Use Your Damn Skills

Vulnerability takes many forms. 

It can look like physical frailty, lack of strength, or lack of size. 

It can look like lack of information or experience. 

It can look like physical or psychological disability. 

It can look like youth— or age. 

Factors that might not make one person particularly vulnerable, might be devastating to another person’s ability to make decisions and defend themselves. 

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to assessing vulnerability. Everybody’s capacities, including their relative strengths and weaknesses, are at least a little different. 

There is one thing we can say across the board when it comes to vulnerability, however: when someone is vulnerable, they are not responsible for what is done to them by a less vulnerable person. 

Children tend to be more vulnerable than adults, due to their youth, size, and lack of life experience. They are not responsible for what is imposed on them by adults. 

No child is ever responsible for having been abused by an adult. 

No child is ever “to blame” for not having reported abuse or not having asked for help. 

Children are not responsible for the trauma inflicted upon them, or for not being able or willing to reach out for help. 

Most of us might instinctively realize the truth of this. Even though many childhood abuse victims grow up blaming themselves either for being in an abusive situation in the first place, or for having “let it go on” by not reporting, most of us— at least when we step back from the situation— have a hard time holding a child responsible for having been abused by an adult. 

Many of us are not as charitable when it comes to adults, however. 

Many people, even if they are willing to be realistic bout the fact that children don’t “ask for” trauma or abuse, then turn right around and hold adults to a much different standard. 

When an adult is in an abusive situation, it’s often asked why that adult didn’t simply leave. 

When an adult is in an abusive situation, it’s often asked why they let it go on, instead of reaching out for help or reporting their abuser. 

It is very important to understand that many of the same factors that keep children from escaping or reporting abuse, are operational with adults…especially if those adults grew up having been abused. 

In order to escape, avoid, and prevent abusive situations, specific knowledge and skills are necessary. Emotional regulation skills, planning and organizational skills, and behavior management skills all come into play. 

If you can’t manage your fear, figure out how to escape, be able to plan where to go and how to avoid the potential danger presented by an abuser, you’re not going to get far. 

People aren’t born knowing how to do all of that. 

And if people grow up being abused themselves, it’s unlikely they’ve learned. 

In fact, it’s very likely they’ve not learned any of those skills, at least not in an applicable way. 

The variable at play here isn’t age. It’s vulnerability. 

The same standard simply does not apply to more vulnerable people and less vulnerable people. 

Assuming that everyone in an abusive situation had equal resources to escape it is like assuming that everyone has equal resources to pay for attorneys when they get into legal trouble. 

It just isn’t the case. 

The temptation to blame or shame adults who find themselves in abusive situations is strong. 

We like to blame and shame them, because it reinforces this delusion that WE’LL never be in that situation, because WE know how to prevent or escape it. 

Blame and shame don’t help anyone. 

That goes DOUBLE for blaming or shaming yourself. 

We need to get past it. 

We need to realize that abuse situations really do a number on our ability to cope and function. 

And above all, we need to get realistic and compassionate about what abuse victims need. 

 

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Most of the time, you don’t need a therapist or coach— let alone a “guru”— to tell you what to do. 

That’s not because therapists and coaches don’t know what they’re doing, or because therapy or coaching isn’t valuable. 

(The guidance of self-styled “gurus” may be a different matter.)

It’s because most of the time, we don’t need to be told what to do— we need to be reminded of what we know. 

You have wisdom, intelligence, and experience. 

That’s right. You, right there, reading this. 

If you’re reading this blog, you probably even have a fair amount of knowledge and experience specifically with recovery skills, therapy tools, and personal development programs. 

The value of therapy or coaching isn’t necessarily in all the profound wisdom or new philosophies and tools they make available to us.

We have tools, skills, and wisdom available to us right now. 

The problem is, we very often struggle to remember and use those things when we need to. 

This isn’t our fault. When we struggle to remember or use what we know, it’s not because we’re stupid, incompetent, or worthless— no matter what that little voice in our heads insistently says. 

No, when we struggle to remember or use what we know, it’s most often because we’re stressed, triggered, or exhausted. 

Those circumstances make it difficult for ANYONE to remember and use what they know. 

The keys to successful recovery or personal development are probably not going to be uncovered by paying thousands of dollars to a self help guru for the latest and greatest course in “Mental Mastery and Power.” 

Rather, the keys to recovery and personal development are figuring out ways that work for you— you, specifically— to remind yourself of what you know, when you need to be reminded (and, yes, sometimes a therapist or coach can play an important role in figuring that out). 

How can we remember what we know, when we need to know it? 

First thing’s first: make a list. 

Make a list of every single thing your therapy, your reading, and your experiences have taught you about recovery and personal development. 

No insight is too small. 

Everything that is true– but, more importantly, useful– makes the list. 

You’ve learned ways to reality test your thoughts. 

You’ve learned ways to distract yourself long enough to let a craving pass. 

You’ve learned ways to tolerate pain and discomfort. 

You’ve learned ways to energize and motivate yourself (even temporarily). 

Write them all down. Keep a running list. Add to that list throughout the day as things occur to you. 

Keep your list handy. 

Keep it on your phone, or in your planner, or in a notebook you carry with you most of the time. 

You’re going to need to keep it handy because you’re going to be reviewing it— a lot. 

The not-so-secret secret about all of this is: we have an easier time remembering what we see, hear, read, and think repeatedly. 

I want you reviewing your list of skills and tools— very often. 

I want you reviewing it during down times in your day. 

Review it while you’re on hold on the phone. During commercials while you’re watching TV. While you’re waiting for the microwave to ding. 

Review that list until the tools, skills, and insights on that list become as second nature as your Social Security number or the lyrics to your favorite song. 

Understand: compiling your list and imprinting it on your brain is just a start. 

But it makes everything else enormously, exponentially, unequivocally easier. 

 

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There’s no guarantee that the things you put work into, will work out. 

I wish there was such a guarantee. 

It’d be amazing if hard work was the only factor that went into whether a project was successful or not. 

Unfortunately, however, we all know the truth: hard work does not guarantee a successful outcome. 

There’s luck. There’s timing. There are the actions and intentions of other people. And there are dozens of other variables— some known, some unknown— that come into play. 

No. Hard work is not sufficient to ensure a successful outcome. 

It sure tends to be necessary, however. 

The trick for many of us is not to fall into the trap of thinking that just because hard work doesn’t guarantee an outcome, that we can somehow get away with NOT working hard. 

While it’s true that hard work will not guarantee an outcome, it’s also very true that the projects that we do put hard work into, tend to be more successful than those projects that we let cruise along on autopilot. 

It’s not enough that our work be hard, or effortful. 

Our work needs to be smart. 

We need to apply our resources intelligently. 

We need to pay attention to the data generated by our efforts, and be willing to adjust our approach in response to that data. 

Above all: we need to avoid going on autopilot. 

We need to avoid getting complacent. 

We need to avoid buying into assumptions about what does work and what doesn’t work— and, instead, be constantly experimenting, trying things out, adjusting our strategy and tactics. 

We need to stay sharp, in other words. 

That’s sometimes easier than it sounds. 

It’s tough to stay sharp when we’re tired. 

It’s tough to stay sharp when we’re frustrated. 

It’s tough to stay sharp when we’ve had setbacks. 

It’s tough to stay sharp when our hard work in the past hasn’t panned out, for whatever reason. 

The thing about recovery and personal development is, no one’s asking you to be superhuman. 

Nobody’s expecting you to do things that are beyond the scope of your abilities. 

Nobody’s expecting you to leap tall buildings in a single bound. 

This whole project is not about “becoming superhuman,” despite what some personal growth gurus claim. (I regularly see posts from at least one who claims his techniques will help you achieve “superhuman performance”— as if that’s actually a thing.) 

This whole project is about figuring out ways to stay sharp in the real world. 

It’s about organizing and using the skills and tools you have— not the skills and tools you wish you had. 

It’s about figuring out what works for you in sustainable, realistic, ways. 

You can do it. 

People do it all the time. 

If, that is, you work hard, work smart, and stay sharp. 

 

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In recovery and personal development, it’s enormously important to be accountable for your goals, values, and progress. 

It’s equally important to be realistic about what you can and can’t control. What you can and can’t affect. What you are and are not responsible for. 

If you look around, you see a lot of people lurching to one extreme or the other. 

Some people consider themselves responsible for EVERYTHING that happens in their world. 

You see this a lot with people who are interested in the “Law of Attraction,” which is the idea that humans create their circumstances by what they think, focus on, and visualize. 

Adherents of the Law of Attraction often express that life conditions are mostly, if not solely, the direct result of what people have “allowed” to dominate their consciousness. Thus, if someone is experiencing abundance, it’s because they’ve been focusing on and expecting abundance; or if a person is experiencing lack, it’s because they’ve been focusing on lack. 

I’ll be the first to verify that our focus is enormously important. 

But I don’t think it’s necessarily because our focus “attracts” either abundance or lack. 

Rather, it’s my observation that our focus impacts how we interpret the world around us; what is important or relevant in the deluge of information and stimuli with which we are flooded daily; and what we’re willing to do (or even feel ourselves capable of doing) with our time and energy on any given day. 

In other words, our focus is key— but it’s not our focus that does the work for us. 

We do the work. Our focus determines what we’re willing and able to do. 

I don’t believe there is a universal law or principle that endows us with total control over what we experience. 

I believe that there are things that are out of our control— notably other people’s actions, reactions, thoughts, and feelings. 

As much as we need to take responsibility and be accountable for our contribution to our worlds, we also have to accept— embrace, even— the fact that we are never, ever going to be COMPLETELY in control of our world. 

That goes for the world outside of our heads…and the world inside of our heads. 

This idea— that we’re not, and never will be, in complete control of our worlds— upsets some people. 

(It upsets a lot of people, actually. We humans, as a species, tend to be a bunch of control freaks. Who knew?) 

The thing is: the fact that we’re NOT in complete control of our world— that we never, ever will be, no matter how hard we try— is actually the good news. 

Do you realize how stressful— and boring— our lives would be if we had COMPLETE control over our world? 

Much of what makes life worth living happens outside of our control. 

When somebody else falls in love with us— not because we “made” them, but because who we are resonates powerfully with who they are and what they need— that is an event that is profoundly outside of our control. 

When somebody else finds something we wrote or said valuable or life changing, we may have influenced that— but there is no way to guarantee that everything, or anything, you say or write is ever going to be life changing for anyone (trust me, I’ve looked into it). That is very much outside of our control…and yet one of the most rewarding experiences we can have. 

Many of the situations which we find fun, interesting, surprising, or rewarding, depend upon things happening TO us, over which we do not have control…and us marshaling our resources, experiences, knowledge, and skills, to respond effectively to that thing that happened TO us. 

Trust me: you don’t WANT to be in control of everything in your life. 

What you DO want is to have confidence in your ability to adapt and respond to the things that happen to you. 

It is in adapting and responding to what life throws at us that we grow, have fun, and have the chance to experience mastery and joy. 

Being realistic about what we can and cannot control or affect is not a bummer. 

It’s a life saver. 

 

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It’s true that it’s often helpful, in recovery and personal development, to get to know yourself. 

But don’t make the mistake of assuming that the “you” of right here, right now, is always going to be “you.” 

The fact is, we change. 

We actually change a LOT over the course of years. 

Some say the only constant in the existence of human beings is that we do change. 

Everything is temporary. 

The reason it’s important to be clear about this is, a lot of people can get plenty discouraged when they look at “who they are”…and they don’t like what they see. 

Maybe they see someone who is not as physically healthy or vibrant as they’d prefer. 

Maybe they see someone who hasn’t yet developed the tools and skills they need in order to live the life they envision. 

Maybe they look at themselves and see someone who has failed or stumbled or fallen short of their potential. 

Maybe they see someone in pain. 

It’s not that these people are wrong to look at themselves and see those things. Reality is reality. Maybe you look in the mirror and objectively don’t like what you see. 

I’ll never tell you to lie to yourself. We see what we see in the mirror. 

By that same token, remember: any time we glance in the mirror, we see a snapshot. 

We see who we are at a particular time, in a particular place. 

“Who we are” at this moment is impacted not only by big, overarching issues such as our values and needs; but also by factors as transitory as our level of energy right now, our mood right now, what kind of day we’re having right now, maybe even our blood sugar right now. 

“Who we are” is fluid. It changes. 

Our level of functioning changes. 

Our level of satisfaction changes. 

Think about your own experience: are you the person you were five years ago? Let alone ten, let alone twenty? 

Yes, you probably bear some resemblance to who you were…but you’re not that person anymore. 

You’ve had experiences. You’ve learned lessons. You’ve sustained losses. You’ve overcome obstacles. 

The “you” of 2009 might not even recognize the “you” of 2019. 

All of which serves to illustrate this point: don’t get discouraged by where, and who, you are right now. 

Who you are right now is not indicative of who you can be. 

We change over the course of months and years anyway. It’s inevitable. It’s going to happen. We are not going to be the same people in ten years that we are right now. 

The trick is to change in a way that YOU choose. 

The trick is to evolve in a direction that is consistent with who you want to be and what’s important to you. 

And the ONLY way we do that is by paying attention, every single day, to what we do, what we think, what we watch and read, and what influences we allow to act on us. 

We can evolve and change by chance, or we can evolve and change by choice. 

We WILL change. 

And, in ten years’ time, we either WILL be happier or less happy than we are right now. 

More functional or less functional. 

More in line with our goals and values, or veering away from what we want and what we value. 

Let’s choose to change and evolve on purpose. 

 

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You may be familiar with the saying, “act as if.” 

The idea behind it is, if you’re trying to make a change, it’s helpful, at first, to do some play-acting— to “act as if” what you’re trying to change has already changed. 

“Act as if” is a famous slogan in the 12 step addiction recovery movement, and you frequently see it used as part of therapy interventions based on Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP). 

“Act as if” can be a tremendously useful tool. I’m a big fan of “acting as if”…but only if it’s used in the right way, at the right time. 

Unfortunately, some people try to take “act as if” and use it in ways that can actually exacerbate emotional problems or behavioral ruts. 

“Act as if” is a tool. Like most tools, it can help us build houses and fix things that are broken…or it can smash fingers. 

How do we know when it’s the right time and place to use the “act as if” concept? 

Broadly speaking: “act as if” tends to be most useful when you’re trying to make a behavioral change, and your mindset isn’t quite there yet. 

When we try to change our behavior, on of the biggest problem we face is that our present behavior didn’t just come out of nowhere. Rather, our present behavior is a product of our current thoughts and feelings. 

Thoughts and feelings usually don’t change on a dime— and because our behavior is so entwined with our thoughts and feelings, it’s hard to change our behavior when we’re stuck with the same thoughts and feelings that created the original pattern. 

“Act as if” can be a helpful tool in this case. If we don’t want to do something, but we do it anyway, we’re “acting as if” the thoughts and feelings behind the behavior have changed…even if they haven’t yet. 

The reason why this is helpful is, in the process of behaving differently, it’s often the case that our thoughts and feelings DO change. Think of it like hacking your thought-feeling-behavior circuitry— changing it from the back end, instead of the front end. 

For example: if you’re trying to quit a substance, you might be having trouble, because your thoughts tell you “I can’t do this, it’ll be terrible if I try to quit,” and your feelings are all anxiety and dread.

But then you abstain from the substance for a day or two…and find that the world hasn’t actually ended. 

This then has the effect of starting to change your thoughts and behavior about quitting, i.e., “Maybe I can do this, it’s not as terrible as I thought,” accompanied by fledgling feelings of hope and relief.

That’s how “act as if” is supposed to work. 

Unfortunately, some people take “act as if” to mean “deny and disown what you’re actually thinking and feeling, and pretend that you’re feeling something else.” 

That doesn’t work so well. 

Denying and disowning your real thoughts and feelings is destructive to your self esteem, your sense of reality, and your motivation. 

Trying to pretend you’re not feeling what you’re feeling is depressing and literally, physically exhausting. 

If you’re going to use “act as if,” remember that it’s not the right tool for every problem or situation. 

It comes in handy when you’re trying to build momentum on a behavioral change, but your thoughts and emotions are throwing up roadblocks. 

(And even then, it has its limitations: you might try “act as if,” only to be met with so much internal resistance that the smart thing to do is to change tactics.) 

But do not use “act as if” to try to beat your emotions or feelings into submission. 

Not only does it not work, but it’s a very good way to wind up shut down and demoralized. 

Just like any tool, “act as if” needs to be thoughtfully, intelligently incorporated into your skillset. 

Just like any tool, “act as if” might be a tool that is incredibly useful for you…or it might not mesh well with your personality or needs. 

There is literally no tool that works for everyone at all times…and “act as if” is no exception to that rule. 

Use it wisely, and pay attention to your results. 

 

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You need to work with the different parts of yourself every day. 

No exceptions. 

No days off. 

There will never be a day where you don’t need to pay attention to what the various parts of yourself are saying and needing. 

There is never a day when what the various parts of you are trying to communicate to you, isn’t important. 

Yet for some reason there is a significant subset of people who absolutely hate listening to themselves. 

They hate paying attention to what the parts of themselves are saying and needing. 

They hate making time to pay attention to, let alone actively communicate with, the parts of themselves. 

As a result, the various parts of themselves feel neglected and disrespected…and before long, neglected, irritated parts of you WILL find ways to make themselves seen and heard by you. 

They WILL evoke anxiety to make themselves heard. 

They WILL evoke depression in order to get you to slow down and look inward. 

They WILL seize control of your dreams and turn them into nightmares. 

Some people don’t want to listen to or communicate with the various parts of themselves because they think it’s a hassle. They’re annoyed they have to do it. They think that “normal” people shouldn’t have to explicitly sit down and make time to have actual conversations with themselves, so why should they? 

Remember: we ALL have “parts.” 

For some people, like those diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, those parts can seem to take on a life of their own— but it’s important for DID patients to understand that what they’re experiencing is just an amplification of something that happens to EVERYONE. 

(The reason it happens is because early developmental trauma makes it more difficult for peoples’ personalities to “gel” and integrate as they’re growing up, due to lack of psychoemotional support and bonding— i.e., trauma makes the personality more prone to “splinter” in the first place.) 

EVERYONE has parts of themselves that experience, want, and need different things. 

EVERYONE has to figure out how to communicate with, listen to, and relate constructively to the parts of themselves. 

EVERYONE will pay the price if they ignore, neglect, or abuse parts of themselves. 

It’s not an abnormal thing to have to sit down and figure out how to manage your relationship with the various parts of you. 

If you neglect the part of you that needs more stimulation, you’re going to pay the price in depression. 

If you neglect the part of you that needs more connection, you’re going to pay the price in loneliness. 

If you neglect the part of you that needs more security, you’re going to pay the price in anxiety. 

If you neglect the various parts of yourself altogether, you’re gong to pay the price in intrusive thoughts and feelings, and impulsive behavioral urges that seem to “come out of nowhere.” 

The good news is, relating to yourself really isn’t that hard. 

It’s frustrating and embarrassing…only because of the thoughts that you throw at it. 

It’s kind of like taking medication or getting a cast. Maybe we don’t WANT to do it, because we figure to acquiesce to medical treatment means we’re not “tough.” 

But is it the smart thing to do? If you want to function, it is. 

Is it a necessary thing to do? If you want to heal, it is. 

We truly, truly, need to get over our reluctance to create time for self-communication, self-nurturing, and self-care 

Our need for these things doesn’t make us weak. 

It means we are human beings that have certain needs that go beyond hunger, thirst, and rest. 

Your psychoemotional needs will only wait so long on the back burner. 

 

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Our lives are, and always will be, imperfect. 

They are constantly under construction. 

We are constantly building who we are and what we want to experience. 

We are constantly constructing a life that conforms to our values and visions. 

But we have to come to terms with the fact that the building will never be complete. 

We’re never going to get to a place where no renovations are needed. 

We’ll never get to that place where we’ve figured everything out, got everything down, where we’re just doing all the right stuff and none of the self-defeating stuff. 

That place of perfection doesn’t exist. 

And it’s a good thing, too: because if that place of perfection existed, we’d lose all opportunities to course correct. 

It’s in course correcting that we learn. 

It’s in fixing mistakes and missteps that we figure out who we are and what we need. 

It’s in striving for new goals and heights that we get clear about the kind of life we want to build from here. 

Thank GOODNESS our lives will always be imperfect. 

Can you imagine how unsatisfying a perfect life would be? 

If we just built the life we imagined years ago— when you were a different person, with different experiences, different needs, different goals, and maybe even different values— and that was it? 

See, a lot of us get it in our heads that we want to figure things out, make the progress, get the life— you know, get the romantic partner, get the skillset, get the job, get the bank balance, whatever— and then sit back and enjoy it. 

We figure that we’ve been through enough pain, enough trauma, in our lives, that all we want to do is figure stuff out and then rest. 

We figure that we’ve spent more than enough time being dissatisfied, that all we really want to do is achieve that moment of satisfaction, and make it last. 

The thing is, in constructing that life— in moving toward that vision— we discover new things that we’re interested in. 

We add to and refine our vision of “the good life.” 

We learn about new potential goals. 

We meet other people who show us things that we never even thought about. 

We change as people along the journey…and, as a result, our initial vision of what “the good life” might have entailed, no longer fits. At least not perfectly. 

That’s what happens in the real world. 

As you get better, as you recover, as you build the life you’d prefer to live, as you refine your tools and skills, you change. 

Along the way we realize that we are on a journey— but it’s not a journey toward one, single, defined destination. 

The point isn’t even to GET to that destination. Not exactly. 

The point is to get really good at journeying. 

The point is to learn how to draw satisfaction from the journeying. 

And we can. 

We can draw SO MUCH satisfaction from this journey we’re all on. 

Not just satisfaction, either. We can draw SO MUCH passion, and joy, and humor, and drama, and, yes, pain and heartache, too, from this journey. 

So you’ve realized you’ll never hit that place of perfection, of fully realized therapeutic and spiritual wholeness? 

Good. 

That’s the first step to figuring out how to REALLY win in this project called life. 

 

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Our choices in life are usually limited. 

That’s a fact. There’s no point in denying it. 

That doesn’t mean we don’t HAVE choices, however. 

We almost always DO have choices— particularly in what we focus on, how we interpret events, and how we choose to respond. 

But we do need to acknowledge, realistically, that our choices are not infinite. They’re not unlimited. They’re often not ideal. 

For some reason, lots of people get up in their heads about what having limited choices means out there in the real world. 

They get it in their heads that because they don’t have an ideal selection of choices available, that means they are utterly devoid of any choices in a situation. 

Or perhaps they get it in their heads that, since circumstances limit their ability to choose in the moment, that they are utterly powerless in a situation— that they shouldn’t even TRY to exercise their ability to choose, given the limited options available to them. 

It’s a bummer that our choices are often limited, no doubt. 

It’s a drag that our choices are often not ideal. 

It would be preferable, at all times, to be able to choose from an infinite number of ideal options. 

But even if we don’t live in that world— and I assure you, we do not— that doesn’t mean we should just give up and let others make our choices for us. 

And believe me: if we fail to exercise our ability to choose, others WILL happily choose for us. 

In fact, there are lots of individuals and organizations who are standing by, actively waiting, practically salivating at the notion of making our choices for us. 

So sometimes our choices are limited, and our options aren’t great. 

We need to accept this reality (remembering that ACCEPTING something is definitely not the same thing as LIKING it), suck it up, and get to choosing anyway. 

We cannot construct a life we value, a life worth living, a life that conforms to our values and nudges us toward our goals, if we don’t accept our responsibility to make choices…even when we don’t like the options. 

Very often, however, you’ll see people try to cop out of making choices because they don’t like the options. 

They’ll cite many reasons for why they’re opting out of choosing— most of which come down to some variation of, “it doesn’t matter.” 

They’ll make the argument that their options are SO limited, SO not-ideal, that even if they DO exercise their ability to choose, the ultimate outcome won’t be affected…so why bother? 

It’s a convenient cop out when we’re looking for an excuse to not choose. 

I won’t try to tell you that every choice you make is going to ultimately or overwhelmingly matter in how a situation turns out. That’s manifestly not true. 

I will tell you, however, that it matters a great deal to your emotional health and self-esteem to choose when you have the opportunity. 

Your brain is not dumb. It knows when you’re living on auto-pilot. It can tell when you’re not actively attempting to nudge toward your goals and live your values. 

And while those objectives may not necessarily matter in the immediate external situation— they may not directly affect the outcome of the situation you find yourself in— they do have a tremendous affect on how you feel. 

They impact your level of motivation. 

They impact your level of life satisfaction. 

it’s important not to cop out of our ability and responsibility to make choices not just because we can affect the world around us…but because it will definitely affect the world within us. 

Choosing to not choose is a very reliable way to deepen depression. 

Choosing not to choose is a very reliable way to heighten anxiety. 

Choosing not to choose is a very reliable way to get good at choosing-not-to-choose— that is, it can become a pattern that gets deeper and harder to break out of every time it happens. 

I hear you. It sucks when our choices aren’t great. I wish our choices were always infinite and awesome. 

But even when they’re not, we need to step up. 

For our own mental health and integrity, if nothing else. 

 

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It’s a mistake to try to oversimplify complex behavior issues— either in ourselves, or in others.

You’re going to see an awful lot of posts on social media these days about why people think violent behavior happens. 

Many of these posts are going to try to refine their hypotheses about why violent behavior happens down to one, or a few, basic ideas— and these attempts are going to be, at the very least, incomplete. 

The fact is, you really can’t boil all the potential causal factors down to a few talking points that are readable in a blog post. The human mechanism is just too complex. 

On top of that, generalizing between people and situations is problematic, because we only have part of each person’s story— and that part we have, we only have through the filter of media reports. 

We don’t have enough information to comprehensively say why some people act out violently with guns. We can perhaps get our brains around some facets of the issue— but to try to throughly understand the question is beyond us, with the information we have. 

When I wrote earlier today about the fact that I believe the saturation of gun violence in popular entertainment is a contributing factor to gun violence that happens in the real world, I was not trying to comprehensively address the root causes of this problem. I was drawing attention to one factor that I believe doesn’t get enough attention— largely because entertainment featuring gun violence is extremely popular and profitable. 

But, as my commenters correctly pointed out, the problem of gun violence is multifaceted, and has layers that range from the cultural, to the personal, to the social, to even the moral to the spiritual. 

While I was not trying to oversimplify, or even simplify the issue, the point was well-taken: behavior is complex, and attempts to “boil it down” are often problematic. 

Such attempts can give us a false sense that we know what’s going on, and what needs to be done. 

This applies not only to the behavior of people who do terrible, violent things out there in the world…but our own behavior, as well. 

We need to remember that we are not simple, straightforward machines. 

Our own behavior has many causes and influences. 

If and when we think we have our own behavior “figured out,” we need to take that as a signal to back up and remember that we’re maybe— probably— missing something. 

The reason why it’s so important to remember that we are complex mechanisms that are acted upon by a lots and lots of influences is because trying to “boil down” our behavior to one or a few basic tenets can lead to frustration and despair when we try to actually do change self-defeating behavior. 

We get frustrated, because we THOUGHT we had our behavior figured out…but applying a straightforward solution to what SEEMED like a straightforward equation isn’t working, much to our chagrin. 

This can lead us to get hopeless and cynical when it comes to trying to change our behavior. 

When you get frustrated in trying to design a behavior plan for yourself, remember that it’s not the case that trying to change your own behavior is hopeless— it’s just that behavior is complex. 

Most of the time, it takes a few attempts to try to design a behavior plan that works. 

There’s a lot of trial and error involved. 

As much as we humans would like to draw perfectly straight, simplistic lines between cause and effect when it comes to motivation and behavior…it usually doesn’t work like that. 

The good news is: over time, with patience and persistence, we usually CAN gather enough data to establish some useful patterns. 

Over time, with patience and persistence, we usually CAN design behavioral solutions that nudge us meaningfully toward our goals and values. 

We just need to keep in mind that we’re not simple, straightforward creatures…and to expect ourselves to be is a recipe for frustration. 

 

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