Let’s put it this way.  The teenage police officers wear bullet-proof vests. 

Mexico City provides an excellent ground zero for testing one’s ability to base decisions on facts or emotions.  Make an emotion-driven mistake here and…well, you’ve seen the news. 

No way I’m going to miss all my favorite places, which just happen to include Federal Police Headquarters and the Congressional Building where, at the moment, the president is calling for support in the effort to wipe out the drug cartels sucking the life out of this country.

Granted, even coming here was an Emotional Guidance System-driven decision.  Joining the mob-filled streets…ditto. 

I have, however, decided on a compromise.  I make note of nearby doors and shops.  When I notice more than two policemen with machine guns gathering, peering around corners, exchanging excited two-way radio conversations… I duck away from the street, a decidedly fact-based move.  So far, so good.

What to do?  What to do? sought direction.  I called on my two guidance systems.  

The Emotional Guidance System said:  You are being a brat here.  This meal costs twenty-five dollars, you CANNOT just leave an expensive meal.  You’re making too much of this!  You are too picky.  Hundreds of thousands, no, millions of people around the world, are going to bed hungry, and you, you are turning away from an expensive meal of shrimp.  There was a time when you and the special person travelled with a steno pad and wrote down every penny spent, staying in ratty motels and able to get lunch for a dollar (loaf of bread and a can of bean dip).  What’s happened that you are now such a brat?  It’s your fault for ordering seafood in the middle of the desert. These shrimp were flown in over many miles.  Think of it, woman.  These shrimp have given you their lives!

The Thinking Guidance System said:  Okay, probably life would be easier if you were a bit more adaptable, but the FACTS ARE…you can afford to walk this joint and find a cozier place with a happier staff. While there was a time when you would have to do without something else that day if you spent five dollars extra on a meal…but that was then.  This is now. You can afford to escape. The reality is, no one but you will be inconvenienced by your changing restaurants.  No one. 

I decided to split.  I asked for a to-go box and packed up the shrimp. (Which I dumped in the trash on my way to the next restaurant, as intended…but I thought taking the shrimp to-go and faking a mild emergency made me look less foolish….Okay, I know…I didn’t say I escaped the waitress from the frowny side of the street and her tiny shrimp without some concessions to my Emotional Guidance System.)

I left the waitress a ten dollar tip and a smile, hoping her day might pick up and headed for the buffet and a really perfect booth where I computed and piddled for hours. (Did you know the buffets in Las Vegas now have all day passes for tourists wanted to have it all and often?  I ask you, could this be a good thing?)

The Point:  Sometimes you can escape.  Remember the people who grew up in the depression and couldn’t spend money in accord with current circumstances?  Of course, many people attempt to spend themselves out of anxious situations when they cannot afford the cost … and end up causing all sorts of long-term problems.

An important contribution of the Thinking Guidance System is in avoiding generalizations.  The Emotional Guidance System lumps situations together saying, “If you allow yourself to switch restaurants and end up paying for two meals, what’s going to keep you from buying a bunch of timeshares in Tahiti you can’t use?”

What?

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.’