Nothing matters as much as you think it does.

I learned that when I went through police training in Regina, Saskatchewan. As a new recruit, everyone was placed in a troop of about 25-30 trainees. We all hoped to make it through the six months of training to get the badge at the end. We all knew that some wouldn’t make it. Whether it’s a failed firearms or driving test, an injury, or even a defiant attitude, every group loses a few recruits before graduation day. I had a tough time at many points in training, including during firearms and driving training, but I made it through. I learned quite a few lessons along the way, one of which was what can happen when you forget you’re in a fish bowl.

The fishbowl theory simply states that one cannot see the whole picture from inside the fishbowl. The RCMP Training Depot is designed to be exactly that. We were placed in a high pressure environment designed to make us turn small decisions into a big deal. And when you make mountains out of molehills, you needlessly double your stress. That was the point.

As a troop, we often got into the smallest of arguments, from how to line up for marches, to whether we would all wear sweaters for the day (everyone in the troop had to wear the same exact clothing daily). I’m embarrassed at the small things I got angry about. It’s true that you can tell the size of a person looking at the size of the things that make them angry.

It was only after I graduated that I remembered that we were all in a fishbowl. I couldn’t see the whole ocean, because I was swimming in a small bowl. However, I’m glad I went through that experience because it helped me realize this – Life is FULL of fishbowls.

In high school, I thought that every girl that rejected me, every failure I had, and every awkward moment I suffered was the end of the world. I was wrong – it was simply a fish bowl. As soon as I graduated from the RCMP depot to become a police officer, none of the small things in training mattered. Similarly, graduating high school made most of what happened during those years irrelevant. And I learned that high school was far from the only fish bowl.

Anytime you get lost in a culture, a clique or a community, it’s easy to think that what happens there means the world and is of vital importance. It’s not. I got wrapped up in MMA culture and either watched or attended almost every UFC event for a long time. It seemed like my whole world was watching mixed martial arts for awhile. Then I stopped, and years later as I saw Jeff from the Netflix series “Tiger King” wearing an Affliction T-shirt, I remembered how I used to drape myself in MMA cultural clothing way back when. Then it didn’t matter anymore.

I used to be immersed in the fitness modeling world, then I stopped – and it didn’t matter anymore. The same goes for my marathon nights dancing at Guverment night club and others in Toronto. Everything is your whole world, then it’s not.

Nothing matters as much as you think it does. Everything is a fishbowl. So don’t take it too seriously. Chances are what you value so highly today, will mean much less or nothing tomorrow.

This is not bad news. It’s not a pessimistic attitude. It is a freeing realization.

What fishbowl are you prioritizing?

Kwesi Sekou Millington

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