I Can't Take It Any More
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.
- Leo Buscaglia, American author, motivational speaker, "Dr. Love" (1924-1998)
When someone has the power to change lives, to make others feel as if their lives have been saved and are much improved, that person deserves attention.
To me, Leo Buscaglia was "the Hug Doctor." He hugged everyone. Even other men did not feel threatened as Leo's infectious smile convinced them that they wanted to be hugged by him. He made others want to hug each other.
My father introduced me to Leo Buscaglia through the latter's many PBS specials. It shocked me when my father first hugged me after seeing Dr. Buscaglia. As a young man who played competitive hockey in a violent league, my father was more apt to fight (even to need police protection because of it) than to hug. As a father he avoided hugging me as he preferred hugging a liquor bottle. My father didn't know how to hug, had no idea how important touch was to a child. A fatherless child himself, he didn't know much about parenting.He had given up alcohol at age 65. He started hugging after he saw Leo. My father came to like hugging. I came to believe that he was a pretty good guy after all. Before he retired he was just the man who came home for supper and naps. Not for hugging.
That sequence of events is important. From Leo I learned that everyone likes to be hugged. As I studied the subject more, I began to understand how important touch is to people. Strange as it may sound to those unfamiliar with the subject, loving touch (hugging is a prime example) is the way we measure love.
We may not know for sure what love is, though everyone wants it, and most of us don't know how to measure love or how to give it in such as way that the message of love will be accepted and understood. Now you do. Give it with a smile, by holding hands, by dancing, with flowers, any way you like. Just make sure you back up your message with loving touch.
It doesn't really matter what kind of touch so long as it's understood as loving by both people. As the Nike ads say, just do it. Something deep inside us tells us that the people who love us most touch us most.What does hugging have to do with worry, the core of the quote? Quite a bit, as you will see.
Worry has no positive side. It's all negative. Worry has never solved anything, but it has destroyed lives and relationships. What's more, people worry mostly about things that never happen. It's like an addiction. How can a person stop worrying if he or she is a worrying kind of person?
How about a hug? No one can give and receive a decent hug and worry at the same time. But hugs last only a few seconds, so how can a person stop themselves from resuming their ingrained habit of worrying?
One hug will not suffice for anyone. Eighteen a day will. Every day. (What? Is he joking?) If you can't imagine hugging someone you love 18 times every day, you need other forms of loving touch to substitute in for the hugs you can't perform.
You will find it extremely hard to worry when someone you love and who loves you hugs you or touches you in a loving way 18 times every day. Can't fit that in? Can't imagine someone who loves you finding time? That's like saying you can't find time to put gas into your car. You can find time if it matters. Love matters, at least if you want to keep it.Do you have trouble coping with your problems sometimes? Maybe most of the time? The biggest part of a coping deficit is confusion. The easiest way to alleviate confusion in your life is to have lots of love in it. How do you get that? Right, hugging and loving touch. (See? You have been paying attention.) Your mind will be better prepared to cope with problems in your life if it doesn't get bogged down in its search for love.
Your mind will be clear and your problems seem small if you don't feel a lack of love. And how will you know if you have enough love in your life? For one thing, you won't be worrying about your problems. For another, you will feel loved. Yes, it really is that simple.Leo Buscaglia was loved by everyone he knew. At least by everyone he hugged. And who hugged back. I have seen two documentaries that showed two women who lived alone, in different cities (they may both have been widows) who knew they needed hugs but could no longer get them in the way they formerly could. Each one went out onto a main street in their city and asked total strangers if they wanted a hug. In each case, more than half of the strangers said they did want a hug. They got one. None complained. Some came day after day for more helpings.Love, hugging, lack of worry and having the ability to cope with our problems all help our immune systems to function at their best. Studies have shown that immune systems are compromised by worry over problems and lack of love.
How do you get love if you don't have enough or someone to give you more hugs? Love has a secret. Just as hugging requires at least two people, love works best with two or more. However, while a hug usually requires equal participation by all parties, love does not. Give love and you will get back more than you gave. You may not get back more from everyone, but the extra from some will more than make up for it.
Who should you give your love to? Turn it around and ask yourself if you would refuse an offer of love from anyone. But...love? Sometimes love is shown simply by caring for others. Care for someone who has no one to care for them.
Care about others who need your help. They will perceive it as love. You will feel good.
Now go and practice what you have learned. Just do it. Prove to yourself that it works.Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents, teachers and anyone who wants to learn the basics of what everyone should know about life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Showing posts with label coping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coping. Show all posts
Monday, December 13, 2010
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
What if You Just Can't Cope?
Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone.
- Czeslaw Milosz, poet and novelist (1911-2004)
Marc loved his new home. What he loved most about it was that Kathy would finally have a kitchen of her own. And the three kids, Joelle, 12, Marc-Ange, 7 and Louis-Philippe, 4, would have a yard of their own to play in. In the Saguenay area of Chicoutimi, Quebec, as in most parts of North America, to be able to hold you head high in your community you have to own your own home. The Laliberté family reached that milestone about six months ago. They had a home to call their own.
Then it all unravelled.
Despite falling lending rates for mortgages, people chose to remain in their old homes rather than buy new ones. A real estate agent, Marc Laliberté couldn't sell enough in a failing market so his employer had to let him go not long before Christmas. Mom Kathy Gauthier had brought in some much needed cash to support the family from her Christmas rush job, but that income disappeared just before Christmas when she was laid off.
In the face of impending public shame and the humiliation expected to come with it when the Lalibertés lost everything, including their dreams, what could the family do? Who could they turn to for answers?
Quebec provincial police believe, based on the evidence, that Kathy and Marc had decided on a murder-suicide pact. As the bodies of the children had no marks, they were likely either poisoned or smothered. Marc's body was hacked up enough that he couldn't survive. Kathy, slash wounds on her arms, managed to call the 911 emergency number so their bodies would be found before they decayed.
Kathy didn't die. Emergency services personnel took her to hospital where she is expect to recover. Police say they have sufficient evidence to lay first degree murder charges against her.
Consider Kathy's state of mind as she gets better. To have done what police believe she did required that she be tragically depressed and distraught. When she recovers, the thought of spending the rest of her life in prison might well prompt her to complete the job she failed earlier, taking her own life. If financial distress caused the family shame, killing her family would cause her further psychological trauma. In prison, where inmates traditionally don't take kindly to anyone known to have killed a child, Kathy would likely find death preferable to being surrounded by enemies all the time. One way or another, in prison she would be a goner.
Everyone faces bad times in their life. The Laliberté family had no idea how to cope with their most critical bad time, the loss of their home, their dreams, their future. Without considering the consequences of what Marc and Kathy decided to do, they chose an even more desperate and destructive path. Ultimately, that decision destroyed five lives.
With all of the education opportunities offered in our communities, where is a course offered that can help people learn how to cope with personal tragedy? With steadily rising rates of teen suicide, what are we doing about it other than to find someone to blame? With individuals and families sinking into poverty and many people choosing to live on the street because they can't afford a decent and safe place to live, often turning to begging just to survive, what public policies do we have that will turn these situations around?
As usual, everything governments decide to do--if they choose to acknowledge a problem at all--is reactive. Try to fix what's broken after it's damaged, rather than preventing it from happening beforehand.
Part of how we cope in the face of tragedy or depression is physiological (that is, chemicals produced naturally by the body). The adrenal hormone cortisol, for example, keeps most people upright when tragedy strikes while the lack of it or low levels send others over the edge. The more important component of coping is learned skills. To learn coping skills we need to have sources. They must be taught.
Knowing what to do in a personal crisis removes the necessity for the body to use its own chemicals to prevent our bodies from damaging themselves. That "knowing" is called coping skills.
The first rule of coping is that we will live through tragedy or depression, recover, and be more capable people for it afterwards. We will survive. For someone who doesn't know that they will survive and that everything will come together again eventually, the only thing they may see is the devastation of their lives and the lives of their loved ones. If the problem is depression, they can only see the tragedy of their own lives, as depression forces people to be self-centred, solely self-interested.
Both depression and a low level of cortisone could affect the immune system, which could prolong the effects of the crisis, chemically trigger a disease such as cancer or bring about chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia or some similar syndrome or disease affected by the immune system.
Knowing that much alone could save lives. It could help people understand how they will get through their own problems that seem life threatening at the time. It will help others assist those with problems because they will know how to help.
The book Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems explains not only how to cope with personal problems, it also provides a methodology and resources whereby families, communities, schools and governments can launch programs that will give people the knowledge and skills they need before tragedy strikes.
When it comes to tragedy, ignorance helps no one. It's incumbent on each of us to do what we can to save lives. As the quote at the beginning of this article said, we don't have to be heroes, just want to avoid hurting anyone. We now have at hand the ability to prevent tragedies such as the one in Quebec from happening.
The way to help and the means to do so is in our hands.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow competent and confident children who can cope with life's downturns and tragedies without creating more of their own.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Czeslaw Milosz, poet and novelist (1911-2004)
Marc loved his new home. What he loved most about it was that Kathy would finally have a kitchen of her own. And the three kids, Joelle, 12, Marc-Ange, 7 and Louis-Philippe, 4, would have a yard of their own to play in. In the Saguenay area of Chicoutimi, Quebec, as in most parts of North America, to be able to hold you head high in your community you have to own your own home. The Laliberté family reached that milestone about six months ago. They had a home to call their own.
Then it all unravelled.
Despite falling lending rates for mortgages, people chose to remain in their old homes rather than buy new ones. A real estate agent, Marc Laliberté couldn't sell enough in a failing market so his employer had to let him go not long before Christmas. Mom Kathy Gauthier had brought in some much needed cash to support the family from her Christmas rush job, but that income disappeared just before Christmas when she was laid off.
In the face of impending public shame and the humiliation expected to come with it when the Lalibertés lost everything, including their dreams, what could the family do? Who could they turn to for answers?
Quebec provincial police believe, based on the evidence, that Kathy and Marc had decided on a murder-suicide pact. As the bodies of the children had no marks, they were likely either poisoned or smothered. Marc's body was hacked up enough that he couldn't survive. Kathy, slash wounds on her arms, managed to call the 911 emergency number so their bodies would be found before they decayed.
Kathy didn't die. Emergency services personnel took her to hospital where she is expect to recover. Police say they have sufficient evidence to lay first degree murder charges against her.
Consider Kathy's state of mind as she gets better. To have done what police believe she did required that she be tragically depressed and distraught. When she recovers, the thought of spending the rest of her life in prison might well prompt her to complete the job she failed earlier, taking her own life. If financial distress caused the family shame, killing her family would cause her further psychological trauma. In prison, where inmates traditionally don't take kindly to anyone known to have killed a child, Kathy would likely find death preferable to being surrounded by enemies all the time. One way or another, in prison she would be a goner.
Everyone faces bad times in their life. The Laliberté family had no idea how to cope with their most critical bad time, the loss of their home, their dreams, their future. Without considering the consequences of what Marc and Kathy decided to do, they chose an even more desperate and destructive path. Ultimately, that decision destroyed five lives.
With all of the education opportunities offered in our communities, where is a course offered that can help people learn how to cope with personal tragedy? With steadily rising rates of teen suicide, what are we doing about it other than to find someone to blame? With individuals and families sinking into poverty and many people choosing to live on the street because they can't afford a decent and safe place to live, often turning to begging just to survive, what public policies do we have that will turn these situations around?
As usual, everything governments decide to do--if they choose to acknowledge a problem at all--is reactive. Try to fix what's broken after it's damaged, rather than preventing it from happening beforehand.
Part of how we cope in the face of tragedy or depression is physiological (that is, chemicals produced naturally by the body). The adrenal hormone cortisol, for example, keeps most people upright when tragedy strikes while the lack of it or low levels send others over the edge. The more important component of coping is learned skills. To learn coping skills we need to have sources. They must be taught.
Knowing what to do in a personal crisis removes the necessity for the body to use its own chemicals to prevent our bodies from damaging themselves. That "knowing" is called coping skills.
The first rule of coping is that we will live through tragedy or depression, recover, and be more capable people for it afterwards. We will survive. For someone who doesn't know that they will survive and that everything will come together again eventually, the only thing they may see is the devastation of their lives and the lives of their loved ones. If the problem is depression, they can only see the tragedy of their own lives, as depression forces people to be self-centred, solely self-interested.
Both depression and a low level of cortisone could affect the immune system, which could prolong the effects of the crisis, chemically trigger a disease such as cancer or bring about chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia or some similar syndrome or disease affected by the immune system.
Knowing that much alone could save lives. It could help people understand how they will get through their own problems that seem life threatening at the time. It will help others assist those with problems because they will know how to help.
The book Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems explains not only how to cope with personal problems, it also provides a methodology and resources whereby families, communities, schools and governments can launch programs that will give people the knowledge and skills they need before tragedy strikes.
When it comes to tragedy, ignorance helps no one. It's incumbent on each of us to do what we can to save lives. As the quote at the beginning of this article said, we don't have to be heroes, just want to avoid hurting anyone. We now have at hand the ability to prevent tragedies such as the one in Quebec from happening.
The way to help and the means to do so is in our hands.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow competent and confident children who can cope with life's downturns and tragedies without creating more of their own.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, May 30, 2008
One Life Goal: Achieved
The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want most for what you want now.
- Hilary Hinton "Zig" Ziglar, American author, motivational speaker (b. 1926)
While I am not fond of absolute pronouncements (they leave no room for exceptions), Mr. Ziglar's statement contains a great deal of truth.
Why do we trade long term goals for short term pleasures or desires?
This happens more today than ever before in history, likely because people have more opportunities to gratify themselves now rather than struggle to achieve long term goals that may or may not pan out later.
People accept jobs that have them working 75 to 90 hours per week, carry around laptops and cell phones, even grouse when they must turn their phones off while in a theatre, all to accumulate a high income they don't have time to spend effectively. They may lose their families and spend their income on stuff they would not need if they didn't work all the time. Their pleasure comes from buying, not from doing.
People take drugs for a few minutes of bliss, then forget from one time to the next the horrifying experience of regaining their undrugged senses after the fact. Their marriages, their families and their friendships eventually disintegrate, but they need that hit of pleasure for a few minutes no matter what the cost later.
People marry the wrong partners because they believe it will help them in years to come. They get the looks and recognition for a short time, but live years of misery later when it doesn't work out.
People buy products they see advertised--such as cosmetics, cosmetic surgery, fashion design clothing or upscale cars--despite the fact that these rarely achieve their intended purpose (real enjoyment) and often leave the buyer cash-poor, unable to engage in other worthwhile activities because they don't have enough money left. They don't "get it" that a $100,000 a year income is the same as a $20,000 a year income if both spend it all and have nothing left to show for it.
Why? The answer, I believe, is that we no longer encourage children to have long term goals for their lives as adults. Rather than urging them to determine what they want to make of their lives, what they want to accomplish with their time on this planet, our culture teaches them to buy for pleasure and recognition and work as hard as you must to get the necessary income (as high as possible) to do it.
In my personal life, I didn't have much in the way of goals as a young man. With my intellectual and physical impairments, social backwardness and emotional late development, I thought I would be lucky just to survive long enough to retire from something.
However, I did have one long term goal. One summer day when I was about 16 years old and working for the summer in a factory, a overheard one worker tell another "I never have conversations with people younger than 25 because they don't know anything." A quick self-examination persuaded me that I fit that, I didn't know anything, not much about any subject, no skills at any trade, no aspirations to get them, no hope.
I decided on the spot that one day I would like to know enough that I could speak with knowledge and confidence on some subject. As I had no idea which subject to choose, I decided that I had better gain a bit of knowledge on as many subjects as possible before I selected one to specialize in.
In the process of devouring information on a wide variety of topics over many years, I managed to neglect deciding which subject would be my specialty. Coincidentally, I became a teacher because teaching held more security for a man with a young family than the media work I had been in. That was an accomplishment in itself, since I was functionally illiterate at the time.
As getting an undergraduate degree, then a master's degree from a university brought in more money for a teacher in my region, I secured those as well. Still functionally illiterate. I became skilled at thinking through a subject for a paper, then searching out quotes in books I had not read to support my theses. (It was easy as I only had to read the quotes the authors of the books had quoted, not the whole of the books. Then I requoted the quotes and gave attribution to both authors.)
In my mid 40s, I learned to read for content and enjoyment. That improved my ability to accumulate more information and knowledge.
Eventually I became someone people turned to for information and answers. As my university experience specialized in sociology, people come to me for advice on subjects relating to the social sciences. I had reached my goal.
It had taken nearly 50 years from that first motivational prompt, but I had accomplished what few others had, achieved my life goal.
Looking around at people I know, I realize that few of them have life goals. Real goals they work towards. Most of them have more expensive cars than mine, have bigger homes than mine and pay taxes on higher incomes than mine.
But they aren't as happy. They don't understand why. So they go smoke some grass or get drunk and forget about it.
Remember, our job as adults is to teach the generations following us to make the world better, not to screw it up more than we did. Long term goals, life goals, are important.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents, teachers and anyone who wants to teach children what they need to know (outside of schoolwork) to make successes of their lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Hilary Hinton "Zig" Ziglar, American author, motivational speaker (b. 1926)
While I am not fond of absolute pronouncements (they leave no room for exceptions), Mr. Ziglar's statement contains a great deal of truth.
Why do we trade long term goals for short term pleasures or desires?
This happens more today than ever before in history, likely because people have more opportunities to gratify themselves now rather than struggle to achieve long term goals that may or may not pan out later.
People accept jobs that have them working 75 to 90 hours per week, carry around laptops and cell phones, even grouse when they must turn their phones off while in a theatre, all to accumulate a high income they don't have time to spend effectively. They may lose their families and spend their income on stuff they would not need if they didn't work all the time. Their pleasure comes from buying, not from doing.
People take drugs for a few minutes of bliss, then forget from one time to the next the horrifying experience of regaining their undrugged senses after the fact. Their marriages, their families and their friendships eventually disintegrate, but they need that hit of pleasure for a few minutes no matter what the cost later.
People marry the wrong partners because they believe it will help them in years to come. They get the looks and recognition for a short time, but live years of misery later when it doesn't work out.
People buy products they see advertised--such as cosmetics, cosmetic surgery, fashion design clothing or upscale cars--despite the fact that these rarely achieve their intended purpose (real enjoyment) and often leave the buyer cash-poor, unable to engage in other worthwhile activities because they don't have enough money left. They don't "get it" that a $100,000 a year income is the same as a $20,000 a year income if both spend it all and have nothing left to show for it.
Why? The answer, I believe, is that we no longer encourage children to have long term goals for their lives as adults. Rather than urging them to determine what they want to make of their lives, what they want to accomplish with their time on this planet, our culture teaches them to buy for pleasure and recognition and work as hard as you must to get the necessary income (as high as possible) to do it.
In my personal life, I didn't have much in the way of goals as a young man. With my intellectual and physical impairments, social backwardness and emotional late development, I thought I would be lucky just to survive long enough to retire from something.
However, I did have one long term goal. One summer day when I was about 16 years old and working for the summer in a factory, a overheard one worker tell another "I never have conversations with people younger than 25 because they don't know anything." A quick self-examination persuaded me that I fit that, I didn't know anything, not much about any subject, no skills at any trade, no aspirations to get them, no hope.
I decided on the spot that one day I would like to know enough that I could speak with knowledge and confidence on some subject. As I had no idea which subject to choose, I decided that I had better gain a bit of knowledge on as many subjects as possible before I selected one to specialize in.
In the process of devouring information on a wide variety of topics over many years, I managed to neglect deciding which subject would be my specialty. Coincidentally, I became a teacher because teaching held more security for a man with a young family than the media work I had been in. That was an accomplishment in itself, since I was functionally illiterate at the time.
As getting an undergraduate degree, then a master's degree from a university brought in more money for a teacher in my region, I secured those as well. Still functionally illiterate. I became skilled at thinking through a subject for a paper, then searching out quotes in books I had not read to support my theses. (It was easy as I only had to read the quotes the authors of the books had quoted, not the whole of the books. Then I requoted the quotes and gave attribution to both authors.)
In my mid 40s, I learned to read for content and enjoyment. That improved my ability to accumulate more information and knowledge.
Eventually I became someone people turned to for information and answers. As my university experience specialized in sociology, people come to me for advice on subjects relating to the social sciences. I had reached my goal.
It had taken nearly 50 years from that first motivational prompt, but I had accomplished what few others had, achieved my life goal.
Looking around at people I know, I realize that few of them have life goals. Real goals they work towards. Most of them have more expensive cars than mine, have bigger homes than mine and pay taxes on higher incomes than mine.
But they aren't as happy. They don't understand why. So they go smoke some grass or get drunk and forget about it.
Remember, our job as adults is to teach the generations following us to make the world better, not to screw it up more than we did. Long term goals, life goals, are important.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents, teachers and anyone who wants to teach children what they need to know (outside of schoolwork) to make successes of their lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Can You save A Life?
"In life you can never be too kind or too fair; everyone you meet is carrying a heavy load. When you go through your day expressing kindness and courtesy to all you meet, you leave behind a feeling of warmth and good cheer, and you help alleviate the burdens everyone is struggling with."
- Brian Tracy
Some will always think you a sucker for being so nice. They may even criticize you and try to take advantage of you.
Too bad. Jealousy will do that to people.
They hate to see others who do good works, who do charitable acts without expectation of reward, who try to help others, because it doesn't conform to their miserable and depressing viewpoint of humanity.
They are so focussed on themselves and the dirty tricks and misfortunes fate has played on them that they can't look at the world from anyone else's point of view.
If you can't think what life must be like inside someone else's skin, you can't appreciate the hardships that others endure. Those who can and do look at life from another's point of view usually (in my experience, always) find that they wouldn't trade their life and their troubles for those of anyone else.
That's a strange phenomenon. When we only look at our own problems and consider how hard life is on us, we seem to have the worst problems in the world. When we seriously think about the problems that others must endure--really learn what they are and how other people struggle to cope with them--we never want to trade ours for theirs.
Think of any famous person you know, especially someone whose life you may have studied to some extent. Not just the good stuff, but the bumps, potholes and sinkholes of that person's life as well. The more you learn about the real life--the inside story that the public doesn't usually learn--the more likely you will be to be thankful you don't have that person's problems.
Look at the people you meet every day, the people closest to you, with the same eyes. Every one of them struggles with problems and almost every one will hide them so that you learn nothing. Everyone wants you to think they are fearless, until proven otherwise. Everyone wants you to believe they never make mistakes, until they are caught.
Everyone wants you to believe that they can make it on their own, no matter what their problems and no matter how little help they have with them, until they break down.
Sometimes that breakdown is emotional. Sometimes it shows up as an addiction. Often it appears as unusual or antisocial behaviour, though this is usually done away from the eyes of others these people know. Sometimes we learn about that person's problems as a result of suicide or murder, or both.
If you are only thinking about your own problems and not those of others around you, when they go over the edge you may not be prepared. You may not be able to help.
You may miss the signs and live to regret it for years afterward.
Other people have it worse than you. If you dig deep enough, you may find that everyone else does. Be gentle. Cut them some slack. Forgive. Offer a shoulder, or some time to listen.
You may save a life. You will certainly enrich your own in the process.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for people who want to teach others, especially children, how to cope with life's problems and how to help them understand the vulnerability of others they know.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Brian Tracy
Some will always think you a sucker for being so nice. They may even criticize you and try to take advantage of you.
Too bad. Jealousy will do that to people.
They hate to see others who do good works, who do charitable acts without expectation of reward, who try to help others, because it doesn't conform to their miserable and depressing viewpoint of humanity.
They are so focussed on themselves and the dirty tricks and misfortunes fate has played on them that they can't look at the world from anyone else's point of view.
If you can't think what life must be like inside someone else's skin, you can't appreciate the hardships that others endure. Those who can and do look at life from another's point of view usually (in my experience, always) find that they wouldn't trade their life and their troubles for those of anyone else.
That's a strange phenomenon. When we only look at our own problems and consider how hard life is on us, we seem to have the worst problems in the world. When we seriously think about the problems that others must endure--really learn what they are and how other people struggle to cope with them--we never want to trade ours for theirs.
Think of any famous person you know, especially someone whose life you may have studied to some extent. Not just the good stuff, but the bumps, potholes and sinkholes of that person's life as well. The more you learn about the real life--the inside story that the public doesn't usually learn--the more likely you will be to be thankful you don't have that person's problems.
Look at the people you meet every day, the people closest to you, with the same eyes. Every one of them struggles with problems and almost every one will hide them so that you learn nothing. Everyone wants you to think they are fearless, until proven otherwise. Everyone wants you to believe they never make mistakes, until they are caught.
Everyone wants you to believe that they can make it on their own, no matter what their problems and no matter how little help they have with them, until they break down.
Sometimes that breakdown is emotional. Sometimes it shows up as an addiction. Often it appears as unusual or antisocial behaviour, though this is usually done away from the eyes of others these people know. Sometimes we learn about that person's problems as a result of suicide or murder, or both.
If you are only thinking about your own problems and not those of others around you, when they go over the edge you may not be prepared. You may not be able to help.
You may miss the signs and live to regret it for years afterward.
Other people have it worse than you. If you dig deep enough, you may find that everyone else does. Be gentle. Cut them some slack. Forgive. Offer a shoulder, or some time to listen.
You may save a life. You will certainly enrich your own in the process.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for people who want to teach others, especially children, how to cope with life's problems and how to help them understand the vulnerability of others they know.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Saturday, April 07, 2007
An Explanation for Teenage Rebellion
Be good and you will be lonesome.
- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
It's a shame that this quote was taken out of context (I don't have access to its original material source). Mark Twain embedded life lessons or observations about human behaviour in just about every story he told.
To adults this seems like an observation about life. To an adolescent, it's advice.
In the latter part of grade school and the early years of high school, every child see that the most popular kids in their grade and above are those who are a little bit naughty, if not outright criminal.
It's part of the teenage rebellion thing. The kids who brag about being bad come across as being the best at rebelling. The best attracts attention, including "friends" and members of the opposite sex.
In the western world we have come to accept that teenage rebellion is part of the process of coming of age. It's almost expected. This is not the case in most of the world where the teen years are ones where a child transforms into an adult, not seamlessly but without large scale rebellion.
Why the difference? In the west we assume that if we teach our children the principles of our culture--that whatever has to do with money is good and the more of it that is either earned or spent is best--that our children will simply grow into our money-oriented culture and adapt as we did. In most of the world, money is not a god to be worshipped.
For much of the non-western world, simply surviving takes up most time for adults and adolescents. Teenagers must learn from their parents about how to find food and support to ward off enemies or they won't thrive as adults, have families and grow old enough to be supported by their children.
To accomplish this, people must teach to their children the details of their culture, including everything to do with work, support systems, friendships, alliances and how to deal with the problems of life that have been faced and overcome by their forebears. Life continues using the proven ways of the past because life itself is at risk if anything different is attempted.
In the west we have a different attitude toward the future, especially of our children. We grew up believing (because we were taught) that anything is possible, that every job possibility is available to someone who is prepared to work for it, that the economy will provide for those who work hard and that traditional life skills didn't need to be taught because the world is changing so fast that new skills would be needed anyway.
From the point of view of adolescents, they see parents who have trouble coping with their lives, so turn to divorce, drugs, alcohol, gambling, prostitution and theft (or cheating), among other things. Their role models do not conform to the ethics and morals they were taught (though loosely and ineffectively in many cases). They don't want to be like their parents, so they rebel.
The problem is that they don't know how to rebel constructively, so they rebel in ways that often turn out to be destructive. Consequently, western countries tend to have the highest rates of their citizens in prison (the US is the highest in the world, by a good margin) and the highest rates of mental illness and people taking mood-enhancing or mood-controlling medications to make their lives bearable.
One recent change in high schools (in some cities) is that the geeks are now among the more popular students. Shocking? Not at all. They are the students who are most likely to have the highest paying jobs, to become wealthy in the working world. The money ethic hasn't changed, but it has taken some of the lustre away from doctors and lawyers.
Teenagers rebel because they are confused. The closer they get to adulthood, the more they learn that the lifestyles of their parents are not sustainable, which is why the parents turn to personally or socially destructive behaviours. The young people want something different.
So long as we do not teach our young people what they need to know as adults, including coping skills, and meet their needs, they will want something different and will "rebel." Rebelling is their way of signalling their needs to us, but we take it as simply bad behaviour and feel they need to be punished.
These are generalizations, of course, and do not apply to every teenager or every family. They are social trends with enough study having been done on the subject to show that the conclusions are correct in a general sense.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make our social weaknesses clear so that we have a chance to correct them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
It's a shame that this quote was taken out of context (I don't have access to its original material source). Mark Twain embedded life lessons or observations about human behaviour in just about every story he told.
To adults this seems like an observation about life. To an adolescent, it's advice.
In the latter part of grade school and the early years of high school, every child see that the most popular kids in their grade and above are those who are a little bit naughty, if not outright criminal.
It's part of the teenage rebellion thing. The kids who brag about being bad come across as being the best at rebelling. The best attracts attention, including "friends" and members of the opposite sex.
In the western world we have come to accept that teenage rebellion is part of the process of coming of age. It's almost expected. This is not the case in most of the world where the teen years are ones where a child transforms into an adult, not seamlessly but without large scale rebellion.
Why the difference? In the west we assume that if we teach our children the principles of our culture--that whatever has to do with money is good and the more of it that is either earned or spent is best--that our children will simply grow into our money-oriented culture and adapt as we did. In most of the world, money is not a god to be worshipped.
For much of the non-western world, simply surviving takes up most time for adults and adolescents. Teenagers must learn from their parents about how to find food and support to ward off enemies or they won't thrive as adults, have families and grow old enough to be supported by their children.
To accomplish this, people must teach to their children the details of their culture, including everything to do with work, support systems, friendships, alliances and how to deal with the problems of life that have been faced and overcome by their forebears. Life continues using the proven ways of the past because life itself is at risk if anything different is attempted.
In the west we have a different attitude toward the future, especially of our children. We grew up believing (because we were taught) that anything is possible, that every job possibility is available to someone who is prepared to work for it, that the economy will provide for those who work hard and that traditional life skills didn't need to be taught because the world is changing so fast that new skills would be needed anyway.
From the point of view of adolescents, they see parents who have trouble coping with their lives, so turn to divorce, drugs, alcohol, gambling, prostitution and theft (or cheating), among other things. Their role models do not conform to the ethics and morals they were taught (though loosely and ineffectively in many cases). They don't want to be like their parents, so they rebel.
The problem is that they don't know how to rebel constructively, so they rebel in ways that often turn out to be destructive. Consequently, western countries tend to have the highest rates of their citizens in prison (the US is the highest in the world, by a good margin) and the highest rates of mental illness and people taking mood-enhancing or mood-controlling medications to make their lives bearable.
One recent change in high schools (in some cities) is that the geeks are now among the more popular students. Shocking? Not at all. They are the students who are most likely to have the highest paying jobs, to become wealthy in the working world. The money ethic hasn't changed, but it has taken some of the lustre away from doctors and lawyers.
Teenagers rebel because they are confused. The closer they get to adulthood, the more they learn that the lifestyles of their parents are not sustainable, which is why the parents turn to personally or socially destructive behaviours. The young people want something different.
So long as we do not teach our young people what they need to know as adults, including coping skills, and meet their needs, they will want something different and will "rebel." Rebelling is their way of signalling their needs to us, but we take it as simply bad behaviour and feel they need to be punished.
These are generalizations, of course, and do not apply to every teenager or every family. They are social trends with enough study having been done on the subject to show that the conclusions are correct in a general sense.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make our social weaknesses clear so that we have a chance to correct them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Asking About Someone's Welfare Could Change Your Life
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."
- Plato
But it doesn't seem like it, does it?
Yesterday I asked a friend how he was. He replied "Can't complain. No one would listen anyway." I responded that I would listen. His retort was "Yeah, but you won't care."
Was he telling me that I didn't care about his problems, that he didn't want to divulge them to me, that he was afraid of seeming vulnerable by telling me his problems, that he didn't want to take the time to explain his problems to me because I couldn't help him? Maybe simply that he was having a bad day?
Fortunately he knew from other occasions that I did care about him and his family. But that is not the point. Did he believe that everyone is fighting his own hard battle of life and that his was no worse than that of me or anyone else?
These questions cannot be answered by anyone but my friend. However, it's important for us to remember that the most obnoxious or irritable or annoying or sad or even happy person we meet is also suffering his own serious problems.
True, some problems are worse than others. But we raise our worst problem in our own mind to the level of a critical problem in many cases. That is, no matter how severe or mild a person's worst problem is, it seems very bad to him. That's important because some people can't cope with problems at the critical level sometimes.
How people conduct their interpersonal relations show how they are managing to cope with their problems of the day.
How a person responds to a question about their welfare can tell us a great deal about their state of mind.
Given the numbers of murders, of suicides, of people on mood altering drugs and of people who can't cope with their problems to the point where they are about to commit a crime, how we interpret their reply to our question could make a great difference to that person's future.
Maybe ours as well.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make you aware of potential problems that others have so that you know when intervention is needed.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Plato
But it doesn't seem like it, does it?
Yesterday I asked a friend how he was. He replied "Can't complain. No one would listen anyway." I responded that I would listen. His retort was "Yeah, but you won't care."
Was he telling me that I didn't care about his problems, that he didn't want to divulge them to me, that he was afraid of seeming vulnerable by telling me his problems, that he didn't want to take the time to explain his problems to me because I couldn't help him? Maybe simply that he was having a bad day?
Fortunately he knew from other occasions that I did care about him and his family. But that is not the point. Did he believe that everyone is fighting his own hard battle of life and that his was no worse than that of me or anyone else?
These questions cannot be answered by anyone but my friend. However, it's important for us to remember that the most obnoxious or irritable or annoying or sad or even happy person we meet is also suffering his own serious problems.
True, some problems are worse than others. But we raise our worst problem in our own mind to the level of a critical problem in many cases. That is, no matter how severe or mild a person's worst problem is, it seems very bad to him. That's important because some people can't cope with problems at the critical level sometimes.
How people conduct their interpersonal relations show how they are managing to cope with their problems of the day.
How a person responds to a question about their welfare can tell us a great deal about their state of mind.
Given the numbers of murders, of suicides, of people on mood altering drugs and of people who can't cope with their problems to the point where they are about to commit a crime, how we interpret their reply to our question could make a great difference to that person's future.
Maybe ours as well.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make you aware of potential problems that others have so that you know when intervention is needed.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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