Where did we lose the grandeur? How do we find it again?

Why are there no classes about being an adult? I can head over to Coursera (I literally just signed up for a class!) and find a class about pretty much any academic subject. I can sit in on a whole semester of classes at Yale, but there is really no place for me to get insight into what it means to be a fully formed person and what that means to me and the other people in my life. Of course a class is not the best way to learn about being human (classes really aren't the best way to learn about pretty much anything), but the extensive resources available for improving leadership skills or broadening project management or some other business skill would make you think that programs in more mundane things would be available to people. You can always go to counseling, but they're always trying to figure out what's wrong with you so they can start to apply their standard treatment rubric rather than really listening to you and helping you figure out what baggage you're carrying around that stops you from doing what you want.

Sure, there are all kinds of self-help books out there, but a book is only as useful as the person reading the book is willing to be honest and actually confront things that aren't very flattering about the way they parent or deal with their spouse. There are lots of websites that will help you learn new habits or improve different aspects of your life. But where do we go when we're struggling with what makes us happy or how to feel more satisfied? Where do we go when we don't like the person we've become or can't figure out why we can't see all the good things that are already in our life? How do we learn to stop striving for more and realize that what we have is already wonderful?

The end of an era

There is a very negative slant to all of these blog entries. The constant rumination on what I don't have is my favorite subject. I've written about how much my job sucks, my short comings as a husband, and my various theories of why my self-perception doesn't seem to match with my reality. I write these things thinking that delving into these things will give me access to some version of the truth that will free me from all of these negative thoughts and tendencies. I can just dive down to the demon and eradicate its sour influence on my life.

I'm just wallowing in the negative version of myself that I wrap around my reality when I write these entries. All my striving has an element of self-loathing. I must work to get better because who I am is inadequate. I don't offer people anything. If I keep working I may eventually get to a point where people will acknowledge my value. 

This attitude is a choice. I can choose to focus on what I don't have or I can focus on all the wonderful things that fill my life. I can choose to apply some kind of external criteria to my life, or I can simply be satisfied with the choices that I have made. At my core, I am very happy with my life, but there's always been a little voice that has chided me for not doing more, for not being better. That voice does not belong to me. It was all the insecurities of the people who influenced me in my youth being passed on to me. There was an overarching emphasis on what we were not as opposed to what we were. 

I choose to reject that view. I have build a great life and I intend to wash away all of the pollution of the negative emotions that have marred my life. I have been angry over what my parents took away from me. It's time to take that back by moving beyond the emotional limits that they helped me build.