Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that great gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov”
January 25, 2024
Dear Leland and Everett,
Today I want to encourage you to take ownership of your lives. We prefer to allow others to dictate the terms of our lives; we find it much easier to accept our lives’ shortcomings when we convince ourselves we are powerless to change. We are a lazy species, and surrendering ownership of our lives is the easier path. But life becomes more vibrant and fulfilling when I take full responsibility. And while ownership might be the harder path to start, it becomes the easier path over time (as the rewards of ownership compound relative to the frustrations of imagined powerlessness).
How does one take ownership? The answer is layered, as we have different levels of the psyche where we thoughtlessly surrender, but maintain the option to take back control when we are willing.
The first layers of resistance to ownership come from our ego. These typically come in response from accusations leveled by others. One way my ego resists ownership is via pride, wherein I take the attitude “I would never do that!” when blamed for an alleged infraction. I pride myself on being reliable, on having a good memory, on being a good person…and so I naturally resist implications to the contrary. Leland, I notice this form of resistance from you. You, like me, often resist criticism from others on logical grounds; while you (like me) are often factually correct, I encourage you to explore the possibility that you or your accuser experiences emotional resistance, and as a result you are missing opportunities to learn and/or connect with loved ones if only you could hear what they are really trying to convey (which is typically only partially captured in the initial accusation).
The second way my ego resists is from various places of fear. My codependent side wants desperately to ensure others avoid negative emotions, and almost cannot hold the possibility that I might do something to cause others pain. The part of me that fears getting ‘kicked out of the tribe’ resists taking blame out of fear that the alleged infraction might result in the permanent severing of relationships. And the part of me that fears being ultimately unloveable fears that this accusation might, if true, prove that I am indeed irredeemable. When in a place of fear, I deploy a number of tools, ranging from deflection (“oh it’s fine” or “it’s no big deal”) to making excuses (“it’s not my fault!”) to blaming others (“it’s YOUR fault!”). Everett, I’ve noticed you typically deploy these tactics when you face criticism; I encourage you to take time to explore your fears so that you might find healthier responses when you feel blamed or attacked.
What I am slowly learning to do is try to separate the infraction I allegedly committed from the emotion underlying the accusation and the meaning I attach to the idea of having committed the infraction. If someone blames me for a wrongdoing, I try to differentiate facts (“you arrived late”) from story (“you are always late because you only care about yourself!”). Facts can be agreed upon, typically shouldn’t elicit a significant emotional response, and when handled appropriately can often lead to reconciliation fairly quickly (“yes, I was late, my meeting at work ran longer than expected. Next time I will either try to avoid scheduling meetings at that time, or let you know when I expect to be home late due to work. Is that fair?”). Story is harder, because it reflects the meaning you or your interlocutor attach to the alleged facts. If your spouse believes you are always late because you don’t care, or if you struggle to accept the possibility you might be late because it might make you unlovable, one (or both) of you are bringing an emotion into the discussion. In my experience these emotions most often boil down to some form of fear. Fear distills to a physiological sensation, and represents something that wants to be learned. When you face the fear, acknowledge it, and then allow yourself to sit with it, you will almost always discover something important. You can do this for yourself, and I encourage you to do so after an argument with a loved one ends poorly. You can also try to practice with trusted loved ones, creating space for each of you to acknowledge the physical sensations you are experiencing, and the ideas that appear to be attached to those physical sensations.
(Note: sometimes emotional arguments are charged by sadness rather than fear; unlike fear sadness just needs to be felt, and once you have grieved sufficiently you will find yourself ready to let go and move on. Sometimes sadness wants to be shared as part of the healing process, as in “you were late, and I am sad that we missed that opportunity to spend time together”.)
The next level of resistance to ownership comes from the challenging relationships in your life. These can be work, friends, or most commonly your family. The overwhelming temptation when others create frustration in your life is to blame them for your frustration. They did something wrong or bad, there is nothing you can do about it, you’re just going to have to suck it up and deal with it (or so you tell yourself). Or maybe you convince yourself that if only they would change, you would be happy. If you are like me, you ruminate endlessly on the rhetoric that will convince the other party to magically change.
Here’s the problem: you are the reason you are frustrated, not them. You own and are responsible for your emotions. They can’t ‘make’ you mad, only you can. Don’t get me wrong: I am not advocating for accepting boorish behavior from your loved ones. What I am saying is that you will find enormous value from owning your emotions. You will find that saying “You were late! How dare you?” will typically yield a poor response; however “You were 15 minutes late; I am sad we missed that time together” will almost always lead to a more productive conversation. When I represent facts and my underlying emotions clearly and honestly, I find that I can live with the results of almost any contentious conversation (even if the other party stubbornly refuses to accept culpability and/or apologize).
You are also responsible for your relationships. You chose your job, you chose your friends, and you chose your spouse. If they are behaving in ways that frustrate you, you need to own your part in that frustration. Even your children are, genetically speaking, half you and half your spouse (whom you chose). The only relationships you can’t really control are those with your parents (hi); more on that in a moment.
Taking ownership of your relationships does not mean accepting others’ behavior as a permanent state of being, but it does mean taking ownership of the presence of bad behavior in your life. Isolated incidents don’t really cause me substantial frustration; repeated infractions are what cause lingering pain in my relationships. But if someone repeatedly acts in a manner that frustrates me, it means I have accepted the frustration. That is my choice, and it’s one I can control. And by accepting ownership, I empower myself to evaluate why this frustration continues in my life. Perhaps I have not set clear expectations with the other party. Perhaps I have set clear expectations, but not spoken up when those clear expectations were not met. Perhaps I ignored a request from the other party which prevents them from meeting those expectations. Or perhaps the other party just isn’t capable (for whatever reason) of meeting those expectations, in which case I need to reset expectations and perhaps find someone else to satisfy that particular need. On rare occasions I might decide that a relationship has served its purpose and needs to be adjusted or even severed. We evolve, and relationships wax and wane in significance and usefulness over time; sometimes our frustrations come from holding onto relationships that are no longer serving us. Regardless what tool you choose to deploy, the point is that taking ownership of these relationships introduces various tools previously unavailable to you.
To be very clear: the other party *also* owns your relationships. You have to let them own their decisions, their behavior, and their emotions. You can and should love generously, but you should not try to control others. You might very well be tempted to *help* others by influencing their decisions, their behavior, or their emotions. Be very careful to evaluate whether this *help* comes from a place of love and generosity or from a place of fear and a desire to control your surroundings.
I even submit that you own your relationship with your parents. For one thing, you obviously own your behavior when interacting with your parents. But I’d even take it a step further. I’ve recently come across the idea that our spiritual selves choose the lives we are born into, and the challenges we face during that life. There’s obviously no way to prove that idea, but I find it incredibly useful. Just the idea that I’ve cosmically agreed to the challenges life presents me gives me some sense of comfort and empowerment, and some faith that I have the tools to meet life’s challenges. I am optimistic that if faced with a natural disaster or some other seemingly external phenomenon, the idea of taking cosmic ownership will help me face whatever challenge with greater calm and equanimity and less resistance. Ownership may not eliminate the pain of discomfort or loss, but will hopefully give me a fuller toolkit for how to handle life’s unexpected challenges.
[Aside: this is as good a place as any to say that the two of you will, in adulthood, find that you have traumatic childhood experiences that need to be processed and healed. I say this with some level of confidence based on my own experience. I’m thoroughly convinced I had one of the kindest, safest, most loving childhoods of anyone who ever lived. And yet I carry codependency, abandonment fears, and a fear of being ultimately unloveable. If I carry these types of psychological wounds, everyone does, and so will you. If I could prevent it I would, and I will try. But realistically, you will need to learn how to heal yourselves in adulthood. Meditation will help a great deal. Therapy might be helpful. You might prefer coaching, as I did. You might also benefit from spiritual exploration, which I encourage anyway. Whatever tools you use, be aware, especially in middle age, you will need to look into healing wounds suffered in youth.]
Finally, I advocate taking ownership of what you believe. Now, much of what you believe will be factual. But you will take some things on faith. Some things you will take on faith because humans don’t have the capacity to reason everything from first principles, and necessarily rely on others for important information. You want to be careful about your information sources and their reliability. You also want to be generally aware when you are relying on second-hand information in your decision making processes (which you necessarily will, but you might choose to validate information you are using to make important or otherwise risky decisions).
Some things you will take on faith because humans are designed to do so. I live in an era that believes itself to be driven by logic, but in fact we create false gods everywhere. We’ve created false gods in our media, science, politics, religious traditions, governments, and socio-economic tribes. As much as anything, we’ve made a false god out of the human reasoning capacity. Ultimately though, people put their ultimate faith in something, and it is important to understand where it is you place your faith. Once you understand your faith, you can always revisit as the need arises. What I find, however, is that those who assume their lives are rooted in reason are often deluded, often badly so, and frequently put their beliefs in ephemeral things like a political movement or the tribe’s latest intellectual fad; such rootlessness invites instability, chaos, and a life of emptiness and frustration.
The broadest point is to stop judging yourselves and especially stop judging others. Take ownership of your actions, take ownership of your relationships, and take ownership of your life situations. Once you do, you will almost instantly feel empowered to take meaningful action to improve the aspects of your life that frustrate you. And it will set you on a path of growth and discovery. I’ve been practicing taking ownership of my life for more than a decade, and still have more to learn. I’ll share more as I do.
I love you,
Dad
Letters to Leland 