Welcome back Viphilus*
Well we certainly are seeing
autumn in full swing here in Nova Scotia. Over the past few days we had daytime
highs soar to the low 30s°C while nighttime lows dipped to single digits. Some
love this time of year, my wife Deb included. She absolutely adores the fall …
which is why she was adamant that our wedding be in October. During my
meteorologist days, I just thought of the shoulder seasons (spring and fall)
as the most challenging to predict as weather experienced wild swings
between what was, and what was coming. It’s almost as if the weather is schizophrenic
about what it is supposed to be. And sometimes that schizophrenic nature of the
weather would catch forecasters off-guard as the “promise” of one thing turned
sour as our rules let us down … as if the atmosphere itself betrayed us.
Enter my Mom. There were times
over the years where her kitchen-wisdom set us up to receive some inviolable
truths about life. Some of these truths turned out to be clichés and
slogans throughout all the kitchens … as if all our Moms all had been schooled in
life-lessons by the same ancestral Mom. And in comparing notes with other sons
and daughters … our Moms really did sing from the same song-sheet.
But there was a problem. A
few of these songs … not many, but a few … taught us about truths that were,
well, uh … not completely true. And to be clear, it’s not because our Moms were
subversive or malevolent or filled with malice. Our Mom’s taught us what they
had been taught. It’s just that they themselves didn’t realize that the truths
of their own Moms were incomplete … half truths … truths that promised the
world worked a certain way when, in fact, it didn’t always. At the risk of
getting a tad nerdy, it almost reminded me about how the physics we all learned
based on Newton’s ideas of the universe works most of the time and makes sense
most of the time … except in circumstances when it doesn’t work, in which case,
it REALLY DOESN’T WORK. Quantum physics taught us that Newton’s rules appear to
work for the most part, but that a whole separate bunch of rules apply under
specific “other” circumstances.
Let me introduce you to two
such half-truths from my Mom; two Newtonian truths that get quantum-smashed under
certain circumstances. And to prove that you and I (whoever you are) came from
the same ancestral Newton-Mom, I’ll bet you were taught the same two truths /
slogans / clichés.
1.
If at first you don’t
succeed ……
I didn’t have to tell you to
finish the quote because you couldn’t help yourself. It was drilled into you in
cult-like fashion. “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”
This is a powerful “truth”
that high performers have not only been taught, but have metabolized. It is
true because many, if not most aspects of life require the competency of
persistence and stick-to-it-tiveness. People who don’t quit simply accomplish
more. There are some, if not many challenges that are simply overcome through
sheer determination to not give up. And the non-quitters have become almost
folk-heroes … like Edison, who after being unsuccessful hundreds of times in
making a working incandescent light bulb, finally made a break-through because
he had not given up. What makes the Edisons of the world heroic is not their
genius nor is it even their ability to be persistent … it is their complete
conviction that persistence WILL eventually win the day.
That’s the Newtonian truth.
Now for the quantum smash … trying again and again and again doesn’t work for
everything. When a child learns to ride a bicycle, his mother/father waits for
him to fail and fall off or fall over. This inevitably happens. The parent
picks up the child, puts him back on the bike, wipes his tears, and encourages him by
telling him to “try again.” The “try,
try again” method works really really well for learning to ride a bicycle. Eventually,
simple persistence will win the day and the child will learn how to ride the
bike. Mom’s slogan, “if at first you don’t succeed …” gets emblazoned in the
child’s neural network as a “truth” about life … setting him up to FAIL for
things for which the “try, try again method,” is actually inappropriate and
completely wrong.
Like what? About a decade
ago my son determined to get in better shape. He spent time at the gym, learned
new eating habits, and over the course of about 18 months, dropped more than
130 lbs while also increasing dramatically in strength. I learned one day that
he was able to do a leg press of more than 900 lbs. Holy Charles Atlas Batman!
Over 900 lbs. How the heck did he do it? Was it by sheer determination to not
quit? Did he try to push 900 lbs, failed, and then came back day after day
after day until finally he could do it? Of course not. All of us know that he
started with lighter weights and slowly built an increasing capacity through
the skilled use of a different word: TRAINING.
I had learned the same thing
a few years earlier when it came to making changes in my emotional state and
behaviour. Mom’s wisdom of “try, try again,” failed catastrophically when it
came to making behavioural and emotional changes. However, through a skilled
use of training I increased both my
emotional and adaptive capacities.
Most of my efforts now are
aligned with helping people to understand when to stop TRYING and when to start
TRAINING. Virtually all complex personal growth comes when a person abandons
the concept of TRYING in order to adopt the concept of TRAINING.
2.
That which doesn’t kill you ……
Can you finish that sentence
too? Again, we must have had the same Newton-Mom. There are numerous
half-truths passed along from Mom, but the reason I want to highlight this one
is that it is so pertinent to those who easily self-sabotage. Oh, and the full
quote is:
“That which doesn’t kill you
makes you stronger.”
Of course, the wisdom behind
this is that whatever it is that doesn’t kill you is probably some form of
hardship or trial that creates suffering in you, and suffering has the ability
to create patience and persistence in you as it stretches you beyond your
comfort zone (because inside your comfort zone … there is no suffering). Mom’s
quote is the wisdom behind the truth, “no pain, no gain,” and clearly, pain
means that your comfort zone has been busted, which opens the door to gain, growth and increased strength.
Thanks Newton-Mom, but now
for the quantum-smash. That expression actually isn’t true for everyone. It’s
actually only true for those who understand, through experience or faith, that
trials and hardships and suffering and pain CAN lead to increased growth ... so
they let it. People who read these kinds of blogs are more wired that way than
those who don’t. For those who understand that there is no gain without pain,
Mom’s truth is really TRUE … and for them, hardships make them BETTER. It makes them better and stronger because they don't resist the internal process that suffering initiates in us ... the process of growth.
But there are a very large
number of people for whom those same things don’t make them better, they
actually just make them BITTER. These are the cynics who through their own sense of world-weariness believe that pessimism is the only useful worldview in that it
protects them from disappointment and false hope. Trials and tribulations, for these types of people, only fulfills their prophecies of a universe-gone-wrong
and they see no value in capitalizing on their suffering, but rather, they attempt
to build a more impenetrable veneer so as to be invulnerable to similar future
disappointments. They don’t get stronger or better because they refuse to adapt
to the reality of the vagaries of life. They get weaker. For them, all we can
really say is that, “that which doesn’t kill them, just makes them more miserable.”
My Mom wasn’t a genius, but
she was actually pretty wise. I think she knew # 1, but she absolutely proved
to me that she fully embraced # 2. My only criticism is that I wished she had
articulated the limitations of those slogans while I was in my younger years.
Although granted, the slogans wouldn’t have been as punchy with the caveats and exceptions.
I hope to see you back next
Monday as I explain what it means to “suck on the chocolate fossil.”
Blessings Viphilus,
Your friend, Omega Man
* Viphilus means, "lover of life"
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