Changing Others, Not!

We each grow throughout our life times. Big and little changes. Physical maturation over the first 16 years, then significant emotional maturation to age 30. The following years evolve into phases of life as change is spurred by personal interaction with ‘the world’ around us. Those phases place each of us in competition with many ‘world views’ – those we construct internally for self understanding of the universe, and those other people construct for their internal use.  

Their world view versus mine. Differences. Tension. Incoming facts. Pairing those with world views. Wondering. Playing with ideas. Developing rationales that explain the differences. Looking for similarities. Trying to know, to understand. Seeking. 

But some don’t seek. They stopped seeking at some point. The rest of us continued on. We reasoned with new material. They stopped doing so. We stuck with the struggle. They didn’t. 

A new vantage point of seeing the world and why we contend with tension. Some continue to try to understand, others give up or are unable to press forward. 

So dichotomies build between people. The commonalities we once used for communicating begin to dissolve. Some are lost to connecting. They are frozen in place; the rest continue moving forward. 

In time communicants are lost while new ones join the process. Slowly over the years and decades and centuries, understanding advances. Sometimes quickly; most times with fits and starts and backward slips. But generally understanding is advanced and the human race goes along on the ride. 

This is a long introduction to the point I wish to make: We come to our own conclusions about understanding the world as it affects us on an individual basis. As we mature throughout the continuum which defines our particular life journey, we intersect with others on their journey. Some intersections are collisions while others are pleasant compatibles. We thrive on the latter and are perplexed by the former. The former we ponder on from time to time; if fruitful new ideas spring forth, we absorb them as new compatibles. If not, we avoid and move on to more fruitful relationships.

That paragraph helps me understand why family relationships are so difficult at times. Some people simply make their presence so unpleasant that we avoid them. They, of course, understand this as un-familial behavior without understanding why it occurred. Eventually they cannot even accept peace offerings. They remain black sheep. 

I hadn’t encountered many relationships described above before the age of 28. Married life proffered some views of this, but we all made a point of getting along and we did. Odd personalities were accepted, and the business of family moved forward well. 

New family additions caused relational mutations. Some of these were quite unique! Some were downright dysfunctional. Then a whole new world view began to develop for me. Wow! The unbridgeable relationships some people created. Understanding why remained an enigma. Deepened, even. 

Taking a pause to reflect on this state of things is beginning to shape some new ideas in my head.  Here are some of them:

• Some people do not cope well with freedom of thought; it unsettles them, makes them feel insecure
• Attempting to anchor their lives, they simplify their understanding; they see right and wrong, innocence and blame, good and evil; emotional responses form
• Problem is core honesty of each person finds it difficult to contemplate their own contribution to misunderstanding, non conformity, non comprehension and so forth; emotions accelerate
• The ego protects itself; it is OK; others are not OK; protective behavior settles in
• Intellectual growth is hampered, choked off in such relationships
• Not much anyone can do to change the trajectory of this mindset run amok; it is its own enemy, controller
• Peacemakers are few and far between at any given time; in families (where emotional warfare thrives) peacemakers are extremely rare!
• Primal forces of life and death are often incapable of moving the combatants to healthy posts of neutrality where healing of relations can occur
• Thus families tend to disintegrate over the generations unless there is a core value of respect present; lacking that ingredient, the destiny of those family relations are likely doomed

My encounters have proven a helpful hand does not yield results. Answering cries of help do not provide healing. Listening doesn’t work either. Talking is out of the question if two-way listening is absent. Third party negotiators might work, but the parties mostly view that process as an admission of guilt – theirs or the other party; so progress is thwarted. 

My answer to all of this chaos is the only answer I’ve found that may work universally: pause for silence; time apart. Wisdom comes to each person slowly and at different times of their life journey. Rarely are they synchronized. So time and space provides quiet and cessation of hostilities. Healing has a chance to occur during this period. 

How long the period you ask? I’m thinking until it works. Lasting peace announces its own presence. If you hear no such announcement, then the problem becomes solved because your relationship with that person has ended. For you and them, it might not be resolution, but it is peace. Be thankful for it. Do not stir the sleeping beast! Breathe deeply and smile. Life has other challenges to delight us.

January 30, 2012