I did… And I am sure you did… Maybe even you’re in that bucket right now, without even realizing that you're in there?
You probably have no idea what the hell I am talking about…? Let me clear this up :)
There is a popular theory in psychology called “crabs in the bucket”, it represents the way of human behavior that can be best described by the phrase, "if I can't have it, neither can you".
The Real Crab Behavior
If you try to put a few crabs in one bucket or a basin of water, you will witness a very strange phenomenon. One crab alone, can very easily get out of the bucket, however, if he’s surrounded with others, it becomes either impossible or extremely difficult ... because his fellows prevent him from getting out.
They grab at each other in a useless “king of the hill” competition which prevents any from escaping and in the process they collectively suffer suffocation and death.
Humans vs Crabs
Looking deeper into it, we, humans, are not gone far from crabs. We can constantly see the same strange crab behavior in our relationships, and if you’ll start to judge the situations in your life from that perspective, you’ll be surprised how many people around us share this crab mentality (including the people we love, our siblings and even ourselves) consciously or unconsciously.
It is very important to understand the nature of that behavior not only for being able to grow and be successful in life, but also for even to have that chance of success in a first place.
We live in a competitive society, in a EGO world. Everyone want’s a big house, a nice car, a model wife or a wealthy husband (or equivalents of those), more success and status.
However, very rarely you’ll see someone who are happy with the achievements of another person ( I mean happy for “real”... Not the regular “american smile” :) ), especially if that other person achieved something significantly better. More often people intent to understate the success of others.
That’s why, buy the way, we see and hear on the media, like lots of garbage being constantly thrown on a public people of any kind, they got use to it, they know that this is a price of being successful.
Irrational Behavior
Is that behavior rational for us as a society? Definitely NOT, it significantly slows down our progress.
Is that behavior rational for individual person? Here it gets more interesting…
The crab, by his behavior, protects his own psychic and well being. By acting as a crab in a bucket he creates for himself tranquilizing illusion - “if others are not better then me, then I am good”. This way, people try to suppress all the ambitions of others for keeping themselves calm and steady in their lovely “bucket”.
In general, the stronger and successful a person is, the less there in him from the behavior of crabs. The weaker and less ambitious a person, the stronger his intentions to criticize and troll everyone around.
Stronger person will help you to get to a better place (sometimes even with a constructive criticism), or at least will not interrupt. Weaker, most likely, will try to slow you down because your growth is against his interest.
In Practise
If you try to hide your progress until the goal is achieved, you’ll have more chances to succeed. Can you guess why? Right, the less crabs even know you’re trying to escape the more chances you have :)
Remember those ?
- don't count your chickens before they're hatched
- catch the bear before you sell his skin
The bottom line is that if you show your plans (Anything: become a champion, a millionaire, become a next president of US, etc.), the crabs for sure will try to stop you. The will find countless reasons why you DO NOT need it and why it is bad and even dangerous for you. In fact, it is bad for them because they are behind, and you move forward
Conclusions:
- We need to do everything to become stronger, to be able to get out of the bucket even if there is 20 crabs pulling us back
- To be around strong friends as much us possible, avoid the crabs
- To become better, not to fall in excuses
- To advertise our progress as less as possible (very few will support you, so no reason for that)
- To help people, not to disturb them moving forward (this will give you motivation to grow yourself)
I wish you all to stay out of the "crabs bucket" in 2017. Happy New Year!!!
You have some great points and it is true if we tell others a plan to succeed or out do them they take steps to drive us back down to the level they are. If the never knew the plans till after we already accomplished them then we would be easily able to move on and not be held back in life.
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