Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Agenda
Bad Choices and Good Choices
Why do we behave in ways that we don't want to? We overeat, stay in relationships that are no longer good for us, hurt the people that we care about, or say things we wish we had never said. We become obsessed with and sometimes addicted to eating food, smoking cigarettes, relationships, sexual activities, shopping, the internet, gambling, alcohol, drugs and various other pleasurable experiences. We engage in these and many other types of problem behaviors even when it is clearly no longer in our best interest to do so. We say to ourselves, "I want to stop, but I just can't." If there was just one simple theory to explain all of these problems and other common personal and relational human problems, we could perhaps move toward resolving them.
Most of these problems have obvious and quite logical solutions that almost any reasonable individual of average intelligence could suggest — solutions such as: "Just stop eating so much." "If the relationship isn't working, just end it." "Be nice." "Don't say mean things." "Just stop smoking, stop drinking, and stop spending six hours a day on the computer." "Just stop making bad choices." This is good advice, certainly not rocket science — easy to say, difficult to do.
These and other problematic behaviors are all matters of choice. We choose to eat, drink, and be merry way beyond what is in our best interest. When we attempt to change these behaviors, we discover that there is a part of us that does not want to change. Still, there is also a part of us that would perhaps like to put an end to these problematic behaviors once and for all, and experience a different life. The internal conflict of interest, which exists with each of these problems, must be resolved in order for you to experience a life that is less depressing, less anxious, more fulfilling, more joyful. In such a life, you may also get to know peace of mind.
Fortunately, you have the means to create that life, because, you are at the center of your universe. Furthermore, you are in control of your universe. These statements may appear to be arrogant at first glance, or perhaps it's just a matter of perspective.
What is your perspective, or your belief, about how your universe works? I'm not talking about how the planets and stars move in space and collide into space drama. I'm referring to your personal universe, your perspective of life — your belief system. Your perspective includes beliefs about: who you are, why you are here, what you should be doing in life, what's really important, what's the right way to live, why do things happen the way they do, and what should you expect of the people and things around you. There may be a big difference between your own perspective of the universe, and the way that it actually works. The bigger the difference, the more frustration, or anger, you might experience. If you believe that everyone should drive on the road like a saint, you are going to be angry most of the time you drive. Perhaps true wisdom means developing a belief system perspective of the universe that is a peaceful match to reality, and then living that way.
Ultimately, you will live with your perception of the universe, along with your choices, your joys, your pains, your problems, and all of the resulting feelings. If you see your universe as a negative place, you will very likely experience a lot of negative feelings. A perception of the world as a dangerous place will produce vast amounts of fear. If you see your universe as an opportunity for learning, you may experience much gladness through discovery. To a great degree then, I believe that the amount of joy that you can experience in life is a perceptual challenge. The notion of a challenge suggests an inherent and fundamental conflict. The conflict exists between an ego perspective and a consciously developed belief system perspective; this is an internal conflict of interest. Your ego has an interest in survival through a means of following an instinctually based agenda. Beyond that instinctual agenda lies the potential for a consciously developed belief system. These fundamentally different and conflicted perspectives will be clearly identified and fully explained throughout the remainder of this book. To the extent that you know, understand, and recognize these two perspectives, you can begin to reduce the conflict, reduce your problematic behaviors, and create your own peace of mind.
Regardless of the difficulty or challenge, you are at the center, and are in charge of your universe. You already have all that you need to experience peace of mind, but reducing inner conflict and creating peace of mind in a predictable way requires a specific method of doing so. One such method is described in this book. Before moving on, here is a concise summary of the remainder of this book in terms of The Problem, The Solution, The Method, and The Choice:
Your ego is a fundamental aspect of who you are. Following your ego's instinctually based agenda is not always in your best interest. Following it blindly and habitually is the cause of most personal and relational problems. You must be able to know, understand, and recognize the ego's agenda when and where it is playing out in your psychological functioning. Then you will need to do something else instead — make a different choice. This requires you to establish and develop a belief system of your own conscious choice. Then, instead of reacting according to your ego's agenda, you act on the basis of your belief system. Occasionally, you will encounter your ego's resistance — this is the internal conflict of interest. When you encounter this conflict (and you will encounter it) you will need to recognize it, and have an effective method of resolution available to you. To resolve in accordance with your belief system creates integrity and is always a matter of choice.
The Ego
Tom Anderson was my first psychotherapy client for the day. He and his wife Laura sat in the waiting room, with an empty chair between them. I indicated that we were ready to start, and Tom got up alone. As we walked toward my office, Tom said he wanted to do the first session by himself. "I'm kind of guessing we might be talking about my past. Laura really doesn't know much about it, and I think that she might be bored with all the historical stuff." We both sat down and Tom continued, "I'm mostly here today because she's really frustrated with me. And I don't blame her ... I'm pretty frustrated with myself. For some reason, I'm finding that I fly off the handle for no reason at all. I just don't understand it, I've never been like this before." Tom continued on to explain how over the past several months he had been experiencing a great deal of emotional fluctuation. Also, he was having trouble with making decisions, wasn't getting much sleep at night, and was spending less time with his wife and kids. "I think sometimes I'm going crazy, I used to have better control over my life, now it seems like it's all coming apart at the seams."
Tom continued, "I know my behavior hurts Laura, and it's killing me that I do this, but I just don't know what to do. Also, there's another problem that she doesn't know anything about. It started several months ago as just something to do to take up my extra time. I've been going to this local casino to play cards. It helped to get my mind off of things. I just started out spending pocket change, and then it gradually picked up to a few hundred dollars a month. At first I told myself that it was better than burning up gas and driving so many miles on my truck. There were times when it was really exciting, and I could hardly wait to get there. But now I've gotten myself into a mess." Tom paused and sighed deeply. "After a few months of going to this casino I started to use a credit card to take out some money, and so now I'm looking at about ten thousand dollars of debt that Laura knows nothing about."
Tom is a good guy, making bad choices. His ego is leading the way. What is the ego? The basic concept of the ego has been around for many hundreds of years. A full study of the history of the term or the concept is not necessary for the purpose of reading this book. It is enough to know the simple Latin origin of the term, which is "self. My own expanded version of this definition for ego is, "Your instinctual identification with the needs of your body." The ego, as a conceptual manifestation of you, is generally concerned with survival. For the most part it is operating subconsciously behind the scenes of your thinking and perceptions of life around you.
Your ego develops from the time of your birth as you recognize and identify with the needs and wants of your body — "I am this body." At some time during childhood development, as language ability is acquired, what you might call an ego voice develops in your conscious awareness to tell you what is needed and wanted, what is good and what is bad. This ego voice, or perspective, which represents the body's needs and wants, follows an instinctual agenda. The body does not like or want physical pain, including the painful stress of some emotions, such as anger, sadness, guilt, or fear. As a result, the ego voice instinctively intervenes by developing strategies to manage, manipulate, or reduce this pain. By contrast, the body wants pleasurable gratification, immediately and in unlimited amounts if possible. Again, the ego voice instinctively intervenes by developing strategies to increase these gratifying physical sensations and emotional experiences. Essentially, these strategies involve getting what you want through the manipulation and control of the environment, including the people in the environment. Whenever you hear the newborn that cries, the two-year-old who is having a temper tantrum, the teenager complaining, or the adult who yells or pouts, you are a witness to these ego strategies.
The ego is not the enemy. To a great extent, you owe your life to it, and its survival strategy. However, when this agenda is carried to an extreme, there can be problems — there can be bad choices. Indeed, the personal and relational problems referred to earlier result from following the agenda to extreme lengths. Too much avoidance, too much pleasure, wanting too much control, caring too much about appearance — these are the extreme problems related to the ego's agenda.
Integrity
When I was ten years old, my grandmother gave me one of those glass globes with the fake snow inside. It depicted a winter snow scene, and of course it would snow when I turned it upside down and shook it around. Each and every time, snow would fall all over the fake landscape, all over the fake house, and all over the fake little boy on his fake sled. The scenario outcome for that globe was highly predictable. There was a stable set of circumstances, with a cause and effect that you could count on. It presented no holes, no flaws, and no doubt that the little boy would see his snow fall each and every time. That system had integrity.
So, how do you know if something has integrity? I recognize integrity by the following qualities: 1) it has predictability, 2) there is intra-connectedness, and 3) there is containment. You can count on integrity. You can predict its functioning. You can say with a high degree of certainty that if this happens, then that will happen. You can trust integrity. With some systems, such as a glass globe, a car engine, or a television set, there is a high likelihood of predictable outcome or functioning. If you put gas in the car's gas tank, the car will probably run. If you put water in the tank, it will probably not run. If you plug the television into an electrical outlet, and turn it on, it will probably present you with some television show. If you plug it into a loaf of bread, you should find something else to do. Integrity also means that a system functions with connection from one system component to all other system components in a meaningful way. The fake snow depends on gravity and the water to propel it slowly through the fake atmosphere to the fake ground. Each part depends on the function of the other parts, and when one of the components is not working properly, the entire system is affected. And finally, with integrity, there is some degree of containment of the system; there is a recognizable boundary, or perimeter — outside circumstances only affect the contained system as the system allows. A glass globe is well contained, as is a car engine, or television set. In general then, more system integrity means more potential for trust of the system, and less system integrity means more drama. So, while the glass globe does have integrity, you might say that it is also pretty boring. No matter how many times you shake that thing, it's not ever going to turn into a sunny day, "One hundred percent chance of snow every day."
How do you know if someone — a person — has integrity? You look for predictable behavior that is reflective of their expressed values and morals. In other words, you watch and see that when they say something is important to them, it is then expressed in their behavior consistently over time. Your own integrity is based on the same premise:
Personal integrity is characterized by: 1) predictability "my trustworthy behavior, you can count on me, I can count on me," 2) intra-connectedness, "There is a connection from my behavior to my values to my moral code to my expectations to my self-image and back to my behavior," and 3) containment, "My choice to establish boundaries for me and limits for others — I have belief system containment, I am in charge of how I am influenced and how my belief system evolves."
None of us will be able to follow even our own consciously established belief systems perfectly. We are going to experience a certain amount of what you might call system failure — bad choices. In other words, sometimes we don't follow our own rules. We still eat that halfgallon of ice cream while watching junk television after a bad day. We still engage in the shopping sprees to feel better. We drink too much alcohol, can't stop smoking, engage in infidelities, and the list goes on. Indeed, the ego is a force to be reckoned with. So, why even bother going to all of the trouble of consciously developing a belief system if we're not going to follow it? If you don't take the lead in your approach to life, your ego will.
Again, your ego is not necessarily your enemy. You may decide that you want to recognize and understand it. In order to live according to your own best interest, you may need to essentially make friends with your ego. That is, recognize its agenda, and meet some of its needs in a realistic, reasonable, and relationally fair manner. In other words:
"My belief system has integrity; I know because there is predictability, intra-connectedness, and containment. Still, I am going engage in pure self-indulgence at times, just because I can. I can do that, as long as I'm not hurting others, and I know I will continue on the "right" path for me. I'm going to be open to life's changes. I will value appropriate adaptation, growth, and development. My belief system can evolve with integrity."
The Ego's Agenda
The following four objectives represent an instinctual agenda to achieve survival. These objectives become the ego's agenda. Your ego directs you to carry out these objectives:
* Minimize physical and emotional pain.
* Maximize physical and emotional gratification.
* Seek out, establish, and maintain control and power over environments and people.
* Seek out, establish, and maintain an ego-ideal.
According to the ego, the order in which these objectives are pursued is not necessarily important as long as the overall agenda goal is maintained. The goal is — survival. Physical survival is obviously important. However in this day and age, for most of us it is virtually guaranteed. On the surface, this agenda can be very effective at producing survival. Indeed, human beings have remained on this planet through great adversity because of this instinct to survive. However, this agenda is also at the heart of most human problems. Bad choices are born in this agenda.
Let's return to the story of Tom Anderson. Tom was a young-looking forty-six year old gentleman. He was dressed in professional attire for his work day, appeared to keep himself in good physical shape, and wore a neatly trimmed graying mustache. He seemed to struggle emotionally at times to tell his story, occasionally pausing briefly to fumble with a credit card that he held in his hands. There was a look of pure anguish in his eyes, as he made his way through telling his tale of the past couple of years of his life.
About a year and a half ago, Tom's father began a struggle with emphysema, a condition that had been diagnosed several years previously. His father was a life long smoker, who never quit the habit in spite of his serious medical condition. Tom offered to have his father move into their home to be cared for rather than to go into an assisted living facility or nursing home. After just a few months, he was on oxygen twenty-four hours a day as the quality of his health continued to steadily decline. "In a way it's hard for me to see him going through this. I lost my mom about ten years ago, that was one of the saddest times in my life. So I feel sorry for my father, I know one day soon I might lose him too, but it's hard to feel my own sadness about that.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Why Good People Make Bad Choices"
by .
Copyright © 2007 Charles Lawrence Allen.
Excerpted by permission of Loving Healing Press, Inc..
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