Excerpts from “Being & Caring”, Part One Chapter Four

“BEING & CARING, A PSYCHOLOGY FOR LIVING” by Victor Daniels and Laurence J. Horowitz, 1976, 1984

Highlights from the book chosen by The Happy President.

CHAPTER FOUR: INTEGRATION AND FRAGMENTATION: PULLING OURSELVES TOGETHER

The old German word Gestalt, passed on to us by the Gestalt psychologists early in this century, means “form, pattern, whole, configuration.” It has to do with how the parts of something fit together as a consistent whole – or fail to do so.

Similarly, if I’ve found ways for the elements of my personality to live together comfortably, in a relatively “integrated” fashion. I can know the different parts of me and have them available when I need them. Otherwise I’m somewhat “disintegrated,” like to keep parts of myself out of my awareness and to work hard to avoid perceiving how my different sides conflict.

BECOMING A WHOLE PERSON

There are two ways to view being whole. In one, we are all by definition whole: Somewhere in this mind-body-spirit being that I call “me,” everything that’s part of me exists, available to me when I find a way to get to it.

To the degree that I’m in contact with all of myself, I am whole in the second sense of the word: I have the many sides of me available when I need them.

In both our older and newer parts, there are places where we don’t let our life energy flow: thoughts we stop ourselves from thinking, emotions we stop ourselves from feeling, and actions we stop ourselves from taking. Perls spoke of those places as “holes in the personality,” aspects of ourselves that we don’t allow ourselves to recognize or experience. Each contains a dimension of myself that’s lost to me as long as I keep that part of me “off limits”.

My personal power and inner richness becomes available as I reopen and “reown” the disowned parts of myself. An important element of this is having and using alternatives – diverse ways to deal with myself, people, and events. Such alternatives emerge, in part, from recognizing my most habitual way of responding. That awareness opens other possibilities.

Freud drew attention to a process that functions like an “internal executive” to determine which parts of us can express themselves when, and how. It “tests reality” – checking out what’s real and what isn’t, so we don’t make unnecessary mistakes.

This is ego function, not to be confused with the pop usage of the word in which we say someone “has a big ego” or “is egotistical,” meaning the person thinks himself or herself more important or “better” than other people.

Freud used ego as one of the principal actors in his psychic drama. There is id, or the processes of responding to hunger, thirst, aggression, and sexuality; ego, which serves as the mediator between id forces and the restraints and constraints of outside reality; and superego, a conscience that “includes…the rules and precepts handed down by parents and authorities and the ‘ego ideal’ fashioned by the individual, i.e. the kind of person he or she aspires to become…Like ego, the superego is but partly conscious.”

Now lets’ return to the other meaning of ego, where as Alfred Adler declared, “Man is but a drop of water…but a very conceited drop”. There are different elements of this kid of ego: Infantile ego is my process of saying “Am I getting enough?” A “no” response leads me to demand, “Me! Me! Me!” Image-based ego is my process of asking, “Am I good enough?” It isn’t present in early life but develops as the social self grows out of our perception of other people’s evaluations of us. One side of image-based ego is self-glorification. This is telling myself and others, and wanting others to tell me, how marvelous I am.

The other side of image-based ego is self-depreciation: telling myself how worthless I am and imagining that others see me that way too. Self-glorification and self-depreciation both grow out of my anxieties about my value, lovableness, or competence.

Feeling separate and isolated is an important part of infantile and image-based ego. I see how you and I are different, and how you may want to hurt me, but I have a hard time seeing how we are the same and how you care.

As I learn to take better care of my emotional needs and to value myself as I am, I feel less need to put others down, “win,” or seem “important” – and I more easily give what others need and get what I want.

THE SHADOW

According to mythology and superstition, a person without a shadow is the Devil himself – or herself. Even today, most people are cautious with someone who seems “too good to be true”. Knowing who we are involves facing our shadowy sides as well as our sunny ones.

Jung used the term shadow for our unacceptable and unacknowledged sides. Like Freud’s ego, shadow is not a “thing” but a process, a useful metaphor. It refers to the parts of us that we hide from our conscious mind – including desirable qualities that we’ve learned to think of as “not part of us” – and the way we hide them. As a guideline, the narrower the standards and definitions that govern our life, the more powerful our shadow side.

While shadow tendencies remain hidden, suggests Fordham (1966), they grow in strength and vigor, and when they burst through they may overwhelm the rest of the personality. One Half of you must understand the Other Half or you will tear yourself apart.”

Refusal to face myself can keep me stuck in repetitive, self-defeating patterns, since unconsciously I disavow other possibilities. Integration of feelings and form becomes the first order of business.

OUR INTERIOR DRAMA

The philosopher Martin Buber declared that wholeness depends on the quality of an individual’s dialogue with himself or herself (1971). We are each multiple, complex, and interdependent, like a collection of different people, or “characters,” living together in one body. When I have two of my characters fighting for control, I can both sabotage and torture myself.

DEVELOPING OUR UNDERDEVELOPED SIDES

Creativity exists when we find new ways of understanding relationships and relating to the world of things. It can occur at the easel, at the kitchen table, or at an insurance executive’s desk. Creativity includes perceiving and responding to the world anew, out of the “sense of wonder” – the ability to enter a situation and see it “as if for the first time.”

Jung’s Psychological Types

Thinking, Feeling, Sensing, and Intuiting.

Anima and Animus

Jung gave the names anima and animus to two groups of qualities that exist in the unconscious – anima in men and animus in women. The Adam and Eve story, he suggested, points to such a splitting-apart, and then to the continuing effort to find one’s other half and achieve again the primal unity we knew in the beginning.

Jung used the term anima for the presence in the male personality of a group of qualities often considered “feminine”: receptive, nurturing, soft, intuitive, drawing on the depths of the inner world and the unconscious.

Jung called another constellation of traits, those that often are part of a woman’s unconscious side, the animus: assertive, achieving, rational, problem solving, outgoing.

In a balanced personality, “masculine” and “feminine” elements intertwine. There aren’t really “two sides” at all, but a multiplicity of qualities that occur naturally in both men and women. I’m a many-sided being – and I need all of me.

Berne’s “Parent, Adult, and Child”

Psychiatrist Eric Berne (1961) described another polarity in each of us, which he calls our parent ego state and child ego state. As children, we were influenced to varying degrees by one or more adults.

When we reaming in touch with spontaneity, we can still be playful and childlike, even as adults. This is our natural child.

As my little professor, I figure out how things work and how to get what I want. I’m curious about and interested in everything.

My adapted child as learned ways to avoid punishment and get rewards. I may along with the demands on me or run  away from them: I turn into a “withdrawn child” who is distant and unresponsive; a “rebellious child” who says “no” to almost everything; or a “compliant child” – a “good boy” or “good girl” who does everything I’m told to.

With our “inner parent” as with our “inner child.” we make choices about how we do and don’t want to act. If my parent nurtured and cared for me with great love and concern, my “parental” care-taking is likely to have some of those same qualities. We might call this my nurturing parent. If my parent gave many orders, punished me often, and was cold and distant, then I may express some of those qualities. We can call this my judgmental parent. Or if my parent smothered me with so much affection and protectiveness that I had a hard time learning to stand on my own feet, I may try to do too much for you and not encourage your self-determination. This is my overprotective parent.

Whatever my past, in my present I can move toward being less judgmental, less overprotective, and more nurturing in taking care of myself as well as my children. My rational adult is the part of me that has learned to deal with myself and my world as effectively as I can based on the information I have available. My emotional adult is the part of me that has learned to appreciate and live with my feelings.

THE MEDICINE WHEEL

“Each person is a unique Living Medicine Wheel, powerful beyond imagination, that has been placed up one this earth to Touch, Experience, and Learn. To the North on the Medicine Wheel is found Widsom…The South is the place of Innocence and Trust, and for perceiving closely our nature of heart…The West is the Looks-Within place, which speaks of the introsepctve nature of man…The East…is the place of Illumination, where we can see things clearly far and wide…” – Hyemeyohsts Storm in Seven Arrows.

Excerpts from “Being & Caring”, Part One Chapter Three

BEING & CARING, A PSYCHOLOGY FOR LIVING by Victor Daniels and Laurence J. Horowitz, 1976, 1984

Highlights from the book chosen by The Happy President.

CHAPTER THREE: SELF-DETERMINATION AND AUTHENTICITY

Our culture has taught us to value being self-determining: making our own choices about important events in our lives rather than having those choices made for us by others. That value is expressed in our desire to be authentic: to speak and act as who we truly are rather than shaping all our responses to fit other people’s expectations. Self-determination and authenticity are different sides of the same issue: Each requires the other for its full expression.

Each of us can learn to trust our own sense of what means most to us and accept it as our guise as we seek to find our own direction.

Relying upon anyone’s advice as to what you “should” or “shouldn’t” do will have you living borrowed pieces of other people’s lives instead of being responsible for your own life. No one is more suited to be you for you than you are.

When others respond with mistrust to my choices and actions, I can describe in the most caring way I know that I do appreciate their concerns and suggestions, but that as part of my own growth I have to be accountable to myself and to make certain decisions for myself. That may not “make everything all right,” but at least it opens the door to dialogue – especially when demonstrating my respect for them may help them to demonstrate greater respect for me.

Existentialist Martin Heidegger – “When we take refuge in the decisions of others it is not long before we think what others think, feel what others feel, and do what others do.”

Soren Kierkegaard used the term authenticity to refer to being in touch with our inner selves and acting from that full contact with who we are. To be authentic means to be true to myself. I cannot be authentic and put up a false front before others at the same time.

Being True To Ourselves

In each area of my life, I can ask, “How much room do I have to be myself in this situation? How much of the room I have do I use?”

It’s possible to be authentic when I’m not happy or comfortable as well as when I’m feeling good. When I’m lonely, for example, I don’t need to pretend that I’m not. If I reveal my loneliness to you, there’s at least a chance that we’ll touch each other in a way that has meaning for both of us. Even if we don’t, my attempt to communicate has intrinsic value. But if I keep silent when I want to tell you how I feel, we probably won’t make contact in more than a superficial way.

Steppingstones are significant turning points or periods in our lives – pleasant, painful, or neither – that brought us where we are today. They can help us recognize the “deeper than conscious” directions in which we move with our life currents.

Being authentic requires self-trust.

Being open with others can be frightening, for it increases my vulnerability and lessens my options for manipulation. In a way, I’m safer when you’re mystified by my cloaks, masks, and shadows, for then you seldom know just who or where I am.

If you and I are authentic with each other, we may become very close. The general principle is clear: To express yourself as you are, with minimal pretense, allows for a less stressful and more satisfying life.

Personal and Social Selves

Newborn infants have no roles to play. They just are, completely true to themselves. We could say that a newborn is entirely a personal self.

Conflict with and response to others lead to the beginnings of a social self. This early social self includes all of the personal self. Thus integrated, there’s nothing that the infant is unwilling to reveal to others.

The social self, or persona as Jung called it – a word that comes from the masks ancient Greek actors wore to symbolize the roles they played – serves two purposes: to make a specific impression on other people, and to conceal the inner self.

When people identify heavily with the persona and deny the rest of who they are, psychiatrist R. D. Laing (1969) speaks of a divided self.

We may stay locked into certain roles out of habit.

Each of us has the option to present ourselves in our social roles in ways that moves closer to who we are inside, so that our personal and social selves overlap more.

Acting As If

When I’m being authentic, I’m voicing my real wants and needs. When I’m concealing and manipulating, I’m testing you.

When I trust you to deal with me as I am, I communicate clearly who I am and what I want. When I act from the part of my social self that’s different from my personal self, I speak and act as if I’m thinking and feeling something other than I am.

When I’m stating clearly what I want, I’m likely to be decisive and direct. I’m in touch with my strength – and so are you.

Hypocrisy is a particular kind of as-ifery. It means being phony, presenting a public front of seeming to act in the service of higher principles than I really am. If I tell people I’m doing something because I want to help my community, or because it’s “the American Way,” when in fact my reason is because it helps my business or gives me a tax writeoff, I’m being hypocritical.

The Script

Psychiatrist Eric Berne speaks of the parental instructions we’ve received about how to act and be, and what to do with our lives, as our scripts (1961). Our scripts are also our own doing.

Until I realize that I’m acting out an obsolete script, I may be struck with some ineffective, unproductive, or even self-destructive behavior. When I follow a script that no longer fits me, I expend a lot of energy trying to bottle up the spontaneous flow of my life force. I don’t have to waste my energy in stopping myself. I can judiciously appraise where I have room to be myself in a fuller way and where I don’t.

HOW WE BECOME STRANGERS TO OURSELVES

Disconfirmation, Confirmation, and Pseudoconfirmation

Through my responses to what you do and say, I confirm or disconfirm your sense of who you are.

If significant others validate what you think, feel, and do, you’re encouraged to develop a secure, reliable sense of yourself. IF you get feedback that reinforces your own impressions, you learn to trust your ability to discern what’s going on around you. You’re likely to develop a clear sense of contact – of where you leave off and other people being, rather than becoming enmeshed in the sticky web of what Perls terms confluence, where you’re not sure of your boundaries.

But when others act in ways that deny y our actions and your perceptions of yourself and your world, you may become confused and uncertain about your identity. In order to keep the love and protection of significant others, you may choose to repress your questions and misgivings and agree with their insistence that they know you better than you know yourself.

What’s different about words and actions and confirm and those that disconfirm? A confirmatory response, say Laing, acknowledges your action – though it doesn’t necessarily agree with it. Disconfirmation, by contrast, has a tangential quality. My response appears to deal with your concern, but actually it deals with an aspect of the matter that concerns me – not the one that concerns you.

An especially subtle and fascinating process is that of pseudoconfirmation. This is pretense at confirmation, giving teh appearance of it without the substance. I tell you who you are, then I confirm my definition of you. I induce you to accept my ideas about you, then confirm your attempts to apply them to yourself.

“A friend is a person who leaves you with all your freedom intact but obliges you to be fully waht you are.” In that spirit, in being authentic, I don’t want to intrude on your authenticity.

Carl Rogers describes an attitude that he terms “unconditional positive regard,” which he defines as “an atmosphere with…demonstrates ‘I care’; not ‘I care for you if you behave thus and so’” (1961). This kid of acceptance is not so easy. It can take hard work to set aside my goals for you – what I want for you and what I think would be good for you – and leave you room to be yourself. But it opens the way for me to know you as you are.

Excerpts from “Being & Caring”, Part One Chapter Two

BEING AND CARING by Victor Daniels and Laurence J. Horowitz

Highlights from the book chosen by The Happy President.

CHAPTER TWO: ENJOYING LIFE: FROM JUDGING TO APPRECIATION

We all have the capacity to enjoy life. But instead we may act out old habits that darken our days and sabotage our hopes.

We can find ways to enjoy what we do. “There are over eight hundred ‘happy texts’ in the Bible. If God said that many times to be glad and rejoice, he must surely have meant it.” Learning to celebrate our existence in work, play, and relationship is both a religious and a spiritual charge.

Unless I’m living in a way that pleases me, my actions and projects are unlikely to nourish others. If you enjoy your own existence, your actions and undertakings are more likely to help others enrich their lives, too. What else have we got to do that’s more important than learning how to be good to ourselves – and to those around us? How fully we enjoy our lives is dependent on our self-esteem: how we feel about ourselves and perceive our value to others. High self-esteem, an attitude that includes self-respect and good feelings about ourselves, makes it easy to enjoy life. Low self-esteem, an attitude that includes feelings that we’re somehow wrong, bad, or inadequate, makes it harder.

A tragic irony is that if my own self-esteem is low, I may depreciate others so I can feel good by comparison: “At least I’m not as bad as you.” In doing that, I challenge their self-esteem.

Thus, self-esteem is a learned process that emerges from our social interactions. To a significant degree, it’s an estimate of how I perceive the people in my environment valuing me.

Listen to what you say to others. Does your comment seem to make the other person feel better or worse about himself or herself?

THE NATURE OF JUDGMENT

We all know the feeling many call “bitterness in our hearts.” When I feel this way, I tend to pass harsh judgment on whomever or whatever comes my way. As I pass judgment, I separate myself from others. These are depreciative judgments.

Evaluation, Preference, and Judgment

Our own judgments about what we do and don’t value provide us needed life-orientation and guidance. Constructive criticism of our ideas and undertakings gives us feedback about what’s useful and what isn’t. But we don’t have to transform the need for constructive appraisal into habitual rejection through judgment that can pervade our lives, interfere with our appreciation of ourselves, and demean the beauty in our world.

To clarify that distinction, when I have to make decision or choose among alternative, I call it evaluation. Evaluation is considering the effects of something: Is it helpful or harmful?

Liking or disliking, by contrast, is primarily a feeling process. I enjoy this more than that. When I pay attention to what I actually prefer now, I’m likely to respond more openly instead of staying locked into old habits.

Instead of saying, “I don’t like Brian,” I say, “Brian is a jerk” (he is, you know). Instead of stating my own feelings, I pretend, even to myself, that I’m responding to “the way things are.”

I use the term projective judgments for these feelings disguised as judgments. I assign my own feelings to some aspect of the person, thing, or event I’m judging instead of recognizing that they come from me. I define you in terms of what’s happening in me.

Accusations, condemnations, and rejection contribute to lo self-esteem in others and, when directed inward, maintain it in ourselves. When I let go of judgment in this sense, I open myself to a broader canvas of experience.

Habitual judging makes life brittle. Few things steal more vitality, or cast a chiller, darker mood, than the habit o criticizing and condemning.

We can think about the counsel Jesus offered: “Pass no judgement, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; acquit, and you will be acquitted; give and gifts will be given you…for whatever measure you deal out to others will be dealt to you in return.” (Luke 6:37-38, New English Bible)

Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius commented, “Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them or bear with them”. When I feel an impulse to criticize people, I might first ask myself, “Am I willing to take the time to show them a better way to do it non-judgmentally so they’ll be willing to hear? Do I know a better way – really?”

Discovering What’s Beneath Our Judgments

When we don’t feel impelled ot respond to hostility with hostility, we’re apt to make better contact with people and resolve issues more effectively. Discriminate between evaluation and depreciation. I’m more likely to hear you when you tell me your feelings, or when you describe how you react to what I do, than when your words or voice imply that you’re better and I’m worse.

It is important that we acknowledge our humanity. I don’t have to pretend to be nonjudgemental about things I really do judge. As you feel the bitterness that lingers on in you, be gentle with yourself. If you forgive no one else, at least forgive yourself.

DISCOUNTING OURSELVES

Many people (not just those who chronically feel bad about themselves) disparage themselves, as much as – or even more than – they put down others.

How many times a day do you feel inferior? But ask yourself, inferior compared to what? Compared to what you might realistically expect to be and do, given your background and the breaks you’ve had? Of course not. That way you’d come out right where you are.

You can improve your skill at doing almost anything, once you get rid of your image of yourself as “no good at it.”

Here is one of the most important statements in this book: At this point in your life, at this moment in time, however you are, it’s all right for you to be that way. To feel what you feel, to think what you think, to do what you do. What is, is. What you are, you are. Recognizing that can make it easier to begin moving today in directions that will help you feel better about your life tomorrow.

“Shoulds”

Every depreciative judgment about myself has a “should” at its center. I “should” be a certain way, and if I’m not, I’m defective.

“Should”, as it’s widely used, carries a quality of absoluteness. The things I “should” are are right, and the things I “shouldn’t” do are wrong. And that’s that.

When my mind is filled with what I “should” have done, ordinarily I don’t find out as much about what happened as a result of what I did.

WORKING WITH JUDGMENTS

Monitoring depreciative judgments can decrease their frequency and intensity. The most reliable way to monitor your judgments is to count them.

SAYING “YES” TO OURSELVES

There are several alternatives to depreciative judgment. One is positive judgment. Another alternative is to appreciate something for what it is, without judging it as either good or bad.

The Theory of Positive Intent

Appreciating what’s going on involves two steps. 1) Recognizing what it is in our behavior that drives away the very response we want from others or that defeats us in other ways. 2) Recognizing that we don’t defeat ourselves because we’re bad, sick, stupid, or crazy, but when we don’t recognize and honor our own positive intent, nor that of others.

The theory of positive intent helps us take an apparently negative, destructive behavior and use it as a starting point for growth.

The Perfection in What Is

Perfection has two very different meanings. One is the gradual change from being “imperfect” to being “perfect.” The other is the perfection of each thing that exists, just as it is right now.

Here and now, I’m a perfect me, and you’re a perfect you. No one in the world can be as perfect as You as You are.

None of this means that we need to tolerate troublesome conditions in our lives that we can change. Instead, the task is to get in touch with exactly how things are not okay, and set out to remedy that.

Saint Theresa of Avila said it beautifully: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Since I have some choice about how I feel, I can feel hostile, angry, and bitter as I work to change harmful conditions, or I can feel full, alive, and in contact with myself and my world.

Art Hoppe, my favorite newspaper columnist, wrote one day, “If we all celebrated life, who could oppress or kill or hate his fellow man?”

Excerpts from “Being & Caring”, Part One Chapter One

“BEING & CARING, A Psychology for Living,” by Victor Daniels and Laurence J. Horowitz, 1976, 1984.

Selections curated by The Happy President.

PREFACE

We all write, direct, and act the parts we play in the theaters of our lives. These roles grow out of how we feel about ourselves, how we want the world to see us, and the constraints of our environments. Within these contexts, each of us has the option of finding ways to live that help us to feel good and know ourselves more deeply – to create and flow and to stretch and reach.

Being and Caring begins, in Part One, by setting out some guiding principles:

Learn to appreciate and enjoy yourself, your life, and other people, rather than depreciatively judging all these. Live in a self-determining, authentic way that’s based primarily on who you are rather than what others want you to be. Develop the neglected sides of who you are and become a more fully integrated person. Increase your freedom and power by accepting responsibility for your behavior. Sharpen your ability to be aware of events both within and outside yourself.

Part Two presents skills and information about interacting with other people. Parts Three, Four, and Five consider emotion, cognition, and overt behavior. The order is psychological: Emotional clarity facilitates clear thinking, and both feeling and thinking affect our actions. Part Six returns to our connections with others with an emphasis on intimate and other long-term relationships.

PART ONE: FOUNDATIONS

CHAPTER ONE: PERSONAL EVOLUTION

Look in the mirror: What tales do the lines in your own face tell? In our first few years, we all live with the faces we were born with. After that, we start wearing the faces and living the lives we’ve created for ourselves.

Each of us becomes more of who we can be in part by being fully who we are now. “Don’t push the river,” said Fritz Perls, founder of Gestalt therapy, “it flows by itself.” So often, to fit our ideas about who we should or could be, we stop ourselves from acknowledging who we are. We don’t have to rush headlong into changing ourselves, nor feel unhappy about who we are today to evolve in constructive ways. As we recognize our complexities – our diverse parts that interact, conflict, demand, and counterdemand – we’re more likely to appreciate our processes, purposes, and actions.

Finding ways to enjoy and appreciate ourselves, those around us, and our interactions with the circumstances of our lives is part of what might be called personal wisdom – something as unique as your fingerprints, signature, or way of laughing. Such wisdom includes actively seeking choices and alternatives rather than passively playing the role of a “victim of circumstances.” You can confront your reality creatively rather than accepting other people’s solutions and limitations.

THE EMERGING YEARS OF “PEOPLE PSYCHOLOGY”

Amid the material growth and prosperity that followed World War 2…Unhappiness was seen as a defect in a life of all possible goods. A popular textbook from the forties and fifties comments that a “maladjusted” person was often viewed as morally “bad” or “wrong”.

Adjustment textbooks, valuable to many readers though they were, suffered from two significant limitations. First the goal was some abstraction called “normality.” Normal is “an accepted standard, model, or pattern; especially corresponding to the median or average.” The old “adjustment psychology” sought to help troubled people become like everyone else instead of accepting their own uniqueness.

Second, most of the values and conditions to which a person was asked to “adjust” were unquestioned.

Fritz Perls (1947) argued that in the context of a society changing as rapidly as ours, it’s not clear just what we’re supposed to adjust to. He held that the demand to adjust can interfere with the self-reliance that maturity requires. To adjust blindly, he asserted, is to participate in the collective madness inherent in some aspect of our society.

Jungian analyst James Hillman goes a step farther, pointing out that the “manic consumerism and overtiredness and sleep depressions” of many clients in therapy today reflect the environments in which they live. We need to develop a psychopathology of civilization. As we discover how our culture is crazy, we can conceive of saner, wiser ways to redirect it.

THE MYSTIQUE OF SELF-FULFILLMENT

The humanistic orientation in psychology. (Theorist) Rogers emphasizes a person’s capacity to define the central issues of his or her life. Perls identified the fragmented nature of many people’s experience and the need to move toward a sense of integration and wholeness. Maslow described needs common to all of us as we seek both to be our unique selves and to understand the ways of the world we live in. Their perspectives can help each of us participate creatively in our world without being consumed by it.

The self-fulfillment ethic appears to have three different roots. One is the emergence of a psychology that aims at helping people discover themselves at a deep level, use themselves creatively, and achieve a full, happy life that doesn’t depend entirely on possessions and status. A second is our historic attitude of commitment to individualism. A third is our consumption-oriented economic system that relentlessly exhorts people to buy everything they want – today!

Is the quest for self-fulfillment an unmixed blessing? Some think not. “You’re obsessed with your own fulfillment but you don’t help others with theirs,” such criticism runs. “There’s no cooperative glue there, no shared effort of the kind that’s needed to build a mutually nourishing society.”

In their movement toward greater self-knowledge, people go through stages of development.

The next step beyond self-fulfillment is to take our more fulfilled selves into mutually enriching social relationships with others.

BEYOND CONFORMITY AND THE “ME GENERATION” – BEING FOR ME AND CARING ABOUT YOU

From birth until death, a person can grow in his or her ability to be with other people in mutually fulfilling ways. At the same time, the person is developing an ability to be independent, separate, and unique. Thus contemporary theorists speak of an interplay between two motives: individuation and relatedness. At every point, both are active. The two tendencies not only coexist but support each other. The more I know and the better I feel about myself, the more supportive, challenging, and caring I can be in my relationship with you. And vice versa. This interplay represents the guiding perspective of this book.

When I’ve learned to stand on my own feet, I’m ready to move toward you and with you. It’s then that I discover what synergy means: self-interest enlightened by appreciative awareness of myself in your existence and of your participation in my world. We do for each other in ways that enrich us, too, and do for ourselves in ways that enrich each other.

LIVING BY OUR REAL CONCERNS

Taking Time for Assessment

Taking stock of our lives is something we need to do more.

Living and discovering in ways that embody my life themes may require important redirections of my energy. These may involve changes wihtin my life. My deep concerns are found both in the far future and in how I do what I do each day.

I need to find a way to feel all right about what I do. This doesn’t mean “Chip up and put a sunny face on what’s nasty and uncomfortable.” Rather, it means that if I’ve examined how I use my time and energy and find no more effective alternative, I may need to go easier on myself, and recognize that, all things considered, I’m doing the best I can for me and those important to me.

Clarifying Our Directions

Evolving toward ways of living that demonstrate our own values and priorities involves a self-determination that’s more than just rebellion against others’ expectations. It’s an active process of redefining what we want to do with who we know ourselves to be. How do I know if the direction I choose is a productive one? If it leads me to make better use of who I am, I’m willing to call it growth.

I can distrust my ability to accomplish anything when I focus only on the finished product, and forget that the process of creating somethign can be as rewarding as completing it. When I’m afraid I’ll never make it, I don’t even start. Perhaps if we pay attention to the ways we frighten ourselves, that act will be a start toward what we want to accomplish.

ETHICS AND WISDOM

The direction of our evolution is influenced by the natur of our ethics. Our approach is this: to experience our acts in terms of how helpful or harmful they are – how useful or counterproductive – to whom or what, how under what circumstances.

Our knowing process becomes distorted when we’re required to learn large amounts of information in which we find little meaning or value. Understanding is seeing relationships among facts that are important to me. As I develop understanding, I become able to use my knowledge.

Wisdom goes beyond understanding. Wisdom is the knowledge of the spirit. We tend to expect a different kid of knowing from our spirituality than from our heads – a very personal integration of knowing, feeling, sensing, and doing.

Money and Value

What is money? Where does it come from? How do we use it? How does it make us feel?

The current climate of the world is that of massive job layoffs, businesses closing to keep people healthy, and humans scared of getting a paycheck to afford to live each month. When we’ve operated on this “you have to work for money” idea, and when there is no work to be done, what do we do? Of course there are things that can happen that improve humans lives but don’t “earn” money. But the money system, as it stands, is broken. We won’t be having as many jobs in the future (yay!) because we have a new system that makes life easy for everyone. 

We’ve got to adapt the system. We have to look at finance and see what things really cost, and at what cost they are to Earth and humanity. We have to stop pollutive industries and we need to use technology to improve quality of life for each and every one of us. We are operating on a hundred year old system and it needs to change.

Money came about as a neutral way to exchange goods and services. It makes sense. I have cows that make milk, you have wheat that can be made into bread. How do we figure out what is a fair trade? Well, whatever the two parties agree upon. But milk goes bad after some time, and wheat can get moldy. What if I want to give some of my milk now but don’t want any wheat? Now we create a neutral, non-perishable form of transfer in the form of metal coins, or shells, or any neutral item. Money was created because it doesn’t “go bad” like milk. It can be taken and used for anything. I like it. It makes sense.

Traders would bring goods to market and then sell them to buyers who liked getting things they could not provide for themselves. When you have foreign travelers, you will have some foreign forms of currency. Some people use gold coins, some people use silver coins, some people use shells from their local beach. With these different forms of currency, we now need to create an exchange rate and thus have someone that sits at a table – in Italian table is banco, where the word for bank comes from – and makes sure you can exchange one form of currency for another at the same value. These table bankers now became middle men – only dealing with money and not the exchange of goods.

When you accumulate a bunch of gold coins, what do you do with them? Well, you could store them in your house but you don’t have much security and people could come and steal it pretty easily. So now we have fortified buildings that will hold our gold for us, keep it safe, and let us access it whenever we want. We also realized that for larger transactions it is a lot easier to have a piece of paper with a value on it rather than dragging a roomful of gold across town. So we have representative money – paper money that says it is worth something backed up by the bank holding your gold. It says that whomever has this note has the right to access so much gold in that particular bank. Cool.

What do banks do with all that gold sitting around? They figured out that you don’t come back to take much out very often, so would you notice if it weren’t all there? Well, they take the gold that you put in and loan it to someone else who wants to do something but can’t afford it on their own. The bank loans your money to other people. You don’t get a say to who is getting your money now that it is in the bank’s hands. The bank makes money off of interest from the loans. But why? What service are they really providing except for using someone else’s money without them knowing hoping that they don’t come to claim their gold at once?

Cows. That’s where the concept of interest comes from. Let’s say I have a heard of cattle but want to get on a boat and search for exotic spices. You have a boat but are sick of sailing and wouldn’t mind looking after the cows for the year or so it takes you to come back. What happens to a heard of cows after a year? They procreate, making little cow babies. So your one hundred cows are now hundred and seven cows. You can still keep the hundred cows you originally left, but it’s easy to let the seven new cows go to the guy that watched them for you. Makes sense.

Banks charging interest on money loans make no sense. Cows growing makes sense. Money to make money is immoral. Money to create value and add wealth is moral.

How these big corporations are making money off of humanity is by selling information that we don’t even realize they have on us. Anyone with a new car, one with cameras and GPS and all the fun stuff – those car companies track you and sell your information to the highest bidder. It knows where you go, what you listen to, and has videos of the area you live. Alexa hears everything you say. Siri listens to you. Targeted ads are everywhere, but I see a world where we don’t need more cheap products, we need more life-improving products that empower the individual.

What is the shift? It will be easy, actually. We look at corporate finance and take all the weeds out. We look at efficient energy systems using the modern technology that these corporations have access to and we shift from a weaponry making system to a livingry making system. It’s nice to see business with factory infrastructures switching production from cars or clothes to ventilators and scrubs for the health and safety of humanity. We can change.

The Earth wants to be played on. She wants humans to be happy, outside, laughing and jumping and playing on her with your friends, family, loved ones. She doesn’t want you stuck in a cubicle staring at emails all day. She doesn’t need you to make another million dollars on Wall Street, she needs you to laugh on the beach and jump in the ocean. 

We do not need a bigger economy. We do not need more jobs. We have the technology, the knowhow, and the strength to create new systems where jobs are optional, you pursue what you want, and there is a basic level of care for each and every human on the planet. Earth does not charge rent for its inhabitants.

Transparent Finances for All. Removal of Corporate Personhood and the freeing up of all the money they weaseled out of paying.

What are taxes, and where do they go? Why do corporations not have to pay what they owe yet individuals do?

We also have to blend local and global economies. I’m for a one Earth currency, so no one is making money betting on exchange rates. Food becomes more local – grown in the Earth in your own backyard or a nearby public plot. Let’s disperse our population and get connected to the Land again. There are inexpensive high quality housing options that have been available and we are not using them. With technology it will be easy for us to have the luxuries we are used to but with an energy efficient, Earth-friendly way.

Money is formed out of a transaction. It’s when two or more parties need to agree on an exchange – putting a value on what something is worth. Money is not actually value. Or even real energy. It is a representation of energy and that is it. It is what we agree it to be. It came about naturally but then got manipulated by banks.

Profit seems to be a nasty word to me. Value, wealth, abundance are nice words. We can still use money as a form of exchange, but the cost of everyday items will be reduced considerably. It will be easier to live and breathe and play. We might need to build more theme parks.

Health and Happiness

The world is currently shutting down its usual activities due to the fear of COVID-19, commonly called the coronavirus. Two of my activities have been cancelled for the next two weeks because anyone with a cough or sniffle could give anyone else a deadly disease. Theme Parks, some of the most internationally visited places in the world, are shutting down for obvious reasons. The grocery store was busier than usual today, though. Toilet paper was sold out, pasta was almost all gone. People are really less concerned about carbs and more concerned with wiping their butt.

While I want everyone to be healthy, I would like to think that COVID-19 is just a way for Earth’s inhabitants to have time to stay at home and chill for awhile. Stop the hustle and grind to get a paycheck and instead slow down and check into the moment. Catch up on that latest streaming show. Call people you haven’t talked to in awhile. Learn a new skill even if you may never show it off in person. Live as if the the world is changing. Laugh with me, just not on me. 

Spend time at home cleaning through your old shit. Read up on the KonMari Method. Keep only what sparks joy in you. Eat consciously. Plant a garden and see what grows by the time this whole thing ends. How you take care of your home speaks volumes about you. Keep yourself clean and stop using so much toilet paper.

Don’t let this silly virus that originally came from a chicken make us become zombies to one another. Stay healthy, wash your hands, and trust in the power of the human body. It has been scientifically proven to be able to heal itself.

Stay Happy and Healthy,

The Happy President

LibertyHand

Wash Your Hands, Please.

Happy Constitution Day

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

-Preamble to the United States Constitution

Control Guns

This goes to the gun manufacturers, the humans making money off of the production of guns. You exist; you must exist if there are still mass shootings. There is only one way you make money and that is through controversy. If our cell phones and in home entertainment devices can monitor its owners by listening or watching 24/7, if our devices know where we are through GPS, if we are required to register and insure cars, we must use the same technology with guns.

 

Guns need GPS technology, retina and thumbprint scanning, and the same technology every iPhone has. Each gun needs to be registered to its owner and scanned for each person handling and firing the gun. This technology is available to cell phones. It has to be necessary in guns. Modern day guns may exist. We need to give them the same tech we give Apple, Amazon, Ikea, etc. We can have our guns, let’s treat them with respect. I hope for the use of guns to be for sport only. Let’s do more skeet shooting, more practice shooting, more paintball shooting. Let’s transfer our war games. Guns for games only. And I’m for hunting but only if the hunted is used at least 80%. Most of the body is used for some sort of productive gain, either in food, chemicals, or material.

Guns do not kill. Scared people kill with any weapon they can find, and guns make it easier. Knives do not kill. Hungry people wanting to slice their food kill, and use their efforts for energy in different areas. Mental health is of most importance. If you own a gun, you will also have a registered therapist. No that doesn’t sound right. I want gun owners to operate on a certain tone scale. A certain happiness level. Happy people use guns for sport, for skeet. Scared people use guns to kill. We don’t need scared people anymore. How do we get people to feel safe? Guns for sport only.

I am grateful that I got gun trained at Walt Disney World. I worked at one of the few attractions that used real firearms as part of their “making the magic real” thing, and I learned how to handle and clean basic .38 caliber handguns. Reuger, Smith/Wesson. Taurus. Both double and single action. I know the difference. I’m grateful that I won’t be scared to handle a gun if I ever have to hold one in an emergency situation. I want all of us to be gun trained, to know how to use it, but to know that we don’t need it. We trust each other. Guns are for sport only.

We need the same technology on guns that we have on cell phones. That is my stance. If we have that control on personal communication, we can have that control on personal protection. Also transparency. We need to know who has guns and where. And that guns know who fired them and when and where and maybe even why. Gun manufacturers need to step up. We can ask gun enthusiasts to at least ask a certain requirement of their favorite manufacturers. They have reasoning.

Gun manufacturers, where are you? Gun owners, will you agree to putting the same technology that is in your cell phones in your guns? And families, are you open to gun training your family for sport?

Let me know what you think! What makes you Happy?

Hugs,

The Happy President

 

Tha Happy President

 

Lincoln/Kennedy

Both Presidents were elected in ’60 with interests in civil rights. Both were shot in the head with a Colt revolver on a Friday before a major holiday. Both of their successors were southern Democrats named Johnson. Both were shot in a Ford – Lincoln in box 7 at Ford’s Theater, Kennedy in a Ford Lincoln, the 7th car in the motorcade. Lincoln’s assassin ran from a theater to a warehouse, Kennedy’s ran from a warehouse to a theater, and both assassins were killed before having a trial.

There’s more. Listen to the song.

 

Why post this as The Happy President? Well, being happy doesn’t mean that nothing disturbing happens. Both Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were smiling before their deaths, and both made major accomplishments in the uplifting of the human spirit. It is only right to discover the true nature of their ends.