rethink PERFECT

It seems like that these days we are bombarded with thousands of daily messages
to try sell us something. From ideas to products and services.

One idea that I think we have all been sold is the idea of righteous indignation.
We all seem to learn through manners and politeness that anger is not acceptable
behaviour but not when it is “righteous indignation”.  When we feel we are in the right
and we think our anger is justified and right also.

Think about this just for a second. When did you ever, at the time, think that what
you were doing or saying was wrong? Or better still, what are you doing or thinking
now that you think to be wrong or not right? I think that we are always in a present state of rightness and therefore this means that we are going to be proned to righteous indignation, ie. Justifying our anger. To me, this makes us mini gods in our own lunchtime.

Did Hitler think that what he was doing was right? Of course he did and so did Pol Pot and every other extremist, in my view.

Righteous indignation seems to come about from the story in the bible when Jesus overturned the money changers’ tables in the temple. ”If he can get angry with his righteous indignation then we all can”, was the message that was pitched to me, once again, by a couple of Mormons last week.

Well that makes me the antichrist because I don’t believe that to be the case. My anger, whether I believe it to be right or not, is unacceptable. Understandable, yes, because I am human but still not acceptable. And I have yet to see someone else’s anger that was right or justified, in my view.

I prefer the other story of trying to turn the other cheek.

In response to Steve’s thought on “don’t get angry or sad get useful”.

>Yeah instead of allowing uncertainty and >ambiguity to turn into anger or sadness –
>we can instead focus that energy into >something useful.

>Coz I guess there is still going to be uncertain >regardless if we get angry or sad.
>Whereas usefulness can help us prepare for >uncertainty over the longer term
>and more generally.

I think anger or sadness occurs not because of uncertainty or ambiguity but because of our own certainty. We want a certain outcome. The anger or sadness we display is either to get that outcome (by hook or by crook) or to get instruction on how we can go about expressing our discomfort so that we can get even more help.

If we attract obsequious behaviour  (brown nosing) from people then we are likely to get the “hook or by crook” outcome. But if we attract people that are willing to speak their mind, then they are likely to encourage us to be more constructive in our expression of our discomfort.

Either way our anger or sadness is dissipated to lesser or greater degrees by such behaviours and we move on.

One way off this merry-go-round is to simply understand this process and reduce our own certainty. Next time we feel a tad of anger or sadness, check out what certainty we are displaying and just moderate it by remembering that we could be wrong and calmly seek feedback from the perceived cause of this discomfort.

Desmond Sherlock To Pitch at TravelTECH13.

Saying that we need “communication” in a relationship, in my view, is like saying
that we need to be in the air, while flying.

The irony is that such an obvious statement amounts to many, thinking that
they have said or heard something profound and useful.

How we get into the air and maintain control while there, is what is really important when flying. And how we encourage communication and moderate it, is what I think is the most important thing for relationships.

This simple blind spot around the use of the word “communication” could be the cause
of so many failures within relationships and their ultimate demise or crash.

So maybe, for my mating call, I should simply ask what she thinks makes
a good relationship and if she answers with the ubiquitous cliché “communication”,
I can point her to my post here and we can both move on.

On the Lips of a Lion

Does a lion mate with a lioness because he wants to reproduce his DNA or
because she smells and looks great to him when she is in heat?

I say the latter ( I don’t think a lion knows what DNA is or is aware that by inserting his penis into a lioness’s vagina it is going to result in the gestation of  lion cubs, 110 days later)

Does a man have sex with a woman because he really wants to reproduce his DNA or
because she smells and look great to him? (My parents did not understand the process of
sexual reproduction before they got married)

Once again I say the latter.
I also say why should men be any different than any other animal?

We may have a degree of understanding that sex = offspring but, for example, during the
18th century it was believed that women got pregnant when they had an orgasm
during sex. Knowledge or so-called knowledge cannot override our natural desires, in my view. But awareness or understanding how we think and form our desires could help us to assimulate such information and form decisions.

So what does this mean for us now in our mating cycle.
Well, maybe I don’t have to think that I better have sex with a woman or any woman so that I can “reproduce my DNA”. So why not just have sex and why form a longer term relationship in the first place (more than 2 years, for example)?

The only reason I can really think of is to test out my level of awareness or consciousness
or understanding of a lot of ideas on relating that I have formulated. I could do this with a man but the ultimate test is with the opposite sex.
The women that I have met so far, sure do seem to think a lot more differently than the
men I have met.

What ever happens after that, to me, would be thinking way too far for me.

How does a woman approach her mating cycle? I have no real idea as I am not a woman.
Perhaps a woman can let me know how the female mating cycle works and why?

Steve, what if I said that you were sub-human, that would be an insult right? So what if I considered that I was conscious and called you or another part of my brain sub-conscious?How arrogant of me and I think I might have it the wrong way round.

What if we got it all wrong. What if what we call our consciousness is actually our sub-conscious and what we call our sub-conscious is actually more conscious than we are?

Who or what is our driver, and who or whatever that is then maybe the one in the back seat is the “sub”. Maybe we are so unconscious or sub-conscious that we consider our conscious to be the sub.

Well I think that I might be on to something here and the game is afoot, Sherlock!

If we were conscious then we couldn’t learn anything new. Maybe our sub-conscious is the one that knows it all, i.e. conscious, and feeds us every now and then with a clever morsel.
Well that is what it feels like to me.

This goes back to the “Hooked Up” post and that we are just out of the tree and your Facebook comment; “I wouldn’t sell my level of consciousness for all the money in the world”. Would you sell your unconsciousness? Because I think what you call your consciousness is really sub-standard and it might explain why some people can get more in touch with their “consciousness” (what we call sub-conscious), or our consciousness can get more in touch with us.

So now all I have to do is let my consciousness inform me why this is so….stay tuned,
and maybe you could try give your “consciousness” a bit more credit and it/he/she might get in touch with you a bit more.

Daniel Karlsson

What about this, do you agree that everything in this world is designed to get us to hook up with someone? If one can avoid it, it would be a miracle and not many have.

We have our fantasies of love, princes and princesses, fate, destiny, god
commitment, communication, trust, peers ( and its pressure).

If you look at the odds there is a huge chance of finding someone, anyone, the one.
Most people do, at least once and for at least a little while.

New cars, the latest fashions, makeup, exercise, weight watchers, great job, big house,
body enhancement, social media, music and lyrics, etc etc. Everything designed to get us hooked up and to be hooked up, most of the time, one way or the other.

Starts out exciting, sexy, fancy and everything and we are the centre of the world and the world is ours and has made this all happen. All just so that we have sex and possibly have offspring.

And we think we make all the decisions ourselves and we are in control of our life.

The only control, therefore, if what I am saying is true, I think, is to try avoid it all or
put up our hand and surrender to it and know that, when it comes down to it,
we are all just animals, not too long out of the tree.

“I did the best that I can do”, is a very common cliche, especially used by a lot of parents
on their adult or teenage offspring when complaining about previous treatment.

I see this as a well worn pathway (in our brain) and as smart as we are getting today, modern parents still fall for this notion, having not been able to counter such a claim by their parents.

Here is a few tips if you are a parent and seem to think that this statement applies to you.

If you also think that the statement “I can do better” applies to you then I don’t think that it is possible that you can be “doing the best that you can do” at any given moment, like now. You might then argue “but I am donig the best that I can do with what I know at this moment”. I would counter that by saying that you could have known more, now, if you had read a text book yesterday rather than watching the Simpsons, for example.

Nothing wrong with watching the Simpsons but I thnk that their existence takes away our right to claim that “I did the best that I can do, with what I knew”, when we could have always known more.

So why do we do this to our children, dress ourselves up to be…..well , perfect at any given moment? Why not simply put up our hand and say, “you know… you are right, I could have done better, I am not perfect and thanks for pointing that out and giving me something to think about and work on.”

I guess one of the reasons is that if we, as parents do not have this awareness then
there is not much chance or our offspring having this awareness either, especially in their teens. So when they come to their parents to complain, they are not likely to complain in the “best way that they can” and we end up with a cycle of blame and counter blame on both sides, for not doing their best when making a complaint.

If we all had a better understanding of this principle, that we all “could have done and can do better”, then parents and children would not be so surprised when our next delivered complaint was not so well delivered, and their would be a lot less shooting of the messenger and a lot more appreciation of the opening up of a new and difficult and not so perfect discussion.

Why do you think societies, generally, are so intolerant of foul language or what we call here in Australia, swearing?

I believe it is because swearing is the precursor display for anger and ultimately aggression.

If we were more consciously aware of this, that is, foul language is not the
problem, per se, but what it represents to us from the attitude and behaviour of the messenger, then we could be far less “intolerant” of it and more understanding and even appreciative.

We could simply understand that it is a warning or a breadcrumb to encourage us to either try assist the person to modify their behaviour and language or to withdraw from them before any damage is wrought upon us.

I now live by the saying that “Anger is understandable but not acceptable”.

So, in this case, upon hearing such foul language, I could now appreciate the warning and try to thank them for it and then proceed to let them know how I would prefer to be treated if we were to continue to interact , and if they wished me to help them to reduce their anger.

Because our societies abhor such foul language and shows so much intolerance for it, we
generally fail to appreciate this hidden message or warning that is behind the swearing and
the swearer fails to get the possible support or assistance that they may need to resolve an issue. Their poorly delivered message for assistance goes unrewarded until their aggression finally shows its ugly head.

So in a way we are our brother’s (and sister’s) keeper and some appreciation, assistance and understanding now, can make our society a less angry and ultimately less aggressive, system, in my view.

The term for physicians causing more problems, in an attempt to cure, is called iatrogenesis and is responsible for over 1million deaths in hospitals in the US annually.
I believe that iatrogenesis is also occurring in the psychology sector and especially in Positive Psychology, where there seems to be a promoting of unconditional acceptance of basically everything and everyone’s behaviour.

(*A good read is Crazy Like Us – The Globalization of the American Psyche.
Basically the author gives examples of how countries generally do not have any mental real or obvious problems until the US tell them that they exist and become “acceptable”.)

We all know that murder and attempted murder is unacceptable, right? That violence is unacceptable too. But what about anger in all its form and sadness? At this point most reading this post are likely to consider, to some degree, their own and other people’s anger and sadness is acceptable. I also think that positive psychology will have us believe in complete acceptance of anger and sadness. I beg to think the opposite.

Imagine if we simply decided to believe, that along with murder and violence, anger and sadness was also unacceptable behaviour, as opposed to the unconditional acceptance of them by the so-called “Positive” sector? (*The Irony, for me is that sadness and/or anger are usually the precursor for violence or murder.)

Then could we also imagine finding the root causes of such unacceptable behaviour rather than just taking a pill? Anger and sadness do not usually occur in a vacuum, so then maybe the words we use and hear with each other have some responsibility for our anger and sadness. Not rocket salad so far and it simply means that I am saying that anger and sadness is more understandable but not acceptable or in fact unacceptable.

This is what I have been doing over the past 25 years, by refusing to accept that anger (especially my own) and now even sadness as being inevitable, at times, during day to day living. So far I have managed to isolate 6 simple behaviours, all beginning with A, that we use during conversation and that I believe are responsible for anger and sadness, to lesser and greater degrees.

Three used during the stating of our views and three during our responding to or disputing the other’s views.
i.e.

• Stating with a lack of Adjustable, Accountable and/or Acceptable language.
• Disputing with a lack of Appreciation, Acknowledgment and/or Apology

Finally, could we imagine that we simply agreed to try conversation with this formula or what I call the 6 As rules of engagement or Rethink Perfect and see if it made any difference in our levels of anger and sadness?

My brother Steve and I have done just that over the past few years and although it isolates us from those that are not willing to give it a try, I do believe, as it is becoming clearer in what we are doing and why, that it seems to be having a “positive” result.
This post is an example of that, and an improvement of my understanding. I am now feeling even happier or less sad. Any feedback much appreciated.