Adam’s Peace

How many people actually like what they see in the mirror?

I have to admit, I’m one of those who don’t like to look in the mirror, because I’m afraid of what I might find. Yet, my recent changes, starting about two weeks ago, have forced me to actually look; and not just look, but to be who I see staring back at me.

As I have told others before, it is a humiliatingly empowering experience. I recognize things in me that I would have never had guessed before. I see faults magnified out of proportion, and I recognize that they are only so big because I am afraid of them. I see wonderful qualities hidden away behind an excuse of humility, which were really hidden out of guilt and shame.

In some of my recent emails, I have been using the phrase “my (strangely twisted) logic” because I have trained myself to magnify my shortcoming and hide my better qualities. I am told that many other people do this to, but without enterring their minds and examining their thoughts directly, I can’t confirm this. I can only guess that some of the same problems that I’m facing are the same problems other people face, and I am certain that many people have gone before me and have found ways around the same mental blocks that I’m now facing.

I trained myself to use this strangely twisted logic out of fear. I recognize this now, because those events are behind me, open to the book of the past so that they can be studied in detail. While I was making those decisions, though, I could not see the fear just under the surface. I know that I have only seen the tip of my problems, just like most of an iceburg’s mass sits under the water, and that fear still sits just beneath the surface, hidden behind the mask of living in the present. Yet, recognizing that I have uncontrolled fears has been amazingly empowering. Those fears are certainly humiliating, but naming each one allows me to contain it, and once it is contained, I can work around it and push through it.

Part of my strangely twisted logic is to focus on those fears. I realize, logically, that when I focus on a fear, it gains power over me. For instance, if I am afraid of disappointing my wife, my natural reaction is to avoid her, and to tell her what I believe she wants to hear. This works great in the short term… yet when what I tell her doesn’t quite match up with what is really happening, I disappoint her even more. My reactions to my fear has caused me to bring that fear to a reality, with worse consequences than if I had just told the truth in the first place.

Focusing on these fears actually make the fears stronger, in my case. When I disappoint my wife by lieing to her, I have to face both the internal consequences of disappointing her as well the external consequences of her anger and distrust. This reinforces the fear, sort of a little voice in the back of my head saying “I told you so” and increasing my fear of disappointing her even more. (Alright, so I don’t have a little voice in the back of my head mocking me. If it were a voice, it would be easier to ignore. It is just an overwhelming feeling of dread that I can’t shake by doing anything but avoiding the stressful situations. Of course, this just makes those situations worse, until I can’t avoid that feeling of dread at all.)

Well, this is exactly what prompted my change. I had gotten myself into a cycle of avoiding my wife and avoiding telling her the truth. I told her a lie about sending a fax to a potential landlord, and was caught, as usually happens when I lie. After listening to her for about half an hour, I went and took a walk around the neighborhood (about one mile round trip… quite short all things considered). During that time, I kept asking myself why I lie… I certainly don’t enjoy lieing, and nearly every time I do lie, I get caught. I honestly had no idea. As I was making my way back to the street where we live, my wife sent me a message on the phone asking where I was, so I decided to not take extra trips around the neighborhood, even though I was still feeling all of my emotions, and just make the final turn down the street. She was standing out front, so I invited her to take a walk around the block so that we could talk things out. We made it around the block, with me asking why I lie, her pointing out there really is no reason to lie, and her pointing out a lot of my best features that I don’t take credit for.

As we rounded the corner back to where we live, she pointed out that I was afraid of her. It was a new idea to me, but as I thought about it, it made more and more sense. I love her, so I do what I can to do the best for her… Because I’m uncertain of my abilities, and because I have disappointed her in the past, I’m afraid of disappointing her in the future. We all know how my strangely twisted logic leads me to make my fears worse when I concentrate on them, so we can imagine just how far this fear of disappointing my wife had gone.

My father had overheard the argument earlier, so when he noticed that we had come back, he came outside to talk with me. He told me simply that I will make mistakes, and I’ll either learn from them, or I’ll avoid them. It seems to be a family trait for us to compartmentalize our lives completely, so that when we are doing one task, we perform it to the exclusion of all other tasks. We don’t ignore anything… we simply have no concept of anything else except for what we are working on at the time. He gave me some tips on how to overcome this… (Namely, write things down, and when I’m done with a task, or taking a break from it, take a glance at the list. It’s okay to not do a task right away, but always write a task down right away, or it goes into the great /dev/null bit bucket of the brain… It simply ceases to exist until something else reminds us, and often, that’s too late.)

The real change came when my father told me that he knew I had a lot of different emotions… but all that I had to do was let them go. He didn’t tell me to bottle them up, to hide from them, or to ignore them… simply let them go. He didn’t recomend that I purge them or push them away, or to express them until I couldn’t feel them anymore. He simply said to let them go, and as he said that, the feelings of frustration, of fear, and of helplessness left, to be replaced by peace. They didn’t go far… but they didn’t cling either. The best way to describe it would be like ending a phone call with a good friend… You know that you can call them again, and if they need you, they can call you… but they’re simply not there at the moment, and that is okay.

So, that was my first real step towards these recent changes. There are many quotes about fear being the only thing we truly have to fear, and of how the truth is empowering, so I am taking a fresh look at my life. I still have frustration, fear, and helplessness available to call upon if I need them, but I also have many other emotions to call upon whenever I want. The key is, I have to be honest about what I want.

So, I’m going to write a few lists to post here, saying what I want, what I am afraid of, what my best qualities are, and whatever comes to mind. First, I’ll start with a list of what I want… and I’ll warn you now, some of these might surprise you, since they surprise me.

P.S.  If you saw this title posted as “Something to rename,” I appologize.  I forgot to rename it.  Chalk it up to just not paying attention. 

Would anyone be shocked if I said that the famously touted Law of Abundance actually has some foundation in science?

For those who are unfamiliar with it, the Law of Abundance is an old New-Age idea that says, when you act like money means nothing, that you get money easily. At least, that’s the most common interpretation of the Law of Abundance.

Now, the Law of Abundance has a few large problems. Its main problem is that it gets over simplified far too much. If you simply start giving your money away to everybody you meet on the street, you will very quickly end up broke, with very little in return to show for it, except a few happy memories. (Yes, memories are important. If you can’t afford to make new memories in the future, though, then what is the point of happy memories now?)

The second problem with the Law of Abundance is that the people who believe they need it more are actually those who would be most harmed by its first problem.

Dependence, Independence, and Interdependence.

In his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (aff), Steven R. Covey talks about three stages of dependence. If you think of the “ideal” American life, you start out as a child, completely dependent on your family. When you leave the house, you become independent, hopefully able to take care of yourself well enough to continue surviving, if not flourish. Finally, you get married, and your spouse depends on you, just as you depend on your spouse, entering a stage of interdependence.

To many people, this first stage of dependence seems ideal… You don’t have to lift a finger, yet all of your needs are taken care of. Well, what happens if such a network were strictly enforced? If everybody were paid the same wages, no matter their rank or ability… Yes, I’m talking about Socialism, which would be a perfect form of government, if only there were perfect people to live in that government. Unfortunately, humans being the opportunistic creatures that we are, if a large number of people figured out that they could work half as hard, and still get the same pay, then only their own morals would prevent them from short-changing their neighbors. (As time goes on, and it becomes more and more acceptable to work less, the system will eventually collapse.)

What, then, of independence? Surely it has to be a good system, because so many people strive to be independent, right?

Well, it certainly is a good system. For an example, look at the subsistence farmers of Oklahoma in the 1920’s. They worked the ground themselves, most didn’t have a penny of debt, and the vast majority were able to produce so much that they could sell their excess food far and wide. Truly, Oklahoma’s farms in the 1920’s were a shining example of independence at its best.

Unfortunately, Oklahoma’s farms in the 1930’s were a tragic example of independence in the worst of times. The drought that came to be known as the Dust Bowl sent many families into ruin, destroyed most of the farms, and shattered nearly everybody’s dreams for independence in the region.

The problem with independence is that there is no backup plan. Without the ability to change back to a state of dependence easily, external environmental changes can wreak havoc on your own successes. A more modern example of an environmental change that destroys an independent person’s dreams is being fired… Without a support system in place (or a lot of cash in savings), being fired can very quickly put a person out on the streets.

So if the other two plans are so terrible, then how is interdependence any different?

Interdependence

Well actually, being independent or even dependent isn’t that terrible. Everybody goes through each of these stages at different points of their lives. If we’re lucky, part of the American Dream is complete dependence on our children, so that we can repay them for the diapers we’ve changed for them… by making them change our diapers.

Let me start out this section by reminding everybody that no system is perfect. Change always comes, and the ways that these changes manifest often change as well. Today’s information revolution is bringing more and more change at an even greater pace than seen before, and the best systems seem to have found a good balance between having redundancy and being efficient… That is, if one part of the system fails, other parts can take its place, but when all parts are working normally, there is very little duplication of work.

One example of a well balanced system is the Supermarket. In it, each person specializes in one area of the store, such as running a register, collecting carts, baking, or stocking the shelves. If a person calls in sick, though, people from other departments can easily move over and keep the department running for short periods of time.

Taking a step out, each of these stores are able to get employees from other stores in case of suddenly finding that their staff can’t handle the workload, such as when a nearby competitor closes, or in the case of a grand opening where neighborhood interest is very high and the store hasn’t properly hired a full staff yet.

At another step outward, we find the stores buying from the suppliers, and the manufacturers selling to the stores, as well as buying raw materials. If one specific company goes out of business, there are plenty of other ones available to keep this large system running smoothly. One step further out and we find that the global economy is a network of these interdependent relationships, built up of an unimaginable number of relationships that individuals have with different businesses and hobbyists. Each individual within this network (and I’m including companies as individuals here) would be completely incapable of matching their current value, if they had to do everything themselves.

Imagine for a moment that you run a candy manufacturing business. Common wisdom says that you need to get suppliers for your raw materials, and you need stores to buy your candy from you, so that the end consumer can buy them as well. Well, why do you need all of this? Can’t you just hire your own farmers who will tend and nurture the sugar cane? Can’t you make a sugar refinery, and aren’t there trucks available for sale so that you can ship the raw materials yourself?

How about the stores? Can’t you just build a storefront in a prime location, ensuring that your candy doesn’t appear on the same shelves as your competitors?

Well, you could do all of that, and many businesses strive for this. What happens if there is a drought, though, and you can’t water your sugar cane? What happens if your storefront fails a health inspection? Also, while you’re working on growing your production from the bottom to the top, what happens to the core of your business? Is your business still one of making candy, or has it become a business of managing a closed supply chain?

Since many of my audience are bloggers, let me ask about your own sites. Do you recognize the interdependence that you are already engaging in?

The first sign of interdependence that I see common to all bloggers is their relationship with their website hosting providers. Everybody has a choice to either buy hosting that is managed by another company, or to set up servers for themselves. Many people are either unable or unwilling to host their sites in their garages, so we create a relationship where we become the hosting company’s clients. Without people willing to pay for website hosting, the hosting companies would go out of business very quickly… and without hosting companies, the vast majority of sites out there today simply would not exist, so we have created an interdependent relationship.

Personally, I have tried to host a site out of my garage, and I’ll say from experience that it certainly wasn’t easy. With tools like Apache, PHP, and MySQL being freely available, and with generous support for these products provided by countless volunteers, learning how to set up a website on my home computer was simple enough… but managing the physical connection between my computer and the rest of the world was well beyond my patience. By buying hosting, I was able to leave the headaches of managing the server behind, and I’m now able to concentrate more on the site itself.

Interdependence is the Law of Abundance

So, I promised to explain in objective terms how the Law of Abundance works. Here it is, in a nutshell.

The basics of the Law of Abundance say that when you give out money, more money comes to you. Interdependence says that when you set up the right relationships, you build efficiency and flexibility. Looking at what money really is (once you get past the idea that those coins and paper are money… they’re only symbols for money), you find that the value that you give to other people is what helps you to build a relationship. Value can be anything, from information posted on a website, to the exchange of coins and paper, or food, or shelter and land, or anything that a person might want or need.

So, when we give people money, such as when we’re experimenting with the Law of Abundance, we’re simply exchanging value… and that value builds a relationship. If we’re lucky, then that relationship will give us some value in return, such as insight into designing a site that performs well in search engines, and we enter into an interdependent relationship.

The Law of Abundance is simply saying that it is alright to take the first move to make friends with someone. The more friends that we have, the more likely we are to gain some benefits that will help us all.

Final Words

I’ve heard a lot of people say that the money has to come from somewhere, and they don’t feel right taking it. Well, that’s only partially true… An often misunderstood fact about economics is that the amount of value (just another word for money) in the world is limited only by how many people are creating value. The amount of currency (those coins and paper we call money) is limited, but the more value that we create, the more valuable the currency becomes… and the more that we trade our currency around, the more it shows that we’re providing value. So, don’t be afraid to accept cash from someone… just be sure to create as much value as you feel is justified, then give that cash to someone else.

Let me start out by asking a simple question.

If a child in your family were sexually molested, would you be able to forgive their abuser?

Just take a moment to ponder that question in your head while I relate to you the story of my childhood.

Early Years

When I was born in 1980, I was already in a dysfunctional family. My father had just gotten back from several years in Germany, where he was stationed while he was a soldier in the U.S. Army. Because of their financial situation, my mother was unable to move to Germany as well, so lived apart from my father with my two older sisters.

In 1981, my mother met a man who she fell in love with. Now, this was no surprise, as the relationship between my mother and father was already over after I was born… the only thing remaining to tie them together was a marriage certificate and the mutual inability to provide for us children if they were ever divorced.

In 1982, this man began to physically abuse me.

In 1983, this man was put in jail, and my parents divorced. My father got full custody, with monthly, supervised visitation for my mother (later to be weekly and unsupervised as I became more independent).

In 1985, I began kindergarten. I also began hearing that the man who was in jail had abused my sisters sexually. I didn’t know what that meant at the time… just that it was very bad, based on the tone that those rare, serious conversations took.

In first grade, I began acting out in school. I became bored easily, and I had trouble making friends. I was the favorite target of bullies, as I simply would not stick up for myself. It was explained to me that I was acting up because I had been abused as an infant.

The Step-Mom

In second grade, 1987, my father remarried. Out of courtesy, I’ll simply say that if it was difficult to raise two teenager girls and a seven year old boy, then it was only more difficult to enter that situation without any experience with raising any children.

Fortunately, I had an excuse to fall back on… “I had been abused, remember? That affected my personality, remember? My sisters were abused too… worse than I was… and I was around, so I knew what it was like. That means that I could be pretty messed up… but I’m only kind-of messed up.” For a child in second grade, this was advanced, infallible logic.

If we skip ahead to my High School years, what do you think we would find?

I’ll tell you exactly. I had very little self-esteem. I blamed my step-mom for my every problem, except for those that I could blame on the mysterious figure who was sitting in jail somewhere. Although, I couldn’t remember this man’s face at the time… yet he was still to blame for my problems. I had absolutely no self discipline. If I was not interested in a task, I simply could not make myself do it. I wouldn’t even try. If a class had primarily classwork and no homework, I would often get a perfect score. If there was ever a homework assignment, I simply would not even attempt it. I was one of the smartest students at my school… all of my teachers told me so… yet I consistently got the worst grades in most of my classes.

Turning Points

Oh, I’ve had many turning points since then. I’ve needed many turning points. I didn’t get involved in drugs because I was too scared of getting caught. I was a good kid because my self esteem was too low. I was in danger of committing suicide, except for the fear of getting caught.

My first turning point was when I was sent to a charter school. It was a wonderful environment, with classes mixed with the brightest and dimmest of minds that had ever had the good fortune to be kicked out of the public education system. Topics were presented in ways that appealed to the people who had grown to detest the mainstream. Of course, the dimmest of minds still failed their classes, but at least they learned in the process. The brightest of minds had a real chance to show what they had been hiding for years, which made all of the difference for me.

The second turning point was when I joined the Army. Even though I had finally passed High School, looking back now, I realized that I still had a lot of growing and learning to do. The biggest difference from then to now is, now I know that I have a lot left to learn. Then, I thought I knew it all. The Army helped me to humble myself enough to begin growing.

The third turning point was when I got married. That was a precious, wonderful moment for me; one which I have always cherished, and which I will always continue to cherish. Of course marriage continues to bring its own challenges and rewards, but the challenges are always worth facing. The rewards are always worth striving for.

The fourth turning point was when I was released from the Army. As much as the Army tore me apart and built me back up again, it also supplied me with its own foundation. I always had a place to live, and always had food to eat… Now, I had to find my own house, buy my own food. This is where I really and truly struggled.

Back to Basics

This fourth turning point really hit me hard. I had never really dealt with the demons of my past, and I never realized just how deeply I was affected by them. I never had to be completely responsible for myself before, and I was a bit surprised to find that I was lacking.

After a few months of working for nearly minimum wage, cleaning toilets at a retail store, I had to take stock of my situation more deeply than I ever have before. My marriage was falling apart… I was slipping behind on bills… I was becoming extremely depressed again, and something had to change.

The first step that I took was to figure out what I was doing that was hurting me. I already had a few addictions that were hurting me, and I was in the middle of an addiction to online games as well as recently recovering from yet another round of alcoholism. I was also becoming obsessive over other activities, which were close to being addictions as well. My first step was to stop these addictions.

This first step, though, only acted as a bandage over a much deeper problem. It certainly helped with what was wrong right then, but it did nothing to solve the patterns of behavior that got me addicted and left me an irresponsible slob in the first place.

I had to dig deeper, and in order to do that, I had to travel into my past. Into the deep dark past that I had all but forgotten.

The Question, Again

Now, I would like to rephrase the question… If your anger, self pity, and addictive behaviors were all tied to a person who molested children in your family, would you be able to forgive them so that you could move on and begin to enjoy your life?

That is exactly what I found my problem to be. At a very young age, I had learned how to avoid my problems rather than deal with them… The person responsible was, of course, myself. However, I blamed the mysterious figure who’s face I can’t even remember, and this blame kept me from moving forward and fixing my problems.

I was asked the first version of this question on a message board a couple of days ago, and I was attacked for my answer. I was the only person who would be willing to forgive the worst among us… I was ashamed of why I forgave, though… which kept me open for that attack. I forgave my mystery abuser for selfish reasons. If I didn’t forgive him, my life would have been absolutely ruined.

A Monk’s Insight

I can’t take credit for putting this concept eloquently… Albert Foong of Urban Monk said it much better than I can ever say it. I can’t find the specific post where he made this distinction, so you might as well head over and read every single one of his articles. Yes, they really are that good.

In short, everybody has to deal with two versions of everybody else: Their objective self and their subjective self. You have to deal with that person, and you have to deal with your own ideas of that person.

Consciousness is vastly limited. Our topmost thoughts can only deal with the most abstract of concepts… So, our subconscious mind builds a “paper doll” of everybody who we have relationships with. The more detailed the relationship, the more detailed the paper doll… but the paper doll is about as lacking in true dimension as a photograph. It is simply a flat representation… what we expect, not what is really there.

Well, my problem was that I had built a monster of a paper doll in my early childhood, and this paper doll held all of my fears. Since I didn’t have an actual objective person to match this paper doll up to, it began to become attached to everybody… especially people who I couldn’t see. I developed a phobia of phones, because I couldn’t see the person on the other end. Another phobia that I developed was a fear of authority figures… which later turned into a stubborn subconscious defiance. I developed that phobia of authority figures because the paper doll monster was an adult, and was created when I was still quite young… when all adults were authorities. I can tell you, this phobia and defiance has certainly gotten me into trouble; especially while in the military.

The good news is, though, that when your forgive someone, you are only affecting your mental image of them. Your forgiveness can not create an actual physical change in someone else, unless you tell them directly that they are forgiven… yet the same act of forgiveness which has so little affect on the physical world has profound affects on the subjective world. You are literally re-writing the paper doll’s scripts by forgiving them.

By forgiving my mystery abuser, I rewrote the monster paper doll’s past… Instead of a creature that simply wanted to hurt, I was able to change it to a creature that was sorry that it had hurt… then to a creature that didn’t want to cause any more suffering.

That is the true power of forgiveness. By forgiving someone, your change your mental image of them into something that is worthy of forgiveness. I will most likely never meet my abuser again… and I am alright with that, even though it means never forgiving him to his face. If I do meet him, I’ll have to make a brand new paper doll for him, then forgive it as well… but forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting when your own safety is at stake. Forgiveness means accepting what was done in the past and overcoming it… improving from it.

The Final Question

So, with that further insight, let me ask this question again:

If you could recognize that you are blaming other people for problems in your life, would you be able to confront your mental image of them and forgive it, no matter how much suffering they have caused, and how much suffering they may continue to cause?

Forgiveness isn’t about making the person who made you suffer feel better. Forgiveness is about allowing you to move past blaming others and allowing you to charge of your life. Maybe forgiveness can actually make a better person of that other person, since guilt can be a powerful motivator for those who can recognize it. For the truly and habitually abusive though, I would just forgive and walk away.