Excerpt from Dr. Phil's webpage: Statistics indicate that most people are tremendously confined by the life circumstance that they inherit, totally ignoring whether this is a life they would have chosen. You don't have to mindlessly go along with this life chain you have both inherited and passively contributed to.
You can begin to shape its links, actively and consciously. Answer the questions below.
1. Where were you born?
2. Where do you live now?
3. What do/did your mother and father do for a living?
4. What do you do for a living?
5. What were your parents' beliefs about family? Religion? Politics? Their place in the world?
6. What are your beliefs about family? Religion? Politics? Your place in the world?
7. What is your life chain?
http://www.drphil.com/advice/advice.jhtml?contentId=091102_selfmatters_authentic_chain.xml§ion=Self%20Matters&subsection=Your%20Authentic%20Self
Like so many other people this time of year, I find myself contemplating new resolutions. Lose weight, save money, get healthy, become more spiritually in tune, joyful and happy, more loving and tolerant. These are all things that are resolutions for me...a lot to bite off and frankly, I'm not sure where to begin. The way I look at it, if I work on becoming healthier, the rest will fall into place.
I decided to take a look at the Dr. Phil page just to see what he had and when I came to this page, I made an interesting observation. Questions 1-4 are simple enough for me to answer; Born in Murray, Utah; I live in Salt Lake; my father was an airplane mechanic at Hill Field, my mom had quite a few different jobs--mostly factory type work; I work at a library on the UofU campus--basically a drudge--I'm not a librarian or administrator.
Now we come to question 5. The only part of question 5 that I can answer is that politically my parents were both registered Republicans. They weren't politically active beyond voting every four years and they really never discussed politics together in my presence. My question is: can other people answer the rest of the questions regarding their parents?
As far as I can tell, Wally was more of an atheist than anything else. He was very one-dimensional. I've created many characters with more personality than my father. Ornery, mean-spirited, cold, maybe beaten-down. The only thing I can say that's nice about him is I know he loved my mom in his own abusive, drunken way and he loved one of the many dogs we had and one cat. That's it. I never actually thought he cared for me or my siblings. The most memorable answer to anything that required an answer was "I don't care;" I suspect that is his view of life...pessimistic and lost.
My mom, on the other hand, is a very colorful individual. She has lived a roller coaster of a life and has scars (many from her own hand) to show for it. She wears her wounded soul like a martyred veteran proudly wears badges. She is more conflicted and confused than pretty much everyone else I know. For the vast majority of my life, I felt older than my mom; I took care of things when she wanted to play the teenager I was supposed to be. She would dabble in and out of church and with her own spirituality...in part in the hopes to find absolution for the abuse she suffered, and in part to find acceptance. She finally made it through the temple a couple years ago. She claims she isn't judgemental...and I think that most people who saw her believe what she tells them. My siblings and their spouses, the people who have weathered the brunt of her criticism, just smile and nod and let her believe what she wants. Did my parents know their place in the world? Do they know now? I don't know.
Do I know what my place in the world is? Not really, but I think the reasons for being in this world change as we evolve, get older, change jobs, enter into new relationships and new realities. I strive to be kind, sensitive to others, and objective and fair about situations that concern me. I don't always succeed, but it's really hard to be completely focused on the better part of you when you're plagued with the aches and pains and stress that life is filled with. It's not an excuse, just an explanation. My beliefs about family are that not every family is related via blood. If you want to have kids then you better be damned sure that you can provide for them financially, emotionally, spiritually, and physically. If you can't, you better plan on aborting-- it should be a crime to force a child to live a miserable life because a couple people were horny and didn't use protection. Cold, yes. Adoption is better than keeping an unwanted kid, but there are still problems with it. The kid still ends up with your genes, your insanity, your health background, and who knows what else. Still, better than keeping an unwanted kid. Life sucks. Deal with it. I'm well aware that my beliefs prevent me from having kids of my own. I've accepted the fact that given the genes I have and my financial situation that it's better to sacrifice some motherly instinct I have for the good of some being who could materialize with my own indiscretion. I also realize that my life can change for better or worse at any time. I know that if something happens to my brother or sister and their spouses I'll end up as guardian to the kids. They also know that if my niece or nephews become teenagers they can't handle, they can come to me...I might have been a shitty big sister/mom, but I am a pretty good aunt and a responsible person. I know that I would love to be a foster parent and try to prove at least to myself that not all foster parents are greedy bastards trying to milk money out of the state. But if none of that happens, I'm content. Pets, friends, lovers, charities are all ways I can satisfy that nurturing gene I have without becoming a parent.
What is my life chain? I think it's an amalgam of many different chains: my biological chain: my parents, their parents, their life events, especially their health issues; my intellectual chain: those professors and life teachers and mentors who helped me form my opinions, taught me about ethics and history...everyone from Mr. Rogers to Shakespeare, from Mrs. Archiblald to Professor Chattergee. My spiritual chain made up of those I can not name because they are too sacred for this space or I don't know their names, my historical chain: the chain of history that stems from England to America and even further...the history of the lives of the people who have lived and who continue to live in my heart and mind. These are strands that make up my life chain...and this is just touching the surface.
