Opportunity Knocking?

John got up in the morning as he did every day and began his normal process of going to work. He was immediately stressed out; which, as he thought about it, was becoming too normal. He had to make sure he would be home earlier today which meant doing the same job faster. His wife needed him to watch the kids so that she could go out with the girls for some much needed respite of her own. So off he went managing calls and customer service issues.

He had trained himself to either smile or have a concerned face when he was being yelled at depending on who was watching him or what the issue was. He wanted to be the guy that everybody could count on. He was very agreeable to help wherever needed. He was raised that you “need to be trustworthy” and you “can only truly count on yourself.” He had an answer for just about everything it seemed. He made sure not to come off as a “know-it-all” and he had developed a reputation in which people regularly came to him for advice. But today he had no time for that! He had told himself as he often did “it’s ok to say no.”

Somehow yet again he had ended up pushing it so tight that he was running late to get home. His eyes darted to the clock in the car as much as to the road. His wife would definitely be mad. He had already heard his phone vibrate twice indicating received text messages. Getting home he immediately went into “dad mode” running the kids through their paces of picking up their toys and getting dinner ready. The looks his wife had given him as she left filled the void of any angry verbal communication. He put the kids down for bed having been on the go non-stop when he got home. He wondered how his wife did it all day.

He was about 15 minutes into his favorite show with a glass of wine and his wife came home. She had been crying and she said, “we need to talk.” Anxiety filled his world. He felt the all too familiar “concerned face” coming on. She used words like detached, selfish, thoughtless, uncaring, never there. It didn’t make sense but he could see how she thought it did. “She’s just emotional right now” he thought, “it will be better tomorrow” but “I do need to be more obvious in my love toward her.

We can all identify somewhat with this life pattern. John is an opportunist. He lived his entire day as someone else’s tool to be used to fix this or that. Because his family is connected directly to John they also become sacrificed just as he has sacrificed himself. Why do I say “opportunist”? Emotional opportunism is denying yourself basic limitations while at the same time looking to feel acceptance and peace in your soul/personhood. Essentially it is living with the belief that you are unacceptable thereby agreeing to fulfill other peoples requests with the hope that that will make you acceptable. Acceptance is a strong longing. It means: “You are ok, you and I are ok, you are important to me, you can rest and be at peace.” Our inner being longs to be held, nurtured and to rest.

John puts his need to be accepted by others above actions of self-respect. The ironic problem this creates is that without self-respect whom would the others BE accepting? There has to be someone to accept! John created an image long ago that he continues to reimagine. His image was based on what he thought was valuable based on what he witnessed other’s caring about. People like John are usually self-reflective, analytical with a strong intuition to read people and situations.  It is likely that John saw two people interacting and saw the effects of how the words or actions affected the other and decided to like or dislike that. Slowly he made that a part of how he was going to be. It was an attempt as he was growing up to understand the aspects of his inner world that his parents either couldn’t speak to, didn’t understand how to explain, didn’t see, or chose not to care about. So he looked at what seemed to matter to others and began to craft his world in light of that.

The problem is that as he did that he became more and more focused on the validation of others rather than his own truly core values. Moreover, he didn’t even understand some aspects of what he actually valued. He somewhat didn’t even know himself. Even answering a question, “what do you want to do tonight?” is not a simple answer because on the one hand he doesn’t know and on the other he knows his spouse will not like it if HE say’s “what do you want to do?” Ultimately his quest to be accepted has placed him into a corner in which it really does matter WHO he is.

His wife has connected to who she thinks he is. And let’s be honest she does know parts of him better than he knows himself. This is because SHE has already accepted those parts! Irony… Therefore when he does not accept who he is he is not only sacrificing himself he is also sacrificing his relationship with his wife. Essentially she goes down with the ship. Oh by the way we can tack the family on with that as well. The less of him that there is to go around the less of him there is to go around.

In our example John does understand what he needs to do but for some reason he is unable to do it. Boundaries…The fight for acceptance truly is hard. Honestly we need to look in the mirror start believing and accepting our faults and then and only then can we begin to change them.