006 The Meaning of Life and Other Tall Tales

METHODS OF INQUIRY

Most of us, at one time or another, expend a fair amount of energy in wishful thinking regarding something we want, or something we want to do. It turns out that the more energy we put into the thing we want (i.e., the more we invest of ourselves, and our egos) the more we tend to believe that we are entitled to it. There is something about pursuing a goal that the longer you pursue it, the more you think you should achieve it.

So where am I going with this? Let me suggest the following: religion is not trivial; most people have expended a lot of time thinking about what they believe. Many are still asking the questions, i.e., have made a huge and continuing investment in the decision. And most have arrived at an answer based on emotion, often fear, and irrespective of the facts.

On the other hand, we often agonize over these decisions for no justifiable reason. Nothing is permanent (fact), and all paths lead to the same place (opinion), which in English goes by the name of Death. Through Death, we either find the missing piece of the puzzle (i.e., through some form of life after death), or we find that life has no meaning (at the instant of death). No amount of wishful thinking will change this.

As much as we possibly can, we will construct fact-based arguments, which (ideally) are proven to be true. Remember what we said earlier:

1. A fact is a data point that can be proven true or false.
2. An opinion is a data point that cannot be proven true or false.

There are many types of opinion. I have already mentioned that an opinion in the scientific world is often called a theory. Wishful thinking is an opinion-driven argument. Speculation is the expression of an opinion. We can have an informed opinion, or a misinformed opinion. Regardless of what we call it, it’s still an opinion, unless proven otherwise. Therefore (in my opinion) The Meaning of Life, when taken in its totality, weighs in as an opinion unless we prove otherwise.

Yet intuition (and a certain amount of stubbornness) tells me that we might be able to prove pieces of the great cosmic puzzle. You might see this as an inconsistency, for only a few posts back I pointed out that we were missing part of the definition: The Meaning of Death. Taken in its totality we had to consider both sides of the coin.

But if we can find a smaller “piece” that when taken in its totality, we have a better chance of provng that smaller piece. And if we find enough smaller pieces that are facts on their own, we might be able to discover some new truths.

Copyrite © 2009 by Tad Laury Graham

“The Meaning of Life and Other Tall Tales”

005 The Meaning of Life and Other Tall Tales

THE AUTHOR DISCLOSES HIS BIAS

If I talk about God as though he exists, it isn’t because I have proven (or disproven) his existence, nor does it mean that I accept any of the commonly held views of God. It’s because I don’t have enough information that I am comfortable in either camp. I none-the-less reject that the Earth is evil, that God is inconsistent or that God discriminates. I reject the inconsistencies in the Bible, eternal damnation, torture, favoritism, claims of being chosen (for anything) over others or their beliefs, mass murder by any name (e.g., the Rapture / the Apocalypse ) or any other fear-based approach to proselytizing unquestioning believers.

All roads lead to death, whether we are gone forever, reincarnated from time-to-time, off to another universe or chosen for any variation on this theme. I do not believe that any of the paths we take were meant to discriminate against anyone, to treat others as inferior, or to define who will be turned away—using religion, race, sex, or any other god-given-attribute during creation, whether or not his method of creation involved evolution, rebirth or rubbing two match sticks together. Nobody has the definitive truth, and if we have even a snails chance of learning the truth, it won’t likely happen before we die.

Why An Agnostic?  Why Not A Believer With Explanations?

“God may not play dice with the universe, but he seemingly does so with the lives of its inhabitants; either that, or he has no interest in outcomes.” It was Albert Einstein who said, “I shall never believe that God plays dice with the world.” [Einstein, His Life and Times, 1947] It was I who added the observation that God doesn’t appear to care one way or the other. A believer would say, “God works in mysterious ways,” and ask no further questions. An atheist would say, “the whole universe operates on mathematical probabilities” and think he answered the question. An agnostic never stops asking the question.

We are taught by religious leaders that God is love. This makes more sense than many of the alternatives. If true, then God asks nothing from me, not even belief in his existence. My creation was a gift not unlike the gift of life that I participated in when my children were born. I understand this God. This is the God that expects me to take ownership of my life and for my mistakes. I reject the God that put us on earth to live our lives in constant fear of his wrath. The God that works in mysterious ways. There is nothing mysterious about getting the razor strap off the top shelf and showing us who is boss. This isn’t my God; this is man.

If God exists, and if God created everything, then God forgives our mistakes because to do otherwise would make us God’s mistake. I reject the notion that God creates weaklings so he can punish them for an eternity for their mistakes (or for failing to beg for forgiveness). I reject most interpretations that present God as judge or warrior spewing fire and damnation. If God made me in his image, then it makes even less sense to torture me for my mistakes.

If we are all sinners, and God punishes us for doing what is in our nature, then God has created a perverse universe. This would be the God we curse when we lose our temper and expose our short comings, for he created us with our imperfections. But I do not believe this is anymore than a false God, like the others we have encountered on this page. I do not exclude the notion that we have some responsibility for our actions. For whatever reason, we have been given the awesome responsibility of choice. We must be expected to use it. And we will make mistakes, and we will get up, dust ourselves off and try again.

But the hardest idea to accept in this discussion is that nobody, not even God, waits 2,000 years to punish a child. If you truly believe in God, then forget the Rapture. There will be no Judgement Day. God doesn’t need revenge. (Did Jesus seek revenge?) It is man who seems to need revenge. Neither does God take sides. It is man who takes sides. It is man who wrote the Bible and man who interprets the Bible (or its equivalent) to prove that he is on the right side. And it is man who picks his version of God based on his current needs, and who doesn’t recognize that his choices are inconsistent with a single God, a God of Love.

If I still haven’t made clear why I am an agnostic, let me say this: it’s as much to associate more with those who are still looking, and less with those who gave up years ago. “Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves” [The True Believer; thoughts on the nature of mass movements, Eric Hoffer, © 1951, reprint 2002] I do insist, however, that before I accept the one true God, somebody must prove that I am not being seduced by a cheap imitation.

A final note before closing out this week’s installment: I recently read an excellent new book [Jesus Interrupted; revealing the hidden contradictions in the bible (and why we don't know about them), Bart D Ehrman, 2009]. The author is a well-qualified expert in bible studies and expresses his findings with the care and sensitivity you would expect from a man of his experience. I think everyone over the age of 21 should read this book and listen to his story. Whether or not you are believer, agnostic or even atheist, it’s a good read, well worth your time.

Copyright © 2009 by Tad Laury Graham

“The Meaning of Life and Other Tall Tales”

004 The Meaning of Life and Other Tall Tales

THE ROLE OF RELIGION

At first, I thought we could avoid the issue of religion with regard to the meaning of life, and I thought we could simplify our approach in so doing. But religion is clearly at the center of this question because religious leaders have altered the original meaning of life by removing the sting of death. We will begin our examination of the role of religion by discussing the three traditional relationships man is said to have with God. These relationships are believers, agnostics, and atheists.

Believers

Most believers are faith-based, which is to say that they believe in God because the Bible says he exists. In Christianity, disbelief is the only unforgivable sin. I would speculate that the reason for this stipulation is that it shuts off arguments that cannot be proved. The problem with blind acceptance is that you may have backed the wrong God. In the time period that Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah, more than 200 other would-be Messiah’s were traveling around the Middle East in an effort to fulfill the prophesy.

Agnostics

Because neither the existence of God nor the absence of God can be proved with any degree of certainty, some of us—the author included—take a wait and see approach. From the data available, the question of the existence of God remains a question. But with or without proof, I believe with absolute certainty, at the same level of conviction that we find in the faith-based believer, that a “fair and just God” does not hide from his creations for more than 2,000 years, only to come out of hiding to bring down the apocalypse.

Atheists

The atheist is satisfied that if he cannot prove God’s existence, then God does not exist. He ignores the fact that he cannot disprove the existence of God.

Copyright © 2009 by Tad Laury Graham

“The Meaning of Life and Other Tall Tales”

003 The Meaning of Life and Other Tall Tales

THE AUTHOR EXPLORES AN ALTERNATIVE

While I was working on an opening statement to share my thoughts on the meaning of life, I suddenly had one of those eureka experiences that changes my thinking. It began with an assumption that the only way I can know the meaning of life is to understand its opposite, the meaning of death. My life (my existence in the universe) defines a system, and one cannot study part of a system and expect to get the whole answer. But that is exactly what we do when we only ask part of the question.

So how do we justify excluding death? The Neanderthals are believed to be the first race on earth to bury their dead in a ritualistic ceremony, beginning about 50,000 years ago. Their graves were not a final resting place, however, for they were given the tools required to keep doing what they did in life. The practice of ritualistic burial quickly caught the attention of almost every religion from primitive times to the present day, and they went one better. They formalized the concept of life after death.

If it were the case that we are able to live forever, to talk about the meaning of death would itself be meaningless, i.e., if there is no death, then our language would have no word for death, and there would be no concept of death in our culture. But death is part of every life form known to man, so God must intervene to make man the exception, the only animal that has a means to escape death. This is what religion does. It removes the side that grapples with the meaning of death by promising that believers will never die.

By removal of death from the meaning of life, we distort the outcome. If I were able to live forever, to talk about the meaning of life becomes less urgent, less meaningful in fact, and therefore less relevant). What gives life meaning is death. We will categorize the complete answer as a theory, which is the scientific way of saying an opinion. The significance of this will be discussed later. For now, we capture the theory that life has no meaning without death and death has no meaning without life.

And we make the following observation: the idea that I might live beyond my death exaggerates my importance in the universe. Man is the only species that studies itself. It is difficult for man to be objective in this role. It has only been a few hundred years that we have understood this. But we have had nearly 50,000 years to convince ourselves that we really are that important.

Copyright © 2009 by Tad Laury Graham

“The Meaning of Life and Other Tall Tales”

002 The Meaning of Life and Other Tall Tales

THE MOST COMMON ANSWERS

Probably the answer most often given in response to the question, “What is the Meaning of Life?” is that we are here to complete something, and this “something” has the status of what we might call our mission in life. The task itself might be simple, but the achievement is apparently important in the grand scheme of things.

Another fairly common answer is that we are here to learn something, although for me it is difficult to understand what I might learn in a physical plane (which we occupy for a few short years) that also applies to a spiritual plane (that we occupy for an eternity). The other concern I have is the school that teaches this lesson is called Hard Knocks.

For many of us, our interest in asking the question centers around the idea of getting clarity regarding our mission, whether it’s a task to be performed or a lesson to be learned. For the religious minded, how they recognize their mission from all of the other choices is not of great concern because sooner or later it will pop into mind and they will know. They are called to service.

Another common answer is that we are here to give meaning to life. Life wouldn’t mean anything if it didn’t include a witness, perhaps. I have even heard it said that we create reality through our actions, which defines the meaning. Either way seems like an invitation to chaos: too many visionaries and not enough work horses.

If I am leaving anything out, or missing the point, please feel free to identify my shortcomings in the comments section of this post. I pretty much don’t have all the answers, so I enjoy hearing from people who have figured out a piece of the puzzle.

Copyright © by Tad Laury Graham

“The Meaning of Life and Other Tall Tales”

001 The Meaning of Life and Other Tall Tales

THE AGREEMENT (WITHDRAWN)

Because there has been no interest in The Agreement, the offer has been withdrawn.

INTRODUCTION TO THE MEANING OF LIFE

I was amazed at how many people showed up for the post entitled “An Alternative View of God.” You have inspired me to push a little further into the nature of God and the meaning of life. There are so many places to start from, and by definition only one place to end up, that it would be easy to find ourselves bogged down in meaningless side journeys without guidelines, principles, or rules to keep us on track. On the other hand, an excess of restrictions could just as likely have the same result, which is why we invite some serendipity to lighten the road (the Other Tall Tales part).

To make matters worse, however, some of what we are going to explore cannot be proven because we simply don’t have enough data to form a fact-based conclusion. We hereby rule out approaches that are 100% faith-based conclusions because we could write that book in 25 words or less, and we wouldn’t be any closer to resolution of our quandary. Another factor in the decision to stay away from faith-based explanations is that there is a trend in modern religious studies to seek historical explanations for proofs of God (i.e., fact-based explanations), though this trend does not always trickle down to the layman.

The reason for switching titles is simple: I don’t wish to mislead anyone, what I am proposing is not a new form of bible studies. I am certain that the church of your choice can do a better job with that task than I can.

Methods of Inquiry

My approach to God is to discover what is reasonable to believe, based on observed facts rather than on wishful thinking opinions, using the following definitions:  a fact can be proven; opinions cannot. Anything that cannot be proven is, by definition, an opinion. If you prove an opinion to be true, then what you have proved is that it wasn’t an opinion. It was a fact. More importantly if you cannot prove your facts, it’s because they are your opinions.

It is very important to understand when you are talking about facts, and when you are talking about opinions.

It is not at all unusual to think that we are talking about a fact, but learn halfway through the conversation that we were expressing a preference. We can have that discussion if we want, but we must always know if we are coming from fact-based information or from wishful thinking. It saves time, and it helps us to get closer to the truth. Having in general limited ourselves to this constraint, opinions presented as well-reasoned speculation are welcome for discussion. In this context, speculation means theory, and a theory is an opinion we are trying to prove is a fact.

If you found this website of any interest, you may also want to follow this link:

The Problem of God

Copyright © 2009 by Tad Laury Graham

“The Meaning of Life and Other Tall Tales“

Into the Scream of Life

What is this gnawing, chewing, bones-breaking

In my inner ear?  Not words, but wailing,

Of a darkened animal past!  Welling up within,

Shrieking, reeking of a Murderous Emergence!

Born of Virgins!  When death, not man,

Is the measure of all things.

What is this emptiness called love?

Not love of God or life but death.

Raped upon a Lightning Plain,

Once upon a Pluvial Rain,

In a not so distant past,

In a not too distant gorge.

I am Risen from an Ape,

Wielding Murder in my gait;

Though my Life’s Nonviolent,

I may kill except in Lent.

Yea, as I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,

I fear all evil, for the light has gone out.

I drown in the abyss which is myself.

I cast around in darkness, driven, directionless, relentless.

Death is the answer to a thousand things:

Our hopes, our promises, and would-be dreams.

The things undone which I ought to have done;

The things that I’ve done which I ought not to have done.

Death, not man, Is the measure of all things.

Copyright 2009 © by Tad Laury Graham

Written for a Class Project in 1965

Ode on a Morbid Consideration

Uncommitments: a middle road to Hell,

A place non-extant except in ourselves.

When I consider the mistakes I have made,

The opportunities lost,

Release my Freudian pain.

Embrace my brief respite from the Underworld.

Every man is an Island, alone in the sea of interstellar space.

How can we sit still for the petty, the small, the insignificant

When life has its urgency, conveyed by death?

God is Death and Death is King.

God is Death; Death reigns Supreme.

Death holds my hand, leads me to peace.

I travel with him at my side.

My love of him cannot hide.

The truth rings true; rings and rings until life passes.

I believe in Death the Destroyer Almighty,

The Father of Heaven on Earth,

The Earth, a house of living Dead.

Rite on … Live on.  Why do old men ache so,

Bundled against the weather; a bottle shaped sack,

Twisted by strong hands into a hidden vessel of instant warmth.

Cold air in the face, reminds me I am alone,

Reminds me I am alive.

I have seen death face-to-face, the leveler of all things.

On the third day, he ascended from the living,

ascended from man, whose cousin is the ape.

They rise in me, yet what are these?

Ask the martyr who stands in the street

And passes out God on facsimile sheets.

We face Death alone, just as we did life.

I am shackled by my faith.

You have received the kiss of Judas …

We all must have our Judas.

Copyright 2009 © by Tad Laury Graham

Written for a Class Project in 1965

It Must Be Frustrating To Be President

While I sit here trying to jump start my day, I begin to remember that George W Bush was a man of few words, for the most part because he thought his actions were none of our business. Imagine that … a democracy where the questionable actions of a few are none of our business. Bush was criticized for being the least open / most secretive president ever to serve, and for taking action where none was required.

Obama is one of the most open presidents in modern times, and conducts himself such that almost everything is our business. Yet he too is constantly criticized: for communicating too much and taking too little action. The difference seems to be that Obama understands the dangers of shooting from the hip, and the commitment that must be made for years following such actions.

Particularly offensive is the mantra that Obama must prove himself by taking us into war, in spite of the fact that he stated clearly during the campaign that he would talk first, shoot later (but only if we were under immediate threat). I wonder if some of us have trouble understanding the concept of leadership. Obama is not a manager, or a military professional. He is first and foremost a world leader.

Guess what a world leader does? They communicate, they talk, they guide. They only appear to act to satisfy those who don’t understand that leadership is primarily motivating others to act. Rest assured, the professionals who “manage” the people and resources assigned to our safety and protection make recommendations, but Obama makes the decision (unlike the Cheney / Bush method, where it wasn’t always clear who was in charge). Most of us don’t want that awesome power abused.

Copyright © 2009 by Tad Laury Graham

Observations on Health Care Reform

The proposed medical care reform program, for which the president is trying to find acceptance, seems to be the biggest fear most of us have, even more threatening than international terrorism. Yet getting access to the most skilled physicians of our time is more difficult, the more talented they are. In a managed care system, we at least have the potential for steering some of their time to those who need it, but otherwise would not get it. In a competitive system, such as our present model, we have the burden of being our own advocate with no guarantee that we will gain access to the experts we need.

The “better” doctors are difficult to enlist in our care because they spend a lot of time as inaccessible. These are the medical professionals who are pursuing fame and glory writing papers and presenting them at seminars, performing studies, performing consulting on the more interesting cases, i.e., those that provide the most interest in terms of career advancement (which is their right in the pursuit of happiness), and pushing many of their duties onto nurses and aids. This isn’t necessarily “bad” and may be what is necessary to encourage the pursuit of advances in medical treatments, but what it means for someone with a serious illness is that in a capitalistic society we compete for resources, whether or not we “manage” health care. The main question is, who will make the decision to allocate those resources?

Which brings me to one last observation before I get off my soapbox: free enterprise is not always in our best interest, just as selfish-self interest is not always our worst nightmare. To claim otherwise is naive. To write off the entire civil service, for example, because we are sure they will screw up the the health care system is ludicrous. From what I have seen over a 30+ year career in managing contracts with the government, the best results are obtained from fostering a “we’re in this together,” partnering atmosphere. If we sit back and expect failure, we will get failure. Better to deal with each individual case where we feel things could have gone better.

Let me summarize: A well-crafted health care program would not only make basic care available to those who can’t afford it, but also would make catastrophic care (i.e., the specialists) more accessible regardless of income. I suppose that’s too much to hope for, and the economics of such lofty goals would be potentially bankrupting, so the focus will remain on basic care issues—the lesser in importance of the two. But we have to start somewhere, and it’s difficult to argue against providing basic care to anyone who needs it.

Copyright © 2009 by Tad Laury Graham

Still Alive and Kicking—Update on the Author

It’s been a while since my last blog, and in the world of blogging there probably is no excuse for not keeping in touch … after all, a blog can be as long or as short as we want to make it. It can be on any subject  It can be informal as well as formal. It doesn’t even have to be well-structured, coherent, or in any way make sense. What could be easier?

Not that it’s an excuse, but I think a lot more and do a lot less these days. Partly a health issue; partly that it is easier than trying to have directed, logical thoughts. Sometimes you mine nuggets; sometimes you end up with trash. It’s just the way life is. But always you find ways to participate, to be part of life. It’s what we are.

Day dreaming passes for “thinking” for most of us. We call it “lost in thought,” but we usually mean that stream-of-conscious, disconnected quasi-logical thought pattern which is pure escapism. Probably best kept private because most of it is of a personal nature and would put the average voyeur to sleep. It’s more-or-less an unwritten agreement, perhaps even a law, not to confess.

Besides the lack of entertainment value, there is always the risk of becoming maudlin and dumping on friends, who by the way are having the same issues and problems in dealing with their own lives (which they don’t dump on me). Yes, better left unsaid, better to be alone in our thoughts so the next time we meet, we can both answer, “fine, everything is fine,” thereby maintaining some sense of not being the victim, but of having some control over random attempts of life to victimize it’s participants.

As is often said, “don’t take any of this too seriously because we will never get out of this alive, anyway.” Know that no matter how it seems, you are not actually alone. There are billions of human lives all over the planet, and in some trivial way, our lives are connected.  Call it the “collective unconscious” (Carl Jung), or the “transcendental oversoul” (Ralph Waldo Emerson), or “the force” (Stephen Spielberg). It doesn’t much matter.

The only thing that matters is that being connected provides strength when needed to pursue the dreams we have—regardless of how we personally define those dreams, and of whether or not we ever fully attain them. I was here, I did what I could, and what I did was good enough.

Copyright © 2009 by Tad Laury Graham

Reflections on Life (Part 2)

The spiritual side of my life seems to be missing. I have, once again, lost my centering.

Part of the problem is sleep deprivation. There is a direct correlation between sleep and …

• Speech
• Mood
• Memory

Part of it is how easily I slip under other people’s influence, which causes me to move away from my baseline behavior.

Things I would like to have a reason to change:

• No more swearing
• No more complaining
• No more getting entangled in other people’s hang-ups
• Maintaining presence at all times
• Focusing on, and deriving some satisfaction from, work
• Finding balance in my life

But would it really matter?

My parents never believed I would amount to much. Now they are gone.  There is nothing more to prove, no one to prove it to. I feel less urgency, but not completely. I may not have to prove anything, but I am still in the habit.

Part of my malaise is the feeling that merit is not enough, that fairness isn’t a requirement. I don’t know what I think, but I don’t feel anything:  not emptiness; nothing negative, but no sense of what I really want, of what or who I really am.

I am aware, intellectually, that I am finite … that nothing I do will last or matter at some time in the future.  Making a difference is a myth in a cosmic sense. Nothing lasts: nothing good; nothing bad. Nothing at all.

Yet it seems to matter. There seems to be a connection between my finiteness, my parents, and my behavior. I don’t fully understand it, can’t quite make the connection.

Am I only the product of my habits? What are the necessary conditions for change? Will I ever be the man I wanted to be? Not what everyone else wants me to be, but what I want?

I don’t want to be an act. I want to be whatever I am, but I want what I am to have substance. Why am I letting it eat me up?

Symptoms include fear and fatigue (success or failure?). Seems to be success, but know this isn’t what my boss wants. He can’t want to do this, as he has used every delaying technique known to congressmen and lobbyers.

Sense that he is trying to screw it up, or to screw me over: not fear of success, nor conspiracy.  Might have been at one time, but this fear is that he will prevent it if he can. The fear is real, even if exaggerated.

Also have fears about my health. Could be that I am finally entering midlife crisis, but even if true, labeling it isn’t much help. I have had similar feelings at every level; I never expected to succeed as well as I have.

Mixture of feelings, but not a single identifiable feeling. Complex issues:  fear of lost opportunity; slight fear of failure; fear of loss of energy; fear of loss of control (aging, failing abilities, facing my own mortality).

Touch reduces fear, not sensual touch, but signaling that you are there. I must remember to breath. Searching for my source of strength. The “who am I?” in all of this. Suddenly I realize “I” am a construct:  the sum of all I do and all things done to me; embodied in flesh, particularly brain and nervous system cells.

The “I” that is not much more than the sum of the influence of my parts. It is the “me” in motion, the executing program instructions formed by the wiring and chemistry of my computer-like brain. This is why I must continue to deal with the past … in order to deal with the future.

The “demons” are hard-wired. With effort I can rewire the connections, but as I rewire myself I become something other than the “me” I know. I can’t change everything or I would be somebody else. In other words, I must accept the parts of me that trip me up. They are me, whether they bring me down or lift me up.

If I get passed over, I need to understand the often “accidental” nature of success. It isn’t necessarily anything I have done or have not done, and I don’t need to make up my mind in advance regarding what I will do next. I don’t need the additional stress, for one. Work isn’t, and shouldn’t be, my entire life. This isn’t the Holy Grail, it’s a pay grade.

Insight comes in many ways. It isn’t necessary to follow rigid methods, such as meditation or analysis. Stream of conscious writing seems to make me feel better even if I do not achieve resolution every time (no method produces resolution every time). Just because I have my demons does not mean I can’t lay down the burden from time-to-time.

Think there is some residual, some fallout. Once again, letting others define my personal value. I know that if I spend a lot of time in dysfunctional environments, I have a tendency to become dysfunctional myself. This is natural, and may point to the only good reason why I may have to move on.

While I should not move on bitter feelings, I should move away from a damaging environment. Most of recovery is seeing clearly. See “opportunity” for what it is. It doesn’t in anyway validate me. Fortunately I don’t need validation: I am one of the better managers, and most of the leadership knows this.

In the universe I occupy, it means only that someone in the food chain wants me to stick around and keep doing what I have been doing to make them look good. Different people may see different meanings, but that doesn’t change what it really is.

In truth, we control almost nothing. Life is mostly influenced by everything outside us and only a little by us, directly, by what is inside us. We try to game the system (a process which we have agreed to call competition), but the game is not owned by any one of us: different circumstances, different timing, different discoveries … different results.

If we are lucky, we learn to control ourselves.

Copyright © 2000, 2009 by Tad Laury Graham

Originally written March 2000, Updated April 2009 for Inclusion Here.

Have You Ever Noticed?

… how two people can meet for the first time, disagree on almost everything, and go their separate ways, each inflexibly convinced that they are in possession of absolute and immutable truths, each thinking the other a bit stupid, and each believing that what they have disagreed about is among the most important issues of their lives.

Stranger still, if those same two people are thrown together again after the passage of time they often continue the argument, but now on opposite sides of the same issue, unaware of the influence each has had on the other. Usually, neither recognizes the fundamental issue; more likely, each immediately seeks out friends who re-enforce what each already believes (and is miserable if none are available).

This is as true of scholars, teachers and their students as it is of garbage collectors or children. One can be intellectual in private, but one has a vested interest in a world-view when in public. And if either is persuaded to the other point-of-view they honestly think it has been theirs all along.

A variation on this theme: sometimes an individual sees the argument of your enemies most clearly until he and that enemy have a falling out, at which time he begins to realize how cogent your argument was. Suddenly you were right all along, but “I just didn’t see what you were getting at.” He honestly believes you were both always in accord, but that you both were tripped up by that old nemesis, Mr. “Semantics.”

And still another variation: sometimes the individual is compelled to defend everything issued forth from his own lips simply because he said it (without waiting for further data, or in heated argument, or foolishly because he was tired, hungry, or perhaps not feeling so well), though a wiser man would chalk it up quickly to a temporary mental aberration, recognizing that given the right conditions, all men are fools.

And one last variation: if the same two people are of different sexes, they very often see the other in the disagreement phase as somewhat unattractive, if not downright ugly. But as their positions merge and they discover that they “were in agreement all along,” each seems more attractive than the first time they met. Unchanging physical features suddenly change right before our eyes!

Copyright © 1971, 2009 by Tad Laury Graham

Life Is a Quarrel for Independence

Life is a quarrel for independence. It is an attempt to free oneself from the domination of our programming, which we never fully achieve. Programming is all around us: parents, teachers, friends, peers, clergy, and many others have this influence over us. Without it, we would never feel confident about a chosen course of action for the vast majority of issues, even though so many of these issues are essentially repetitive. To avoid endless debate, we simply play the program that seems most relevant.

The danger is not so much that we will play the wrong program, in the wrong context, or at the wrong time—yielding an unacceptable result. In most cases we can simply apologize and try again. The danger comes from the association of each member of our particular set of programs with evaluations or criticisms of how effective they are, or more likely how ineffective they are.

If a parent criticizes everything a child says or does, without offering a method for constructive change, the program continues to play each time the situation occurs, but the child has no confidence in the learned response. Hence the child is reticent to share an opinion, and remains flawed—usually reflected as the absence of the ability to engage in “small talk.”

Life is fatalistic without external influences. These influences are required to bring about changes in our programs; for example, the transition from a child’s view to an adult view. We all have motivational forces within: forces when discovered that free us to some degree from a basically reactionary level—even though we never become completely free from habitual reactions. Such is the snare of fatalism.

But if we understand why we do things, even if we continue to do them, we gain another degree of freedom because awareness is the first step in reinventing ourselves, and because the doing part of this process is not nearly the problem that the critique is. What must be overcome is the judgement that you are inferior. Learn to apologize, to begin again, and to let go of the past.

False change generally backfires. We can do what we want to make it look like we’ve changed, externally, but whenever we do, we most likely find that we don’t like that person that we are becoming because it isn’t really us. When this happens, learn to apologize, to begin again, and to let go of the past.

And finally, fame makes awareness difficult because fame goes to the head—whether fame is already present or only sought after. Fame is generally associated with expectations for consistent behaviors, which serve to distract and derail. It requires considerable personal investment to change what is cast in stone. Fame exacts a high price. The more famous you become, the more change costs in personal sacrifice: apologize, begin again, let go. The more you do, the sooner you will become you.

Copyright © 2009 by Tad Laury Graham

Blogging is Supposed to be an Exchange of Ideas

At least, that’s what I was told when someone suggested I take it up. Makes sense: who wants to listen to the lone self-appointed guru, composing and handing down the ten tablets from Mount Sinai—especially when it has already been done, and lets face it: Moses is a tough act to follow. Riding the ego-train, telling ourselves that we have all the answers or at least most of them, that gets old, too, doesn’t it? Sometimes I think we do as much damage as good in trying to deal with some of life’s issues … I know I have.

Maybe I should change my focus and talk about all of my screw-ups in life, but somehow I’m not sure that would be of any more interest than my successes, although sometimes I do wonder. It’s amazing to me that my “about the author” page has had twice as many hits as the most popular blog I have written. I don’t know what that’s about, but I suspect that at least a few of us are trying to figure out who this idiot is, and why he thinks he might have something to say that is even remotely worth listening to?

I guess I don’t blame anyone for that but myself. I wrote it. I suspect that it requires at least a pint or two of Guinness to make me even moderately interesting. And any more than four would put me over the side with an excuse, but nobody wants an excuse. My guess is most just want to be heard even when they know they aren’t saying anything. Honestly, six or eight billion people (or whatever the world population has become) can’t be all wrong. There just aren’t that many new ideas, folks, so it must be something else.

Well, I guess I’m no closer to the truth, such as it is, nor perhaps to even basic understanding, but I do know this: every once in a while I ring somebody’s bell out there, not realizing the impact that something I wrote has had on them. Sometimes it seems to be helpful and sometimes it appears to be harmful, owing to significant diversity in backgrounds, influences, and needs that each of us have. I don’t always get it until it’s too late, but I would rather you tried to explain it to me than to live with a mistake that could have been avoided.

You don’t have to listen, or waste your time responding, I can get used to that … that’s one of the great things about America. But if you do listen, before you think you have received the “answer”—from anyone, especially when you are about to make a major decision based on that answer—before you commit, this would be the one time that you must push back. Question my reasoning or lack thereof, and get a firm understanding of what I (or anyone) said. It’s your life and your decision because you have to live with the fallout. And the bigger the decision, the more important it is for you to get the best information you can.

That’s it … nothing particularly earth-shattering. But if you ever listen to anything I say, this would be the time.

P.S., – I guess it’s easier to have that exchange if I remember to enable comments. My apologies; it is on now …

Copyright © 2009 by  Tad Laury Graham

Gay Marriage Is About Equality (California Prop 8)

There has been a lot of talk about dissolving the 18,000+ gay marriages which were performed in California before the referendum, but it can’t be done. The US Constitution states that no ex post facto law shall be passed by Congress. Then it defines “an ex post facto law [as one that] applies to an act committed before the law was passed, or that was not illegal at the time it occurred.”  [Article 1, Section 9, Limits on Congress] It goes on to say that no state is permitted to pass any ex post facto law. [Article 1, Section 10, Limits on the States] In plain English, no new law can be enforced retroactively.

It remains to be seen whether or not the state can dissolve marriages performed after the date of the rollback (presumably November 4th) because those 18,000 voices are not going to be silenced, and there is no compelling reason why some are and some aren’t allowed to be married. There may be some additional legal issues, as well; for example, I’m not certain, but I believe it takes a 2/3-majority vote of the legislative branch to actually make a constitutional change (not 51% of the voters). I think we should give some thought to why our founding fathers imposed that requirement before we start changing our fundamental agreement on what constitutes freedom.

Furthermore, the state has already come most of the way towards legalizing gay marriage by enacting “separate but equal” legislation: “Registered domestic partners shall have the same rights, protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law, whether they derive from statutes, administrative regulations, court rules, government policies, common law, or any other provisions or sources of law, as are granted to and imposed upon spouses.”  [California Family Code: Section 297.5.(a)]  Let me suggest that in trying to please everybody, we have come full circle and pleased nobody. Do we really want to go down the “separate but equal” path again?

In my opinion we have already established a precedent regarding “separate but equal,” which is to say we already know that it doesn’t work, that it isn’t right, that it isn’t honest and that it isn’t “equal.” But it is “separate.” Nothing better illustrates this fact than being required to identify yourself as a “registered domestic partner” instead of as a “spouse.” How many ways are there to say “registered sex offender?” How about for our first shot at equality, we start using the term “registered house spouse?”—”domestic” and” house” being reasonably synonymous for the one who stays at home. Better yet, we can just stamp “gay” or “straight” on everyone’s work records, making it much easier to invade their privacy.

With regard to California’s proposition 8, I have only heard two arguments for preventing same-sex marriage, both of which are born of fear and have no compelling justification for singling out and excluding a rather large segment of the US population: (1)  We have to protect our kids from gay sex education; (2) We have to protect our churches from being forced to perform gay weddings.

If anyone actually believes the first argument, I would ask why didn’t you think of protecting all of our kids, back when we legalized gay parenting and gay school teachers. But lets face it, more kids have been molested by straights than by gays. Different problem—a crime in fact that we should take seriously after due process in the legal system, or do we take that right away, as well? As to the second argument, I think the Church is on firm ground in refusing to go against their beliefs by performing the ceremony. Freedom of Religion doesn’t mean except for marriage.

If you don’t like what your kid learns in school, then get involved with the schools. Join the PTA. It isn’t the Government’s job to do your parenting, and it damn sure isn’t worth a constitutional amendment to enforce your version of parenting. But it is Government’s job to protect everyone’s rights, and that might just take a constitutional amendment. Pray they get it right if we go down that path because there is nothing worse than being next in line of an angry mob who wants to control your rights.

Personally, I believe that gay people will continue to fight this battle long after the rest of us get tired of it, although I don’t understand why we require them to fight for what the rest of us already have. I applaud them, I encourage them to continue, I feel grateful and indebted to those who do because the next battleground for protecting our rights may be on my front porch. Furthermore, I predict that one day we will all wake up and realize that we are quarreling over the legal meaning of a word, and that words should never be defined by lawyers because they have already abused and obfuscated the language quite enough.

So here we are again: lawyers all primed to make a killing on billable hours, costing in the millions of dollars (which you and I as taxpayers will pay); voters all primed to protect the churches and the children from imaginary threats to argue a no-brainer in perpetuity. Somehow we ignore the fact that the threat is everywhere, such as decades of heterosexual attacks on children by one of the largest churches in the world. Somehow we forget that unlike the churches, gays aren’t recruiting to expand their ranks, so they don’t spend a lot of time proselytizing. They are simply asking for “equality” in place of “similarity.”

The solution is not all that difficult. First, separate matters of church from matters of state. For marriage as a “sacrament” let your church define it (prescriptive), for marriage as a civil ceremony let the dictionary makers define it (descriptive), O.K., and the law-makers if we must, and for marriage as a personal experience, that bonds two people together for the rest of their lives as soul mates, don’t try to put it into words because the experience is inherently mystical and words cannot do it justice.

Copyright © 2008 by Tad Laury Graham

Version #2,  © 2009

Musings on the Therapeutic Side of Golf for Movement Disorders

Last year, or the year before, I played golf with a man I had never met who had Parkinson’s Disease. At first he was fearful of telling me why he could play some holes like a pro, and others like it was the first time. I guess he decided that I would understand, perhaps because I wasn’t critical, I wasn’t trying to teach him the game. The conversation that followed made me much more aware of the dimensions of this disease, and of the difficulties we all face, sooner or later, in trying to deal with our finiteness.

I told him I might someday immortalize him in a short story. He requested that I not identify him because he has enough problems without telling the world how “different” he has become. We agreed to use the fictitious name, Sam. I also included some observations (and attributed them to Sam, making him more like a composite) by two other Parkinson patients whom I have since met on a golf course. (Many physicians who specialize in movement disorders recommend golf as excellent physical and mental therapy.)

Sam was diagnosed 14 years prior to our conversation: he was 73 when I met him. The others (call them George-1 and George-2) were also male: George-1 was 62 and had few outward symptoms; George-2 wouldn’t reveal his age, but looked to be in his 80’s, and his symptoms were more pronounced. He only played 9 holes. Later I would understand how important those 9 holes were. They gave him something he could point to, even if only for a little while, and say, “It isn’t over, yet.”

Quotation marks in this blog only mean that I tried to use the words and phrases of the speaker, but some time has passed and I only have cursory notes (jotted down following each game). If I got it wrong, I apologize to Sam, George-1 and George-2, wherever you are, (and to the reader) for any misinformation in the article. However, I have a confidence level of 90-95% that it accurately reflects the intent of the participants, which was to talk about the things you won’t find in a book.

THE INTERVIEW

Sam: Parkinson is often referred to as the “nuisance disease,” as though it were only a matter of inconvenience. I can assure you it causes more than inconvenience in the average household. But because it has a very slow rate of progression, and even this is masked by some of the current drug treatments, it sneaks up on us slowly, allowing us to remain in denial for a very long time.

Graham: How long have you had the disease?

Sam: About 14 years. Yes, … I think that’s right. It sounds right.

Graham: You aren’t sure?

Sam: Sure I am sure, but I forget everything for a while, then it comes back.

Graham: You mean recall is slow?

Sam: Yes, that’s it. “Recall.”

Graham: You don’t appear to have dementia, but I notice you are slow to respond.

Sam: I do everything slower. I read slower, I talk slower, I dress and walk slower. Sometimes my legs freeze up and won’t move at all. Everything is affected … including thinking. Sometimes my brain locks up. I get it eventually, but people assume I’m retarded, so I don’t always try to join in.

Graham: Has there been a change in any of your mental abilities?

Sam: You mean, uummm … It’s coming, just a second.

Graham: For example, your “reasoning abilities.”

Sam: That’s it, “reasoning” … no, I can still reason, but I have lost memory skills. My IQ was tested a few months ago, and I haven’t lost much more than the average adult my age. I just process slower.

Graham: What was the actual diagnosis, and what are the symptoms the doctor used to determine the diagnosis?.

Sam: Idiopathic Parkinson’s Disease.

Graham: Idiopathic?

Sam: It’s the most common type. It means cause unknown.

Graham: They don’t know what caused it?

Sam: No. And that’s a problem.

Graham: Hold on a minute. I don’t understand. Isn’t Parkinson caused by pesticides getting into our drinking water?

Sam: Possibly, it certainly is one of the suspects, but the disease has proven to be more complex than originally thought.

Graham: How so?

Sam: We used to think the loss of dopamine producing cells was the cause. We now know that several genes, perhaps 6 to 8, and a few chemical messengers (including dopamine and norepinephrine) are involved. But we remain focused on dopamine because the dopamine system is involved in all of the major symptoms, and we have effective medicines for these symptoms. I take a lot of medicine.

Graham: What’s that about? I mean if you don’t know what causes the disease, why would you throw so much medicine at it?

Sam: Good question, but the answer is still symptoms. Parkinson symptoms can be very debilitating. There is no cure, and there is no medical procedure that can delay the progression. If we don’t know the cause, we can’t know the cure. But we do know the symptoms, and we can and have minimized them.

Graham: Can you tell me … ?

Sam: Wait. Let me finish. While there are no known medicines that can delay progression, coffee in moderation and even smoking cigarettes in moderation have been shown to slow progression. Nobody knows why, but for me it explains why I worked my way up to drinking 2 pots of coffee a day before my system couldn’t take it any more.

Graham: I guess you pick your poison with those choices.

Sam: Literally. And what makes it worse, dopamine, like all chemical messengers has more than one use. It not only affects fine motor movement, it also is used in the pleasure centers of the brain to reward behaviors. When we take our drugs, we can’t restrict delivery of dopamine to only the movement circuits, we also deliver a hit to the reward circuits. The result is, for some patients, the medication (especially the agonists) creates a stimulus for arousal, and sometimes inappropriate behavior. Only 5 or 10% act on these drives; more accurately, the reporting rate is under 10%.

Graham: Are we talking aphrodisiac?

Sam: Officially, no one in the business of medicating Parkinson patients would suggest what seems to be implied, and would be quick to point out that another behavior influenced by the drug is gambling, so maybe the issue is that the drug raises risk-taking thresh-holds.

Graham: I guess it depends on whether or not you can choose your poison.

Sam: All I know is that I have a much higher interest in sex than before I got the disease. You might think this is not much of a problem, but you would be wrong. My wife no longer trusts me because she knows its the drug, not me. She is angry at me a lot. This isn’t just a viagra-type drug, which works on the mechanics of sex. It’s a drug that turns up the libido, and simultaneously undermines the ability to perform.

Graham: They get you coming and going.

Sam: Double whammy. Particularly the agonists.

Graham: As interesting as this is, we still haven’t talked about the set of symptoms used to diagnose the disease.

Sam: I knew I was forgetting something, I’m sorry.

Graham: No problem.

Sam: There are over two dozen symptoms associated with Parkinson, but there are only three main symptoms: tremor, rigidity and bradykinesia. Parkinson tremor is most active at rest. If you have tremor in an arm that you are moving, chances are you have the yips, not Parkinson. Rigidity is stiffness in the muscles. They get harder and tighter, making it difficult to move about and maintain balance, causing postural instability. Bradykinesia is a slowing down of normal movement, and in advanced cases becomes akinesia or lack of movement.

Graham: So the main symptom is loss of motor movement?

Sam: You could say that, yes, but you can also have involuntary movements, or dyskinesias, which are caused by the drugs used to manage bradykinesia. For me, there are other problems that scare me more than losing the ability to move around. That’s the easy part. For a very long time, we can use walkers, motorized carts, or some other means to get around. It isn’t very pretty, but you can milk it for all its worth.

Graham: What would be worse to you?

Sam: The hard part is that Parkinson is a disease that takes away your ability to communicate. It affects speech, which gets softer and softer until you can’t be heard. It affects hand writing, which gets smaller and smaller until you can’t read it. It affects your eyes in a variety of ways, which makes it more and more difficult to read printed material. So while you are becoming more and more dependent on others to help you get around, you are becoming less and less able to communicate with them. You are alone, trapped in a body that is sentenced to watch its own death, unable to connect with either your world or the people in it. Ultimately, it destroys your personality, your relationships, and everything that you spent a life time building. To me, that is the closest approximation to living in Hell I can imagine.

Copyrighted © 2008 by Tad Laury Graham

Throw The Bums Out!

As I sit here watching the 19th rehash of the vice-presidential debates on CNN, I realize that I am not particularly surprised that there is corruption in Washington—that almost everyone lies, that we substitute personal attacks for campaign issues, and that virtually all of our representatives profit, many illegally, from their positions of public trust. What does surprise me is our business as usual approach to the global economic meltdown, literally while Rome burns.

The more we learn about this package, the more it looks like everyone got a piece of the pie, the result of which diverts 110 billion dollars away from the bailout. And for what? To pay for a stock car race track, wooden arrows for children, reduce taxes on the rum imported from the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, and nearly 1/2 billion dollars to keep movie making in Hollywood—to name a few. From all indicators, it is nearly impossible to find anyone who has read the parts pertaining to the bailout.

While lawmakers were making sure they got theirs, another 159,000 jobs were lost in September (about 750,000 since the first of the year), and state governments were weighing in with more financial issues. California alone needs seven billion dollars just to continue essential services. And somewhere along the way we hear the stimulus package is actually aimed at credit markets. It all seems complicated, doesn’t it? How can anyone figure out what to do?

And then it happened. Larry King had had enough. “Anymore interrupting and I turn off the mike.” Suddenly, it was no longer acceptable for three people to get their three different sound-bites out simultaneously by shouting louder than anyone else. We had to take turns. It was really that simple: control of the mike was the only defense at Larry’s disposal to make people do the right thing, but it worked, it was simple and efficient, and it underscored what we already knew, that sometimes we just have to make an effective threat.

As voters, we also have one simple but effective means to alter the outcome. It would involve severe blood letting, which we may have felt was overkill—up until now. But the time has come: the only way we are going to get Washington to change is to fire nearly every incumbent up for reelection, with very few exceptions. It may sound draconian, but I am absolutely convinced that at least for a decade or two, we would have their attention. And just maybe we would get our country back in the process.

Copyrighted © 2008 by Tad Laury Graham

The Fine Arts Are Alive and Well

This has been quite an amazing week for me. What started out as a few observations on my feelings about the fine arts (traditionally paintings, music, and literature, but evolved to include stage plays, movies and photographs and even silliness posing as art), turned into an opportunity to exchange ideas with a group of high school kids through a program called the Fine Arts Survey.

What made the week so amazing is that there really are kids out there who really do dig the arts, who enjoy discussing their ideas about what art means to them, or who aren’t afraid of asking the hard questions while they struggle to understand this little piece of a very large universe. And believe me, sometimes they can get pretty deep about nuances of meaning and the difficulties of seeing meaning in ambiguity.

I actually considered not posting my blog (What Makes Art, Music or Literature Great?) because I was concerned that nobody would read it. After arguing with myself for a couple of days (an argument I lost, obviously) I decided to post it with an apology. The apology was a short statement of what I perceived to be the facts, that I knew it would have limited appeal, and that we would get back on track next week.

Well I didn’t know, it turns out, and thank heaven that I didn’t act on what I understood to be indisputable knowledge of the facts. The arts are alive and well precisely because they are so open to interpretation, and anybody can have an opinion about what art is or isn’t, and whether or not it is great or not-so-great. We the people now have as much right to own the arts as the critics once did. And we are, as often as not, able to pick out greatness without the assistance of an expert.

I know that last statement scares my Western Civilization (PhD, Harvard) professor, and I still see a role for him (I will let you form your own opinion about what that role might be), but he is no longer the driver, he is no longer in charge. I guess you might say there has been a revolution in the last few decades and the good guys won. I guess you realize what this means … I take back my apology, and you will probably get another shot at expressing your opinions on art in the near future.

Click on the Copyright Statement if you want to start early.

Copyright © 2008 by Tad Laury Graham

Self Help Experts, Gurus & Their Books (Revisited)

Of the half dozen or so topics I have posted to date, Self Help has generated the most interest … and the most questions. This blog will address some of the unanswered questions raised by the original blog. It in no way replaces the original, rather it augments and further clarifies. Specifically,

• I will expand the discussion of the principles to improve our base of understanding, and
• I will add some examples of how these principles can be used outside the work place

The original blog, by design, makes no attempt to formalize the method. It discusses three principles that worked for me, but it avoids the appearance of describing a system because you must be the one to decide whether or not these general principles work for you.

The Three Principles Form a Repeating Cycle

[1] All of us make mistakes, but some of us have such low self-esteem that we get defensive and go into denial. When that happens, we lose our connectivity to others. This is true whether “others” are your boss, your co-workers, your spouse or your children.

[2] Being alone and ignored, our self-esteem gets worse, which brings on harsh judgmental, internalized feelings that we try to suppress. But we can’t suppress them because deep within our brains, we accept that there is something wrong with us.

[3] This gradually leads us to the source of our feelings, which is usually ourselves, although sometimes we provoke a negative response from others (family, friends or co-workers) and misdirect the blame.  Either way, we are the root cause of our own pain. To end the pain, we need to do two things: accept ourselves and accept our mistakes. Then we need to get on with resolving the problem, refusing to look back.

The CYCLE in which we Find Ourselves

• Begins with denial – We tell everyone who will listen that “It’s not my fault!”
• Then we feel badly about ourselves – denial slowly shifts to anger at self, often with feelings of being stupid or worthless
• And finally we begin to sense that we can get back to “normal” – which we do by reinterpreting history, by putting the event in the best light we can muster
• This brings us back to Step One, where we wait for an opportunity to repeat the cycle

The Only Way to Stop is to Break the Cycle at One of its Transition Points

[1] Accept responsibility while staying out of the blame game – most people will respect you for wanting to be part of the solution. Do not get defensive. The moment you do, you lose. If you are sincere and focus on the solution to the problem, you are less likely to be ignored and more likely to be given the chance to help fix the mistake.

[2] Accept that your feelings are valid, but do not let them tell you what your next move is. If you deny your feelings, or if you do the opposite and let them do the driving, either way you lose – feelings associated with low self-esteem rarely change through analysis, but often change when we achieve a series of small successes. In the work-place, a small success might be praise for your role in a task. At home, a family member begins to spend more time with you because you have stopped yelling when they make a mistake.

[3] Stop evaluating yourself and others, and focus on the issues, problems, or task at hand – it’s the only way to get the little successes started in your life.

Here are Some Tools You Can Use to Improve Your Odds of Success

• Postponement - Instead of letting your mind seize control and run you through the ringer, make an “appointment with yourself” to have this “conversation” in a day or two. Chances are good that you will forget to do it later; otherwise, postpone it again. If you do this, you will eventually gain control.
• Forgiveness – Never blame anyone for your problems, not even yourself. Attack the problem, not the people. However, acknowledge your part in the mistake by letting others know that you want to help, and that you want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. (Blaming is not Acceptance and vice versa.)
• Focus on the Issues, the problem or the event – If you focus on people’s shortcomings instead, the result will almost always be that you fail to break the cycle.

Do not do any of this to prove anything to anyone. Be yourself. But recognize that humans need other humans in their lives to be happy. Some of us get this companionship through service to others, some get it through focusing on the family, some get it through work, to name a few. It’s up to you, but it should not be ignored because we all need to have someone we can go to, someone we can rely on to provide stability.

Finally, in my experience just because a person is having self-esteem issues, doesn’t mean that they need to let someone else step in and run their lives. It’s just exactly the opposite. Unless you are part of the cure, your self-esteem is not likely to show much improvement. If it isn’t your success, how can it be your improvement? Worse, if you rigidly adhere to other people’s advice, every time you make a mistake you will see it as failure, but if you are actively engaged in the changes you want to make, you are more likely to see mistakes as the price of admission.

Now here’s the beauty behind the beast:  there is no right answer. We aren’t all going in the same direction, with the same motivation. What you want out of life isn’t necessarily what I want, and vice versa. And ideally, we need to recognize some of the “happy mistakes” we make. I doubt that they are fully random. I like to think that once we begin to nudge the brain in the direction we have chosen for ourselves, that it keeps working the problem and sometimes even demonstrates that it’s getting the message.

NOTE:  As before, if at anytime you experience suicidal, homicidal, or otherwise destructive feelings towards yourself or others, then by all means see a medical doctor because your problem may require medical treatment.

2008-0824 Self Help II Copyright © 2008 by Tad Laury Graham.