Tag Archives: acceptance

Promoting Bad Behavior

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There is always a lot of information available in Personal Development on how to improve yourself by changing your behaviors. Many sources emphasize changing what are construed as negative social behaviors for what are thought to be more acceptable behavior. I really do not think this behavior modification is possible from a deep level perspective.

Behaviors which some see as negative, anti-social, career limiting, whatever one chooses to call them, are behaviors which work for the individual at some level. These behaviors are tried and true, modified and tuned through the preceding years. When these behaviors are used they achieve the expected outcome. If these behaviors did not work for an individual they would have been modified out of existence.

What does one do if they are seen as, or they feel they have behaviors which hold them back from achieving their goals? Behavior substitution is the most promoted course of action. Substitute a limiting behavior for a behavior that is more accepted and helps achieve the desired result. That is what many experts say.

Take that behavior which is causing problems and replace it with a better behavior. For some people this is a healthy and positive way to fix whatever is wrong. The positive reinforcement of changed behavior should solidify and promote the use of the new behavior.

The only problem is it does not work for many people. People modify or replace one or more behaviors they feel are holding them back in some way. They adopt what they believe are more acceptable behaviors. Often just like the weight loss panacea, they find that after really trying and working on change for weeks or months, nothing changes.

Behavior based rewards are either non-existent, or not present in enough quantity to help the individual want to keep using modified or replaced behaviors. Little by little, just as lost pounds are regained, old behaviors start re-appearing.

Instead of enjoying all the benefits of everything one hoped would happen with behavior modification, the individual finds themselves back in the same rut they thought they were digging themselves out from. A  lot of work and effort and nothing really changed.

Maybe the problem is not in the behaviors themselves? Unless they are criminal or otherwise unlawful, maybe the behaviors are not the problem? After all these behaviors are part of the individuals personality and to some extent make them what they are.

Maybe the problem is using the behaviors at the wrong time, place, or manner? There are hundreds of jobs in multiple career fields where people use behaviors which do not work well in general social settings, and they use them successfully! Instead of trying to become someone else, be creative and look for opportunities, both social and career oriented where bad behaviors are both rewarded and encouraged.

Take those seemingly negative behaviors out, polish them up, and look for opportunities where they can be rewarded and not punished. With some tuning and polish, behaviors that many people want to change can be a fast track to success. It is more pleasant to look in the mirror and think, “This is who I am”, than look in the mirror and think, “This is me acting like someone else.”

The catch in this way of thinking, and there is always a catch, is self acceptance. Accepting who we are what we are, and knowing we are perfect for us is easier said than done. One has to throw away our families implanted ideas of who we are and look for our real self. We are what we are, and accepting ourselves is where our focus should be. We should not be focused on some ideal that we know we will never meet, or become.

Once self acceptance is second nature, it is time to find an outlet where we can be rewarded for how we are. Dismiss limiting beliefs about what we think we should be doing, for finding a lifestyle and career where we are acknowledged and rewarded for who we really are.

This takes effort and searching. The possibilities are real, they exist. Other people just like us are benefiting being themselves, doing work we can only guess at. All we need to do is be willing to break the mold we never fit in to start with, and get out there and find what we were created for and meant to do with our life.

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People Not Like You

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We were talking about young children and the transition from childhood into the adult world. One short comment trade that caught my attention was how children have to be watched and told when to take baths or showers. Left to their own devices, children find many more important things to do with their time than get cleaned up.

That led my thinking to the middles ages, or before the industrial revolution. Watching old movies about those times leaves one with the impression that hygiene came before everything else. Impeccable clean clothes were the norm of the day, and everyone had many changes of clothes. Right after clothing the impression that bathing was a number one priority of everyone no matter their status in the particular society in which they lived.

Westerns are pretty much the same. People are always clean and neat, and must spend a lot of time grooming themselves because rarely do you see a hair out of place. Westerns to their credit usually keep their characters in the same clothes unless there was a reason they changed them, perhaps someone held them up at gunpoint and took their clothes.

The most recent King Kong movie was a let down in the clothing and grooming department. People on a lost island with the heroine taken by Kong, and hauled through miles and miles of jungle. A few animal fights ensue along the way, yet barely a wrinkle appears on her clothing. Facial dirt was applied with the care of a makeup artist.

Look 2As children grow into adults, it is at times almost impossible to have them clean themselves completely. When they take their shower, they skip the soap. When they actually use soap, shampoo never touches their scalp.

Over months Teens start to notice that the other sex. Suddenly clean is the word of the day. Spotless clothing is a requirement. Having “The Look” or something close to it is mandatory. While no one actually knows what having the look is good for, everyone in that age group wants it.

Clothes and accessories are really nothing more than clothes and accessories. If you want to live in a particular circle where clothes and having the right look is everything, clothes and accessories are everything. You are judged, moved up, and moved back down again, accepted or shunned by your peer group solely on how you look.

If you are not part of, “The Look” group, how you look matters, but not as much as what you are as a package. If you are a sharp dresser and have some personality going for you, life can be pretty good if you are smart about how you manage your life. If you are a little more to the average group, life is still pretty good.

If you can’t manage looking somewhat pleasing, life can be painful. Some people are born with problems they can not fix. They are too short, too tall and gangly, considered too big, too ugly, too odd, or too slow.

These people do not quite make the average for whatever reason. They only fit in if you allow them too fit in. When you see someone who is not quite right what is your first reaction? Do you internally gasp and think how wrong they are because they are any number of things that makes them less than acceptable? Or do you see another human being who is trying to live life the same as you are?

I fear at times I am too different. I normally see another human being with their own troubles and their own ways of dealing with what occurs in their day to day life. I know these folks generally see another human being in front of them. Not someone who is placed in a grading system they made up. It is sad; some people are desperate to be recognized as being, though they expect rejection from the encounter.

Do you know your uncontrolled expression is immediate feedback about what you think about to the person appearing in front of you? Do you see a person, or do you see someone who is not as good as yourself because they will never be able to have “The Look”, or even come close to it?

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Accept or Change Your Life

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We are our own worst enemies, no one else is. We do more to hurt and frustrate ourselves each day than a a group of people can do as a concerted effort. How much time each day do you spend thinking about yourself compared to the amount of time you spend thinking about other people? Other people are exactly the same. They may spend a few moments thinking about you, but they spend a majority of their time thinking about themselves.

One of the most frustrating experiences of my early years were the people that always seemed to be around me. Most of them were good solid people, but there were always one or two who I preferred not to be around. Yet when no one else was around those people would manage somehow to be the only people around when I needed help.

It took many years for me to figure out that these people were in my life because I was drawing them to me. Everything I disliked about these people were a part of me. Once I figured that out and accepted everyone for what they were, these abrasive people disappeared into the woodwork, and rarely made any further appearance in my life.

decisions1Our world and the people around us are our creation and choice. No matter if our life is very good, very frustrating, or run of the mill, it is all of our doing. We are the masters of our creation. We create ourselves and as a result we create an environment for for everything around us. As green plants do not live in darkness, everything in our world is there because it is like us in some way.

While that may on the surface sound very self centered and selfish, nothing is further from the truth. Think about your life and the people around you. Everyone in your life is more or less like you are. They generally have the same hopes, fears, and lifestyle as you do.

People in your life you enjoy the most are those people who exhibit those parts of you that you want to display or promote in yourself. Those people you would rather were somewhere else share those traits that you actually exhibit, whether you are aware of it or not.

The easiest way to remove people from your life you would prefer were not in it is to accept them for what they are, and accept that they are a reflection of what you show the world. No matter what people do to aggravate or frustrate you, they are only reflecting back to you what you are showing the world.

Accepting people who frustrate you and appreciating them for what they are is accepting yourself for what you are. Once you accept people you dislike in your life, and learn to appreciate them, you are accepting and appreciating yourself too. As you accept them for what and who they are, they will slowly start to distance themselves from your life.

One day you will realize that they are no longer a part of your life, and you will wonder when and how they disappeared without you noticing.

We all are the creators of our own life. Our life’s creation is our free will at work. When portions of your life are unpleasant, remember you created situations that allow them to occur. Knowing you are responsible for what they are, accepting them, and learning from them helps you get your life where you want it to be.

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Meeting and accepting our dark side

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What is happening in our lives, why are things that have been the same for so long suddenly changing? Why are the people we have known all our lives not really who think they are? How did we get this far without noticing all these little things that paint a different picture of the world than we had been seeing for as long as we can remember.

Shin Yee, in her post, What am I missing, writes what she suddenly realizes is missing in her life, perhaps wonders where it all went. Shin Yee laments of all the things that were and are no more. It is almost as if all these things happened while she was off doing something else with her life.

Another young woman, Khushi writes in her blog/diary that she has discovered a part of herself that she never knew existed. She was willing to explore that side of herself, and for now has decided to leave it alone. Kushi say’s she has taken a, ‘been there, done that, got the t-shirt’ stance.

babarkazmi, writes in his post, The Lost Thoughts writes of living two lives. The first life where he tries to do everything expected by following the ‘codes and rules’. He writes this way of living is suffocating him, that there is another part of him wanting escape, wanting to create a life of its own. He calls it the, “Barbarian”.

Three different views of the same problem we all come to know as we live our lives and make that jump and grow into adults. The people around us are not there any longer. They have deserted us, they have changed, they are not who we always thought they were.

Living with our parents and having our life guided for us, life is so simple, we went through our planned day and life, rarely give thought to how well orchestrated everything is. How well the pieces are put together that made up our life during those years.

Now as we start a new chapter in our life of making our own way, we start to see life is not as it always was, and we are not who we always thought we were either. Entering adult life, introduces our life on an empty canvas. We are not prepared for what we see and experience. It is difficult to have our world change around us, when we are used to everything always being the same.

When we start looking at ourselves, we are shocked to notice that we are changing too. There is another side of us, that until now we have never noticed. In our first encounters with this other part of us, we see it as ugly, and not at all us, and we wonder where it came from and how it got in without our noticing.

Some of us are able to accept this other side of us, mesh it into our life, and we go on as if nothing changed. Others however, have a more difficult time with their other side. As children
and into adult life as babarkazmi so succinctly points out, we have been so busy following the rules and behaviors expected of us, that we never notice our complete self.
When the rest of us starts to make an appearance, we do not always like what we see. We may see someone who enjoys cruelty, vice, or other life choices we may have abhorred all our life – only to discover we are them. We discover in occasionally unpleasant ways that part of us is made up of those things we thought we despised all our lives.

We are enveloped in a conflict we all struggle with if we are to live a reasonable life. We have to accept that we are made up of thoughts and feelings that not only are we not proud of, but we may find revolting.

Some people turn these parts of themselves into enemies, locked away never to see the light of day unless they slip out in a moment we we let our guard down. Others, start leading separate distinct lives that have little in common with one another accept the body they share. The most successful of us, acknowledge these other parts of us, and accept that we are simply human.

From that acceptance of ourselves as being all those ugly things we find in us, we grow and evolve into more than if we never embraced the dark side of ourselves. Embracing our darker side makes us more human, compassionate, and in general better people. Embracing our dark side does not mean giving in to it, or hating it. Embracing our dark side means accepting what and who we are. For all the good that is in us, so is an equal amount of evil. Our individual life is in the balance and how we arrive in that space where we are okay with all of us.

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Baby to Adult to Dying, enjoy the whole trip

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I had an interesting thought today. I was thinking about growing from a baby to a young child. I have never seen truly happy babies during this stage of life. Most days are filled with frustrations of things they can not do yet. Most of the frustration is usually because their minds start to envision things their bodies do not know how to do yet.

From thinking about babies and the frustration they go through because their wants advances their abilities, that we in the end of our lives suffer from our bodies advancing our thinking! We do not remember the frustrations we lived through from about six months to three or four years old when we wanted to do something, but we could not, because we had not developed our fine motor skills yet.

Our diets change too as the years go by. One day we are walking along and it is lunch time. We think we want pizza for lunch. Our favorite pizza, the same combination we have been eating for at least twenty years now. We order, receive, and start to eat our favorite pizza. Suddenly it does not taste as satisfying as it did just last week when we treated ourselves to a slice of pizza.

Even our thinking changes in our later years. I can not speak for women, but for men, sex is the main brain topic from waking to sleeping, and maybe during sleep too. Men go through their lives talking with women in every conceivable circumstance, yet in their minds they are usually thinking about sex with the women of interest at the moment. It is just the way men are built. Suddenly one day a man realizes he is talking with a woman and something is different! It takes a few seconds, but he realizes that for the first time in his adolescent to adult life, he sees the woman in front of him as a person, not as a possible sex object.

Some parts of getting old are not so interesting or benign. For some of us little things we took for granted such as proper body function now quit working in the most humiliating, or embarrassing ways. We become incontinent. We become a gas factory that could probably supply the Country’s methane gas needs daily. We have trouble digesting foods that we used to love, or certain foods now give us a stomach ache.
 
When we think we can not take any more, the real diseases set in. We have high blood pressure, heart trouble, eye problems, back problems, pains and aches that come and go and sometimes come and decide to stay.

Most people of course do not find this time of life too enjoyable. How can they with their bodies falling apart? I am starting to wonder though how can we not enjoy this time of ending? Our bodies have given us great service for so many years, and they are now getting tired. Our bodies are now taking control of the end of our lives, and no matter what we would like to do about it, what we can do is mostly limited to observation.
 
Our trouble is we can not just observe, we have to observe with opinion and emotion. I think we need to become more proactive and observe with happiness, and contentment, possibly even enjoyment. We may not be able to control getting old and dying, but we can control how we react to it.

We can choose how what emotions we allow into our lives as our bodies start to do what is natural after so many years of life. I hope for myself at least I can find enjoyment in the way my body shuts itself down. I can not do anything about it, and I enjoyed my body at its best, so the least I can do is enjoy the idea, it is doing what it thinks is best for me.

In essence, I can enjoy and appreciate that my body is doing the best it can with the every day more limited resources it has to work with. This seems more natural to me, and much better than being bitter and resentful that my body which served me so well, is now shutting itself down because it has no more to give.

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