Category: Makes You Think

This category covers things that relate probably require some reflection and some time to allow your brain to process more completely. It will be the largest category because the aim of this site is to get people to shift their thinking in some way and to create a new “normal” state. It is safe to say that any post that is included in this category will probably present you with a new piece of information, a new way of looking at something, or a different take on what is already considered common sense or common knowledge.

Why You Are So Screwed-up – Part 1 Nature

Okay, you aren’t that screwed-up, but you aren’t entirely right are you? Life doesn’t seem to flow the way it does for other people. Everyone else seems to have an easier time with things. Happiness for others is simply a matter of smiling, for you it’s a matter of getting or doing something to be happy about. Success for others is easier too, they just seem to put the time in and everything falls into place while for you, you work and struggle and battle the inertia of mediocrity for months to get the smallest piece of the pie only to find that it’s not apple, it’s made out of liver and dirt and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

But the thing you may be missing is that everyone is you. We all have the same types of struggles as you and we are all prone to make the same mistakes as others. They are suffering life as you are suffering life and they look at you and think the same things you do when you look at them – life is so easy for you while I have to struggle. It’s people, it’s our innate perspective to view us as the center of everything, struggling against all the odds to carve out a tiny piece of happiness, that everyone else is trying to steal.

And as weird and paranoid as all of this may sounds, it is true from an evolutionary and therefore genetic point of view. Your body is running a program, the foundation of which was written during a period of time when the above, based on scarcity, was true. EVERYONE and EVERYTHING was out to take what you had; be it your shelter, your partner, your food, your off-spring or your life. Our ancestors did have to take on this me against the world approach or else they would get killed or not reproduce. Simply put, the paranoid attitude that flows out of us so easily is there because we’ve evolved to have it as our default emotional state.

But this program is antiquated. It hasn’t really been relevant in western society for a long time because of an excess of everything. We have specialization of labor, shelter, and laws so we now have the ability to engage the world in reflective ways vs. immediate or survival terms. Our ability to fire our fight or flight response using thoughts is actually a hindrance in an environment of excess because there is no real need to empower a reactive logic-inhibiting system. The successful happy people spend as little time reacting to their emotions because they understand the role they plays and what they are good for, and what they are really bad at.

What does that mean?

Well, simply put, you need to start using logic or rational thinking more and your emotional system less. Very very simple to say, tough to understand and even tougher to put into practice until you know what it feels like.

What does that look or flow like?

Your actions are direct and goal orientate; something in your environment will change as a result of the decisions your make and the actions you take. This is different from the emotional approach which tends to engender a sense of fear and loss which stirs fear / anger and then action to address these negative feelings as opposed to the trigger. There should be a sense of peace and a feeling of improved momentum – as though you are building up speed and power on a purposeful journey. And your life will get better! Not only will things begin to get easier, but you’ll soon notice that a there are a lot of people in the world who aren’t out to get you or wanting to see you fail. In fact, you will begin to draw in people who take the same logical problem solving approach to their life.

In conclusion to part 1, you are screwed-up because your biology favors you acting in a way that promotes a sense of scarcity and therefore a strong desire to hold onto what you have; even if this means acting in a wildly illogical way. This is because the environment from which our species evolved favored those individuals who possessed this trait – the code that shapes behavior is selfish because it was written when being selfish offered a survival advantage. Part 2 will deal with the nurture aspect of the equation, which we have a lot more control over and which has a much bigger influence on us than foundation program that influences consciousness.

Go Train Confusion

An east bound train pulls into Oakville station at 2:25pm on track 2 and not track 3, which was the track they posted for the next east bound train, at 2:28pm. The platform 3 is pretty full. There was a moment for about 5 seconds after the train stopped when things just continued as normal. But then it happened, the herd became individuals and things got interesting.

As the train pulled-up and stopped I did wonder why it was there. If that’s the train I need and I miss it, my plans are blown. If that is my train, I need to be on it so I need to move. I look up and there are people making the way to the stairs, I move with them. Decision made and action taken.

As I walk I’m looking around, most people are still standing there waiting. I drift over to the track, look back and see nothing. No train coming, not for miles anyway. I continue to the stairs and find my way to track 2.

I get on the train and take a seat where I am able to see the track 3 platform where about 10% of the people still stood.

The announcement was made that track 2 was the 2:28pm east bound train and the remaining people began to make their way over to the train. I asked one of the last people why they waited and didn’t go with the herd and she said that she was just going to assume the board was correct until they made an announcement. She was not moving until the official word was given.

There was a lot of social referencing going. The early adopters needed one person to go and that left 90% of the people still waiting standing. As time past, the chances of a 2:28pm train being on track 3 decreased and people started the move to track 2; their confidence in track 3 decreased and their confidence in track 2 increase. After a certain point, around 2:28pm everyone who was on the platform would likely remain there until they get official word. They would have let the train leave the station if it hadn’t come.

I moved because that seemed like the most probable outcome given the situation, and my confidence in that decision was boosted by other people taking the same action I committed to. But it was odd. At the moment there really wasn’t enough information to go on, just a guess based on the information that was available, the experiences I’ve had and a willingness to take a risk and leave the herd.

Weekend Recap – Reasons, Actions, Results

Friend and mentor Chris Brown emailed me this week, excited about his weekend rediscovered of some important lessons he lost over the last few months. This is the way with important life lessons. They aren’t spontaneous so you need to do your homework and practice them in order for them to be of any value. You have to work diligently to make them your new normal.

In explaining the weekend re-enlightenment he said:

A few things stuck out at me during the weekend. One was a distinction that you get results or make up reasons, but you cant have both. I naturally always make up reasons simply because I analyze everything, but I didn’t realize that that takes up time in which I could be getting results which would actually move me forward. The other one was a distinction that your views create your actions. I realized this in terms of studying and reading as I noticed a drop-off there. I viewed myself as not as good as some of those trainers we read stuff by on the internet, so my actions represented my view of myself being lesser…”why try?” summed up the lack of motivation there quite well. Stuff like that.

Off to take some more “unreasonable action” as they call it.

That is outstanding! It captures the essence of so much of what seems to paralyze people who are prone to spending a lot of time in their head. If I’m not busy, I start to lose productivity very quickly. If I have time and don’t really like how things are going, it’s easy to come-up with reason why things are the way they are. Sometimes I’m right and sometimes I’m wrong. But even if I’m right, I don’t really benefit. If I haven’t taken an action to move my life forward in a way that I know I can actually move my life forward, I haven’t really done anything of reasonable value.

A lack of action to improve ones situation is going to have a penetratingly inhibiting impact on how they view the world and their ability to do anything to make it better. This doubt stains the future before they even create it because it primes the brain with the tone needed to facilitate the experience it needed to validate the dirty world view.

I do that. Not all the time, but I do it and I keep forgetting that I do it. Thanks for the weekend recap Chris! Thank you for sharing it.

No Plan B = Full Engagement In Plan A

Had a conversation recently with a guy who was a good pitcher when he was younger. He got hurt at 17 (glenoid labrum tear), missed US scholarships and never fully recovered his throwing. He attended university in Canada, got a degree and started working. He did really well in all his jobs and stated building his resume. This is where he is right now, not 100% content with what he is doing because it isn’t what he dreamed he would be doing when he was younger.

“I didn’t have a plan B. Why would someone have a plan B? That’s like already accepting that you may not and that’s as good as saying you won’t. Why introduce doubt?”

He didn’t consider any other option when he was young and developing as a pitcher. He needed to keep his mind free of negative influence so he could pitch well each game and he knew that, over the long haul, a little bit of doubt each day would eventually move him off the path to the pro league. It was an intense and single minded approach that did get him to the top of his game, scouted and with a number of interested NCAA schools. Unfortunately, his body wasn’t able to keep up to the demands of the training and throwing and it shut down a year before it was needed to be at it’s best to showcase what he could deliver.

He didn’t mention regret for having not considered anything other than professional baseball. There was disappointment for the dream not working out, but he knows that he wouldn’t have gotten as far if he had considered what would happen if he didn’t make it to the top. He did his best when he had the chance to do it and that is enough for him to not regret it. He had been 100% focused on the goal of becoming one of the top pitchers in the country and had not wavered a single step along the way. This allowed him to reach his physical potential, and it very nearly worked out for him the way he had dreamed it. It also created an enormous amount of self-confidence because he knew he had the character to give something everything he was.

It was a great conversation and it left me feeling really uplifted. His passion and intensity had been focused on one extraordinary goal – as opposed to one extraordinary goal and one less noteworthy goal – and it had taken him as far as he was going to go. He knew that by creating a second lesser goal he’d actually be making that his primary goal. No plan B meant full engagement in plan A.

Antiquated Role Definitions – Moving Into The Future

The world is a complex place so it’s really hard to create an accurate mental understanding of it. Most of us do a fairly good job creating a functional reality that allows us to exist and contribute to society. Whatever assumptions we make about the world to get us through our day to day life tend to work well enough to allow work, shopping, recreation, education, etc…. to continue. This is because these assumptions are trivial – the assumption that a cashier will give you change is a fair one because that is their role. A teacher is supposed to teach, fitness instructors are supposed to instruct and co-workers are supposed to do their jobs. These are basically social conventions – implied behaviors and actions for specific roles. Members of society have a collective understanding of all these roles so it’s expected that those playing one of them do so appropriately. Doing so makes society function more effectively because we don’t need to vet every single interaction.

For less superficial roles like romantic partners, it is a lot more complicated. The interactions are more frequent and cover a deeper range of topics. However, we may still apply the same social convention approach to roles – that is we assume that a girlfriend or boyfriend is a particular thing, plays a particular role and should therefore act a particular way. This is what everyone else in our life does – the sales person sells, the lawyer applies the law to get you what you want, the police identify and charge criminals – so we do the same thing with the more intimate social partners. This works very well for transactional interactions because you are making a very general assumption about their potential behavior based on your understanding of the role; a composite understanding of EVERY experience, real or thought, about anyone who played this transactional role before. This approach doesn’t work as well when it comes to deeper non-transactional interactions. The issue becomes that of assumption testing, and more accurately assumption failure, because the understanding that one creates about a girlfriend and the role that she plays ARE going to be tested in a relationship, and some of them are going to fail.

Your understanding of a romantic partners has been shaped by the modeling of your primary caregivers, television, books, siblings, peers, and social exposure. As you begin to date, the understanding evolves and starts to acquire aspects of each relationship. It’s a complicated thing but over time you start to get a clear understanding of what a girlfriend is supposed to do, why she is doing it, what you are supposed to do and what a relationship is supposed to be like. Eventually the role of girlfriend becomes clearly defined – it too is a composite of all of the behaviors that you have come to associate with the role of a girlfriend. At some point the evolution of this understanding slows and the role become more solidified turning now into expectations. You close off to information seeking and choose to move forward with what you have running on the belief that you know all you need to about how a romantic partner is supposed to act and what they are supposed to be. With repeated exposure, their actions will shape your understanding of how the role is supposed to be played but any deviations from the existing role will be resisted and need to be assimilated over time.

The problems really begin because people now enter your life, not as new people with new things to learn about but instead enter as bit players to fill a role in your life. There are expectations for how they should be your significant other, based on your experiences, and your new partner is being held to your old views / roles. We have less concern about learning from them and more concern about getting them to act in a particular way – a way that is compatible with our view of what a girl or boy friend is supposed to act. This is almost completely unworkable because people tend not to respond very well to having their autonomy replaced with a list of demands and expectations, disappointment and anxiety when they act like themselves.

In my opinion, the key thing that taxes a relationship is a lack of information exchange about ones personal definition of what a romantic partner is supposed to be. It isn’t necessarily that being kept in the dark is bad or the wrong thing, it’s just that a lot of people have the tendency to fill in missing information with stuff they make up based on their past experiences. If we don’t directly ask someone what their motives are, we can wait to hear what they are or we can do what we’ve been doing most of our life and make an assumption about what the motives are based on our experience. The problem with this type of manufactured life is that it tends not to reflect reality. The outcome is that you think your new girl friend acts the way she does for the reasons your OLD girlfriend/s would have had. You are living in the past because you are holding onto antiquated role definitions. Your actions are unfair and generally lead away from happiness because you are transferring your old roles onto new people; you are not allowing them to determine their role and how they should fill it.

I am aware of the impact of my past as I can sense it in the back of my mind telling me stuff that it couldn’t possibly know with any certainty. For example, having had a girlfriend that died, a part of me is always certain that something has happened when I don’t hear from a romantic partner. Most of my friends didn’t have a partner die so they’re just know that they are running late. Time for that assumption to go. I had a girlfriend who lived in a different province so I became accustomed to not seeing her for weeks at a time. While I’ll miss them like crazy when they are not around, it isn’t abnormal for me to not spend a lot of time with my girlfriend because I normalized not seeing them. This one isn’t working for me because I really enjoy spending time with my girlfriend and can’t think of any good reason for us not to hang out. I’ve had three girlfriends who were working hard to complete a second degree so I have been able to normalize tabling couple activities until later when school is out and they have the time to reconnect. Being distant with someone I live with is not unusual for me, in fact, it’s actually what I have come to expect out of relationships because people who want to do well in school HAVE to focus on school and deprioritize the relationship. But since I’m not in a relationship with someone who is in school, there really is no reason for me to transfer this understanding / role onto them. We CAN spend time together and we SHOULD remain connected.

So, what does this mean to the single or the newly involved people? The same thing it means to those involved in more long term relationships. You need to be very aware that you are allowing your partner to be who they are, act how they need to and say what they say without an attempt to force them to behave as your antiquate role template outlines. You need to not transfer or project motive or intentions on them. You need to ask them questions when you don’t know why they did something you don’t understand. You must remain diligent to ensure that you are affording your partner the dignity to be who they are and not use your influence to shape their actions to conform to what your role expectation demand they be.

Take A Moment – Cooling It Down Before It Heats Up

Very little good ever comes out of rushing a conversation, particularly when one or both of the parties are emotional worked-up. Yet this is what I see happening all the time and it’s common advice to “talk it out.”

It’s really silly to press on someone to talk things out when they don’t know how they feel or are emotionally aroused. You aren’t talking to them, you’re talking to their emotion, and that’s rarely good. The logical part of the brain is in stand-by so they’re likely going to say a bunch of stuff that feels to them to be terribly important, but doesn’t necessarily reflect what they would say in 10 minutes. But that’s what you get when you hammer on someone to talk about stuff they don’t, at that moment in time, fully understand or appreciate. You need to let things cool down enough to proceed logically, and you need to be able to push pause on the conversation if it approaches the critical level of arousal again.

Why do conversations heat-up in the first place?

Assuming there isn’t a eminent physical threat, there really is only one reason for a conversation to become heated, it reveals information that is incompatible with one party’s world views and is therefore interpreted as a possible survival threat. This is a survival response that is initiated unconsciously when presented with new information does not match an existing pattern. The body release a chemical mix that is experienced as fear, which if left to fester will quickly become anger. This mix also suspends the activity of the prefrontal cortex to ensure that higher level functions do not interrupt the emotional response. Once you are emotionally worked-up, the conversation degrades because of the lack of logic and because dominating the incompatible information out of existence will help to maintain an accurate world view; at least from a survival point of view.

Given the nature of most heated conversations it isn’t surprising that people argue as much as they do. Everyone has a world view that they would like to keep intact and compatible with reality. If you are going to talk to anyone ever, you need to accept that you are going to disagree and that you need to do this effectively and appropriately to move past disagreements and to allow for the rapid assimilation of world view changing information.

What Does Cooling Down Look Like?

Topic is breached in a conversation that triggers emotional response. Pause. Don’t say much. Just let the moment be and see what happens. It will seem like a long time, but take 5 seconds before replying with anything. After 5 seconds, take stock of how you feel. Do you feel confused in that you don’t know what you are feeling? Is there a tightness / excitement in your stomach indicating a fight or flight response? It doesn’t matter, just reply with “okay” and take another moment to observe how you are feeling.

The next thing you need to identify is if you are having an emotional response to the information. If you are, say “can we push pause on this conversation right now? I’m not 100% sure how I feel and I need to take a moment to collect my thoughts.” This should grant you some time to get yourself together. If they keep talking say “I’m having a visceral response to something I’m thinking and I need sometime to let the emotions clear.” If this doesn’t get you the time you need, you need to walk away. They either don’t care or are incapable of caring because the conversation has trigger an emotional response in them.

Once the conversation has stopped, take a few deep breaths and relax. If you aren’t dead yet or haven’t been attacked, there is very little danger to your physical health so what is happening is only a threat to your world view, ego, etc… and does therefore not require an emotional response. As you relax more, let logic take over to help you see things more clearly. Once you know how you feel about the topic, reengage the other person if they are able to be receptive to what you are saying; that is, they are not responding emotionally. Press pause if either party begins to get worked-up again, cool off and repeat as often as you need to in order to find closure or a solution that both people can and are willing to work with.

Life is long and no two people will have the same journey. You are going to have disagreements with the people you care about concerning the best way to live life, move things forward and about your life experiences. In almost every case, there are 1000’s of different ways to end up in the same place. You need to make sure to just let go of the emotions that new information or opinion creates and move forward, cool and relaxed.

A Few Things Friends Have Said This Year

Below are 5 random things I have heard my friends say to me in the last year and the impact these words have had on me.

When I recently mentioned to Tony that I had started dating someone, he was happy for me because he knows that I have a lot of love and positive energy to give and that it was probably time for me to just get on with giving it. He initially said “just take it slow” but he paused for a couple of seconds and then said “actually, go as fast as you can.” I laughed and said that full speed was more my thing and he said “it needs to be, you’re almost 40. You have a great track record of knowing what doesn’t work so maybe you’ll be able to use that to find something great.” Rare advice from someone who is usually so calculated with their actions that their forward progress is rather uneventful. Fall in love recklessly, completely and quickly.

Historically I have been able to identify something in every girl friend that bothers me. The stuff isn’t much of anything yet I seem to hold onto it and keep it in the present. When I finally said it out loud to Sharyl she replied with “that’s not good” then “you need to stop doing that” and finally “that isn’t fair”. I knew when I was telling her how ridiculous it was but having not said it out loud, I hadn’t actually made the thought real enough to experience it as ridiculous. It’s not a comforting feeling to have that thought-stream flow out of my brain. Yuck! I felt shame as I accepted that this line of thinking has been in me for a very long time. However, when I got back to life a few minutes later I realized that the intrusive thoughts that I had been having were gone;which is great because they taxed my creative and positive energy. When someone like Sharyl becomes bossy, it’s time for me to just do what she says because she doesn’t tell people what to do.

Sean gave me some performance coaching in the summer and throughout the fall. Through talking to him I discovered that I tell stories to myself. The stories aren’t crazy, but they are problem or historically based vs. solution or future based – X happened because of this reason vs. I’m going to do X because that is what I need to do. They show a tendency towards shrugging responsibility and taking action that is costing me success. We can control only ourselves. Whenever something happens and we perceive ourselves as the victim, we are delaying or completely ignoring responsibility of taking control and making the situation better. Either way, we suffer needlessly for some period of time and we prevent progress towards important things. For example, “MY BOSS is MAKING ME do new consultations to get 2 new clients” is not the same thing as “my boss is holding me to the contract I signed stating that I would work a particular number of hours per week or be doing something to get to that number of hours”. I don’t have to like it, but if I want to keep working there, I need to do it. Sean gave me some homework for the weekend, to try to see the lies you tell yourself, and we would chat about it the following week. There were a lot of them and I need to rephrase each of them to put me into a position of influence or power. The lies continue, though they’ve lessened which seems like an improvement.

In January Rachel gave me a shoulder assessment because I’ve been having shoulder pain for a long time and she needed to practice. What was great about her assessment was that I got to see her doing what a clinical athletic therapist would do, which was the culmination of all of her hard work at school and clinic. And she was fantastic. She made no predictions about what the issue was and just worked through a checklist. Before the final test she said “there is a very good chance the following movement is going to hurt you” I said okay and she hurt me. She had identified the shoulder issue that I’ve been dealing with for a long time. Then she explained what it was, how it likely happened, what I needed to do to correct it and the consequences of not addressing it now. She gave me 2 or 3 rehab movements, instructions and a parting thought “it won’t effect me if you don’t do the rehab“. I still continue to do the movements and I continue to feel improvements in my shoulder pain and mobility. This was a great experience because Rachel worked her ass off to learn as much as she could and to become the best therapist she can be. Seeing it all come together was fantastic. Her success was coming after long and tremendous effort. For me, it was the best day we shared, very satisfying and very complete.

During our coaching sessions, Sean realized that he had to push kinda hard to get some information out of me and to get me to talk in terms of what was going on in my head. Regardless of my reason for not being more forthcoming, he got me to see that this was not working for me. “If you want to be indestructible you need to talk to people about the dissonance in your shared life and your expectations and understanding of things so you know you are both on the same page. They may leave, but that is a step in the right direction if the truth makes them go.” This was in early March 2011 and I have found that just saying the tough thing quickly saves a time and emotion. I spend a lot less of my mental energy thinking about a future conversation and can spend energy on things that move my life forward. The other people seem to appreciate it because they know where they stand with me. All in all, it makes life simpler.

Taff – Rest In Peace

Sadly Taff died this week. He feel asleep Sunday and didn’t wake-up to eat on Monday. He was almost 17.

Natalie got Taff when he was 7 weeks old, we were in third year at Brock in 1994. She picked him because he didn’t come to her the way his sister did when she went to meet them. A few days after adopting him, he got really sick and it looked like he was not going to make it. It was touch and go for a few days so I was relieved to get home from school one evening to see Natalie smiling saying Taff was going to be fine. “Great! How do you know?” She said when the vet tried to give him a needle to help to hydrate him he went bizerk and started to get aggressive. He wasn’t on his death bed, he was only getting started and when he started fighting the vet, Natalie knew it. He recovered completely and became a rambunctious kitten.

After Natalie died in 1995 Taff came to live in Milton with my parents. Nat had intended to have him as an indoor cat while she was at school so my folks did their best with this. But Taff had other intentions and lobbied hard to get access to the back yard. Once granted, he made the most of the the warm day light hours outside sleeping. He’d come home to eat and when it got dark, or when he wanted some attention. An easy, peaceful life.

The most wonderful thing about Taff living in Milton was the relationship he and my mom formed. She was his favorite and they spend a lot of time hanging out together. When my mom would garden he’d watch and walk amongst the flowers she was planting. When my mom was sitting in the back yard in the evenings, he’d be there. If a raccoon or possum ever got too close, he’d rush to get between the animal and my mom, start hissing and getting all sideways. A protector against the mostly harmless. It was funny to watch him but he did it anytime something weird got too close to my mother.

My mom is a deeply loving person, rich in joy and happiness. Taff was receptive to these things and in being so, my mom became richer in them! He would wake with her most mornings (wake her) and they’d have breakfast together. My mom chattering away to him, he meowing back acknowledging that it was going to be a great day, adding that bacon would be the perfect breakfast closer. He’d come when she called him and he’s get up and meet her when she’d come home from work. Taff made my mom really happy and he was very welcoming to the love she gave. I think my mom created the best possible life that Taff could have had. For the more than 15 years that they shared, Taff was one of the most special things in my moms life and she gave selflessly, doing her absolute best to see him happy and content.

There is a deep appreciation for having seem my mom be so compassionate and loving towards Taff. He was her little buddy and they looked after each other like family!

Thanks for the memories Taff! Rest in peace!

Family Roles – What To Do When Only You See

Relationship / communication / interaction problems are a lot like fires in buildings, once you notice one, you have an obligation to address it. If you don’t, the problem becomes YOU and you now wear the eggs on your face for whatever outcome your inaction allowed. This is a truth if you want to live a life in service to yourself. Very little good ever comes from ignoring a problem once you see it. Unlike a fire however, that everyone can see and agree needs to be addressed, many problems in the realm of relationship, communication and interaction are not so clear. Often times, one person seeing the problem is a lot easier than getting two people to agree that there IS a problem.

This is particularly important in areas that require a shared level of understanding of the world. For example, controlling people and toxic relationships. There are people who tend to evoke negative emotional responses in many other people, yet have close friends who do not find them to be toxic in any way simply because they identify the behaviors in the other person which cause reaction and they just ignore the tone of those actions / statements and deal with only the facts. The knowledge that their friend is prone to engaging in toxic behaviors is enough for them to NOT engage in these behaviors. In essence, they see what others don’t and they change their behavior accordingly to break free from something that isn’t pleasant for them and which doesn’t seem like a choice to the rest of us.

Family dynamics can be drastically impacted by one members transcending to a high level of awareness, in both positive and negative ways. In most instances it tends to the eldest child who first grasps and holds onto a clearer version of reality, causing a shift in the roles each member plays in the family unit. Their motivation for the embracing and normalizing an updated reality can come from many places but most tend to find that they want to change simply because the role they are playing does not feel right, creates anxiety or is simply not working for them. As the eldest child, particularly in larger families, some of the child raising responsibilities can be transferred onto them during the formative socialization years when they are learning how to behave and interact with the world. While this makes operational sense from a managing a household point of view – spreading the child raising and housework out reduces the workload for the primary care givers – it doesn’t do much to allow of self determination for the eldest child. In fact, they find themselves in a role that was given to them before they realized they were in a position to choose the role they play.

Awareness of that kind of dissonance will go a long way in motivating the oldest sibling to seek change. And when they find it, there can be a dramatic role change for all of the members of the family as the eldest vacates the position of primary care giver; a shift that will likely be experienced as rejection and a lack of gratitude by the parents and as detachment or withdrawal by the other siblings. Neither are accurate interpretations of what is happening but both are understandable given that everyone else in the family has remained the same while the eldest child has changed their view and behavior. The parents may fear that they have “lost” the child because they have made the decision to reject the role that wasn’t working from them and move their life towards something that more closely resembles what their purpose actually is. The reality is that the child has been found and has broken free from the life that was imposed upon them. It’s a tough pill to swallow for parents because they have likely not questioned many of their child rearing decisions if they experience the shift as something other than the expression of the eldest child’s essence.

With the rest of the siblings, two main things can happen: usually, the roles are sent down one child so that the second oldest begins to play the role vacated by the eldest. This is the simplest and it requires the least adjustment from the remaining members of the family. The eldest child is released from the burden of being something they aren’t and moves forward towards a life that they choose. The other thing that can happen is that as the roles are shifting, some or all of the other children begin to feel the shift and begin to resist the change. They may notice a complete change in the eldest, which is new information, and they may begin to act on the new information to become more self aware eventually breaking free of their previously unconscious role.

Now, what is the responsibility of the eldest child in this situation? That’s a tough one. In some way, they have an obligation to let people know when they are being unconsciously manipulated by others. But the people doing the manipulation are not aware that they are doing it or that there could even be something wrong with their actions. In fact, as is the case with most forms of control within a relationship, they believe it is the proper thing to do. It is normal as it has been going on for decades. In most cases it probably makes sense to say nothing and wait until someone asks about it. There’s a very good chance they won’t see what you see and that you don’t want to be the person to open that door without them asking for it. Even then, it’s a rough road because you don’t know the consequences of opening someones eyes to unconscious behavior.

A lot of the time it will just be easier to continue some of the behaviors, shedding responsibilities slowly while allowing the family to adjust to the changing demands of their newly acquired role. This will be least disruptive to the entire family unit and it will afford one the opportunity to practice not being affected by being controlled; arguably one of the more challenging things a human being can manage. But you’ll be doing it alone because you are the only one who sees it.

Children Early In Life or Children Later In Life

Having waited until at least 38 to start a family, I’ve had a lot of time to think about being a parent without having to actually BE a parent. Had I become a father when I younger, it would have been during a period in my life when I was most energetic and healthy. Since I wasn’t a horrible person I probably would have been an okay parent. But I was not ready because I didn’t have much of an idea how the world worked or that my perceptions about the world were not the same as how the world actually was. While not a dangerous or necessarily delusional, it was detached enough from reality to make passing along irresponsible.

Most of us begin to gain insight into who we are beginning in the late teens and it will continue to develop so long as one has enriching experiences that reveal the self. The more self revealing experiences one has, the greater their self awareness will be. As individuals each of us is on a different path – some will become completely self-aware before they are 20 while others will only become 5% self-aware in their entire lifetime. What matters in not age, but experience and the interpretation of these experiences. The brain adapts to life events in much the same way it adapts to movement – by becoming more efficient with increased repetition. If we have more diverse experiences that present a challenge to our world views, our understanding of the world will become more robust and a better reflection of reality. Reading, talking, therapy, introspection, meditation, exercise, diet, etc… are all things that can help us experience clarity.

I have had most of my enlightening experiences in the last 15 years, from the age of 22 on; right around the time many people are coupling-up and starting families. While I was reading books and chatting with my brother about thinking and how my the underlying narrative sets the tone of my thoughts, my married peers were sleeping 2 hours a night in 20 minute blocks because a child or two needed feed, or to go to the bathroom or do one of the 1000’s of things that children need to do. I was able to build myself while my same-aged peers where building children. “I” became the thing I put my energy into because I knew I needed to and because I was able to.

This is a blessing and a curse. I do believe that self aware people will have an easier time with certain parts of children raising – if I start a family now, I’m doing so KNOWING what I am about to do. I fully understand that my personal development will be slowed dramatically as I shift my focus from me to them. Having this knowledge BEFORE embarking on making a family will go a long way in insuring that I offer my children and wife the benefit of complete attention that should provide the entire family with an enriched environment from which each of us can grow. However, waiting until almost 40 to start a family means that I may not have as much energy as I would have had in my 20’s – I won’t be teaching any of my children how to ride a half pipe or do rail-slides down the stairs of the local library because I’ll be 50 something when they are able to ollie high enough slide that rail – I’ll be a spectator in their pursuit of adrenalin sports; not the participant I could have been had I started a family at 20.

The very thing that will make me a decent teacher to a child is the very thing that will make me less of an activities partner, my age. While I have a lot of experience with abstract things and have a good understanding of emotions, it has taken me almost 2 decades to formulate this understanding, and these were 20 of my most energetic years. While I wouldn’t have been a great role model in terms of appropriate behavior, I’m pretty confident that anyone who was able to keep up with me physically would now have a remarkable level of fitness and skill on a snow board or a bike.

The thing is, it doesn’t matter. I’m not 20 so starting a family young is not going to happen. For one reason or another I have delayed having children until at least now so I’ll be looking at the positives when the time comes. I think my level of maturity will make for an easier experience because at some point I will tire of personal development and will welcome the opportunity to create something more than a different me.