A few months ago, students in a class I was teaching challenged me over the idea that other people can’t make you feel anything, and argued that another person could indeed make you feel happy. The tone of the class during this discussion remained positive, yet after the class I continued to think about what I thought and even felt about the topic. I wrote out my thoughts a couple of days later and shared them with the class on a discussion board. What follows is the note I wrote.
I have continued to think about our class discussion this past Wednesday, which really got me to thinking about my beliefs and reviewing the concepts of Choice Theory. Several of you felt that another person could indeed make you feel happy. My explanation of a different way of looking at that process seemed not to gain a foot hold. Or maybe I should say ...a mind hold. In my thinking and reviewing, though, I contemplated this...
What if during my attempted explanations during class I looked at you and said, “You make me so frustrated!”
In that moment you might think, Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you frustrated, but fairly quickly you would probably arrive at thinking I am not making you anything.
Your thought process would then continue with – If you’re feeling frustrated because I asked a question that’s your problem. Your “frustrating” or “choosing to frustrate”, as Glasser would say, is about something inside of you, not made to happen from something in the classroom.
And if that was your thought process you would be right. My frustration would be the result of a picture in my head not being satisfied. Common teacher QW pictures include – being able to answer student questions insightfully and accurately; all students listening attentively; and giving assignments that students pour themselves into, to name a few. When a specific picture isn’t being met a teacher would very likely choose to frustrate.
What about the phrase you make me happy? Well, you make me happy is as accurate as you make me frustrated. When a picture I have placed in my head is satisfied it is easy for me to happy or to choose to be happy.
The language we use can make a big difference in our habits of mind. We use the phrase you make me so easily and so quickly that over time we come to believe it. You make me so mad we might think. And in so doing we plant the idea or support the idea that our being mad or our being happy is not up to us. It is instead up to someone else. This habit of mind, that is, the idea that someone or something outside of us can control us, drains or robs us of so much of our power. We go from a person being responsible for our Total Behavior (which includes our feelings) to a person being a victim of external circumstances. We go from creating our future to simply following the tide of events; from negotiating our QW pictures to trying to manipulate the QW pictures of others.
It is freeing to not be at the mercy of others behavior.
We may like it when someone in our life surprises us with a gift. And if this happens it is fine to think or say I love it when you surprise me with an unexpected gift. I feel valued and appreciated when you go to the trouble of planning something like this. This language reflects my choosing what I value.
It may seem like a small thing, the words we use, but it isn’t really. It is a big thing when we get in the habit of owning our Total Behaviors, and then using language that reflects this ownership. Recognizing that we directly choose and nurture our thoughts, and that our feelings are a part of this process, actually empowers us. This power brings with it responsibility, which basically eliminates criticizing, blaming, and complaining as ways to make things better. But this power, with the Holy Spirit’s help, puts our past, our present, and our future into our hands. It is freeing to not be at the mercy of others behavior.
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I am so open to your comments and feedback. So many times you have responded to one of my posts and helped me to see things more clearly and accurately. Could I have said things better in the note to my class?
Three disparate voices, separated by 260 years, yet together, like a lighthouse, they point out the rocky shores of loneliness and separation. Three quotes, each stating the importance of connection and community.
Whether Brene Brown is writing from a spiritual perspective or not, when she states that “Connection is why we are here” and that “We are hardwired to connect with others,” it reminds us that there may indeed be laws of the universe that we simply must keep in mind. When I am standing near a precipice I keep the law of gravity in mind; as a passenger on a plane I am counting on Bernoulli’s Principle to create lift above the wings; and when going around corners in a car I should keep the law of centrifugal force) in mind. Maybe similarly, if I want a good state of mental health I need to cooperate with the law of human connection. As Brene Brown explains, without connection there is suffering.
We can resonate with Jesus when He informs us that “a new commandment I give to you — that you love one another” or we can agree with Paul McCartney when he sings “all you need is love,” but either way we are prodded toward Love. We are prodded toward our need to Belong. Is one – our beliefs or our spirit to love – more important than the other? I don’t think so. Instead, I think we need 100% of our being to be devoted to having both; to having our thinking be right and to having our view of others and our relationships be right.
We hear the word sustainable more and more, and rightly so. We question whether beliefs and habits of behavior contribute to the ongoing health of the planet. Most often these questions are about behaviors related to climate change, but I would add that our lack of love may destroy us before the adverse effects of climate change do. Within this context, learning to love is our only hope for a sustainable future. Unless we can get along, it won’t matter how high our seas rise or how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere. A short passage from Desire of Ages declares what is needed if we are to thrive in this life, as well as the next –
In the light from Calvary it will be seen that the law of self-sacrificing love is the law of life for earth and heaven. Desire of Ages, pgs. 19, 20
Smith’s truism is important, but so is the truism it solves — that being without the company of a friend our mind becomes disturbed. Relationships matter to us. The more important the relationship, the more deeply our pain and frustration are felt. Our work is adversely affected when we feel disconnected from our spouse; a child’s school work is affected when when he lacks support at home or friends on the playground; and soon, whether adult or child, even our physical health can be affected.
Loneliness is a smarts killer and a sense killer. We’re not as quick, not as sharp when we start downshifting into survival mode because of a hurting relationship. We are less able to accurately process things cognitively when our creative centers, in an attempt to cope with our relationship pain, begin to depress and shut down. We start off simply masking, but soon we are self-medicating or numbing, which almost always becomes a negative cycle, since people who numb are rarely able to think and act in a way that really solves their dilemma. Yet Adam Smith nudges us back toward tranquility — focus on a relationship, even if it is a connection with one other person.
Spiritual or not; religious or not; self-helpish or not – this is just the way things are. Connect, learn to love, value a companion.
The Better Plan blog has been going since the end of 2012. This post represents number 300. Thank you for being a part of The Better Plan and Choice Theory community.
“The difference between pain and misery?
Pain is what we walk through; misery is what we sit in.”
I hesitate to write about a quote that says, “misery is what we sit in,” because I don’t want to come across as flippant when it comes to misery and sadness. I can write about these two approaches, though, because I have experienced them both – I have walked through pain and I have sat in misery. For me, I see now that I have a choice as to which course I will pursue.
Looking back I can see times that I chose to sit in misery. At first glance, it may seem strange to consider this as a chosen behavior, but I have talked to many others who admit to this choice as well. The thing to keep in mind is that all behavior is purposeful. In other words, we behave for a reason; we behave to satisfy a need. More simply, with a behavior comes a payback.
All behavior is purposeful.
This is where it gets interesting. Why, for instance, would someone choose to be miserable? What is the payback for misery? I can remember being miserable when work felt overwhelming or when my wife wasn’t reading my mind like I needed her to. Instead of taking a step at a time and seeking other’s assistance at work, or instead of talking to my wife about a frustration or perceived unfairness, I would go into a dark tunnel and distance and separate and withdraw. And to a degree, even though I felt miserable, I also felt kind of good. I clutched my misery and nurtured it, like Gollum talking to himself about his Precious. If my wife wasn’t treating me like I wanted, then I wouldn’t treat her like she probably wanted. Fair is fair. I deserve fairness, I defended, even as I shrunk further away from the very thing, the very person whose intimacy I sought.
Glasser alerted me to this kind of thinking in his book Control Theory* (1985). In fact, he listed four reasons for people to choose misery.
1. It keeps angering under control
Rather than expressing our anger outward, and maybe even threatening and hurting other people, we turn it inward. We don’t know how to deal with our anger in the public arena, so we direct it to a private location. (Besides this kind of behavior hurting our relationships, it also can harm our physical bodies, as anger triggers the release of adrenaline and cortisol into our systems. Over time misery can lead to organs and joints being affected.)
2. It gets others to help us
When we show up as miserable or depressed it can serve as a cry for help, which can be especially appealing for men, who often don’t like to just come out and ask for help.
3. It excuses our unwillingness to do something more effective
The more miserable or depressed we become, the more helpless we become, too. We convey that we are not capable of doing much when we are overcome with misery.
4. It helps us regain control
When we feel out of control because of how someone else is treating us or because of the difficulty of a circumstance, choosing to be miserable or to depress can very much increase our sense of control. No one can challenge us when we are helpless.
Any of these behaviors can make sense at the moment. We are desperate for a behavior that will help us feel better and we rummage around in our behavior system for something that will give us even a smidgeon of control. Being miserable doesn’t feel that great, but it feels better than the alternative, whatever we perceive the alternative to be. Somehow, misery is need-satisfying.
Of course, it is not usually a good idea to tell a person who is in the midst of being depressed or miserable that he/she is choosing it. A miserable person can become quite defensive of their misery. But there will come a time, when things are better or when the pressure is off a bit, when he/she will be more open to considering their role in the misery process.
And what a special moment it is when you first realize that misery isn’t something that just happens to you. An awareness begins to dawn in your thinking, an empowering awareness that maybe, just maybe, you can literally choose your state of mind. As you grow in your understanding of choice theory, it’s like you become immunized against misery and even depression. Yes, it can be scary to realize how much power and responsibility you have for your own mental health, but the trade from victim to empowerment is well worth it.
Yeh, heck yeh. For me it was #1, the one about keeping anger under control. I had never understood it in that way. But it made perfect sense to me as I thought about it. It actually inspired me to get a little help . . . with the anger thing, you know. TJ
Mine was a combination of #2 and #3. I really did want others to view me as helpless, and to come to my aid. I see now that it was kind of manipulative, but I didn’t think that at the moment I was being miserable. BD
I think there should be a #5 on the list, since my being miserable had more to do with punishing others, especially my wife. #5 should be about punishment, about getting back at another person. HR
Loneliness does not come from having no people around you,but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to you.Carl Jung
Carl Jung (1875-1961)
It is true that loneliness often has nothing to do with not being in proximity to other people. We can be in the midst of a crowd and still feel lonely. Just being around people isn’t the answer to loneliness; rather it’s being connected to others and feeling understood and appreciated that melts our aloneness.
This aloneness is one of the profound conditions of life on this planet. We battle it from birth until we die. We cry for our needs to be met when we are tiny, even just physical contact may be enough to comfort us, and we continue this reaching out for connection, and at times crying for our needs to be met, throughout our lives. When positive relationships are lacking or when we experience a good relationship taking a turn for the worse, our mental health is very much affected. According to Choice Theory our level of mental health is all about relationships. So important is the element of connection and relationship that Glasser felt a person couldn’t achieve decent mental health without having at least one positive relationship with another human being. We are social beings, created from the beginning for social connection. When our connections to others are lacking, we get frustrated and hurt.
William Glasser (1925-2013)
I think Jung is on to something when he suggests that our loneliness comes out of our inability to communicate the things that seem important to us. Glasser agreed with this so much that he came up with a list of Caring Habits to remind us of the kind of behaviors that will get us close to others, and keep us close as time goes on. The Caring Habits list includes –
Each of the Caring Habits is important, although one stands out when it comes to our ability to communicate, that habit being the one on Negotiating Differences. Being open with a spouse or significant other and trying to find common ground and agreeable compromises can make all the difference in the world. It is a skill, though, that for some comes with practice. And besides, what is the alternative to negotiating a difference? Usually it is frustration that morphs into blame, resentment, and yes, loneliness. Too many go into the silent treatment mode (a behavior meant to punish) when a spouse or someone important to us isn’t treating us the way we want.
What we need is connection through effective communicating;
what we get is loneliness through withdrawing.
The opposite of the Caring Habits are the Deadly Habits. So while the Caring Habits bring us closer to others, the Deadly Habits take us farther apart and maybe even sever a relationship. Glasser referred to the Deadly Habits as The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People, playing off of the title of Steven Covey’s bestseller. The Deadly Habits include –
Criticizing
Blaming
Complaining
Nagging
Threatening
Punishing
Rewarding to Manipulate
Whenever we rely on these ways of being we hurt the important relationships in our lives and as a result, we create or add to our loneliness.
We have a choice as to which set of habits we will use. Just remember that one set leads to connection and peace, while the other leads to resentment and loneliness.
Time is of the essence, so I won’t say a lot at the moment, other than to say that you can see a movie for FREE this weekend, and that it is a movie you want to see. The movie is called Most Likely to Succeed and it will either change the way you see education or, if you are a fan of Choice Theory learning strategies, it will confirm what you have hoped for in classrooms.
The link is below. Scroll down and follow the simple logon instructions.
We are influenced by circumstantial stimuli, to events in the world around us, and there is no getting around it. Behaviorism responds to this point by saying, “Well said.” Choice Theory responds by saying, “Not so fast.”
Behaviorism, wanting more than just influence, though, goes on to claim the ability to predict behavior. In other words, certain stimuli will lead to certain behavior. Do A and you will get B. Animal trainers at Marine World, for instance, explain how the strategic use of food, like tossing a fish to a dolphin, will condition the dolphin to perform specific behaviors and tricks.
The strategies of Behaviorism have been less reliable when used on humans. Some level of success seems apparent, yet at the same time something seems not quite right.
Speaking of fish, Anne Lamott, in Bird by Bird (1994), shared an interaction she had with her son when he was small.
I was teaching Sam peace chants for a long time, when he was only two. It was during the war in the Persian Gulf; I was a little angry.
“What do we want?” I’d call to Sam.
“Peace,” he’d shout dutifully.
“And when do we want it?” I’d ask.
“Now!” he’d say, and I’d smile and toss him a fish.
This story, an admission really, invites us to answer the question, How then do we teach others, especially children, what needs to be learned? How can we make sure this important learning happens? How can we, in the words of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, make it so? Anne Lamott went on to suggest that fish tossing may have more to do with the fish tosser than the fish catcher, or even the desired behavior –
The words were utterly meaningless to him, of course. I might as well have taught him to reply “Spoos!” instead of “Peace” and “August” instead of “Now.” My friends loved it, though; all three of his grandparents loved it. Now, how much does this say about me and my longings? I think something like this would tell a reader more about a character than would three pages of description. It would tell is about her current politics and the political tradition from which she sprang, her people-pleasing, her longing for peace and her longing to belong, her way of diluting rage and frustration with humor, while also using her child as a prop, a little live Charlie McCarthy. The latter is horrifying, but it’s also sort of poignant. Maybe thirty five years ago this woman had to perform for her parents’ friends. Maybe she was their little Charlie McCarthy. Maybe she and her therapist can discuss it for the next few months. And did this woman stop using her kid, once she realized what she was doing? No, she didn’t, and this tells us even more. She kept at it, long after the war was over, until one day she called to her three-and-a-half-year-old son, “Hey—what do we want?” And he said plaintively, “Lunch.”
A live, little Charlie McCarthy. You would have to be rather old (or be a whiz at Trivial Pursuit) to understand the significance of her referring to Charlie McCarthy in this way. Through much of the 1940s and 50s, Charlie was a radio and television personality. Debonair and quick-witted, he had a real following. He was known to sit a lot, though, given that he was the ventriloquist doll of the comedian, Edgar Bergen (the father of actress Candice Bergen). Charlie may have appeared like he had a mind (and mouth) of his own, however he truly was the parrot of his talented handler. Such an arrangement with a doll made from a block of wood is fine, certainly entertaining, but Anne Lamott recoiled in horror at the thought of her little boy becoming her own little Charlie McCarthy, mouthing her words and acting her behaviors on command.
Charlie McCarthy (on the left) and Edgar Bergen.
Where is the line between teaching and indoctrinating, between learning and brainwashing, between the pursuit of ideas and the pressuring of ideas? Are some ideas so important that they require indoctrination?
Such questions bring another McCarthy to mind, that being Joseph McCarthy of the 1950s Communist witch hunt. As a U.S. senator from Wisconsin, McCarthy claimed to have a list of Communist sympathizers and spies who had infiltrated the highest levels of government, the armed forces, and even the entertainment industry. He made unsubstantiated claims and attempted to smear the reputation of people he thought soft on communism and socialism. His tactics added to the already growing fears about Russia and communism and indeed swept the country. Fear, threats and force were his preferred tools and many people were unfairly affected by his attacks.
Joseph McCarthy
Two McCarthy’s – one a puppet that mirrored his owner and the other a politician who bludgeoned others with his ideology. The little-block-of-wood Charlie McCarthy reminds us of our temptation to craft our children into little blocks of our own making, while the-Senator McCarthy reminds us of the temptation to force others, maybe especially our children, to think and act in the way we deem best. The latter seems just as horrifying as the former.
Behaviorism and stimulus-response cannot with any level of certainty predict human behavior because humans are so . . well . . unpredictable. Oh, we might be predictable now and again, but that isn’t really being predictable, is it? Some caved to Senator McCarthy’s attacks, while others stood up to him; and Anne Lamott’s son eventually said he was ready for lunch, rather than continuing to parrot about peace.
Choice Theory explains that we behave to satisfy a need, which may or may not jibe with the behaviors the fish-tossers in our life want. Better to focus on the needs of our children and then to teach them how to appropriately meet their needs. Besides helping children become self-managers, rather than parrots, getting rid of fish can improve the overall smell of things in general.
We have never met, but I feel a kinship to Robert Whitaker. We have both written about mental health topics, him much more impressively, and we both have a connection to William Glasser, me much more extensively. Whitaker has written several important books, including Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill (2001) and Psychiatry Under the Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform (2015). I have written about his work in previous posts, which you can access by clicking on these links –
Glasser was very impressed with the ideas expressed in Mad in America and bought 100 copies of the book to share with people. I found it to be fascinating and troubling at the same time and referred to it in parts of the Glasser biography. I recently became aware of an interview sponsored by Parenting Today, and conducted by Heather Juergensen, that is entitled How Psychiatry Came to Be. The interview’s reach is much wider than the title implies, though, and includes the need for full disclosure before children, or anybody else for that matter, are prescribed brain drugs for conditions labeled as Attention Deficit or Bipolar.
The interview is almost an hour long, yet it is compelling throughout. Rather than looking at the clock I was caught up in Whitaker’s descriptions, explanations, and research. If you are thinking of the present state of affairs in mental health, and particularly of the use of drugs to modify thinking and moods, especially with children and teenagers, this is an interview you will want to hear.
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Just a reminder that the biography – William Glasser: Champion of Choice – is available through different sellers. Click on any of the links that follow to quickly get a copy of the book.
I really like a post on the Mental Health & Happiness website, which you can check out for yourself at http://mentalhealthandhappiness.com Readers were asked to think about how they wanted the world around them to be different – maybe a loved one behaving differently or a circumstance changing. Then readers were asked to think about a world in which everything was indeed as they wanted it – all the changes they preferred had come to be. Sounds good. We’d all sign up for that.
After being asked to reflect on how they would think and feel in this perfect world, readers were then challenged to act as if they actually lived in this world. How would you behave in a world that was just how you wanted it? Do you have a sense of what it would look like to not be burdened with anxiety? How would you enter the house after work if you were happy? Can you imagine how you would be with your friends if you didn’t worry about what they thought of you? How would you act with your spouse if the two of you were best friends and really trusted one another? You get the idea.
So (you probably know where this is going), readers were then challenged to live as if they were actually living in their “perfect” world, challenged to behave as if these pictures were reality. If I have a picture of what it would look like for me to walk in the front door of my house in a happy state of mind, what prevents me from going ahead and doing it?
This collection of thoughts really got my attention for some reason, and I am still thinking about the implications of accepting this view of things. It is empowering to think that I can choose my behavior and that I can literally choose how I show up. In other ways, though, it feels disempowering when I think about not being able to use angering and depressing and sadnessing and headaching as a way to convey my difficult circumstances to others. Could it be that I can enter my house happily, even when I’m in the midst of a difficult circumstance? Could it be that I could talk to my spouse about how I felt about the difficult circumstance without needing to anger or withdraw?
This is such a great Quality World activity. The theory behind the Quality World describes how we place need-satisfying pictures in our heads because this picture in some way helps us to feel better or to feel in control. Once a picture has been placed in our Quality World we go about behaving in a way that will help that picture become a reality. Why not choose to behave in a way that mirrors the world in which you want to live? Pretty cool!
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This post first appeared on Feb. 19, 2015. It is being re-posted because the questions it asks are still true. What if we showed up as if we were living in our perfect world? And what prevents us from doing that? For a lot of us, a lot of the time, it’s pride.
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“Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners.”
William Shakespeare, Othello
“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.”
Leonardo da Vinci
Of all the questions being asked regarding Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential election, the most important question is being overlooked. Instead of directing questions to Trump or the Russians, voters in America need to be looking in the mirror and asking – Was I personally snookered by the Russians or by someone who wanted me to vote a certain way? And if so – What is it about me that is susceptible to being snookered?
Consider: the Russians, to my knowledge, are not being accused of stuffing ballot boxes or electronically screwing with our voting devices (not that they didn’t want to). Instead, if I understand correctly, they are being accused of flooding social media like Face Book with untruths and misstatements that would raise concerns and lead to a Trump victory. They didn’t mess with hardware or actual votes; they messed with our minds. Shouldn’t we be asking how it is that our minds are so easily messed with?
Easily messed with minds were around before the 2016 election. Jesus himself talked about screwed up thinking when He explained how it is possible to believe your thinking is filled with light, when in fact the light you think you have is actually darkness (Matt. 6:23). Dark thinking such as this, Jesus further points out, can even lead people to kill others and then claim they are doing it in the name of God (John 16:2). The apostle Paul wrote about people being capable of having an enthusiasm for God, but this enthusiasm being based on “misdirected zeal” (Rom. 10:2).
Easily messed with, screwed up, misdirected. Whatever you want to call it, the question remains – How do we achieve such confusion? And is it possible to break free of the psychological/spiritual fog and climb into clearer air?
Your Lying Mind, a recent article in The Atlantic (Sept. 2018), considers the phenomena of bias and the ways in which it influences, and even seems to commandeer, our choices. Ben Yagoda, the article’s author, refers to several biases, some of them significant, some less so. Examples include – Hyperbolic Discounting Bias: choosing to take $150 today rather than wait for $180 in a month (although when offered $150 in a year or $180 in 13 months, people consistently choose the $180); Actor-Observer Bias – the tendency for explanations of other individual’s behaviors to overemphasize the influence of their personality and underemphasize the influence of their situation, while explaining our own behavior in just the opposite); or the Zeignarik Effect – uncompleted tasks are remembered better than completed ones. And let’s not forget the IKEA Effect – where people place a disproportionate value on objects they assemble themselves.
Soon, though, Yagoda gets to a key point of the article when he writes, “If I had to single out a particular bias as the most pervasive and damaging, it would probably be confirmation bias. That’s the effect that leads us to look for evidence confirming what we already think or suspect, to view facts and ideas we encounter as further confirmation, and to discount or ignore any piece of evidence that seems to support an alternate view.” As I share this passage with you, my country – the United States – is anything but united and instead is wracked by political and social division; and my church – Seventh-day Adventist – isn’t doing a whole lot better. In both cases, I see confirmation bias as playing a key role in the problem.
Choice Theory offers that if we have a high need for power we may find fulfillment in dominating others; or that if we have a high need for purpose we may find it need-satisfying to embrace a rigid set of beliefs, even if these beliefs are racist and hateful. Of course, people can also have their need for power met through relating to and effectively cooperating with others, and the need for purpose can be met by clarifying one’s own beliefs without forcing them onto others. There is nothing that says we have to be one way or another. We do, though, place ourselves in a position of growth, that is being open to learning and change, or in a position of inertia, that is being firm in your course and unopen to change.
This post has me really thinking about the purpose of bias, and whether or not it has an important function. I can think of a lot of damaging biases, but I am hard-pressed to think of helpful biases. Can you think of a helpful bias?
I think fear is a big part of bias. A 2013 post – Why Are So Many Christians So Un-Christian? – referred to the phenomena of rationalization or what is known as motivated reasoning, where we choose what to believe and then go about finding information to support it. “We push threatening information away,” the author explains, “and we pull friendly information close. Our faculties are usually put to the task of trying to defend what we already believe, not towards developing a better understanding of the world.” A TED talk to which I referred in this same 2013 post described the difference between a warrior mindset and a scout mindset. The warrior is driven toward one goal, to survive through defending or attacking, while the scout is driven to understand and to gain a complete and accurate picture of the facts. Defending and attacking, again, are fear words.
I don’t like it when people, whether or not they are from another country, try to mess with us through social media, and I think steps should be taken to keep that from happening, but I’d like it even better if we as individuals became less . . . well . . . easily messed with. Fear, worry, and anxiety contribute to this kind of vulnerability. The poet Hafiz (14thcentury) once said that “Fear is the cheapest room in the house; I’d like to see you in better living conditions.” His view echoed that of the Apostle Paul, who centuries earlier had penned, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power, and a sound mind.” (2 Tim. 1:7) Our power of choice gives us the ability to discern, to weigh the evidence, and to not simply look for information that supports our beliefs.
Fear is the cheapest room in the house; I’d like to see you in better living conditions.
The Atlantic article asks whether or not it is possible for an individual to change or eliminate a bias. Experts were quoted that came down on both sides of the argument. From my perspective, Choice Theory lands firmly on the side that biases can indeed be changed. Hope for our planet now hinges on this belief.
Check out Brene’ Brown’s three minute video on blame and discover why I relate to it on such a personal level.
A few years back, my family decided to go out to eat at a Mexican restaurant we liked. Our kids had invited friends over so the group that piled into our van that late afternoon was bigger than the usual four in our family. We lived in Spokane, Washington, at the time and it was cold. No snow on the ground, but definitely chilly. When I learned of the restaurant plan I found a jacket, threw on some boots by the door, and headed to the van myself.
Restaurants in cold-weather places like Spokane often have an alcove or entrance vestibule leading to the actual front door, which serves as a buffer between the dining area and the biting cold outside. After pulling into the parking lot, our group quickly exited the van and headed to the outer vestibule door. About to exit the van myself, I noticed that I hadn’t yet tied my shoelaces. The boots I had jumped into actually had long laces that now formed a willy-nilly pattern on the floor mat under my feet. I thought about tying them, but then felt it would be cool and casual if I left them to drag out behind me, a symbol of my easy going, devil-may-care attitude.
I joined the others in the vestibule, although part of our group had already entered the second door and was now spilling into the dining area. I could see my wife, at the front of the group, talking with the hostess about the size of table we would need. The group, probably because of the cold vestibule and the warmth inside, continued to creep into the dining room as the staff put a couple of smaller tables together and get place settings arranged for us. I ended up almost straddling the second doorway, between the dining area and the vestibule, holding the door ajar as I stood there (worried those dining were swearing under their breath at me for holding the door open).
A Thousand Words Is Worth a Picture
I was relieved when the hostess motioned for our group to come to be seated. Those in line in front of me started to head toward the table and I scrunched into those directly in front of me, which allowed the vestibule door to close finally. Soon, I could head toward the table, too, and began the process that has come to be known as walking.
Walking can be a little bit shaky when you are 10 months old, but soon you get the hang of it and can walk in all kinds of situations without giving it even a second thought. By the time you are 45, for instance, which is how old I was when this happened, you are quite good at it. It is necessary, at this point in the story, though, to dissect this skill which is, for the most part, invisible to us.
“Not a good situation!” the alarms are yelling.
Seeing the person in front of me move toward the table, I started the walking process by leaning forward ever so slightly. Just milliseconds after beginning this leaning forward, in a coordinated effort that plays out hundreds of times every day by countless fellow human beings, my right foot begins to step forward, following the subtle momentum that my upper body has started. My brain quickly notes, though, that my right foot isn’t moving, in fact, cannot move. Not a panic situation yet as the upper body momentum has only just started. I am, to the casual observer (of which, I will note, there were many), a man beginning to walk to his table. My brain now sends a message back to the right foot to try harder, a stronger effort, possibly violent, being in order. The foot obeys, only to discover the same determined fixedness, the same stubborn immobility. I must point out that the upper body has continued its slight forward momentum, fully expecting the feet to follow. Panic has still not set in, but alarms are now going off in the brain. “Not a good situation!” the alarms are yelling. “Get feet moving!” A decidedly firm and urgent message is sent to the left foot to take a step forward and bring the body back into balance, physically, as well as emotionally, since the alarms have now awoken various chemicals throughout the body system to respond to a potential . . . well . . . disaster. Remarkably, mixed with a fair amount of terror, the left foot responds that it, too, is fixed to the floor. Again, firmer and even violent effort to free the left foot meets with the same non-moving result. We should recall here the inevitable influence of physics on everyday life, for while much attention has been given to my feet, my upper body, obedient to my original directive has continued to lean forward, it’s slight, almost invisible, speed at first now picking up greater momentum. Those dining begin to become aware of something out of the ordinary and shift their gaze from their food to this event taking place right there in front of them. The brain is actually quite pragmatic when push comes to shove or when feet are somehow nailed to the floor. The legs, torso, and head, a one-piece unit, straight as a board, respond to the invitation of gravity and fall with alarmingly increasing speed, the eyes scanning for a landing place. The brain shifts from the feet, which turned out to be a huge disappointment, and now focuses on the arms and hands. The feet could not prevent this event, but arms and hands can soften the blow. The effects of the impending face plant can by minimized.
It is interesting, and here is where I am right with Brene’, that before I hit the floor I muttered a name loudly enough for many in the dining area to hear me. With frustration and accusation in my voice I muttered the name, RACHEL. Then bam, I hit the floor. Some in the restaurant, my family included, heard the commotion, however had not seen the whole drama play out. Of course, turning in my direction now they saw nothing. How could they? I was flat on the floor.
You may be wondering, What happened? My brain, quickly recovering from the mortification process, asked the same thing. What the *&%$@ just happened? Still laying on the floor, I turned to examine my feet and immediately ascertained the problem. I can be a quick study, to be sure. Mr. Cool and Casual had been bitten by the bug of his earlier decision. My laces, untied, dragging out behind me in a statement against societal norms, had laid neatly across the metal threshold of the vestibule door, which when I let the door close behind me had firmly pinned my shoelaces in a death grip between door and threshold. I looked around as onlookers politely stifled laughter and had to chuckle at the vestibule door’s efficiency.
My family was less polite in terms of the laughter thing. In fact, they seemed oblivious to my feelings and quite frankly laughed a bit harder than necessary. They seemed to be laughing so hard that I thought that some of them might pee, which would serve them right as far as I was concerned. Let them experience their own form of mortification. Eventually, maybe a couple of hours later, everyone stopped laughing and we were able to eat and I was able to relate the unfortunate details that I have shared with you.
How is it possible that I could be so quick to blame?
The thing is, how could I, in less than a second, while my brain is furiously distracted, have blamed someone so quickly. Rachel, I should tell you, is my daughter. She was 17 when this happened and had developed an excellent sense of humor, so excellent, in fact, that I immediately, even before hitting the floor identified her as the culprit. Like so many times when we resort to a deadly habit, the problem is more about us than it is about the person we see as the problem. In this case, Rachel had absolutely nothing to do with my face plant in front of a dining room full of people. It was all about me, about my desire to be cool and casual, and about my standing in an ill-advised location with my laces dragging behind me.
We so often see our blaming as the result of a circumstance or person outside of us, yet stories like these remind us that blaming begins within us and is a spirit waiting to be judgmentally applied to others. It’s hard for some of us, but the habit of blaming is one we need to break. Most of the time it’s nobody’s fault but our own.
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This post first appeared on March 12, 2015. I hope it has put a smile on your face, however more than that I hope it has reminded you how deeply the deadly habits can become a part of our way of being. If you have a deadly habit story you are willing to share I would love to hear from you.
The Better Plan . . 