Escape the Crab Mentality

There is a well-known concept within psychology called Crab mentality, which is a way of thinking best described by "If I can't have it, neither can you". It is a mentality shared by millions around the world, everywhere from small teams to local communities and all the way up to large enterprises and countries.

It is a way to survive when resources are scarce, as any single entity in the group who consumes too much must be forced to live under the same constraints as everyone else. However, the crab survivalist way of thinking can often transcend constraints on resources, and factors such as envy can exacerbate the mentality into a selfish ego-centric paradigm, which limits other people's potential to accelerate beyond their peers and become better.

It is from this mentality we hear stories like, "I want to leave my local community to attend university, but our priest says I have to stay and help my parents". What we see here is that our protagonist is not allowed to leave, as the priest - a local community authority figure - would rather have them stay and help their parents than attend a university.

The fact that the priest interferes in the affairs of our protagonist is rather odd, and from the simplified description we started out with in the first paragraph, Crab mentality means "the priest can't go to the university, so he doesn't want anyone to go". That is not the case, but it is close! The difference between envy and Crab mentality is that in the latter, our priest is not thinking of himself; he is thinking of himself and on behalf of the whole community. He does not want our protagonist to leave.

You see, when someone wants to better themselves, they often realize that they can't become better while constrained by their current situation, and the only solution is to look elsewhere for an open mind and acceptance. However, at the same time, the local community will lose a member, which is good at something, because they better themselves. It is kind of like a catch-22 situation where the community doesn't want to lose somebody that is good at something, but the person that is good at it feels like they are constrained by their community and therefore want to leave.

If you think about it, you might know someone who is caught by this mentality, or you might be in this situation yourself. Some societies even have this mentality ingrained into their culture , and others have written satirical books to illustrate just how ridiculous this behavior is.

So if you are reading this: Don't be limited by your peers and don't accept your current constraints if you can do better. Read what you can, research what you need, and learn to become a better person through knowledge.