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Articles continued
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Articles on this page:
Procrastination: One surprising cause
Why Rush Limbaugh is euphoric about therapy
Gratitude: A Healthy Twist on the Idea of Gratitude
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Procrastination: One surprising cause
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Mark: ``I hate my job. I drag myself into work everyday. I should look for a new job. What's the use. I'll probably never find one and who'd want to hire me? I'd feel guilty leaving the family business. Dad expects me to work here. What choice do I have?"
Tom (his buddy): ``What would you want to do instead?"
Mark: ``Who knows! I've never really asked myself that question. I've always done what's expected of me."
Tom:``What about going back to school? I notice you enjoy reading the travel section of the paper. And you always beeline to the travel section of the bookstore. What about becoming a travel agent? ``
Mark:``Can you imagine me travelling to Istanbul? Yeah I've thought about it. I got applications to take some night courses. I've had the applications on my dresser at home for over two years. I kept telling myself I should call, but now the papers are coffee-stained and yellowed."
Tom: ``Well call them up now and get a new application."
Mark:``At my age? I'd be sitting in a class with teenyboppers."
Tom:``You don't know that and even so – who cares! If you love travelling, go for it. Take night classes while you support yourself with this job, then, when you have the skills, get a job with a travel agent."
Mark: ``It's no use. I'll just put up with my job."
Tom:``For life? You're so grumpy and depressed all the time. Why would you do this to yourself?"
Mark: ``You don't understand."
Tom:``What don't I understand? You're a pain to talk with sometimes. You complain and complain and yet you never do anything to make your life better."
Mark:``What do you mean?"
Tom:``You complain of back pain, but you won't see a doctor even though you say you will. You complain everyday that you need to exercise and lose weight. You say you're going to join the gym. You've been saying that for years. You say you want to ask Lori out on a date. I watch her flirt with you, and you have not made a move. She'll be married with kids before you ever pick up the phone to call her. You love travelling, but you only sit and dream about it. You never even take a trip to the beach. You treat yourself as if you're in some prison. I'm sick of your moping. You never do anything for yourself. You sit at the bar, watch TV and go to a job you hate. What a life! ``
Does this sound like someone you know? A friend? A sister? A parent? Does this describe you? What's going on here? What would explain not doing what is objectively good for your life: pursing a career that you'd love, exercising, losing weight, going to the doctors when your back aches and seeking a romantic partner? Although there are other causes for procrastination (e.g., lack of time management skills, forcing yourself to do something you don't like, rebelling against a controlling person in your life, having conflicting values, perfectionism), I want to focus in on a specific category of procrastination that stems from low self-worth.
Compare Mark to someone who hates his job, and figures out a plan to take night courses to prepare for his dream career (e.g., travel agent). He tactfully tells his family ``I'm sorry that dad will be disappointed. I hope he will give me his whole-hearted support as I pursue my lifelong dream." He doesn't like his 20 extra pounds so he signs up and goes to the gym regularly.
What explains the difference between Mark and this other person? Why is one person procrastinating his life away and the other person actively pursuing his dreams?
What keeps Mark or you from getting that job, asking that person out on a date, applying to college, or not planning that longed-for vacation? In what respect do you sell yourself short? Dr. Frank Bruno, in his book, Stop Procrastinating , quotes a woman: ``I look back on my life and think about what I might have done, what I might have been. And it makes me feel angry with the foolish person I was." Procrastination is robbing Mark of his life – it's the opposite of valuing yourself, being focused and goal directed. But what ideas are causing his procrastination?
What would explain Mark's procrastinating on things that are objectively good for him (e.g., finding a better job or a lifetime partner)? How do we start to make sense of the fact that he puts his dreams and goals, his top values anywhere but at the top of his to-do list?
Problem 1: Valuing your life
Mark does not take his life and the achievement of his own happiness seriously. Why? Why did he never ask himself what he really wanted to do in life? Why, when he identifies an interest (e.g., travelling), does he keep this at arms length? Why is he self-sabotaging and settling for a dreadfully boring life?
Listen to Mark talk to himself: ``I've always gone through life feeling guilty. I don't know why. It's not as though I'm a bad person. It's hard for me to think about what I want. I've always felt that other people are more important than I am. They own the world. I don't know why. I just don't feel as though I deserve to go after what I want. Besides, it seems selfish. It would hurt dad. He wants me to work in his factory and who am I to say no. After all, he is my father and he did pay for my education."
How many errors can you discover in Mark's self-talk?
1. Mark is carrying around a vague feeling of guilt that he has never identified. If you feel guilty, it's important to figure out what you did to earn the guilt. If you can identify nothing, then refuse to take on guilt that you have not earned.
2. Mark views other people as more important. Why does Mark put himself in a one-down position with respect to his own life? Who can be more important in his own life and more deserving of attention to Mark than himself? Should his father's needs, desires and whims come ahead of his personal goals? If so, why? This position cannot be rationally defended.
3. Mark feels that other people own the world. He needs to identify in what way he feels that they own the world. Mark may discover that he too can ``own the world" by being active in designing his own life. And by owning the world, he doesn't deprive anyone else from pursuing his or her individual dreams.
4. Mark feels he doesn't deserve to go after his dreams. This translates into the thought ``I'm undeserving and therefore it would be an injustice for me to pursue my dreams." An injustice to whom? The exact opposite is true. It would be an injustice for Mark not to pursue his dreams.
5. Mark is afraid to be seen as selfish. This implies that selflessness, being the yes-man or the doormat whom everyone else is free to step on, is good. But it is precisely Mark's selflessness that lands him on his barstool or in front of the TV. First you have to value yourself in order to set and to pursue your goals.
What would explain Mark's procrastination? His willingness to sacrifice his goals and dreams, his willingness to put others (e.g., his dad) above himself. When his values conflict with other people's values, he sacrifices his own (e.g., he works for dad rather than having a career as a travel agent). He does not feel worthy enough to pursue his own values. When he successfully adopts a policy of giving up his values and substituting other's values, he discovers that values as such become less appealing; values represent duties imposed on him by others (e.g., working in dad's factory) at the sacrifice of his own choices.
There is a principle that sums up the cause of his procrastination, and it does not mean what most of us lightly take it to mean. The word is ``otherism" or ``altruism". I used to think that it meant being generous, kind to others and respecting the rights of others. But that is not accurate. It means that you put others above yourself. In this view, pleasing others, especially as a sacrifice, makes you a ``good" person. Notice Mark's pleasing his father came at the expense of his own judgement of what he would like as a career. What is the cost of Mark's pleasing his dad? His happiness. Mark becomes a disgruntled, bitter, couch potato. He thinks about his values, but he always runs up against a principle that tells him, ``Who am I to pursue my goals. My values are not important". This stops him dead in his tracks and he procrastinates indefinitely. He has given up pursuing his personal values. It's hard to get motivated pursuing other people's values. It's no wonder that he has started to drink to deal with his depression as a way of coping with the slow torture and death of what could have been his life.
Altruism, i.e., self-sacrifice, underlies this type of procrastination. The policy of altruism leads to low self-esteem. Your focus is not on how to live your life and achieve your personal dreams, but on how to be a ``good", i.e., sacrificial, ``giving" person. That typically leads to an ``oh what's the use, why bother" burned-out attitude toward your own life. This mindset will not motivate you to pursue your dreams; it will motivate you to put your dreams on hold indefinitely, to procrastinate.
When you discover that this principle is dead wrong, that it's a killer idea, it becomes a fun hurdle to get over. Discover that you do count. You count more than anyone else does in your life. Don't buy into the altruist notion that your self-valuing means that you will be nasty to others. That's one of altruism's biggest lies. Self-valuing people are the only people who can truly value another person.
Problem 2: Feeling capable
Even if you value your own life and feel worthy of achieving your goals and dreams, you may falsely conclude that you can't get that job, or that you are not ``college material". Some parents make a career of belittling their kids, and some kids buy into their role: ``I'm the slow kid, the kid who never finishes any project, the kid who is always late. Mom says I can't do anything right." Even if your parents didn't demean you, you have the capacity to do this to yourself (e.g., ``I botch up everything I do").
Altruism teaches us to focus on other's opinions. If mom says you are ``slow" or ``not college material", who are you to claim otherwise? Don't buy into this! If you do, you will purposefully avoid any psychological risk that will expose your ``slowness". You procrastinate or give up on pursing your true goals. Use your own mind, purged of altruist ideas, to evaluate yourself. Don't use other's evaluations as fact. Procrastinating, avoiding your goals because you believe you're incapable or you fear failure, will guarantee failure. Egoism, valuing your own mind and your life, is the cure.
To break through the procrastination barrier, value your own life and set some delicious long-range goals for yourself. Then work within your capabilities and don't sell yourself short. Write down your most important lifetime goal here:
_______________________________
This goal deserves your daily attention. Imagine yourself achieving this goal. Break this long-range goal into mini-goals. List three things you can do this week to move toward that goal:
1________________________________
2________________________________
3________________________________
When you look back on your life, you want to be able to say, with a satisfied smile, ``My life has been wonderfully rich and I made it so"
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Why Rush Limbaugh is euphoric about therapy
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"I wish I had done this 30 years ago." Rush returns and describes his therapy as a "wonderful process," "amazing," telling us "I'm so excited about what I learned and I want to tell you all about it."His euphoria about therapy is not the image that most people have of this soul-searching process. From the outside, many people think of therapy as arduous, draining and tear-jerking --a place where you go to express anger openly or experience guilt and pain --possibly to learn unfavorable things about yourself. All that is true. Therapy requires mental effort and if successful, involves your experiencing many intense emotions. As with any important value in life (e.g., raising kids, training to become a star baseball player, becoming a neurosurgeon, achieving a heartwarming romantic relationship) the good things come with effort, with understanding, with overcoming obstacles and with a range of emotions. Rush certainly puts in admirable effort everyday for his talk show, for which he has earned his sense of self-efficacy and self-respect. His effort and success are commendable (regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his content). What he wished he had discovered 30 years ago is that same sort of ambition, turned inward -- to understand and improve oneself is tremendously liberating. And even with all the "pain" in therapy, the outcome is often euphoric.
Why is it important to discover how your mind works and how to improve it? We would laugh if someone asked us why we need to discover how to use a computer or cell phone or car -- the answer is obvious. The more knowledge we have of computers, the more enjoyment we get from them, the more we can expand our ability to explore the net, design websites, take red-eye out of our favorite family pictures or know how to fix that frozen cursor. The same is true of mental functioning. The more we know about how our mind works, the more enjoyment we get from thinking and the more clarity and ability we have to set goals, to solve problems, to deal with conflicts reasonably, to achieve self-esteem and happiness. Our thinking capacity doesn't become our enemy, hiding dirty facts about us which we then need to drown in alcohol or drugs, in obsessive compulsive behaviors, in overeating, or in workaholic behavior. Instead, if we learn how to think well, i.e., rationally, we enjoy thinking about our motives, purposes, goals, dreams...we enjoy having an active mind, not a mentally lethargic one nor an evasive one. Rush's mind is always "on the go"extrospecting --now he has discovered the joy of introspecting-- having his mind "on the go" with the purpose of understanding himself, understanding his relationship with others, discovering ways to improve his mental functioning. He can identify and correct thinking errors or wrong moral guidance and he can explicitly commend himself for his admirable qualities.
Rush wishes he could go back 30 years and make different choices. We are continuously faced with choices (i.e., should I spend the holidays with my chaotic family or take a getaway with my partner, should I apologize to my kids for the emotional abuse or not, should I change careers or not, should I lie to my boss or not, should I get a job or continue to sponge off my relatives). We need to know how to make choices that increase our chances of achieving an enduring happiness. A momentary relief from emotional pain by drinking, drugging, gambling or overeating does not buy us lasting joy and destroys our self-esteem. What gives us the guidance we need to make choices? Principles, specifically moral principles rational self-interest, an earned pride, honesty, integrity, earning our own keep, having a solid and clear sense of justice, thinking and acting on our own judgment, and being fact focused -- that is, having a rational, integrated, moral code. The alternatives, the wrong moral code (e.g., "might makes right,' "eat-drink-and be merry for tomorrow you may die," "others come first," "be humble", "go by blind faith," "conform") will not motivate you to think rationally. A grab bag of clashing ideas, (live to please others, live to please myself) makes every choice painful -- it leaves you without inner clarity (damned if you do and damned if you don't). Being dishonest (even little white lies), sponging off others (by kissing up to them or by intimidating them), blindly following your emotions or the crowd, always turning the other cheek, trying to run others lives or letting others run your life are psychological deadly "virtues" --following these leads to self-doubt and self-contempt. A rational moral code makes choice-making easier and living pleasurable.
Notice that Rush discovered one of these killer-virtues and challenged it he discovered that he can't try to live his life by making other people happy -- the code of self-sacrifice is wrong. Rush says, "I can no longer turn over the power of my feelings to anybody else, which is what I have done a lot of in my life. I had thought that I had to be this way to be appreciated or understood and in the process I denied who I was and I denied the people I was talking to, relating to who I really am....You can boil it down to one particular essence -- I can't be responsible for anyone's happiness but my own, and if I allow somebody else the power to determine my happiness -- well that's not something I want to do -- I can't do any longer. It just means I can't depend on other people to make me happy -- I'm the only one who has control over that.
The purpose of a code of virtues, i.e., a moral code, philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand says, "is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live." Her rational moral code, unlike the irrational ones that abound, help you make better choices to preserve and promote your own life. Successful therapy helps you learn to think better, i.e., more rationally -- to correct errors, to flourish in your life and to gain increasing confidence in your mind -- self-esteem is mind esteem. And that is why therapy can leave Rush feeling euphoric.
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A Healthy Twist on the Idea of Gratitude
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I picked up a magazine and saw an article on teaching children a sense of gratitude. At first, my pulse raced. They might have just as well titled it: ``Teach your kids to be guilt-ridden doormats, to be bootlickers, to have no self-esteem". I dislike the groveling feeling and the images that come with that word:
``You should be grateful for all the food on your plate. Do you know that there are children starving all over the world."
``So you got good grades…you're lucky that you have the smarts. Your sister isn't so lucky. You should be grateful."…
``You have a good job and a good home. Not all of us are so fortunate. You should be grateful for what you've got."
``God gave you a good wife and a happy family. You should feel grateful."
``Seems like I'm always going out of my way for you. You never do anything for me. You're so ungrateful."
The word ``gratitude" brings back the drudgery of writing flowery thank-you notes for something I never asked for nor ever wanted. It brings back memories of focusing on all those ``less fortunate" than myself (e.g., children starving in Biafra, bums on the street, less intelligent classmates). It focuses my mind on thanking some faceless, bodiless, unimaginable deity for the things I accomplished. The word gratitude is sometimes used as a weapon by people who ``give" something (in martyr fashion) only to cash in at a later point (e.g., ``I sacrificed for you and what do I get? Nothing!). In short, that one word, ``gratitude" focuses my mind on duty and unearned guilt, on being small, humble and indebted to faceless people.
So I braced myself as I started to read this magazine article. Little did I realize that by the time I was finished, I would feel gratitude for that article. I would recognize a major mistake I had made as a parent and I would recognize times when gratitude was unquestionably warranted. I would be grateful for a different sense of the concept ``gratitude". What did I discover? That gratitude, used in a healthy sense, is the act of recognizing the good in others and in yourself.
When I looked up the word and related words (e.g., gratify, grateful, gratuity) in the Oxford English Dictionary, it verified the negative sense of the term: to please by compliance, to comply with a request, something done to gain favour… a bribe, a free gift, a contribution of money made to a king.
But ``gratitude" is also used in a good sense. It is used to describe a genuine warm sense of appreciation towards a specific person. It is used to show appreciation for a kindness you received, and to reward a person for something they did that you appreciated. Aha! I liked this sense of the word, recognizing and rewarding the good in others and in yourself. A different policy would be to ignore and take any good in others or in yourself for granted.
Let's use the example of Sharon. It's 9 in the evening, the night of her birthday. Not one of her three grown kids had remembered her. After all she had done for them: carpooling, cooking three meals a day for years, doctors visits, parent-teacher's meetings…. How had her kids turned out so uncaring? Why didn't they take 5 minutes out of their day to recognize her as someone important in their lives? She felt invisible; tears were falling. She felt angry -- she is generous and makes a fanfare over their birthdays – why didn't her kids reciprocate. She felt guilty -- how had she failed as a parent?
Where might Sharon have gone wrong in bringing up her kids? Sharon had vowed that she would never be like her parents. She would never force her kids to write phony thank-you notes. She would never force her kids to cater to her on her birthday. She would never attempt to make her kids feel guilty for nameless faces in the world. She would never attempt to make her kids feel lucky for their own hard-earned achievements. So Sharon decided that her kids didn't need to write thank-you notes, they didn't need to make a fuss or even recognize her birthday, nor did she make them feel guilty for having costly birthday parties. In an effort to avoid making her kids feel an unearned guilt, she hid facts from them about the effort and cost that went into pampering them and she let them off the hook when it came to focusing on her birthdays, her anniversaries and remembering her on holidays. She thought she had done her job well; she thought she had corrected the overbearing, guilt-inducing, duty-laden tactics that her parents employed with her.
What messages did Sharon unintentionally teach her children by her ``new and improved" approach? They learned that mom is there to serve them, that they don't have to waste their time showing her appreciation and that mom is incidental, unimportant. If they tried to thank her, she would push it away anyway: ``Oh, don't bother thanking me. It was nothing. Really." Her children learned that life is a one-way street – from mom to them – not a trade. They learned that the goodies in life don't require time and effort since they were shielded from the effort required to give them that vacation to Disneyland and buy them those 4 pairs of Gap jeans.
I knew that my kids needed to appreciate the effort that goes into getting the good things in life. My daughter earned her first bike (with training wheels). We bought it at a second hand store. She earned it by folding many loads of clothes. When she was older, she had a job and saved her money for a trip to London. My son paid for half of his airfare to Alaska when he worked there one summer.
They also learned a genuine sense of appreciation of others by observing my husband's and my own open appreciation. When a close family friend warmed our home with his playful antics, his quick wit, his intellectual curiosity and his medical advice, my husband reciprocated, surprising my son and our friend. He took both of them on a fun-packed trip to Disneyworld. My children write more genuine and playful thank-you notes than I ever did in my youth. They saw that I was quick to show my appreciation of them when we had a fabulous day together in a simple ``Hey – let's go out toeat alone again sometime. I love your company." My children are not demanding. If they ever tried to say ``Hey mom – make me dinner now!" Every fiber in me would say ``no way" and I would say ``That's not the way I like to be talked to. I won't be making dinner." I know it's wrong to appease such bossiness. I did well in raising my children in the above areas.
Here is what made me wish I could go back and parent my kids again. This is from an article titled ``Thanks, Mommy" in Parents Magazine (9/99):
The mother of 10- and 11-year old daughters told me that when she was a child, she was expected to give her parents a card on their anniversary each year. ``I don't remember how or why I learned to do that," she said ``but I know that they looked forward to getting that card. They always gave me a hug, and I loved the whole idea of being part of their celebration."
Her own kids, by contrast, don't even know the date on which their parents were married. "We've been focusing so intently on them that we've neglected to encourage them to think about us," she lamented.
We all need to resurrect the expectation that kids should recognize their parents on certain occasions. It helps teach them that life is a two-way street. Permit yourself or your spouse to be the center of attention once in a while.
This is the mistake I made. I had allowed myself to be unimportant to myself. I didn't show my kids many celebrations of myself or of my husband. We downplayed our birthdays, omitting gifts and cakes. Even when my children came to my graduation for my Ph.D., I skipped out early, downplaying this event.
If my husband and I were treating ourselves as invisible, why should we expect our kids not to follow suit and ignore our birthdays and anniversaries? I had more of the attitude of the mother in the article: I was so focused on my children that I neglected to encourage them to think about my husband and myself. In celebrating their milestones, I did not teach them that life is a two way street – it's also fun for mom and dad to be the center of attention on occasion.
I then remembered one time I did celebrate myself with my daughter. It was the day I learnedthat I had gotten an interview for my graduate school program. I was so elated that I put my arms around her and jumped up and down with her uncontrollably, laughing happily. She has warm memories of that celebration to this day.
What a surprise -- I had taught my kids not to celebrate us. It was not that they were ungrateful when neither of them knew that it was our 25th wedding anniversary (they didn't even know our anniversary date). I goofed. Don't make my mistake. Enjoy celebrating yourself with your children. Everyone wins. It teaches your kids to recognize and celebrate the good in you. It teaches them that relationships are a trade, not a one way street. It teaches them that it's healthy to celebrate oneself. And it does something else…it helps you acknowledge thatyou are worthy of recognition. Self-valuing and self-recognition, when earned, are healthy. It will add a dimension of richness to your own life and in your relationship with your children.
I still recoil at the typical use of gratitude – that guilt inducing, head lowering, self-effacing humble act. But I love the idea of teaching kids the value of recognizing and celebrating the good in themselves and in others. I love the idea of encouraging a healthy warm, genuine gratitude.
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