There are many different meanings for “worldview”, and it is because the meaning of that word depends, actually, of it.
Other way to understand what “worldview” involves is comparing it, as they do in this explanation: “a set of assumptions which help you to make sense about reality. It is like a lance through which you see things and you are not really aware of the lance, you are only aware of the things you see. Is the filter through which you actually see life, and the whole universe, humanity and actions, are understood through that lance.
After investigating and reading a few explanations, I made up my own meaning for the word “worldview”:
A worldview is the way we interpret and judge life, is how we attempt to give it a sense, the way we reason, look at the world around us and classify things. A set of beliefs created, accepted and held by each one, even when we not notice it. Thanks to them, life is understood by us.
Our worldview affects the way the world influences us, the principles by which we organize our actions and our personality. Everyone has their own single worldview, as everyone has a different personality or way to see things. It can be similar to others, but never the same.
Our worldview is not necessarily indicated by how we react to specific situations, but it does affect it. It can be determined by the character of our lifestyle or the overall pattern of it, the way we response to important issues, when our basic beliefs arise.
There are such things as “group worldviews”, those are worldviews based in a very general idea, but at the moment of getting further and analyzing it, we find out that the ways of thought of everyone differ at some point. I think that as you get deeper in an ideal, it is more likely for people to not coincide (Or as the ideal gets closer to the person, the person expresses his vision of how things should be). I’ll explain it with an example in a diagram (It can have thousands of other ramifications and can also be longer, until reaching individuals. This a simplification of a much greater and complicated process):
So, we can see how important is the existence of our worldviews, even when we don’t notice that they are there. They are basically what help us to make elections or what make us pick one election rather than other one.
But, what does changing our worldview involve?
It, certainly, is a really important thing. To make our general worldview change, something transcendental has to happen to us, not just a minimum event. We have the potential to do it, but perhaps it is quite uncommon for it to happen. We can easily modify some aspects of our character and even try to improve it in purpose, but changing the whole worldview, its something bigger and it doesn’t happen just because.
Changing your worldview makes your life be totally different. It changes the way you see what you have done in the past, how you classify it and if you think what you did is good or bad, the way you see the things happening now, what you expect from the future to come for you and the way you’ll interpret it will be different as well.
It makes you become a different person, could be a better or a worse one. Changes your moral and decisions, because you will think different and see things in a dissimilar way.
While changing your worldview, you also change your lifestyle, because our lifestyle is created and formed by us and our decisions. If it involves changing our lifestyle, it also involves changing our actions, ideas and probably our future.
A person with a bad worldview won’t have the same opportunities as a person with a good one, or perhaps they do but they just don’t get them. Imagine a person whose worldview is that nothing matters. He would only do things because he is obligated to, he won’t care about improving or making his opportunities in life better. His manner to react to an action would be totally different to the way a person who cares react. If he gets an offer he probably won’t accept it, or won’t even think about it, because he just doesn’t care, while a person with an opposite view will do the contrary.
We can say that we are influenced by the world, but perhaps we are influenced by it to one extend, and that extend finishes when the influence we have in ourselves begins. This influence (the influence we have above ourselves) can be our worldview and the stronger it and our beliefs are, the less likely for the world to manipulate us.
Other thing that could be transformed with it (worldview) is the role we have in our society. Let’s think about the example above again and we will find out that the person who cares has almost always a more active role in society, while the one who does not care is passive (or forced to be active).
In conclusion, having a worldview is not an option, but it does play an important role in our life. It affects everything: the way we feel, we think, we act, etc. and changing it, involves transforming our life in a huge way.
Sources:
http://crash.ihug.co.nz/~faithact/WORLDV.HTM
http://efphilosophy.blogspot.com/2010/01/questions-for-constructing-personal.html
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