The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

On the selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr kenner.com, Cosma, welcome to the show.

Hi, Dr. Kenner, hi.

How are you?

Great! How are you?

Okay, what can I do for you?

Well, initially, I was going to send you an email, but I thought this would be better. Okay, so I'll read my email. Okay, that's fine.

Dear Dr. Kenner, I've got a habit of checking and rechecking things throughout the day before leaving my house. Every morning, I check everything, including the lights, heaters, oven, etc.

What was the second one you checked? The lights, heaters—

Heaters, okay.

I spend a little time with the oven too. Okay, I even check the iron, even when I know that I didn’t use it on that day. It gets worse, though. I make sure the garage door is closed as I pull out of the driveway, and I really make sure it's closed. And then I will sometimes return to make sure I checked it.

You mean you’ll drive back?

Yeah, to make sure that I checked it, I’ll drive down the street, and it’ll be on my mind like I’ll be thinking to myself, did I really check it? And if I’m not 110% sure, I’ll come back. Now as a benefit, I seldom lose things; I don’t often get to do things.

Okay, downside?

Yeah, that I lose precious time going through these unnecessary everyday rituals. And that's just the start of my day. I mean, this goes on throughout the entire day, at work also—everywhere.

Everywhere. How long have you had these?

I think that it started to occur in childhood, and just my mind is continually thinking up new things to do, so I think it’s progressively worse with the years.

So what you’d want to do is reverse that trend. You don’t want it—you don’t want to let that pattern take over, because eventually, you’ll have no time to live. You’ll be checking all the time, right?

Precisely.

So what is your earliest childhood memory? What happened that made you feel like you needed to check in your family of origin? What happened way back when?

Hey, I’ve got to interrupt this because we’ve got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

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What happened that made you feel like you needed to check in your family of origin? What happened way back when?

Well, that’s a difficult question because I’m sure I couldn’t give you an answer right now. I think a lot of this has to do with—and I don’t know how it all started—but I think to myself, if I lose something, or if I forget to do something, then it’ll only make this situation worse, because I’ll be more careful later on. Now back to your question.

Yeah, these always have a causal—these always—psychology is causal. It’s understandable, and you never want to remain a mystery to yourself. So even if you can’t answer me in the next minute because you’re put on the spot here, you want to think about, “When did I first have this?” Where does this bring me back to? What’s my earliest memory of feeling I needed to check things? Did Mom and Dad yell at me once, and they said, “If you ever let that happen again, bad things will happen to you?” Or did I lose something precious? Did I get a toy that I loved, and I left it on a train once and said, “Oh my gosh, if you don’t watch out, you lose your top values in life, obsessions”? These thoughts that keep happening and your needing to—this is OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, obviously. But you keep thinking that something is going to go wrong, and you have to repair it. You have to check out to make sure something bad doesn’t happen. What would happen—you know what? I notice that we’re right up against the time. But I’m going to ask you a question, and we’ll come back to this right after the break. What would happen if you did lose something? If you—let’s just say that you came home at night, and you realized you left all the lights—you came home, and you realized you left the lights on during the day or that, let’s not say the oven or the iron, but the heater was on a little bit. So if you want to give some thought to that, we’ll continue with that. I want to say a few words on owning your own mind, having control of your own mind, valuing your own mind, and not letting the small stuff rob you of your own life. It is totally your life, and your happiness matters far more.

Dr. Kenner podcast, go to Drkenner.com, and please listen to this ad.

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Here are more aspects of a romantic partner you’ll want to find out about: What does your romantic partner’s job or career mean to him or her personally? In what ways is it important? Knowing why a job or career is important is valuable to both of you, ensuring visibility. How does your partner view family and specific family members? How important is the extended family? What is your loved one's self-concept? How does your partner see himself or herself? Does this contradict how you see your partner? If so, this could be a source of conflict. How much private time does your partner need? And when you—

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at amazon.com.