Friendly Persuasion Can Take Your Life

The ‘Woman Who Didn’t Stop at the Bathroom’ Incident–

Dateline:  Willie’s Place, I-35 between Dallas and Austin.  If I can’t get a grip at Willie’s Place, I might as well just jerk that license off the wall and give up the pretense. 

Hail to those of you tagging along on this rickety journey toward growing up just a wee little bit.  Now, friends, we begin an examination of  HOW MUCH of WHO WE ARE is  the result of CHOICE and how much is no more than our automatically acting and re-acting in TO KEEP OTHER PEOPLE CALMED DOWN.

Figuring out when we are using our BEST THINKING and when we are doing the please CALM DOWN JIG is not an easy task.  Because the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is not just a big fat liar, the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is tricky.                                                                                                                                            U                                                           

Sometimes we make a choice against what we think…we say “Yes” when we mean “No”  (this usually involves some sort of volunteering) or “No” when we mean “Yes” (This often involves FEAR).

We  react automatically …because we pick up on the choice an important other person wants us to make….and the relief of going along FEELS like we’ve made a thoughtful choice.  Example:  a woman says to her husband, “I have decided to take up mountain biking.”  The husband says, “What?”and proceeds to outline the costs, dangers, and generally  neglect of others…should the woman persist with the mountain biking idea. 

For a while she struggles.  Then she gives up the idea.  The tension in the couple goes down.  The woman eats a pie and criticizes the man next door for leaving the lid off his trashcan.  The whole neighborhood is ruined!

The relief experienced when ‘going along’  FEELS  like we’ve made an actual choice.  This sort of capitulating may look noble, but there’s nothing brave  about deciding that the best way to stay calm yourself is by doing whatever will keep the other person calm. 

Of course, after studying the costs, dangers, and time required the woman could have opted out of mountain biking following her own BEST THINKING.  I’m just saying the glory of ‘relief’ makes it hard to tell ‘why’ a particular decision is made.

Now, about the woman who thought she needed to make a bathroom stop and over-ruled herself .  Oops, here’s my chicken-fried steak.  Tune in tomorrow to hear the exciting adventure of ‘Go-Along-Woman.’