Too frequently do I hear some variation of the phrase "Is just how I am". I often think in response something along the lines of "Does that mean it's chemical imprinted into your DNA or is that what you've chosen to be?"
Essentially, who we are is a reflection of the choices we make given the environment we are in. I cringe whenever someone claims that some otherworldly force prevents them from acting a certain way, because our personality, mood, and perception of the world is vastly based upon how we have decided to act given our circumstances.
Have you ever wondered why someone who is socially awkward acts the way they do? Its not because that's "who they are", but because that's how they've chosen to react to life. I'm not inferring its a bad thing that they've done so, but I'm simply saying there is a way to change it.
Once I had entered middle school, I had noticed one glaring difference, all of my close friends were scattered around and not a single one of them was in any of my classes. The problem wasn't in my ability to make friends, but in my ability to speak to people I wasn't comfortable around. This resulted in the typical teasing and taunting most people experience, especially during this time period in life. I had no idea how to respond to it, and whenever I thought I had an idea, it seemed to result in even more laughter and mockery. I'm certain most people can relate to that.
What was the most difficult to get was how to talk to and act around women. I really didn't have any female friends, and I didn't exactly know what to do. There was a specific girl in my locker bank that comes to mind. I really liked her. I would talk to her after and before school and had what I considered to be pleasant conversations. However, one day, she spake to me and said something along the lines of "Justin, would you please stop stalking me!" I had absolutely no idea. Everything I was doing made perfect sense to me. I had no inkling that I was doing anything wrong. I thought that quite the opposite was true and that I thought she wanted me to ask her out. I couldn't have been more surprised. I composed myself later that day and thought about what I was doing wrong.
I probably wasn't a good idea to perch myself at her locker 7 minutes before she normally came to school and wait for her. I probably shouldn't run to catch up to her every time I saw her in in the hallway, especially if it was the downstairs hallway and I ran down the stairs and called to her so she would notice I was coming. Along a similar note, I probably shouldn't take strategic water breaks to slow my pace so she could catch up to me. Given my perception of the world, all of these things made perfect sense. However, everything I was doing translated to stalking in her world, and probably most of the rest of the world. I really had to try hard the next few years to change how I acted. Whenever I saw act negatively towards something I did, I tried to view it from outside myself and figure out what I could be doing wrong. Then I had to find a way to change it. It came to a lot of trial and error, but it was worth it. Later in high school, I met up with that girl again. I was able to have a completely civilized conversation with her and we had become friends. Our previous little encounter was brought up in conversation once, to where she apologized for being so harsh. I, in return, thanked her for doing so, because otherwise I wouldn't have figured it out.
Its easier to just accept life the way it is and accept that it'll always be that way. Its easier to just say "that's the way it is." Its harder to choose to act to our circumstances and better ourselves. In my personal experience, however, its a lot better to choose who you are.
Monday, August 8, 2011
In Someone Else's Shoes
Now let's take the principle of Conscious/Unconscious thought and apply it to our view of others.
Have you ever tried to explain the color of your walls to someone? Even if the walls are white, everyone has their own viewpoint on what exactly white looks like. The same is true to how we perceive our world. When we say something is hard, it doesn't mean the same thing to someone else. If we explain something exciting or scary to someone, they can never really get the true jist of what we're saying. They simply aren't us. Our circumstances and experiences have lead us to think a certain way, and no one else can truly mimic that. This all goes back to Conscious and Unconscious though. We Unconsciously see the world thorough our own eyes, our own definitions, and our own scales. We may see someone griping and complaining about a difficult test in school, when it wasn't that bad for us. We tend to label people in these situations. "Oh, they're just complaining.""They just want pity.""It's their fault for not studying" etc. I think we need to look at these situations through their eyes and Consciously figure out the whys and hows.
I was on my mission and my missionary companion and I needed to visit a specific member of the church for something. When we had knocked on the door, it was answered not by the women we were seeking, but her six year old daughter. We had asked her if her mother was available, to which she looked into another room and answered by saying no, that we should cone back later. For some reason, my companion had a hard time with this.
"She didn't even ask her Mom! What a lazy little girl!" he exclaimed. I shook my head and gave him a potential explanation.
"What if her mother works from home and is on an important phone call, to which she specifically told her daughter to not bother her at all if she was on the phone?"
He hadn't thought of that. And more often than not, when we make a hasty judgment on someone it's because we didn't think about what they were going through. I reflect back on the several occasions that I was late for class, or work, or a meeting of some sort and it seemed that everything that could have gone wrong did. No matter how many times I explain exactly what happened, I wasn't given mercy. So whenever I see someone coming into class or work late, I think what all they could have gone through.
This method helps me be more patient and forgiving with others. And honestly, I find it a lot easier to deal with people if they feel you understand, and even easy if I have no preemptive negative feelings about them.
Ultimately, we all should make a conscious effort to try and understand others. It really is our choice to do so.
Have you ever tried to explain the color of your walls to someone? Even if the walls are white, everyone has their own viewpoint on what exactly white looks like. The same is true to how we perceive our world. When we say something is hard, it doesn't mean the same thing to someone else. If we explain something exciting or scary to someone, they can never really get the true jist of what we're saying. They simply aren't us. Our circumstances and experiences have lead us to think a certain way, and no one else can truly mimic that. This all goes back to Conscious and Unconscious though. We Unconsciously see the world thorough our own eyes, our own definitions, and our own scales. We may see someone griping and complaining about a difficult test in school, when it wasn't that bad for us. We tend to label people in these situations. "Oh, they're just complaining.""They just want pity.""It's their fault for not studying" etc. I think we need to look at these situations through their eyes and Consciously figure out the whys and hows.
I was on my mission and my missionary companion and I needed to visit a specific member of the church for something. When we had knocked on the door, it was answered not by the women we were seeking, but her six year old daughter. We had asked her if her mother was available, to which she looked into another room and answered by saying no, that we should cone back later. For some reason, my companion had a hard time with this.
"She didn't even ask her Mom! What a lazy little girl!" he exclaimed. I shook my head and gave him a potential explanation.
"What if her mother works from home and is on an important phone call, to which she specifically told her daughter to not bother her at all if she was on the phone?"
He hadn't thought of that. And more often than not, when we make a hasty judgment on someone it's because we didn't think about what they were going through. I reflect back on the several occasions that I was late for class, or work, or a meeting of some sort and it seemed that everything that could have gone wrong did. No matter how many times I explain exactly what happened, I wasn't given mercy. So whenever I see someone coming into class or work late, I think what all they could have gone through.
This method helps me be more patient and forgiving with others. And honestly, I find it a lot easier to deal with people if they feel you understand, and even easy if I have no preemptive negative feelings about them.
Ultimately, we all should make a conscious effort to try and understand others. It really is our choice to do so.
Conscious and Unconscious Actions
Let me begin with one of my fundamental principles of decision-making.
Every single person in this world has been given the power to choose, or agency. This allows us the ability to decide our actions, and reap the reactions that occur because of those actions. There are two different ways we act, consciously and unconsciously. Conscious actions are ones that we understand that we’re making. These are simple to control, because we are already thinking about them when we make these decisions. Decisions like what are we going to eat for breakfast? What am I going to wear to the dance? Should I buy this new CD? Etc. Unconscious actions are the ones we don’t typically think about. Obvious answers to this are like breathing, but the ones I wish to speak about are much more detailed than bodily functions. The unconscious decisions I’m referring to are the reflex and response actions. It’s the things we do instinctively.
Through the course of time, I have been able to identify that I have a certain fear of people in leadership positions. Whenever I am around my supervisors, I tend to either clam up and not say anything, or if I manage to mutter anything, the pressure of the situation causes me to fumble with my words. I use the term fumble loosely, it’s more like someone has taken all of my thoughts, formulated them into a coherent passage, taken that passage and loaded it into a shotgun, fired, and pieced back the passage blindfolded. I do not consciously tell myself to do this. I don’t know anyone would want to. This problem manifested itself to me when I was serving a mission. Whenever I was spending the day with my Zone Leader (a supervisor for missionaries in my church), I would get so uncomfortable that I couldn’t function the way I typically did with my companion. This problem was pointed out to me by my companion, and I was determined to fix it. I realized what the problem was and implemented a solution. That day, when I was with my Zone Leader, I told myself that whenever I felt uncomfortable in any way, I was going to make a joke, or say something humorous about the situation. That day, I got lost 7 times, had every appointment fall through, and I ran through everything I had planned to do for the day in less than an hour. It really wasn’t the ideal day, especially one when I was under supervision. However, I consciously thought of how I was going to handle everything. Whenever I got lost, I made a joke; whenever I felt myself shotgun my sentences, I carefully thought out each word in my head, spoke slowly and intermittently would say something funny. At the end of the day, which indeed seemed to drag on forever, my Zone Leader complimented me saying he was very impressed in how I was able to overcome every trial that came my way and nothing seemed to depress me. He was pleased he was able to spend the day with someone who could so naturally overcome bad experiences and that he had a lot to learn from me. He also complimented my humor and said I was pleasant to serve with. I make it a personal point to say that I had never been given those compliments at any time in my life prior to that. No one had ever told me before that I had a natural sense of humor or ability to overcome problems. In truth, the exact opposite was true. My nickname on the mission was “Stoneface” because of my natural lack of emotion, and I had been told frequently that I make mountains out of molehills.
Every single person in this world has been given the power to choose, or agency. This allows us the ability to decide our actions, and reap the reactions that occur because of those actions. There are two different ways we act, consciously and unconsciously. Conscious actions are ones that we understand that we’re making. These are simple to control, because we are already thinking about them when we make these decisions. Decisions like what are we going to eat for breakfast? What am I going to wear to the dance? Should I buy this new CD? Etc. Unconscious actions are the ones we don’t typically think about. Obvious answers to this are like breathing, but the ones I wish to speak about are much more detailed than bodily functions. The unconscious decisions I’m referring to are the reflex and response actions. It’s the things we do instinctively.
Through the course of time, I have been able to identify that I have a certain fear of people in leadership positions. Whenever I am around my supervisors, I tend to either clam up and not say anything, or if I manage to mutter anything, the pressure of the situation causes me to fumble with my words. I use the term fumble loosely, it’s more like someone has taken all of my thoughts, formulated them into a coherent passage, taken that passage and loaded it into a shotgun, fired, and pieced back the passage blindfolded. I do not consciously tell myself to do this. I don’t know anyone would want to. This problem manifested itself to me when I was serving a mission. Whenever I was spending the day with my Zone Leader (a supervisor for missionaries in my church), I would get so uncomfortable that I couldn’t function the way I typically did with my companion. This problem was pointed out to me by my companion, and I was determined to fix it. I realized what the problem was and implemented a solution. That day, when I was with my Zone Leader, I told myself that whenever I felt uncomfortable in any way, I was going to make a joke, or say something humorous about the situation. That day, I got lost 7 times, had every appointment fall through, and I ran through everything I had planned to do for the day in less than an hour. It really wasn’t the ideal day, especially one when I was under supervision. However, I consciously thought of how I was going to handle everything. Whenever I got lost, I made a joke; whenever I felt myself shotgun my sentences, I carefully thought out each word in my head, spoke slowly and intermittently would say something funny. At the end of the day, which indeed seemed to drag on forever, my Zone Leader complimented me saying he was very impressed in how I was able to overcome every trial that came my way and nothing seemed to depress me. He was pleased he was able to spend the day with someone who could so naturally overcome bad experiences and that he had a lot to learn from me. He also complimented my humor and said I was pleasant to serve with. I make it a personal point to say that I had never been given those compliments at any time in my life prior to that. No one had ever told me before that I had a natural sense of humor or ability to overcome problems. In truth, the exact opposite was true. My nickname on the mission was “Stoneface” because of my natural lack of emotion, and I had been told frequently that I make mountains out of molehills.
This was a triumph. By turning my unconscious behaviors of clamming up and stammering my words under supervision into a conscious effort to be funny and respond to my problems positively, I successfully changed how I handled those situations. And I continue to do so. Whenever I can sense myself succumbing to my natural tendency to freeze up, I focus on instead doing something else.
This method can be used to help with any sort of natural reaction, and not just my own. It can help with feelings of anger, defense, offense, stubbornness, depression, impatience, and numerous others. It is simply a matter of choice. Your choice. You can choose to react differently if you take the time to think.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
The Whys, Hows, and What Fors
It has been one of my dreams to be a motivational speaker. I have experienced several things in my life that have changed the way I think, the way I act, and the way I perceive things. I have shared this information several times to some of my close friends and relatives, but never publicly. Through the encouragement of my friends and the influence of my teacher, Sister Larsen, I have decided to use the rough prints and recordings of my experiences and form them into a project.
After I had written and rewritten templates, prototypes, and outlines of how I wanted to portray these things, I had come to only one conclusion; there is no way to accurately put everything I want into a printed format. Sadly, I am unable to simply take 2 hours of my teacher's time and rehearse my findings to her for my project. I have several drafts of how I was going to present this information, however, it wasn't what I wanted. In previous writing classes, I have simply completed a project for the sake of completion. Yet because this project meant so much to me, I didn't want to do it just so I could have it done. I wanted it done the right way. I still haven;t found the right way, but I do believe this is the closest I have come.
Through the next few hours, I will be expressing my experiences the best I can into this blog. Afterwards, I intend on keeping it updated with my new findings, and as well as my other topics of discussion. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, Discourses on Agency.
After I had written and rewritten templates, prototypes, and outlines of how I wanted to portray these things, I had come to only one conclusion; there is no way to accurately put everything I want into a printed format. Sadly, I am unable to simply take 2 hours of my teacher's time and rehearse my findings to her for my project. I have several drafts of how I was going to present this information, however, it wasn't what I wanted. In previous writing classes, I have simply completed a project for the sake of completion. Yet because this project meant so much to me, I didn't want to do it just so I could have it done. I wanted it done the right way. I still haven;t found the right way, but I do believe this is the closest I have come.
Through the next few hours, I will be expressing my experiences the best I can into this blog. Afterwards, I intend on keeping it updated with my new findings, and as well as my other topics of discussion. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you, Discourses on Agency.
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