For a woman, finding the right man to love her the way she wants to be loved, to be a good father to the children they create together and to provide a healthy, vibrant, creative and enjoyable family environment that will last a lifetime is almost impossible.
Why? While there are many reasons, a few stand out.
Most commonly, a woman goes looking for the wrong guy. Back in prehistoric days, a woman wanted a strong man, the best warrior in the tribe, someone who could provide for and defend her family. If he was good looking, even better. If he fertilized other women, so be it, so long as he looked after the best interests of her family.
That attitude persists today, even though almost everything else in life has changed. Women still want the handsomest, strongest, sexiest guy with demonstrated ability at leadership as he gathers other guys to follow his lead. Anyone who doubts this should check out how girls in the latter years of grade school and in high school tart themselves up for the guys. They may want to be treated as sweet and innocent, but they look and act like hookers because they know what guys like to look at.
No question, guys like to look at attractive women. If they could, they would take every one of them to bed. But they wouldn't necessarily want to spend their lives with them.
If I guy can score with a girl who looks and acts like a hooker, but not have to pay fees, he considers himself a winner. And so would his buddies. But guys don't want to marry hookers, because...they have proven that they have too many other sexual interests. Girls who look like hookers and put out sexual vibes like hookers may get the attention of guys, but those guys don't want to marry them.
The same applies to the captain of the football or basketball team, or any other jock who looks good stripped to...well, stripped. While most girls are attracted to these guys, many have none of the other qualities a woman should be looking for. That "get the best possible male to mate with" attitude persists even though we no longer live in tribes.
The best warrior in the tribe in prehistoric days seldom lived past age 24, almost never past age 30. Since the tribe did much of the teaching of children anyway, getting the best set of genes seemed wise. The warrior would always be busy with matters other than those relating to the family, and women knew that. Today, the same guy would be a terrible person to depend on for personal and family values.
Today, most men live past 30. It's the next 50 or 60 years after that the women who marry them can't stand.
Very few of the skills a young man learns in high school apply to the fulfillment of responsibilities of a family man. We don't teach the skills that families need, that women should be looking for. So young women continue to want the best looking guy they can get. And when they marry and he fails to satisfy the needs of her or their children, they can't figure out why.
The most popular girls and guys in high school get so used to constant attention from members of the opposite sex that they continue to want that attention into college, into their work lives later and into their time as parents. They don't need commitment, they need attention. Girls should want a life partner who gives attention, not one who seeks it from them.
Girls naturally favour men with confidence. Whether in men or women, confidence is the most important characteristic of beautiful people. An average looking person with lots of confidence and a big smile can be a sex symbol. Just look at the stars of movies, only they have the addition of makeup to make them look even more perfect. Brad Pitt may be great for the imagination, but few women could tolerate spending a life with that kind of man.
As great as confidence is--I firmly believe it is critically important to a person's well-being--it does absolutely nothing to make a man a better husband, lover, father, provider or planner. Confidence is but one characteristic of a person. That characteristic can be taught and learned. Most people who have confidence learned it by themselves, though it can be learned by taking classes of various kinds.
Those who don't have confidence in themselves and their abilities and strengths should take a class to learn how to show confidence, to feel confident.
Men need more skills than confidence, good looks and rippling muscles to be good husbands, fathers and long term friends. For a woman to depend on the looks of a man as the main feature she loves and wants would be the same as a man loving a woman because she has breast implants, a tummy tuck, butt rounding, a nose job, reconfigured ears and a hair transplant. Every study ever done shows that most men don't want those features in a wife and mother. A majority of men want "natural" women, no matter if they have body features that are not perfect.
Women shouldn't depend on good looks and popularity as characteristics that will make a man a good husband and father. In fact, nothing about the appearance of a man, good or not so good, can be held as predictors of what he will be like as a husband, lover, father, provider, friend or sleepmate.
Advice to women: When looking for a mate, search for one who has the characteristics you want in a man for what you want to do with him in the years to come. If one you like doesn't have those characteristics, make sure he is the kind of man who will gladly learn what he needs to know. If he won't, look elsewhere, quickly.
Advice to men who have read this far: The same applies to you when looking for a lifemate. Paris Hilton or Salma Hayak or someone with the name of Diaz or Cruz may be great to ogle, but they won't necessarily have the characteristics you want at home. And they will always want the attention they get now from other men.
It's not just a matter of caveat emptor. It's a matter of looking for what you really want rather than wanting someone who looks good but has nothing else to offer that you will find valuable in the years to come.
Think ahead. Unfortunately, most people don't get better with age. If you want a partner that will, look for that characteristic before you settle.
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 know how to cope with the needs of their lives instead of depending on television and movies to tell them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationships. Show all posts
Friday, August 29, 2008
Saturday, August 09, 2008
A Jealous Lover Is A Bad Choice
Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.... Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love the greater the jealousy.
- Robert Heinlein, American writer (1907-1988)
The concept of jealousy may be misunderstood as often and the concept of love. Love itself is confusing because we have so many forms of it that it requires one of the longest explanations in most dictionaries.
Love, like jealousy, is an emotion. Both are basic emotions, ones that are powerful enough to take control of a person to the extent that the person's best interests or the best interests of the loved one may be compromised. If not compromised, at least the best interests of the loved one are altered by being loved as much as by being the object of jealousy.
Let's try to define love in a way that everyone can understand and that helps to avoid confusion. Love is what we give. At its best, love is altruistic, it demands nothing in return. If given love is not appreciated by the receiver, we have unrequited love. But the love is still given by one person, whether or not it is returned by the other. Those who love for real don't quit.
Jealousy, on the other hand, is not giving in nature, but taking. Jealousy is selfish. Jealousy measures what is coming in to a person from another. What is incoming may be compared with what is outflowing, but this comparison is not necessarily a part of jealousy.
Jealousy is about "me," about "what I'm getting," about "what belongs to me." Jealousy, therefore, may be about objects as much as about people. A man may be jealous of his car, not wanting others to drive it, to touch it, maybe not to do anything but admire it. The admiration is necessary because that is the part of the concept that is incoming where objects are concerned. The objects themselves can't give back whatever the possessor wants, whereas an admirer can. The jealous lover expects a return directly from the other person.
Another word for love might be generosity. The Christian Bible now often translates the word as used in the King James version as "charity" into "love." Wherever and however these words are used, their contexts have similarities.
Love is about giving. Jealousy is about taking, no matter whether what the jealous person wants to take or receive is deserved or not. Love is outgoing. Jealousy is incoming. A loving person cares more about the person she loves than about herself. A jealous person cares more about what he gets (gender switch noted, though not intended to make a specific point) than about what he gives or about whether or not what he wants is deserved, needed or even necessary.
Now let's put the two together and watch the sparks fly. When two people supposedly love each other, is a little jealousy a healthy thing? That's a little like the hostess taking an extra piece of dessert, the last one on the plate, after everyone has been served, without asking if anyone else would like it after finishing their own piece, because she was the one who made the dessert. In a social context, that's greediness. Jealousy is a form of greediness.
If a person has a jealous lover, that may give some satisfaction to the person, but only because of the attention received because of the jealousy. The jealous person demonstrates selfishness and attention to the other, not love. Someone who gives love to a sufficient degree will not be jealous because he or she will know that the object of the affection has received his or her best.
A person who gives all the love of which he or she is capable and still loses the lover to another had a relationship with the wrong person.
We have nearly seven billion people on our planet today. To believe that "There is only one person for me" is not just naivety, it's self deception. Finding the "love of your life" is a matter of taking a large survey and continuing to look until that person shows up. Along the way, the seeker must give of himself or herself to many people in order to test their response.
My wife claims that she knew that I was the man she wanted to marry after our first meeting. I believe I had a good inkling before I even met her, when I had only read a letter she had written. Was that love at first sight? Or read? No, we had both done enough searching over the years to know that we had found a very special person, one who could and would give without demanding a certain minimum in return.
One of the tests for a potential mate should be a past history of jealousy or of love. A jealous person treats the other like a chattel, one that is not too smart at that. One that is prepared to be "owned." When a jealous person has had a mate for a long period of time, he takes the other for granted so much that he may even leave the relationship or cheat on her because she is so stupid, or so he perceives. It's not so much a matter of growing apart from each other as losing respect for each other, or one (the jealous one) losing respect for the other.
People who are capable of jealousy should come with warning labels. They don't. On the other hand, it would be dishonest and harmful to test the "jealousy gene" of a new lover by giving attention to still another. That's why learning about the past history of the potential new lover is important. In general, people are today what they have been in the past.
If you want to be sure that you are never the jealous one, learn about love. Learn about what love is, how to give it, how to show it, and how to recognize it when it is shown by someone else. Often jealous people don't really know what love is because they may not have experienced it, even within their own families.
A jealous person can change, but it's not an easy task to undertake to teach a jealous lover how to be a real lover. It takes years and more patience than most people can afford.
Why is love, arguably the most important emotion we have, a subject we don't teach in schools? We have so many problems that relate somehow to love, yet we do nothing about teaching it to children. We literally have some children growing up believing that love is a business relationship on a personal level.
Business relationships eventually end. Love doesn't. Anyone who believes that love can end likely does not have a clear idea about what love really is.
Now you know what to look for. Now you know what to give. Learn how.
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 know about love, how to recognize it from others and how to give it themselves. Most kids learn this from birth, but many kids get it beaten out of them as they grow, through bad experiences.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Robert Heinlein, American writer (1907-1988)
The concept of jealousy may be misunderstood as often and the concept of love. Love itself is confusing because we have so many forms of it that it requires one of the longest explanations in most dictionaries.
Love, like jealousy, is an emotion. Both are basic emotions, ones that are powerful enough to take control of a person to the extent that the person's best interests or the best interests of the loved one may be compromised. If not compromised, at least the best interests of the loved one are altered by being loved as much as by being the object of jealousy.
Let's try to define love in a way that everyone can understand and that helps to avoid confusion. Love is what we give. At its best, love is altruistic, it demands nothing in return. If given love is not appreciated by the receiver, we have unrequited love. But the love is still given by one person, whether or not it is returned by the other. Those who love for real don't quit.
Jealousy, on the other hand, is not giving in nature, but taking. Jealousy is selfish. Jealousy measures what is coming in to a person from another. What is incoming may be compared with what is outflowing, but this comparison is not necessarily a part of jealousy.
Jealousy is about "me," about "what I'm getting," about "what belongs to me." Jealousy, therefore, may be about objects as much as about people. A man may be jealous of his car, not wanting others to drive it, to touch it, maybe not to do anything but admire it. The admiration is necessary because that is the part of the concept that is incoming where objects are concerned. The objects themselves can't give back whatever the possessor wants, whereas an admirer can. The jealous lover expects a return directly from the other person.
Another word for love might be generosity. The Christian Bible now often translates the word as used in the King James version as "charity" into "love." Wherever and however these words are used, their contexts have similarities.
Love is about giving. Jealousy is about taking, no matter whether what the jealous person wants to take or receive is deserved or not. Love is outgoing. Jealousy is incoming. A loving person cares more about the person she loves than about herself. A jealous person cares more about what he gets (gender switch noted, though not intended to make a specific point) than about what he gives or about whether or not what he wants is deserved, needed or even necessary.
Now let's put the two together and watch the sparks fly. When two people supposedly love each other, is a little jealousy a healthy thing? That's a little like the hostess taking an extra piece of dessert, the last one on the plate, after everyone has been served, without asking if anyone else would like it after finishing their own piece, because she was the one who made the dessert. In a social context, that's greediness. Jealousy is a form of greediness.
If a person has a jealous lover, that may give some satisfaction to the person, but only because of the attention received because of the jealousy. The jealous person demonstrates selfishness and attention to the other, not love. Someone who gives love to a sufficient degree will not be jealous because he or she will know that the object of the affection has received his or her best.
A person who gives all the love of which he or she is capable and still loses the lover to another had a relationship with the wrong person.
We have nearly seven billion people on our planet today. To believe that "There is only one person for me" is not just naivety, it's self deception. Finding the "love of your life" is a matter of taking a large survey and continuing to look until that person shows up. Along the way, the seeker must give of himself or herself to many people in order to test their response.
My wife claims that she knew that I was the man she wanted to marry after our first meeting. I believe I had a good inkling before I even met her, when I had only read a letter she had written. Was that love at first sight? Or read? No, we had both done enough searching over the years to know that we had found a very special person, one who could and would give without demanding a certain minimum in return.
One of the tests for a potential mate should be a past history of jealousy or of love. A jealous person treats the other like a chattel, one that is not too smart at that. One that is prepared to be "owned." When a jealous person has had a mate for a long period of time, he takes the other for granted so much that he may even leave the relationship or cheat on her because she is so stupid, or so he perceives. It's not so much a matter of growing apart from each other as losing respect for each other, or one (the jealous one) losing respect for the other.
People who are capable of jealousy should come with warning labels. They don't. On the other hand, it would be dishonest and harmful to test the "jealousy gene" of a new lover by giving attention to still another. That's why learning about the past history of the potential new lover is important. In general, people are today what they have been in the past.
If you want to be sure that you are never the jealous one, learn about love. Learn about what love is, how to give it, how to show it, and how to recognize it when it is shown by someone else. Often jealous people don't really know what love is because they may not have experienced it, even within their own families.
A jealous person can change, but it's not an easy task to undertake to teach a jealous lover how to be a real lover. It takes years and more patience than most people can afford.
Why is love, arguably the most important emotion we have, a subject we don't teach in schools? We have so many problems that relate somehow to love, yet we do nothing about teaching it to children. We literally have some children growing up believing that love is a business relationship on a personal level.
Business relationships eventually end. Love doesn't. Anyone who believes that love can end likely does not have a clear idea about what love really is.
Now you know what to look for. Now you know what to give. Learn how.
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 know about love, how to recognize it from others and how to give it themselves. Most kids learn this from birth, but many kids get it beaten out of them as they grow, through bad experiences.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Saturday, May 03, 2008
How To Avoid Marriage Failure
When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce.Yet if we have problems with our friends or family, we blame the other person.But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and argument.
- Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk and zen master, author of Being Peace
Note that the monk stresses that blaming does no good at all. Neither does it help to adopt blame for something ourselves. Blaming is not a winning strategy in relationships.
At the time of breakup of a marriage, seldom does it happen that one of the couple admits to having done wrong. When it happens, the one who admits having done wrong usually has some excuse that is valid to him or her, usually that the other has abandoned him or her physically or emotionally and he or she committed some unacceptable behaviour out of need. In a majority of cases, each blames the other for something.
In some cases, the couple chooses the middle path, counselling. Someone with a certificate in something--usually marriage counselling--interrogates each individual of the couple to find what behaviours could be changed in order to reduce the stress or improve the interaction between them. That's "using reason and argument." Sometimes it works, but the success rate is not high.
Thich says that "if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well." In other words, if we know how to take care of each other, our relationship will grow.
Very nice. Glib. The divorce rates in industrial countries (above fifty percent in almost every case) gives evidence that we don't know how to take care of each other. Without that key element, knowing how to take care of each other, we have little hope of forming a long term successful relationship. Where do we learn this skill, this knowledge?
To be fair, some do learn on the job. They muddle through the rough patches to form something wonderful, as if they knew what to do in the first place. Few do.
In no society I know are the guides for forming and cementing successful relationships taught to everyone. Ideally they should be taught to children, as young as possible. Preferably at the sandbox age. That's the age when many people learn the value of friendships, at least of having allies as opposed to enemies.
Not long after the sandbox age kids form friendships if they can, temporary alliances if they can't make friends. The temporary allies are still called friends. The friends that are really allies are more like buddies that share similar interests, even if those interests include protecting themselves from a mutual enemy or bully.
What's the difference between allies/buddies and real friends? It's the same difference as between those who form successful marriage relationships and those whose marriages break down when the two people "grow apart." It's a question of who is more important.
That's not the Who is the head of the household? question, but Who is more important to each member of the couple? If each member believes himself or herself more important, that his or her own best interests must be maintained as higher priority than the other, the two are buddies, allies. It's effectively a business relationship marriage. Businesses fail.
When both individuals believe that the best interests of the other are more important than their own, the marriage will likely succeed. The friendship will last.
"What happens to you affects me, so it's in my best interests to see that you have a happy, successful and fulfilling life." Don't blame the lettuce. Learn how to grow it so that it becomes more valuable.
The lettuce will appreciate it and reward you greatly. In human terms, that reward continues throughout the lifetime.
When you are the more important person in a relationship, more important to yourself, then your relationship is like a business association. Buddies. Allies that help each other, but always have their own bests interests at heart.
That's a pretty simple lesson to teach to children. Very hard to teach to adults. Most kids don't receive that as a consciously and proactively taught lesson.
Unless they have been taught that lesson, most kids will grow up believing that their own best interests are what they should keep in mind most of the time. That's what nature teaches them. Marriages where one or both parties believe that will eventually fail. Worse, one or both parents will be blamed by the kids and they will grow to do the same in their own marriages.
Stop the endless cycle. Teach the children.
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 handle successful relationships as adults. The world doesn't need more buddy marriages.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk and zen master, author of Being Peace
Note that the monk stresses that blaming does no good at all. Neither does it help to adopt blame for something ourselves. Blaming is not a winning strategy in relationships.
At the time of breakup of a marriage, seldom does it happen that one of the couple admits to having done wrong. When it happens, the one who admits having done wrong usually has some excuse that is valid to him or her, usually that the other has abandoned him or her physically or emotionally and he or she committed some unacceptable behaviour out of need. In a majority of cases, each blames the other for something.
In some cases, the couple chooses the middle path, counselling. Someone with a certificate in something--usually marriage counselling--interrogates each individual of the couple to find what behaviours could be changed in order to reduce the stress or improve the interaction between them. That's "using reason and argument." Sometimes it works, but the success rate is not high.
Thich says that "if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well." In other words, if we know how to take care of each other, our relationship will grow.
Very nice. Glib. The divorce rates in industrial countries (above fifty percent in almost every case) gives evidence that we don't know how to take care of each other. Without that key element, knowing how to take care of each other, we have little hope of forming a long term successful relationship. Where do we learn this skill, this knowledge?
To be fair, some do learn on the job. They muddle through the rough patches to form something wonderful, as if they knew what to do in the first place. Few do.
In no society I know are the guides for forming and cementing successful relationships taught to everyone. Ideally they should be taught to children, as young as possible. Preferably at the sandbox age. That's the age when many people learn the value of friendships, at least of having allies as opposed to enemies.
Not long after the sandbox age kids form friendships if they can, temporary alliances if they can't make friends. The temporary allies are still called friends. The friends that are really allies are more like buddies that share similar interests, even if those interests include protecting themselves from a mutual enemy or bully.
What's the difference between allies/buddies and real friends? It's the same difference as between those who form successful marriage relationships and those whose marriages break down when the two people "grow apart." It's a question of who is more important.
That's not the Who is the head of the household? question, but Who is more important to each member of the couple? If each member believes himself or herself more important, that his or her own best interests must be maintained as higher priority than the other, the two are buddies, allies. It's effectively a business relationship marriage. Businesses fail.
When both individuals believe that the best interests of the other are more important than their own, the marriage will likely succeed. The friendship will last.
"What happens to you affects me, so it's in my best interests to see that you have a happy, successful and fulfilling life." Don't blame the lettuce. Learn how to grow it so that it becomes more valuable.
The lettuce will appreciate it and reward you greatly. In human terms, that reward continues throughout the lifetime.
When you are the more important person in a relationship, more important to yourself, then your relationship is like a business association. Buddies. Allies that help each other, but always have their own bests interests at heart.
That's a pretty simple lesson to teach to children. Very hard to teach to adults. Most kids don't receive that as a consciously and proactively taught lesson.
Unless they have been taught that lesson, most kids will grow up believing that their own best interests are what they should keep in mind most of the time. That's what nature teaches them. Marriages where one or both parties believe that will eventually fail. Worse, one or both parents will be blamed by the kids and they will grow to do the same in their own marriages.
Stop the endless cycle. Teach the children.
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 handle successful relationships as adults. The world doesn't need more buddy marriages.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Pay Attention: It's Like Gold
Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.
- Jim Rohn, motivational speaker, philosopher and entrepreneur
The fastest way to make people like you is to give them the gift of your attention. That's attention without distraction, without doing something else at the same time.
Listen to what they have to say and look them in the face while they are speaking. Don't stare because that indicates you have become distracted by something other than the words being spoken. Such as a pimple, a scratch, the colour of the other person's eyes or something that doesn't belong on his or her face. Staring is bad because it achieves the opposite effect to making them like you.
You don't have to look the person directly in the face, at the same spot--such as the eyes, or one eye--for long. A sentence or two should be enough. Then look somewhere else nearby, briefly, to give the impression that you are thinking about what the person said.
Then look back at the face.
In order to give the impression that you are paying attention, you have to actually pay attention. You must pay attention because you will need to add a comment, ask a question or suggest something that indicates you are considering what has been said. Since you won't care about making someone you dislike or have little respect for like you, you needn't fear that you will give the wrong person the wrong impression.
People like when others pay attention to them. We live in a busy world where seldom enough does it happen.
What happens when you pay close attention to what someone is saying--someone physically close enough to you so that he or she knows you are paying close attention--is that the self esteem of the person rises. Even a self confident person feels gratification when someone unexpectedly pays attention to them.
People like others who raise their self esteem. That can be your opening for friendship.
It's also worth remembering that allowing yourself to be distracted while someone is speaking, especially paying attention to someone who has interrupted your conversation, is a great turn-off. Self esteem plummets when in the middle of speaking someone who has been listening suddenly turns away to give attention to an interloper. You might as well say to that person's face "I don't like you and I don't respect you."
Giving your attention to someone is relatively easy. You can repeat it for those you see regularly, if you want to ramp up your relationships with them. For those you will never see again, you will have been a bright spot in their day. They will remember you the next time they see you, if you cross paths again.
When you end each conversation, be sure to smile. Leave the person on a high note, a smile and some sort of wish for their welfare.
If it works into the event, touch the person briefly on the arm as you say goodbye. Touch is another indicator of liking and of wanting to enhance the relationship.
Next time you see that person, offer something from the previous conversation to indicate you considered their words valuable enough to think about when you were apart. It need only be something brief, an enhancement of something the other person said. Then move on to another topic because neither of you will want to rehash the same conversation.
At some point, if you want to make that person a friend, you must offer something of value to him or her. If that offering relates somehow to spending of money, you are telling the person that your relationship is based on a kind of friendly business association. Such casual friendships evaporate when two people no longer see each other frequently.
Most new relationships that begin with people intending to find a mate fall apart because they are largely based on something relating to money, not on the value of the people to each other. For example, if a guy begins a relationship with a woman by buying a dinner and buying a movie, the woman will feel that her interest is being bought. If there is nothing more personal to the date--even if it includes sex--the relationship likely won't go anywhere because it's fundamentally a gigolo-prostitute association.
To make it a more meaningful relationship, you will need to offer something more valuable than money, your time. That may involve your skill, such as help to put up a chandelier and attach the wiring, or it may involve just your time and effort, such as helping the person accomplish something he or she is having difficulty with. Or help to do something the person wants company doing.
Making a new friend is not hard if you know the techniques. What is much harder is to be able to figure out whether the person is worthy of being your friend. And, more important to that person, whether you are worthy of being his or her friend. Remember, if you want the other person to want to be your friend, you must offer value to that person as well as that person must for you.
In any successful relationship, each person usually feels that they contribute more to its success than the other does. That's natural because we can seldom know all of what the other friend does for us. It just seems unbalanced.
In a marriage, that apparent imbalance may seem as high as 80-20, with each person believing that they contribute 80 percent to the success of the relationship. That's how much most of us miss of what our spouse does for us and to contribute to our security, our welfare and our comfort.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents, grandparents and teachers about what they need to know regarding child development, how important each kind of development is and when to tweak each. It's the handbook everyone needs.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Jim Rohn, motivational speaker, philosopher and entrepreneur
The fastest way to make people like you is to give them the gift of your attention. That's attention without distraction, without doing something else at the same time.
Listen to what they have to say and look them in the face while they are speaking. Don't stare because that indicates you have become distracted by something other than the words being spoken. Such as a pimple, a scratch, the colour of the other person's eyes or something that doesn't belong on his or her face. Staring is bad because it achieves the opposite effect to making them like you.
You don't have to look the person directly in the face, at the same spot--such as the eyes, or one eye--for long. A sentence or two should be enough. Then look somewhere else nearby, briefly, to give the impression that you are thinking about what the person said.
Then look back at the face.
In order to give the impression that you are paying attention, you have to actually pay attention. You must pay attention because you will need to add a comment, ask a question or suggest something that indicates you are considering what has been said. Since you won't care about making someone you dislike or have little respect for like you, you needn't fear that you will give the wrong person the wrong impression.
People like when others pay attention to them. We live in a busy world where seldom enough does it happen.
What happens when you pay close attention to what someone is saying--someone physically close enough to you so that he or she knows you are paying close attention--is that the self esteem of the person rises. Even a self confident person feels gratification when someone unexpectedly pays attention to them.
People like others who raise their self esteem. That can be your opening for friendship.
It's also worth remembering that allowing yourself to be distracted while someone is speaking, especially paying attention to someone who has interrupted your conversation, is a great turn-off. Self esteem plummets when in the middle of speaking someone who has been listening suddenly turns away to give attention to an interloper. You might as well say to that person's face "I don't like you and I don't respect you."
Giving your attention to someone is relatively easy. You can repeat it for those you see regularly, if you want to ramp up your relationships with them. For those you will never see again, you will have been a bright spot in their day. They will remember you the next time they see you, if you cross paths again.
When you end each conversation, be sure to smile. Leave the person on a high note, a smile and some sort of wish for their welfare.
If it works into the event, touch the person briefly on the arm as you say goodbye. Touch is another indicator of liking and of wanting to enhance the relationship.
Next time you see that person, offer something from the previous conversation to indicate you considered their words valuable enough to think about when you were apart. It need only be something brief, an enhancement of something the other person said. Then move on to another topic because neither of you will want to rehash the same conversation.
At some point, if you want to make that person a friend, you must offer something of value to him or her. If that offering relates somehow to spending of money, you are telling the person that your relationship is based on a kind of friendly business association. Such casual friendships evaporate when two people no longer see each other frequently.
Most new relationships that begin with people intending to find a mate fall apart because they are largely based on something relating to money, not on the value of the people to each other. For example, if a guy begins a relationship with a woman by buying a dinner and buying a movie, the woman will feel that her interest is being bought. If there is nothing more personal to the date--even if it includes sex--the relationship likely won't go anywhere because it's fundamentally a gigolo-prostitute association.
To make it a more meaningful relationship, you will need to offer something more valuable than money, your time. That may involve your skill, such as help to put up a chandelier and attach the wiring, or it may involve just your time and effort, such as helping the person accomplish something he or she is having difficulty with. Or help to do something the person wants company doing.
Making a new friend is not hard if you know the techniques. What is much harder is to be able to figure out whether the person is worthy of being your friend. And, more important to that person, whether you are worthy of being his or her friend. Remember, if you want the other person to want to be your friend, you must offer value to that person as well as that person must for you.
In any successful relationship, each person usually feels that they contribute more to its success than the other does. That's natural because we can seldom know all of what the other friend does for us. It just seems unbalanced.
In a marriage, that apparent imbalance may seem as high as 80-20, with each person believing that they contribute 80 percent to the success of the relationship. That's how much most of us miss of what our spouse does for us and to contribute to our security, our welfare and our comfort.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents, grandparents and teachers about what they need to know regarding child development, how important each kind of development is and when to tweak each. It's the handbook everyone needs.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, April 04, 2008
For Those Who Resent Others
If you aren't good at loving yourself, you will have a difficult time loving anyone, since you'll resent the time and energy you give another person that you aren't even giving to yourself.
- Barbara De Angelis, relationships coach
The first part of the quotation sounds like the basic material of any relationships coach. The second part, the part that most omit from the equation, allows the whole thing to make sense. It drives home the part about loving yourself.
I relate to most of the quotes I use because they conform so well to my own experience, either personally or through observation of others. This one describes much of my life.
My childhood was totally without love. It was without hate or rancor too. It could better be described as a business arrangement between my parents. One set of grandparents--the ones I saw often--exemplified the same business arrangement. My other grandmother, a widow, loved her children and grandchildren, but lacked the means or skill to express her love, so it went largely unnoticed.
When I married the first time, I made the best business decision I knew how to make, based on my experience growing up. My wife, who left me and our two children a decade later so that she could further her career, succeeded in the teaching profession, reaching the position of school principal before she died of cancer caused by excessive and persistent overwork.
Not long after her death, my new wife and I suffered a huge financial loss, so were unable to provide my now-twentyish kids with what their mother had led them to believe they deserved from me, in the sense of financial benefits. In turn, they made the best business decision they could, they dissociated themselves from me totally. I have not seen them for 15 years, or my grandchildren ever.
Working my way through my grief at being alienated (albeit illegally and by lying to their own kids about my being dead) I learned a very important lesson, how to love myself. That lesson showed me that I have value and worth as a human being, something I had not recognized before as everyone who knew me treated me as a business contact. That's how it works, people who treat others like business associates gather friends who treat them the same way.
Knowing how to love and respect myself gave me the insight to be able to love others. Lo and behold, I no longer resented others because of the love they withheld from me. They wanted to love me because I loved them.
What's more, the more love I gave to others, the more I received back. It was the goose that laid the golden eggs. Only the gold turned out to be love, not financial wealth.
My conclusion is that the resentment I had for others I should love--perhaps including my own children, but I'm not certain--vanished when I learned to love myself. I thought I loved them but maybe they sensed resentment. I certainly didn't know how to show them love very well then.
As a side benefit to my new life, I no longer feel lonely, even when I am alone for a long period of time. As another benefit, people come to me with their offerings of love because they know what they will get in return. It's a good deal both ways.
Now I see a world of lonely people who have business arrangements as relationships, who don't know how to give or receive love fully, who have troubled children even though they tried their best to raise them well, who can't keep a marriage or "significant other" relationship for long because "the business" changes.
Money is the most important thing in their lives, though they tend to think of it in terms of possessions--"he who has the most toys when he dies, wins." They think I'm simple because I'm happy without being rich. They don't even appreciate that they are rich without being happy.
I don't know how to explain it to them.
No one should have to go through hell to get to heaven, as I did.
There are important lessons to learn and we need to teach them. Those of us who know. We may fail with some, but we will succeed with many if we keep trying to teach them. We will regret our failures, but only until we consider our successes, those we love and who love us in return because of what they have learned and received from us.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow happy, loved and successful children into happy, loved and successful adults and parents of their own children.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Barbara De Angelis, relationships coach
The first part of the quotation sounds like the basic material of any relationships coach. The second part, the part that most omit from the equation, allows the whole thing to make sense. It drives home the part about loving yourself.
I relate to most of the quotes I use because they conform so well to my own experience, either personally or through observation of others. This one describes much of my life.
My childhood was totally without love. It was without hate or rancor too. It could better be described as a business arrangement between my parents. One set of grandparents--the ones I saw often--exemplified the same business arrangement. My other grandmother, a widow, loved her children and grandchildren, but lacked the means or skill to express her love, so it went largely unnoticed.
When I married the first time, I made the best business decision I knew how to make, based on my experience growing up. My wife, who left me and our two children a decade later so that she could further her career, succeeded in the teaching profession, reaching the position of school principal before she died of cancer caused by excessive and persistent overwork.
Not long after her death, my new wife and I suffered a huge financial loss, so were unable to provide my now-twentyish kids with what their mother had led them to believe they deserved from me, in the sense of financial benefits. In turn, they made the best business decision they could, they dissociated themselves from me totally. I have not seen them for 15 years, or my grandchildren ever.
Working my way through my grief at being alienated (albeit illegally and by lying to their own kids about my being dead) I learned a very important lesson, how to love myself. That lesson showed me that I have value and worth as a human being, something I had not recognized before as everyone who knew me treated me as a business contact. That's how it works, people who treat others like business associates gather friends who treat them the same way.
Knowing how to love and respect myself gave me the insight to be able to love others. Lo and behold, I no longer resented others because of the love they withheld from me. They wanted to love me because I loved them.
What's more, the more love I gave to others, the more I received back. It was the goose that laid the golden eggs. Only the gold turned out to be love, not financial wealth.
My conclusion is that the resentment I had for others I should love--perhaps including my own children, but I'm not certain--vanished when I learned to love myself. I thought I loved them but maybe they sensed resentment. I certainly didn't know how to show them love very well then.
As a side benefit to my new life, I no longer feel lonely, even when I am alone for a long period of time. As another benefit, people come to me with their offerings of love because they know what they will get in return. It's a good deal both ways.
Now I see a world of lonely people who have business arrangements as relationships, who don't know how to give or receive love fully, who have troubled children even though they tried their best to raise them well, who can't keep a marriage or "significant other" relationship for long because "the business" changes.
Money is the most important thing in their lives, though they tend to think of it in terms of possessions--"he who has the most toys when he dies, wins." They think I'm simple because I'm happy without being rich. They don't even appreciate that they are rich without being happy.
I don't know how to explain it to them.
No one should have to go through hell to get to heaven, as I did.
There are important lessons to learn and we need to teach them. Those of us who know. We may fail with some, but we will succeed with many if we keep trying to teach them. We will regret our failures, but only until we consider our successes, those we love and who love us in return because of what they have learned and received from us.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow happy, loved and successful children into happy, loved and successful adults and parents of their own children.
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
Monday, January 22, 2007
Why Make Friends When Things Are Going Well?
"The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining."
- John F. Kennedy
The old song Manana (Spanish word with ~ over the first n) comes to mind. Why fix the roof on such a sunny day? Kennedy's reference was to that song.
Why fix the roof indeed when the rain is not pouring in on top of us? In other words, why fuss about problems with relatives, friends, neighbours (be they personal or at the state level) when all is going well otherwise?
The answer of course is that the midst of a crisis is not the time to worry about patching up relationships. We need to do repairs when it's possible to do them with less risk than during a crisis.
The present situation with the US is an excellent example. Its friends are those countries with whom the US has courted good relationships over the past decade or more. Its enemies are those it has insulted or viewed with suspicion (if it gave them any attention at all) over the same period. In time of war, the US could not count on any non-friends to join it in its invasion of Iraq.
The recent US friendly relationship with India follows many years of courtship during the Clinton years. The US has trade to offer to India today, but it offered respect during the Clinton years. The years of respect led to the new trade relationship. Respect built trust.
When we have a personal crisis, such as a crisis between two friends, it's hard to patch things up on the spot. With the passage of time, it may be easier, but we then would have moved on to focus on other matters and other people. Yet that smoother time would be the ideal time to rekindle the friendship because there would be no conflict involved.
Failure to do that can mean a dwindling number of friends, whether they be friendly people or friendly nations.
The best time to make friends and to re-empower old ones is when things are going well for us.
But don't depend on the media to tell us when times are good. For the media, there is no such thing as a good time. Every period is always worse than previous ones.
Assess your own good times and act on them to build while you have the time and ability.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference between real life and what the media report.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- John F. Kennedy
The old song Manana (Spanish word with ~ over the first n) comes to mind. Why fix the roof on such a sunny day? Kennedy's reference was to that song.
Why fix the roof indeed when the rain is not pouring in on top of us? In other words, why fuss about problems with relatives, friends, neighbours (be they personal or at the state level) when all is going well otherwise?
The answer of course is that the midst of a crisis is not the time to worry about patching up relationships. We need to do repairs when it's possible to do them with less risk than during a crisis.
The present situation with the US is an excellent example. Its friends are those countries with whom the US has courted good relationships over the past decade or more. Its enemies are those it has insulted or viewed with suspicion (if it gave them any attention at all) over the same period. In time of war, the US could not count on any non-friends to join it in its invasion of Iraq.
The recent US friendly relationship with India follows many years of courtship during the Clinton years. The US has trade to offer to India today, but it offered respect during the Clinton years. The years of respect led to the new trade relationship. Respect built trust.
When we have a personal crisis, such as a crisis between two friends, it's hard to patch things up on the spot. With the passage of time, it may be easier, but we then would have moved on to focus on other matters and other people. Yet that smoother time would be the ideal time to rekindle the friendship because there would be no conflict involved.
Failure to do that can mean a dwindling number of friends, whether they be friendly people or friendly nations.
The best time to make friends and to re-empower old ones is when things are going well for us.
But don't depend on the media to tell us when times are good. For the media, there is no such thing as a good time. Every period is always worse than previous ones.
Assess your own good times and act on them to build while you have the time and ability.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to show the difference between real life and what the media report.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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