The title will evoke two entirely different, independent, even incompatible, lines of thinking. One will be about the survivors, their feelings of loss, their struggles to cope, even their guilt. The other would be about the person who died. We know what happens to the body, but what happens to the personality that inhabits the body once the body is gone?
Take a few moments to think about one or the other of these lines of thinking. I will take the unusual step of leaving a few lines blank to encourage you to mull over your own thoughts.
.................
.................
.................
When the body dies, it changes. As Albert Einstein said, everything is energy, though that energy may be in the form of matter sometimes (e=mc2). In nature, in every part of the universe we know anything about, nothing ever disappears. The matter that was the body of the one who died is conserved, by nature, either as energy or as a part of something else that is matter.
We bury the dead body, a ritual dating back to ancient times when it was believed the whole body might be resurrected in a future life. Nobody today believes that a dead body will return to life as a whole person, with the same unique characteristics and personality as it had in its original life. Who would want the decayed mess anyway? When we bury a dead body, we put away that body as we turn it back to nature to deal with as it will.
Did the person, while living, have a distinct personality? Not characteristics and features. A toaster has those. Did the person have something that clearly distinguished him or her, other than characteristics and features? Toasters may look and behave alike, but not people.
If so, then that personality--called by some the soul or spirit--must continue to exist. The natural law of conservation dictates that nothing disappears. That personality must continue to exist after the physical body is put away. We don’t know how it began, we don’t know where it goes after the body breaks down, we only know that something unique to an individual exists while we know that person.
We know nothing about the nature of that conserved personality. But then, we know very little--most of us know nothing--about energy. What do you know, for example, about the nature of electricity, of magnetism, of heat, or light, even of gravity? It doesn’t mean that something doesn’t exist because we can’t see it or touch it. Energy exists. Spirit can exist too. Science, through its own laws, says that the personality of a person who once lived must continue, even as the body transforms into something else.
The spirit has no need to transform because it is neither matter nor energy, the only two kinds of existence we can even slightly understand. To be truthful, even science knows very little about these two states of energy, though it claims to have great knowledge.
Conservation is not just faith, it’s the law, a law of nature. We don’t know where that conserved personality or soul goes, where it continues to exist. But we don’t know what happens to the energy that results when matter changes its form to energy either.
Does that personality hang around in the form of memory? Science might say that is a fictitious and unnecessary construct. But then, science has no explanation--not even a clue--about what memory is. Memory, like the continuation of personality or soul of a person who once lived in a human body, may be another form of energy, or something entirely beyond what science understands today.
Not long ago science taught us that our body consisted only of our cells. Now we know that we are a symbiotic collection of cells of our body and maybe 20 times as many bacteria (mostly on our skin and in our gut) that we can’t live without and that can’t live without us. Science has trouble distinguishing between fact and beliefs that scientists masquerade as "theory" (believe it because we said it) or fact.
Let’s return to the other line of thought, what continues in the minds of people who knew the dead person before death.
A person commits suicide because they can’t cope with the pain (usually emotional pain) that has become the main focus of their life. That person did not receive what he or she needed in order to be able to cope while alive. Didn’t receive what they needed from the very people who will regret the passing of that person.
As I write this, "sweet miracle" Whitney Houston’s funeral has taken place. The cause of death has not been revealed. The outpouring of grief and emotion about her passing matches that after the death of almost anyone in history. Her body was found under water in a bathtub. Police do not suspect foul play. Her death was likely some form of suicide, perhaps accidental from an overdose of something.
No one wants to spoil the outpouring of good wishes and goodwill in memories about Whitney. Before she died, the media portrayed her as a broken singer and actor, destroyed by twenty years of cocaine abuse. Now she is an icon of beauty in many forms. "Maybe the best singer ever in history" one of the speakers at her funeral said.
Unspoken at that funeral was that Whitney Houston needed something more than people who knew her were giving. The very same people who sat in the church at her funeral. Of course they would feel guilt as well as great regret.
Are they guilty? Under the law, you are considered guilty if you break a law even if you didn't know the law existed. There is no law about tuning into the needs of others. We know little about suicide, most of us, so we would not know what a person needed before they decided to end it all.
It’s not that no one knows what every person needs in order to feel useful, needed, worthy and secure. But very few do know. As societies, we don’t pay attention to those who know the answers because knowing would only add responsibilities to our lives. It’s easier to regret later than to commit now.
As important as these lessons are, we don’t teach them to our children, in general. We don’t teach them to each other. Most of us don’t want to know about these lessons because we don’t want the responsibility of knowing what we would need to do to help someone else who is emotionally at risk. It’s all we can do to look after ourselves.
Yet we have needs too, needs that are not satisfied. If we knew what our loved ones needed, we would also know what we need ourselves. If we knew what we should know to help others, we would be less needy ourselves.
The lesson we all need to learn is to listen to others. That’s what every one of us needs. We need to listen to others and we need others to listen to us. Of course there is more to it than that. Listening means caring. The other thing we all need, that is a basic need of our species, is touch by others. Touching means caring.
Very few people would commit suicide if they sincerely believed that someone cared about them. Those who care must show their care or the message will not get through.
Now you have a beginning. Listen. Hug. Care. Show you care.
Don’t wait to attend the funeral.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers about what children need to develop socially and emotionally as well as intellectually and physically as they grow. What they need to avoid becoming statistics.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Showing posts with label emotions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label emotions. Show all posts
Monday, February 27, 2012
Thursday, December 08, 2011
When You Hurt From A Loss
When You Hurt From A Loss
"Forgetting you is not that hard to do I've done it a thousand times a day"
- lyric from "A Thousand Times A Day", by Patty Loveless
Almost everyone has gone through the pain of loss of a loved one, be it through death, divorce or the other just wanting to be out of the relationship. We all need to learn lessons from our experiences.
First of all, it’s important to realize that the hurt is our own. We impose it on ourselves. We don’t hurt for the other person, whether that person is still alive or not, we hurt for ourselves. It’s a form of self pity. The hurt is real, but no one else imposes it on us.
What if the one we love takes off and leaves us, doesn’t that mean the other person hurts us? No, it means we hurt ourselves because we regret our loss.
The love was unrequited, one-sided, at least at the point the one left the other. While we wanted the relationship to continue, the other person knew it wouldn’t work. We should ask ourselves, those of us in this situation, why we would want to continue to live with someone who knew the relationship was wrong, that it just plain wouldn’t work.
Often we feel, perhaps without admitting it to ourselves, that the loss was our own fault. We acted ourselves and it wasn’t good enough. "If only I had done things differently."
No, acting yourself is the only way you can depend on being comfortable in your own skin. The other person just didn’t want that. It’s much the same as your clearly preferring one car while disliking another. The reason doesn’t have to make sense, it just is.
How sensible is it to want someone who doesn’t want you? Isn’t that just beating yourself up?
The situation may be worse with divorce. As common as divorce is these days, it isn’t just a loss. Divorce is a signal to the world of failure. Or so many perceive it.
It may be a costly failure. That kind of mistake doesn’t come cheap in some cases. Courts and lawyers don’t help. They like records, especially when they stand to gain from record settlements.
In virtually every case of divorce, it was a bad match to start with. Something was wrong and at least one of the couple refused to admit it. "Love will conquer all" works in songs and poetry, but living it through makes for slogging that most people don’t care to endure.
Despite the fact that people living today will live almost twice as long as their recent ancestors, on average, we seem to live by the adage that "Life is short, eat the dessert first." Trouble is, many of us lose our appetite for the main course once dessert is over.
Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. (That idea was around for centuries before Einstein.) Is that not what a couple on their way to eventual divorce do?
Unfortunately, when it comes to primary relationships such as marriage or common law, do-overs seldom work. The success rate for second and third tries is perishingly low. Trying again usually just postpones the inevitable.
As with any major life loss or tragedy, the solution to a broken relationship is usually to find another one that will work better. There is no perfect mate or soul mate for most of us. We need to find someone who is prepared to tolerate us while we accept their faults, follies and failures. Love comes much easier when you can overlook those things in your significant other.
Getting past the death of a loved one, especially an unexpected death, can play hard on some people for many years. What causes the hurt? It’s our loss, not the end of life of a loved one. It’s like stabbing yourself hard.
Why does it hurt so much? Most of us are not emotionally or psychologically prepared for a sudden loss. It’s a personal loss we had no control over. Nothing we could have done might have prevented the death, in most cases. It’s life playing its worst on our heart.
Is there a way to lessen the pain? We can be better prepared. We can understand that we could get a phone call any day to say that anyone in our life has died unexpectedly. We can formulate a plan of what we would do if that happened. We can figure out exactly what procedures we would go through if something tragic happened to someone we love.
Will that lessen the loss? No. But it will make the hurt less severe, maybe having it impact our life for a shorter period of time. That’s the best we can do. Hurt is survivable for most of us. Science has proven that it is possible to die of a "broken heart" but few of us actually do.
We can also remember that our loved one might get a similar phone call to say that we have died suddenly. We can prepare plans for that too.
Death and loss of relationships are part of life. It’s worth remembering that emotions work like a pendulum: the farther they swing one way, the farther they are able to swing the other way. Those who suffer little from downswings in life lack the ability to have great joy when life is at its best for them.
The positive side of tragedy is that life always turns around. Maybe not fast enough to suit us most of the time, but that’s life.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for people who want to learn how to cope with life before they need those coping skills. It’s about learning life lessons before they are needed.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
"Forgetting you is not that hard to do I've done it a thousand times a day"
- lyric from "A Thousand Times A Day", by Patty Loveless
Almost everyone has gone through the pain of loss of a loved one, be it through death, divorce or the other just wanting to be out of the relationship. We all need to learn lessons from our experiences.
First of all, it’s important to realize that the hurt is our own. We impose it on ourselves. We don’t hurt for the other person, whether that person is still alive or not, we hurt for ourselves. It’s a form of self pity. The hurt is real, but no one else imposes it on us.
What if the one we love takes off and leaves us, doesn’t that mean the other person hurts us? No, it means we hurt ourselves because we regret our loss.
The love was unrequited, one-sided, at least at the point the one left the other. While we wanted the relationship to continue, the other person knew it wouldn’t work. We should ask ourselves, those of us in this situation, why we would want to continue to live with someone who knew the relationship was wrong, that it just plain wouldn’t work.
Often we feel, perhaps without admitting it to ourselves, that the loss was our own fault. We acted ourselves and it wasn’t good enough. "If only I had done things differently."
No, acting yourself is the only way you can depend on being comfortable in your own skin. The other person just didn’t want that. It’s much the same as your clearly preferring one car while disliking another. The reason doesn’t have to make sense, it just is.
How sensible is it to want someone who doesn’t want you? Isn’t that just beating yourself up?
The situation may be worse with divorce. As common as divorce is these days, it isn’t just a loss. Divorce is a signal to the world of failure. Or so many perceive it.
It may be a costly failure. That kind of mistake doesn’t come cheap in some cases. Courts and lawyers don’t help. They like records, especially when they stand to gain from record settlements.
In virtually every case of divorce, it was a bad match to start with. Something was wrong and at least one of the couple refused to admit it. "Love will conquer all" works in songs and poetry, but living it through makes for slogging that most people don’t care to endure.
Despite the fact that people living today will live almost twice as long as their recent ancestors, on average, we seem to live by the adage that "Life is short, eat the dessert first." Trouble is, many of us lose our appetite for the main course once dessert is over.
Albert Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. (That idea was around for centuries before Einstein.) Is that not what a couple on their way to eventual divorce do?
Unfortunately, when it comes to primary relationships such as marriage or common law, do-overs seldom work. The success rate for second and third tries is perishingly low. Trying again usually just postpones the inevitable.
As with any major life loss or tragedy, the solution to a broken relationship is usually to find another one that will work better. There is no perfect mate or soul mate for most of us. We need to find someone who is prepared to tolerate us while we accept their faults, follies and failures. Love comes much easier when you can overlook those things in your significant other.
Getting past the death of a loved one, especially an unexpected death, can play hard on some people for many years. What causes the hurt? It’s our loss, not the end of life of a loved one. It’s like stabbing yourself hard.
Why does it hurt so much? Most of us are not emotionally or psychologically prepared for a sudden loss. It’s a personal loss we had no control over. Nothing we could have done might have prevented the death, in most cases. It’s life playing its worst on our heart.
Is there a way to lessen the pain? We can be better prepared. We can understand that we could get a phone call any day to say that anyone in our life has died unexpectedly. We can formulate a plan of what we would do if that happened. We can figure out exactly what procedures we would go through if something tragic happened to someone we love.
Will that lessen the loss? No. But it will make the hurt less severe, maybe having it impact our life for a shorter period of time. That’s the best we can do. Hurt is survivable for most of us. Science has proven that it is possible to die of a "broken heart" but few of us actually do.
We can also remember that our loved one might get a similar phone call to say that we have died suddenly. We can prepare plans for that too.
Death and loss of relationships are part of life. It’s worth remembering that emotions work like a pendulum: the farther they swing one way, the farther they are able to swing the other way. Those who suffer little from downswings in life lack the ability to have great joy when life is at its best for them.
The positive side of tragedy is that life always turns around. Maybe not fast enough to suit us most of the time, but that’s life.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for people who want to learn how to cope with life before they need those coping skills. It’s about learning life lessons before they are needed.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
How to Cope When Others Hurt You
How to Cope When Others Hurt You
'More hearts pine away in secret anguish for unkindness from those who should be their comforters, than for any other calamity in life.'
- Edward Young, English poet (1681-1765)
We don't think in terms of hearts "pining" away these days. But then, Edward Young lived some time back.
Today people are sad, depressed, withdrawn or just plain "hard to get along with." We take pills, eat too much, go dancing, join clubs, watch endless reruns on TV. Or we just mope (pine away).
Loneliness and poorly developed social skills no doubt play a large part in people pining away. It's easier to pine away and be lonely if you don't know how to make new friends. Edward Young brings our attention to one cause we would all rather not think about. Living with someone who is unkind or who doesn't care enough to make life really worthwhile. In most cases, a person suffering this fate reacts the same to each of the two because they can be the same problem with only slightly different faces.
What is an unkindness? It sounds bland and meaningless, unless you're the victim. An unkindness is an act of behaviour by one person that hurts another. It's not the intent of the doer, but the reaction of the receiver that matters. Neglect can also be an act of unkindness.
Of course you may be tempted to think that something considered an unkindness is personal, that, as some believe of happiness, unkindness is a personal choice. In that case, if a person chooses to see the action of another as an unkindness, it is, but if the person chooses to ignore the act, it's not an unkindness. Choose to see something as unkind or choose to not think anything of it.
It doesn't work that way in real life. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. What one person considers unkindness seems beyond their control. If an act violates the basic life values of a person, that person is incapable of controlling their reaction. If the unkindness is in the form of neglect, that may be outside of their control as well.
What's the choice? The choice is to consider unkindness from someone we care about as not worth time or thought. Just ignore it. But ignoring behaviours that used to hurt stuns the emotions, makes them "cold." No one who is capable of deep feelings for others wants to lose that, to become cold, to maybe lose the ability to love in the process.
Therapist offices fill each day with people who feel others have been unkind, are unkind, continue to be unkind to them. They don't know how to cope with a problem they believe rests with the other person. More lives are ruined by an inability to cope with problems than for any other single reason.
So is living with or being close to a friend, neighbour or workmate who is unkind--who commits unkind acts--hopeless? It is if you believe it is.
If the unkind person is someone you live with and you want to continue that relationship, you need to show the unkind person more love. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to love them more or have sex more often. We humans assess the weight or value of the love that others have for us by touch. The more someone touches us, the more we feel that person shows their love. The touch may be casual, such as touching the other's arm as you pass. It could also be a lingering touch, such as when you watch television sitting next to each other or do something else together. Just don't linger long enough that the touch seems fake or contrived. That's turns people off.
Of course the touch method of assessing love works both ways. But many people don't know that. In fact, some people find touch--even loving touch--in some circumstances almost offensive. That kind of person lacked love and touch as a child. Learning to touch and to be touched may take that person years, but they will come around. Consistency and persistence matters. They can change if they want to and if the other person tries hard enough for long enough.
Friends, workmates and neighbours can also find ways to touch each other casually. Often that involves a hand touching the arm of the other as a means of emphasis in a conversation. That kind of touch is always brief, never more than a second or two. Longer than that could cause alarm or suspicion.
Dealing with a situation of repeated unkindness almost always involves doing something you are not accustomed to doing. If you were doing it already, the unkindness may never have occurred.
Will this method work for everyone? No. Some people are emotionally cold and can't be changed. The choice then is to stay or leave, keep the friendship or find other friends. Staying with an emotionally distant mate does not necessarily mean living a life in the belief that the other person doesn't love you. It means accepting what you can't change and doing something differently yourself.
Join a group or activity where touching is a part of the activity. Take dancing lessons, for example, or join a group where close contact is the norm. Or help others. Many volunteer situations involve circumstances where two people touch in the course of an event. Volunteering can help both the person who needs help and the volunteer. Both benefit.
Often people who need help from others have found themselves in that situation because they could not cope with their life circumstances. Sometimes those life circumstances involve needing loving touch and having no way to get it. Lives can literally dribble away when people need love and touch, don't know it, and waste their life away looking for something they don't understand in places they will never find it.
Any problem you may have with another person may be very hard to cope with. Now you have a choice. You have a way to improve the relationship between you. Or you can leave. The latter choice may not be easy, especially if the other person is a spouse or life mate. It doesn't guarantee eventual happiness either, especially if leaving means finding yourself in a life situation where you need social assistance just to survive.
Learning coping strategies may be the best answer. It isn't easy. Life problems and working through them never are.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for people who need to learn what they missed as children or who want to teach their own children what they need so they won't grow up to be socially or emotionally unbalanced adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/
'More hearts pine away in secret anguish for unkindness from those who should be their comforters, than for any other calamity in life.'
- Edward Young, English poet (1681-1765)
We don't think in terms of hearts "pining" away these days. But then, Edward Young lived some time back.
Today people are sad, depressed, withdrawn or just plain "hard to get along with." We take pills, eat too much, go dancing, join clubs, watch endless reruns on TV. Or we just mope (pine away).
Loneliness and poorly developed social skills no doubt play a large part in people pining away. It's easier to pine away and be lonely if you don't know how to make new friends. Edward Young brings our attention to one cause we would all rather not think about. Living with someone who is unkind or who doesn't care enough to make life really worthwhile. In most cases, a person suffering this fate reacts the same to each of the two because they can be the same problem with only slightly different faces.
What is an unkindness? It sounds bland and meaningless, unless you're the victim. An unkindness is an act of behaviour by one person that hurts another. It's not the intent of the doer, but the reaction of the receiver that matters. Neglect can also be an act of unkindness.
Of course you may be tempted to think that something considered an unkindness is personal, that, as some believe of happiness, unkindness is a personal choice. In that case, if a person chooses to see the action of another as an unkindness, it is, but if the person chooses to ignore the act, it's not an unkindness. Choose to see something as unkind or choose to not think anything of it.
It doesn't work that way in real life. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. What one person considers unkindness seems beyond their control. If an act violates the basic life values of a person, that person is incapable of controlling their reaction. If the unkindness is in the form of neglect, that may be outside of their control as well.
What's the choice? The choice is to consider unkindness from someone we care about as not worth time or thought. Just ignore it. But ignoring behaviours that used to hurt stuns the emotions, makes them "cold." No one who is capable of deep feelings for others wants to lose that, to become cold, to maybe lose the ability to love in the process.
Therapist offices fill each day with people who feel others have been unkind, are unkind, continue to be unkind to them. They don't know how to cope with a problem they believe rests with the other person. More lives are ruined by an inability to cope with problems than for any other single reason.
So is living with or being close to a friend, neighbour or workmate who is unkind--who commits unkind acts--hopeless? It is if you believe it is.
If the unkind person is someone you live with and you want to continue that relationship, you need to show the unkind person more love. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to love them more or have sex more often. We humans assess the weight or value of the love that others have for us by touch. The more someone touches us, the more we feel that person shows their love. The touch may be casual, such as touching the other's arm as you pass. It could also be a lingering touch, such as when you watch television sitting next to each other or do something else together. Just don't linger long enough that the touch seems fake or contrived. That's turns people off.
Of course the touch method of assessing love works both ways. But many people don't know that. In fact, some people find touch--even loving touch--in some circumstances almost offensive. That kind of person lacked love and touch as a child. Learning to touch and to be touched may take that person years, but they will come around. Consistency and persistence matters. They can change if they want to and if the other person tries hard enough for long enough.
Friends, workmates and neighbours can also find ways to touch each other casually. Often that involves a hand touching the arm of the other as a means of emphasis in a conversation. That kind of touch is always brief, never more than a second or two. Longer than that could cause alarm or suspicion.
Dealing with a situation of repeated unkindness almost always involves doing something you are not accustomed to doing. If you were doing it already, the unkindness may never have occurred.
Will this method work for everyone? No. Some people are emotionally cold and can't be changed. The choice then is to stay or leave, keep the friendship or find other friends. Staying with an emotionally distant mate does not necessarily mean living a life in the belief that the other person doesn't love you. It means accepting what you can't change and doing something differently yourself.
Join a group or activity where touching is a part of the activity. Take dancing lessons, for example, or join a group where close contact is the norm. Or help others. Many volunteer situations involve circumstances where two people touch in the course of an event. Volunteering can help both the person who needs help and the volunteer. Both benefit.
Often people who need help from others have found themselves in that situation because they could not cope with their life circumstances. Sometimes those life circumstances involve needing loving touch and having no way to get it. Lives can literally dribble away when people need love and touch, don't know it, and waste their life away looking for something they don't understand in places they will never find it.
Any problem you may have with another person may be very hard to cope with. Now you have a choice. You have a way to improve the relationship between you. Or you can leave. The latter choice may not be easy, especially if the other person is a spouse or life mate. It doesn't guarantee eventual happiness either, especially if leaving means finding yourself in a life situation where you need social assistance just to survive.
Learning coping strategies may be the best answer. It isn't easy. Life problems and working through them never are.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for people who need to learn what they missed as children or who want to teach their own children what they need so they won't grow up to be socially or emotionally unbalanced adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/
Sunday, July 26, 2009
What Can We Do With Sinners And Losers?
Every sin is an attempt to fly from emptiness.
- Simone Weil, French philosopher, mystic, activist (1909-1943)
I have never met a person who, as a child, wanted to grow up to be a criminal, a drug addict, a gulper of prescribed drugs, a divorcee, a workaholic, a gambling addict, an alcoholic or a wife beater. Nor have I ever heard or read of one.
Yet somehow so many of us grow into these roles in life.
Are we a society of losers?
A recovered alcoholic, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, considers himself a lifelong addict. Does that mean we should consider him a lifelong loser and treat him as a social pariah, as human detritus?
If not, then how should we think of and treat such people? How, indeed, should we think of and treat those who still "suffer" daily with their affliction? Is it even possible to have our governments provide sufficient assistance to help a significant number of them recover? Many people believe it's not possible.
The subject of helping people to recover from their life problems is so enormous that most of us prefer to not think about it. "It would just cost us more taxes." Of course those people don't realize how much of their taxes already go into dealing with the social problems these people create, including the cost of health insurance and maintaining prisons and rehab facilities for them. Some estimate that figure as high as half our taxes today.
We don't want to face up to the fact that society has failed them. Especially because we have no clue about how we could have failed them. Fair enough. Let's worry about what we can fix.
Now return to my first sentence. We, as parents, as teachers, as relatives and neighbours, grow our own children from scratch. They learn what we teach them.
They learn what we teach them. They learn what we teach them. So let's teach them what they need before they need it. Before they break.
Too many of us believe that children should be kept in innocence for as long as possible. Such people are wrong and dangerous to society. The whole purpose of childhood is to learn how to cope with the rigors of adulthood. Not to turn childhood innocence into adult ignorance. A child that doesn't learn as early as possible about the pitfalls as problems of adults is doomed to fall victim to them and not have any defences at the ready.
We have long established traditions for teaching children what they need to know. One is called schools. The other is called parents. If that sounds patronizing, remember that these are the primary sources of education for children, all children. In a Canadian study of teens a few years ago, 89 percent of them claimed that most of what they learned about life came directly from their parents.
In general, schools are not allowed to teach what kids need so that they can cope with the rigors of the adult world they are growing into. Schools are directed, by curriculum and policy, to teach what kids will need to be employable, to be good employees. However, schools suffer from the lack of need satisfaction in the teens they teach through discipline problems. Students who can cope with their problems suffer from loss of classroom time when the troubled kids act out.
Most young parents know little or nothing more than what they learned about parenting from their own parents. Which is grossly insufficient. Which dooms their children to develop the kinds of problems mentioned at the start of this article.
New parents whose goal is to be better parents than their own parents were to them are lucky. They know they need to do something different. Unfortunately, they don't know what to do. They know what they want to be different for their kids, but not necessarily how to achieve it. They have no easily accessible source for that information.
Western societies are extremely lucky that they don't have more social problems than they do. They must be doing something right. After all, western societies have few problems with terrorism, war and other forms of rampant violence found in other parts of the world, parts that claim that parents do know what they should be teaching their children. Maybe not.
No matter where in the world you look, social problems abound.
Does that mean that social problems are unavoidable? No. It means that, in general, people in all parts of the world have no clear idea what to teach their children to help them cope with life in the 21st century.
Sadly, the last time our ancestors did have a good idea about what to teach their children to help them to cope with life, they all lived in tribes. In tribes, the social norm is that every adult bears some responsibility for teaching every child. As little changed from one year to the next, from one decade to the next, knowing what to teach children was adopted as social policy for the tribe. Everyone taught children the same things. Every child got the same message.
We don't do that today. If anything, parents go out of their way to make sure their kids don't grow up like other kids. That's a social norm. Everyone should be different, we believe.
Yet everyone is the same in many ways. We all have the same needs, for example, with few exceptions.
Schools address the needs of employers. Parents address the needs of their children so long as they know what those needs are. However, so many of the needs of children are unknown mysteries to many parents. Most parents learn parenting "on the job."
Many parents don't teach their children about drugs for fear that the kids will "experiment" with drugs. By the time the parents decide to teach the kids about drugs, the kids have already learned about drugs on the street, in the schoolyard, in the parks, virtually everywhere they go. Some kids already take drugs by the time their parents decide it's time to teach them about drugs.
How's that for timing, for knowing what kids need and when?
Why would a child, an adolescent, an adult need to turn to drugs? Simone Weil said it's an attempt to fly from emptiness. What's empty?
Better to say that human needs have gone unfulfilled. The need for fulfillment of needs is what is empty.
Does that sound like psychobabble? That's what many people would say, people who don't know what children need at all, let alone when they should learn stuff that will fulfill their needs. Ignorant people often have strong opinions against evidence that they are ignorant.
It's true that children are not small adults and should not be treated that way. If they were, we would have to punish them for offences they didn't know were offences. For misdeeds they did because they didn't have the words to explain to their parents and teachers what they needed. For bad stuff they did out of frustration because they needed something they couldn't talk about, but adults didn't know either so they ignored the needs of the children, thinking they were just misbehaving. Yet that is what most punishment of children is about.
A child needs to know how to deal with every social situation he experiences. We know that for adults, so we provide ways to teach them social skills, sort of. Few children receive any significant amount of instruction about social skills. They learn the hard way, by making mistakes. Or by watching what happens when other kids make mistakes.
But that is teaching what not to do in social situations, not what to do proactively, before the information is needed. We need to teach social skills to children, to address their social development when they need it most. They need the skills before they need to put the skills into practice. In teaching skills to children, especially social and emotional skills, timing is critical.
We also need to address their emotional development. Huh? Why do so many adults experience heartbreak when a relationship with a mate who is incompatible with them breaks up? Why do more than half the couples who marry get divorced later? That number should be even greater except that many couples today skip the wedding part and simply live together until they separate later because one of them "failed" the other or they "grew apart."
Understanding emotional skills and knowledge is part of what we need to get along well with others. As a social species, we need to have social interactions with others. In most activities people do--either personal or work related--they need to interact with others.
Socially and emotionally well adapted and developed children and adolescents become socially and emotionally well adapted and developed adults. Moreover, socially and emotionally successful adults are not only well liked and appreciated, they do a great deal to help others in their families, their communities and their countries. They gain great public respect because they do things they seem to understand--almost intuitively--are right. Nobel Peace Prize winners, for an example.
Teaching to the social and emotional needs of children and adolescents is not hard. We simply have not put into place the mechanisms for doing it. The needs themselves are not secrets, they're public information. Unfortunately, most of that information is contained in psychologists who specialize in fixing broken people rather than in teaching everyone before they break. And in sociologists who manipulate us by advertising, religion and politics because we don't want to listen to what they know otherwise.
While we long for innocence, what we get is ignorance. There is nothing pretty or beneficial about ignorance.
We have schools, but we use them almost exclusively to train children to be successful employees, not successful adults. The change would be easy and cheap, but someone has to make the first move in every community.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow socially and emotionally well developed and balanced children, not just intellectually well developed employees.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Simone Weil, French philosopher, mystic, activist (1909-1943)
I have never met a person who, as a child, wanted to grow up to be a criminal, a drug addict, a gulper of prescribed drugs, a divorcee, a workaholic, a gambling addict, an alcoholic or a wife beater. Nor have I ever heard or read of one.
Yet somehow so many of us grow into these roles in life.
Are we a society of losers?
A recovered alcoholic, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, considers himself a lifelong addict. Does that mean we should consider him a lifelong loser and treat him as a social pariah, as human detritus?
If not, then how should we think of and treat such people? How, indeed, should we think of and treat those who still "suffer" daily with their affliction? Is it even possible to have our governments provide sufficient assistance to help a significant number of them recover? Many people believe it's not possible.
The subject of helping people to recover from their life problems is so enormous that most of us prefer to not think about it. "It would just cost us more taxes." Of course those people don't realize how much of their taxes already go into dealing with the social problems these people create, including the cost of health insurance and maintaining prisons and rehab facilities for them. Some estimate that figure as high as half our taxes today.
We don't want to face up to the fact that society has failed them. Especially because we have no clue about how we could have failed them. Fair enough. Let's worry about what we can fix.
Now return to my first sentence. We, as parents, as teachers, as relatives and neighbours, grow our own children from scratch. They learn what we teach them.
They learn what we teach them. They learn what we teach them. So let's teach them what they need before they need it. Before they break.
Too many of us believe that children should be kept in innocence for as long as possible. Such people are wrong and dangerous to society. The whole purpose of childhood is to learn how to cope with the rigors of adulthood. Not to turn childhood innocence into adult ignorance. A child that doesn't learn as early as possible about the pitfalls as problems of adults is doomed to fall victim to them and not have any defences at the ready.
We have long established traditions for teaching children what they need to know. One is called schools. The other is called parents. If that sounds patronizing, remember that these are the primary sources of education for children, all children. In a Canadian study of teens a few years ago, 89 percent of them claimed that most of what they learned about life came directly from their parents.
In general, schools are not allowed to teach what kids need so that they can cope with the rigors of the adult world they are growing into. Schools are directed, by curriculum and policy, to teach what kids will need to be employable, to be good employees. However, schools suffer from the lack of need satisfaction in the teens they teach through discipline problems. Students who can cope with their problems suffer from loss of classroom time when the troubled kids act out.
Most young parents know little or nothing more than what they learned about parenting from their own parents. Which is grossly insufficient. Which dooms their children to develop the kinds of problems mentioned at the start of this article.
New parents whose goal is to be better parents than their own parents were to them are lucky. They know they need to do something different. Unfortunately, they don't know what to do. They know what they want to be different for their kids, but not necessarily how to achieve it. They have no easily accessible source for that information.
Western societies are extremely lucky that they don't have more social problems than they do. They must be doing something right. After all, western societies have few problems with terrorism, war and other forms of rampant violence found in other parts of the world, parts that claim that parents do know what they should be teaching their children. Maybe not.
No matter where in the world you look, social problems abound.
Does that mean that social problems are unavoidable? No. It means that, in general, people in all parts of the world have no clear idea what to teach their children to help them cope with life in the 21st century.
Sadly, the last time our ancestors did have a good idea about what to teach their children to help them to cope with life, they all lived in tribes. In tribes, the social norm is that every adult bears some responsibility for teaching every child. As little changed from one year to the next, from one decade to the next, knowing what to teach children was adopted as social policy for the tribe. Everyone taught children the same things. Every child got the same message.
We don't do that today. If anything, parents go out of their way to make sure their kids don't grow up like other kids. That's a social norm. Everyone should be different, we believe.
Yet everyone is the same in many ways. We all have the same needs, for example, with few exceptions.
Schools address the needs of employers. Parents address the needs of their children so long as they know what those needs are. However, so many of the needs of children are unknown mysteries to many parents. Most parents learn parenting "on the job."
Many parents don't teach their children about drugs for fear that the kids will "experiment" with drugs. By the time the parents decide to teach the kids about drugs, the kids have already learned about drugs on the street, in the schoolyard, in the parks, virtually everywhere they go. Some kids already take drugs by the time their parents decide it's time to teach them about drugs.
How's that for timing, for knowing what kids need and when?
Why would a child, an adolescent, an adult need to turn to drugs? Simone Weil said it's an attempt to fly from emptiness. What's empty?
Better to say that human needs have gone unfulfilled. The need for fulfillment of needs is what is empty.
Does that sound like psychobabble? That's what many people would say, people who don't know what children need at all, let alone when they should learn stuff that will fulfill their needs. Ignorant people often have strong opinions against evidence that they are ignorant.
It's true that children are not small adults and should not be treated that way. If they were, we would have to punish them for offences they didn't know were offences. For misdeeds they did because they didn't have the words to explain to their parents and teachers what they needed. For bad stuff they did out of frustration because they needed something they couldn't talk about, but adults didn't know either so they ignored the needs of the children, thinking they were just misbehaving. Yet that is what most punishment of children is about.
A child needs to know how to deal with every social situation he experiences. We know that for adults, so we provide ways to teach them social skills, sort of. Few children receive any significant amount of instruction about social skills. They learn the hard way, by making mistakes. Or by watching what happens when other kids make mistakes.
But that is teaching what not to do in social situations, not what to do proactively, before the information is needed. We need to teach social skills to children, to address their social development when they need it most. They need the skills before they need to put the skills into practice. In teaching skills to children, especially social and emotional skills, timing is critical.
We also need to address their emotional development. Huh? Why do so many adults experience heartbreak when a relationship with a mate who is incompatible with them breaks up? Why do more than half the couples who marry get divorced later? That number should be even greater except that many couples today skip the wedding part and simply live together until they separate later because one of them "failed" the other or they "grew apart."
Understanding emotional skills and knowledge is part of what we need to get along well with others. As a social species, we need to have social interactions with others. In most activities people do--either personal or work related--they need to interact with others.
Socially and emotionally well adapted and developed children and adolescents become socially and emotionally well adapted and developed adults. Moreover, socially and emotionally successful adults are not only well liked and appreciated, they do a great deal to help others in their families, their communities and their countries. They gain great public respect because they do things they seem to understand--almost intuitively--are right. Nobel Peace Prize winners, for an example.
Teaching to the social and emotional needs of children and adolescents is not hard. We simply have not put into place the mechanisms for doing it. The needs themselves are not secrets, they're public information. Unfortunately, most of that information is contained in psychologists who specialize in fixing broken people rather than in teaching everyone before they break. And in sociologists who manipulate us by advertising, religion and politics because we don't want to listen to what they know otherwise.
While we long for innocence, what we get is ignorance. There is nothing pretty or beneficial about ignorance.
We have schools, but we use them almost exclusively to train children to be successful employees, not successful adults. The change would be easy and cheap, but someone has to make the first move in every community.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow socially and emotionally well developed and balanced children, not just intellectually well developed employees.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, March 16, 2009
Where Do Bullying and Jealousy Come From?
A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.
- Lazarus Long, fictional character in Robert A Heinlein novels
"Neurotic" in this case may be taken to mean "emotionally excessive to the point of being harmful."
Insecurity breeds jealousy. The two are not irrevocably linked. Insecurity can also lead to bullying, to lack of an ability to commit to a relationship, to various emotional problems other than neuroses, to addictions, to violence and rage, to bad relationships and to divorce.
Consider how prevalent these are in our society.
They are so common that social scientists refer to them as social problems, meaning that so many people have these problems that the numbers alone create further problems in churches and clubs, in communities, in the workplace, in legislative assemblies of government, in countries, even at the United Nations.
People learn to feel secure during their maturation, as they grow from children, through adolescence, into adulthood and beyond. They key word in that last sentence is "learn." People learn to feel secure. It doesn't come as a matter of course. People learn insecurity as well.
If security or lack of it is learned, who teaches it? We all help in the process of teaching insecurity. Insecurity is another word for fear. People learn insecurity in their families, as children, in school (not intentionally in the classroom), in the playground, in various groups and unhealthy friendships. They learn it from television and newspapers that encourage us to fear each other, on the street, in offices, in elevators, in our homes. They learn it from clerks in stores who ignore them while helping other customers who came in later.
Where do people learn security? That which should be learned is usually taught by someone, isn't it?
No one teaches people how to be secure. No one teaches them that fear is not just harmful, but unnecessary. In the United States, the recently retired president, self-titled "the war president," taught the necessity of believing in a War On Terror (with what results?) and he personally controlled the status of alerts (Amber Alert, Red Alert).
Learning to avoid fear and how to feel secure can be taught. It's a matter of understanding certain facts and mastering some skills. If it can be taught and if it's so important and so damaging to us personally and to our communities and our countries, we should be teaching it.
The information needed and the skills to be learned are available. They are neither hidden nor secret. They simply are not taught.
Are you afraid of anything? Do you feel insecure? Lots of people do, but it's not a necessary consequence of modern society as ultra-conservatives would have us believe.We fear and we feel insecure because we have not learned how to avoid these harmful emotions.
Someone has something to gain by making us feel afraid and insecure in such massive numbers. Of that you may be certain. I won't point fingers because it will not take much thinking on your part to figure out who is responsible for your fear and insecurity.
The economy is bad, are you afraid to lose your job? Unless you die within the next two years, you will survive the recession and get another job. Plan now what you would do and how you would go about it if you were to lose your job. If you don't make a plan, maybe you have something to worry about. If you do, you won't need to worry because you will know exactly what you will do.
If your spouse died or unexpectedly announced his/her desire for a divorce, what would you do? With a plan, these events would bring unhappiness. But they would not necessarily destroy your life. Having a plan of what you would do in case of tragedy is not a self fulfilling prophesy. It's simply being ready.
There are two ways to avoid insecurity and fear. You learned them by reading this article.
It would be wise if this kind of information and these skills were taught to everyone. It could be taught in schools, if we wanted it.
It would cost almost nothing to prepare teachers to teach social and emotional skills. Just give each teacher a book about it and the authority to teach it.
Imagine a world without fear.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow secure and self confident children into adults who won't contribute to the social problems we endure today and who will lead emotionally and socially healthy lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Lazarus Long, fictional character in Robert A Heinlein novels
"Neurotic" in this case may be taken to mean "emotionally excessive to the point of being harmful."
Insecurity breeds jealousy. The two are not irrevocably linked. Insecurity can also lead to bullying, to lack of an ability to commit to a relationship, to various emotional problems other than neuroses, to addictions, to violence and rage, to bad relationships and to divorce.
Consider how prevalent these are in our society.
They are so common that social scientists refer to them as social problems, meaning that so many people have these problems that the numbers alone create further problems in churches and clubs, in communities, in the workplace, in legislative assemblies of government, in countries, even at the United Nations.
People learn to feel secure during their maturation, as they grow from children, through adolescence, into adulthood and beyond. They key word in that last sentence is "learn." People learn to feel secure. It doesn't come as a matter of course. People learn insecurity as well.
If security or lack of it is learned, who teaches it? We all help in the process of teaching insecurity. Insecurity is another word for fear. People learn insecurity in their families, as children, in school (not intentionally in the classroom), in the playground, in various groups and unhealthy friendships. They learn it from television and newspapers that encourage us to fear each other, on the street, in offices, in elevators, in our homes. They learn it from clerks in stores who ignore them while helping other customers who came in later.
Where do people learn security? That which should be learned is usually taught by someone, isn't it?
No one teaches people how to be secure. No one teaches them that fear is not just harmful, but unnecessary. In the United States, the recently retired president, self-titled "the war president," taught the necessity of believing in a War On Terror (with what results?) and he personally controlled the status of alerts (Amber Alert, Red Alert).
Learning to avoid fear and how to feel secure can be taught. It's a matter of understanding certain facts and mastering some skills. If it can be taught and if it's so important and so damaging to us personally and to our communities and our countries, we should be teaching it.
The information needed and the skills to be learned are available. They are neither hidden nor secret. They simply are not taught.
Are you afraid of anything? Do you feel insecure? Lots of people do, but it's not a necessary consequence of modern society as ultra-conservatives would have us believe.We fear and we feel insecure because we have not learned how to avoid these harmful emotions.
Someone has something to gain by making us feel afraid and insecure in such massive numbers. Of that you may be certain. I won't point fingers because it will not take much thinking on your part to figure out who is responsible for your fear and insecurity.
The economy is bad, are you afraid to lose your job? Unless you die within the next two years, you will survive the recession and get another job. Plan now what you would do and how you would go about it if you were to lose your job. If you don't make a plan, maybe you have something to worry about. If you do, you won't need to worry because you will know exactly what you will do.
If your spouse died or unexpectedly announced his/her desire for a divorce, what would you do? With a plan, these events would bring unhappiness. But they would not necessarily destroy your life. Having a plan of what you would do in case of tragedy is not a self fulfilling prophesy. It's simply being ready.
There are two ways to avoid insecurity and fear. You learned them by reading this article.
It would be wise if this kind of information and these skills were taught to everyone. It could be taught in schools, if we wanted it.
It would cost almost nothing to prepare teachers to teach social and emotional skills. Just give each teacher a book about it and the authority to teach it.
Imagine a world without fear.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow secure and self confident children into adults who won't contribute to the social problems we endure today and who will lead emotionally and socially healthy lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Sunday, July 27, 2008
The Secret Law of Abundance
The secret of the law of abundance is this: In order to receive and appreciate the good things of life, you must first give.
- Norman Vincent Peale, inspirational writer and speaker (1898-1993)
I confess that I have never heard of the "law of abundance" other than in this quote. The number of citations on Google is so great I conclude that many authors and speakers have used it for their own particular objectives, to lend greater credence to their arguments. The fact that Dr. Peale calls this law "secret" is nothing more than hyperbole.
However, the weakening of the first part of the quote takes nothing away from the second and more significant part. " In order to receive and appreciate the good things of life, you must first give."
This sounds counterproductive to anyone who was raised in a strongly capitalist society, where "Pay yourself first" is the prime rule for entrepreneurs and "Take as much as you can get" is the general rule for both business and personal lives.
Surely it doesn't make sense to give away what you have earned in order to get more of "the good things of life." That's true. At least it's true if you believe that the most important things in life--the "good things"--are either money or what can be bought with money.
Can money buy happiness? This debate has been ongoing for so long that it bores most people. No, many people say, but I'd like to suffer with more of that kind of unhappiness.
Does tickling a child make that kid happy? Does laughter alone give evidence of happiness? The feeling we get when someone tickles us comes from the same source as pain, from the same nerves, along the same pathways. Tickling and pain are essentially the same sensation, only pain is felt with greater intensity. If tickling and pain come from the same source, then the laughter from tickling by someone cannot be misconstrued as happiness. Happiness and pain/tickling must be different.
The joy people have from getting money, from keeping money and from spending money are all like tickling. They are all transient, all insubstantial, all subject to change in a flash. As with the sensation from tickling, the joy of money stops in a flash when the motivation stops.
A close friend expressed grief to me recently, explaining how much his "nest egg" investments in the stock markets had dropped so much in value as a result of the recession in the US. Not a single other factor in his life has changed except for the current value of his investments, but he has lost sleep over it. The fact that history shows that stock markets always recover and move to greater values means nothing to him because the value of his stocks today is much lower than it was a year ago. The tickle he felt a year ago has become his pain of today.
That's not happiness. Nor should it rightly be considered worthy of unhappiness, pain or grief.
Money is no more one of the good things in life than the shirt you are wearing right now. You might miss your shirt if you lost it or it wore out, but you know that you can get another. You can always make arrangements to get more money as well, though it might take longer than buying a new shirt.
Dr. Peale said that "you must first give." That involves at least one person other than yourself. Giving to yourself is like emotional masturbation. You must give to others in order to receive and appreciate the good things of life. We even enjoy sex more when we work to make it more enjoyable for the other person. That benefit takes thought and effort, but it shouldn't cost money.
No one understands why the "law of abundance" works this way--give in order to receive more in return. It likely has something to do with our fundamental nature as social creatures. We must need each other and depend on each other to feel secure, even though logically it would seem that someone who doesn't need anyone else should be more secure. Those who feel the most secure need at least one other person, depend on at least one other person and strive to meet the needs of at least one other person.
They are happy when others around them are happy, have been made happy by something they have done themselves. That happiness returns to them, with interest.
The more we work to make others happy--not with money or what it will buy, but with love and effort--the more happy the others will be and the happier we will be in return.
The Christian Bible says "Give and ye shall receive." Now you know why. Though places of worship want money, what the Bible wants you to give is love. Give love and you will receive love in return.
No, you can't count that kind of love. But you don't have to pay tax on it either. It has no real value in monetary terms.
Have you given love in the past, but not had it return to you by the one you loved? It's highly likely that the other person was so steeped in the value of money that he or she couldn't understand the value of love. That's not your fault. Find someone else who does value the love and the happiness you have to give.
For those who believe in the value of money as the value of life, every relationship is a business relationship. Business relationships come and go based on the value that each party offers constantly and uninterruptedly to the other. That's the core of the throwaway economy.
Love should not be thrown away. True love cannot be thrown away, but business love is disposable.
Find someone who can appreciate and enjoy what you have to give of yourself. You will find it comes back to you. Over time, that joy and appreciation will increase if both parties understand and work at what Dr. Peale calls the law of abundance.
Love thy neighbour as thyself. Sound familiar? Christians will recognize it as the prime commandment of Jesus. But the same advice exists in every religion, even if the words differ slightly.
Give and you will receive. But you must give first and you must give freely, not depending on what you will receive in return. If you are looking for return, you are basing your love on the business model of love. The easy come, easy go, disposable kind.
Real love makes you feel superhuman. The best the business kind of love can make you feel is powerful. Real love helps you to understand why so many people in every culture of the world believe that there is more to existence than these body vessels we inhabit during our lifetimes. The business kind of lovers will never understand, never appreciate, never enjoy the real good things of life, either here or in some future existence.
But they may appreciate a good tickle.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can understand and appreciate the real good things of life, not just what they learn in school.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Norman Vincent Peale, inspirational writer and speaker (1898-1993)
I confess that I have never heard of the "law of abundance" other than in this quote. The number of citations on Google is so great I conclude that many authors and speakers have used it for their own particular objectives, to lend greater credence to their arguments. The fact that Dr. Peale calls this law "secret" is nothing more than hyperbole.
However, the weakening of the first part of the quote takes nothing away from the second and more significant part. " In order to receive and appreciate the good things of life, you must first give."
This sounds counterproductive to anyone who was raised in a strongly capitalist society, where "Pay yourself first" is the prime rule for entrepreneurs and "Take as much as you can get" is the general rule for both business and personal lives.
Surely it doesn't make sense to give away what you have earned in order to get more of "the good things of life." That's true. At least it's true if you believe that the most important things in life--the "good things"--are either money or what can be bought with money.
Can money buy happiness? This debate has been ongoing for so long that it bores most people. No, many people say, but I'd like to suffer with more of that kind of unhappiness.
Does tickling a child make that kid happy? Does laughter alone give evidence of happiness? The feeling we get when someone tickles us comes from the same source as pain, from the same nerves, along the same pathways. Tickling and pain are essentially the same sensation, only pain is felt with greater intensity. If tickling and pain come from the same source, then the laughter from tickling by someone cannot be misconstrued as happiness. Happiness and pain/tickling must be different.
The joy people have from getting money, from keeping money and from spending money are all like tickling. They are all transient, all insubstantial, all subject to change in a flash. As with the sensation from tickling, the joy of money stops in a flash when the motivation stops.
A close friend expressed grief to me recently, explaining how much his "nest egg" investments in the stock markets had dropped so much in value as a result of the recession in the US. Not a single other factor in his life has changed except for the current value of his investments, but he has lost sleep over it. The fact that history shows that stock markets always recover and move to greater values means nothing to him because the value of his stocks today is much lower than it was a year ago. The tickle he felt a year ago has become his pain of today.
That's not happiness. Nor should it rightly be considered worthy of unhappiness, pain or grief.
Money is no more one of the good things in life than the shirt you are wearing right now. You might miss your shirt if you lost it or it wore out, but you know that you can get another. You can always make arrangements to get more money as well, though it might take longer than buying a new shirt.
Dr. Peale said that "you must first give." That involves at least one person other than yourself. Giving to yourself is like emotional masturbation. You must give to others in order to receive and appreciate the good things of life. We even enjoy sex more when we work to make it more enjoyable for the other person. That benefit takes thought and effort, but it shouldn't cost money.
No one understands why the "law of abundance" works this way--give in order to receive more in return. It likely has something to do with our fundamental nature as social creatures. We must need each other and depend on each other to feel secure, even though logically it would seem that someone who doesn't need anyone else should be more secure. Those who feel the most secure need at least one other person, depend on at least one other person and strive to meet the needs of at least one other person.
They are happy when others around them are happy, have been made happy by something they have done themselves. That happiness returns to them, with interest.
The more we work to make others happy--not with money or what it will buy, but with love and effort--the more happy the others will be and the happier we will be in return.
The Christian Bible says "Give and ye shall receive." Now you know why. Though places of worship want money, what the Bible wants you to give is love. Give love and you will receive love in return.
No, you can't count that kind of love. But you don't have to pay tax on it either. It has no real value in monetary terms.
Have you given love in the past, but not had it return to you by the one you loved? It's highly likely that the other person was so steeped in the value of money that he or she couldn't understand the value of love. That's not your fault. Find someone else who does value the love and the happiness you have to give.
For those who believe in the value of money as the value of life, every relationship is a business relationship. Business relationships come and go based on the value that each party offers constantly and uninterruptedly to the other. That's the core of the throwaway economy.
Love should not be thrown away. True love cannot be thrown away, but business love is disposable.
Find someone who can appreciate and enjoy what you have to give of yourself. You will find it comes back to you. Over time, that joy and appreciation will increase if both parties understand and work at what Dr. Peale calls the law of abundance.
Love thy neighbour as thyself. Sound familiar? Christians will recognize it as the prime commandment of Jesus. But the same advice exists in every religion, even if the words differ slightly.
Give and you will receive. But you must give first and you must give freely, not depending on what you will receive in return. If you are looking for return, you are basing your love on the business model of love. The easy come, easy go, disposable kind.
Real love makes you feel superhuman. The best the business kind of love can make you feel is powerful. Real love helps you to understand why so many people in every culture of the world believe that there is more to existence than these body vessels we inhabit during our lifetimes. The business kind of lovers will never understand, never appreciate, never enjoy the real good things of life, either here or in some future existence.
But they may appreciate a good tickle.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can understand and appreciate the real good things of life, not just what they learn in school.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Sunday, June 01, 2008
Anger's Terms Of Endearment
Two things a man should never be angry at: what he can help, and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller
First of all, this quote deals with the management of anger, one of the strongest human emotions. Fuller implies that we can either control it or let it run loose. He suggests that if we want to control it we need to understand the root of the anger and whether the investment of emotional energy that anger requires is worth the investment.
In general, anger expressed is never worth the investment of emotional energy it requires. Furthermore, it tends to do more harm to the angry person than to the object of the outburst. It never does any good over the long term.
Mostly we don't realize how much harm anger can do to us. Anger, especially when held as a grudge over a long period of time, can depress the immune system, opening the possibility for organ failure or disease. That's pretty serious, especially as it's a form of self harm.
Even in a short term bout of anger, the immune system takes a sharp downward spike so that during the period of anger the angry person may have little or no defence against attack by rogue bacteria or viruses. While an angry person is shaking a clenched fist at or giving the finger to someone who has given offence, serious trouble may be brewing inside his own body. And he will know nothing about it, until tragedy strikes and a doctor gives the bad news.
There is no point in getting angry at something you can help because if you can do something about it, you should do it and get on with your life. No problem getts better become someone gets angry about it.
If you can't help the problem, there is no point in getting angry because no one else can help you with it either. Sometimes life sucks, but it's just like hitting a pothole in the road with a wheel of your car, you drive on and forget about it.
Why do we even have the emotion we call anger? If it's so self destructive, how did it even evolve and why don't we evolve it out of ourselves?
Evolution is taking place within our species now. We are in the midst of evolutionary progress whereby the female vagina is moving from access from the rear to access only from the front. Slightly more than half of today's women lack a clitoris. And around 35 percent of us never develop wisdom teeth. These changes simply happen so slowly that we don't notice.
We could evolve anger out of our species, but that would mean giving up one of the most critical responses to danger, the fight or flight response. Anger is nothing more than the fight or flight response extended over a longer period of time.
The fight or flight response allows us to quickly evaluate a potentially dangerous situation, then choose to deal with it (fight, in a loose sense of the word) or get out of the way (flight). If we are crossing a road and suddenly see a bus bearing down on us, it wouldn't be wise for us to have to weight all of the options as to how to respond to the situation, requiring a brain process that takes far too much time for our own safety.
With the fight or flight response, a heavy dose of epinephrine (better known by its trade name Adrenalin) races through our bloodstream, making our nerves and muscles almost instantly ready to respond to whatever the brain decides we should do--tackle the matter in a confrontation or get out of the way. As humans rarely win confrontations with buses, we need almost instant response to save our life.
That same surge of epinephrine goes through someone who is in the process of getting angry. Some people can go from calm to full blown anger in the same time it takes a Porsche to go from zero to 60 mph. Unfortunately, that is when the brain process of evaluating a situation to determine the best possible course of action, the one that takes much longer than fight or flight, should kick in. For some, it doesn't.
For others, it does. We have experienced, either by being personally involved or by being onlookers to others in situations, the danger of emotionally violent responses that end up with hurt, regret and repentance later. So we have conditioned ourselves to make that longer brain process kick in instead of the fight or flight response that produces anger.
That's a matter of rigid training or of personal discipline of the self.
Road rage is an obvious example of people who take the stupid behaviour of someone too personally (it's rarely intended to be taken as offence) and allow their fight or flight response to take over. The "fight" part dominates and the person exhibits some form of rage, often an illegal behaviour, but he doesn't consider that at the time because he doesn't have time to think about it.
Implicit in Thomas Fuller's advice is that we should think, thoroughly and clearly, when a situation presents itself that could develop an anger response. Not only is it wise to avoid doing harm to our own health, it's not smart to ruin relationships or break the law in a bout of anger.
Anger is within our own control. All it takes is practice and some self discipline.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach their children important life lessons, such as how to avoid doing harm through anger and how to master their emotions.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Thomas Fuller
First of all, this quote deals with the management of anger, one of the strongest human emotions. Fuller implies that we can either control it or let it run loose. He suggests that if we want to control it we need to understand the root of the anger and whether the investment of emotional energy that anger requires is worth the investment.
In general, anger expressed is never worth the investment of emotional energy it requires. Furthermore, it tends to do more harm to the angry person than to the object of the outburst. It never does any good over the long term.
Mostly we don't realize how much harm anger can do to us. Anger, especially when held as a grudge over a long period of time, can depress the immune system, opening the possibility for organ failure or disease. That's pretty serious, especially as it's a form of self harm.
Even in a short term bout of anger, the immune system takes a sharp downward spike so that during the period of anger the angry person may have little or no defence against attack by rogue bacteria or viruses. While an angry person is shaking a clenched fist at or giving the finger to someone who has given offence, serious trouble may be brewing inside his own body. And he will know nothing about it, until tragedy strikes and a doctor gives the bad news.
There is no point in getting angry at something you can help because if you can do something about it, you should do it and get on with your life. No problem getts better become someone gets angry about it.
If you can't help the problem, there is no point in getting angry because no one else can help you with it either. Sometimes life sucks, but it's just like hitting a pothole in the road with a wheel of your car, you drive on and forget about it.
Why do we even have the emotion we call anger? If it's so self destructive, how did it even evolve and why don't we evolve it out of ourselves?
Evolution is taking place within our species now. We are in the midst of evolutionary progress whereby the female vagina is moving from access from the rear to access only from the front. Slightly more than half of today's women lack a clitoris. And around 35 percent of us never develop wisdom teeth. These changes simply happen so slowly that we don't notice.
We could evolve anger out of our species, but that would mean giving up one of the most critical responses to danger, the fight or flight response. Anger is nothing more than the fight or flight response extended over a longer period of time.
The fight or flight response allows us to quickly evaluate a potentially dangerous situation, then choose to deal with it (fight, in a loose sense of the word) or get out of the way (flight). If we are crossing a road and suddenly see a bus bearing down on us, it wouldn't be wise for us to have to weight all of the options as to how to respond to the situation, requiring a brain process that takes far too much time for our own safety.
With the fight or flight response, a heavy dose of epinephrine (better known by its trade name Adrenalin) races through our bloodstream, making our nerves and muscles almost instantly ready to respond to whatever the brain decides we should do--tackle the matter in a confrontation or get out of the way. As humans rarely win confrontations with buses, we need almost instant response to save our life.
That same surge of epinephrine goes through someone who is in the process of getting angry. Some people can go from calm to full blown anger in the same time it takes a Porsche to go from zero to 60 mph. Unfortunately, that is when the brain process of evaluating a situation to determine the best possible course of action, the one that takes much longer than fight or flight, should kick in. For some, it doesn't.
For others, it does. We have experienced, either by being personally involved or by being onlookers to others in situations, the danger of emotionally violent responses that end up with hurt, regret and repentance later. So we have conditioned ourselves to make that longer brain process kick in instead of the fight or flight response that produces anger.
That's a matter of rigid training or of personal discipline of the self.
Road rage is an obvious example of people who take the stupid behaviour of someone too personally (it's rarely intended to be taken as offence) and allow their fight or flight response to take over. The "fight" part dominates and the person exhibits some form of rage, often an illegal behaviour, but he doesn't consider that at the time because he doesn't have time to think about it.
Implicit in Thomas Fuller's advice is that we should think, thoroughly and clearly, when a situation presents itself that could develop an anger response. Not only is it wise to avoid doing harm to our own health, it's not smart to ruin relationships or break the law in a bout of anger.
Anger is within our own control. All it takes is practice and some self discipline.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach their children important life lessons, such as how to avoid doing harm through anger and how to master their emotions.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, April 14, 2008
Abe Lincoln's Best Advice
"A child is a person who is going to carry on whatever you have started. He is going to sit where you are sitting and when you are gone, attend to those things which you think are important. You may adopt all the policies you please, but how they will be carried out depends on him. He will assume control of your cities, states and nations. He is going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities, and corporations. Your books are going to be judged, accepted or condemned by him. The fate of humanity is in his hands. So it might be well to pay him some attention."
- Abraham Lincoln
"He is going to...attend to those things which you think are important."
What do you think is important? Did you (Do you) consciously, proactively, knowingly teach those things to your children?
Surprisingly, most people don't. Children, to a great extent in their first six years and to a slightly lesser extent during the following five years, form and reform concepts of their world frequently. Not your world, but the one they perceive with their senses and conceptualize with their minds.
Their entire existence rests within the concept they form of their world, usually based on what they observe from their parents, what they are taught by their parents and how they are treated by their parents. If their parents have extensive social skills, the kids will pick them up whether the lessons are taught formally or not. They will fare better if the parents teach pertinent social skills (such as how to make and keep friends, how to treat casual friends and classmates) rather than requiring the children to pick them up vicariously.
What children don't learn by watching is emotional skills, knowledge to advance their emotional development, especially in a small family with only one child. These kinds of skills--how to cope with life's problems and downturns--need to be taught and learned through experience and lessons from parents.
Will your child "assume control of your cities, states and nations" and "take over your churches, schools, universities, and corporations" as you move on, the way Lincoln said? Yes, but only a very few of them will. Those who receive a balanced upbringing, with equal emphasis on intellectual, physical, social and emotional development will have the ability to assume leadership roles.
Don't the smartest ones reach the top? Not usually. The people who reach the top of situations such as Lincoln described have had thorough and balanced development in the four streams listed in the previous paragraph, but they also have a great deal of drive and determination to excel. These they usually pick up from their parents, though other sources (mentors) are possible.
Most people in our various societies are drones that get by with sufficient knowledge and skills in what they need to know and do, but know little else beyond that. An architect may not be able to sort recyclables on trash pickup day. A factory worker may know how to change a flat tire, but not how to economize on fuel efficiency and eliminate as much pollution as possible from his vehicle.
We all depend on others to do for us what we can't or don't know how to do ourselves. Mostly we don't do these things because we never learned how. We weren't taught by a parent or grandparent. Most of us know very little and can do very little beyond what we do for a living and what we do as hobbies.
We can't do what we never learned how to do. Most of the fundamentals of what we can do we learned from our parents, either by watching them or by learning from lesson they taught. Or we were prompted by them or some experience we had.
As children we depend on our parents to help us form our world. If they don't help with that (and many don't do it actively and knowingly), we grow up with many misconceptions, misinformation or ignorance about many subjects we should be able to get by with.
Sadly, there are few classes where parents can learn what they need to know and do to be parents and what they need to teach their children to help them with their various kinds of development. Every parent tries to do their best, but few know what they need to know.
Maybe you could get together with some others of your neighbours and encourage your board of education or school administration to launch such a program.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents who want to know what their children need and when they need it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Abraham Lincoln
"He is going to...attend to those things which you think are important."
What do you think is important? Did you (Do you) consciously, proactively, knowingly teach those things to your children?
Surprisingly, most people don't. Children, to a great extent in their first six years and to a slightly lesser extent during the following five years, form and reform concepts of their world frequently. Not your world, but the one they perceive with their senses and conceptualize with their minds.
Their entire existence rests within the concept they form of their world, usually based on what they observe from their parents, what they are taught by their parents and how they are treated by their parents. If their parents have extensive social skills, the kids will pick them up whether the lessons are taught formally or not. They will fare better if the parents teach pertinent social skills (such as how to make and keep friends, how to treat casual friends and classmates) rather than requiring the children to pick them up vicariously.
What children don't learn by watching is emotional skills, knowledge to advance their emotional development, especially in a small family with only one child. These kinds of skills--how to cope with life's problems and downturns--need to be taught and learned through experience and lessons from parents.
Will your child "assume control of your cities, states and nations" and "take over your churches, schools, universities, and corporations" as you move on, the way Lincoln said? Yes, but only a very few of them will. Those who receive a balanced upbringing, with equal emphasis on intellectual, physical, social and emotional development will have the ability to assume leadership roles.
Don't the smartest ones reach the top? Not usually. The people who reach the top of situations such as Lincoln described have had thorough and balanced development in the four streams listed in the previous paragraph, but they also have a great deal of drive and determination to excel. These they usually pick up from their parents, though other sources (mentors) are possible.
Most people in our various societies are drones that get by with sufficient knowledge and skills in what they need to know and do, but know little else beyond that. An architect may not be able to sort recyclables on trash pickup day. A factory worker may know how to change a flat tire, but not how to economize on fuel efficiency and eliminate as much pollution as possible from his vehicle.
We all depend on others to do for us what we can't or don't know how to do ourselves. Mostly we don't do these things because we never learned how. We weren't taught by a parent or grandparent. Most of us know very little and can do very little beyond what we do for a living and what we do as hobbies.
We can't do what we never learned how to do. Most of the fundamentals of what we can do we learned from our parents, either by watching them or by learning from lesson they taught. Or we were prompted by them or some experience we had.
As children we depend on our parents to help us form our world. If they don't help with that (and many don't do it actively and knowingly), we grow up with many misconceptions, misinformation or ignorance about many subjects we should be able to get by with.
Sadly, there are few classes where parents can learn what they need to know and do to be parents and what they need to teach their children to help them with their various kinds of development. Every parent tries to do their best, but few know what they need to know.
Maybe you could get together with some others of your neighbours and encourage your board of education or school administration to launch such a program.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents who want to know what their children need and when they need it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, March 31, 2008
How You Can Make Your World A Better Place
If you paint in your mind a picture of bright and happy expectations, you put yourself into a condition conducive to your goal.
- Norman Vincent Peale (1898 - 1993)
It's almost too simple to imagine that we live in a world we create for ourselves within our own mind. But it's a fact.
Few would disagree that there are real things in the real world, stuff made of matter and energy. The more scientifically savvy might say that we should include dark matter and dark energy. Fair enough.
How do we know so well that these things exist? We see, hear, taste, touch or smell them, or we see evidence of their existence such as we do when we detect that gamma rays have been somewhere we have a detector.
How do all these senses and cognitive processes work together? They're all conduits of information for the brain. The brain, in turn, acts on some of them by sending out messages through the same conduits to nerves and muscles so they will act according to the brain's wishes.
Work with me here while we try an analogy. Let's say that we substitute NASA's Mars Rover staff for the brain and the rovers themselves for the senses. We accept that the rovers are mechanical robots of sorts. They sense light and have other equipment that performs similar functions to our own senses.
The NASA staff act like the brain for the rover robots, receiving messages from the robots and sending messages back to the robots to act according to NASA's wishes.
What do the NASA people know about current conditions on Mars if the rovers refuse to send or receive signals? Nothing. What does your brain know about the real world around it if your senses refuse to send to or receive signals from your brain? Nothing. In the absence of input and the ability to send signals to their remote slaves, neither the brain nor the NASA staff know a thing.
Do you remember when the first rover landed on Mars and began to send signals back? Pretty exciting, as I recall. Not long after signals began to be exchanged, the rover captured an image that looked as if there was some sort of life form or manufactured object in the form of a face. Everyone at NASA and many who watched from home on their TV sets had a guess of what the "face" might be.
People had all sorts of guesses, including speculation about alien life on Mars, either then or in the past. You may have had an opinion as well because that's what our brain does, draw conclusions based on input. Using the same "sensory" input, or reality, many brains reached many different conclusions. Some of them were outright fanciful, if not borderline crazy.
Every time you see, hear, taste, touch or smell something, your brain reaches a conclusion about what's out there in the world around it. Other people's brains, given the exact same input, could easily reach different conclusions. What, then, is real?
"Real," to us, is what our brain says it is. Our brain doesn't give a whit what other brains think, it stays with its own conclusions. What it "saw" through its senses and concluded from the input is what is real to the brain.
That applies to many things in our lives. In truth, to almost everything. No two brains see the same reality. So what's real?
What's real is what your brain says is real. So why not, as Dr. Peale suggested, have your brain sense a bright and happy world?
That's not reality, you say. Some bad stuff goes on in the world. Just read a daily newspaper or watch television news to see some of it. Fair enough. But what is your source for good news, for happy and bright events that would more than counterbalance the bad stuff we get fed constantly? Most of us don't have that source for positive input or feedback.
So our feeble brains reach the only conclusion they can, based on what they have to work with. The world must be a terrible place with lots or dreadful stuff going on. Who could blame a brain for thinking that way?
With that as a starting point each day, what's to stop your brain from going deeper, from making more dire conclusions and predictions based on the same input day after day? Surely life would become depressing.
Some people couldn't cope with that level of depression, from constant, unrelenting negative input. They might turn to alcohol or drugs. They might fight with and kill a spouse. They might rob a convenience store when they need money to pay off bad debts or drug dealers. They might adopt any of numerous emotional illnesses we commonly call neurological disorders. They might commit suicide.
Who could blame a brain for that? It acts on what input it receives. If the input is all bad, constantly, maybe it eventually loses control. Maybe it causes its slave senses to turn a car into a lethal weapon or to rage at other drivers, co-workers or children.
You can see how this works. Fill your brain with what you want it to conclude about your world (it's world) and your brain will respond accordingly. It's that simple.
Fill it with good and helpful thoughts and the world will be good and helpful. You know how it works now. It's not deception. It's working with what you have around you.
A brighter and happier you will make those around you happier as well. Bonus. As they get happier, others they meet will be happier too and eventually it will spread farther. Around the world maybe. Another bonus.
But there's more. Call within the next 15 minutes and you can have your brain give itself a dose of feel-good neurotransmitters, like dopamine and serotonin.
All for the same low price. The time you took to read this.
Act now. Before you get to a newspaper or television.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to have bright and happy children grow into happy and healthy adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Norman Vincent Peale (1898 - 1993)
It's almost too simple to imagine that we live in a world we create for ourselves within our own mind. But it's a fact.
Few would disagree that there are real things in the real world, stuff made of matter and energy. The more scientifically savvy might say that we should include dark matter and dark energy. Fair enough.
How do we know so well that these things exist? We see, hear, taste, touch or smell them, or we see evidence of their existence such as we do when we detect that gamma rays have been somewhere we have a detector.
How do all these senses and cognitive processes work together? They're all conduits of information for the brain. The brain, in turn, acts on some of them by sending out messages through the same conduits to nerves and muscles so they will act according to the brain's wishes.
Work with me here while we try an analogy. Let's say that we substitute NASA's Mars Rover staff for the brain and the rovers themselves for the senses. We accept that the rovers are mechanical robots of sorts. They sense light and have other equipment that performs similar functions to our own senses.
The NASA staff act like the brain for the rover robots, receiving messages from the robots and sending messages back to the robots to act according to NASA's wishes.
What do the NASA people know about current conditions on Mars if the rovers refuse to send or receive signals? Nothing. What does your brain know about the real world around it if your senses refuse to send to or receive signals from your brain? Nothing. In the absence of input and the ability to send signals to their remote slaves, neither the brain nor the NASA staff know a thing.
Do you remember when the first rover landed on Mars and began to send signals back? Pretty exciting, as I recall. Not long after signals began to be exchanged, the rover captured an image that looked as if there was some sort of life form or manufactured object in the form of a face. Everyone at NASA and many who watched from home on their TV sets had a guess of what the "face" might be.
People had all sorts of guesses, including speculation about alien life on Mars, either then or in the past. You may have had an opinion as well because that's what our brain does, draw conclusions based on input. Using the same "sensory" input, or reality, many brains reached many different conclusions. Some of them were outright fanciful, if not borderline crazy.
Every time you see, hear, taste, touch or smell something, your brain reaches a conclusion about what's out there in the world around it. Other people's brains, given the exact same input, could easily reach different conclusions. What, then, is real?
"Real," to us, is what our brain says it is. Our brain doesn't give a whit what other brains think, it stays with its own conclusions. What it "saw" through its senses and concluded from the input is what is real to the brain.
That applies to many things in our lives. In truth, to almost everything. No two brains see the same reality. So what's real?
What's real is what your brain says is real. So why not, as Dr. Peale suggested, have your brain sense a bright and happy world?
That's not reality, you say. Some bad stuff goes on in the world. Just read a daily newspaper or watch television news to see some of it. Fair enough. But what is your source for good news, for happy and bright events that would more than counterbalance the bad stuff we get fed constantly? Most of us don't have that source for positive input or feedback.
So our feeble brains reach the only conclusion they can, based on what they have to work with. The world must be a terrible place with lots or dreadful stuff going on. Who could blame a brain for thinking that way?
With that as a starting point each day, what's to stop your brain from going deeper, from making more dire conclusions and predictions based on the same input day after day? Surely life would become depressing.
Some people couldn't cope with that level of depression, from constant, unrelenting negative input. They might turn to alcohol or drugs. They might fight with and kill a spouse. They might rob a convenience store when they need money to pay off bad debts or drug dealers. They might adopt any of numerous emotional illnesses we commonly call neurological disorders. They might commit suicide.
Who could blame a brain for that? It acts on what input it receives. If the input is all bad, constantly, maybe it eventually loses control. Maybe it causes its slave senses to turn a car into a lethal weapon or to rage at other drivers, co-workers or children.
You can see how this works. Fill your brain with what you want it to conclude about your world (it's world) and your brain will respond accordingly. It's that simple.
Fill it with good and helpful thoughts and the world will be good and helpful. You know how it works now. It's not deception. It's working with what you have around you.
A brighter and happier you will make those around you happier as well. Bonus. As they get happier, others they meet will be happier too and eventually it will spread farther. Around the world maybe. Another bonus.
But there's more. Call within the next 15 minutes and you can have your brain give itself a dose of feel-good neurotransmitters, like dopamine and serotonin.
All for the same low price. The time you took to read this.
Act now. Before you get to a newspaper or television.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to have bright and happy children grow into happy and healthy adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, April 06, 2007
The Violent Proselytizers Are Winning
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.
- William Hazlitt
That quote is not true, strictly speaking, for these emotions are known to be expressed by other primates. But the point is well taken.
For the sake of discussion, let's divide everyone into two groups. There would be those who, as Hazlitt said, see the great differences between what things are and what they ought to be. And there would be those who know exactly how things should be and concern themselves at some length to see that what they believe should become what is.
On one side we have people (the vast majority, I believe) who know what should be but do little or nothing to see that it comes about. On the other we have people who are driven to make something happen.
Why are the latter group so driven, managing to carry on with their message when the rest of us would be exhausted? The message they carry is not thier own. They were waffling around with their lives, wondering what the truth about life could be, wondering why we are here at all, wondering where they could fit into a grand scheme. Then someone came along with an answer.
The answer sounded good. Sounded wonderful, in fact. It sounded as if heaven itself was about to open up and take in all that believed in it. All they had to do was to believe.
Spread the word, these people were told, as were those before them who had told them. They did, and they do. They take the message to anyone and everyone, whether their message is wanted or appreciated. Whether they can teach it to willing listeners or must wage war to use force to convince the others to accept their own set of beliefs.
Those who are prepared to go to war for their beliefs (whether in reality or figuratively) are most convinced that their cause is right. The more resistance they find, the more convinced that they are right and that their message must get through to the ignorant and unwashed multitudes.
They never stop to question whether their way might be right. They never doubt that the others may not want to share their beliefs or that they are happy with their own beliefs. They never hesitate about whether their beliefs are correct, accurate or beneficial over the long term, to themselves, their people or the world. They need to win.
It has been said that those who are most aggressive about spreading their beliefs to others have grave doubts. They want others to join them so that they can believe with greater confidence that their way is correct. By their reckoning, numbers are important. They want allies, not necessarily friends.
Those who are uncertain about many things in life remain quiet, for they have little to teach to others. When and if they do find a path they can believe in, they tend to remain quiet about it because doing otherwise would place them in conflict with the other group, who is already known to be prepared to go to war for their beliefs.
If the quiet ones remain quiet, never joining with others who have also found their way, never wanting to impose anything on anyone else, very little changes. Or so they believe. Eventually, those who have the strong beliefs and are aggressive about spreading them convince enough people to join them that they gain political and military power as well as the psychological power they have from the strength of their beliefs.
Hitler tapped into that in Germany with his National Socialists (who followed a path that was anything but socialist). Mussolini used it in Italy. The power brokers of the Japanese military also found ways to take over their country and subsequently much of Asia, with the three countries forming what became known as the Axis Powers. The Serbian leaders of the former Yugoslavia pumped up their Serbian culture mates to kill the Muslims. The emerging leaders among the Hutus of Rwanda filled the heads of their fellow tribesmen with it, using radio broadcasts, so that nearly a million Tutsis were slashed to death with machetes. Saddam used his abilities to convince the minority Sunnis that they should totally dominate the majority Shias as well as the Kurds in Iraq.
In each case the silent ones remained silent because they did not feel it their place to tell others how to run their countries. It wasn't their business. They were prepared to allow millions of slaughtered victims be burned or buried, but they assuaged their consciences by prosecuting the perpetrators who survived when the slaughter was over.
At least the leaders died too, they believed. They vowed to remember each event so that it would never happen again.
These movements all began with a few zealous individuals who had power in mind for themselves and a set of beliefs with which to convince their future supporters. It didn't matter whether their teachings and beliefs were correct, were acceptable or would be approved by the majority because they planned to take control of the majority.
The uncertain ones remained silent in every case. The aggressive ones never do.
The aggressive ones always have that message they want to reach so many others. The doubtful ones and those who have found the path to peace remain silent.
Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the motives of the power seekers plain before they take too much control over too many people and too much history.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- William Hazlitt
That quote is not true, strictly speaking, for these emotions are known to be expressed by other primates. But the point is well taken.
For the sake of discussion, let's divide everyone into two groups. There would be those who, as Hazlitt said, see the great differences between what things are and what they ought to be. And there would be those who know exactly how things should be and concern themselves at some length to see that what they believe should become what is.
On one side we have people (the vast majority, I believe) who know what should be but do little or nothing to see that it comes about. On the other we have people who are driven to make something happen.
Why are the latter group so driven, managing to carry on with their message when the rest of us would be exhausted? The message they carry is not thier own. They were waffling around with their lives, wondering what the truth about life could be, wondering why we are here at all, wondering where they could fit into a grand scheme. Then someone came along with an answer.
The answer sounded good. Sounded wonderful, in fact. It sounded as if heaven itself was about to open up and take in all that believed in it. All they had to do was to believe.
Spread the word, these people were told, as were those before them who had told them. They did, and they do. They take the message to anyone and everyone, whether their message is wanted or appreciated. Whether they can teach it to willing listeners or must wage war to use force to convince the others to accept their own set of beliefs.
Those who are prepared to go to war for their beliefs (whether in reality or figuratively) are most convinced that their cause is right. The more resistance they find, the more convinced that they are right and that their message must get through to the ignorant and unwashed multitudes.
They never stop to question whether their way might be right. They never doubt that the others may not want to share their beliefs or that they are happy with their own beliefs. They never hesitate about whether their beliefs are correct, accurate or beneficial over the long term, to themselves, their people or the world. They need to win.
It has been said that those who are most aggressive about spreading their beliefs to others have grave doubts. They want others to join them so that they can believe with greater confidence that their way is correct. By their reckoning, numbers are important. They want allies, not necessarily friends.
Those who are uncertain about many things in life remain quiet, for they have little to teach to others. When and if they do find a path they can believe in, they tend to remain quiet about it because doing otherwise would place them in conflict with the other group, who is already known to be prepared to go to war for their beliefs.
If the quiet ones remain quiet, never joining with others who have also found their way, never wanting to impose anything on anyone else, very little changes. Or so they believe. Eventually, those who have the strong beliefs and are aggressive about spreading them convince enough people to join them that they gain political and military power as well as the psychological power they have from the strength of their beliefs.
Hitler tapped into that in Germany with his National Socialists (who followed a path that was anything but socialist). Mussolini used it in Italy. The power brokers of the Japanese military also found ways to take over their country and subsequently much of Asia, with the three countries forming what became known as the Axis Powers. The Serbian leaders of the former Yugoslavia pumped up their Serbian culture mates to kill the Muslims. The emerging leaders among the Hutus of Rwanda filled the heads of their fellow tribesmen with it, using radio broadcasts, so that nearly a million Tutsis were slashed to death with machetes. Saddam used his abilities to convince the minority Sunnis that they should totally dominate the majority Shias as well as the Kurds in Iraq.
In each case the silent ones remained silent because they did not feel it their place to tell others how to run their countries. It wasn't their business. They were prepared to allow millions of slaughtered victims be burned or buried, but they assuaged their consciences by prosecuting the perpetrators who survived when the slaughter was over.
At least the leaders died too, they believed. They vowed to remember each event so that it would never happen again.
These movements all began with a few zealous individuals who had power in mind for themselves and a set of beliefs with which to convince their future supporters. It didn't matter whether their teachings and beliefs were correct, were acceptable or would be approved by the majority because they planned to take control of the majority.
The uncertain ones remained silent in every case. The aggressive ones never do.
The aggressive ones always have that message they want to reach so many others. The doubtful ones and those who have found the path to peace remain silent.
Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the motives of the power seekers plain before they take too much control over too many people and too much history.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
When The Suffering We Know Is Better Than The Unknown
People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Of the many peculiarities of human nature that are difficult to explain, this ranks near the top of the list.
We have people (men and women both) who are afraid to leave an abusive relationship because they don't want to live alone, because they are afraid that their lover will find them and harm them, because they don't know what to do to get away and can't bring themselves to make plans. Or, perhaps, these are mere excuses offered to those who know about the abuse they suffer and urge the victim to leave.
Many people work jobs they hate because they are afraid to leave. Their excuses include the risk of not finding a better job, of getting a new job and finding it worse, of needing the stability of an old job they know well during this "difficult time" of their lives, of the current job market being slim. In fact, most of them refuse to even look for a new job.
Many people attend the services of the religion they grew up with, regularly, because they fear the consequences of leaving.
Their minds are often made up so steadfastly that they can't be knocked off their position by reason. They don't feel the need to expalin to anyone else because their minds are so solid on the subject. But they will sometimes confide in others, leaving that small opening for change.
There are other examples of the fear that many people have of leaving the suffering they are familiar with, but they all have one common factor. The issue that is the problem is a very important parts of their life. Whatever the relationship they fear severing, it has constituted a major factor and commitment of their lives, an undeniable portion of their lives they invested in who they are today.
Of the several people I have personally helped over a major hurdle in their lives, they all wanted to know that they had someone behind them to support them if they faltered. They needed to know that it was alright for them to take the big step and fail, that they would not be failures in life if they did, that other opportunities would present themselves that would be better if they made a mistake with thier first choice.
They wanted to know that they were not alone when they changed their lives.
In the final analysis, we are each alone when we make major life decisions. Few of us have one friend so close and dependable that we can be absolutely certain they will be there for us if we try and fail.
What each person in a position of making such a life-altering decision needs to know is that no matter what happens, the sun will rise the next day and they will rise with it. Somehow, those of us who survive the night manage to find a way to build better lives if we dare take the big chance.
And there is always someone who will help if we look hard enough and ask people we believe we can trust.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the real opportunities for a better future.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Thich Nhat Hanh
Of the many peculiarities of human nature that are difficult to explain, this ranks near the top of the list.
We have people (men and women both) who are afraid to leave an abusive relationship because they don't want to live alone, because they are afraid that their lover will find them and harm them, because they don't know what to do to get away and can't bring themselves to make plans. Or, perhaps, these are mere excuses offered to those who know about the abuse they suffer and urge the victim to leave.
Many people work jobs they hate because they are afraid to leave. Their excuses include the risk of not finding a better job, of getting a new job and finding it worse, of needing the stability of an old job they know well during this "difficult time" of their lives, of the current job market being slim. In fact, most of them refuse to even look for a new job.
Many people attend the services of the religion they grew up with, regularly, because they fear the consequences of leaving.
Their minds are often made up so steadfastly that they can't be knocked off their position by reason. They don't feel the need to expalin to anyone else because their minds are so solid on the subject. But they will sometimes confide in others, leaving that small opening for change.
There are other examples of the fear that many people have of leaving the suffering they are familiar with, but they all have one common factor. The issue that is the problem is a very important parts of their life. Whatever the relationship they fear severing, it has constituted a major factor and commitment of their lives, an undeniable portion of their lives they invested in who they are today.
Of the several people I have personally helped over a major hurdle in their lives, they all wanted to know that they had someone behind them to support them if they faltered. They needed to know that it was alright for them to take the big step and fail, that they would not be failures in life if they did, that other opportunities would present themselves that would be better if they made a mistake with thier first choice.
They wanted to know that they were not alone when they changed their lives.
In the final analysis, we are each alone when we make major life decisions. Few of us have one friend so close and dependable that we can be absolutely certain they will be there for us if we try and fail.
What each person in a position of making such a life-altering decision needs to know is that no matter what happens, the sun will rise the next day and they will rise with it. Somehow, those of us who survive the night manage to find a way to build better lives if we dare take the big chance.
And there is always someone who will help if we look hard enough and ask people we believe we can trust.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the real opportunities for a better future.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Prejudice: Its Deep and Early Causes
"I'm interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice."
- Clint Eastwood
What right does a Hollywood type have to an opinion on such an important subject? As much right as anyone else. Being a man involved with the public in many ways for so many years, Eastwood likely has a better perspective about how people act than most of us because he has been exposed to so many insecure people in filmland. Hollywood is a Mecca for insecure people.
Assume his observation is correct for the purpose of this discussion. What we have are two important parts to his statement: insecure people and those with extreme prejudice.
Why would anyone be insecure? A genetic defect? A nasty mother? Abuse as a child? The number of people who suffer from feelings of insecurity suggests that the cause is more pervasive than any of these. Almost everyone feels insecure about some things, or they should because they cannot know enough about every problem or situation they face to be able to cope with it effectively and efficiently.
The kind of insecurity that Eastwood was speaking about is basic, far deeper than not knowing enough about the kind of flat screen TV to buy. This kind goes back to childhood, specifically to unfulfilled needs.
A baby spends nearly a year in the womb before birth, 40 weeks in constant touch with its mother. After birth, the need for constant touch continues, but the amount of touch time between mother and child decreases dramatically. As the child gets older, the need continues, though not to as great an extent as before birth. The child can look after itself in childhood passtimes. A fair amount of touching is still needed. It continues throughout our lives.
That need for touch in adults is vastly underrated by most people. How it affects single people (unattached to a cohabiting other of any kind), married people who become separated or married people whose spouse dies or becomes alienated in another way is seldom addressed to the extent it deserves. A man whose wife leaves him may be a bomb waiting to explode because he doesn't know how to cope with the loss of touch as well as the loss of a way of life.
Studies have shown that we each need the equivalent of 12 hugs per day to be satisfied with our lives. The ideal would be 18 hugs. But who has time for that?
Most of us do, if we make time because we know how important touch is to our welfare--both emotional and physical health. It doesn't always have to be a hug. It could be a touch while passing in the hall, holding hands while having coffee or walking together and sleeping next to each other. A kiss and huge when leaving each other and when meeting again counts as two each.
An insufficient amount of touch will make anyone insecure to some extent. The degree will vary and it's hard to measure. In general, all unhappy people lack sufficient touch from a loved one to satisfy them. Those who have extreme prejudice have accommodated themselves to insufficient touch for many years. They may even deny their need for touch.
A prejudiced person needs someone to hurt, just as bullies do. The unfulfilled need for touch for far too long has caused them to want to hurt someone else the way they have suffered themselves. They seldom want to talk about how they hurt or about their need.
Prejudice and bullying function at an emotional level, which is where our need for touch comes in. Lack of sufficient touch shows itself in emotional hurt, which may demonstrate itself in inappropriate behaviours. Sometimes the inappropriate behaviours involve touching the other person.
Now you know something about human needs that most people do not. Use your knowledge wisely and productively.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to bring important human needs out of the closet.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Clint Eastwood
What right does a Hollywood type have to an opinion on such an important subject? As much right as anyone else. Being a man involved with the public in many ways for so many years, Eastwood likely has a better perspective about how people act than most of us because he has been exposed to so many insecure people in filmland. Hollywood is a Mecca for insecure people.
Assume his observation is correct for the purpose of this discussion. What we have are two important parts to his statement: insecure people and those with extreme prejudice.
Why would anyone be insecure? A genetic defect? A nasty mother? Abuse as a child? The number of people who suffer from feelings of insecurity suggests that the cause is more pervasive than any of these. Almost everyone feels insecure about some things, or they should because they cannot know enough about every problem or situation they face to be able to cope with it effectively and efficiently.
The kind of insecurity that Eastwood was speaking about is basic, far deeper than not knowing enough about the kind of flat screen TV to buy. This kind goes back to childhood, specifically to unfulfilled needs.
A baby spends nearly a year in the womb before birth, 40 weeks in constant touch with its mother. After birth, the need for constant touch continues, but the amount of touch time between mother and child decreases dramatically. As the child gets older, the need continues, though not to as great an extent as before birth. The child can look after itself in childhood passtimes. A fair amount of touching is still needed. It continues throughout our lives.
That need for touch in adults is vastly underrated by most people. How it affects single people (unattached to a cohabiting other of any kind), married people who become separated or married people whose spouse dies or becomes alienated in another way is seldom addressed to the extent it deserves. A man whose wife leaves him may be a bomb waiting to explode because he doesn't know how to cope with the loss of touch as well as the loss of a way of life.
Studies have shown that we each need the equivalent of 12 hugs per day to be satisfied with our lives. The ideal would be 18 hugs. But who has time for that?
Most of us do, if we make time because we know how important touch is to our welfare--both emotional and physical health. It doesn't always have to be a hug. It could be a touch while passing in the hall, holding hands while having coffee or walking together and sleeping next to each other. A kiss and huge when leaving each other and when meeting again counts as two each.
An insufficient amount of touch will make anyone insecure to some extent. The degree will vary and it's hard to measure. In general, all unhappy people lack sufficient touch from a loved one to satisfy them. Those who have extreme prejudice have accommodated themselves to insufficient touch for many years. They may even deny their need for touch.
A prejudiced person needs someone to hurt, just as bullies do. The unfulfilled need for touch for far too long has caused them to want to hurt someone else the way they have suffered themselves. They seldom want to talk about how they hurt or about their need.
Prejudice and bullying function at an emotional level, which is where our need for touch comes in. Lack of sufficient touch shows itself in emotional hurt, which may demonstrate itself in inappropriate behaviours. Sometimes the inappropriate behaviours involve touching the other person.
Now you know something about human needs that most people do not. Use your knowledge wisely and productively.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to bring important human needs out of the closet.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Saturday, February 03, 2007
We Need To Teach
"Everybody has talent, it's just a matter of moving around until you've discovered what it is."
- George Lucas, movie producer and animation innovator
Doesn't that make sense? Lucas, an inventor and producer of dreams in reality, learned that as an adult. In general, that is not a lesson that children are taught.
Innovation--just being different--is a risky business. Society mediates against those who are different. They don't have ladders to climb. They must create their own mountains, then scale the precipices themselves. When they reach the top, they need to market themselves so that others will know what they have accomplished.
Our society is designed to produce followers. Which suits business fine because they treasure employees who will follow the role model they have described. In a society whose work habits, clothing styles, cosmetic usage, hair styles and even morals and ethics are dictated by business, the economy revolves around followers.
Young people who move around to discover their strengths receive little support or encouragement in a broad sense. Business does not like movers, unless they are winners from another company that choose to move to their own business. Moving out is not encouraged, nor is moving up (again in a general sense).
Our education systems prescribe a set curriculum and schools test to ensure that students have attained comptence in the skills and memory of the knowledge to be tested. The objective, we are told, is to ensure that each child receives the same minimum level of skills and knowledge within the public school system.
This objective is worthy to an extent. Yet we still have many young people leaving school without knowing how to read or write at a functionally acceptable level. And we have persistant discipline problems and troublemakers in school who become owners of business empires or great artists by middle age.
In a time when moving around to find your strengths is difficult in most communities and the base of general knowledge grows much faster than it can possibly be taught in schools, we need different ways of doing things.
First we need to teach life skills so that students know how to cope with rapidly changing work and even personal environments. We need to teach children where and how to find the knowledge they require, rather than simply acquiring a little of it for particular classroom projects.
We need to teach social skills to every child so that the "equality of opportunity" to which we pay homage can become a reality where each adult knows how the systems of life work. Opportunities in life mean more than laws and competence with curriculum.
We need to teach emotional (psychological) skills so that each person understands the needs that we all have and knows how to manage their own. They will also know how to recognize problems in others and take steps to intervene to help where advisable.
We need to learn how to help each other and that asking for help is perfectly acceptable. We need to learn that it's in our community's best interests for everyone to be socially and emotionally stable so that we have no hesitation about helping others because we know that the whole community will benefit. And that helping others in need is socially correct.
We need to put into place values where everyone understands that they do not have to be self-sustaining islands of independence, but instead should be part of the community in which they live. A community improves where everyone contributes to it and this will not happen so long as everyone believes that they must look out for their own best interests because no one else will.
We need to learn trust and honesty before we buy our way into chaos and perpetual war. Trust and honesty will be learned if and when they are taught as values and norms of society.
If most people cannot move around freely to discover their strengths, as George Lucas did, then we must provide similar opportunities within school and home environments. This can happen, but only if we teach the necessary skills and knowledge to everyone.
Right now we have the skills and knowledge, but it's wrapped up in psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists who make their living by trying to patch up people who are emotionally and socially broken. The skills and knowledge are in the wrong hands. They need to be in the hands of teachers who can convey them to every child.
Let's stop forever trying to fix broken people. Let's give them what they need to prevent them from breaking in the first place.
The place to begin is within the education systems. Then it will move into homes.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light forward in an increasingly dark tunnel that is our future.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- George Lucas, movie producer and animation innovator
Doesn't that make sense? Lucas, an inventor and producer of dreams in reality, learned that as an adult. In general, that is not a lesson that children are taught.
Innovation--just being different--is a risky business. Society mediates against those who are different. They don't have ladders to climb. They must create their own mountains, then scale the precipices themselves. When they reach the top, they need to market themselves so that others will know what they have accomplished.
Our society is designed to produce followers. Which suits business fine because they treasure employees who will follow the role model they have described. In a society whose work habits, clothing styles, cosmetic usage, hair styles and even morals and ethics are dictated by business, the economy revolves around followers.
Young people who move around to discover their strengths receive little support or encouragement in a broad sense. Business does not like movers, unless they are winners from another company that choose to move to their own business. Moving out is not encouraged, nor is moving up (again in a general sense).
Our education systems prescribe a set curriculum and schools test to ensure that students have attained comptence in the skills and memory of the knowledge to be tested. The objective, we are told, is to ensure that each child receives the same minimum level of skills and knowledge within the public school system.
This objective is worthy to an extent. Yet we still have many young people leaving school without knowing how to read or write at a functionally acceptable level. And we have persistant discipline problems and troublemakers in school who become owners of business empires or great artists by middle age.
In a time when moving around to find your strengths is difficult in most communities and the base of general knowledge grows much faster than it can possibly be taught in schools, we need different ways of doing things.
First we need to teach life skills so that students know how to cope with rapidly changing work and even personal environments. We need to teach children where and how to find the knowledge they require, rather than simply acquiring a little of it for particular classroom projects.
We need to teach social skills to every child so that the "equality of opportunity" to which we pay homage can become a reality where each adult knows how the systems of life work. Opportunities in life mean more than laws and competence with curriculum.
We need to teach emotional (psychological) skills so that each person understands the needs that we all have and knows how to manage their own. They will also know how to recognize problems in others and take steps to intervene to help where advisable.
We need to learn how to help each other and that asking for help is perfectly acceptable. We need to learn that it's in our community's best interests for everyone to be socially and emotionally stable so that we have no hesitation about helping others because we know that the whole community will benefit. And that helping others in need is socially correct.
We need to put into place values where everyone understands that they do not have to be self-sustaining islands of independence, but instead should be part of the community in which they live. A community improves where everyone contributes to it and this will not happen so long as everyone believes that they must look out for their own best interests because no one else will.
We need to learn trust and honesty before we buy our way into chaos and perpetual war. Trust and honesty will be learned if and when they are taught as values and norms of society.
If most people cannot move around freely to discover their strengths, as George Lucas did, then we must provide similar opportunities within school and home environments. This can happen, but only if we teach the necessary skills and knowledge to everyone.
Right now we have the skills and knowledge, but it's wrapped up in psychologists, psychiatrists and therapists who make their living by trying to patch up people who are emotionally and socially broken. The skills and knowledge are in the wrong hands. They need to be in the hands of teachers who can convey them to every child.
Let's stop forever trying to fix broken people. Let's give them what they need to prevent them from breaking in the first place.
The place to begin is within the education systems. Then it will move into homes.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to shine a light forward in an increasingly dark tunnel that is our future.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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