CONFIDENT THINKING COMMANDMENT NO. 6
START LIKING YOURSELF
THE MORE YOU LIKE YOURSELF THE MORE GENEROUS
LIKE YOURSELF AND YOU HAVE NO TIME FOR HATRED
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© June 2006
Novelist Robert Goddard writes in “Borrowed Time” (2006): “As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned to analyze my own behavior as well as other people’s. I’ve come to understand that just as every mood is temporary, so is every triumph and every disappointment. It isn’t much of a consolation, but it’s an effective antidote to despair. One day, I suppose, it’ll make even death seem an acceptable tradeoff with reality.”
If this seems ominous, it might be well to take inventory of how you feel about yourself and why. Murray Kempton wrote in the “New York Review” (1995): “The Almighty is presumed to pass His judgments and dole out His penalties to individuals, which allows us to suppose that nations are spared painful sessions with the Recording Angel. But if ours is ever so summoned, we may suppose that the inquiry into its cardinal sins might begin with the question: ‘And why, America, did you, in your arrogance, teach so many of your children to hate themselves?’”
Kempton was referring to an Olympic Champion diver, who happens to be gay, only to find his life turned inside out once it was made public. Some can roll with the punches of social abuse once secrets of their lives are revealed, but most of us cannot, as was the case with Goddard’s fictional hero and this great athlete.
In June 1993 an article of mine in “The Reader’s Digest” opened with the line: “To have a friend you must be a friend, starting with yourself.” The volume of reprint requests of this article prompted me to write “The Taboo Against Being Your Own Best Friend” (1996) where I wrote:
“We are all authors of our own footprints in the sand, heroes of the novels inscribed in our hearts. Everyone’s life, without exception, is sacred, unique, scripted high drama, played out before an audience of one, with but one actor on stage. The sooner we realize this the more quickly we overcome the bondage of loneliness and find true friendship with ourselves.”
* * * * *
Few of us would disagree we are a competitive society. In fact, we take pride in being such a society, but is that beneficial? I submit that many of us are unhappy campers. If we were happy, escapism wouldn’t be such a big business; nor would we be so hard on ourselves.
Our approach to life is a result of early self-training due to our interpretation of situations. Role demands and self-demands show their faces very early on as does the “ideal self” and “real self.” We are programmed to be self-critical rather than self-accepting with little likelihood we will realize these conditioned responses to life are inappropriate or inadequate holdovers of our early programming as a child.
This programming starts with being compared to our siblings, then our peers, and can get really out of hand when compared to our parents who go on how bright, athletic, attractive, accomplished, and perfect they were at a similar age. Comparing and competing with siblings, peers and parents make for a powerful “no win” situation. The inclination is to be down on ourselves for not being “them” when they could never be “us.”
Kahlil Gibran in “The Prophet” (1972) reminds parents: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”
It is sometimes a monumental struggle for the youth to make the transition to the adult he is expected to be. He must first replace the adolescent mindset of seeing him always falling short of the mark, and then become that confident adult inclined to assist others.
This is so because the youth will avoid the pain he creates for himself by trying to solve adult problems with a child’s evasive tricks. Evidence of this is also in the adolescent adult who takes certain delight in the false steps of others, while avoiding self-examination. Schadenfreude, or enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others, is a manifestation of childish behavior, and an example of self-hatred.
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Psychiatrists Willard and Marguerite Beecher, authors of “Beyond Success and Failure” (1966),” find competition is the chief obstacle to self-reliance and maturity. They reason competition enslaves and degrades the mind, and is one of the most destructive forms of psychological dependence.
Surely, being competitive makes it difficult to know and accept ourselves as we are, and therefore nearly impossible to like ourselves. What is the first reaction when you strike out playing baseball, get a bad grade in a test, lose a job, have an automobile accident?
Most would say they are forced in on themselves, but not in a positive sense, but in terms of disappointment on the brink of self-disgust. They have let someone down: the coach and the team, their parents, or their loved ones. Then quickly, self-contempt takes on the face of somebody else to ease the discomfiture of the moment. “It was not my fault!” But it was and it is, and therefore in acknowledging the fact is key to everything else.
It is uncommon to take failure or unexpected circumstances in stride. Life is built around certainty, predictability, security, and control, all of which are anathema to surprise, loss or disappointment. Yet, all of these are part of life and living. Failing is the learning plateau but is seen as the very opposite. We have been programmed to be competitors, and competitors are programmed to win, to be in control, on top of things, to succeed, to keep failure and therefore defeat at an absolute minimum. Unfortunately, life is much more about failure than success. It is the reason life is a learning experience. Consider a major league baseball player is considered a great hitter if he has a lifetime batting average of 300, which means that seven out of ten times he failed to get a hit.
Eventually, if obsessed with winning, a person will be afraid to take chances, afraid to grow, and instead become dull, imitative, mediocre, burned-out, stereotyped, devoid of initiative, imagination and spontaneity. Competition will have killed his spirit for renewal. The enemy of his enemy will be himself.
Then why are we such a competitive society? The short answer is that we have a narrow gauge to measure excellence, and that narrow gauge is not based upon the individual competing with himself to bring out his best but comparing that same individual with others in terms of skill, talent, brilliance, athleticism, beauty, culture, sophistication, and achievement.
Competition leads to copycatting and to inauthentic man. It has managed to produce a new category of people, celebrities, and persons with no defining talent or contribution to society. The journalistic polemics of Ann Coulter on the right of the political spectrum and Michael Moore on the left come to mind. They rant cruel and tasteless nonsense in verbal exhibitionistic name-calling, shedding little light on current issues of public concern, while playing on the deep darkness of divisive self-hatred. They don’t wish to inform or promote rational discussion and accord, but to amuse themselves with discordant stereotypes of a self-hating public.
Competition breeds fear; fear breeds comparison. No matter how healthy, wealthy and wise we are there is always someone more so. Fear and comparison breed competition. We are never enough. We always should be more. There is no time to relax. We must prod ourselves on; never content to be the person we actually are, minting ourselves into an outside without an inside. Self-hatred makes certain the two sides will never be in harmony, but always in conflict.
The perfectionist is a manifestation of this, the increasingly frightened competitor that always must win to be secure. The perfectionist has played a game with his mind seeing perfection as the embodiment of truth. Implicit in this mindset is the need to see himself above criticism and therefore superior to those less perfect. The perfectionist is constantly comparing himself with others, always feeling that his advantage is in jeopardy. You know him by his fault finding and belittling of others. No one is ever good enough as he maintains a critical eye of the Achilles heel of imperfection in others, while, paradoxically, unable to see it in himself.
There are two kinds of people, creative people and self-haters. Self-haters hate because they compare, fear and compete. Creative people are lovers of life and take pleasure in activities for their own sake. Self-haters are competitive and tie their minds in knots, as they must win be it in love or war. Creative people find work is love made visible. Love is always without an object. Love is in the doing itself. There is no room in love for fear.
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Next to competition being a sickness of the soul of the United States of Anxiety, there is the matter of aloneness and loneliness. They are not the same.
Aloneness, or “al one ness” is the basis of our greatest strength. It is a holistic view of life. If we don’t accept that we are alone and enjoy our own company, how can we ever feel fulfilled and enjoy the company of others?
Loneliness is a sign of our greatest weakness. We must be connected to others, dependent on their point of view, have them encourage us to think and behave properly “for our own good.” We dare not rely on ourselves. Life becomes a second hand experience guided by someone else’s information.
Aloneness is a mark of maturity. Loneliness is a mark of immaturity.
Robert Putnam writes in “Time” magazine (July 3, 2006): “American are more socially isolated today than we were barely two decades ago. The latest evidences of that comes from a topflight team of sociologists who, after comparing national surveys in 1985 – 2004, report a one-third drop in the number of people with whom the average American can discuss important matters.” Putnam, author of “Bowling Alone” (2000), assumes from this that Americans are getting “lonelier.” The good professor falls into the trap of the United States of Anxiety by suggesting more community involvement, spending more time with family and friends, family-friendly workplaces or having a picnic or two, “could just save your life.” If it were only so.
The problem with this is that loneliness will not be cured with cosmetic approaches. Loneliness is the emptiness felt by a leaning dependency on others for comfort, entertainment and support, indeed, for living at all. Obviously, communal involvement has some merit, and having a close family connection cannot be faulted, but they are not panaceas for loneliness. Nor will family-friendly workplaces necessarily be reinforcing. The typical high tech workplace for the past quarter century more resembles a playpen than a workplace, and it hasn’t reduced anxiety on the job.
The dependent person has not learned how to enjoy his own company. He must have a personal trainer for exercise, constant noise from the moment he rises until he goes to bed. He needs someone to constantly reassure him he is okay, someone who can amuse, divert, distract, and define for him what he is and what he should be doing. Loneliness is the complete inability to face the world alone. He most fears a quiet mind. He would be intimidated by the quiet of nature. This quiet would force him back on himself placing him in the company of that friend inside that he so desperately seeks outside. In short, the dependent person needs and seeks a baby sitter. He has not trained himself to invent activity of his own, to create, design, build and make discoveries of the world in which he lives.
Gore Vidal once said, “To be interesting, you must be interested.” You cannot be interested if you are always looking for stimulation outside yourself. You seek the hand of someone else to lead you to something interesting. When a person finds no one will provide such stimulation, or make him the center of their support and attention, deep and abiding loneliness sets in.
This appears to be the culture of our times. Kempton’s words ring loud: “And why, America, did you, in your arrogance, teach so many of your children to hate themselves?”
Putnam is right about lonely people when he says they are unable to establish enduring relationships. Lonely people also tend to be nonproductive and shallow, while others find them boring and consequently avoid them. They are needy and needy demands so much and gives back so little. As a result, lonely people are thrown back on themselves. This reinforces their loneliness.
Programmed from birth to lack self-reliance, the situation is unlikely to change. Failure is a good teacher of self-reliance, and failure avoided too often erases learning from experience, which in turn can lead to loneliness. You are never alone doing something you love. The problem of lonely people is they never go to the trouble to find such love.
Aloneness, on the other hand, is the mirth of hearing our inner voice because we have somehow managed to steer clear of the clatter of outside noise. We don’t have to have the television on as soon as we rise in the morning, conning ourselves into the conviction we have to know what is going on in the world and the latest weather reports. We don’t have to have the car radio on listening to talking heads spewing their nonsense as we make our way to work. We don’t have to rush to the cafeteria to have a coffee and chatter away with others with the current gossip. We don’t have to repeat the same reverse action as we go home at night, having the television on until we retire without a single moment in the entire day without noise.
The mature individual has learned to shut his mind off from this conflicting noise outside himself to listen to the music of his own inner world. With aloneness, we finally “let go” of desire to compete, to possess, to dominate, to exploit, to manipulate, or manifest other remnants of childhood reinforcement. We are ready to hear what is going on within, to listen to that inner voice that alone belongs to us that waits so patiently to be heard.
Krishnamurti puts it succinctly: “In oneself lies the whole world, and if you know how to look and learn, then the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either that key or the door to open, except yourself.”
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If this is so, why are we so blind to the fact? It goes back to our programming. Progress is civilization’s most important product, and we have been made into machines to desire, distort, improve, modify and change the outside world finding little contentment in leaving it as it is, or ourselves as we are. Change is the god of the machine. There isn’t an institution that doesn’t deaden if not kill our spirit because of the constant cacophony of this machine. We must have a cell phone in our ear, laptop on our knee, an iPod or BlackBerry in our hand to ensure we are electronically connected to that ubiquitous machine. There is no place or time for our inner world.
Self-acceptance suggests contentment with “what is” which is anathema to progress. With self-acceptance, there is a fullness of the spirit, which knows no feeling of want or poverty. We are never alone when we are “al one ness.” Loneliness is the empty world of constant seeking of outside reassurance. It is the need for change for change’s sake. Nothing can be left to resonate on its own.
Man’s intelligence and sense of urgency created the modern world so that he could afford to relax and enjoy the magnificent civilization he had created, only to find it impossible to escape the old sense of urgency. He is like the man Colin Wilson refers to in “Access to Inner Words” (1983), who lived out on the lawn in a tent, while he built himself a magnificent house, then absent mindedly went on living in the tent and left the house empty. That is precisely what modern man has done. He has created a climate to relax but never finds the time.
We are in perpetual motion like the man who has been driving all day, and who keeps waking up at night, imagining himself still behind the wheel. We are the lonely and have slipped into the insidious habit of anxiety, tension, over-alertness, and always being on, craving connection to fill a void that only exists because we are afraid to stop.
Some reading this may declare that they take care of themselves physically, earn a living, build a business or profession, manage a family and otherwise conduct themselves with much success in public and private affairs, so what is this about liking yourself anyway?
You don’t necessarily have to like yourself to prove functional. But you do have to like yourself to prove yourself human and in touch with your soul. Otherwise, you can become hateful, cynical, alcoholic, tyrannical, depressed, psychotic, neurotic, and an emotional burden on all those around you. If so, chances are you have not learned to be emotional self-reliant or to operate with the maturity of the adult. More likely, you are suspended in the terminal self-indulgent adolescent.
The indicators of emotional dependence are evident at all stages of our lives and obvious to everyone with whom we relate. We are what we do, not part of the time, but all of the time. And what we do is the real answer to what we mean and intend, not just what we say. What we say is neither hear nor there. The word “love” is empty if it lacks agreement in our actions.
If you like comfort in numbers, social scientists estimate that only about 10 percent of the American population has developed emotional self-reliance and maturity. It prompted Daniel Goleman to write “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ” (1997). Goleman’s book is clearly an effort to improve emotional self-reliance by alerting people to the importance of passion, and how passion acknowledged and utilized can lead to fulfillment.
Passion is a gift of the self-accepting mind. Such a mind is self-trusting which is a gauge of emotional self-reliance. We don’t have to have someone looking over our shoulder for us to do the right thing. We are not kind and considerate to please others with our virtue. We don’t do the best possible job because it will mean a good performance appraisal and segue to a raise. With emotional self-reliance, initiative is natural as being in competition with others is not. We do all these things because we can; we have a passion to create a better world. It is not necessary to be found out. It is enough to know within ourselves.
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Systematic of distrust and emotional immaturity is a top heavy managed society, like our own, where there is a supervisor for every twelve to twenty workers, and a teacher for every twelve to twenty students. We don’t trust students to do the work assigned nor do we trust workers to complete their jobs. Once it was the weary eye of a person standing over us. Now it is as likely the ubiquitous electronic eye of a hidden camera, or electronic sensing devices at work monitoring our computers. Managed society has implanted psychological self-loathing on its people with the result that creative pursuit and spontaneity are as rare in appearance as Halley’s Comet.
Workers and students are programmed to be dependent. Consequently, top-heavy management and teacher-dependent learning are considered doctrinaire despite spectacular technological innovations. To be fair electronics have resulted in a healthy Gross Domestic Product. Nonetheless, US markets continue to shrink for manufactured goods, the trade deficit soars, while student performance fails to keep pace with other advanced societies despite the US investing more in education than most other nations.
When told what to do and precisely how it should be done, there is little learning, creativity or initiative in the process with intellectual rigor mortis setting in. This was the case while America slept, and then suddenly there was a dramatic change in the global marketplace. Panic followed. Young people and seasoned workers were now expected to automatically be “born again,” to take the initiative, to display self-discipline, to become self-managed, and to think with emotional maturity.
Instead, students and workers have dissolved into feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, falling apart and out of control, and predictably, looking for someone again to rescue them. The panic since South East Asia has taken markets away from automakers and other manufactured producers has resulted in a push in industry and education for individual initiative in the workplace, and “no child be left behind” in education. It is wishful thinking out of a utopian dream because it is expected without sacrifice and only cosmetic change. And now there is India and China to contend with as well.
Confident thinking is not possible without maturity. Our cultural programming has never solved the problem of emotional self-reliance. Nothing in our culture has prepared the individual to like himself for himself, or to know how to stand-alone. The paradox is that a person cannot truly work together until he first is able to stand-alone.
As each year passes, more and more children are sent off to school with only a modicum of emotional or physical self-reliance. It is a habit of our culture to do more and more for children and to expect less and less of them. Later, when these same children are of an adult age they are inclined to act as if obedient or, indeed, disobedient twelve-year-olds suspended in terminal adolescence either management dependent or counter dependent on the company to take care of them. When a crisis comes up and it is not in their job description, they don’t report it or take charge of the situation. Instead, they echo the sentiment: “Not my job!” To imagine them self-responsible, self-reliant, and self-accepting is absurd.
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In this cultural climate, liking ourselves for us is difficult if not impossible. First, we are programmed not to be comfortable with who and what we are apart from others. Second, we have never been programmed to seize the “now!” We either live in the past or pine away the time dreaming of the future. Our programming has failed to make us comfortable “being,” that is, what we are, but has instead persistently pressured us into “becoming,” that is, what we are not, but could and should possibly be.
As a result, we take little comfort in the journey but are obsessed with the end. Few students enjoy what they are doing now, at any level. The same can be said of workers. They are looking to the future; in the case of workers, towards a bigger job and increased pay; for students to the next grade level, or the college degree. The whole focus is “getting out!” and not “being in!”
Life is a bore for them all, a burden, and mind-numbing experience. So, whom do they blame? Students blame teachers. Workers blame their bosses or the company. No one stops to realize blame is irrelevant. All anyone has is this very moment, nothing more.
Students drop out of school because it is boring. Workers retreat into substance abuse or dog it on the job because they are fed up. Notice boredom is always someone else’s fault, never the bored. They think life is entertainment and they want to be entertained, not educated, certainly not employed. That said there is no past and no tomorrow, there is only today. Since this it too heavy to contemplate, they retreat into ubiquitous noise.
Life is “being,” and “being” is now. There is nothing to achieve, nothing to get, nothing to prove, nowhere to go, no big brother checking on us, no head higher than our own. “Being” is all about reality.
“Becoming” is all about the illusion of progress and wishful thinking. “Becoming” is ambition, the desire for personal recognition; “becoming” is needy, “please accept me”; “becoming” is dependent on the approval of others; “becoming” is the feeling of emptiness or emotional poverty; “becoming” is the treadmill in search of the ultimate reward; “becoming” is living on empty hopes of future benefits; “becoming” is the abdication of living now. How many times have we heard people say they hate what they are doing but they have a plan and when the plan comes to fruition everything will fall into place?
An executive once came to me, a chief engineer of a high tech company, who hated his job, but had eleven years to retirement. I asked him what he would prefer doing. “I’d love to be a stockbroker. I love studying the market. That’s what I’m going to do when I get out of here!” Why don’t you quit and do it now? “I can’t afford to,” he answered, and then thinking a moment, “besides I would not get my maximum pension.” He stayed until retirement; fell off his roof with a serious head injury and never worked again.
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To combat this pressure to be self-hating and to find your way to liking yourself involves self-knowing. There is a three-step process to assist you in this regard:
SELF-AWARENESS – awareness is seeing yourself as you actually are, warts and all, comfortable in the knowledge that you have rocks in your head and snakes sunning themselves on the rocks. These are your secrets and need be known by no one else, but obviously must be appreciated by you. They are the touchstones of your character that have materialized as you have encountered and dealt with life. They are the possible missteps you have made that assist you in better understanding yourself. They are life as you have stumbled upon it. No attempt should be made to evaluate why you are the way you are, or why you did the things you did. They are you, and they are not good or bad, but only life knowing itself. Self-awareness is to see yourself as clearly as your mind allows.
SELF-ACCEPTANCE – what you see that you are you must accept unconditionally because it is the way you are. Acceptance is another word for “liking yourself as you are.” Many factors and circumstances occur in life to make you as you find yourself. There is no point in becoming judgmental, or blaming parents or circumstances for your predicament, whatever it is. You accept what you find and allow yourself to be tolerant, understanding and forgiving in that acceptance. It will provide you with an amazing insight not only into your own character, but also into the character of every other person you meet. When you refuse to hide from yourself, others cannot hide what and who they are from you. The con must go elsewhere to ply his trade.
SELF-ASSERTION – once you see yourself clearly and accept what you see dispassionately, you can continue to act as you are or you can choose to change, whatever serves your best interests. It is a matter of choice. Self-assertion is the “action step.” You no longer reflect or attempt to intellectualize your predicament, but are ready to act upon what you find. You have a strong sense of pleasing yourself, which is not selfish but a matter of self-preservation. It is best reflected in not experiencing difficulty saying “no” when it is the optimum response to the situation. You will not carry other people because you will not own their problems. They may not realize this but you are doing them a favor because carrying someone else’s burden only makes them weaker, not stronger.
This three-step process leads to emotional self-reliance, and maturity. You are your own person thinking confidently because you see yourself on the main stage of your own life and not in the wing waiting for someone else to mouth your lines.
Whenever we define friendship, it is always about someone else. It is assumed we are natural friends to ourselves. If this were so, we would be more generous of spirit towards ourselves and therefore towards others. Jean de La Fontaine (1621 – 1695) captures something of its essence: “Friendship is the shadow of the evening, which strengthens with the setting sun of life.” Friendship is a maturing process strengthened by the ordeal of life. Pioneering psychiatrist Alfred Adler (1870 – 1937) points out that friendship is indeed a shadow thing with so much that is unconscious in our consciousness and so much that is conscious in our unconsciousness that it is useless to separate ourselves from friendship. If we cannot be friend to ourselves, then to whom can we be friend? So often we seek friends to exploit to our advantage right down to taking the shirt off their backs. To such people a friend is someone who would not resist exploitation. Often the one exploited with such thinking is the person himself.
I have a son-in-law who is constantly exploited by such friends: he gives them work and they don’t complete it; he loans them cars and trucks and they take them to be their own; he goes into partnership with them and gives them generous shares of the business with little investment, and then they don’t hold up the terms of their agreements. Obviously, he is as guilty as they are and shows little friendship with himself; indeed, little self-acceptance or liking of himself.
Most relationships we call friendships are nothing more than mutual-advantage or mutual-exploitations, pacts, something-for-something, which dissolve as soon as the element of mutual advantage disappears on either side. I have seen this particular scene repeated again and again. When it is no longer emotionally or physically profitable to know each other, we drift apart. The problem with ourselves is that we cannot do that, or if we do we are self-estranged, spinning in a terrible cycle of confusion, adrift in constantly becoming, never being, and therefore never arriving, anywhere.
Real friends are those who accept us as we are, not as we should be. Real friends like us for who we are not what we are. Friendship is limited first by our ability to be a friend to ourselves, comfortable in our own skin, with a tolerance for others as we find them. Friendship makes no demands. “It is,” that is, it is a condition of fullness that flows from everything we do and over everything we are. Like rain, it falls impartially on all our peccadilloes and virtues. It demands nothing for itself and allows everything to fulfill itself in its own way and time. Friendship is without a need to control others or to withhold itself. It lives and lets live.
Being a friend to yourself places you in the main tent instead of in a sideshow as the Beechers put it. It puts you on center stage and author of all your deeds. Remember, the two amazing gifts that one receives who accepts (likes) himself as he is: the incredible talent of reading people accurately, and the ability to say “no!”
When people constantly fool us, and we cannot find the capacity to say “no,” we have the problem of addiction. Yes, I said addiction. Addiction is not limited to substance abuse. It is an addiction when you constantly choose your friends unwisely. Addiction is simply a way of evading the demands of everyday life. Addiction is an alibi for not facing what is demanded of you, providing an escape. Addiction is self-hatred since we avoid the threat of confronting the image of ourselves as we are, the image we don’t want to see, while at the same time, maintaining the appearance that we can accept.
Confident thinking demands living and working in an association that is reinforcing and therefore is in harmony with you. It is an environment that is self-friendly where you are the host of life and not the guest, where you are in the driver’s seat and not a passenger on someone else’s destiny; and where you have a moral center with a working compass.
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Friday, June 30, 2006
Monday, June 26, 2006
CONFIDENT THINKING COMMANDMENT NO. 5 -- RECOGNIZE IMPORTANCE OF OTHERS, BECOME OTHER-PEOPLE ORIENTED, ENABLE THEM TO BE THEMSELVES!
CONFIDENT THINKING COMMANDMENT NO. FIVE
RECOGNIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF OTHERS
BECOME OTHER-PEOPLE DIRECTED
ENABLE THEM TO BE THEMSELVES
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© June 2006
Enabling people to be all that they could be does not mean you become self-absorbed in the other’s well being. That is their responsibility. It means creating a climate that brings out the authentic self of the other by being unpretentious and cooperative. It means helping him help himself. You may have skills in that regard.
It starts by being empathic, and progresses to enabling the other to find the way first to his own center, then he can voluntarily come to focus on a joint effort with you to lift him out of his plight, whatever it may be. Sometimes all he needs is moral support.
Without a healthy and stable center, there is no chance for genuine collective effort. We are a social animal and need each other. This is more so the case when we put on the face of not needing such connection. So, don’t be deterred by tough exteriors. It is a guise hat has been created to protect a fragile ego with a chaotic, bruised or damaged center.
Nor should you expect an unreceptive façade to collapse with your smiles and reassurance, or to be shattered by reasoning or, indeed, intimidation. Struggle and survival teach us two things: one is that a sick soul has a steep climb to collect itself out of the pit of its own hell of hate; and two, hate and contempt are family to such a mindset. You are asking the other to abandon hate, which is kin to him, a hate that has kept him upright and functioning even if self-destructively. The terrorists come to mind.
Once this tough customer is won over he cannot do enough for you. It is a heady thing to contemplate. A person can go from an apathetic mass of confusion to a zealot fueled by the new love he has found, failing to realize his hate has been turned inside out and now is used as a weapon against him for the purpose of another. The other is even less his own man than he was before. This can happen, has happened and is happening today and so it will be considered in this segment as well.
Being a social animal, we cannot survive without each other. Physical and nurturing care is essential from the moment we come into this world. Dr. Maria Montessori (1870 – 1952) captured its essence when she said, “Give me a child until it is seven-years-old and it will be mine for the rest of its life.” Her reference was to the conditioning process when our lot is that of pliable, formless, impressionistic and defenseless creatures. It is the programming that will determine to a large measure the way we will view life for the rest of our life.
Due to these significant seven years, it is one of the reasons why children grow up with such different attitudes, aptitudes, dispositions, and behaviors. It behooves us that have had the privilege of nurturing care not only to be aware of this but also accepting of the responsibility we have towards others less fortunate. People telegraph disturbances to their souls in attention deficit disorder, restless posture, profane language, inappropriate dress, body tattoos, and belligerence. The world has never gotten used to the fact that 80 percent of what and who we are represents nearly a match with everyone else in the world. Yet, we compare and compete as if we are truly different only to magnify the 20 percent difference that might actually exist.
When I was a boy about seven, an Irish uncle said to me one day, “Jimmy, you need the clothes on your back, a roof over your head, three square meals a day, and if you have that you’re in company with the richest men in the world.” He was of course right but he wasn’t aware, nor was I that 50 percent of the world failed to enjoy that luxury. He had no idea that little morsel would stick with me all my life, and turn my attention away from blatant materialism, while giving me confidence and security that as long as I had these things I was “a rich man.” He provided me with the wisdom of insecurity, which is the best form of confident thinking. When you have that, no man can corrupt you with financial or other gain.
Even with nurturing, we are all vulnerable to losing this advantage. Studies have shown when a child first starts to develop his personality, away from the nurturing care of his parents, incredible pressure is exerted by peers with the coercion to comply to certain deviancies in order to belong. Middle class parents once thought their children exempted from such pressures, that only the lower classes engaged in such deviancies. They were wrong.
Middle class children have been instigators of deviant behavior. They have used their wits to flaunt the law, and then play on their parents’ embarrassment once discovered to promote a cover up. This has spiraled into a collapsing moral center in which such parents preach one thing and practice another. It has produced an army of cynical children that haunts society today.
It seems to be driven by the dichotomy of belonging. A rather unusual source put this in pragmatic perspective for me. I was on a consulting trip and being held over at the airport in Cincinnati because of bad weather. Paul Brown and the NFL Cincinnati Bengal football team were there as well. Earlier in the day, my client had told me a story about coach Brown. He had attended a rookie training camp, and asked coach Brown, “How in the world do you decide who makes it and who doesn’t?” He smiled. “I don’t. They do.” Then he stretched out his arm and pointed to the players on the field. “See those guys?” He pointed to a group diligently working drills and perfecting their skills. “They’re all going to make it.” Then he pointed to a group shooting the breeze around the Gatorade cooler. “They’re not.” Mr. Brown, a good-looking man, with an Irish tilt to his hat, only smiled when I asked to confirm the story.
Winners hang together and so do losers. I suspect winners were doing as much as they could to make the most of the opportunity, while losers felt it was a rookie camp and they need not showcase their talent. They were wrong. Coach Brown was known as a disciplinarian who valued character as much as athleticism.
Another client, an ex-con, after serving his time at Florida’s maximum-security prison in Raeford, came to me with a proposition. He wanted me to write a book about his life. I never got around to writing the book, but his situation did have relevance to this discussion. He seemed a nice young man that I had to wonder how he went wrong. Why did he associate with such losers? He looked at me as if I were dense, “Don’t you know? They’re were the only ones who would accept me.”
Here was a man who had been reared by a mother who was a prostitute and an alcoholic. Often there was no food in the house, only booze, with him and his little brother having little to eat for days. His mother would bring men home, and if he and his little brother made any noise the man would beat on them until they were quiet. One time, a drunken regular looked for them as soon as he came into the house. He hid his little brother in the pantry, where the man never looked. He believes that saved his little brother’s life. He was not so fortunate. He was beaten unconscious and left for dead. He was six-years-old. Neighbors called the police and he was taken to the hospital and his brother put in foster care. After a month’s stay in the hospital, he ended up in a foster home but separated from his brother.
When I met him, he was a mountain of a man about six-one and weighed more than 350 pounds and appeared as solid as a rock. He had the incongruity of kind eyes with the hint of repressed terror suggesting how a wild animal might look if cornered. He confirmed my suspicions by saying, “I got myself in a terrible mess the first time the police came for me by going berserk.” Indeed, I learned he threw nine policemen around as if they were confetti, injury three seriously when they tried to subdue him. This and subsequent encounters ended with him being sentenced to prison at Raeford.
Was he a bad man? No. Was he a good man? In many ways, yes. He rebuilt his life, married a woman much older than him who became a surrogate mother, had one daughter with her, and became foster parent to several, whom he raised with loving care. He became religious in prison, joined the Masonic Lodge, and found satisfaction in that association. He was a heavy equipment operator working on highway construction and made a decent living for his family. He died in his fifties.
For everyone like him that escapes the shroud of the ex-con, the wonder is how many do not?
The jury is out on why we are so cruel to each other, and why we do such terrible things to each other. This is being written in the era of “international terrorism.” We see society in a state of hysteria since jihad (holy war) has been declared on Euro-American countries, most dramatically and tragically with the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001, as commercial jet airliners became suicide missiles. You say, “How could this happen? How could people behave like this?”
The answer may be in the study of laboratory animals. Rodents when subjected to overcrowded conditions began to kill each other; turkeys when spooked trample each other to death. It happens in a crowded building when someone yells, “fire!” Equilibrium collapses when the expected collides with the unexpected. Fear flickers in the hidden recesses of the eye of all animals, humans included, as survival kicks in leading often to self-destructive behavior. Panic is enemy to good sense.
It would be nice in confident thinking to bypass the subject of fear as it applies to the importance of others, indeed, to disregard the subject of death, destruction and terror altogether as it relates to human beings when they turn themselves into suicide missiles.
These human carriers of death have been programmed to believe they will be eternally happy in paradise for their sacrifice. We don’t have to make much of a leap of faith to recognize that St. Paul had a similar message. As Christianity is his invention, he promoted the idea that this life was only preparation for the eternal bliss of heaven, where the last shall be first and the first last. It can be argued jihad programming is another version of Christian martyrdom once famous in early Christian history. For those who would scoff at this, martyrdom was once considered the ultimate sign of holiness, and promise of heavenly paradise. It was part of my Roman Catholic education.
Our world is getting much smaller. Stephen Hawking, who occupies the chair in physics at Cambridge once held by Isaac Newton, insists that we must colonize other planets because he can envision the human calamity of over crowdedness. We are already experiencing it between the halves and have-nots among nations. It seeds terrorism.
Meanwhile, we have a situation in which television, electronics, and speed-of-sound travel have made us a global community. We have electronic surveillance of our every move and have willingly sacrificed our freedom for security. Not only are there no secrets anymore, there is no privacy. The idea of freedom, which is the foundation of the United States, is disappearing in a sinkhole of panic as its understructure collapses.
America has gone from the “lighthouse on the hill and beacon of hope to the world” to becoming itself lost in the troubles of the world. The world, on the other hand, has taken the material success of this “melting pot of nations,” as a measure of its own. We see this in emerging technological progress of China and India. Shanghai has become a modern city with workers building skyscrapers, being paid only enough to keep body and soul together, but not paid their promised wages. We see India emerging into a technological power while 80 percent of its people are far removed from this sophistication. The world emulating the United States has become a well-dressed man hiding the decay inside the suit. You step outside the major cities of the emerging Third World countries and they more resemble primitive Africa. The United States doesn’t escape this comparison.
In the United States, the venerated middle class is shrinking. In 1982, there were 42 billionaires; in 2005, there were 474; in 1981, there were 20,444 millionaires; in 2003, there were 181, 282. In 1982, there were 1,858,000 with incomes of about $250,000; in 2004, there were nearly 6 million with this income. Meanwhile, those below the poverty line are also increasing so that the vibrant American middle class, once representing some 55 percent of all households is now around 40 percent and falling. The United States has a burgeoning upper class and a rapidly increasing underclass with a disappearing middle class. No society survives for long without violence, chaos, confusion and social upheaval without a significant middle class, that is, without a majority of the people well enough educated to be actively involved, economically and spiritually committed to maintain a relevant societal agenda. If not, implosion is a certainty. It happened to Rome.
We have seen in Africa like that child reared for seven years a certain way, and remaining that way in Dr. Montessori’s words, “for the rest of its life,” the aftershock of post colonialism on the nations of that great continent. It is bleeding human misery.
African people are somewhat frozen in that mindset of adolescent passivity, but now they are expected to behave as if nothing interrupted their respective cultural heritage. Tiny European nations such as Portugal and Belgium, among others, plundered these cultures, ripped away their resources with impunity, and subjugated Africans to Western religion and tradition, while denying these same people the continuing practice of their respective cultures.
The nightmare of today was created by the greed and thoughtlessness of yesterday. The vacuum of hopelessness and despair that now has the face of AIDS is now a monument to this past, as many of these African people in the late twentieth century were made independent nations, and left mainly to fend for themselves without the tools.
Africans were expected to do this without a vibrant middle class, without accommodating commerce, or a viable infrastructure, without seasoned leadership, or institutions supportive of a national agenda, and without either the will or the way to make it happen.
For more than one hundred years, these people were used and abused and treated as fodder for the will of their captors. This has left them open for the exploitation by the few amongst them that have been educated and know the Western ways of divisive and mercenary authority. These African leaders have often treated their own people worse than their former colonial rulers. I lived in South Africa during the era of apartheid. I now hear only criticism of how poorly the Bantu and the Coloreds are taking hold of that country, failing to see this is testimony to European as well as Afrikaner exploitation. If we are our brother’s keeper, there is a lot of making up that must happen.
Someone once said that there is only one religion but it has a thousand faces. If you look beyond the dogma or doctrine of Hinduism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Buddhism, Islamism, Judaism, and Christianity, to name only a few, you see how true this is. Respect for another is basic to all religions. They have kept the world reasonably stable but they are losing their grip on its spiritual influence. This seems to have been magnified with the explosive growth and constant disruption of social norms since World War II. We are drunk with the power of toys supplied by technology, and have not yet awakened from our hangover to perceive the damage done to ourselves and others for the “cut and control” narcotic of empty “progress.”
Along with this indulgent dance, we have weapons of mass destruction, and rumors of these WMDs that orchestrate fear in a most compelling way to give those in power a psychological edge to do as they will. Our current national governance has the good twins of Chaney and Rumsfeld that resemble in so many frightening ways the bad twins of Goebbels and Goering, using the same chicanery, duplicity, manipulation of fear, while playing the patriotic card on the national psyche, and the evils of the Infidels to justify a strategy of preemptive war. Nazism rose out of fear and pride and contempt for others not German, creating the myth of a Master Race.
The current myth is “superpower,” and nobody questions it. We hear it every day that the United States is the lone superpower of the world, and yet there is the Katrina disaster, the stalemate in Afghanistan, and Iraq, the fact that nearly half of Americans fail to finish high school, that the middle class is shrinking, that the infrastructure is in sad shape, that obesity is on the rise, and that corporate and governmental corruption is continuously breaking new ground. If this were not enough, the good twins are now saber rattling preparing us for a possible preemptive strike of Iran or North Korea, or both, if these nations don’t behave, as we would instruct them to behave. It all happened before with Rome. Something is wrong with this picture.
One of the reasons these nations are behaving as they do is because of fear. Fear has taken on the guise of the hero of our time in a time without heroes. It is the prime motivator when the world has lost its moral compass and with it its center. It is as true of the smallest nation as the largest, as true of the smallest community to the most sophisticated, as true of the East as the West, the North as the South. Fear is the only symbol that people everywhere understand and embrace with the same trepidation. Fear is what guides the good twins as it did the bad twins.
Fear has shown its face in Iraq and Afghanistan when young boys with guns are overwhelmed and commit atrocities common to war, which are uncommon to nature. You place anyone in harm’s way where fear is his only company and terrible things are bound to happen. Psychologist James Hillman sees war has become normalized as an every day affair. He finds the terrible love of war the direct route to what some want at the expense of others. War fosters an impossible collection of opposites: murder, soldierly comradeship, torture, religious conviction, the destruction of earth, patriotism, annihilation, and hope for immortal glory. It would appear people dead to life find war exhilarating, lifting them out of their stupor and despair. Death is preferred to embracing life, as embracing life means you can no longer hide in fear.
Fear is the driving force in the economics of plenty. It has taken the life out of death, and the death out of life. We have lost confident thinking as a people. We have pushed forward our national agenda fueled by fear to expect others to act in a certain way to stabilize their existence, when we have failed to stabilize ours. Afghanistan and Iraq reflect the way Americans reacted to colonial Great Britain, and unhappily, we fail to see the resemblance. We had a Civil War that nearly destroyed us as a nation. Would we have wanted interference in that war? I think not.
We have this problem of failing to see the snakes sunning themselves on the rocks in our heads, choosing instead to see our intentions as always noble, always above board, and always altruistic, as if we have answers to everyone else’s dilemma when we seem unable to solve our own.
We are a nation that has not been prepared to accept ourselves, as we are, much less to be a student of other nations and their problems as they are. How can we expect Americans who see some Americans as “jungle bunnies” and others as “lords of welfare” to understand that by the accident of birth and circumstance what they are is as much a fluke of chance as anything else? We are a nation that is overweight, undereducated, unsophisticated, grasping for straws while waving the American flag as if the mere fact of doing so changes everything.
There are three things that come to mind for us to live in peace with each other:
One, we must learn to understand each other, not from the perspective of our own experience but from the experience of others.
That means looking at the other through his eyes and not ours. It means having a modicum of understanding of his history and culture and what is especially meaningful to him in that context.
It would include his struggles and triumphs, tragedies and challenges, and how these came to define him. It would mean being acquainted with his leaders, both fanatical and moderate, in governance and religion and how this has impacted him and his people.
It means seeing others in the light of today and what they are struggling with and how it is working out for them. In a word, it means knowing them.
What you are likely to find out is that 80 to 90 percent of most people prefer to be left alone, to enjoy the comfort of their family, to work their chosen job, and to live in peace with the familiar trappings of their parochial life and culture without sanctions or interference.
We are not, by nature, a people in the general, but persons in particular. Much as we are alike, tolerance and acceptance of subtle differences supports a common brotherly love.
When collateral damage of civilian population is considered a necessary cost of warfare, then insanity rules. When you destroy Twin Towers to make a statement, taking 3,000 lives, insanity rules. When you invade a country run by warlords that previously humiliated Russia, insanity rules. When you invade a sovereign nation run by a dictator under the contrived justification of WMDs, insanity rules. When you withhold funds from a duly democratically elected party, because it is designated a terrorist organization, even though the people have spoken, insanity rules. When you spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a war with no defined enemy and no ultimate victory, insanity rules. When the heart and soul and will of a country are flabby because it is self-indulgent, solipsistic, self-important and reactive, then insanity rules.
Two, the confident thinker has to step back from all the information that has bombarded his senses and sift through it to see what makes sense and what does not.
He should not look to media to do it for him, nor government, nor the church, nor his neighbor, nor his boss, nor his family. The answers are not in Time or Newsweek, not in the New York Times nor the Washington Post, not on television network nor cable news, not on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer with pundits Mark Shields and David Brooks, not in the plethora of exposes of insiders that glut the counters of bookstores, not from the think tanks nor the Ivy League dons, but from processing experience that might include talking to a Pakistani service station neighbor or to a Thai barber, or hundreds of others that connect to a life, along with independent study.
This is not an easy quest for one who is a member of a nation that adores celebrity, worships youth, plans never to grow up and therefore never grow old, that spends more for plastic surgery than the Gross Domestic Product of some African nations, and plies its innovative nature in all manner of escapism. When there is no place for reality in the tempo of existence, nowhere land becomes a home.
Three, the confident thinker doesn’t allow himself to be blindsided by another’s “ideal self” or “self-demands.” He sees everyone he meets from the perspective of the “real self” and “role demands.”
This can get tricky because we seldom say what we mean, or mean what we say. You must get past the words to how the other feels and how this matches with how you feel. Your heart reads a person much more accurately than your head. Someone who talks like you, dresses like you, spouts similar litanies, and has similar biases like you, can sway your head, but not your heart if it has your attention.
To learn where the other is coming from, you need to listen, not lecture. The less you fill the void with your information the more you are apt to learn. This means fighting the inclination to be judgmental. Judgment oozes from your pours not necessarily from your mouth. If you think it, he will feel it. Besides, it is not all about you.
On a wider scale, it is impossible to be serious about the plight of others while worrying about your $400,000 home when your kitchen table costs more than the tents that house one hundred in a refugee camp in Darfur. There is something wrong with a world where 80 percent of the people live in near constant jeopardy. You cannot change this picture in the macro sense, but you can discourage the xenophobic comfort of emailers who tattoo your conscience with jokes about Afghans and Iraqis who are convenient store workers, gas station operators, taxi drivers, short order cooks, house cleaners, beautician shop sweepers, computer installers, and neighbors. Xenophobia doesn’t do you or anyone else any good.
The United States of America is an idea, and the idea is in trouble. It is not a place or a space. It is a thought. It is a thought that has survived for only a little while, a couple hundred years, and it can die if others are less important than you. If that should happen, then you are the mortician of the idea. That may not be your intention but a lapse of concern for others in the world could ultimately prove devastating.
It would have been easy to go the route of the self-help books and iterate all the things you would like to hear, reinforcing your comfort level, and therefore prove forgettable. We, who live in relative peace with plenty, and with the freedom to exercise our minds, and keep our bodies and souls in harmony, have a responsibility to pay attention. There is something wrong about a world that has so much needless suffering such as a dying baby covered with flies in Darfur, while her young mother who already is shriveled up as if an old lady attempts to feed her child from a dried up breast.
Africa suffers from the Montessori syndrome. She talked of having a child for seven years; colonizers have had Africa for more than seven generations. Much as we may desire to shed the yoke of the first seven years, the paradox is that only too often we emulate, duplicate, and replicate the good, the bad, and the ugly of that experience in our adult life. Likewise, the cruel and inhuman treatment of Africans on Africans today is consistent with those seven generations of subjugation. As many of us have managed to outgrow some of our faulty indoctrination in due course, so also can Africa.
If the words here anger you, try to understand why. If you find yourself falling back on bromides and rationalizations, try to poke holes in them. If you’re going to discuss them with some learned thinker, view the comments in light of what they reveal about him. If you research this discussion at some university, be skeptical of the content and context of the research. Ultimately, to recognize and truly believe in the importance of others, it is not a zero sum game, where some are accepted and others not. Acceptance is a question of tolerance, and tolerance means you never own the other’s problem, although you will help him solve it. That role is to help him feed, cloth, protect and manage, not to do these things for him. If we do, the escape from the Montessori syndrome will be truly possible.
* * * * *
RECOGNIZE THE IMPORTANCE OF OTHERS
BECOME OTHER-PEOPLE DIRECTED
ENABLE THEM TO BE THEMSELVES
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© June 2006
Enabling people to be all that they could be does not mean you become self-absorbed in the other’s well being. That is their responsibility. It means creating a climate that brings out the authentic self of the other by being unpretentious and cooperative. It means helping him help himself. You may have skills in that regard.
It starts by being empathic, and progresses to enabling the other to find the way first to his own center, then he can voluntarily come to focus on a joint effort with you to lift him out of his plight, whatever it may be. Sometimes all he needs is moral support.
Without a healthy and stable center, there is no chance for genuine collective effort. We are a social animal and need each other. This is more so the case when we put on the face of not needing such connection. So, don’t be deterred by tough exteriors. It is a guise hat has been created to protect a fragile ego with a chaotic, bruised or damaged center.
Nor should you expect an unreceptive façade to collapse with your smiles and reassurance, or to be shattered by reasoning or, indeed, intimidation. Struggle and survival teach us two things: one is that a sick soul has a steep climb to collect itself out of the pit of its own hell of hate; and two, hate and contempt are family to such a mindset. You are asking the other to abandon hate, which is kin to him, a hate that has kept him upright and functioning even if self-destructively. The terrorists come to mind.
Once this tough customer is won over he cannot do enough for you. It is a heady thing to contemplate. A person can go from an apathetic mass of confusion to a zealot fueled by the new love he has found, failing to realize his hate has been turned inside out and now is used as a weapon against him for the purpose of another. The other is even less his own man than he was before. This can happen, has happened and is happening today and so it will be considered in this segment as well.
Being a social animal, we cannot survive without each other. Physical and nurturing care is essential from the moment we come into this world. Dr. Maria Montessori (1870 – 1952) captured its essence when she said, “Give me a child until it is seven-years-old and it will be mine for the rest of its life.” Her reference was to the conditioning process when our lot is that of pliable, formless, impressionistic and defenseless creatures. It is the programming that will determine to a large measure the way we will view life for the rest of our life.
Due to these significant seven years, it is one of the reasons why children grow up with such different attitudes, aptitudes, dispositions, and behaviors. It behooves us that have had the privilege of nurturing care not only to be aware of this but also accepting of the responsibility we have towards others less fortunate. People telegraph disturbances to their souls in attention deficit disorder, restless posture, profane language, inappropriate dress, body tattoos, and belligerence. The world has never gotten used to the fact that 80 percent of what and who we are represents nearly a match with everyone else in the world. Yet, we compare and compete as if we are truly different only to magnify the 20 percent difference that might actually exist.
When I was a boy about seven, an Irish uncle said to me one day, “Jimmy, you need the clothes on your back, a roof over your head, three square meals a day, and if you have that you’re in company with the richest men in the world.” He was of course right but he wasn’t aware, nor was I that 50 percent of the world failed to enjoy that luxury. He had no idea that little morsel would stick with me all my life, and turn my attention away from blatant materialism, while giving me confidence and security that as long as I had these things I was “a rich man.” He provided me with the wisdom of insecurity, which is the best form of confident thinking. When you have that, no man can corrupt you with financial or other gain.
Even with nurturing, we are all vulnerable to losing this advantage. Studies have shown when a child first starts to develop his personality, away from the nurturing care of his parents, incredible pressure is exerted by peers with the coercion to comply to certain deviancies in order to belong. Middle class parents once thought their children exempted from such pressures, that only the lower classes engaged in such deviancies. They were wrong.
Middle class children have been instigators of deviant behavior. They have used their wits to flaunt the law, and then play on their parents’ embarrassment once discovered to promote a cover up. This has spiraled into a collapsing moral center in which such parents preach one thing and practice another. It has produced an army of cynical children that haunts society today.
It seems to be driven by the dichotomy of belonging. A rather unusual source put this in pragmatic perspective for me. I was on a consulting trip and being held over at the airport in Cincinnati because of bad weather. Paul Brown and the NFL Cincinnati Bengal football team were there as well. Earlier in the day, my client had told me a story about coach Brown. He had attended a rookie training camp, and asked coach Brown, “How in the world do you decide who makes it and who doesn’t?” He smiled. “I don’t. They do.” Then he stretched out his arm and pointed to the players on the field. “See those guys?” He pointed to a group diligently working drills and perfecting their skills. “They’re all going to make it.” Then he pointed to a group shooting the breeze around the Gatorade cooler. “They’re not.” Mr. Brown, a good-looking man, with an Irish tilt to his hat, only smiled when I asked to confirm the story.
Winners hang together and so do losers. I suspect winners were doing as much as they could to make the most of the opportunity, while losers felt it was a rookie camp and they need not showcase their talent. They were wrong. Coach Brown was known as a disciplinarian who valued character as much as athleticism.
Another client, an ex-con, after serving his time at Florida’s maximum-security prison in Raeford, came to me with a proposition. He wanted me to write a book about his life. I never got around to writing the book, but his situation did have relevance to this discussion. He seemed a nice young man that I had to wonder how he went wrong. Why did he associate with such losers? He looked at me as if I were dense, “Don’t you know? They’re were the only ones who would accept me.”
Here was a man who had been reared by a mother who was a prostitute and an alcoholic. Often there was no food in the house, only booze, with him and his little brother having little to eat for days. His mother would bring men home, and if he and his little brother made any noise the man would beat on them until they were quiet. One time, a drunken regular looked for them as soon as he came into the house. He hid his little brother in the pantry, where the man never looked. He believes that saved his little brother’s life. He was not so fortunate. He was beaten unconscious and left for dead. He was six-years-old. Neighbors called the police and he was taken to the hospital and his brother put in foster care. After a month’s stay in the hospital, he ended up in a foster home but separated from his brother.
When I met him, he was a mountain of a man about six-one and weighed more than 350 pounds and appeared as solid as a rock. He had the incongruity of kind eyes with the hint of repressed terror suggesting how a wild animal might look if cornered. He confirmed my suspicions by saying, “I got myself in a terrible mess the first time the police came for me by going berserk.” Indeed, I learned he threw nine policemen around as if they were confetti, injury three seriously when they tried to subdue him. This and subsequent encounters ended with him being sentenced to prison at Raeford.
Was he a bad man? No. Was he a good man? In many ways, yes. He rebuilt his life, married a woman much older than him who became a surrogate mother, had one daughter with her, and became foster parent to several, whom he raised with loving care. He became religious in prison, joined the Masonic Lodge, and found satisfaction in that association. He was a heavy equipment operator working on highway construction and made a decent living for his family. He died in his fifties.
For everyone like him that escapes the shroud of the ex-con, the wonder is how many do not?
The jury is out on why we are so cruel to each other, and why we do such terrible things to each other. This is being written in the era of “international terrorism.” We see society in a state of hysteria since jihad (holy war) has been declared on Euro-American countries, most dramatically and tragically with the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11, 2001, as commercial jet airliners became suicide missiles. You say, “How could this happen? How could people behave like this?”
The answer may be in the study of laboratory animals. Rodents when subjected to overcrowded conditions began to kill each other; turkeys when spooked trample each other to death. It happens in a crowded building when someone yells, “fire!” Equilibrium collapses when the expected collides with the unexpected. Fear flickers in the hidden recesses of the eye of all animals, humans included, as survival kicks in leading often to self-destructive behavior. Panic is enemy to good sense.
It would be nice in confident thinking to bypass the subject of fear as it applies to the importance of others, indeed, to disregard the subject of death, destruction and terror altogether as it relates to human beings when they turn themselves into suicide missiles.
These human carriers of death have been programmed to believe they will be eternally happy in paradise for their sacrifice. We don’t have to make much of a leap of faith to recognize that St. Paul had a similar message. As Christianity is his invention, he promoted the idea that this life was only preparation for the eternal bliss of heaven, where the last shall be first and the first last. It can be argued jihad programming is another version of Christian martyrdom once famous in early Christian history. For those who would scoff at this, martyrdom was once considered the ultimate sign of holiness, and promise of heavenly paradise. It was part of my Roman Catholic education.
Our world is getting much smaller. Stephen Hawking, who occupies the chair in physics at Cambridge once held by Isaac Newton, insists that we must colonize other planets because he can envision the human calamity of over crowdedness. We are already experiencing it between the halves and have-nots among nations. It seeds terrorism.
Meanwhile, we have a situation in which television, electronics, and speed-of-sound travel have made us a global community. We have electronic surveillance of our every move and have willingly sacrificed our freedom for security. Not only are there no secrets anymore, there is no privacy. The idea of freedom, which is the foundation of the United States, is disappearing in a sinkhole of panic as its understructure collapses.
America has gone from the “lighthouse on the hill and beacon of hope to the world” to becoming itself lost in the troubles of the world. The world, on the other hand, has taken the material success of this “melting pot of nations,” as a measure of its own. We see this in emerging technological progress of China and India. Shanghai has become a modern city with workers building skyscrapers, being paid only enough to keep body and soul together, but not paid their promised wages. We see India emerging into a technological power while 80 percent of its people are far removed from this sophistication. The world emulating the United States has become a well-dressed man hiding the decay inside the suit. You step outside the major cities of the emerging Third World countries and they more resemble primitive Africa. The United States doesn’t escape this comparison.
In the United States, the venerated middle class is shrinking. In 1982, there were 42 billionaires; in 2005, there were 474; in 1981, there were 20,444 millionaires; in 2003, there were 181, 282. In 1982, there were 1,858,000 with incomes of about $250,000; in 2004, there were nearly 6 million with this income. Meanwhile, those below the poverty line are also increasing so that the vibrant American middle class, once representing some 55 percent of all households is now around 40 percent and falling. The United States has a burgeoning upper class and a rapidly increasing underclass with a disappearing middle class. No society survives for long without violence, chaos, confusion and social upheaval without a significant middle class, that is, without a majority of the people well enough educated to be actively involved, economically and spiritually committed to maintain a relevant societal agenda. If not, implosion is a certainty. It happened to Rome.
We have seen in Africa like that child reared for seven years a certain way, and remaining that way in Dr. Montessori’s words, “for the rest of its life,” the aftershock of post colonialism on the nations of that great continent. It is bleeding human misery.
African people are somewhat frozen in that mindset of adolescent passivity, but now they are expected to behave as if nothing interrupted their respective cultural heritage. Tiny European nations such as Portugal and Belgium, among others, plundered these cultures, ripped away their resources with impunity, and subjugated Africans to Western religion and tradition, while denying these same people the continuing practice of their respective cultures.
The nightmare of today was created by the greed and thoughtlessness of yesterday. The vacuum of hopelessness and despair that now has the face of AIDS is now a monument to this past, as many of these African people in the late twentieth century were made independent nations, and left mainly to fend for themselves without the tools.
Africans were expected to do this without a vibrant middle class, without accommodating commerce, or a viable infrastructure, without seasoned leadership, or institutions supportive of a national agenda, and without either the will or the way to make it happen.
For more than one hundred years, these people were used and abused and treated as fodder for the will of their captors. This has left them open for the exploitation by the few amongst them that have been educated and know the Western ways of divisive and mercenary authority. These African leaders have often treated their own people worse than their former colonial rulers. I lived in South Africa during the era of apartheid. I now hear only criticism of how poorly the Bantu and the Coloreds are taking hold of that country, failing to see this is testimony to European as well as Afrikaner exploitation. If we are our brother’s keeper, there is a lot of making up that must happen.
Someone once said that there is only one religion but it has a thousand faces. If you look beyond the dogma or doctrine of Hinduism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Buddhism, Islamism, Judaism, and Christianity, to name only a few, you see how true this is. Respect for another is basic to all religions. They have kept the world reasonably stable but they are losing their grip on its spiritual influence. This seems to have been magnified with the explosive growth and constant disruption of social norms since World War II. We are drunk with the power of toys supplied by technology, and have not yet awakened from our hangover to perceive the damage done to ourselves and others for the “cut and control” narcotic of empty “progress.”
Along with this indulgent dance, we have weapons of mass destruction, and rumors of these WMDs that orchestrate fear in a most compelling way to give those in power a psychological edge to do as they will. Our current national governance has the good twins of Chaney and Rumsfeld that resemble in so many frightening ways the bad twins of Goebbels and Goering, using the same chicanery, duplicity, manipulation of fear, while playing the patriotic card on the national psyche, and the evils of the Infidels to justify a strategy of preemptive war. Nazism rose out of fear and pride and contempt for others not German, creating the myth of a Master Race.
The current myth is “superpower,” and nobody questions it. We hear it every day that the United States is the lone superpower of the world, and yet there is the Katrina disaster, the stalemate in Afghanistan, and Iraq, the fact that nearly half of Americans fail to finish high school, that the middle class is shrinking, that the infrastructure is in sad shape, that obesity is on the rise, and that corporate and governmental corruption is continuously breaking new ground. If this were not enough, the good twins are now saber rattling preparing us for a possible preemptive strike of Iran or North Korea, or both, if these nations don’t behave, as we would instruct them to behave. It all happened before with Rome. Something is wrong with this picture.
One of the reasons these nations are behaving as they do is because of fear. Fear has taken on the guise of the hero of our time in a time without heroes. It is the prime motivator when the world has lost its moral compass and with it its center. It is as true of the smallest nation as the largest, as true of the smallest community to the most sophisticated, as true of the East as the West, the North as the South. Fear is the only symbol that people everywhere understand and embrace with the same trepidation. Fear is what guides the good twins as it did the bad twins.
Fear has shown its face in Iraq and Afghanistan when young boys with guns are overwhelmed and commit atrocities common to war, which are uncommon to nature. You place anyone in harm’s way where fear is his only company and terrible things are bound to happen. Psychologist James Hillman sees war has become normalized as an every day affair. He finds the terrible love of war the direct route to what some want at the expense of others. War fosters an impossible collection of opposites: murder, soldierly comradeship, torture, religious conviction, the destruction of earth, patriotism, annihilation, and hope for immortal glory. It would appear people dead to life find war exhilarating, lifting them out of their stupor and despair. Death is preferred to embracing life, as embracing life means you can no longer hide in fear.
Fear is the driving force in the economics of plenty. It has taken the life out of death, and the death out of life. We have lost confident thinking as a people. We have pushed forward our national agenda fueled by fear to expect others to act in a certain way to stabilize their existence, when we have failed to stabilize ours. Afghanistan and Iraq reflect the way Americans reacted to colonial Great Britain, and unhappily, we fail to see the resemblance. We had a Civil War that nearly destroyed us as a nation. Would we have wanted interference in that war? I think not.
We have this problem of failing to see the snakes sunning themselves on the rocks in our heads, choosing instead to see our intentions as always noble, always above board, and always altruistic, as if we have answers to everyone else’s dilemma when we seem unable to solve our own.
We are a nation that has not been prepared to accept ourselves, as we are, much less to be a student of other nations and their problems as they are. How can we expect Americans who see some Americans as “jungle bunnies” and others as “lords of welfare” to understand that by the accident of birth and circumstance what they are is as much a fluke of chance as anything else? We are a nation that is overweight, undereducated, unsophisticated, grasping for straws while waving the American flag as if the mere fact of doing so changes everything.
There are three things that come to mind for us to live in peace with each other:
One, we must learn to understand each other, not from the perspective of our own experience but from the experience of others.
That means looking at the other through his eyes and not ours. It means having a modicum of understanding of his history and culture and what is especially meaningful to him in that context.
It would include his struggles and triumphs, tragedies and challenges, and how these came to define him. It would mean being acquainted with his leaders, both fanatical and moderate, in governance and religion and how this has impacted him and his people.
It means seeing others in the light of today and what they are struggling with and how it is working out for them. In a word, it means knowing them.
What you are likely to find out is that 80 to 90 percent of most people prefer to be left alone, to enjoy the comfort of their family, to work their chosen job, and to live in peace with the familiar trappings of their parochial life and culture without sanctions or interference.
We are not, by nature, a people in the general, but persons in particular. Much as we are alike, tolerance and acceptance of subtle differences supports a common brotherly love.
When collateral damage of civilian population is considered a necessary cost of warfare, then insanity rules. When you destroy Twin Towers to make a statement, taking 3,000 lives, insanity rules. When you invade a country run by warlords that previously humiliated Russia, insanity rules. When you invade a sovereign nation run by a dictator under the contrived justification of WMDs, insanity rules. When you withhold funds from a duly democratically elected party, because it is designated a terrorist organization, even though the people have spoken, insanity rules. When you spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a war with no defined enemy and no ultimate victory, insanity rules. When the heart and soul and will of a country are flabby because it is self-indulgent, solipsistic, self-important and reactive, then insanity rules.
Two, the confident thinker has to step back from all the information that has bombarded his senses and sift through it to see what makes sense and what does not.
He should not look to media to do it for him, nor government, nor the church, nor his neighbor, nor his boss, nor his family. The answers are not in Time or Newsweek, not in the New York Times nor the Washington Post, not on television network nor cable news, not on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer with pundits Mark Shields and David Brooks, not in the plethora of exposes of insiders that glut the counters of bookstores, not from the think tanks nor the Ivy League dons, but from processing experience that might include talking to a Pakistani service station neighbor or to a Thai barber, or hundreds of others that connect to a life, along with independent study.
This is not an easy quest for one who is a member of a nation that adores celebrity, worships youth, plans never to grow up and therefore never grow old, that spends more for plastic surgery than the Gross Domestic Product of some African nations, and plies its innovative nature in all manner of escapism. When there is no place for reality in the tempo of existence, nowhere land becomes a home.
Three, the confident thinker doesn’t allow himself to be blindsided by another’s “ideal self” or “self-demands.” He sees everyone he meets from the perspective of the “real self” and “role demands.”
This can get tricky because we seldom say what we mean, or mean what we say. You must get past the words to how the other feels and how this matches with how you feel. Your heart reads a person much more accurately than your head. Someone who talks like you, dresses like you, spouts similar litanies, and has similar biases like you, can sway your head, but not your heart if it has your attention.
To learn where the other is coming from, you need to listen, not lecture. The less you fill the void with your information the more you are apt to learn. This means fighting the inclination to be judgmental. Judgment oozes from your pours not necessarily from your mouth. If you think it, he will feel it. Besides, it is not all about you.
On a wider scale, it is impossible to be serious about the plight of others while worrying about your $400,000 home when your kitchen table costs more than the tents that house one hundred in a refugee camp in Darfur. There is something wrong with a world where 80 percent of the people live in near constant jeopardy. You cannot change this picture in the macro sense, but you can discourage the xenophobic comfort of emailers who tattoo your conscience with jokes about Afghans and Iraqis who are convenient store workers, gas station operators, taxi drivers, short order cooks, house cleaners, beautician shop sweepers, computer installers, and neighbors. Xenophobia doesn’t do you or anyone else any good.
The United States of America is an idea, and the idea is in trouble. It is not a place or a space. It is a thought. It is a thought that has survived for only a little while, a couple hundred years, and it can die if others are less important than you. If that should happen, then you are the mortician of the idea. That may not be your intention but a lapse of concern for others in the world could ultimately prove devastating.
It would have been easy to go the route of the self-help books and iterate all the things you would like to hear, reinforcing your comfort level, and therefore prove forgettable. We, who live in relative peace with plenty, and with the freedom to exercise our minds, and keep our bodies and souls in harmony, have a responsibility to pay attention. There is something wrong about a world that has so much needless suffering such as a dying baby covered with flies in Darfur, while her young mother who already is shriveled up as if an old lady attempts to feed her child from a dried up breast.
Africa suffers from the Montessori syndrome. She talked of having a child for seven years; colonizers have had Africa for more than seven generations. Much as we may desire to shed the yoke of the first seven years, the paradox is that only too often we emulate, duplicate, and replicate the good, the bad, and the ugly of that experience in our adult life. Likewise, the cruel and inhuman treatment of Africans on Africans today is consistent with those seven generations of subjugation. As many of us have managed to outgrow some of our faulty indoctrination in due course, so also can Africa.
If the words here anger you, try to understand why. If you find yourself falling back on bromides and rationalizations, try to poke holes in them. If you’re going to discuss them with some learned thinker, view the comments in light of what they reveal about him. If you research this discussion at some university, be skeptical of the content and context of the research. Ultimately, to recognize and truly believe in the importance of others, it is not a zero sum game, where some are accepted and others not. Acceptance is a question of tolerance, and tolerance means you never own the other’s problem, although you will help him solve it. That role is to help him feed, cloth, protect and manage, not to do these things for him. If we do, the escape from the Montessori syndrome will be truly possible.
* * * * *
Friday, June 23, 2006
CONFIDENT THINKING: COMMANDMENT NO. FOUR -- EXPECT TO BE CONFIDENT!
TEN COMMANDMENTS OF CONFIDENT THINKING
NUMBER FOUR
EXPECT TO BE CONFIDENT
EXPECT PEOPLE TO LISTEN TO YOU
CONFIDENCE IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL MINDSET
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© June 2006
If we agree success is ambiguous, then expectations are clearly ambivalent. It finds people dreaming of the weekend while working, dreaming of a near or distant future, dreaming of a special celebration, while the intervening present is so much drudgery that must be endured. Once we arrive, “nothing is so good as it seems beforehand,” as George Eliot puts it. Why is that?
We will examine the ambivalence of expectations in several ways. First with a discussion of the “Fisher Model of Conflict,” then “Patterns of Expectations,” and finally the “Triangle of Confident Thinking.”
We send and receive mixed messages everyday, not only to others but to ourselves as well. We tell people one thing, think another, with them hearing a third. We hear what we want to hear and build our expectations on what often turns out never have been said or intended.
We play psychological games with each other and with ourselves. We verbalize promises we never intend to keep, as similar promises are verbalized to us. Trust is often built on this flimsy skeleton collapsing into a pile of disappointment for everyone.
There is a perverse consistency in this psychological climate that is often driven by the dreamlike nature of expectations. People aren’t bricks and mortar and cement, but strangely enough, expectations are realized in a building process not unlike creating a structure. The problem with expectations is not having them; the problem is that the focus is more likely on the product of the attention, then on the process where creative effort takes place.
College students cannot wait to earn their degrees, not realizing that they will feed off the joy, sorrow, disappointment, ecstasy, success and failure of that experience for the rest of their lives. It will be their magic touchstone when everything came together, when freedom and insouciance were taken for granted. If they thought teachers were tough, it is a walk in the park compared to bosses. College is a time when adult-children are given permission to remain in suspended adolescence. Sadly, the pull of this nostalgia has found many never making the transition into authentic adulthood.
“FISHER MODEL OF CONFLICT AND STRESS RESOLUTION”
PSYCHOLOGICAL FORCES WITHIN INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS
“The Fisher Conflict Model” creates a dynamic between the individual’s “ideal self” and “real self,” and how this influences the perception of the situation and others in terms of “self-demands” and “role demands.”
There are two pressures acting on us at all times. One is the “real self. The “real self” is how we actually are, warps and all, with the snakes sunning themselves on the rocks in our heads. If we accept the “real self,” chances are we have resisted our programming at some point, and established our identity on our own terms. If this suggests the wisdom of rebellion, so be it. The point is only we can establish identity consistent with our nature. Nobody else can do it for us. This gives birth to the “adult ego state,” or the “real self,” which has the emotional maturity to see the situation as it actually is, not as it should be, and to deal with it accordingly. The situation is understood in terms of its real demands.
The “ideal self” is how we have been programmed to behave and believe and be. It is a combination of the “critical parent” (how we are supposed to be) and “nurturing parent” (forgiving us for our transgressions) that were programmed into us long ago, and which we have never managed to outgrow. It is the “superego state” or “moral self.” It is the judgmental self that owns everyone’s problems seeing the situation in terms of black and white, never gray, expecting the situation to behave, as it should, not as it is. Guilt and self-loathing are common with this state because the person cannot forgive himself for not being perfection personified, or the ego ideal. The “ideal self” denies the snakes and therefore is crippled by them in groveling immaturity.
“Self-demands” are prominent if we are needy: needing attention, needing to protect our fragile ego, needing to have a sounding board for our woes. Such a person needs to make a good impression, needs people to know how important he is; needs to be associated with people who are accepted, belong, well connected; needs to have confirmation of his biases; needs to be included in the right company. Self-demand finds it impossible for him to listen, as he is only interested in what is important to him.
“Role Demands” place the focus on the demands of the situation. The role constantly changes from listening to a friend, to completing a work assignment, to supporting a loved one in a stress situation, to being concerned for others. The person shows an easy grace and self-confidence as he changes from the demands of one role to another, never confusing them. He brings the best out in others because he pays attention. He actively listens. Complimenting others comes easily and naturally, as do criticism and correction in terms of what they are doing and have done.
To better understand the difference between these two demands in terms of confident thinking, there is a simple checklist:
With “self-demands,” it is evident that you need to protect your fragile ego; you need to let people know how important you are; how experienced and skilled you are; and how lucky they are to be working with you; you need to identify with people who are “somebody”; you are inclined to drop names of important people, to brag about your children as an implicit means of self-absorption; you need others to share your personal biases toward everybody and everything. If others don’t fall in line with your thinking, they are stupid and classified in belittling stereotypes.
With “role demands,” you perceive the situation in light of its demands. You demonstrate confidence and caring and for it earn group trust. You see a synergistic connection between individual and group needs, and don’t attempt to realize one at the expense of the other. You are kind, considerate, consistent, fair and respectful, and treat everyone with dignity, while holding behavior to a high standard. Put otherwise, you are no pushover. You display confident thinking without badgering others with this. Others feel better for being in your company. You know life is not fair. Nor are you sidetracked with self-esteem issues, convinced that everyone has to do something before he can feel good about himself. You expect your life and work to be judged critically, but fairly, and you expect you won’t always see eye-to-eye with your bosses. So, it is no surprise that others don’t always see eye-to-eye with you. You know life is not divided into semesters boning for exams, and then relaxing, but a continuing process of getting a report card everyday.
Consequently, if a person is obsessed with his “ideal self” and “self-demands,” the situation will likely be misperceived and misinterpreted. Reason will not convince the person to think otherwise. He is an emotional cripple heading toward personal chaos, self-destruction, and if allowed, toward disharmony, chaos and confusion for others.
On the other, the confident thinker will be comfortable with his “real self” and “role demands” of the situation. This will lead to personal influence, self-realization, and build toward health, harmony and satisfaction with others. He will demonstrate patience and a focus on the process required of the expected goal. “Role demands” will also be demonstrated in helping others define and realize their roles. Self-confidence is contagious and will permeate the group. His coach’s mindset allows him to adapt to the strengths and capabilities of others rather than forcing them to fit his system.
There is a natural zone of conflict in interpersonal relationships between the particulars and the situation. While we are at war within ourselves, this same conflict goes on within others as well. Consequently, a given situation can be perceived in multiple ways. This complexity can be mind-boggling but it need not be.
A simple rule to recognize is that cooperation is always voluntary and freely given, while compliance is always involuntarily and coercively given. Why do I insist on “always”? Because each of us has his own individual space. When someone violates that space, we either take exception and show our colors, or retreat as the case may be. It is well to remember:
The FIRST STAGE in interpersonal contact is the “politeness stage.” We are nice and want others to think well of us.
The SECOND STAGE is the “suspicious stage.” The natural inclination is to protect ourselves from the unknown and therefore to question the motives of others.
The THIRD STAGE is the “fight, flight, adapt, submit, or surrender stage.” Fight is questioning for understanding and clarification. Sarcasm or nonverbal moodiness is a form of flight. Adapt, submit and surrender represent the precipitous decline to personal enslavement. Where the body is there no spirit. With such passive workers, they bring their bodies to work but leave their minds at home.
The FOURTH STAGE is “cooperation, communication, and collaboration stage.” Once doubt is allayed, the individual is ready for a trusting relationship freely given. Unfortunately, because of impatience, impertinence and intimidation, many exercise “self-demands” by attempting to leap from the first to the fourth stage, skipping the “suspicion” and “fight” stage, hoping for cooperation but realizing only compliance. As a result, 80 percent of the effort in such an organization is directed at making an impression with only 20 percent directed at performance.
If the individual is comfortable with his “real self” and is guided by “role demands,” it follows that he is likely to perceive the situation correctly and be inclined to act consistent with situational demands. Conversely, if it is necessary to impress others with his “ideal self” and make certain they appreciate his “self-demands,” then there is little chance that the situation will be defined properly or acted upon competently.
We have all encountered this behavior. As soon as someone says, “do you know who I am,” the “ideal self” and “self-demands” are on display, and there is little chance the situation will be perceived clearly. Obsessed with sensitivity, the person strapped with an “ideal self” reacts blindly to criticism blurring an appreciation of the situation and relevance of the comment. More than a few ships have metaphorically sunk with this attitude.
The paradox is that people who exemplify brutish behavior often treat some people with respect and others not; applaud actions of favorites but fail to appreciate efforts of others. This feeds conflict, discontent, and divides effort. The “ideal self,” given to this display, is inclined to choose like-minded people to key positions while rejecting others with complementary strengths. This magnifies weakness and penalizes the organization. It often ends badly. The organization wheels eventually come off when the least powerful are treated shabbily by the most powerful.
If the tendency is for us to be anxious about how we look and are treated, it is inevitable we will vacillate between the “parent ego state” and the “child ego state.” We will suffer from the idealization of how we are supposed to be seen and treated compared to how others actually see and appreciate us. The emotional maturity flaunted will likely be that of the haughty or adolescent child in a grown up body, more worried about being hurt than understanding the situation.
To give you some sense of this, the VOICE TONE of the “parent ego state” would be condescending, while the “child ego state” full of feeling, with the ”adult ego state” demonstrating concern.
WORDS USED might be, “Do you know to whom you’re speaking?” (parent ego state) or “You are contemptible” (child ego state), or “It is obvious you’re upset, want to talk about it?” (adult ego state).
THE POSTURE of the “parent ego state” is likely to be very erect, “the child ego state” slouching, and the “adult ego state” attentive with eye contact.
FACIAL EXPRESSIONS of the “parent ego state” might be a frown, the “child ego state” quivering lips, and “adult ego state” alert eyes.
BODY POSTURE of the “parent ego state” might be hands on hips, the “child ego state” wringing of the hands, while the “adult ego state” might be leaning forward to pay closer attention.
If obsessed with how others see us, it is quite possible to become fixated with a victim’s complex looking for evidence of martyrdom in persecution. This is moving in the direction of the “ideal self” and “self-demands,” the direction of personal chaos and confusion and self-destruction. Unhappiness is not an occasional state for such a person, but a home. It is impossible in this climate to find completion or experience competence.
On the other hand, if we see ourselves as we really are, warts and all, and accept our status with humor, the snakes sunning themselves on the rocks in our head will cause us little or not trouble. We will be in touch with our “real self” and be guided by “role demands” and able to define situations we encounter clearly.
With this mature mindset, we are disinclined to be judgmental and therefore averse to owning other people’s problems. We have a firm grip on our power with which we feel no need to punish others, and therefore we have great personal influence. People like to be in our company because they feel good about themselves. For this disposition, our aspirations and expectations are also real, creating a climate for self-realization.
The dynamic of this “conflict model” goes on every day and every instant of every day in our daily lives. The conflict between the “ideal self” and “real self” and between “role demands” and “self-demands” goes on within us and between us and determines how situations are likely to be defined. The same dynamic goes on within the job, between family members, friends, and in other social situations. There is no escape from the danger of being hurt, misunderstood, criticized, or the possibility of losing our focus.
If the forces within the individual and the situation are in a healthy state, the individual should have little trouble balancing self and role demands. On the other hand, if the individual’s behavior is erratic to the extreme of paranoia, conflict is inevitable. The more mature the individual, which means the more ready to cope with conflicting situations, the more confident thinking the individual is likely to be.
What a difference confidence is when your personal system (values, beliefs, interests, expectations and perceptions) is working towards a purposeful goal. Likewise, when the forces within you are in balance with external demands, you can function at a high level. Conversely, when these forces are in conflict, you cannot function well at all.
It is well to remember that we all want to feel special:
(1) We all love ourselves. We are born egotists, and our fragile egos will do about anything to protect them which means relationships are difficult;
(2) We are more interested in ourselves than in anyone else, which finds us turning the conversation around to how we think and feel and what we value;
(3) Every person you meet wants to feel important. Treat people with respect no matter their station in life and it will return to you tenfold; and
(4) We crave the approval of others so that we may approve of ourselves. The hardest person to make friends with is ourselves, as well as the hardest person to love.
Everyone suffers this handicap to a greater or lesser degree. Kindest given brings the light of kindness out.
PATTERNS OF EXPECTATIONS
Examining the quality of our expectations allows our human nature to fall into the semblance of some accord. Everyone has hopes and dreams. They stimulate us into action. Some are immediate, others delayed, some realistic, others fanciful. We have expectations because we want to improve.
There are four aspects to patterns of expectations, which are on display when motivated. Our expectations are (1) real and attainable, (2) cohesive and not in conflict, (3) flexible and adaptable to our changing circumstances, and (4) self-generating.
To be achievable, our expectations must be consistent with our ability and the opportunities afforded us by circumstances. That means we must know, accept, understand, and show a tolerance for ourselves as we are. Without this self-awareness, the tendency is to aim to high or too low, or fail to aim at all.
A cohesive pattern of expectations means that the pieces are related and support each other and are not in conflict. You can’t expect to realize a college education if you also must have a thriving personal life partying all the time. The building blocks are in place when suitable choices are made, sacrifices accepted, and purpose, along with obstacles to be expected, is clearly understood.
Life is full of surprises, and a person must be flexible to their demands and adaptable to their consequences. Continuing the college analogy, let us say your health breaks and you’re not able to work a part time job and still carry a full course load. So, you take only a couple courses and project your graduation a semester or two later than expected.
You don’t seek a goal. You create the architecture for a goal and then pursue it. Goal generating is derived from self-generation. There is a theory in psychology called “expectancy valence motivation.” The idea of this theory is that we don’t make progress in nice linear progressions, but in static eruptions, which are human dramas.
There is no static or safe period in individual development. Once the individual attempts to play it safe, growth, paradoxically, stops and the person starts to vegetate at that level. Competence and confident thinking start to erode. In a word, it is all about self-generation. With expectations, struggle is the name of the game. Get used to it.
There is a man I know who hated school and went into the army. In the army, he found a knack for organization and a skill for strategy. He worked to qualify for officers’ training school. Once he was commissioned, he found he needed a broader understanding of the nuances of group behavior. So, he went to back school, while continuing his army career, first acquiring his high school diploma, then working his way to a degree in psychology, and ultimately a master’s degree in the discipline. He retired from the army a colonel, and immediately became active in community services, in which he is still involved. Some would say he is lucky, but luck is nothing more than preparation meeting opportunity.
This involved an encounter with resistance. The colonel embraced it, and was buoyed up by it to heighten his expectations. He had to “let go” of himself, trusting that his intrinsic self would suffice to give him control of ever changing situations. This is what happens when expectations are fed with pain, risk, struggle and dedication. The colonel embraced his resistance to self-consciousness, giving him permission to have a psychological edge when each new challenge came along.
TRIANGLE OF CONFIDENT THINKING
So, expectations bring the individual face-to-face with what he is and isn’t, and sometimes this face off can be derailing when it shouldn’t be.
The triangle of confident thinking could also be called “teaching smart people how to learn.” We have developed a surreal culture in which the only risk or pain involved is vicariously watching some reality show on television. In life, too many want to reach their fanciful goal by doing everything possible to avoid risk, pain, embarrassment, or indeed, failure. Paradoxically, success is only found in failure, never in success.
Failure is not something to avoid but to embrace. Success is realized by embracing resistance to struggle by enduring the pain and risk that expectations demand. That means you neither shoot too high nor too low but in the optimal range of your ability and experience.
The mistake many smart people make is that they consider learning simply problem solving. The problems we solve are usually the problems we create with the thinking in the first place. To get beyond this, it is necessary to realize that progress is not a linear curve, but a stuttered one.
You don’t wake up one morning and say, “I’m going to be a psychologist,” and expect all your ducks to fall immediately into place and your star to soar to its appointed orbit. That is a phantom curve to success. It will never happen.
Instead, you can expect success to experience many bumps along the way, which I call “plateaus of failure.” These bumps could be anything: personal problems, trouble with professors, difficulty managing your course load, financial reversals, losing a scholarship, or a sinking grade point. Whatever they are, they are crying for you to pay attention!
The failure plateau, whatever the cause, is a gestation period where real learning takes place. Your expectations are reevaluated, as well as your commitment and goal, while you are forced to reassess where you are versus where you expected to be.
One of the interesting accompanying aspects of a period of failure is that you are given quite a wide berth, as friends disappear, as if thinking failure is catching. This means you are not in a posture to “please others.” It also means you don’t have to appear smart. Nor do you have to pretend everything is fine. You are in a mood and disposition to take risks and endure pain. You are ready to grow.
So, at the moment you think matters couldn’t get darker or possibilities more dismal, your circumstances after a period of reflection take a quantum leap to a new stage of success, but of little real learning.
Learning takes place during the failure plateaus. Plateauing is a period when we finally confront our reality and ourselves. Processing knowledge gained during this period produces invaluable insights. I have called it “the chemistry of being in all its naked splendor if only we would allow it to happen.” All growth must have a gestation period of failure. This is yours.
So, the triangle of confident thinking has a rising success slope followed by a failure plateau with a base in which pain and risk take place, leading to the next burst of rising success, and so on, ad infinitum. You need never stop growing.
That is one reason why learning is so explosive when we are young. We are not intimidated by failure. We are not afraid to make a fool of ourselves. Failure is not even relevant to us. Indeed, the young are open to diverse experiences taking risks with the possibility of getting hurt or looking stupid. It is why young people have a facility for learning foreign languages whereas adults resist this challenge because of the possible embarrassment.
Incidentally, our aversion to physical pain appears to level off at an early age, whereas our penchant for psychological pain never seems to crest. This is important to note.
Since the pain we experience becomes more associated with psychological pain, we tend to go to great lengths to avoid it, staying in a job we hate, a relationship that is destructive, or a mindset that is self-alienating.
Likewise, we are reluctant to take on a more demanding project because the element of failure is in the back of our mind. Self-protection has formed a cage around our existence. It is as if success is a static form and a frigid substance. Because of past hurts or failures, we are fenced in and confined to self-imprisonment. This finds us avoiding certain relationships, economic opportunities, intellectual challenges, and other life experiences.
Confident thinking involves embracing failure to realize success; and that success, itself, is a process and not a product. We learn little from success, which is the outcome itself, but a great deal from failure, which involves the process.
Nor is confident thinking acquired by looking in the mirror and repeating a mantra: “I am confident, I should be confident, I will be confident.” Confident thinking comes in the same manner that growth and development come, that is, in strategic leaps.
We become a more confident thinker as we experience the process of gestation. This is when we are grappling with new information, learning how to handle it and employ it so that others may benefit from it. This is when we are learning to better understand ourselves independent of everyone else. This gestation period is a time of trauma, retrenchment, a period of assimilation of past failures and successes, a time of very important learning. It is not concerned with letting others down. It is not concerned with appearing smart. It is however open to taking risks and enduring psychological pain. The quantum leap will likely be a surprise, not something you can predict with accuracy. It is a time when expectations and life experience are in concert and you are moving forward no longer getting in your own way.
* * * * *
NUMBER FOUR
EXPECT TO BE CONFIDENT
EXPECT PEOPLE TO LISTEN TO YOU
CONFIDENCE IS A PSYCHOLOGICAL MINDSET
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© June 2006
If we agree success is ambiguous, then expectations are clearly ambivalent. It finds people dreaming of the weekend while working, dreaming of a near or distant future, dreaming of a special celebration, while the intervening present is so much drudgery that must be endured. Once we arrive, “nothing is so good as it seems beforehand,” as George Eliot puts it. Why is that?
We will examine the ambivalence of expectations in several ways. First with a discussion of the “Fisher Model of Conflict,” then “Patterns of Expectations,” and finally the “Triangle of Confident Thinking.”
We send and receive mixed messages everyday, not only to others but to ourselves as well. We tell people one thing, think another, with them hearing a third. We hear what we want to hear and build our expectations on what often turns out never have been said or intended.
We play psychological games with each other and with ourselves. We verbalize promises we never intend to keep, as similar promises are verbalized to us. Trust is often built on this flimsy skeleton collapsing into a pile of disappointment for everyone.
There is a perverse consistency in this psychological climate that is often driven by the dreamlike nature of expectations. People aren’t bricks and mortar and cement, but strangely enough, expectations are realized in a building process not unlike creating a structure. The problem with expectations is not having them; the problem is that the focus is more likely on the product of the attention, then on the process where creative effort takes place.
College students cannot wait to earn their degrees, not realizing that they will feed off the joy, sorrow, disappointment, ecstasy, success and failure of that experience for the rest of their lives. It will be their magic touchstone when everything came together, when freedom and insouciance were taken for granted. If they thought teachers were tough, it is a walk in the park compared to bosses. College is a time when adult-children are given permission to remain in suspended adolescence. Sadly, the pull of this nostalgia has found many never making the transition into authentic adulthood.
“FISHER MODEL OF CONFLICT AND STRESS RESOLUTION”
PSYCHOLOGICAL FORCES WITHIN INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS
“The Fisher Conflict Model” creates a dynamic between the individual’s “ideal self” and “real self,” and how this influences the perception of the situation and others in terms of “self-demands” and “role demands.”
There are two pressures acting on us at all times. One is the “real self. The “real self” is how we actually are, warps and all, with the snakes sunning themselves on the rocks in our heads. If we accept the “real self,” chances are we have resisted our programming at some point, and established our identity on our own terms. If this suggests the wisdom of rebellion, so be it. The point is only we can establish identity consistent with our nature. Nobody else can do it for us. This gives birth to the “adult ego state,” or the “real self,” which has the emotional maturity to see the situation as it actually is, not as it should be, and to deal with it accordingly. The situation is understood in terms of its real demands.
The “ideal self” is how we have been programmed to behave and believe and be. It is a combination of the “critical parent” (how we are supposed to be) and “nurturing parent” (forgiving us for our transgressions) that were programmed into us long ago, and which we have never managed to outgrow. It is the “superego state” or “moral self.” It is the judgmental self that owns everyone’s problems seeing the situation in terms of black and white, never gray, expecting the situation to behave, as it should, not as it is. Guilt and self-loathing are common with this state because the person cannot forgive himself for not being perfection personified, or the ego ideal. The “ideal self” denies the snakes and therefore is crippled by them in groveling immaturity.
“Self-demands” are prominent if we are needy: needing attention, needing to protect our fragile ego, needing to have a sounding board for our woes. Such a person needs to make a good impression, needs people to know how important he is; needs to be associated with people who are accepted, belong, well connected; needs to have confirmation of his biases; needs to be included in the right company. Self-demand finds it impossible for him to listen, as he is only interested in what is important to him.
“Role Demands” place the focus on the demands of the situation. The role constantly changes from listening to a friend, to completing a work assignment, to supporting a loved one in a stress situation, to being concerned for others. The person shows an easy grace and self-confidence as he changes from the demands of one role to another, never confusing them. He brings the best out in others because he pays attention. He actively listens. Complimenting others comes easily and naturally, as do criticism and correction in terms of what they are doing and have done.
To better understand the difference between these two demands in terms of confident thinking, there is a simple checklist:
With “self-demands,” it is evident that you need to protect your fragile ego; you need to let people know how important you are; how experienced and skilled you are; and how lucky they are to be working with you; you need to identify with people who are “somebody”; you are inclined to drop names of important people, to brag about your children as an implicit means of self-absorption; you need others to share your personal biases toward everybody and everything. If others don’t fall in line with your thinking, they are stupid and classified in belittling stereotypes.
With “role demands,” you perceive the situation in light of its demands. You demonstrate confidence and caring and for it earn group trust. You see a synergistic connection between individual and group needs, and don’t attempt to realize one at the expense of the other. You are kind, considerate, consistent, fair and respectful, and treat everyone with dignity, while holding behavior to a high standard. Put otherwise, you are no pushover. You display confident thinking without badgering others with this. Others feel better for being in your company. You know life is not fair. Nor are you sidetracked with self-esteem issues, convinced that everyone has to do something before he can feel good about himself. You expect your life and work to be judged critically, but fairly, and you expect you won’t always see eye-to-eye with your bosses. So, it is no surprise that others don’t always see eye-to-eye with you. You know life is not divided into semesters boning for exams, and then relaxing, but a continuing process of getting a report card everyday.
Consequently, if a person is obsessed with his “ideal self” and “self-demands,” the situation will likely be misperceived and misinterpreted. Reason will not convince the person to think otherwise. He is an emotional cripple heading toward personal chaos, self-destruction, and if allowed, toward disharmony, chaos and confusion for others.
On the other, the confident thinker will be comfortable with his “real self” and “role demands” of the situation. This will lead to personal influence, self-realization, and build toward health, harmony and satisfaction with others. He will demonstrate patience and a focus on the process required of the expected goal. “Role demands” will also be demonstrated in helping others define and realize their roles. Self-confidence is contagious and will permeate the group. His coach’s mindset allows him to adapt to the strengths and capabilities of others rather than forcing them to fit his system.
There is a natural zone of conflict in interpersonal relationships between the particulars and the situation. While we are at war within ourselves, this same conflict goes on within others as well. Consequently, a given situation can be perceived in multiple ways. This complexity can be mind-boggling but it need not be.
A simple rule to recognize is that cooperation is always voluntary and freely given, while compliance is always involuntarily and coercively given. Why do I insist on “always”? Because each of us has his own individual space. When someone violates that space, we either take exception and show our colors, or retreat as the case may be. It is well to remember:
The FIRST STAGE in interpersonal contact is the “politeness stage.” We are nice and want others to think well of us.
The SECOND STAGE is the “suspicious stage.” The natural inclination is to protect ourselves from the unknown and therefore to question the motives of others.
The THIRD STAGE is the “fight, flight, adapt, submit, or surrender stage.” Fight is questioning for understanding and clarification. Sarcasm or nonverbal moodiness is a form of flight. Adapt, submit and surrender represent the precipitous decline to personal enslavement. Where the body is there no spirit. With such passive workers, they bring their bodies to work but leave their minds at home.
The FOURTH STAGE is “cooperation, communication, and collaboration stage.” Once doubt is allayed, the individual is ready for a trusting relationship freely given. Unfortunately, because of impatience, impertinence and intimidation, many exercise “self-demands” by attempting to leap from the first to the fourth stage, skipping the “suspicion” and “fight” stage, hoping for cooperation but realizing only compliance. As a result, 80 percent of the effort in such an organization is directed at making an impression with only 20 percent directed at performance.
If the individual is comfortable with his “real self” and is guided by “role demands,” it follows that he is likely to perceive the situation correctly and be inclined to act consistent with situational demands. Conversely, if it is necessary to impress others with his “ideal self” and make certain they appreciate his “self-demands,” then there is little chance that the situation will be defined properly or acted upon competently.
We have all encountered this behavior. As soon as someone says, “do you know who I am,” the “ideal self” and “self-demands” are on display, and there is little chance the situation will be perceived clearly. Obsessed with sensitivity, the person strapped with an “ideal self” reacts blindly to criticism blurring an appreciation of the situation and relevance of the comment. More than a few ships have metaphorically sunk with this attitude.
The paradox is that people who exemplify brutish behavior often treat some people with respect and others not; applaud actions of favorites but fail to appreciate efforts of others. This feeds conflict, discontent, and divides effort. The “ideal self,” given to this display, is inclined to choose like-minded people to key positions while rejecting others with complementary strengths. This magnifies weakness and penalizes the organization. It often ends badly. The organization wheels eventually come off when the least powerful are treated shabbily by the most powerful.
If the tendency is for us to be anxious about how we look and are treated, it is inevitable we will vacillate between the “parent ego state” and the “child ego state.” We will suffer from the idealization of how we are supposed to be seen and treated compared to how others actually see and appreciate us. The emotional maturity flaunted will likely be that of the haughty or adolescent child in a grown up body, more worried about being hurt than understanding the situation.
To give you some sense of this, the VOICE TONE of the “parent ego state” would be condescending, while the “child ego state” full of feeling, with the ”adult ego state” demonstrating concern.
WORDS USED might be, “Do you know to whom you’re speaking?” (parent ego state) or “You are contemptible” (child ego state), or “It is obvious you’re upset, want to talk about it?” (adult ego state).
THE POSTURE of the “parent ego state” is likely to be very erect, “the child ego state” slouching, and the “adult ego state” attentive with eye contact.
FACIAL EXPRESSIONS of the “parent ego state” might be a frown, the “child ego state” quivering lips, and “adult ego state” alert eyes.
BODY POSTURE of the “parent ego state” might be hands on hips, the “child ego state” wringing of the hands, while the “adult ego state” might be leaning forward to pay closer attention.
If obsessed with how others see us, it is quite possible to become fixated with a victim’s complex looking for evidence of martyrdom in persecution. This is moving in the direction of the “ideal self” and “self-demands,” the direction of personal chaos and confusion and self-destruction. Unhappiness is not an occasional state for such a person, but a home. It is impossible in this climate to find completion or experience competence.
On the other hand, if we see ourselves as we really are, warts and all, and accept our status with humor, the snakes sunning themselves on the rocks in our head will cause us little or not trouble. We will be in touch with our “real self” and be guided by “role demands” and able to define situations we encounter clearly.
With this mature mindset, we are disinclined to be judgmental and therefore averse to owning other people’s problems. We have a firm grip on our power with which we feel no need to punish others, and therefore we have great personal influence. People like to be in our company because they feel good about themselves. For this disposition, our aspirations and expectations are also real, creating a climate for self-realization.
The dynamic of this “conflict model” goes on every day and every instant of every day in our daily lives. The conflict between the “ideal self” and “real self” and between “role demands” and “self-demands” goes on within us and between us and determines how situations are likely to be defined. The same dynamic goes on within the job, between family members, friends, and in other social situations. There is no escape from the danger of being hurt, misunderstood, criticized, or the possibility of losing our focus.
If the forces within the individual and the situation are in a healthy state, the individual should have little trouble balancing self and role demands. On the other hand, if the individual’s behavior is erratic to the extreme of paranoia, conflict is inevitable. The more mature the individual, which means the more ready to cope with conflicting situations, the more confident thinking the individual is likely to be.
What a difference confidence is when your personal system (values, beliefs, interests, expectations and perceptions) is working towards a purposeful goal. Likewise, when the forces within you are in balance with external demands, you can function at a high level. Conversely, when these forces are in conflict, you cannot function well at all.
It is well to remember that we all want to feel special:
(1) We all love ourselves. We are born egotists, and our fragile egos will do about anything to protect them which means relationships are difficult;
(2) We are more interested in ourselves than in anyone else, which finds us turning the conversation around to how we think and feel and what we value;
(3) Every person you meet wants to feel important. Treat people with respect no matter their station in life and it will return to you tenfold; and
(4) We crave the approval of others so that we may approve of ourselves. The hardest person to make friends with is ourselves, as well as the hardest person to love.
Everyone suffers this handicap to a greater or lesser degree. Kindest given brings the light of kindness out.
PATTERNS OF EXPECTATIONS
Examining the quality of our expectations allows our human nature to fall into the semblance of some accord. Everyone has hopes and dreams. They stimulate us into action. Some are immediate, others delayed, some realistic, others fanciful. We have expectations because we want to improve.
There are four aspects to patterns of expectations, which are on display when motivated. Our expectations are (1) real and attainable, (2) cohesive and not in conflict, (3) flexible and adaptable to our changing circumstances, and (4) self-generating.
To be achievable, our expectations must be consistent with our ability and the opportunities afforded us by circumstances. That means we must know, accept, understand, and show a tolerance for ourselves as we are. Without this self-awareness, the tendency is to aim to high or too low, or fail to aim at all.
A cohesive pattern of expectations means that the pieces are related and support each other and are not in conflict. You can’t expect to realize a college education if you also must have a thriving personal life partying all the time. The building blocks are in place when suitable choices are made, sacrifices accepted, and purpose, along with obstacles to be expected, is clearly understood.
Life is full of surprises, and a person must be flexible to their demands and adaptable to their consequences. Continuing the college analogy, let us say your health breaks and you’re not able to work a part time job and still carry a full course load. So, you take only a couple courses and project your graduation a semester or two later than expected.
You don’t seek a goal. You create the architecture for a goal and then pursue it. Goal generating is derived from self-generation. There is a theory in psychology called “expectancy valence motivation.” The idea of this theory is that we don’t make progress in nice linear progressions, but in static eruptions, which are human dramas.
There is no static or safe period in individual development. Once the individual attempts to play it safe, growth, paradoxically, stops and the person starts to vegetate at that level. Competence and confident thinking start to erode. In a word, it is all about self-generation. With expectations, struggle is the name of the game. Get used to it.
There is a man I know who hated school and went into the army. In the army, he found a knack for organization and a skill for strategy. He worked to qualify for officers’ training school. Once he was commissioned, he found he needed a broader understanding of the nuances of group behavior. So, he went to back school, while continuing his army career, first acquiring his high school diploma, then working his way to a degree in psychology, and ultimately a master’s degree in the discipline. He retired from the army a colonel, and immediately became active in community services, in which he is still involved. Some would say he is lucky, but luck is nothing more than preparation meeting opportunity.
This involved an encounter with resistance. The colonel embraced it, and was buoyed up by it to heighten his expectations. He had to “let go” of himself, trusting that his intrinsic self would suffice to give him control of ever changing situations. This is what happens when expectations are fed with pain, risk, struggle and dedication. The colonel embraced his resistance to self-consciousness, giving him permission to have a psychological edge when each new challenge came along.
TRIANGLE OF CONFIDENT THINKING
So, expectations bring the individual face-to-face with what he is and isn’t, and sometimes this face off can be derailing when it shouldn’t be.
The triangle of confident thinking could also be called “teaching smart people how to learn.” We have developed a surreal culture in which the only risk or pain involved is vicariously watching some reality show on television. In life, too many want to reach their fanciful goal by doing everything possible to avoid risk, pain, embarrassment, or indeed, failure. Paradoxically, success is only found in failure, never in success.
Failure is not something to avoid but to embrace. Success is realized by embracing resistance to struggle by enduring the pain and risk that expectations demand. That means you neither shoot too high nor too low but in the optimal range of your ability and experience.
The mistake many smart people make is that they consider learning simply problem solving. The problems we solve are usually the problems we create with the thinking in the first place. To get beyond this, it is necessary to realize that progress is not a linear curve, but a stuttered one.
You don’t wake up one morning and say, “I’m going to be a psychologist,” and expect all your ducks to fall immediately into place and your star to soar to its appointed orbit. That is a phantom curve to success. It will never happen.
Instead, you can expect success to experience many bumps along the way, which I call “plateaus of failure.” These bumps could be anything: personal problems, trouble with professors, difficulty managing your course load, financial reversals, losing a scholarship, or a sinking grade point. Whatever they are, they are crying for you to pay attention!
The failure plateau, whatever the cause, is a gestation period where real learning takes place. Your expectations are reevaluated, as well as your commitment and goal, while you are forced to reassess where you are versus where you expected to be.
One of the interesting accompanying aspects of a period of failure is that you are given quite a wide berth, as friends disappear, as if thinking failure is catching. This means you are not in a posture to “please others.” It also means you don’t have to appear smart. Nor do you have to pretend everything is fine. You are in a mood and disposition to take risks and endure pain. You are ready to grow.
So, at the moment you think matters couldn’t get darker or possibilities more dismal, your circumstances after a period of reflection take a quantum leap to a new stage of success, but of little real learning.
Learning takes place during the failure plateaus. Plateauing is a period when we finally confront our reality and ourselves. Processing knowledge gained during this period produces invaluable insights. I have called it “the chemistry of being in all its naked splendor if only we would allow it to happen.” All growth must have a gestation period of failure. This is yours.
So, the triangle of confident thinking has a rising success slope followed by a failure plateau with a base in which pain and risk take place, leading to the next burst of rising success, and so on, ad infinitum. You need never stop growing.
That is one reason why learning is so explosive when we are young. We are not intimidated by failure. We are not afraid to make a fool of ourselves. Failure is not even relevant to us. Indeed, the young are open to diverse experiences taking risks with the possibility of getting hurt or looking stupid. It is why young people have a facility for learning foreign languages whereas adults resist this challenge because of the possible embarrassment.
Incidentally, our aversion to physical pain appears to level off at an early age, whereas our penchant for psychological pain never seems to crest. This is important to note.
Since the pain we experience becomes more associated with psychological pain, we tend to go to great lengths to avoid it, staying in a job we hate, a relationship that is destructive, or a mindset that is self-alienating.
Likewise, we are reluctant to take on a more demanding project because the element of failure is in the back of our mind. Self-protection has formed a cage around our existence. It is as if success is a static form and a frigid substance. Because of past hurts or failures, we are fenced in and confined to self-imprisonment. This finds us avoiding certain relationships, economic opportunities, intellectual challenges, and other life experiences.
Confident thinking involves embracing failure to realize success; and that success, itself, is a process and not a product. We learn little from success, which is the outcome itself, but a great deal from failure, which involves the process.
Nor is confident thinking acquired by looking in the mirror and repeating a mantra: “I am confident, I should be confident, I will be confident.” Confident thinking comes in the same manner that growth and development come, that is, in strategic leaps.
We become a more confident thinker as we experience the process of gestation. This is when we are grappling with new information, learning how to handle it and employ it so that others may benefit from it. This is when we are learning to better understand ourselves independent of everyone else. This gestation period is a time of trauma, retrenchment, a period of assimilation of past failures and successes, a time of very important learning. It is not concerned with letting others down. It is not concerned with appearing smart. It is however open to taking risks and enduring psychological pain. The quantum leap will likely be a surprise, not something you can predict with accuracy. It is a time when expectations and life experience are in concert and you are moving forward no longer getting in your own way.
* * * * *
Monday, June 19, 2006
TEN COMMANDMENTS OF CONFIDENT THINKING: SEE YOURSELF SUCCESSFUL, DEVELOP SELF-IMAGE OF SUCCESS, LEARN TO PERSEVERE, AND WHEN TO TAKE A "TIME OUT"
TEN COMMANDMENTS OF CONFIDENT THINKING: NUMBER THREE
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© June 2006
SEE YOURSELF AS SUCCESSFUL, DEVELOP SELF-IMAGE OF SUCCESS IN YOUR OWN TERMS, LEARN TO PERSEVERE, AND KNOW WHEN TO TAKE “TIME OUT.”
The MODERN MAN looks after himself, because no one else does. He eats the food that would not destroy his body with cholesterol, he drinks sparingly and never to excess, he keeps his muscles fit, he pursues advancement in his career by saying the right things to principal people, he lets the new technological electronic innovations take the strain off his life, and he is sensible. He stands out in a crowd as one marked for advancement, certain to prosper in progress. He is nobody’s fool, not afraid of work, a person with aptitude for decision-making and taking charge and an independent thinker. Somehow, however, his career, his future, the success he so cherished has collapsed with the finality of an outdated computer system because he has never gotten around to doing what he truly loves. His confidence is a sham. He is on life support and doesn’t know it.
Success is one of those ambiguous words. We equate success with financial security, celebrity prominence, athletic prowess, political clout, intellectual acumen, artistic genius, scientific distinction, and military hegemony. There is a pattern here.
Success in most American eyes is financial independence. This is the perspective of those without it, seldom of those with it. The Steven Jobs, Bill Gates, Rick Waggoners, and Tom Fords are some of the hardest working people and they need not work at all. They could sit back on their billions or millions and vegetate for the rest of their lives. They choose not to because that is not what life is all about.
There are many people that hunger for success in the form of adulation and celebrity. They need an audience upon which to feed. Success goes beyond financial or professional security. They need a full-time entourage of sycophants to feed them reassuring morsels of appreciation while buffering them from the reality or experience.
We have become spectators to life finding vicarious satisfaction in adoration of performers. Take the television show “The American Idol.” Amateurs vie for recognition as entertainers. Over fifty million voted in the May 2006 “American Idol” contest, which demonstrates this pattern.
The 2006 World Cup of Soccer, which took place in Germany, had a television global audience of nearly two billion people, while hundreds of thousands traveled to Germany to attend the contests. Seventy-five thousand from Sweden, alone, were on hand for the opening match of that nation’s team.
Folly is not a matter of devotion to your favorites in sport or entertainment; folly is in attempting to emulate these idols at the expense of developing your innate talents. Tennis great Arthur Ashe once wrote that a member of his African American race had one chance in 50,000 of ever getting on the professional tennis circuit. The odds of being a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or scientist for those same African American boys were close to one in 100 if the same energy committed to sport was committed to education.
People see their idols as somebody doing something going somewhere whereas merely being a doctor, lawyer or engineer, well, it’s not the same, is it?
Many little boys want to be NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB players today. They’ll devote their time, energy, interests and their dreams towards that fantasy. When I was a boy, it was only MLB because baseball dominated American professional sport. We played baseball from sun up to sun down in the summer on the courthouse lawns in Clinton, Iowa, and attended all the Industrial League baseball games in Riverview Stadium, dreaming of the day we would have a minor league contract on our way to the majors. In a town of 33,000, no one has ever made the major leagues as an everyday player.
So, success, indeed, is an ambiguous word. People are disinclined to see success in terms of their essence and personality, circumstance and opportunities. Many drift through life chasing dreams that will never materialize.
This is not to discourage you from seeing yourself as successful, but to send the message success is a deeply personal affair. Success is a kind of work in terms of love that you have been able to make visible.
Think about that a moment, what gives you the most satisfaction? What is it you do especially well? An irony is we don’t know what we do well until someone tells us. That means we must listen. The inclination is to take for granted our special talent as if everyone has it, when not everyone does. Dean Pieper was at Clinton High in my hometown more than a half century ago, running around the track like everyone else in gym class. His gym teacher noted his speed, endurance and the ease with which he ran. He encouraged him to go out for the track team. He did, and ran the fastest mile in the United States that year, 4:21.6 minutes. He never thought he was especially talented as a runner. His talent provided him with a full scholarship to Northwestern University when otherwise he would not have been able to afford a college education.
There is a hierarchy of what we deem success when we are young. With boys in my day from age four to six, it was skill at playing common games (marbles, checkers); from six to twelve it was physical prowess in running, hitting, shooting, throwing, jumping with some kind of ball; from twelve to eighteen it was organized sport such as football, basketball, track and baseball on high school teams. Separation from doing to observing accelerated with spectator sports as only eleven players are on a football team, five on a basketball team, thirty or so in track, and nine on a baseball team.
What is unfortunate is that those who excel in sport can and commonly do neglect other talents that ensure long-term success, freeze framing them in eternal adolescence never to mature into responsible adults.
Meanwhile, again in my day, with girls from age four to six, dolls were important; six to eight the focus shifted to social activities and peer relationships; eight to twelve self-awareness brought out competitive instincts academically, socially and in terms of appearance, being increasingly goal oriented; twelve to eighteen boys were discovered against a broad band of parent-teacher attention and approval criterion with 80 percent of academic honors going to girls.
Academic achievement in college proved a reversal of this 80-20 rule with 80 percent of the academic honors going to young men. Academia took on precedence because young men, in the main, were to be the professionals, not young women.
It is a much healthier climate today, fifty years later, not only in terms of professional status, but also across the board as high school girls and young women in college are now enjoying parity in sport and disciplines formerly dominated by men.
College women have come to assert themselves academically. Nearly 70 percent of female high school graduates attend college compared to less than 60 percent of male high school graduates. Women are over 60 percent of all master degree students and earn better than 50 percent of all master degrees. Today women earn 50 percent of all doctoral degrees, while over 50 percent of medical school students are women with more than 40 percent earning medical degrees. Nearly 50 percent of those earning law degrees are women while the same number are dental students with the better than 40 percent receiving dental degrees. Likewise, women earn a majority of the degrees in pharmacy and veterinary medicine. The only disciplines in which they still lag are mathematics, physics, and chemistry, and engineering. Even in these disciplines, they have been making tremendous strides in the last quarter century.
Although there seems to be growing parity between white men and women, the same cannot be said for black and Hispanic students. Three quarters of college graduates and professional students among the black and Hispanic population are women, not men.
The success of the Feminine Movement has influenced women in giving them permission to succeed on male turf. The glass ceiling has been fragmented, and somewhat shattered but it has not collapsed. There is still inequity in pay and promotion for women despite their credentials and competence.
Still, the focus on college exclusively has generated the myth that after high school it is college or nothing, which is not true. Many positions that are only open to college graduates today could be better done with people with practical experience and special training, not necessarily college. College mania is part of the American syndrome.
The United States is a reactive society. It was obvious on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It was again apparent on September 11, 2001 when the projectile of two American commercial planes manned by terrorists destroyed the Twin Towers, killing more than 3,000 innocent American civilians.
Between these two tragedies, there was another shock. The Soviet Union’s successfully launched Sputnik into space in 1957. Predictably, there followed a hysterical drive toward science at the exclusion of everything else in our educational system. First there was the new math, then the new science, and then there was the push to make everyone a college graduate.
Perhaps no more than 20 to 30 percent of the American population is serious about academia or extended book learning.
To make the US an academic society has resulted in a “dumbing down” of education to the point that a college graduate today is not as well rounded as a high school graduate was in the 1940s, indeed, even earlier.
Listen to the letters of ordinary soldiers in Ken Burns televised “The American Civil War.” These soldiers from both sides showed an appreciation of clarity in writing. For ten years, I was an adjunct professor teaching graduate students in MBA programs for several universities and I found less than one in twenty could write a simple declarative sentence and all of them were college graduates.
We have gained technology and toys but we have lost something in the past when it comes to education. We not only have language barriers between ethnic groups but in communicating what we think to ourselves much less to anyone else.
The academic world is not for everyone. We need scholars, scientists, teachers, doctors, and the educated to man the infrastructure of society. We also need carpenters, road workers, heavy equipment operators, truck drivers, plumbers, pipe fitters, electricians, television and computer repairmen, bakers, butchers, printers, assembly workers, painters, roofers, air conditioning mechanics, bricklayers, salespeople, farm workers, practical nurses, livestock handlers, cosmetologists, hospital technicians, and surveyors.
These people need special education and training, but not necessarily four long years in a university that suspends life in meaningless nonproductive work, acquiring degrees that have little value added to anyone, leastwise to them.
When you force a person into a profession, you do him and the profession a disservice.
I saw that happen to a friend whose father insisted he become a professional man, when he preferred to continue farming his family’s 2,000 acres of rich Iowa loam soil. His father, a fifth generation farmer, had fought off corporate agribusiness predators his son’s whole life and didn’t want that to be his son’s legacy.
So, my friend became a dentist, which he hated, instead of a farmer, which he loved. He tried to convince his father to allow him to go into agricultural management at Iowa State instead of dentistry at Iowa, thinking he could rally independent farmers to resist corporate takeovers. It might have worked. He had a talent for strategy and planning.
Was my friend’s life a failure? I think so. When he failed to convince his father to finance his desired education, he could have rebelled and taken control of his life. He didn’t. He could have used his skills to persuade his father to think differently, but he caved in without a fight. He is now retired, looking back on a very unhappy forty years in dentistry, still fantasizing about how it might have been.
The wonder is how many doctors, lawyers, psychologists, engineers, chemists, executives and teachers are not doing what they would prefer to be doing.
My professor said I belonged in the humanities and not in science. This incensed my working class father. He saw such people on his trains unkempt with long hair, tennis shoes, and dirty clothes, with one word to describe them. “Can I ask you a question, Jimmy?” I nodded. “You’re not a goddamn fag are you?”
That summed up his view of humanities majors. I was not gay but I had nothing against gayness even then, and that confused and angered him. Sexual preference held no interest to me, but I stayed in chemistry showing no more courage than my friend.
My da couldn’t picture his son making a living throwing words around and getting paid for it, or sitting in a classroom throwing ideas around to students who would rather be somewhere else. So, there was certain legitimacy to his concern, which he unfortunately wrapped up in a stereotype.
So, I became a chemist with a facility for chemical theory but not for laboratory work, mainly because I am not mechanical. In my day, you had to improvise a good deal of your instrumentation for experiments. Subsequently, I went into chemical sales, not because I was interested in selling, but because I was a failure in the lab and needed to make some money quickly. I had won a fellowship to an eastern university to pursue graduate work in theoretical chemistry. This was the era of the Francis Crick and James Watson model building of DNA, with theoretical chemistry opening up. Unfortunately, my wife had our third child, and the stipend was not sufficient to carry us financially. The graduate curriculum appeared too challenging leaving little time for family or an outside job.
I continued in what I thought was an interim activity, chemical sales engineering, only to find I had a facility for reading people. I read them like a book and would one day write one about this success (Confident Selling 1970). I could feel them, feel when they were lying, and feel when I had them. I also discovered I had the “killer instinct” for closing the sale. Success followed, along with promotions, ultimately finding me working around the world.
It was in South Africa where I had my epiphany. The world I had created in my head didn’t bear out in reality. I resigned with no certainty as to my future. Returning to the US in Florida, for the next two years, I lived on savings, reading, writing and thinking, finding little clarity or direction for the exercise.
Where I had lacked the courage to resist my da’s wishes before, I was now my own man only with a family. When I was nearly broke, instead of acquiring a job, I went back to the university full-time to see if I could find answers there. I found none. I discovered instead that the university reflected the corporate world I had abandoned. Professors were like sycophant managers with little power, but an appetite for gossip, and an aptitude for passive aggression, usually directed at their students.
Managers had performance appraisal to hold over workers, whereas professors had the grade, making each a caricature of the other. Managers tended to get in the way of work by their obstructing interference. Professors got in the way of learning relying on ancient notes and failing to be students of their disciplines.
Indolence comes to mine, but what might better describe them is that they were not doing what they would prefer to be doing. I seldom came across a professor or a manager with a passion for work; more common was an obsession with ritual. Professors rested on their tenure; managers on their accruing retirement pension points.
There is an explanation for this: we all have rocks in our heads, and on those rocks are snakes sunning in our secret garden. These snakes symbolize our repressed failures, insecurities, fantasies and weaknesses that we would rather not face. To deny their existence is to throw our lives out of control, as snakebite can paralyze progress.
Doing is one thing; thinking is quite another. Balance and harmony come when what we think and do have consistency. They don’t when we are stepping on snakes.
No one is absolutely good or evil, brilliant or stupid, competent or incompetent, secure or insecure, successful or unsuccessful, but a combination. If we ignore our evil, stupidity, incompetence, insecurity or failure, these snakes sunning on the rocks in our head if provoked can cut us down in an instant. Alert to what we are can be powerful medicine for the soul. We must be eternally vigilant, self-aware and self-accepting in order to prove self-confident thinkers, and then nobody can fool us because our snakes are quiet.
Former president Richard Nixon broke in to the dean’s office to see his grades at Duke University when he was a law student and was caught. He had all “A’s,” and finished third in his class. The Watergate break-in was orchestrated on his watch to ensure his reelection. He was elected in a landslide, but was driven out of office in the cover-up. The same snake bit him twice.
Know this: these snakes cannot be removed. They are part of you and make you human. If aware of them, you can gingerly step around them, knowing when you see them in others, you have an advantage. It was why I could read people; my snakes and I were friends. These snakes are as much a part of you as your heart and lungs are.
Success comes from being aware of these snakes and avoiding their wrath. This may mean avoiding certain people, places and things. You will better understand what throws you off stride and why, and be able to adjust. Insecurity dogged ex-president Nixon, which he never got a handle on, but was otherwise brilliant.
It is no accident that the most successful people tend to have the largest menagerie of sunning snakes on the rocks in their heads. Life experience gives birth to these venomous creatures, which are most docile if acknowledged and treated with humor.
Next to persistent alertness is prudence. You cannot be afraid to back away and take a “time out” when stress and strain prove overwhelming. Retreat is not deemed a brave strategy in our culture when sometimes it is the only strategy.
To stay the course could actually eat away as if it were a cancer killing your spirit, poisoning your resolve and collapsing your will to survive. Society forgives us when we are physically ill but is ambivalent when we are emotionally weary. This is sad because it is our sick culture that most likely made us ill in the first place.
I took a “time out” after South Africa that I called a two-year sabbatical. Was it necessary? Had I not taken it I don’t think I would be writing these words. Friends and family reminded me I had a wife and four small children to support, that it was not morally correct to leave my job and promising career. Even coworkers were critical often behind my back. I appreciated their sincerity, but their sentiments did not influence me.
They did not understand what was obvious to me: I was heading for a nervous breakdown. Composed on the outside, I was a wreck on the inside, fatigued, disillusioned, depressed and demoralized. South Africa was 180 degrees out of phase with who and what I thought I was. Nothing any longer made sense to me. I was programmed to respond to superiors, direct reports and the troops, which now left a bad taste in my mouth. The lie I was living weighed heavily on my heart. My mind started to think what a relief it would be to die and escape all this. My life had no meaning. It was inconsequential, a total failure while being a financial success.
So, before it was popular to drop out, I took a “time out.” Did I ask anyone for advice? No. My boss, while in London invited me up from Johannesburg for an afternoon chat. I found it ludicrous cabling: “Cannot come. Too busy. I resign. Send paperwork.” Traveling 12,000 miles for a chat was simply a power move and I was fresh out of patience with the game. Have I regretted that action? No. Have I ever been as successful? Not financially, but intellectually, yes. Would I do it again? Yes.
Confident thinking is not driven by an arbitrary standard of morality, but by a morality consistent with the constitution of the person. The only sin is waste and I was wasting away. Confident thinking demands sifting through all the conditioning that bombards our senses from early development on to discover our center. Society’s arbitrary standards are spirit killers, and one of the greatest spirit killers is its capricious definition of success.
If your success makes little sense to you, it is time to examine your programming. Don’t confuse this meaning with escaping your programming. That is impossible. Your programming produced the snakes sunning themselves on the rocks in your head. Recognize this; accept it.
Acknowledge your programming and it won’t get in your way. Reconsider some of the things you have been told to believe, to value, to consider important, to be true. Now be honest: how do they actually stack up with you?
Reflect on some of the things people say about you that are unflattering. Yes, you’ll experience hurt, but try to understand them from their vantage point. Remember: 99 percent of the people you meet have only a vague notion of themselves. That is why when they are giving you advice they are talking to themselves without knowing it.
Should they say, “Mend your ways, come back into the fold, and behave as we do!” Since you are not they, as they are not you, you could say, “Thanks but no thanks.” It is the recognition that whatever others say nobody can truly hurt you except yourself, and you are capable of self-destruction. They can talk about you, sabotage you, blackmail you, but they cannot derail you unless you capitulate to their whims.
Whatever their motivation, fear is a common factor because people are afraid to know themselves and will resent you for knowing yourself. They fear confident thinking. That doesn’t mean you have to duplicate my approach to realize your health, but it does mean that your success definition must be yours, alone. That is the key to success and the route to confident thinking.
* * * * *
James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.
© June 2006
SEE YOURSELF AS SUCCESSFUL, DEVELOP SELF-IMAGE OF SUCCESS IN YOUR OWN TERMS, LEARN TO PERSEVERE, AND KNOW WHEN TO TAKE “TIME OUT.”
The MODERN MAN looks after himself, because no one else does. He eats the food that would not destroy his body with cholesterol, he drinks sparingly and never to excess, he keeps his muscles fit, he pursues advancement in his career by saying the right things to principal people, he lets the new technological electronic innovations take the strain off his life, and he is sensible. He stands out in a crowd as one marked for advancement, certain to prosper in progress. He is nobody’s fool, not afraid of work, a person with aptitude for decision-making and taking charge and an independent thinker. Somehow, however, his career, his future, the success he so cherished has collapsed with the finality of an outdated computer system because he has never gotten around to doing what he truly loves. His confidence is a sham. He is on life support and doesn’t know it.
Success is one of those ambiguous words. We equate success with financial security, celebrity prominence, athletic prowess, political clout, intellectual acumen, artistic genius, scientific distinction, and military hegemony. There is a pattern here.
Success in most American eyes is financial independence. This is the perspective of those without it, seldom of those with it. The Steven Jobs, Bill Gates, Rick Waggoners, and Tom Fords are some of the hardest working people and they need not work at all. They could sit back on their billions or millions and vegetate for the rest of their lives. They choose not to because that is not what life is all about.
There are many people that hunger for success in the form of adulation and celebrity. They need an audience upon which to feed. Success goes beyond financial or professional security. They need a full-time entourage of sycophants to feed them reassuring morsels of appreciation while buffering them from the reality or experience.
We have become spectators to life finding vicarious satisfaction in adoration of performers. Take the television show “The American Idol.” Amateurs vie for recognition as entertainers. Over fifty million voted in the May 2006 “American Idol” contest, which demonstrates this pattern.
The 2006 World Cup of Soccer, which took place in Germany, had a television global audience of nearly two billion people, while hundreds of thousands traveled to Germany to attend the contests. Seventy-five thousand from Sweden, alone, were on hand for the opening match of that nation’s team.
Folly is not a matter of devotion to your favorites in sport or entertainment; folly is in attempting to emulate these idols at the expense of developing your innate talents. Tennis great Arthur Ashe once wrote that a member of his African American race had one chance in 50,000 of ever getting on the professional tennis circuit. The odds of being a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or scientist for those same African American boys were close to one in 100 if the same energy committed to sport was committed to education.
People see their idols as somebody doing something going somewhere whereas merely being a doctor, lawyer or engineer, well, it’s not the same, is it?
Many little boys want to be NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB players today. They’ll devote their time, energy, interests and their dreams towards that fantasy. When I was a boy, it was only MLB because baseball dominated American professional sport. We played baseball from sun up to sun down in the summer on the courthouse lawns in Clinton, Iowa, and attended all the Industrial League baseball games in Riverview Stadium, dreaming of the day we would have a minor league contract on our way to the majors. In a town of 33,000, no one has ever made the major leagues as an everyday player.
So, success, indeed, is an ambiguous word. People are disinclined to see success in terms of their essence and personality, circumstance and opportunities. Many drift through life chasing dreams that will never materialize.
This is not to discourage you from seeing yourself as successful, but to send the message success is a deeply personal affair. Success is a kind of work in terms of love that you have been able to make visible.
Think about that a moment, what gives you the most satisfaction? What is it you do especially well? An irony is we don’t know what we do well until someone tells us. That means we must listen. The inclination is to take for granted our special talent as if everyone has it, when not everyone does. Dean Pieper was at Clinton High in my hometown more than a half century ago, running around the track like everyone else in gym class. His gym teacher noted his speed, endurance and the ease with which he ran. He encouraged him to go out for the track team. He did, and ran the fastest mile in the United States that year, 4:21.6 minutes. He never thought he was especially talented as a runner. His talent provided him with a full scholarship to Northwestern University when otherwise he would not have been able to afford a college education.
There is a hierarchy of what we deem success when we are young. With boys in my day from age four to six, it was skill at playing common games (marbles, checkers); from six to twelve it was physical prowess in running, hitting, shooting, throwing, jumping with some kind of ball; from twelve to eighteen it was organized sport such as football, basketball, track and baseball on high school teams. Separation from doing to observing accelerated with spectator sports as only eleven players are on a football team, five on a basketball team, thirty or so in track, and nine on a baseball team.
What is unfortunate is that those who excel in sport can and commonly do neglect other talents that ensure long-term success, freeze framing them in eternal adolescence never to mature into responsible adults.
Meanwhile, again in my day, with girls from age four to six, dolls were important; six to eight the focus shifted to social activities and peer relationships; eight to twelve self-awareness brought out competitive instincts academically, socially and in terms of appearance, being increasingly goal oriented; twelve to eighteen boys were discovered against a broad band of parent-teacher attention and approval criterion with 80 percent of academic honors going to girls.
Academic achievement in college proved a reversal of this 80-20 rule with 80 percent of the academic honors going to young men. Academia took on precedence because young men, in the main, were to be the professionals, not young women.
It is a much healthier climate today, fifty years later, not only in terms of professional status, but also across the board as high school girls and young women in college are now enjoying parity in sport and disciplines formerly dominated by men.
College women have come to assert themselves academically. Nearly 70 percent of female high school graduates attend college compared to less than 60 percent of male high school graduates. Women are over 60 percent of all master degree students and earn better than 50 percent of all master degrees. Today women earn 50 percent of all doctoral degrees, while over 50 percent of medical school students are women with more than 40 percent earning medical degrees. Nearly 50 percent of those earning law degrees are women while the same number are dental students with the better than 40 percent receiving dental degrees. Likewise, women earn a majority of the degrees in pharmacy and veterinary medicine. The only disciplines in which they still lag are mathematics, physics, and chemistry, and engineering. Even in these disciplines, they have been making tremendous strides in the last quarter century.
Although there seems to be growing parity between white men and women, the same cannot be said for black and Hispanic students. Three quarters of college graduates and professional students among the black and Hispanic population are women, not men.
The success of the Feminine Movement has influenced women in giving them permission to succeed on male turf. The glass ceiling has been fragmented, and somewhat shattered but it has not collapsed. There is still inequity in pay and promotion for women despite their credentials and competence.
Still, the focus on college exclusively has generated the myth that after high school it is college or nothing, which is not true. Many positions that are only open to college graduates today could be better done with people with practical experience and special training, not necessarily college. College mania is part of the American syndrome.
The United States is a reactive society. It was obvious on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It was again apparent on September 11, 2001 when the projectile of two American commercial planes manned by terrorists destroyed the Twin Towers, killing more than 3,000 innocent American civilians.
Between these two tragedies, there was another shock. The Soviet Union’s successfully launched Sputnik into space in 1957. Predictably, there followed a hysterical drive toward science at the exclusion of everything else in our educational system. First there was the new math, then the new science, and then there was the push to make everyone a college graduate.
Perhaps no more than 20 to 30 percent of the American population is serious about academia or extended book learning.
To make the US an academic society has resulted in a “dumbing down” of education to the point that a college graduate today is not as well rounded as a high school graduate was in the 1940s, indeed, even earlier.
Listen to the letters of ordinary soldiers in Ken Burns televised “The American Civil War.” These soldiers from both sides showed an appreciation of clarity in writing. For ten years, I was an adjunct professor teaching graduate students in MBA programs for several universities and I found less than one in twenty could write a simple declarative sentence and all of them were college graduates.
We have gained technology and toys but we have lost something in the past when it comes to education. We not only have language barriers between ethnic groups but in communicating what we think to ourselves much less to anyone else.
The academic world is not for everyone. We need scholars, scientists, teachers, doctors, and the educated to man the infrastructure of society. We also need carpenters, road workers, heavy equipment operators, truck drivers, plumbers, pipe fitters, electricians, television and computer repairmen, bakers, butchers, printers, assembly workers, painters, roofers, air conditioning mechanics, bricklayers, salespeople, farm workers, practical nurses, livestock handlers, cosmetologists, hospital technicians, and surveyors.
These people need special education and training, but not necessarily four long years in a university that suspends life in meaningless nonproductive work, acquiring degrees that have little value added to anyone, leastwise to them.
When you force a person into a profession, you do him and the profession a disservice.
I saw that happen to a friend whose father insisted he become a professional man, when he preferred to continue farming his family’s 2,000 acres of rich Iowa loam soil. His father, a fifth generation farmer, had fought off corporate agribusiness predators his son’s whole life and didn’t want that to be his son’s legacy.
So, my friend became a dentist, which he hated, instead of a farmer, which he loved. He tried to convince his father to allow him to go into agricultural management at Iowa State instead of dentistry at Iowa, thinking he could rally independent farmers to resist corporate takeovers. It might have worked. He had a talent for strategy and planning.
Was my friend’s life a failure? I think so. When he failed to convince his father to finance his desired education, he could have rebelled and taken control of his life. He didn’t. He could have used his skills to persuade his father to think differently, but he caved in without a fight. He is now retired, looking back on a very unhappy forty years in dentistry, still fantasizing about how it might have been.
The wonder is how many doctors, lawyers, psychologists, engineers, chemists, executives and teachers are not doing what they would prefer to be doing.
My professor said I belonged in the humanities and not in science. This incensed my working class father. He saw such people on his trains unkempt with long hair, tennis shoes, and dirty clothes, with one word to describe them. “Can I ask you a question, Jimmy?” I nodded. “You’re not a goddamn fag are you?”
That summed up his view of humanities majors. I was not gay but I had nothing against gayness even then, and that confused and angered him. Sexual preference held no interest to me, but I stayed in chemistry showing no more courage than my friend.
My da couldn’t picture his son making a living throwing words around and getting paid for it, or sitting in a classroom throwing ideas around to students who would rather be somewhere else. So, there was certain legitimacy to his concern, which he unfortunately wrapped up in a stereotype.
So, I became a chemist with a facility for chemical theory but not for laboratory work, mainly because I am not mechanical. In my day, you had to improvise a good deal of your instrumentation for experiments. Subsequently, I went into chemical sales, not because I was interested in selling, but because I was a failure in the lab and needed to make some money quickly. I had won a fellowship to an eastern university to pursue graduate work in theoretical chemistry. This was the era of the Francis Crick and James Watson model building of DNA, with theoretical chemistry opening up. Unfortunately, my wife had our third child, and the stipend was not sufficient to carry us financially. The graduate curriculum appeared too challenging leaving little time for family or an outside job.
I continued in what I thought was an interim activity, chemical sales engineering, only to find I had a facility for reading people. I read them like a book and would one day write one about this success (Confident Selling 1970). I could feel them, feel when they were lying, and feel when I had them. I also discovered I had the “killer instinct” for closing the sale. Success followed, along with promotions, ultimately finding me working around the world.
It was in South Africa where I had my epiphany. The world I had created in my head didn’t bear out in reality. I resigned with no certainty as to my future. Returning to the US in Florida, for the next two years, I lived on savings, reading, writing and thinking, finding little clarity or direction for the exercise.
Where I had lacked the courage to resist my da’s wishes before, I was now my own man only with a family. When I was nearly broke, instead of acquiring a job, I went back to the university full-time to see if I could find answers there. I found none. I discovered instead that the university reflected the corporate world I had abandoned. Professors were like sycophant managers with little power, but an appetite for gossip, and an aptitude for passive aggression, usually directed at their students.
Managers had performance appraisal to hold over workers, whereas professors had the grade, making each a caricature of the other. Managers tended to get in the way of work by their obstructing interference. Professors got in the way of learning relying on ancient notes and failing to be students of their disciplines.
Indolence comes to mine, but what might better describe them is that they were not doing what they would prefer to be doing. I seldom came across a professor or a manager with a passion for work; more common was an obsession with ritual. Professors rested on their tenure; managers on their accruing retirement pension points.
There is an explanation for this: we all have rocks in our heads, and on those rocks are snakes sunning in our secret garden. These snakes symbolize our repressed failures, insecurities, fantasies and weaknesses that we would rather not face. To deny their existence is to throw our lives out of control, as snakebite can paralyze progress.
Doing is one thing; thinking is quite another. Balance and harmony come when what we think and do have consistency. They don’t when we are stepping on snakes.
No one is absolutely good or evil, brilliant or stupid, competent or incompetent, secure or insecure, successful or unsuccessful, but a combination. If we ignore our evil, stupidity, incompetence, insecurity or failure, these snakes sunning on the rocks in our head if provoked can cut us down in an instant. Alert to what we are can be powerful medicine for the soul. We must be eternally vigilant, self-aware and self-accepting in order to prove self-confident thinkers, and then nobody can fool us because our snakes are quiet.
Former president Richard Nixon broke in to the dean’s office to see his grades at Duke University when he was a law student and was caught. He had all “A’s,” and finished third in his class. The Watergate break-in was orchestrated on his watch to ensure his reelection. He was elected in a landslide, but was driven out of office in the cover-up. The same snake bit him twice.
Know this: these snakes cannot be removed. They are part of you and make you human. If aware of them, you can gingerly step around them, knowing when you see them in others, you have an advantage. It was why I could read people; my snakes and I were friends. These snakes are as much a part of you as your heart and lungs are.
Success comes from being aware of these snakes and avoiding their wrath. This may mean avoiding certain people, places and things. You will better understand what throws you off stride and why, and be able to adjust. Insecurity dogged ex-president Nixon, which he never got a handle on, but was otherwise brilliant.
It is no accident that the most successful people tend to have the largest menagerie of sunning snakes on the rocks in their heads. Life experience gives birth to these venomous creatures, which are most docile if acknowledged and treated with humor.
Next to persistent alertness is prudence. You cannot be afraid to back away and take a “time out” when stress and strain prove overwhelming. Retreat is not deemed a brave strategy in our culture when sometimes it is the only strategy.
To stay the course could actually eat away as if it were a cancer killing your spirit, poisoning your resolve and collapsing your will to survive. Society forgives us when we are physically ill but is ambivalent when we are emotionally weary. This is sad because it is our sick culture that most likely made us ill in the first place.
I took a “time out” after South Africa that I called a two-year sabbatical. Was it necessary? Had I not taken it I don’t think I would be writing these words. Friends and family reminded me I had a wife and four small children to support, that it was not morally correct to leave my job and promising career. Even coworkers were critical often behind my back. I appreciated their sincerity, but their sentiments did not influence me.
They did not understand what was obvious to me: I was heading for a nervous breakdown. Composed on the outside, I was a wreck on the inside, fatigued, disillusioned, depressed and demoralized. South Africa was 180 degrees out of phase with who and what I thought I was. Nothing any longer made sense to me. I was programmed to respond to superiors, direct reports and the troops, which now left a bad taste in my mouth. The lie I was living weighed heavily on my heart. My mind started to think what a relief it would be to die and escape all this. My life had no meaning. It was inconsequential, a total failure while being a financial success.
So, before it was popular to drop out, I took a “time out.” Did I ask anyone for advice? No. My boss, while in London invited me up from Johannesburg for an afternoon chat. I found it ludicrous cabling: “Cannot come. Too busy. I resign. Send paperwork.” Traveling 12,000 miles for a chat was simply a power move and I was fresh out of patience with the game. Have I regretted that action? No. Have I ever been as successful? Not financially, but intellectually, yes. Would I do it again? Yes.
Confident thinking is not driven by an arbitrary standard of morality, but by a morality consistent with the constitution of the person. The only sin is waste and I was wasting away. Confident thinking demands sifting through all the conditioning that bombards our senses from early development on to discover our center. Society’s arbitrary standards are spirit killers, and one of the greatest spirit killers is its capricious definition of success.
If your success makes little sense to you, it is time to examine your programming. Don’t confuse this meaning with escaping your programming. That is impossible. Your programming produced the snakes sunning themselves on the rocks in your head. Recognize this; accept it.
Acknowledge your programming and it won’t get in your way. Reconsider some of the things you have been told to believe, to value, to consider important, to be true. Now be honest: how do they actually stack up with you?
Reflect on some of the things people say about you that are unflattering. Yes, you’ll experience hurt, but try to understand them from their vantage point. Remember: 99 percent of the people you meet have only a vague notion of themselves. That is why when they are giving you advice they are talking to themselves without knowing it.
Should they say, “Mend your ways, come back into the fold, and behave as we do!” Since you are not they, as they are not you, you could say, “Thanks but no thanks.” It is the recognition that whatever others say nobody can truly hurt you except yourself, and you are capable of self-destruction. They can talk about you, sabotage you, blackmail you, but they cannot derail you unless you capitulate to their whims.
Whatever their motivation, fear is a common factor because people are afraid to know themselves and will resent you for knowing yourself. They fear confident thinking. That doesn’t mean you have to duplicate my approach to realize your health, but it does mean that your success definition must be yours, alone. That is the key to success and the route to confident thinking.
* * * * *
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