It’s clear to me that we human beings have a marked tendency to shoot ourselves in the foot. We stay up too late watching TV and then suffer with fatigue all the next day. We leaves tasks and assignments unfinished until the day before they’re due, and then we rush around in an anxious panic throwing the project together and hoping it will be acceptable.
Why do we operate like this? Well, maybe we saw it modeled by our parents, who learned the pattern from theirs. Notice I used the word “pattern”; I did so intentionally. Many ways of doing things, of perceiving realities, are passed to us as a part of “family tradition”, and we adopt them without much personal examiniation or scrutiny. We often persist in this out of a subtle sense of loyalty to our heritage, and we do so without the benefit of introspection. The problem in this is that we may be repeating old patterns of behaving that may have been functional for generations past, but certainly are not optimal for us in the present.
How can we break from such patterns? First, we have to take the time to observe ourselves in our daily activities. Are we wasting time or using it creatively? Are we starting projects early enough to not wind up rushed? Do we begin to answer emails but get distracted and find ourselves surfing the internet for hours?
We can change almost any pattern as long as we feel bothered by it. If we’re not bothered, we won’t be able to generate the energy necessary to effect a change in our lives. Many times a crisis in life can provide a springboard for personal change. Becoming unemployed, a significant illness, death of an important family member, all these things can be used to ask “where am I going in life?” and to begin letting go of old worn-out life patterns that simply don’t work well anymore.
Chase E. Kneeland, M.Div. LMFT 