Brave New Kitty

Last night, I re-watched what I’ve realized is one of my all-time favorite movies: Saturday Night Fever. I’d thought I liked the movie for John Travolta’s freakishly talented dancing, or for the foggy, vaguely nostalgic sense of my long-ago self that that era of movie always evokes in me. It turns out, though, that I love the movie because it is an almost perfect portrayal of the classic human struggle to leave behind the safe and familiar and embrace your unknown, untried, un-guaranteed potential.

I was about 12 when the movie came out. I lived in a small town, and it was a 30 mile drive to the nearest theater if I’d wanted to see it. But I had no interest in seeing the movie. In the rock-and-roll versus disco battle (a primary concern for a kid my age in that time), I was already firmly planted on the rock-and-roll side. My idols were Steven Tyler and Robert Plant, not Barry or Robin Gibb, and certainly not John Travolta (although I did like Vinnie Barbarino on Welcome Back Kotter). Disco represented a slick, sleazy, superficial world (or so I assumed) that I hated on principle. Yes, I know in retrospect that sounds silly, coming from a fan of heavy metal music, but that was the dichotomy I lived in then. You had to pick one or the other, and for me, the choice was clear. The fact that the movie stayed in theaters for months on end was a clear indication to me of everything that was wrong with the world. It never occurred to me that it might just be a good movie.

A few years ago, I caught part of the movie on cable. By this time, of course (or thank God, I guess is more appropriate), I’d grown open-minded enough to admit that I actually liked some of the Bee Gee’s music (as well as many other genres), and that I actually enjoyed watching good dancing. And, being a huge fan of Pulp Fiction, I was curious to see the original scenes that the great Travolta dance scene in that movie was paying tribute to. I was surprised to find that I actually liked the movie, and watched it again, this time in its entirety, a few months later, only to find that I liked it even more. I just couldn’t figure out why.

It took a couple of more watchings to get past the absurd polyester clothes and platform shoes, the hard-core Brooklyn accents, and the uber-amazing dance scenes to realize that this was far more than a glitzy dance movie; that it was even more than a look at a darkly fascinating pop sub-culture. Last night, I finally realized that this movie actually addresses universal, mythical themes–mythical in the sense of Greek mythology, as in, concerned with man’s deepest yearnings, greatest fears, and highest aspirations, and the battles he must fight in their name.

Yes, this is a movie about existential anxiety. We watch the hero, Tony, struggle with his own fear and hopelessness about his future, with his unhappy parents who he wants desperately to not be like, with his horror at the thought of being a lifelong clerk in a hardware store—and his tragic, paralytic inability to do anything different with his life. The only time he feels joy, power, and passion for life is when he’s dancing. Dancing is his only escape from his bleak, working class existence; from an environment that neither understands nor encourages his desire for something better. Indeed, he lives for Saturday night and the freedom and power and admiration that his dancing brings him.

It’s a little hard to watch; claustrophobic, almost. You get the feeling that he’s caught, trapped in a world that he has neither the means nor the capacity to free himself from. Yet you deeply hope that somehow this can happen. He isn’t the nicest guy in the world, stuck in the blue collar bravado of the time, yet you know he is inherently good—heroic, even—and you know there is something more to him, something far deeper than the dancing, something the dancing is merely a manifestation of. But is it enough to escape from this small, narrow world? In the end, it’s ambiguous. We don’t know whether it is enough or not. The only thing we know is that he finds the strength, or insight or desperation (I’m not really sure which), to make the effort.

But that is all we really need to know, and that is what makes this movie so perfect. Because, really, the effort is all that matters. The outcome is beyond our control, and embracing this terrifying fact is how we move beyond the limitations we live with and impose upon ourselves. Tony jumps into the unknown and in doing so, he becomes a character of archetypical proportions, showing us all what we need to do if we are to have a chance at any real happiness or sense of fulfillment. It doesn’t matter if Tony breaks free of the world in which a few hours on Saturday night is the only thing that makes it bearable. It doesn’t even matter what his impetus is to try—insight, courage, desperation, or, as is most likely, some messy combination of them all. It only matters that he makes the effort.

Another aspect of this movie that I absolutely adore is that it also doesn’t matter if Tony gets the girl or not. He is in love with her, yes, but that love is an aside to him, not a primary factor in whether or not he finds himself, and it is treated as such in the movie. Love is important, and it has provided motivation for change, but it is, ultimately, not the answer to anything. That answer, we somehow know by the end of the movie, lies within Tony himself. Just as it does within all of us.

Many movies have ambiguous endings in an effort to show that they are about deep, existential themes that really have no answer. Often, this ambiguity feels contrived, like the movie is left unresolved for no good reason. But in Saturday Night Fever, the ambiguous ending is perfect, leaving us with sadness and hope and a deep sense of how well this movie reflects real life. Even if we aren’t able to put into words the poignancy of Tony crossing the bridge into Manhattan, as I wasn’t for many watchings, we still sense the significance of it, and know that it is deeply symbolic of a most significant human quest. The ambiguity–taking on the challenge without knowing the outcome–is the whole point.

Anyway, if you haven’t seen the movie, which came out in 1977, treat yourself. And if you haven’t seen it in awhile, treat yourself again. The dance scenes alone are transcendent, as is the voyeuristic peering into a sub-cultural phenomenon. Even if you don’t get the mythical message out of it that I did, you can’t help but enjoy this movie because it works so well on so many levels. It is as close to perfect, I think, as a movie can get.

If you love someone, little things don’t matter. By little things, I mean the small irritants, personal habits, and quirks that might irk you at times but are otherwise harmless. It is more important to think about the how much this person you love has enriched your overall quality of life. If you can keep that always in mind, you will have a much better perspective about what’s truly important–and are likely to have a happier relationship as a result.

In Stephen Covey’s classic book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” he talks about the important habit of beginning with the end in mind (this is highly effective habit number two). In his introduction to this idea, he asks his reader to imagine what his tombstone will say and to think about how to make your tombstone say what you would like it to. If you can keep in mind the bigger picture–what your overall goals are and that they are based on your underlying values, which you have painstakingly chosen as your own–then you are more likely to act in a manner consistent with those values, and your tombstone will probably read much how you would like it to read.

This is a powerful exercise in its own right, but I think it also applies to relationships. Instead of thinking about your own tombstone, though, think instead about the day your partner and you will be parted by death. I know it’s unpleasant to think about, but it serves a purpose to do so. Thinking about the inevitable end can help you appreciate the precious present and all the time you have together. Not just the good times, but every single moment of it. The key to a happy life, I think, is to learn to appreciate all your moments rather than waiting for the special ones that come along all too rarely. To cherish the dull, the mundane, and the routine as much as you do the exciting and the rare. Finding the magic in the lulls can be hard, but it is there; you only have to learn how.

And let’s face it, there are a lot of lulls in married (or otherwise committed) life. Day to day life with a partner is nothing like the romantic fantasies we all have before we fall in love and commit our lives to somebody. Instead of being a roller coaster ride full of thrills and excitement, it is far more likely to be a mini-van full of kids and groceries. In a very large way, learning to accept this and not be too bored, or annoyed, to continue on with it is what makes a marriage successful.

If you talk to people who’ve lost a spouse, they always seem to regret the harsh words, impatience, and angry thoughts they had more than anything; they always wish they could go back and do those things differently. Isn’t it sad that it can take permanent separation for us to realize how wonderful those moments really were? That we would give anything just to have another one? Or even a not-so-wonderful one, just for the opportunity to gaze upon our beloved’s face one more time?

I am writing about this because it’s something that I need to think about more. I am prone to impatience, intolerance, and annoyance in a big way. Sometimes, I forget the bigger picture and get angry at my partner for things so minor, I would be ashamed to list them here. I know this is part of life, and I can forgive myself, just as my partner forgives me. But oh, how important it is to minimize those moments, and maximize the ones that bring more love and deeper intimacy into my life.

So thinking about that day in the future is sad, but it is useful. Dwelling on it is not necessary, or even necessarily wise, but knowing that it will come can help you let go of the little things that, in the long run, just don’t mean anything at all. Instead, remember why you’re with this person, be thankful for your good fortune, focus on the positive, and ignore all the minor, insignificant, petty little problems and conflicts that happen between you. Everyone has them; character and values determine how you deal with them.

Oh, and please, give him or her a hug—you don’t have to tell them it’s from me.

Sometimes, the hurt, angry people who hurt us, particularly when we were small, caused deep emotional scars and resulted in an adulthood spent struggling with painful, difficult issues: addiction, depression, low self-esteem, and problems with intimacy, to name the bigger ones. Despite having these difficulties, such adults can often get along alright, but they do tend to spend a great deal of time wondering what’s wrong with them and why they feel so numb all the time and/or so out of step with the rest of the world. And often, these adults must maintain relationships with the people who hurt them (namely, their parents or other caregivers), swallowing or ignoring their painful feelings in order to “keep the peace,” thus protecting themselves from further emotional harm.

I remember being depressed for days, even weeks, after spending time with my family as a young adult. I would disappear into a marijuana stupor, preferring that delightful numbness to the raw emotional pain I didn’t understand and didn’t know how to deal with. The truth is, until I got sober, got into some counseling, and began to understand the real issues I was struggling with, the numbness was pretty much a constant way of life; it was the only way I know how to escape how deeply sad, angry, confused, and worthless I felt.

How does a person deal with all of this? And, having dealt with it (or at least, having dealt with a lot of it), is it possible to find earnest compassion for the people who hurt you? More importantly, is it possible to take care of your own needs simultaneously? I think the answer to these questions is yes; and not only is the effort to find compassion worthwhile, it is perhaps the core element of healing from these longstanding, long festering emotional wounds.

When I first started to heal and the reality of my childhood became clearer to me, I identified mostly with being a victim of all that alcoholic rage and narcissism. “It’s their fault I feel so bad about myself! It’s their fault I have to do all this work on myself!” I was extremely angry, but only saw my hurt. I blamed, and it felt good. Fueled by the intoxicating mixture of finally understanding and righteous indignation, I began to fantasize about the confrontation I wanted to have with my parents, about all the things I would say to them about how they hurt me; I wouldn’t have admitted it to myself, but what I wanted more than anything was to hurt them as they’d hurt me. I wanted revenge. Fortunately, I had some wise counsel that cautioned me against actually having this confrontation. “Write letters but don’t mail them,” people told me. “Get it all out.” “Talk to people who understand.” “Give it some time.”

I trusted what people told me, so I did decide to “give it some time,” and words can’t express how grateful I am that I did. I decided that confrontation wasn’t a good idea, at least not while I was still so raw and angry, and that I would find other ways to deal with my messy feelings. When I had to visit my parents for holidays, I spent days preparing for the trip. I planned ways to take care of myself, compiled a list of “emergency” phone numbers, and gave myself permission to leave if things got too bad (which I actually did once, on Christmas Eve, when my father got so rageful I packed up my things at midnight and made the 4 hour drive home). After the visits, I spent days and sometimes weeks de-briefing with my peeps, who cheered me on and helped me deal with my complex feelings about my parents, whom I both loved and hated.

But even with all this positive, self-nurturing effort to make time with my family-of-origin bearable, I still found it largely un-bearable. I would still spiral into weeks of depression after seeing them, and struggle just to get back to where I was before I’d left. So as I learned to take better care of myself, I instinctively created more distance and spent less and less time with my parents; I found I had to distance from my sister, too, whose own unresolved anger came out largely as passive-aggressive hostility that she vehemently refused to acknowledge.

As guilty as I felt about it, I knew the distance was necessary for me to clear my head and figure things out. And once unfettered by the demands of a family that didn’t treat me very respectfully, I began to figure things out with exponential speed and agility. As I progressed down the personal growth path, I began to see that forgiveness was an absolutely essential component of healing, that it was simply not possible to progress past a certain point if you held resentments in your heart. I had to find a way to forgive and move on.

Eventually, I did. Through much soul-searching and many struggles to understand not only my own issues with anger and forgiveness, but to understand these concepts in general, I reached a place of compassion. I saw that this pattern of “hurt people hurting people” went back for many generations before my parents; that they weren’t simply perpetrators that emerged out of a vacuum, but rather, were acting out their own unresolved issues of hurt and anger from their own unhappy childhoods, that my grandparents had done the same thing, and that this pattern probably went back in both my parents’ families ad infinitum. I also saw that this pattern is widely prevalent, and that most, if not all, people–and thus most parents–are at least somewhat hurt, somewhat angry, and always imperfect. We are all to some degree hurting, and we all, to some degree, hurt the people we care about. It is one of the prices we pay for being human.

Understanding all of this didn’t really help with my grief, which I came to see as a separate issue that I would have to deal with on an ongoing basis. And it didn’t really improve my relationship with my parents (now just my father), who still behaved much as they did when I was small–and which is also a separate issue that I will continue to deal with. But the understanding did two important things that have allowed me to fully forgive my parents and move on with my life. First, in understanding the generations-long pattern in my parents’ families, I realized on a deep, visceral level that none of it was personal. Yes, I deserved better. But so did they. And so does everybody. But that’s the way the world works. We deal with the cards we’re dealt, if you’ll forgive a worn old cliche, and we make the best of our situations. Otherwise, we end up expecting something from the world that the world can’t give, bitter and disappointed, and hanging onto the hurt and anger that, while we didn’t deserve it, is nevertheless our responsibility to let go of.

Second, the understanding helped me separate what were my issues–things that I could actually do something about–from what belonged to other people, or to the world at large. As I said, I learned to separate my relationships with my family from the residual hurt and anger I was struggling with. In doing so, I’ve been able to do several things simultaneously: nurture my grief, embrace my anger, and work on my relationship with my family. They are all connected, yes, but in separating them into their own issues, I find that I am able to approach each one with a lot more clarity and compassion, both for myself and for the other people involved.

Thus, through continued healing work on myself, I came to terms with my ancient grief and anger, learned to nurture myself, and, yes, found compassion for the people largely responsible for all this pain. “Largely responsible” might sound blaming, but in reality, it is the simple truth. I can say it with love and empathy in my heart for them, and feel light as a feather when I do.

It’s true that hurt people hurt people. That is, people who are hurting inside are the ones that lash out at others. But I actually think it’s just as accurate, or more so, to say that “angry people hurt people.” Because the source of the hurt in the statement “hurt people hurt people” is almost always unresolved anger.

Sometimes, the unresolved anger is temporary. Maybe a person had a bad day at work and, unable to talk about his feelings there, instead vents his frustration on his spouse, kids, or even strangers in other cars on his drive home. We are all “hurt” this way occasionally, and while we usually have to make apologies for our bad behavior, there are few long-term implications.

Often, though, the unresolved anger goes deeper. Those who habitually fly into rages, say mean things, or deliberately sabotage intimacy with people they care about are just as angry as they are hurt. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is the unresolved anger, not the hurt, causing the bulk of the problems.

The source of the hurt that causes people to lash out is primarily unresolved anger. This can be hard to understand, particularly if the hurt and angry person we’re talking about is you. People don’t have a problem with seeing themselves as having been hurt, but they almost always have difficulty accepting that they are angry because of it. Anger is one of the hardest emotions for people to accept about themselves, and long-term unresolved anger is hardest of all. Even the worst perpetrators you can imagine, from pedophiles to serial killers, tend to identify with their hurt far more than their anger, even when it is obvious to everyone that they are extremely angry people.

Anger is hard for people to accept about themselves, I think, because it was anger that did so much damage to them in their childhoods. They are hurting because of their parents’ cruelty and/or abuse, which are both forms of unhealthy anger. Adults who had these experiences as children tend to have much of their anger fused into one big, horrible lump. To them, being angry means being like their abusive parents. When people see anger this way, in only its bad connotations, it’s no wonder people struggle with it in themselves.

Another reason people can have a hard time accepting their anger is that it assumes more agency than does hurt. Hurt is the sanctuary of the victim, while anger somehow involves personal responsibility. In the minds of people who have anger fused with rage, cruelty, and abuse, being angry somehow implies they deserved what happened to them, maybe because, as I said, they believe it makes them like the people who hurt them. Of course neither of these are true, but when the only anger you learned as a child was terrifying, this can be hard to differentiate as an adult. It is, however, very important work to do.

Anyway, in thinking about why people hurt other people, both hurt and anger are, inevitably, involved. The solution is not to focus on the hurt and ignore the anger, because that means disowning and rejecting a large part of who you are. When you do that, you will never resolve all the unresolved feelings, and are thus doomed to repeat the cycle. Hurt people who continue to hurt people are sitting on a lot of unresolved anger that needs to be dealt with if they are to ever stop hurting inside–and stop hurting people they care about.

Of course you’re hurt if you grew up with abuse and/or neglect, or even just with parents too narcissistic to tend to your tender emotional needs. But of course you’re angry, too. Anger is the normal, natural, healthy response to disrespectful treatment. Such healthy anger is something to be embraced and cherished; it is a sure indication of self-love, and it is quite healing to be in touch with it. It is not something to be pushed away, ignored, or ashamed of. If you can own it in yourself, and are able to differentiate this healthy anger from hurtful anger, you will have gone a long way toward ending that awful cycle of hurt people hurting people. If you can see it in others, you will be able to deal with the behavior in a more constructive way, taking good care of yourself while still having compassion for the hurt, angry person in your life.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.–Victor Frankl

If you’ve never read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey, you should consider doing so. (And if you read it fifteen or so years ago like I did, when it was at the height of its popularity, you should consider re-reading it.) You might think it’s a book about succeeding in business, but it is not that at all. It’s a detailed, step-by-step description of how to live a principle-centered life.

One of my favorite exercises in the book is creating a personal mission statement. You know what a mission statement is: it’s a statement used by some entity, usually a corporation, that boils down their business philosophy into a few short phrases or a bulleted list. A typical mission statement might read something like, “To provide optimum goods and services to our customers, to treat customers and employees fairly, and to act in an ethical and responsible manner in all our endeavors.” You might think a mission statement is meaningless business speak made up by company executives so that their employees and customers think they have morals. In some cases, I’m sure that’s true. But when done in a true effort to distill beliefs down to essential “first principles,” a mission statement can be an immensely worthwhile effort.

Covey explains the purpose of a personal mission statement, which falls under the Second Habit: Begin With the End in MInd. He says, “The most effective way I know to begin with the end in mind is to develop a personal mission statement or philosophy or creed. It focuses on what you want to be (character) and to do (contributions and achievements) and on the values or principles upon which being and doing are based.” He goes on to compare the personal mission statement with the Constitution of the United States, saying that “The Constitution of the United States is the standard by which every law in the country is evaluated. It is the document the president agrees to defend and support when he takes the Oath of Allegiance. It is the criterion by which people are admitted into citizenship. It is the foundation and the center that enables people to ride through such major traumas as the Civil War, Vietnam, or Watergate. It is the written standard, the key criterion by which everything else is evaluated and directed.”

This is how a person should look at creating a personal mission statement. It is your Constitution, a statement of deeply held personal beliefs and values that guide you through your life, help you live by your own chosen standards, and enable you to pursue and achieve the goals that are most important–because they are based on your values–to you.

How do you go about creating a personal mission statement? Without stealing all of Covey’s wonderful details, which you should read for yourself, I will say that you must begin with personal responsibility, with the idea that you, and only you, are responsible for the beliefs you hold and the actions you take. Whether or not your beliefs have been influenced by others is irrelevant at this point. You can deal only with what you have at hand, and it is your responsibility to do so. If you do not invest in this idea, you won’t really be able to soul-search in the way necessary to come up with your own most deeply held beliefs and principles.

Once you accept ownership for your life, then you must ask yourself, What do I want to do with it? What’s important to me? Why? What do I need to look at more closely? What do I want to change? What makes me truly happy and proud?

This process will not (and should not) be quick, and it should not be easy. As Covey says, “the process is important as the product.” Going through this process forces you to think through your priorities deeply. It heightens self-awareness and makes you think through your daily, routine actions with a new perspective. Ideally, it will help you align your behavior with your beliefs. It should take weeks or even months to write a personal mission statement, and in the end you should have a document of principles and values that will largely determine your desired path, will guide you down it, will steer you back to it if you stray, and will provide stability and even comfort in times of crisis. Your personal mission statement should be to you what the Constitution is to the United States.

As your personal Constitution, the mission statement should address your important concerns, but it should address them from a universal rather than a detailed perspective. It should be based on principles like honesty, perseverance, kindness, continued self-improvement, and the like. Goals and details about how to achieve them are important, too, but they must come after the mission statement, which provides the foundation for determining and achieving them.

I read The Seven Habits in 1994. I’d forgotten what a great book it was. Looking back now, I see that many of my beliefs about personal responsibility and the importance of leading a value-based life (or “principle-centered,” as Covey calls it) came from this book. In fact, I was so impressed with this book that I did something I almost never do: I took Covey’s advice and wrote my own personal mission statement. I took my time and put a lot of thought into it, just as he said, and when I was satisfied with it, I printed it and framed it and hung it over my desk, where I could read it every day. And I did, indeed, use it as a guide and a reminder about what really mattered to me.

My life has changed a lot since I wrote my personal mission statement in April of 1994, and I’d long since packed it away and forgotten about it until recently. There are a few things I’d change, but for the most part, it still stands as a “constitution” for my personal conduct and values. I’ll share it now, as an example of what a personal mission statement might look like:

I will:
Strive for personal growth.
Be here now.
Forgive myself.
Think positive.
Live in the solution.
Be a loyal friend.
Remember that people are the most important.
Use my pain to help others heal wherever possible.
Eat right, exercise, and take care of myself.
Be honest.
Be helpful without seeking reward.
Be willing to work toward goals.
Forgive.
Strive for ever deeper levels of love for others and myself.
Be tolerant, compassionate, and nonjudgmental.
Take risks and expand my horizons.
Be financially responsible.
Practice gratitude for all that I have, and all that I don’t have.
Believe that I’m doing the best I can.
Be a good worker.
Be true to my own ideals.
Build people up, not tear them down.

April 1994

The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives–Anthony Robbins

From Dictionary.com:
Respond: To reply or answer in words: to respond briefly to a question.
React: To act in response to an agent or influence.

Responding and reacting are often used as synonyms for each other, but there is a subtle difference between them. Subtle, but also significant, particularly in the context of interpersonal communication.

Responding means to simply answer a question, share a thought or opinion, or otherwise engage in conversation. It is a simple description of how people engage with each other. There is no negative connotation. Reacting, on the other hand, usually has an emotional charge associated with it: a person can “react positively,” “reactive negatively,” or “become reactive” to a situation. A person doesn’t “overrespond,” she “overreacts.” In general, responding is neutral to good, and reacting is negative.

The reason for this lies in the definitions of the words. When you “respond to an agent or influence” rather than simply “respond to a question,” your response is a direct result of that agent or influence. You are not a “free agent,” so to speak; rather, you are controlled by the thing to which you are reacting. In conversation, “agent or influence” means whatever the other person is saying.

Here’s an example. Say you are having a discussion with your spouse. You are talking about what to do on your upcoming vacation. Your spouse suggests a place–his home town, let’s say–to go that he knows you won’t like. He knows this because over the years, you’ve had many conversations about it and he knows your feelings. But he suggests it again anyway, and you immediately feel that anger hot in your throat, and you think to yourself, “Why is he doing this again?” A response would be, “No, I don’t want to go there because it wouldn’t be fun for me.” Said in a calm, even voice, perhaps followed by an explanation. A reaction would be, “How can you even suggest that? You know I hate staying with your parents! How many times do I have to tell you that I do not want to do that? Don’t you ever listen to me?” Spoken in a loud, high-pitched, or otherwise un-calm voice.

A response is even keel, a reaction is emotional. But the important thing to notice is that the internal response was the same. In both replies, the person was annoyed that her husband would suggest doing the same thing yet again when he knows it’s not something she’d enjoy. Her feelings are identical, but in one case she controlled her reply, and in the other, her reply controlled her.

The main difference between reacting and responding is emotional self-control. A calm response doesn’t mean you aren’t having big feelings, it means you are in control of those big feelings. The agent or influence is still there, but it no longer has power over your behavior. You still have your feelings, you just don’t allow them to control how you interact with people.

Another way to say this is that you’ve shifted agency from an external place to an internal one. When you learn to respond rather than react, what you’re really doing is taking ownership of your actions. Rather than hold other people, places, and things responsible for your behavior, you hold yourself accountable. Such accountability is a fundamental building block of all personal change.

I am a very reactive person. I grew up in a family where explosive volatility was the norm, and I am extremely thin-skinned and prone to big emotional reactions when I feel I’m being treated unjustly or disrespectfully. I have had to work very, very hard at controlling my emotions, and I still occasionally fail. It’s something I’ll have to work on for the rest of my life. But I know now that, no matter what the catalyst, only I am responsible for how I behave. Blaming external entities is pointless, an unwinnable game. And this is true even if someone truly has done something thoughtless or cruel to hurt me: you can’t change events, you can only deal with them.

Learning to control your reactions not only improves your relationships with other people, it is a source of personal pride and self-esteem. It is another mark of mature thinking, and a sure way to bring more respect, trust, and honesty into your life.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.–Voltaire

“Faith” can be a problematic word. Some believe that fervent faith in a particular god or philosophy is imperative to personal happiness and solving the world’s problems. Others, such as atheists, think faith is a dirty word, something for weak-minded people who can’t or won’t think for themselves.

I think the truth is somewhere in between.

Dictionary.com gives three definitions for faith, as follows: 1. Confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another’s ability. 2. Belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact. 3. Belief in god or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims. We can ignore number three because it is essentially a restatement of number two. Thus, faith can mean confidence, or it can mean belief without proof.

The first meaning of faith, confidence, is a good use of the word. If people are to achieve success in life, it seems to me that a primary prerequisite is to believe success is possible. In this sense, faith means belief that you can achieve your goals. You have confidence in your–or someone else’s–ability to do something; you have faith in your—or their—potential.

The second meaning of faith, belief without proof, is where the word can get problematic. In terms of people, believing the best about them even without proof is still an admirable attitude, as long as it doesn’t mean tolerating disrespect. But that’s pretty much where the positives end. Belief without proof that people are bad or undeserving, for example, is awful for everyone concerned. And beyond the realm of human goodness and potential, belief without proof in anything—any idea, philosophy, theology, polemic, or god—puts severe limitations on a person’s ability to think critically and reach his or her greatest potential. And this is true even if such faith is shared by millions of people.

To summarize, faith in people is good, but faith in unprovable ideas is bad. By “good” I mean that this kind of faith is a net positive. It will have positive results even if you, or the person you have faith in, don’t quite reach your goals. This is because it is never wrong to believe in the best of people, in the potential for good we all possess, even as you guard against the worst. Such faith makes the world a better place to live in.

By “bad,” I mean that faith in unprovable ideas is a net negative. Belief without proof in external ideas has all sorts of unpleasant side effects: dogmatism, intellectual dishonesty, demonizing of “non-believers,” insecurity that causes people to foist their opinions on others, and closed-mindedness that results from the need to avoid threatening ideas–and when proof is lacking, threatening ideas are plentiful. Such faith, in my opinion, makes the world a much, much worse place to live in. It keeps people in small, dark, narrow little worlds and, somewhat ironically, can keep them from achieving their fullest intellectual potential.

Where does that leave us, then, in relation to the world of ideas and philosophy? Are we to dismiss all philosophical and spiritual ideas because of their intangibility? No, of course not. Our ideas make us human. We all need something to believe in, something to have faith in. But we should strive to pick what we believe in very carefully.

Just like many people pick romantic partners for the wrong reasons (fear of being alone rather than waiting for a deep connection, for example), and then end up in relationships that don’t make them happy, I think many people do the same thing with faith. They select an idea—often a religious one, but other ones, too—to believe in because it feels “good” or “right.” It might alleviate their anxiety, promise a positive outcome to life, offer a ready-made sense of belonging, or declare unconditional love and forgiveness to those who believe. Their faith in the idea can grow strong, but it is based much more on what they want to believe rather than in any actual evidence. If you’ve ever wondered at the fervor true believers have in ideas that seem so obviously lacking rational foundations, here is the answer: those beliefs satisfy emotional needs, not intellectual ones. When people find something that makes them feel better, they will often hang onto it with great tenacity, and in the face of vast contradictory evidence. The intellect, rational thinking, is not part of this mindset, even though they often believe they are being rational.

Such faith generally comes at a high price. The intellectual dishonesty such faith requires drains a person of vitality and spontaneity and squelches innate human curiosity. Rather than being able to pursue new thoughts and ideas freely, people must constantly gauge whether new ideas are threatening to their faith and act accordingly. The happiness they have is fragile, like a house of cards they must constantly keep upright. I am always amazed at how well people are able to do this; many can keep it up for a lifetime, happily ignoring evidence and skewing events to fit into their version of reality. Never underestimate the human desire for emotional security!

Ideas or philosophies that offer a sure thing without actual proof should be immediately suspect, and putting your faith in such ideas is like getting off a bus in the wrong neighborhood: it means a much farther walk, a lot more effort, and a higher probability of getting lost. There are very few sure things in life, and there is a lot of money to be made by offering people false hope or security. When seeking out emotional and intellectual truths, skepticism is your greatest ally.

I believe that the greatest comfort lies in truth. The truth is not always pleasant, and it is rarely what we want it to be, and it is usually hard to discern, and it is a lifelong, never-ending task to do so. Ambiguity lurks around every corner, and intellectual tenacity is essential. It’s a much more demanding way to live than settling for certainty; there is little comfortable about it at all, in fact—except for the knowledge that you are a seeker of truth, which I believe is the only comfort that matters. Really, there is no other option for an intellectually honest person.

So if we want to choose truth-seeking as a way of life, then what do we believe in? Well, I suppose we believe in truth-seeking itself. We believe in our own ability to think and use our minds, and we do so by reading, researching, critical analysis, then reading some more. We accept theories and ideas if they meet our intellectual criteria, but only on a contingency basis, until we can replace them with better, more complete theories and ideas (which, as I said, is a lifelong process). We do our best to apply this method both inwardly and outwardly, to understand ourselves and to understand the world. We even use this method in our spiritual seeking, which, I promise you, is much more satisfying from an intellectual rather than an emotional point of view. Perhaps most of all, we accept doubt as equally important as faith—and save our faith for ourselves and the people we care about.