I recently heard an old Russian adage: “The same water that softens the potato boils the egg.” It’s stuck with me, as I like the message of how the same circumstances can affect different people in different ways.
When I went looking for the origins of this saying, I saw some different takes on this saying. There’s a common phrase added to the end (though as far as I can tell it is not part of original adage) that says “It’s what you’re made of. Not the circumstances.” And there were responses to this saying things like, “Moral is, be an egg,” which seems to be a different takeaway than mine.
This made me wonder why someone would come to such a conclusion. A potato cannot choose to be an egg, it is what it is. However, there are a number of people that think that, given enough effort and mental fortitude or some such, anyone can handle anything. But the truth is, we cannot choose to become something else any more than the potato, or egg, can.
Humans are a communal species. We want to live in community with others, and avoid being ostracized, which means we default to wanting to fit in. This desire to fit in and conform is deeply rooted in our psyche, as exemplified in the 1968 study by Bibb Latané and John Darley known as the smoky room experiment.
In this study, a group of people are placed in a room to fill out a survey. All of these people are actors except for one person, who is unknowingly the subject of the experiment. The room slowly fills with (harmless) smoke, and the actors act indifferent to it, even if the subject speaks up and points it out. Only 10% of subjects in this test reported the smoke, which means 90% of people saw everyone else acting as if the smoke was not an issue and, in an effort to conform, followed their lead.
It can be hard to react to something the way we want to when no one else is. Our desire to conform is stronger than our survival instinct. Of course it feels wrong when we react to something in a way that isn’t ‘normal’. To be sad when others aren’t, or angry, or to speak up against injustice when everyone else is reacting indifferently.
But we cannot help if we are a potato or an egg, any more than an actual potato or egg can. Potatoes will soften in boiling water and eggs will harden and nothing will change that. Humans are not a monolith, and we all feel different things in different situations, especially in difficult ones. Just because someone else handled a situation perfectly fine doesn’t mean you will. And the converse is true. Just because you had no problem with something doesn’t mean no one else will.
The concept brought to mind this cartoon:
Judging everyone to the same standard missed the equity of the situation (which is its own topic). We can always use a reminder that people do not learn the same, do not react the same, despite our deep seated societal expectations to everyone to conform to the same standard.
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