47
2002
Swinging ...
2002
Swinging ...
“I like knowing that your love of reading began with me, but I was referring to reading about resolving conflicts between adults …"
“Well, Mom, one night, when the boys were young and I was determined to stop them from killing each other, I got into bed and picked up a book about sibling rivalry. No matter how exhausting our busy, rough and tumble days proved to be, I'd feel eager to read before falling asleep. At some point, while reading that book, this insight hit: It dawned on me that as soon as adults get upset, most of us revert spontaneously to acting as irrationally as angry little kids. So, growing older doesn’t necessarily equate with growing wiser, because emotional maturity relies upon self-examination, heightened levels of self control and conscious choice. In other words, achieving heightened levels of emotional intelligence takes work. Concentration. Dedication. Practice. Progression in terms of training our brains. You know, like working to progress from general math to algebra 1,2,3, and 4, then to geometry, leading to trig and calculus ...
When adults engage in conflict resolution, our eyes, ears, and minds can be so busy watching and listening to our opponents' hasty emotional reactions that we don’t see, hear, recognize or remember our own. *If we fail to recognize our own defensive thinking, listening and speaking patterns then we’re likely to miss the subtle ways that insecurity and negativity breed self absorbed attitudes, which blind us to those times when the ego blocks intelligence from considering every plea to expand a narrow point view. *Here's why my fascination, concerning defensive patterns, which lead toward self defeat, deepens, as though I'm mining my mind for gold: *The more I work at identifying, understanding and transforming my defensive traits, the better friend I become to you.
When adults engage in conflict resolution, our eyes, ears, and minds can be so busy watching and listening to our opponents' hasty emotional reactions that we don’t see, hear, recognize or remember our own. *If we fail to recognize our own defensive thinking, listening and speaking patterns then we’re likely to miss the subtle ways that insecurity and negativity breed self absorbed attitudes, which blind us to those times when the ego blocks intelligence from considering every plea to expand a narrow point view. *Here's why my fascination, concerning defensive patterns, which lead toward self defeat, deepens, as though I'm mining my mind for gold: *The more I work at identifying, understanding and transforming my defensive traits, the better friend I become to you.
"Uh—you're losing me, Annie. I need an example."
Okay. Look at it this way, Mom. Let’s say that you and I jump into a painting, which we have no clue has been crookedly hung. Each time we gaze out at the rest of the room—from our skewed point of view—we might agree that the floor is slanted when, in fact, the rest of the room may be in balance while we are not. When misperception alters the little we can see from an unchanging position, our egos cast blame onto others while shifting all possibility of mistaken perception away from ourselves. In this way do our egos serve as master magicians, performing tricks inside our heads. And here’s the ego’s best trick of all: After placing personal opinions and beliefs into a hat, the ego waves its magic wand and, ‘presto-chango’, personal thoughts, magically transform into facts! If nothing can shake those 'facts' free of an ego, which needs to remain blind to reality and deaf to logic, then this master magician may fool every impressionable mind in the room to view his opinions and beliefs as facts, too. In this way do falsehoods pass from person to person (As in ... the world is flat), until— DEEPER TRUTH emerges in the end, freeing one and all from one person's limited fabrication.
If, while hung up on the wall, you and I can't see where our viewpoints are out of balance with reality, then you reassure me that my view is right while I do the same for you, which is why neither of us can figure out how to straighten ourselves or each other out. In short, when we're blind to our own self defeating, closed-minded traits then I can't help you out of a jam and you can't help me. We both need a friend, who has the courage to ask us to muster the humility to listen to an expanded view that extends the framework of our minds, so we can see where the limitations of our view are too narrow to experience an objective view of reality as it actually exists. Whereas open minds seek help to gain insight into bigger pictures when change takes place and conflicts remain unresolved, closed minds, based in limited points of view, form unchanging attitudes, which determine how we feel about this or that as though we're wearing blinders to the fact that change is taking place while everyone moves from one stage of life to the next. "
Once my mind is on a roll, nothing can stop my tongue from wagging, on and on, so my dissertation on friendship in flux continues with ...
If, while hung up on the wall, you and I can't see where our viewpoints are out of balance with reality, then you reassure me that my view is right while I do the same for you, which is why neither of us can figure out how to straighten ourselves or each other out. In short, when we're blind to our own self defeating, closed-minded traits then I can't help you out of a jam and you can't help me. We both need a friend, who has the courage to ask us to muster the humility to listen to an expanded view that extends the framework of our minds, so we can see where the limitations of our view are too narrow to experience an objective view of reality as it actually exists. Whereas open minds seek help to gain insight into bigger pictures when change takes place and conflicts remain unresolved, closed minds, based in limited points of view, form unchanging attitudes, which determine how we feel about this or that as though we're wearing blinders to the fact that change is taking place while everyone moves from one stage of life to the next. "
Once my mind is on a roll, nothing can stop my tongue from wagging, on and on, so my dissertation on friendship in flux continues with ...
"Though many are born smart, it can take a lifetime before a group of smart people learns how vital it is to place egos in time out in hopes of listening to each other's concerns openly, patiently and objectively during conflict resolution. Each time we give the ego and its henchmen (defense mechanisms) free reign to run the show, we whitewash our own character traits while darkening the traits of others, whose points of view differ from our own. As the ego cannot concede to making mistakes, let's imagine a posse of vigilantes riding their trusty steeds across the badlands, whooping it up with shouts of: 'String'em up to the nearest tree!' Just as wisdom whispers through the ages, so doth the dark side of human nature, which whips gang-like mentality into a mindless frenzy while declaring: KILL THE MESSENGER WHOSE EXPANDED PERSPECTIVE SPEAKS OF DEEPER TRUTH!"
“You can't expect people to think to listen to themselves in depth like that, Annie.”
“Quite true, Mom ... but I'm not quite finished processing this train of thought, so here's what I was about to say: *In the absence of objectivity, smart people fail to recognize how often we act too smart for our own good. The fact that Western culture reveres youth while pushing the elderly off to one side is one of our society’s most serious mistakes. When inexperience replaces experience, so that the Midas touch can pay lower salaries, as in 'more for me, less for you', productivity suffers, all around. (Mom is now shaking her head vigorously, YES!) Life is divided into four seasons for sound reason: Though youth may be born with smarts, those smarts are wasted when the impatience of ego leapfrogs over humility and time-tested wisdom is ignored, dismissed, laid off ... fired.”
“And how! So, tell me, Annie, how’d you get to be so analytical?”
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