be sharing a collection of leadership lessons from HPAIR soon and here you are reading this. To be a good leader, you must keep your impulses at Bay, make meaningful commitments and deliver on them.
If you’ve attended HPAIR, what were some of your leadership development takeaways? And, if you didn’t attend HPAIR, which one of these do you want to start applying first, and what other lessons or personal examples do you have that you can share? Drop them in the comments! I’d love to read what you think.
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I finished two exams today, 15% and 25% in final grade weightage respectively, scoring 100% in one using only 1/3rd of time allotted and expecting a similar grade for the other with close to 1/3rd of my time to spare.
What did I do and what else could I have done to excel in those tests? I compiled these test-taking strategies and a preparation checklist to help you drive through your school/college year with incremental results.
This is not a compilation of every cliche in the test-preparation handbook. Sure, I’ve mentioned a couple basic strategies too but I’ve also gone in depth with some things you might have never heard and attempted to provide you with some secret state-of-the-art strategies to get those A’s and Z’s (sleep.. not a Z grade.. if that’s a thing)!
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Check out my comprehensive guide on how you can maximize your learning efficiency over here: Beating the Illusions of Competence in Learning and Learning Efficiently
Hopefully this isn’t the time where you’re starting to study or visiting the relevant material for the first time. But if it is, worry not cause I still have you covered. In case you’re not the type who’s preparing just the night before, click here to skip the last-minute emergency guidelines and hop back to your track.
Is your test an MCQ? a fill in the blanks? essay-based? or is it calculation-based? or is it a mix? Identifying this will help you develop not just the priority list but how you study as well.
For example, if it is an MCQ test, you would not want to spend much time thinking of how to explain certain concepts, which keywords to write, or how to derive certain equations as those would be features important for an essay or calculation based test rather than an MCQ.
Studies show that getting enough sleep has benefitted students with higher scores in contrast to sacrificing hours of sleep to go over material their sleeplessness makes them forget the next day. GET. ENOUGH. SLEEP.
Just because you’ve heard an advice 500 times does not mean it is cliche and ineffective. There’s a reason it is repeated!
(Unless you’re told to rote learn or other learning stigmas)
The coin stack shows how much you already know and the coins unstacked is the material you haven’t covered the night before the exam. If you tried to hurriedly place those coins in your knowledge stack by sacrificing on sleep, you’d collapse the entire stack and forget even what you already knew.
You must’ve heard: “always go after your instincts”, “don’t overthink too much and stick with your answer”, yada yada yada. But, the first flaw is the generalization of this recommendation. A study has shown that whether or not you should stick your first thought depends on your confidence. I’ve developed a tiny framework to help you assess this.
Should I rely on my first thought when answering this question?
My first instinct says the answer is: ______.
Do you feel confident with this answer?
Leveraging this framework to your advantage
If possible, note your confidence next to the questions on a 1-5 scale so when you revisit this during revision before submission or post-result revision, you can analyze and find patterns between your correctness and confidence levels. You will be able to answer the following questions:
Understanding yourself is key to performing better on your tests.
You know how the moment you exit the exam hall you suddenly remember the answer to a question you spent a lot of time thinking about or realized that you wrongly interpreted a question? Psychology can explain why that happens and you can take advantage of this phenomenon to ensure you get all your answers while attempting the test!
Start working out a solution for a difficult question. After making progress, switch to another question and finish that. Then return to this and make more progress, and switch to another again. Repeat this process till you eventually finish.
“But why Amaan? Why should we go on this wild goose chase?“
I’m glad you asked. This process alternates between your focused and diffused states of mind. When you are stuck on a question, you tend to think harder for a solution. But that won’t work because what you actually need is a shift of your mind to its diffused mode which you can trigger when you jump to an easy question after making some progress.
While you solve easy question(s), your subconscious mind also works out a solution for the difficult one. That is why the moment you exit an exam hall, you remember the answer to a question you couldn’t remember during the exam – the exiting of the hall triggers a shift of your mind to its diffused mode, something you did not leverage during the exam.
I’d recommend practicing this a bit on your own if you’re scared about leaving adequate space and encountering confusions during the paper.
Even if filling in answer spaces just for the sake of answering feels like the picture above (assuming you don’t get negatively marked for wrong answers), make sure you answer it because the worst that can happen is nothing!
Revisit your correct answers too, not just the wrong ones.
We already know what we do – either plan how we’re going to relocate ourselves with a new identity to a foreign nation or go over our mistakes, clarify doubts, and fill in those gaps for future tests.
But sometimes we write answers we are not sure of, but we won’t leave those blanks empty either. When answering MCQs and T/Fs, we sometimes find the answer by eliminating other options or guessing. These strategies don’t show that we know, but are educated guesses and test-strategies. If a question popped up in a different format, you are likely to be unable to answer it.
For that reason, when going over your result, also go over your correct answers and not just the wrong ones. That way, you reinforce existing knowledge and learn new things by revisiting your guesses and confusions.
So that’s part of my studying strategy journey and I hope this helps all of you. Remember one thing, you can be given ample amount of resources and read even the best strategies out there, but you won’t see results till you devise your own plan, deliberately act on it, and modify it to tailor your specific needs. All the best!
If you have any strategies that yield good results, feel free to mention it in the comments below, I’d love to hear it from you! If it’s something AWESOME, reach out to me personally and I’ll edit it into this post with due credits.
statement by senator fraser anning on 15th march 2019 in response to the mosque shootings
It’s interesting how the senator starts with condemning the shooter for his actions and how such an event cannot be justified but it’s difficult to understand if he really does believe that at heart, why does he end his statement quoting a bible verse and saying “those who follow a violent religion that calls on them to murder us, cannot be too surprised when someone takes them at their word and responds in kind” clearly implying a justification for the shooting to have taken place further saying “…does not make [the victims] blameless.”
First and foremost, if there’s anyone who is believing in “cliched nonsense”, it is not the activists this ignorant senator addresses but the very senator himself for the beliefs that he portrays and seems to so proudly confide in. It can be commonly agreed upon, that the greatest fuel to the fire of Islamophobia are the words of such leaders. As long as leaders like these are still allowed to hold office, chances of peace will remain low for these people are not after constructive upliftment of the society but votes and holding office.
It’s disheartening how when leaders actually try to assess problems with good intentions and constructive methods, little to no coverage is given and somehow nor are they people interested. But when radical right wing, xenophobic and anti-immigrant ideas are put forward, the attention of majority of that society is captured. Perhaps that may be the reason the senator is shifting blame to so called Islamic terrorism elsewhere in the world and linking it to immigration.
“Muslims are killing people in the name of their faith on an industrial scale.” What characterizes the so-called Muslim terrorist groups as true Islam? Just their name? So does that mean I should base my ideologies about Christianity by the acts of the KKK and about Hinduism from the activities of Saffron Terror?
How hard is it to look into true Islam and people that actually represent the religion of peace accurately and not at politically motivated militants who have no clear knowledge of and/or choose to ignore the true essence of the religion?
“Whoever kills a soul it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely.” [Quran 5:32]
One may wish to argue upon that Islam permits killing on the exception of others not believing in Islamic principles but again that too, is a senseless argument for it is mentioned in the Quran in 2:256- “There shall be no compulsion in religion.”
A funeral procession once passed in front of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and he stood up out of respect. When he was told the person in the coffin was Jewish and not Muslim, he said: “Was it not a living (soul)?”[Hadith Bukhari: 2:399]
Taking another case, let’s just create a hypothetical scenario where Muslims were at fault for terrorism in other parts of the world. Were those who were killed in the shooting at fault though? Did they deserve it? Implying any sort of justification for these shootings with the nonsense belief that Islam is associated to terrorism would be using the same logic as Hitler did for the holocaust- killing innocents for the [apparent] acts of someone else.
Please refrain from striking arguments in favor of Islam being associated to terrorism, you can quote verses to prove your point all you want but do realize whatever you have is misunderstood and out of context. If you happen to have verses that make you feel that Islam is violent, look it up on an authentic Islamic site that explains the actual context behind the verse. If you wish to research, do not begin with your conclusion of “How to prove Islam is violent?”, but begin with the question “What exactly is Islam?”.Example: “[Remember] when your Lord inspired to the angels, “I am with you, so strengthen those who have believed. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieved, so strike [them] upon the necks and strike from them every fingertip.” [Quran 8:12] Although this may seem like a verse that promotes what the Senator believes, it is nothing like it. This verse is a description of the Battle of Badr and what had happened during the battle and not a general command to be followed in life. The word “those who disbelieved” refers to the attackers.It is possible to show each and every religion in bad light by quoting their verses out of context but we need to understand that it has a different meaning than what it looks like.
Example: “He who sacrifices to any God other than the Lord must be destroyed” [Exodus 22:20]
Religions around the world need to be understood better and our beliefs about them need to be rooted on the basis of the authentic meaning of their scriptures and reliable scholars.
It is not religion that is causing havoc in the world, but the misinterpretation of religions.
After about 14 years of schooling, most people begin their journey into university. This calls for more independence, responsibilities, challenges, and exposure. Deciding a university is a bigger task than deciding a high school, and one that involves more of your decision than your parents. This post will help you find your interests, field of study, and university and even guide you through the application process to an extent. If you’re looking for some easy scholarships and discounts, read till the end of this post for some bonus content!
You might be among the people who can relate to meme above, but don’t worry because by the end of this post you’ll be on your way to relating to the meme below.
Table of Contents
What do you want to study? What profession do you want? What do you want to do in life?
We’re expected to have answers to these questions by the end of our high school journey but some of us still don’t, and that’s okay. In fact, I think trying to plan out answers to those questions in too much detail can be detrimental sometimes. Nevertheless, your life is a journey to find answers and constantly tweak them as you learn more about yourself.
The first thing you must do, is identify your strengths, weaknesses, and interests, even if they’re vague- note them down, it’s progress! You might find it hard to put into words what’s on your mind, don’t be afraid to ask others.
Approach your parents, friends, relatives, teachers, counsellors, advisers, or anyone else you seem fit for the job and ask them to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses and perhaps interests too.
There are plenty of resources and tests online which can extensively help you in two minutes. https://www.collegefactual.com/tools/find-my-major/introduction/ is a website that tells you your strengths and recommended courses in the order of importance, as well as which universities offer those courses, and the range of salaries. You can also check out https://www.mynextmove.org/.
It’s one of the processes I underwent to decide my field: International Studies.
Reflection and introspection will also be important for determining whether you want to study in the same country, or go abroad. Are you ready for that kind of independence?
You might be interested in music, painting, dancing and other creative fields. When it comes to fields like these. The degree of risk is usually higher in terms of stable income. So you have to analyse whether your interests are economically sustainable. By this, I definitely don’t mean that you drop them, but perhaps find an accompanying safe option while carrying this on the side.
It is important to combine what you are good at, with what you can learn, and what people will pay for.
How do I know if a risk is worth taking?
If the winning situation is significant but the loss is something that won’t get you out of basic survival, take it!
Classification and selection among your interests also involves assessment of demand of that profession in the market.
You don’t have to monetize your passions. You might have certain fields you are interested in that you might not want to turn into a career. I have some interest in psychology but it’s not a field I see myself in professionally.
Another way you can identify what field you want to get into is by imagining what kind of life you want after graduating. Do you want a 9-5 job, one that involves a lot of travel, one that isn’t too heavy so you get time with friends and family, a job that doesn’t demand too much on-call, etc.
Pick careers that suit your preferred lifestyle. A friend of mine is considering switching from Information Technology to Software Development because the on-call and working style in the former is not in their preference.
If even after the previous steps, you’re not sure of your course, and taking a gap year is not an option, you still have four tools at your disposal.
Remember that this decision affects YOU the most, and your immediate family to an extent, not anyone else.
Some of you might be facing a dilemma with parents not letting you do what you truly want. This could be because of many reasons rational in their eyes: risk, safety concerns, expenses, sustainability, not wanting to send you away. etc. Your family objects to certain things out of care, they wouldn’t do anything to hinder your growth! All you need is some quality conversations and understanding.
After you’ve figured out your course and interests, you need to finalise which universities you plan to apply to. Narrow it down first by place, do you plan to stay in the UAE or go abroad?
You can match your courses and universities via the aforementioned website as well as many other searchers such as: https://studyportals.com/
Factors to consider when applying to a university:
1. Application dates: Given that these are last minute applications, a lot of universities go out of the options. Look for universities which are still accepting applications.
2. Ranking in relevance to the course/field. NOT General ranking. Focus on where it stands in your field more than in general. When I applied to the American University of Sharjah, I cared about how it did in International Studies and Economics more than the general overview.
3. Miscellaneous test requirements (SATs, IELTS, TOEFL, etc.).
4. Government Policy, Language and Social Factors: Check the sustainability of your stay in your target country after your course is over, do you wish to acquire a work permit and aim for citizenship? How are local attitudes towards migrants? Will you be able to communicate with those around you (language)?
5. Other Factors: There are a lot of other factors that you can look into:
Lock&Stock has a list of over 500 undergraduate schools and close to 350 postgraduate schools with an easy application process, application discounts and scholarships.
You can download the app using this link: https://lockandstock.app.link/sasLm3nwlbb. To support me, make sure to enter the referral code ‘sasLm3nwlbb‘. Know that all my content is unconditional and free so this support would mean a lot to me.
This week is special at Lock&Stock as it is application week and there are even more discount and scholarship opportunities so hurry up and try this out before the 3rd of April!
Application Steps For Lock and Stock
Once you’ve figured out what you want to do, and are done applying, or have decided to take a gap year. Do your best to keep the negative thoughts and worries at bay, don’t let them get to you. Begin working on essays if you need to submit any. Give it your best shot.
This process is likely to get overwhelming given the importance it holds in shaping your future so be sure to have hobbies to go to for unwinding and relaxing. You might come across rejections, but that’s the worse that can happen, it’s totally okay. None of this is worth more than your mental health and well being.
TheWrittenRevolutions – Role of Nationalism in the 21st Century
I was a panellist for the talk on ‘Role of Nationalism in the 21st’ century of TheWrittenRevolution’s first podcast episode. (You may view it on Apple here or on Spotify here).
In Search of A Happier You
Student Council 2020-2021 of Dubai Scholars presents a podcast series that will take you through the roller coaster of different emotions that many teenagers experience, how one actually defines ‘success’ & ‘failure’, why is it important to strive forward as a ‘we’, along with many more interesting topics which will certainly entertain and educate listeners.
I featured in their twenty-fifth episode to discuss issues revolving around organisation, time management and event planning. (Click here to listen.)
The Talk
“The Talk is a podcast that aims at improving your lives.” I am honoured to have been invited as their first guest. We discussed my journey in Model UN, blogging as well as my high school and university choices. (Click here to listen.)
You are scrolling through social media. Appearing between memes and interests every now and then are a few political posts. Some of these are memes, some comprehensive posts, and some even crisp one-liners. Sometimes you read them; other times, you quickly scroll past them.
On another day, a significant incident has taken place. The youth community has taken great interest in the incident. Your social media is now drowning with content about it—in the form of memes, posts, thoughts, opinions, reshares, and sometimes even actions as far as changed profile pictures and blank color uploads. If you have been an avid social media user in the last half-decade, you might think of at least three mass movements at this point—Black Lives Matter (black square), Free Palestine (red square), and Blue for Sudan (blue square).
What impact do these actions have? Are our efforts on social media helpful? We have many questions to raise in favor of and against social media activism. In this post, I explore some, raise some, and try answering some, to an extent.
Part of this discussion first appeared in the Gen-Z led Podcast ‘Tea With Gen Z’s episode on ‘Performative Activism.’ If you prefer listening, check out the episode on Audible, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. Don’t forget to read the rest of this post as I do touch upon some new ideas!
You probably already know this, especially if you read The Vigilant Mind frequently. However, I will provide a small introduction to create some essential distinctions. In the simplest terms, digital activism is activism in the online sphere. What is activism? Action that seeks to bring social or political change.
Individual activist actions and movements at large can be tested on a spectrum of effectiveness ranging from destructive to very effective, with no-effect being the center point of that spectrum.
Based on where actions or movements fall on that spectrum, they can be labeled in other ways. If an activist action or movement has little to no outcomes, it is labeled as slacktivism. This is also where the concept of performative activism partly comes from.
Sometimes, people associate all online activism as slacktivism. I don’t agree with this equation. The effectiveness of online activism greatly depends on the targets and methods used. In many cases, combining online movements with in-person movements has been essential, and some purely online movements have also yielded successes. However, these were not because someone decided to reshare a post from their couch.
In more precise terms, performative activism has more to do with intentions than outcomes. A performative activist is someone whose activist actions sprout because of a need for social points rather than true devotion or care for the causes they appear to be affiliated with.
There is a significant overlap between slacktivism and performative activism because someone who intends to gain social points will not go out of their way to ensure positive and sustaining outcomes of their actions. They are likely to do quick things, effective in getting them liked, not necessarily effective in solving the issue. This is not to say that their actions are useless, but they are still slacktivist actions, nonetheless.
It is also worth mentioning that slacktivism is not inherently distasteful. Sure, I have my questions and arguments against it and against performative activism. But I do regard them for some of their good facets and exceptional scenarios as well.
Before acting on an issue, you need to know about the issue. A common argument defending performative and slacking activism is that it creates awareness which is the first step. When actions spread knowledge and stir emotions, others are motivated to act at greater scales. Thus, defenders of these activisms think it is okay if people are just resharing posts and mass forwarding them.
To an extent, I can agree. These activists do a decent job of spreading information. However, the concern here is that they are not involved in creating the information that they spread. That is okay too, but it becomes an issue when they don’t verify the information either. Blind forwarding has its consequences. When a problem freshly arises, we often see that people start mass resharing posts and expressing their crisp thoughts. But shortly after, contradictory information is readily available, and a cycle repeats of content that disproves other content. Unfortunately, a simple activist trend life cycle can predict discourse around social causes that spread like wildfire overnight.
Simple social media issue “trend” life cycle
Aspects of this cycle dilute the issue. It is okay to not be vocal immediately. In political rivalries, uncertainty, violence, and a pandemic, the faster a news source reports the issue, the lesser value they add to the discussion.
Sometimes, people may be doing this because they care about the issue too much and really want to do whatever they can. Of course, not everything is performative. Performative activism is defined based on intentions, and we can not accurately predict everyone’s intentions. However, we can engage in conversations about people’s effectiveness of actions.
Little outcomes are better than no outcomes, and no results that have a chance to enable others to create outcomes are better than no outcomes, too. So, should we really raise an eyebrow against slacktivism and performative activism?
Absolutely, for two reasons. Firstly, I disagree that these activists only bring little to no outcome; they often have adverse consequences. Secondly, your time and energy are limited. If you choose to spend that on something that has relatively little impact, it is not the wisest decision.
Remember, no-effectiveness is only the center of the effectiveness spectrum. These actions may have counteractive results. In many cases, social points are earned by jumping on bandwagons. Often, these bandwagons are destructive trends. Twitter is well known for its fierce and divisive tweets.
These activists often display a sense of superiority by closing doors to communication with those who disagree, calling their position inherently correct. By creating a binary, they increase divides in society and reinforce echo chambers. In reality, the outcomes of their actions mostly taint the image of online activists, grant them stronger bonds with like-minded people, but push away people with differing opinions. You might have seen or heard of people who communicate aggressively and use the block feature too liberally, or may even be open about how they want “anyone who doesn’t think _____ should unfollow me.”
In some cases, it can be that the topic is too sensitive, and the user is emotionally distraught from the issue. It is ultimately their discretion to reflect on whether their discomfort is too great to bear or if they should push through it. Moving through it is the sensible choice in most cases because social change is not a seamless journey. As a Muslim from India, many of the issues I care about are emotionally distressing. Still, it would not be productive if I blocked the opposition entirely because it is not a journey of linear growth for me. Feminists who deal with issues relating to their gender would also resonate.
Some people spend several hours on social media just resharing content and engaging in almost meaningless aggressive comment wars (especially on Twitter) or sharing witty screenshots of chats taking a jab at the other side. Satire is not always a poor choice, but in conversations where the target audience is also the common public, it may not be the best idea, i.e., it is likely to work when it’s the ordinary people united trying to urge larger institutions to bring change rather than when they use satire against other ordinary individuals.
Let’s take the example of feminism to understand that point further. When a group in society is upset by the state’s failure to bring justice or passes a law that the people do not like, they can start a movement that uses several tools, including satire, to urge the government to take different actions. Many studies have shown that this is likely to be successful. However, if the same group of feminists was concerned about how other households deal with domestic violence. Do you really expect one-liner tweets and satirical content to make them reconsider their ways of life instead of shutting you out? You can argue that people would reflect and change in some cases, but the larger picture has adverse results.
Even seemingly harmless measures such as uploading a black, red, or blue square can be counterproductive. During the BLM, PLM, and Sudan issue, many activists opposed the uploading of squares with hashtags because it diluted actual content and news in the hashtag threads.
Some actions may not have unfavorable outcomes. For example, people who police the use of specific terms relating to differently-abled people. One argument can be that depending on the approach taken, they also increase divides within the society. But analyzing their rhetorical strategies is another topic that I won’t be covering in this post.
The other and more relevant argument is raised when individuals only police terms online. Isn’t it reasonable to question someone’s outcomes or intentions if all they ever do is police the use of terms online and talk about inclusion but have never looked for a volunteering opportunity in their life?
Suppose someone has spent several hours on Twitter only aggressively tweeting with little to no thought. Isn’t it reasonable to expect them to diversify, including more productive means, and proactively develop their activism?
Communicate. Performative activism is identified through intentions, and we can’t always assume someone’s preferences. It may not be wise to shift communication to attack people over their intentions amidst a social movement. Still, it is essential to ensure that actions are productive. So when you come across such people, ask questions, brainstorm strategies, raise your objections (frame it appropriately), and look for opportunities to continually enhance activist outcomes proactively.
Online activism and slacktivism is not inherently bad, as I mentioned before. Many strategies can have low outcomes but it is still better than no outcome. Often, an amalgamation of little voices creates a large and impactful voice. Yet, it is beneficial to engage in continuous conversation, reflection, and analysis of these strategies to refine the consequences for good.
It’s a long-term journey and is subjective on a case-by-case basis. Don’t take my thoughts or framework as rigid or binary, but as food for thought and make your own decisions and continue to engage in discussions that can enhance others and your activist strategies. Even if you’re just a content consumer rather than a creator, I hope my work allows you to navigate the internet, think, and engage others better.
Don’t forget to listen to this podcast episode on Performative Activism on the Tea With Gen Z podcast. You can listen to the episode on Audible, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.
Lypophrenia is a new term that refers to a feeling of sadness without cause, mostly when you miss someone. But, that might not always be the case. It’s a modern slang term.
Feeling sad and don’t know why? Vague and numb? Feeling empty? You’ve come to the right place! Continue reading to find the symptoms of lypophrenia, it’s causes, and cures.
Quote often, teenagers are found complaining about being “depressed” and sad without a reason and feel ‘lost’.
Now here’s the kicker, the thing about Lypophrenia is that it’s actually a beautifully laid down trap, that will bait you into creating more problems and that the condition itself is not a problem but a feeling.
Note: the term is modern and I’ve tried to break it down in the best manner possible for your understanding but I do believe that it is not any different from normal emotions of sadness. It seems like an attempt to further narrow down causes of sadness to be more precise. Yet, I believe this is not a term coined in psychological literature.
The process of creating unnecessary problems-
Often, getting over a problem (especially when the reasons are unsure), does not require you to hunt down the issue and think about the problem.
If you were to be positive, stay hopeful and work on self-improvement, opportunities, career, school and do productive things. The success of that would overshadow the vague feelings of emptiness and sadness.
Be proud of what you do, do things today that the future you will thank you for. Of course, these statements do not stand true if the issue that was being discussed was a more serious mental health challenge like depression or anxiety.
Another very useful tip you can take is to just feel the emotion without letting your thoughts run too wild trying to figure them out. Feelings are natural and it is alright to feel negative emotions. The above cures might not work for everyone. Perhaps what may work for you is to simply acknowledge how you feel and not let it go anything beyond that. It is only human to feel.
In two weeks, you’ll feel it.In four weeks, you’ll see it.
In eight weeks, you’ll hear it.
What is coming is better than what is gone.
i) Missing someone-
Don’t keep that within you, tell them you miss them, talk to them, meet them- if none of these are possible due to inevitable circumstances; let someone you trust know that you miss a certain person.
If none of the above is possible, divert your mind. Do something else, talk to people about something, Watch a video maybe, or sleep if it’s night.
ii) Been doing one kind of work for a long time-
Another trigger to lypophrenia is if you’ve been doing one kind of thing for a long duration, suppose texting. If you’ve been texting all day- You have a high potential to feel tired and sad without any reason.
Make sure you don’t tire or bore yourself with what you are doing, keep a variety of different chores in your day- alternate the boring and exciting ones to keep yourself fresh and happy.
iii) Lack of sleep-
Lack of sleep drains brain power and reduces the energy to think clearly and have an open mind, and the inability to think clearly is a strong trigger to be affected with lypophrenia.
iv) Insecurities and loneliness-
Another strong trigger is when you feel that no one is there for you, but you are wrong here, you just don’t acknowledge the people around you. Sure you must be careful with who let into your heart- but let the deserving ones come in.
There are people (friends, family and sometimes strangers even) who you can vent to and lighten up your heart to and feel better. Bottling up feelings is always a strong trigger to depression.
Always remember, this condition is never a problem itself, it’s just a feeling that you need to distract yourself away from, You are living a good and prosperous life- and you reading this is a sign that you are blessed with technology and shelter.
Always remember, the glass is half full, not half empty. If you happen to be a realist, then focus on what is in the glass and why it is there and not how much of it is there.