11 Sep Find on your own your Shoulds, Musts and Oughts | Part B’
Resisting Enculturation and Traditions When They Affect You Negatively
Progress, yours personally and the world’s, depends on unreasonable men, rather than people who adapt to their society and accept whatever comes along. Progress depends on individuals who are innovators, who reject convention and fashion their own worlds. In order to shift from coping to doing, you’ll have to learn to resist enculturation and the many pressures to conform. To function fully, a resistance to enculturation is almost a given. You may be viewed by some as insubordinate, which is the pnee you’ll pay for thinking for yourself. You may be seen as different, be labeled selfish or rebellious, incur disapproval from many ’’normal” people, and at times be ostracized.
Some people will not take kindly to your resistance to norms they’ve adopted for themselves. You’ll hear the oId argument of. “What if everybody decided to obey only the rules they wanted to? What kind of a society would we have then?” The simple answer to this, of course, is that everybody won’t! Most people’s addiction to external supports and shoulds prohibits such a stand.
What we’re talking about here has nothing to do with anarchy. No one wants to destroy society, but many of us would like to give the individual more freedom within it, freedom from meaningless musts and silly shoulds.
Even sensible laws and rules will not apply under every set of circumstances. What we are striving for is choice, that is, the ability to be free from the servant mentality of constant adherence to the shoulds. You do not have to be always as your culture expects you to be. If you are and feel an inability to be otherwise; you are indeed a follower, one of a flock who allows others to determine his course. Leading your own life involves flexibility and repeated personal assessments of how welt the rule works at a particular present moment. True, it’s often easier to follow, to blindly do as you’re told, but once you recognize that the law is there to serve you, not to make you a servant, you can begin to eliminate that musterbation behavior.
If you’re going to Iearn to resist enculturation, you’ll have to become a shrugger. Others will still choose to obey even if it hurts them, and you will have to learn to allow them their choice. No anger, only your own convictions.
Resisting enculturation means making decisions for yourself and carrying them out as efficiently and quietly as possible. No bandwagons or hostile demonstrations where they will do no good. The foolish rules, traditions and policies will never go away, but you don’t have to be a part of them. Just shrug as others go through their sheep motions. If they want to behave that way, fine for them but that’s not for you. To make a big fuss is almost always the surest way to incur wrath and create more obstacles for yourself. You’ll find scores of everyday occurrences where it is easier to circumvent the rules quietly than to start a protest movement. You can decide to be the person you want to be, or the one others want you to be. It’s up to you.
Virtually all new ideas which have resulted in change in our society were at one time scorned, and many of them were illegal as well. All progress involves flying in the face of old rules that no longer apply. People ridiculed the Edisons, Henry Fords, Einsteins, and Wright Brothers—until they were successful.You will meet with contempt too as you begin to resist meaningless policies.
Some Typical Should Behaviors
The roll call of “have-to” behaviors could fill an entire book. Here is a sampling of the more common examples of these actions as they surface in our culture.
• Believing that there is a place for everything and every thing must be in its place. The organization syndrome means you are uncomfortable if things aren’t in their designated locations.
• Asking “What should I wear” on a regular basis, as if there were only one acceptable mode of dressing and it is determined by other people. White pants and pastel colors are only worn in the summer. Wool is always a winter fabric, and other similar “being controlled by the seasons” musts that infiltrate your life. (In Hawaii, James Michener describes the New Englanders who arrived in the tropical climate of Hawaii, and when October arrived, even though it was still eighty-five degrees. they habitually trotted out their winter clothes and dressed uncomfortably for six months . . . Why? Because they were supposed to.) Being a slave to the dictates of fashion critics, and wearing only “What’s in” because, after all, you have to fit in.
• Assuming that certain drinks must go with certain food. White wine must accompany fish and fowl. Red wine goes only with beef. Being locked into somebody’s rules on what to eat with what.
• Shifting blame for your actions to others. “It’s really her fault, she made us late.*’ “Don’t blame me. he’s the one who did it.”
• You must go to a wedding or send a gift, even if you don’t like them. You just don’t ignore invitations even when you want to. You may feel resentful about buying the gift, but go through the motions anyhow because that’s the way things are supposed to be done. Conversely, attending funerals that you’d rather not go to, but do because you’re supposed to. You must attend such formal functions to show that you grieve or respect or have the appropriate emotions.
• Attending religious services which you dislike and don’t believe in because it is expected of you and you want to do the right thing.
• Giving titles to those who serve you, which elevates them by implication to a position higher than you. What do you call your dentist? If it’s doctor, is it really just a vocational title? Do you say Carpenter Jones, or Plumber Smith? If it is out of respect for his position, what makes you think his position is loftier than yours? If he is paid to serve you, why is it that he gets a title and you get called by your name?
*· Going to bed when it gets to be bedtime, rather than when you’re tired.
• Having sex only one or two ways because those are the only acceptable ways, or only participating in sexual activities when all conditions are met, such as, the kids are asleep, you are not tired, it’s dark in the room, you’re in your own bed, and on and on.
• Selecting roles in daily living because the culture demands it- Women do the dishes, men take out the garbage. Housework is for the wife, outdoor work is for the husband. Boys do this, girls do that.
• Obedience to silly household rules and traditions that don’t work for your family, such as asking permission to leave the table, everyone eating at the same time when it is more inconvenient to do it that way or bedtimes that are without rationale.
• Following the dictates of all signs whether they make sense or not. No Talking! No Entry! No anything! Never challenging a sign, or even assuming that it doesn’t belong there in the first place. People make signs and people also make mistakes.
• Keeping mattress tags on for years because they say do not remove under penalty of law.
• Always having Sunday dinner at Mamma, although you’d rather not. After all, it is a tradition, and even if everyone doesn’t like it, including Mamma, you must preserve tradition.
• When reading a book, always starting at page one and reading every word to the end, even if half of it doesn’t apply. Finishing a book you don’t like because you’re halfway through it, and, if you’ve read half, you must read it all.
• Women never asking men for dates. After all, that’s the male’s role. Or never initiating a telephone call, or opening the door for a man, or paying the bill, or countless other absurd traditions that serve no real purpose.
• Sending out holiday greeting cards and resenting them. Doing so because you’ve always done it, and it is expected of you.
• Striving for grades in school or forcing your children to do so. Learning not for your own satisfaction but for the symbols that will eventually appear on the transcript.
• Always asking: “Is he/she right for me?” and being regularly perplexed in search of the right person.
• Going everywhere with your partner because it is expected, even though you both would prefer to be in different places at that particular time.
• Consulting a “how-to“ book for everything, because every job must be done a certain way. Not being able to differentiate between manuals that impart useful information and those that merely tell you how things ought to be.
• Is this the right dress, hat, automobile, furniture, salad dressing, appetizer, book, college, job. etc. Being anxious over the search for the right item and as a result being in that indecision and doubt bag.
• Making rewards, plaques, titles, honors and all merit badges more imponant than your own evaluation of your achievements.
• Saying. “I could never be as great as ——”
• Applauding in an audience when you didn’t like the performance.
• Tipping for poor service.
• Sports-fan behavior in which you go crazy over a home team victory or loss, and live vicariously through the accomplishments or lack of accomplishments of athletes.
Part A’: http://www.lecturesbureau.gr/1/the-folly-of-shoulds-musts-and-oughts-part-a/?lang=en
Your Erroneous Zones
Wayne Dyer
Image: Fabien Merelle’s ‘Pentateuque’ (http://www.designboom.com/art/pentateuque-by-fabien-merelle/)
