136-07-15-2009

 So.  I recommend that we all stop watching reality television … that we pry ourselves away from this form or programming.  What it’s doing to us is nasty to the point of being dangerous.  Besides taking time watching others live their mean-spirited lives, means we have less time to lead our own lives.  We’d be better off doing something positive to help us strive towards our own goals than learning from others how to lie, steal and cheat our way to the top.

FROM ESSAY 134-06-29-2009 by W. Owen Thornton

Why We Don’t Do The Positive Thing

By W. Owen Thornton

I realized that as I read this near-to-closing paragraph on my essay “A Call for the End of Reality Television Programs” where I talked about the fact that people make unconscious decisions based on the last material most recently taken up inside of us, that I specifically and that many people in general have a problem. 

Many of us don’t know what is next for our own lives or if they do know they don’t know how to get there or lastly, they have tried what they know, have gotten stuck and are now lost souls.  So they turn to reality television to live their lost lives vicariously … because their own lives are going nowhere.  When we don’t know what we don’t know or when we are stuck along the way we’ll do anything rather than admit we’re lost.  

And when we’re lost, I find that we lack the patience for human kindness … human kindness towards ourselves and if we cannot be kind to ourselves, then we certainly have too little energy to be kind towards others.  When we are lost … when our goals are hanging out there … our lives in limbo … we drift with any wind that catches us … reality programming included.  Mel Gibson, in “What Women Want” is trying to figure out what he should do about his love for Darcy.  He’s blown it.  He started out attempting to sabotage her and fell in love in the process.  He is walking through his apartment, wondering what to do.  Then, he looks in the fridge.  “What am I doing?  She’s not in there.”  I thought the scene was clever.  To me it is suggesting that we turn to eating something when we don’t know what to do, stuffing down our raw emotions rather than feeling them and doing something about them.

Man’s Search For Meaning

Before I launch into things that can be done in regards to our three potential problems: that we don’t know what to do for ourselves: that we do know what we want but we lack the knowledge about how to get there; or three we do know where we want to go, we’ve tried, failed a few times and are now unsure if they goal is real or whether life is telling you to give up: I want to talk about the importance of meaning for our lives.

Meaning in our lives is critical.  Being somewhat of a lost soul in regards to career (I fit into category three) I have made a study of ‘life.’  One cannot do so effectively without stumbling across Victor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search For Meaning”.  Frankl lived through the Nazi concentration camp experience and his key question was, why do some good people give up and die and why do others who seem less likely to, live … why did they survive the experience?  It turns out that people who had something to go to, people who had a reason to live, something to do after the experience was going to be over: those are the folk who lived.  It didn’t matter what kind of career was enjoyed by the individual.  A doctor with what we might think had everything to live for might give up and die while a construction worker might still have to say good bye to his wife or attempt to create that dream experimental whatsis that he’d always wanted to build.  It was those who had a meaning for their lives who lived and those who had no meaning for their lives who died.

Problems with Finding Meaning

There are many problems with finding meaning for our lives:  Simply stumbling on our giftedness is difficult;  Knowing that we deserve the rewards should the goal succeed is another; being too humble such that we cannot do the things required of us to achieve our goals and failing to acknowledge our giftedness are but four of them.  I’d like to tackle these four scenarios before moving on because they act as barriers to our success … to our ability to be able to share human kindness.

Some fall into their giftedness and have the inner workings to run with it.  I think these are the folk whom we admire … the folk who make headlines … the people who run mega-million dollar companies or after three weeks of being a waitress in Hollywood become a big star.  We envy these folk and we may be jealous of them.  But for the rest of us we’re gonna have to do some work in finding out what suits us and how to overcome the parts of us that we don’t have that allow us to fully access our goal or dream.  Now there’s a cautionery note here.  Those who succeed do pay their dues.  Paying dues to the point of mega-success suggests that we require to work at our goals doing the things we want to do for 10,000 hours.  This amount of time in a goal helps breed success.  With this much practice, one it seems, cannot fail.  So while we might envy and be jealous of the folk who fall into their goals easily, they must work at it in order to succeed.  But lest we think paying our dues is a bad thing consider this:  when successful people pay their dues they are doing something they love so much that it isn’t like work to them to place time and effort to the tune of 10,000 hours into their goals.  The time just flies by!

So one key thing to note is this: your goal should be a natural part of you … if you’re doing it for free or for minimal results and the 10,000 hours fly by so fast it doesn’t even feel like work … then you know you’re on to something.  Two good books to help you discover what you need to be doing for yourself are Wishcraft by Barbara Sher and The Artists’s Way by Julia Cameron.

What would hinder us from completing these 10,000 hours?

·         A sense of entitlement: that we should be able to have the dream while short-circuiting the 10,000 hour model.

·         Impatience.  Disliking the 10,000 hours worth of work to the point that we bail somewhere before we finish.  (Suggesting that you’re in the wrong place.)

·         Lack of persistence.  Thinking we ‘should’ have by now put in the time.  I’ll call this the, “Are We There Yet” syndrome where we believe we should arrive on a cross country trip 10 minutes after starting out.

·         Lack of vision.  Where we get lost in the midst of the 10,000 hours and lose what our initial purpose was supposed to be.

Two Things to Know That Can Help Us Survive the 10,000 Hours

I’ve read some of the story about Bill Gates and his 10,000 hours.  Some of the experience suggested that he fell into a position where he could work with computers at a time in the cycle of the computers where they might or could become big.  He just worked at them so long, that things began happening while he was working on them.  He started to write little programs that would help systems.  I’ve never read that when he started that he wanted to become what he is today.  He just invested himself in his goal, to perhaps obsessive levels – IE working on computers throughout the night because there were so few university computers that the only time a student could get on them was to work all night – with punch cards by the way!  Bill just did what he loved and things grew out of that.

Secondly, the folk I’ve read about who were doing this kind of thing were often in a think-tank of sorts: they were working through their 10,000 hours with someone else they knew and liked.  The Fab Four, the Beatles racked up their 10,000 hours at a German strip club/bar.  But they had each other.  The men who set the world on fire with the computer industry, such as Gates … well they didn’t work in isolation.  Bill worked with a few others who were doing the same thing.  So … it seems important to have someone doing something similar with you at the same time: a support group if you will.  As I’ve always speculated at www.thehumankindnessproject.com life is better when we hold hands and walk together.  But more importantly when the days are long and perhaps dark, it is good to have someone with you doing something very similar who you can talk to in order to pull you through the long stretch that makes up your 10,000 hours.

But there are bigger things that can hijack a dream or our Meaning!

When working through a skills list people are often asked for a list of their skills and weaknesses.  Most people come up with a list of weaknesses as long as their arm while often leaving the skills list blank.  There are a few easy things to say about this (though changing our attitudes around in regards to them will still be difficult).  First an example of what I mean.  A friend of mine attempted to gather together a list of skills of people so that they could learn what kinds of gifts they could offer the church.  They wanted to get all 2,000 parishioners to fill out the skills form within two months: a lofty goal.  Of the people who where hard to get to fill in the chart of their skills were those who didn’t think they had any skills to offer.

Some people genuinely feel this way.  They are wrong, of course because everyone has gifts to give the world: for various reasons they just can’t see them.  But whether people suffer from humbility – that they shouldn’t brag about their gifts; they genuinely suffer from such low self esteem to the extent that they do not feel they have any gifts or lastly that they downplay their gifts – that these gifts come so naturally that they assume everyone else has them too and they don’t feel that their own gifts are unique and special, doesn’t matter.  Our perception is our reality.  If you’re one of those who cannot fill out a skills section, start talking to people about this … and even that may be a tall order.  Ask others what your skills are.  They always know.  They are the people jealous of your gifts.  Keep talking this up to the point if you must, find a good counselor.  What you need to know here is: you have gifts.  Acknowledging them must come before you can use them!

Once you find the skills that lie within, the secondary problem: that of not being worthy of the rewards should you succeed, may well be taken care of as well.  Our sense of self worth will limit our level of success.  Somehow we must feel worthy of success.  I believe that the reason why people who win lotteries and who spend themselves back down to the same financial level as they started within a year – a common trend – are limited by what they think their own worth might be.  Having too much money in the bank is as stressful to us, when we don’t think we’re worthy of that money, as having too little money in the bank.

A bigger, vaster problem here is statistics which are difficult to overcome and which have enormous complications in regards to attempting to solve them.  It is estimated that fully 25 percent of children grow up with someone in their family being addicted to either a substance (alcohol) or a process (work).  In addition another 25 per cent grow up in homes where they are abused.  Often these two groups overlap.  Sadly we turn a blind eye to these statistics and we do nothing to change this.  Anyone growing up in these homes will struggle with attaining a level of self esteem that enables them to even believe there may be a meaning for their lives.  If you belong to either of these two groups or both, then success because you have the skills and you are worthy of the rewards will be far more difficult to achieve than had you grown up in a home without these two ‘conditions’.  These victims struggle just to be okay each day.  Too many people fight this fight.  But, sadly as I do not have a solution here … other than great therapy for free by seeking out Emmaus International Support Services immediately.

Finding Meaning and Moving the Dream!

Finding meaning begins with being okay with yourself, acknowledging your gifts/skills and being worthy of future rewards.  Once you have achieved this position (sometimes this is no easy task) you need to discover your own inner knowing about why you are here.  Meditation may help.  Get a book on this or find a guru.  Reading Wishcraft can be freeing and liberating.  Once you identify something where you might like to spend 10,000 hours doing something (and this will NOT be a daunting task, but will look like fun!) dive into the deep end of the pool (first ensuring that there’s water in the pool!). 

But if you don’t know what you need to know … don’t know how to begin your dream … then you begin by being open to it.  Advertisements for courses that could help you along the way will suddenly appear to you … people who know someone who know someone where you can glean advice and useful tips suddenly appear.  Sometimes you do need to work this list.  What is the rule?  Five questions … five people will lead you to the answer you seek.  “Do you know anyone with who has …”  and sooner or later you will find the right person to talk to. 

Never stop.  Keep trying.  If the person who is your keystone doesn’t answer right away, don’t give up.  This is where reading Keith Ferrazzi’s book, Never Eat Alone comes in.  He’ll tell you not to take unanswered calls and emails personally.  If you are taking it personally you may desire to revisit those self esteem lessons you learned.  Because unanswered calls and emails from people who don’t know you but … they know a friend of a friend of yours … well they go unanswered because people are busy, because emails go into junk folders, because they are on holidays because they are stretched for time, because they are bad administrators of their own time, because they don’t see the relevance of needing to talk to you ya-da, ya-da.  Keep calling.  Keep emailing.  You will succeed.  Not hearing back from someone is NOT about you.  It is about them! 

Don’t take no for an answer at this stage.  You take no for an answer only when you’ve done everything you can with all of the knowledge you require and you discover, as Stephen Covey would say, that you’ve leaned your ladder against the wrong wall.  This is the wrong dream for you.  Start over.  Things will go faster this time because you’ve done a lot of the steps required.  Never give up.  You will succeed.  But at this stage, when you’re still investigating the process, well … you don’t know whether or not you are on the wrong wall.  People owe it to themselves to do everything in their power to succeed at their goals and stopping before you have the information required to enable you to succeed, isn’t the way!

So far, what I’ve written helps someone who A: doesn’t know their dream, or B: knows what they want to try, but doesn’t know where to begin.  But what about my position?  Position C:  knowing what you want, trying to get results and failing.  What happens then?  It may mean that you need to ‘try another way.’  Let’s say you do the right things but still fail.  Well, here I’m talking about my novel writing and why my works aren’t published.  I’m running up against a wall where my lack of skill hinders my ability to give me a fair chance.  What I’ve done is tried a few times and gotten crushed and I don’t want to be crushed anymore.  I’m learning … now … to have a tougher skin.  That’s one thing!  (And that comes from some great Emmaus therapy, I’ll tell you that!)  Second I know that I didn’t try hard enough because the pain of rejection was too great. So I’m going to try some more.  I can do that because I feel better about myself.  I’ve learned that rejection of my work is not a rejection of me as a person!  But third, I tried one way and it didn’t work.  So I got better at that way and it still didn’t work.  Then I tried the same way some more.

Insanity, they say, is doing things the same way and expecting different results.  Recently I learned that someone I taught creative writing to has since published nearly a dozen books.  So I’ve contacted her.  I don’t know if she’ll contact me back.  I’m not sure my method of contact will reach her.  There are other ways to get to her though: IE sending a letter to one of her publishers!

But doing this does two things for me.  It may well give me someone to talk to as I work along my 10,000 hours.  That’s a good thing!  Someone who’s been there can encourage and guide.  I won’t be alone in doing this.  If you’ll recall from above this was a key to success.  Second, she may be someone who knows someone who knows someone who can help me get past my “try only one way” method.  She might simply be able to hook me up to an agent or … a good editor or some solution like that!  So that’s an additional possibility.

So Why Have I been Watching Summer Reruns?

I’ve been watching summer reruns and some reality programming (never a full episode of any one show – I just can’t do that because it’s not entertaining enough).  I’m watching other people live their lives rather than living my own.  Why?  Partly because I didn’t know how to live my life after nine months of school.  I was sort of shell-shocked from going from 70 hours a week to working on projects around the house.  Don’t get me wrong, some form of a break was required, but after a while, I just found my brain turning to mush … then I found myself letting that happen.

But I believe that we all have the capacity to do something great … something wondrous … that we can all do something with our lives that will make an impact on this earth and even if I don’t find out what that gift is, I’m not going to go down without trying to do it because that’s living out human kindness for myself … and if I can be kind towards myself, then I can be kinder towards others.

And so I’m writing again … getting new ideas again … finishing old projects that had been lingering on and wondering about what I’m going to do with them once they’re edited. 

School is part of my plan now too.  Should I be able to go on to Graduate work, I would love to teach philosophy … help to shape young minds … help to divulge knowledge … to teach people to think for themselves and to lead by example by sharing the things that I believe in … the things that I believe make up a wonderful life.

In Conclusion

So why do people watch reality television?  There may be little harm in taking a break from our own lives.  But the problem comes when that break becomes watching it all the time!  Suddenly people are not living their own lives: they’re watching others live theirs.  How sad!  Maybe watching others live their lives gives folk a normalization check.  People see that others live as I live … so I’m not odd or weird like I might have thought I was.  But when I continue to watch, well … I’m just wasting my time: stealing time away from myself and my own dreams.  Maybe people watch reality television for the entertainment value: but I question that.  I recently heard a celebrity say they are saddened by what passes for ‘entertainment’ lately.  S/he was referring to reality television.  In truth, I feel, according to my own sense of aesthetics at least, that there is no redeeming value in reality television.

Watching reality television is not a problem but a symptom of a lost people bent on finding a way to continue to stay lost.  Watching reality television is an excuse for not succeeding.  If we’re busy here, we don’t have to be busy working in our own lives (and confronting our demons that we may not be worthy of success or that we don’t know what the next step towards our goal might be.)  Watching reality television programs is the same as going to the refrigerator door and looking for something to eat when we know we should be going to the home of the person we love and telling them that we love them (Gibson: What Women Want!).  It’s a sidetrack and it’s an unhealthy one at that!  Especially when we consider that we make decisions unconsciously based on the information recently taken up inside of us.  Do you want to live your life making decisions based on the fact that you’ve watched so much negativity on a reality television program?

Real life is scary and frightening.  It can get you hurt.  But real life is about getting hurt and getting back up again.  Sometimes getting hurt like that is a way of knowing that you’re still alive.  In fact, if you want to go numb, watch some reality programming.

Professional speaker Jack Canfield says that the average millionaire of today went broke three times trying to become a millionaire!  Success cannot be made without making a few mistakes along the way … without breaking a few eggs.  Human Kindness towards ourselves means taking risks … getting out there and being alive.  There are risks out there … risks for greatness … risks required for us to succeed.  You’ve heard me talk about healthy risks before and maybe I’ll do that again soon.  But I don’t think the risks I’m talking about are as scary as you and I think they really are.  I’m betting that if you and I launch ourselves into the 10,000 hour program that you and I will take many risks during that time and you and I won’t even “see” some actions as being risky: they will just be part of the things you and I had to do to go to the next step.

Think of the riskiest thing you can.  Now … go back 2,000 some-odd years.  Become an itinerant preacher.  Find 12 dudes to give up their work and families to follow you and now, for the next three years go preach a new way of being in relationship with God … ways that will get you into trouble.  No one is saying that you need to end up like Jesus: that was his special gift to humankind: his blood so that people could find God through grace.  Now I mention this, not because you need to be Christian.  But it seems to me that Jesus lived out a life of high risk.  His reward?  His legacy has lived on for a full 2,000 years creating challenges and controversy for humankind ever since.  Debate whether he was the Son of God all you will.  Read his message and you will find incredible wisdom for leading a successful life including loving yourself.  His messages and the lessons he taught: they are difficult to refute.  And he did all that by one day deciding that he’d earn no money, but would go from town to town preaching The Way.  How scary would that task be for one of us today?  None could do it, I dare say.  Not that way.  Not to THAT degree.  Yet he lived and was fed and had places to stay … most nights.  But he wasn’t afraid of a cold night out on the desert floor every once in a while either.  The greater the risk, the greater the rewards.  Christ’s reward was a 2,000 year living history: and, of course, the saving of millions of souls who believed in his Way.  Have many others so impacted the world for so long in such a positive way?

Maybe I should also talk about rewards, because I now don’t think they will all manifest themselves in a monetary way.  Maybe too, we have to rewrite that script before we comprehend what it means to lead a rich and full life.  Maybe there are many ways to win … but we have lost track of those too.

Blessings

Owen