Mills and The Study of Sociology

The Mills article The Promise of Sociology examines humans and their perceptions about their place in the world.  Mills discusses 2 ideals, troubles and issues.  Troubles are the incidences in life that directly affect an individual.  These are the daily occurrences that people all go through.  These are local issues, or in essence, what happens close to home.  Issues are a more global concept that affects the greater of humanity.  Things such as war, unemployment rates, the economy.  The article looks at how both affect each of us as humans, though it may be easy to disconnect from Issues rather than Troubles, because Issues seem less personal.  The reality is we are all deeply affected by both, though we aren't always so quickly to understand this concept.  "To be aware of the idea of social structure and to use it with sensibility is to be capable of tracing such linkages among a great variety of milieux.  To be able to do that is to possess the sociological imagination..."(Mills, 15)