Are we all living in a bubble? Or do we live in more than one bubble? If we think about it, we each live in many bubbles that we form throughout our lives.
As we grow in knowledge, we tend to create more bubbles. The more we know about the world around us, the more we separate ourselves into different bubbles or groups.
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But why do we want to separate ourselves from others? And how transparent are these bubbles? Can we get out of them or break them whenever we like? Let’s take a deeper dive into bubbles and if they benefit us or harm our personal growth.
What types of bubbles do we form?
- Country bubble – language and culture separates countries and bubbles are formed
- Gender bubble – gender preference will separate each of us because we want to associate with those that make us feel comfortable.
- Race bubble – color and culture separates us as well as prejedice
- Career bubble – our type of job can separate us, we want to hang with those who are like-minded.
- Protective bubble – keep ourselves safe from triggers and past experiences or from harmful new people
- Social bubble – we want to hang with those we like and who have common interests
- Personal bubble – we keep our private lives safe and separate from other bubbles
- Spacial bubble – keep distance from those who invade our space and internal spacial area
I could go on and on with the different types of bubbles. I began with a broad bubble and ended with a more narrow one to show how we have a bubble inside of a bubble.
How Do Bubbles Benefit Us?
Do bubbles benefit us? Yes, they can be a vital part of our lives. A bubble can protect us from harmful people or things in the environment that can hurt our well-being. Bubbles can protect us and give us a feeling of safety.
What are the types of a beneficial bubbles?
- Supportive – we fill our bubble with people who support who we are
- Friends – we find people who are likable to fill our bubble
- Personal Space – we find people who respect our space and form a bubble with them
- Protective – we find safe people to let into another bubble
Some of these bubbles can overlap to form double or triple bubbles.
Are Bubbles Harmful?
A bubble that we narrow down or take too far the other way can be harmful. Let’s say you have a personal protective bubble. It keeps you safe from toxic people. You don’t let people in who do not feel safe.
But we begin to feel slightly uncomfortable so we keep narrowing our bubble, and eventually, there is only one person in our space. There is no interaction with others, and leaving our house sparks severe anxiety. This type of bubble is too constricted and stifles growth.
Or, as in the case of a racial bubble that is too narrow, one cannot learn about other cultures or that a person of different skin color is also a safe person. In this case, the bubble becomes smaller and smaller, and our mind begins to conjure up all sorts of horrible thoughts.
Any bubble that inhibits new knowledge or becomes too small yet only includes a select group of people will end up causing harm. Our bubbles need to stay permeable to filter in the good to filter out the bad.
Why Does Living In A Bubble Feel Safe?
Have you heard of a personal safety zone? A personal safety zone is like an imaginary boundary to keep harmful people out and safe people inside. With only safe people inside no wonder, a bubble feels safe. When we keep evil outside and good inside our bubble; we have created a space made in heaven.
I think the real question here is, can a safe bubble last forever? Safe bubbles constantly change, and the outer coating of a safe bubble may become too thick or too thin depending on who tries to break it or what we allow in. We have to rebuild a safety zone bubble constantly to stay healthy.
Do Good Bubbles Break?
The answer would be yes. If we don’t keep our bubble flexible and the walls become too rigid, they will burst.
Change is constant, and therefore our bubbles and who we allow inside need to constantly evolve.
If we tool along in a make-believe world where everything is perfect but ignore the things we need to work on, then our good bubble will explode. As we grow and learn, we have to allow others in and ask those who are no longer a good fit to leave our bubble world.
When we grow and mature, our values also change. Say we have a friend in college we drink with every weekend. But when we graduate and start a family, our views on partying change, but that friend never grew up. They still want to drink every weekend. To keep our bubble harmonious, we have to let go of that one person and allow others to come into our world.
How Do We Break Harmful Bubbles?
I am not sure you want to break a harmful bubble. It might be best to move your world to a different bubble that is safe would be the best tactic. Let the dangerous situation or people have that bubble until they are ready to move on.
When we try to change others by breaking the bubble, it can get really messy. Picture your harmful bubble as one with slime walls. What happens if that breaks? The slime gets all over everyone who is nearby, and the mess begins. Instead, step away from the slime.
Probably yes, this is possibly true. With the rise of social media platforms, we as a population actually have a safe bubble, a fake bubble, a free bubble, and I could go on and on.
Social media allows people to believe that no one knows who they are, so they can do or say whatever comes to mind. The ability to live in an imaginary world sets up a whole new set of bubbles.
How Did The COVID Pandemic Affect Our Bubbles?
Boy, oh boy, this opened up a whole new can of insects. COVID in itself may not have opened a new bubble, but the government control and involvement did. Yes, we did have to retract into our little safe bubble with only a few select people to contain COVID.
The mandates and government control caused a ripple effect that will never go away until the end of time. We have developed a bubble inside of a bubble inside of a bubble, and it just keeps going. If the government were to empower the people to set up functional bubbles I believe the outcome would have been positively affected.
Now people are using their ability to set up bubbles as a way to control others. For example, I formed a bubble and let in people who hate a particular race or gender. After I started this bubble, I used it as a prejudice against a different race or gender. Now I have a bubble of hate that I can use as an outlet for all of my fears. I used myself as an example, I don’t believe in these types of bubbles.
I allowed a safe bubble to grow out of fear and used that fear to release hatred. Well, enough on the COVID bubble. It could be an entire article in itself.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Good question! How long can we live inside of 20 or 30 bubbles before our mind become so narrow it chokes itself to death?
There is room for change within ourselves. We have to look at the bubble walls to see which ones are no longer necessary for self-preservation. Let some pop and reinforce others.
We can also step outside of our bubble to see what the world has to offer. Can we help others if we are set free? Can we help ourselves when we don’t have the restrictions of 20 bubbles weighing us down?
The whole point of a bubble is to keep our world safe. If the permeability and flexibility of our bubble can’t breathe, then we are no longer safe. Change is inevitable. A rigid bubble does not allow for change.
The bottom line is: from here; we have to employ self-examination and step outside for a moment to see the world and the change we need to make in our own lives. Decrease the number of bubbles we allow and regroup the ones we have in place.
