Here is today’s Game and what’s going on.
Here is what I discovered today in our Dadly Daily Declaration reading from Chapter 9 of Stop Doing That Shit by Gary John Bishop. The title of this chapter is “Them.”
Today’s chapter continues the explanation of the three saboteurs, with the second being people. There are lots of nuggets today, some of which we will separate into an action plan. Let’s dive in:
- The second saboteur is what I call your “social conclusion,” or the fundamental lens through which you see and interact with other people. Like your personal conclusion, this was absorbed into the magic little sponge at an early age too. However, this baseline criticism about other people arose through your various interactions with your family, your friends, and your neighbors, as well as with teachers, pastors, and anyone else of significance with whom you came into contact in the formative years of your life. From all of those life experiences, THIS is what you have concluded about other people. This is who they are for you. Again, not who they actually are or who they could be but rather who they definitively are to you.
- Victim or no victim, only you get to say. In this case, you and you alone have made your life what it has become. Again, this isn’t about who is to blame but is rather a way of you finally understanding yourself that empowers you rather than embitters or hardens you.
- The good news is, if you accept that you made the mess, you are also accepting that you can unmake it. I often have to remind people of their power. It takes as much effort to live a crappy life as it does a great one. And you’re the only one who can choose which you want to live.
- Your social conclusion is the perfect mode of survival. Remember, we’re all striving for safety and security in life, and other people are one of the least predictable parts of life! By coming to conclusions about people, we bring a feeling of certainty to the great unknown and threat that people represent. Unfortunately, you’re often focused on surviving events in life that just don’t need to be survived!
- We all have conclusions that run deep. Keep in mind, whatever you resist about your life persists by virtue of that resistance. You are swamped by your conclusions in the same way everyone else is by theirs.Share
- You can see why being separated from Dad in a department store for just a minute or two could start to give rise to the kind of profound conclusion that eventually embeds itself into your young and eager subconscious. How easily that one incident could soak into your magic little sponge and become “People will leave,” “You can’t trust people,” or “People don’t care.” Thereafter follows a lifetime of gathering evidence to support your view.
- Once those conclusions are made, you’re a done deal. That little sponge eventually hardens when the wispy, watery memories disappear, leaving only the stains and marks trapped inside, forever. Trapped in your subconscious. No amount of fucking existential Goo Gone can wipe that clean. You can’t meditate your way out of it, either. This takes a self-realization, a WTF kind of awakening.
- As we move on to adulthood, these conclusions stick with us, forming the baseline for how we relate to and interact with everyone we meet. And I mean everyone.
- We’re constantly viewing the people around us through the lens of these conclusions.
- When I say that we view people through the perspective of our conclusion, what we’re also doing is testing them to see how they measure up to what we’ve concluded. Do they conform? Do they conflict?
Here’s the action plan for you today:
Start with thinking about the times when you make conscious excuses for your unconscious thought processes. Those excuses are another hint toward your conclusion. Try to be aware of when you make those excuses and catch yourself doing it. But I’m not talking about legitimate excuses for legitimate problems. I’m talking about when parties, nights out, and dinner with “friends” feels like the equivalent of sunlight to a vampire. Or when someone proposes a business idea and you immediately think of all the ways they will try to fuck you over.
Perhaps you have a particular label that you assign to people with certain qualities, traits, or talents that you automatically avoid. Your conclusion might well be right underneath that little thing that irks you so much. Are they too smart? Does that make them arrogant or dominating to you? Do you avoid those people? What does that say about them?
Are they too “polished” or “together” in a way that makes them seem selfish? Perhaps they’re too outgoing, which points to their aggression or insensitivity?
What is the common denominator, the all-pervasive conclusion, that allows you to predict and make sense of people?
Set aside your usual BS, scratch at the surface of your thoughts, tell yourself the truth. What are you really trying to avoid about people? People are what?
This second saboteur, your conclusion about others, could be anything: People are…
+ Stupid
+ Untrustworthy
+ A threat
+ Unreliable
+ Uncaring
+ Selfish
+ Cruel
Which one captures your baseline experience of people? It might be none of the above, but these are just some samples of what it could be for you. The real question is, what’s yours?
Keep in mind, the nature of this conclusion, like all of the three saboteurs, is that of a criticism. In this case, your grievance with other people.
Don’t move on until you find the phrase that resonates with you, the one that truly captures your experience of people—all people.
You know the drill. Get a pencil or pen and fill in the blank.
SOCIAL CONCLUSION—“PEOPLE ARE _______________________.”
Remember, this isn’t just an opinion of people. This is what you have fundamentally concluded about human beings. Once you’ve filled in this blank, keep in mind that first saboteur, your personal conclusion.
Those gems lead us to today’s Dadly Daily Declaration:
Whatever someone else does to you, it doesn’t mean you automatically change who you are, because when you do, you become a smaller human being. You become a lesser version of yourself when you get angry because of their anger or resentful because of their resentment.
Your love, your self-expression, are there to be broadcast to the world, not shut down, manipulated and controlled in the ruins of a once blooming friendship or relationship. Resentment is for fools and the unaware.
Forgiveness, love, and connection between you and other human beings is where it’s at. That’s not always easy, but that is your job. Work it out. Work out how to be that kind of human being. That doesn’t make you a doormat either.
