The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at Drkenner.com.

Right before the break, I was answering an email from Bill, who has a very bad case of procrastination, in his words. Notice, Bill, you use a phrase—you say, "I am physically unable to work." Now, you're not handicapped. You say you can only work if you're under time constraints and pressure to do so. So I challenge you to challenge that statement, because you are certainly physically able to work. You just need willpower. You need to do what I was talking about before the break: prioritize. Take the most important thing first that you need to get done, that you're putting off and that’s causing you a lot of problems. Then, you need to ask yourself when you hear all that resistance in your mind to sit down and write out, for 10 minutes, all the reasons why you're procrastinating and what you would do if you were to start working on this project.

Let’s say it's that your basement is flooded, and you need to clean it out because everything's getting moldy and awful. We've had a lot of rain recently, so that’s what you want to do. You want to be able to write down, "I don't want to clean the basement because it smells down there, and I don't want to have to deal with all my old junk." And then you start to figure out a way to say, "Where would I begin? I would begin in the corner near the washing machine and dryer and maybe clean up that area. Then, I’d go over to my pile of books, and if they're mildewed, just throw them out." You start to prime your subconscious with what needs to be done, and that will help start you, but it’s willpower that you need at that point, because you've already given yourself some of the details in writing about it for 10 minutes, and now you want to move into action.

Now, what prevents anybody from moving into action?

Hey, I gotta 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.

Romance.
I wish I knew more about what girls want from a relationship, but I wish I knew more about what I want. Where’s that ad I saw? Here it is—the selfish path to romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com. Huh. The Selfish Path to Romance—that is interesting.

Now, what prevents anybody from moving into action? Well, in a book by Frank Bruno, Stop Procrastinating, he talks about several different things. One of them is the need for autonomy. We all love to feel in charge of our own lives. And if, as a kid, we've always been told, “You have to clean your room,” we say, “I'm going to do what I want to do.” There's that autonomy—"Don’t step on my choices, and I choose to make them independent of you. You want me to clean my room? I won't clean my room."

Another reason people procrastinate is they fear failure, so they leave it to the last minute. I think I'm partly guilty of this one. You leave something to the last minute and then you say, "Boy, I wrote this paper just last night, and wow, I got a B on it." And so you want to look like a hero for getting a lesser grade than an A, but oh my God, you did it in one night. How great.

You also want honesty. If you feel there's some less-than-glorious reason as to why you did something, it's better to face it and then try to overcome it, to try to not have that operating in your own mind.

Another reason that people procrastinate is they fear success. They are afraid—"Well, what happens if I'm in the spotlight? Or what happens if I do become successful? Or if I do pass?” I’ve had this image of always being the underdog, and I don’t know how I would deal with success, so sometimes people struggle with that.

Another one is simply that we may have had some pretty bad childhood experiences. I know I mentioned one earlier, but Dr. Bruno says adverse childhood experiences can be a source of resistance. If something happens in childhood that makes you feel inadequate, incompetent, or ineffective, you may readily generalize the experience over to your adult life and mistakenly think that the same situation exists in the present.

Dr. Bruno describes the case of Kirk, a 34-year-old man who is procrastinating in returning a letter to a friend of his. Kirk hates to write letters, and he traces this resistance to writing letters back to his childhood. His father used to insist that Kirk write letters to all relatives to thank them for birthday gifts, and his dad would read these letters, criticize them, mark them up in red ink, and insist that they be rewritten. This killed any spontaneity and enjoyment in letter writing, turned it into a duty, and undermined Kirk's confidence. He subconsciously generalized these feelings to writing any sort of letter or memo, so he procrastinates now. He dreads the task, but hopefully once he identifies this, he’ll be able to break through and make some progress with it.

There are also other reasons for procrastination, but I won’t procrastinate, and I won’t continue on this question any longer. One of them is hostility. It's like being very passive-aggressive toward someone—"You can’t make me do it now; I’m not going to," and you become very passive-aggressive. So, I hope that helps you out, Bill. That's a lot on procrastination.

Right now, I want to turn to—we’ll see if we have time for a shorter question. And that would be:

Dear Dr. Kenner, I have a four-year-old grandson and a seven-year-old granddaughter who, along with my daughter, have lived with my husband and me for the past year and a half. So, the daughter and her two kids have moved in with Grandpa and Grandma. The four-year-old talks constantly, and it drives me crazy. He won't even sit quietly by himself, and he always needs me to listen to him. He goes to preschool three days a week, and he plays well with others, but his constant conversation and talking to himself and making sure I'm listening to him at all times is bothering me. I don't want to be impatient with him, but there is no quiet time for us. He's a loving child. I adore him. Help me out.
This is from Grandma Pam.

Grandma Pam, I think the main problem is between you and your daughter, because while he may be darling and love to chat up a storm, why is your daughter living with you? Maybe it’s temporary as she’s in a financial bind, and you're helping her out, but you don’t want it to be a boomerang situation where she moves in, and this becomes permanent. I would talk with her about this and see if she could arrange for sitters. The burden shouldn’t be on you. See if she can arrange for some mother’s helpers or grandmother’s helpers to come in so that you get several hours of relief, or maybe you could go back to courses. You need to set some boundaries with your daughter.

With your grandson, there are some things you can do too. What I encourage parents to do is say, “This is my time with you, and the next hour I’m with Grandpa alone, and the next hour is for me alone.” Of course, he's very young, only four years old, but I think he'd be able to understand that. You carve out certain times that are solely not to be interrupted. My parents had the right when my dad came home from work; they would go into their bedroom and have adult time for about an hour. And I don’t know what they did—maybe they had sex, I don’t know—but to this day, I never asked them. But we knew we just weren't to knock on their door. There were three little girls: me and my two sisters, and they were able to carve out that time. And I think that’s really important for all adults. Otherwise, you go insane with your own kids whom you love. You need to carve out time. You need to get babysitters. You need some help.

Here’s a little more from Dr. Kenner:

Our country, the noblest country in the history of men, was based on the principle of individualism, the principle of man’s inalienable rights. It was a country where a man was free to seek his own happiness, to gain and produce—not to give up and renounce; to prosper, not to starve; to achieve, not to plunder; to hold as his highest possession a sense of his personal value and as his highest virtue his self-respect. So, that whole goal of loving your own life—that's from The Fountainhead. My favorite author is Ayn Rand. You can go to my website, DrKenner.com, and see her books. And that whole focus of loving your own life, not looking at how you can be a doormat in life, or sacrificing, who sacrifices the most. That unhappiness you're supposed to be happy with—nobody ever is. They’re always cynical, bitter, and burnt out. I've done for everyone else my whole life, and I finally want to do something for myself, but of course, they can't because they've grown up doing for everyone else. Ayn Rand gives a very different view, and that’s that it is your life. You have a right to set rational goals, pursue them, and never step on anyone else. You never take anybody else for granted or use them or