Month: August 2011

Some people are addicted to the service of other people. Whenever someone asks them for something, they agree to do it because the thought of saying “no” creates a lot of anxiety about the possible negative outcome. It’s a tough place to be as they don’t want to do the task that is being asked of them. They likely have no compelling reason to do it and have a their own list of things they need to do, but once the request is made the pattern repeats itself. Off to work they go, putting their own life on hold to serve first the need or request of another.

Being kind and helpful isn’t a character flaw in most cases. It really is a better way to live as it will improve the happiness of more people, but only if the service is of value to both parties. If the interaction is anything but win:win, it shouldn’t exist. When someone feels powerless to say no, the interaction isn’t going to be mutually beneficial and should be avoided. It can be argued that in the above situation, there are no losers as the person taking on the new responsibility is doing so to avoid some sort of pain. Okay, sure, that’s kind of true.

It is challenging to exist as a part of this type of relationship. It takes a particularly self-aware and grounded individual to be an actual partner because you need to always remain aware that each of your requests or expectations will stimulate the same anxiety within them that other peoples requests do. This is not necessarily because these things are unreasonable or even outside of what the they want to do, it’s because anxiety is the conditioned response to EVERY request, real or perceived. If you forget this and misread their anxiety as something else, or you misread any of their automatic responses to requests, you will end up clouding a relatively straightforward situation.

What do I want from a partner? “To exist with them in a way that allows us to continue to cause each others greatness.” I want to help them become more of what they are. This matches my life purpose – to create beauty – as actualizing potential serves in the beautification of an individual. This can be rendered in support, guidance, coaching, or time alone together just to get things done. I’m aware that I am not complete and need help in the journey to where that takes me. That’s important. Realizing that there’s work to be done and that I will need the help of others does a lot of help me keep my mind open.

It also strikes me that what I say I want now I did have a number of times in the past. Each relationship has started off with someone who found me interesting, inspiring and funny. It ends-up in a different place but the beginning is always good. The words they say and the actions they take do indicate something positive which happens to match how I feel and believe I act. This is very significant – we make great starts in the formation of a partnership but something breaks down that transforms the help we offer each other from synergy to something perceived as destructive by the other person. As best I can tell, although I haven’t asked any of my old girlfriends, contempt enters the relationship dynamic and this paints everything bad.

It is amazing that a partnership can sour so completely and so quickly; although a number of my friends have commented that this is how relationships go. The glow leaves after the first few months and the two people begin to find comfort in the relationship and start to express their intentions. My thought was that we’d likely never fall in love if people were completely real from the very beginning although I’m not sure. The few times I’ve simply not cared about being what I thought the other person wanted I was happy and more peaceful. To date though, there have been 2 unsuccessful relationships of this nature – one didn’t work out because I checked out and the other didn’t get started because the school year ended. Regardless of the outcome of these experiences, we never ended up hating each other or developing contempt for who the other was. It was fun and then it was over.

What I’m now considering is that the synergy that I once had with my old girlfriends did not go away, it just changed into something else that was interpreted as an effort to control behavior; which it was but not from a place of intentional malice. What begins as welcome observations about ones actions and nature eventually becomes unwelcome. If the observations continue, even after their unwelcomeness has been been made clear, the intentions of the observer have changed from alchemist to parent REGARDLESS of the rightness or accuracy of the observation. Synergy comes from creating more from what is there. If the mind or a willingness to change is not there YOU CANNOT MAKE GOLD with it because there is nothing to work with.

In these cases, synergy can be restored when both parties accept and work with the reality of the situation; ones contentment with a world view dissonant from yours is something that YOU can accept. Provided it works for you, embracing a differing world view (or their unwillingness to change) is the one thing that you can do to restore the synergy into a relationship. It does require of their partner an accurate reporting of what is going on in their head – the thing that you disagree on needs to be the actual thing you disagree on. Steroid use is an example of this. Some people use steroids in order to build more muscle or strength so they have more muscle or strength. Other people use steroid to build muscle and strength so they don’t feel insecure around other people. It’s a lot easier to accept and deal with your partners desire to be muscular and strong than it is to deal with one who is insecure or narcissistic.

I need to be blunt with myself and with anyone who may consider getting involved with me in a relationship. The opportunities for synergy must be built into the structure of the relationship because my track record is one of allowing these moments to fade away. My career/education/recreation goals need to remain and I need to continue to build towards them. If you can’t work in the same space, you need to work away from each other, if you don’t like the same exercises or fitness activities you need to keep doing the ones you like on your own, if you are taking something advanced in school you need to accept that your partners knowledge is limited and their efforts to help are based on good intentions vs. wisdom. If you can work in the same space, fantastic! If you enjoy the same fitness or exercise activities, enjoy them together and push each other to greatness. If your partner is encouraging and supportive of your journey towards higher eduction, be grateful and pass along as much of this information as you can. Doing anything other than getting on board with them 100% or 100% out of their way is going to stop the synergy and begin to suffocate the relationship.

Maintaining a climate conducive to synergy within a relation can be challenging and it does in someways go against the best interests of the individual – following a dream requires focus that won’t be spent on me. There is an abstract gain in that the relationship gets stronger because one of the members gets stronger, but the immediate experience may be one of perceived loss. In a strong relationship their is rarely a long term cost and usually a long term gain by having one of the members go back to school, love to cycle or train for marathons, work hard to build a sustainable business. Some of the relationship roles will be adjusted temporarily, others changed permanently, but the self-actualizing experience of working toward goals tends to inject a sense of possibility and hope into a relationship, but only if the relationship is structured for synergy.

A word of warning to anyone who reads this blog and can identify with me more than just a little bit, they will try to screw you out of what they promise when they are gone. You need to get it in writing, get a lawyer and take it to them as hard as they are taking it to you.

What am I talking about? Ex girl / boy friends, ex wives and ex husbands. If you have a tendency to be manipulated you need to guard yourself by removing yourself from the equation and let the professionals handle it. Lawyers are not susceptible to the manipulation techniques you and I fall for. They’re hard nosed, aggressive and ruthless. They’ll take food out of a child’s mouth because they apply logic and rules to the world and leave the emotional stuff to their clients. “It isn’t the child’s food, it’s my clients food so I’m taking it”. What is sad about it is that the parents of the child didn’t care enough about their future to take care of their affairs; but ultimately the blame falls on the lawyer who simply doesn’t care about what you think because you won’t pay your bills or honor your word.

When there are children involved, mousey people need to get out of the way and hand off the thinking, negotiation and litigation to someone who is qualified to see your ex for what they are, someone who’ll withdraw money and support as soon as they can. They will try to screw you and your children out of your futures when they decide that it’s time to move on. The trophy wife will appear and your children will matter less and less to them as the new family comes into being.

But if you’ve represented yourself, your on your own. You will get nothing and you and your children will likely be moving down the SES ladder while he buys new clothing, cars and stuff. Ask your lawyer and they’ll tell you what to do. Listen to them and let them do their job. You don’t have the experience they have so shut your mouth and watch how they work, methodical, precise and with a single minded determination to look after YOUR future.

• Get full support, spousal and child, for as long as you can – till the last child is 21 OR completes university which ever comes latest.
• A trust fund or some form of child support needs to be written into the agreement to cover death to prevent someone from channeling your child’s money into someone else bank account.
• Agreement must be made about a 50:50 split in the cost for the children’s stuff; this MUST be written into the agreement because he’ll / she’ll buy the Armani suits or Jimmy Choos’ while you buy things at Walmart.
• You must write into the agreement a way to compensate for deviations in the child sharing agreements – if he’s constantly late picking up the children or needs to shift around the times, keep a record of all of these deviations and send them the bill at the end of the month. It costs money and time to look after children so when one parent hands the children back to the other they are saving money while it cost the other. This will happen and there needs to be a condition in the agreement to cover for this.
• Most importantly, you need to accept that you will act the same way towards them as you always did so you need to disengage and pay the professional to look after your future. You will be grateful if you do and you’ll regret it if you don’t.

The thing about getting as much as you can now is that you can always give some of it back if it turns out to be too much. The inverse is not true, they won’t give you anything if it turns out to be too little.

Don’t believe me? They told you they’d love you forever and now they are gone. Don’t believe a word of what they said in the past, believe only that which is written down, agreed to, signed and enforceable. They will try to ditch their responsibilities, it’s just what people do when they check out. Guard yourself by getting lawyer and letting them do their job. They ask for more than you want because that’s how negotiations go. Stay out of their way and let them look after your future.

About a month ago Sharon asked me what I liked doing. Simple enough question but I could only reply with “riding my bike” which isn’t the best answer to give someone who has a rich social life, an infectious personality that brings people up and a sense of humor that is broadcasting and wildly funny!

My answer was not what was expected, or maybe wanted, but it was the truth and as soon as it left my month I had a suspicion that something very significant had happened. I think my answer obliterated the understanding Sharon had of me because what she’s known of me has been fun, activity based stuff and a genuine passion for doing whatever. When I replied with biking all of that other stuff got whitewashed and we were left with one very interesting and dynamic person and one introverted self-isolationist, looking at each other with two bewildered and slightly silly looks on our faces. From here there were two directions to go and so we each took a separate path away from each other. Mine was a path away from the present me who didn’t know what they liked doing towards the person I used to be before I let me drift away.

My answer was as embarrassing as it was revealing. Who had I become, and why? And why don’t I know what I like doing? Why is riding my bike the only thing that I was able to muster when asked about it? Who was I being when I answered her question? How had I become this person?

Well, I caught a break sort of. I got a concussion a couple of days later and the doctor suggested that I take a couple of weeks off of thinking too hard about anything. The truth was, I didn’t have a choice, I wasn’t able to function normally. The concussion drove me down to the pits of despair, as they can do. I was lost. In my diminished state of function I wasn’t able to see anything in my future and, worse, I didn’t see anything in my past. And my present had me sitting on there, head in hands, pit in my stomach, confused, scared and in serious need of something of purpose.

I was beginning to see that I was still in recovery from a number of relationships and hadn’t actually let any of it go and I didn’t know what I liked doing because I have either been in a relationship or in the end of a relationship for years the last 5 years. I hadn’t let it go so I was still acting the same way as I used to. I was still thinking the same way too which meant that I hadn’t started to re-expand my interests to find my own passions again. When Sharon asked I wasn’t going to say that because I didn’t realize it, but as I sat there I knew I had missed the moment to live in the present. I had on some level made the decision to substitute thinking about the past for actually doing something. Given that the brain rewards itself each time it makes a correct guess, and given that I wasn’t engaging the physical world, I had no difficulty manufacturing the information I needed to not more forward in life.

I was living in the past and as each day passed, I was living further and further in past. Each moment saw me becoming more and more detached from the present reality. I was fully committed to whatever it was I was creating and I was really good at it! This manufactured suffering became a habit and I needed to get away from it so I rode.

The purpose of the bike riding was escape, then aesthetics, then training. This leads to me riding too much and getting less than optimal training effect. I’m also prone to burn-out and fatigue. But it’s the opportunity cost of riding so much that made the answer to Sharon’s question so lame – I don’t do very much else for fun because I have been using cycling as a way to escape something. I had stopped doing almost all of the things that I used to enjoy and spend this time pushing my body to the limit first to forget, then to look lean and finally to ride faster. So this means, in one way, that I haven’t even been riding my bike for fun either.

On that day when she asked, the completely honest answer is that I don’t like doing anything. I do one thing a lot but not for fun. I do it to escape which I’ve labeled fun.

Hmmm…..so I’ve set out to find what I like doing so that I can, by the end of the summer, write a better blog about it.