Basic Instinct

Posted by fxckfeelings on January 17, 2011

At this point in our culture, optimism and communication are reflexive answers to almost every question; if life or your family is treating you badly, your gut tells you to look on the bright side and try and hash it out. What people don’t like to realize, however, be it in their brains or in their guts, is that there are often things we don’t control, and most of the time, bad circumstances and other people’s bad decisions fall under that purview. The basic rule of human behavior may be to go with your gut, but that’s actually pretty foolish when you realize your gut is full of shit.
–Dr. Lastname

I’ve got 4 kids, all under 7, and a wife with a chronic, hard-to-diagnose condition that has her walking with a cane. So sometimes I feel overwhelmed. That fact is, I’ve got a good job and my wife and I get along well, and I know people who have more problems than I do. I feel I should be grateful and counting my blessings, and that’s my goal– to be at peace and not feel so overwhelmed.

The unhealthy part about feeling grateful for life’s blessings is that they’re often transitory and sometimes non-existent (unless you consider a cane a blessing).

After all, if you’re grateful today, it’s hard to feel grateful tomorrow when you don’t have those blessings, or meet someone with many more of them who is far less thankful or deserving than you (unless you’re grateful for getting to punch them in the face).

Then there’s always the chance you’ll actually meet that special person who is even worse off than you. If you feel lucky you’re not him or her, you’ll wonder why you deserved better and then need a lobotomy to protect yourself from guilt.

That’s the problem with the words “grateful” and “blessings;” they imply a relationship between you and the Celestial Bestower of Good Luck, and that will always drag you into questions of why, why-me, and what-did-I-do-wrong if/when things get worse.

The opposite of feeling grateful to God for good things isn’t atheism; it’s simply a refusal to hold him/her or ourselves responsible for the stuff we don’t control, so that we can avoid the time and expense of all-in-your-head ruminations about blame and find better-grounded ways to be positive when times are tough.

Assuming that neither God nor Buddha nor Pat Robertson’s prayers are steering the hurricane of bad luck in your direction (or narrowly to one side), the most positive way to fight overwhelmed feelings is to think long and hard about what you’ve done with your disasters.

You’ve got good reason to feel scared, but you haven’t run away or turned the fear into a fight with your wife. You’re soldiering on, and you’ve got your priorities straight. This isn’t good fortune, it’s heroism.

Heroism doesn’t mean feeling at peace about your prospects when danger threatens; fear, from what we know of evolutionary biology, probably helps you fight harder, spot trouble sooner, and run faster. Animals that don’t get worried and feel their adrenalin pumping are the ones most likely to get eaten, which is why most of us have jumpy ancestors and are not so calm, particularly when danger threatens.

So don’t expect not to feel overwhelmed, don’t count your blessings, and don’t feel grateful. Accept your fear, bad luck and bad feelings and then count the good things you’re doing with them, or trying to, anyway.

That’s where your pride should come from, and nothing can touch it as a source of strength, including more hard times, an angel, or a punch in the face.

STATEMENT:
“I can see disasters ahead and no way to prevent them, but that’s not my job. If I can avoid them, I will. Otherwise, I’ll keep on working hard and try to be a good husband and father and scrape by on what we’ve got. The tougher it gets, the bigger our achievement. Nothing else matters.”

My teen-age daughter has always been a handful, but she did much better last term when she played soccer because it kept her busy and used up her extra energy. Once the new term began, however, she was back on the phone every night, non-stop, and texting and browsing Facebook and not doing her homework. When I try to stop her, she gets nasty, and I can’t seem to get through to her that she needs to control herself and that grades are important. I have a strong belief in self-discipline and the value of hard work and it seemed to be getting across when she was playing sports, but now it’s gone. How can I get through to her?

Thoughtful discussion is not the only way to get through to a kid, although it’s not a bad place to begin. That’s because some kids, like the rest of us, have trouble with controlling their impulses and can’t do what they’re supposed to do, even when they know it would be much better for them in the long run.

So, not unlike adults, they become adept at avoidance, misdirection, secrecy, and obstruction. At that point, reasonable words are not your strongest weapons, nor are weapons your strongest weapons, no matter how tempting adolescents make that option.

Your strongest weapon, probably, is an acceptance of the fact that you never have complete control of your kid, now or going forward. The best parents have partial control, and it’s often good enough, but there will always be certain times with certain kids when nothing works, and it turns out that no one else has the answer, either, including teachers and mental health clinicians.

It’s another one of those sad facts of life, but it leaves you free to focus on doing your best to manage your child, rather than wondering what you’ve done wrong, or what they’re doing wrong, or what’s wrong with the universe that soccer can’t be played all year round.

The next weapon is a belief in your own values, so that you don’t feel obliged to explain and aren’t concerned if your requirements cause some unhappiness. Of course, you’d prefer your child to be happy and agree with what you’re doing and, indeed, give it her blessing. If you believe in your values, however, your need for peace, happiness and understanding are subordinate to getting the job done.

Now that you’re as well-armed as possible and ready to go, tell her she loses the phone until her homework gets done. If and when she resists, prepare yourself to be friendly and calm. Don’t explain or argue, just tell her what will happen next and then do it. If one thing doesn’t work, keep trying other things, and if nothing works, at least you’ll save money not having to pay college tuition.

There’s a good chance though that, between your efforts and the repercussions of slacking, your kid will figure something out. Or maybe she’ll just learn to ski.

STATEMENT:
“I know my daughter controls her impulses better and gets more work done when school and sports keep her busy, but that doesn’t mean I (or she) can control her impulses all the time. I believe in the value of hard work and self-discipline, even if her temperament makes her very resistant, so I’ll stop at nothing to give her incentives. If she’s not happy with my rules, there’s no need to feel guilty or argue or blame. If they don’t work, I’ll take pride in doing my job and avoid blaming her or myself.”