Brave New Kitty

Critical thinking is important, but so are emotions. Some people have the misconception that being a critical thinker means being cut off from your emotions, or that reason is somehow a superior substitute for them. Many set up a weird sort of dichotomy between thinking and feeling, as though there is an either-or choice to be made and one must be sacrificed for the sake of the other. Nothing could be less true. Reason and emotion play separate-but-equal roles, each vital in its own realm. The goal should not be to have more of one and less of the other, but rather, to recognize the roles of each and strive to develop both as best you can.

Maybe the reason for the weird dichotomy so many of us have is that people do tend toward one or the other: thinking/feeling is actually one of the four axes on the Meyers-Briggs personality test. So not only is there a gap between thinking and feeling, it is considered important enough to be a defining characteristic of a person’s personality. But just because we gravitate toward one end of the spectrum doesn’t mean we can’t develop the other end, or that it is unnecessary to do so.

A good starting point might be to define the roles of thinking and feeling. Thinking is our primary survival mechanism. Human beings do not have great strength, speed, or stamina, do not have particularly good vision, hearing, or smell, we cannot camouflage ourselves or weather long spells of adverse conditions. What we do have is a highly developed brain, which we use to solve problems. The problems of today are very different than they were when we first began using reason–and incidentally, this “higher class” of problems is indicative of the great success of reason, as it has taken man so far beyond mere survival–but the process is basically the same. The greater our ability to reason, the more successful we will be in solving problems. Since life is one long series of problems to solve (some good, some not so good), success at problem-solving generally means success at life.

Feelings serve an altogether different, but complementary, function. My favorite definition of feelings comes from John Bradshaw: Feelings are tools that allow us to know when we’re fulfilling our needs. Perhaps the most primal example of this is the fight-or-flight instinct. When we’re in danger, fear is always our first reaction because it motivates us to act. In this case, our need is survival, and our emotions–fear and the desire to survive–motivate us to attend to that need. Yes, reason ought dictate how we attend to that need, but the need itself is essentially emotional.

Now, Bradshaw’s work focuses on healing from traumatic childhoods, and his interest in emotions is more about identifying what we want and what makes us happy, but the definition still applies. The point is that emotions signal us of our needs and whether we’re fulfilling them or not. This includes what we want, who we want, if we’re happy, if we’re taking care of ourselves, if we’re lacking something important in our lives; basically, if we’re on track or not. People who live too much in their heads and ignore their feelings can spend years, sometimes a lifetime, doing something that isn’t what they want and doesn’t make them happy. And sadly, you can see such people everywhere you look.

Thus, emotions are necessary, as necessary as our ability to think. You might say that thinking allows us to sustain our lives, but emotions make doing so worthwhile. For example, we can think our way into making good choices, but we can’t think our way into feeling good about those choices; we can think our way out of problems, but we can’t think our way into a sense of well being and contentment from solving those problems; and we can think up new ideas and be disciplined about completing them, but we can’t really think our way into the creativity so vital to that process. In each case, thinking and feeling complement each other, creating a whole that either alone cannot.

People with highly-developed reasoning skills are the most likely to believe they can live an emotion-free life, or that relegating emotions to certain areas–one’s personal life, for example–is a good solution for dealing with “messy” and “undesirable” feelings. People who think this way, though, can be dissociated from their feelings rather than in control of them, and might be avoiding messy and undesirable feelings because they fear dealing with them. They’ve essentially thrown the baby out with the bath water: in repressing scary and unpleasant feelings, they’ve also cut themselves off from good feelings and from the sense of wholeness that comes when feelings working in tandem with reason. Not every reserved, intellectual person falls into this category, but many do, simply because so many of us have unresolved feelings and this is one very convenient way to avoid dealing with them.

Conversely, though, people who act highly emotional aren’t necessarily more in touch with their feelings. Being overly dramatic or easily upset rarely means people have a healthy relationship with their feelings (even though they may make such declarations). More likely, it means they either have unresolved issues lurking just under the surface, or that they have learned to use emotional displays to get what they want (in a rather passive-aggressive form of problem solving). Rarely are big emotional displays or a preoccupation with one’s base emotional desires indications of an emotionally well-adjusted person. Instead, emotionally well-adjusted people are simply comfortable with their feelings and have a good sense of how they fit into their decision-making processes, neither avoiding them or giving them too much power.

Emotions and reason are separate developmental streams, mutually exclusive but equally important. Being on one end of the thinking/feeling spectrum is normal, but that doesn’t mean developing the other area isn’t important. It just means it will require effort that may initially feel uncomfortable, but will ultimately have positive results. When reason and emotion work together, each fully functioning within their respective realms, is when we are operating at our highest capacity.

I’m afraid people will stop liking me if I set boundaries with them. What if they “go away” when I do this?
This fear is also a definite possibility. Sometimes people are so concerned with having the upper hand in their relationships that they deliberately choose friends and even a significant other (sometimes, especially a significant other) on the basis of being the one in control. They are almost always oblivious to this fact, as you are that you gravitate toward these types; as I once heard, “the knots in your head fit the holes in theirs.” That is, it is not a coincidence that poor boundary setters have people in their lives who trounce on boundaries. It’s sort of a pathological version of the yin/yang, an intuitive yet skewed attempt to seek balance where we lack it. The intuition is right, but the methodology is wrong, wrong, wrong. (And this goes for both parties, by the way, so learning to have more equal relationships helps the other person, too–if he’s willing to hang in there with you).

If people go away when you try to set healthier boundaries with them, I say good riddance! We set boundaries so we can have more honest, more respectful, and more satisfying relationships. If people aren’t interested in this, you are better off without them. This may not help deal with the sense of loss you’ll sometimes have to deal with, I know. But take comfort in doing the right thing, and knowing that you’re culling the weeds from your relationship garden–which will inevitably make room for more flowers.

What if these are relatives I still have to have a relationship with?
These are probably the hardest boundaries to set. Often what happens is that these relatives set up a vicious power struggle dynamic and never stop trying to suck you into it and make you feel bad, awful, and terrible for trying to change. The best you can do is sidestep the power struggle completely: never, ever, ever engage! Respectfully say, “I wish you felt differently” or “I’m really sad you feel that way” and nothing more. Let the dead air hang between you. Let the person’s mean-spiritedness go unanswered. You are under no obligation to defend yourself against such childish, self-centered attacks. Eventually, with luck, the struggle will stop and you will be able to rebuild the relationship. If not, you must question what you get from this person that’s good for you; no relationship is set in stone, particularly a disrespectful one, no matter what that person is to you.

What if setting a boundary escalates a confrontation or bad situation?
Chances are people unhappy with the new boundary will try to do just that. But it is not the boundary causing the conflict; it is their reaction to it. If they’ve been successful in the past in getting you to shoulder the blame for problems in the relationship, this will probably be the first thing they’ll try! And try and try!

Here is where you should remember to be respectful, to speak in a low, controlled voice, and to, once again, refuse to engage in a power struggle. When people try these tactics, you are always free to walk away, perhaps after calmly refusing to take up your role in the struggle, as in, “I am not going to fight about this. But I do want to talk about it, so let’s do that when we’re both calmer, okay?” And walk away. Just walk away! Do it a hundred times if necessary, but do it. Because as soon as you engage, you lose all credibility.

Again, also remember that old patterns are hard to break. It’s very very hard to stay calm when you’re being attacked. So if you get flustered and engage, it’s not a big deal. Forgive yourself and try again–and again and again, if necessary. You’ll get it right eventually–but only if you keep trying!

I’m afraid that I might set a boundary and not be able to stick to it. What if this happens?
Being a new behavior, this is bound to happen. Heck, it happens to people who are good at setting boundaries! Circumstances change, people change; none of us are set in stone, ever. If you don’t always stick to a boundary right away, it’s usually not that big a deal. You just pick up where you left off and try again; in some cases, you may have to provide an explanation as to what’s going on, as in, “I know I said this, and then went back on it, and I’m sorry if that was frustrating for you. This is new behavior and I’m not good at it yet.” People will usually respond well to this, but if they don’t, once again you have validation for setting the boundary in the first place.

There is one area, though, where you must follow through on any boundary you set, and that is in the case of threats. For example, do not say, “If you drink again, I’m going to leave you” unless you fully intend to do so and have formulated a plan for doing so. Or do not say, “If you don’t clean your room, no television for a month!” unless you absolutely mean to carry it out. If you’ve ever seen a child throw a temper tantrum in public, chances are it’s because he knows his mother’s threats are idle and his behavior will get her to relent and give him what he wants. If four year olds can take advantage of this, think what adults can do with it! (It’s also worth thinking about, by the way, what kind of adults such children will become, but that is another topic.)

If you want people to respect you, don’t make idle threats. If you say you’re going to do something, mean it.

Even though I know it’s not true, I feel like I’m a bad person if I set a boundary, I think because I know I’ve disappointed somebody. What can I do about this?
I struggled with this, too, and I’m going to deal with it more in my next post, which will be on emotional fallout. It should be of some comfort to know that it is very common, especially for women, to feel like they’re doing something wrong when they start to take better care of themselves; having loved ones telling us we are doesn’t help matters, either. This is where the work we’ve done to gain insight and understanding is helpful; it can keep us going in situations that feel wrong, awkward, scary, and make us want to give up. It’s also extremely helpful to have at least one person, such as a therapist, to encourage and support us in this difficult new behavior.

This is a time to buck up and be strong, despite your anxiety; to do the next right thing because you know it’s the next right thing, regardless of what your fear might be telling you. You’re not bad, you’re not selfish, and you’re not crazy. In fact, you’re good, brave, and wise for wanting to make better choices. So let the old tape run if you must, but try not to listen to it; it can’t help you anymore.

***

Setting better boundaries are basic self care decisions that are in everybody’s best interests. Remember that by setting boundaries, you are giving other people the opportunity to have more honest, more equal, and more satisfying relationships, too. As always, when you take care of yourself, the whole world benefits.

Part of improving your boundary setting skills is discovering what your underlying issues are, which I talked about in my last post. This is important because insight and honesty with oneself are such powerful tools in the quest for personal change (I would go so far as to say that positive change is not possible without these two elements). This next piece of the boundary setting puzzle is about dealing with what happens when we actually start doing it–and not backing down or giving up on ourselves. The goal of this post is to help you address the scary thoughts and feelings that can come up, and continue to improve your boundary setting skills in spite of them. In the interest of answering all those “what-ifs” that can come up and hold us back, I’ve done this in a question/answer format, which I hope is helpful.

I should also note that the type of boundary setting I’m addressing here deals primarily with what I would call an uneven balance of power, and how to correct it. In other words, how to stop being a doormat. There are other boundary issues, mostly centering around impulse control, that I’ll address in future posts–although some of this information should be helpful for those concerns, as well.

How do I know when I’m ready to start setting new boundaries?
Easy. You’re ready when you say you’re ready. The key to setting good boundaries is just like the key to anything else: practice. Once you decide that you want to have different relationships, you can start doing so. You don’t have to wait until you understand all your issues perfectly; if that were the case, nobody would ever accomplish anything! Perfect is the enemy of good here, and often an excuse to avoid doing this scary thing. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to do it perfectly–and you probably won’t the first few times you try. You don’t set out to, of course, but if you lose your temper or hurt someone’s feelings, it isn’t the end of the world. New behavior is just that: new and therefore awkward. So give yourself permission to fail, to dust yourself off, and to try again. And again and again if necessary; this is hard stuff. This is the stuff that apologies are made for. (And I don’t mean for trying to set the boundary! Hurtful words and actions are what require apologies; taking care of ourselves does not.)

I don’t even know where to begin. What’s the first step in setting a boundary?
The first step is to know what it is you want to accomplish. In most cases, this can be stated as, “I want to have better relationships” or “I want to stop feeling like I never have any power in this relationship.” Both fine goals. Or, you can choose one for yourself that feels right to you. But it’s a good idea to know what your goals are before you start the process. This way, there will be fewer opportunities for hurt feelings and misunderstandings.

What if I get so flustered I forget what I want to say?
This is common. Setting boundaries is scary! If you get dumbstruck in the face of conflict, or even just the hint of it, you are not alone. And if this is the case, you have several options. You can rehearse what you want to say in front of a mirror until you know it by heart. You can role play it out with a friend or therapist until you feel comfortable. You can bring someone with you for moral support, or have them waiting in the wings to hash it through when you’re done. You can even write down what you want to say and read it to the person!

Just as you give yourself permission to fail and try again and again, you must also give yourself permission to do whatever works. And the more flustered you think you might get, the more methods you should consider to feel safe and confident in the face of this brave, frightening thing you’re doing.

Are there any rules to follow?
Yes:

• Be respectful, kind, and calm.
• Don’t engage in power struggles or try to justify why your desires are “right.” Feelings are not right or wrong, they just are. Walk away–just walk away!–with or without an explanation; you certainly don’t owe one to anybody who challenges why you feel the way you do.
• Use “I” language, not “you” language, as in “I’m feeling overwhelmed and need to leave now” instead of “You’re overwhelming me.” This keeps blaming to a minimum and can also feel quite empowering.
• If you lose your temper or otherwise screw up, apologize–and mean it. Then try again. Repeat as necessary.
• Forgive yourself when you fall short of any of these.
• Don’t give up.

What if someone gets angry when I try to set a boundary with them?
I won’t lie to you; this is a valid fear and is almost certainly going to happen. Setting boundaries pisses people off. Nobody likes to be told “no” whatever the situation, but especially if you’ve been saying “yes” for years and suddenly, out of the blue (from the other person’s perspective) say “no.” Some of this anger will merely be normal surprise at the changed dynamic in the relationship. This is the easiest anger to deal with: Stick to your guns, firmly but respectfully, and the new dynamic will eventually feel normal to both of you. Some of the anger, however, will go deeper. People used to getting their way don’t like being stripped of this power; this is especially true with significant others, parents, and children, all of whom can go to nasty lengths (belittling, threatening, and name-calling, for example) to try to restore the old power dynamic. Sometimes even co-workers and friends will do this (although you have to question how good a friend is if she resorts to such means). People with the upper hand rarely welcome such change, even if it’s the best thing for the relationship.

The point is, if you want to set boundaries, you must get used to the idea that people are probably going to get angry, and sometimes in ugly ways. You must prepare yourself for this going in. Expect it! Rejoice in it, even! And rather than let their tactics dissuade you, see them as validation that you’re on the right track–that the power dynamic in the relationship is out of balance, and you’re trying to do something about it. Yay!

To Be Continued…

I enjoy watching interviews of people who’ve had a lifetime of success. Paul McCartney, for example, or Robert Plant, both of whom I’ve seen recently on talk shows. They are so comfortable with themselves, so relaxed, and they have an air of confidence that they seem to almost take for granted, but not at all in a vain way; just matter-of-factly. They’re kind, attentive, and they seem very present, yet they also seem to enjoy talking about themselves and how they got where they are. There is little or no sense of self-consciousness.

Of course, you don’t have to be rich and famous to have an air of confidence. We all know people who have a calm centeredness about them, who just seem to like themselves in a natural, unforced, unpretentious sort of way.

I think that’s true self-esteem.

For those of us who don’t have those qualities, they can seem mysterious and elusive. Our fears, anxieties, and preoccupations with our own shortcomings can feel like impossible obstacles to overcome. Yet the truth is, we can have self-esteem despite any shortcomings we may have; they have little to do with each other. (If they did, then no one would have self-esteem, because everyone has shortcomings!)

Self-esteem is, I think, a gravely misunderstood concept. Raising or improving self-esteem is huge business in the U.S., with several billion dollars a year going toward books, therapy, “life coaches,” classes, seminars, training sessions, empowerment lessons, hypnosis, and many other offerings, all devoted to increasing self-esteem. Children have a unique market of their own, including some version of all of the above, as well as esteem-building dolls, songs, television programs, schools, and who knows what else. (But I suppose that is another topic.)

Whether geared to adults or children, these methods are ineffective at best, but I think they can actually be harmful because they distract people from doing the things that actually will build self-esteem. People who use these methods tend to get lost in the messy, me-first quagmire of narcissism and entitlement that today passes for a healthy self-image; I suppose when you go to somebody else to do for you what you can only do for yourself, that’s about as close as you’re going to get.

This might sound strange coming from someone who is an outspoken advocate of therapy as a road to personal development. I still advocate therapy, as well as reading, self-help groups, positive affirmations, and really, any method that increases self-awareness and helps you get at the truth. But this is healing work, and it is a mistake to believe that any of this will actually create self-esteem.

Rather, this work is what I think of as the pre-cursor to building self-esteem. Having grown up in a very unhappy family, I had little emotional support and no role models for healthy self-care or self-love. Early adulthood was a maze of pain which I eased with drugs and relationships. If I hadn’t read a few books and found a good therapist, I probably wouldn’t be around today, much less writing this. So yes, therapy was life-saving for me, as well as getting sober and all the other work I did to heal and get to a place where I wasn’t constantly preoccupied with dulling my pain.

I am proud of this, of how hard I worked to heal and to gain insight, understanding, and self-awareness. I see it as an essential part of my path. But that work in itself did not build self-esteem. I’ve come to understand that while feeling good is important, it is not, contrary to popular belief, an end in itself. Rather, feeling good is merely a starting point from which you can answer the question, Now what? That is, from which you can figure out what you want and how to go about getting it.

This is self-esteem: figuring out what you want and taking action to get it.

I suppose I should clarify: I don’t mean what you want in a materialistic way. I mean what you truly want, what makes your heart sing and your spirit soar. Having the courage to discover and live by your deepest values and pursue what matters to you most.

So, while therapy and support groups and positive affirmations will help you feel better, the only way to build self-esteem is to accomplish something. Self-esteem is born of hard work. Commitment to values. Diligence. Focus. Study. Achievement. Taking risks. Losing your self in passion and excitement for something you love.

Having a purpose.

You don’t have to become the world’s greatest expert in your chosen field, although engaging in a process that gets you excited and makes you sweat (literally or figuratively) will inevitably result in proficiency, and thus, in confidence. Such confidence feeds on itself, creating new confidence to move in new directions and try new things, to see your failures as the logical result of your own effort and thus, as successes; to see your successes as the logical result of that same process, as well (and thus, to remain humble about them). Passionate commitment to one’s values creates an upward spiral that can only have positive results.

The two common factors that all confident people share are passion and a willingness to work hard. Robert Plant and Paul McCartney weren’t born knowing how to write songs and sing, but they both had a powerful drive to become good, and they were both willing to do what they had to in order to be successful. They’ve earned their self-esteem from a lifetime of commitment and accomplishment. We don’t all have to become superstars (in fact, few of us will), but we do all need to earn our self-esteem by engaging in this process. All the affirmations in the world can’t do it for us; they can only help get us to a point where we’re ready to do it for ourselves.

We all have fears and insecurities, and we always will. If yours are particularly bad, then by all means seek help in dealing with them. But know that there is no magical point at which you heal from being human and that, if you wait for that to happen, you deny yourself the opportunity to truly build self-esteem in the only way possible: through the defining of your own values, and the sweat of your own accomplishment.

In Stop Swimming Upstream, I talked about how fighting and avoiding unpleasant emotions saps energy and vitality. But another kind of upstream swim does the opposite, and is essential to personal development, happiness, spiritual growth, or whatever else you want to call the movement toward Wholeness: swimming upstream against the tide of popular sentiment.

We have to conform to certain standards of society. We have to pay bills, obey laws (or engage in civil disobedience against immoral ones), honor contracts, and meet obligations like going to work and taking care of our children. The whole idea of a society is that people must be held to certain standards of courtesy, decency, and respect for the rights and property of others. People unable or unwilling to conform to the basic rules and obligations under which they live tend to have a difficult time of it, achieving little success or worse, ending up in prisons or mental institutions.

But understand that I am talking only about basic standards. While we have to comply to standards in the interest of respecting the rights of other people and the contracts we’ve made with them, we are not in any way obligated to adhere to mainstream beliefs. We do not have to buy in to popular sentiment.

In short, our thinking is our own.

This is a very, very important distinction. Compliance to basic rules of courtesy and respect for others is imperative not only to a functioning society but also to our own self-respect, while accepting ideas–any ideas, but especially popular ones–without first giving them critical analysis brings an abrupt halt to our migration toward Wholeness.

From the time we’re young, we struggle between the polar extremes of conforming and trying to be an individual. We want to fit in, we want to feel a part of, we want the approval of the people we love and respect. Yet we have longings, thoughts, and creative impulses that make us who we are and cry out for expression. Even in a culture like the U.S., based on the freedom and inalienable rights of the individual, there is tremendous pressure to conform to popular ideas, and tremendous courage required to truly break free of the pressures to do so.

I say “truly” because a lot of behavior that looks like an expression of individuality really is not. Anything done to rebel against the norms of a culture is still tied to that culture. If you wear wild clothes, dye your hair blue, or get a lot of tattoos and piercings in an effort to be anti-authority, your efforts tie you to that authority because you are still defining yourself by the standards of that authority; rebellion is simply a different way to be stuck in the popular sentiments of your culture. So wearing an outlandish costume and getting a thrill out of shocking people won’t bring you any closer to the Wholeness you seek. It is far more a hindrance to finding one’s true self than a help, mostly because people confuse one for the other and then stop searching.

No, finding your own way and your own true voice is a prospect that involves moving beyond the norms of society altogether. It is far more an internal journey than an external one, one that involves critical thinking and analysis, answering questions like “what’s important to me?” and “what is my true heart’s desire?” And then figuring out a way to own and act on them. It isn’t about rejecting your society or scoffing at its shortcomings and hypocrisies (which all societies have); it is about following your own internal moral compass. You may end up rejecting your society’s values, and you may end up embracing them, or you may end up doing some of each. The point is that you arrived at your conclusions by engaging in a process of analysis and critical thinking guided by your own, internally-arrived-at values. You respect the rights of others, but you live by your own standards.

Living by your own standards truly is an upstream swim. We are pressured from all sides to conform, and we are ridiculed when we don’t. This is neither good nor bad; it is simply the nature of a society, which we ought accept as part of life. But most people reading this are fortunate enough to live in a society free enough to allow us to make our own moral choices. Doing so requires bravery–bravery to go against the tide, bravery to stand up to all the shame and criticism we are bound to endure, bravery to share our voice with the world, or even make the effort. But it is the people who possess such bravery who make a difference in other people’s lives, who stand as symbols for what we intuitively know to be the right path, who inspire us to chase our own greatness, who go down in history as philosophers and free-thinkers and champions of justice. They weren’t all right all the time, but their earnestness and efforts to do the right thing no matter what made them great regardless.

Our thinking is our own. And we should learn to use it to the best of our ability. If we do not come to hold this most basic value, we will never move past thinking about what other people want from us to finding out what we want from ourselves.

See also:

Leaving the Herd

The Illusion of Nonconformity

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. –Anthony J. D’Angelo

Most people know that President Harry Truman had a sign on his desk in the Oval Office that said “The buck stops here.” It was a reference to the phrase “passing the buck,” blaming other people for what’s going wrong. This was Truman’s clever way of saying that he would step up and take responsibility for the country’s problems rather than find scapegoats to blame for them. I think it was also his way of expressing a guiding principle of his life; if he thought highly enough of it to make a sign out of it and put it on his desk for all to see, then it must have been an important ideal for him. It makes sense that someone capable of holding the most powerful, stressful, difficult job imaginable would be someone willing to make tough decisions and take responsibility for the results. Regardless what you think of some of those decisions, you have to admire the courage required to make them and stand by them.

This is a reminder that the buck stops here is true for everyone. People who take responsibility for their lives seem to have the most success and the most happiness. We all have trauma in our pasts, we all have circumstances and people we wish were different, we’ve all made mistakes we have to live with for the rest of our lives. The question isn’t if we have those things, because everybody does. The question is how we deal with them. Do we step up, take responsibility, and do the best we can with what we have, or do we ruminate over a past, people, and circumstances that we are powerless to change?

It seems like common sense, I know. But it’s amazingly easy to feel stuck and victimized over things we can’t change, and just as easy to ignore what we can. This is particularly true for people with very traumatic pasts. When you are small and powerless and at the mercy of a narcissistic, or even sadistic, adult, it is not uncommon to get stuck in this victim-like place. (I wrote about this here). And even the most ardent responsibility-taking, step-up-to-the-plate, positive-thinking people occasionally get despondent and fall into hopelessness. So what does that mean for the rest of us?

Well, I think the best anyone can do is commit herself to the principle of personal responsibility, and make an effort to do the best job of it that she can. But before you can do that, you must truly believe that this is what will ultimately bring the most happiness and the most success, and that such a commitment is the only logical option. It’s a values thing, really; if you value personal responsibility, and see it as a guiding principle of your life, then despite all the inevitable failings and setbacks, then this principle will guide you in the right direction.

Personal responsibility can be scary because it strips a person of excuses and scapegoats. But this is good news, because it means only you have the power to make your life satisfying and meaningful. You aren’t dependent on anybody else for that. It’s all in your hands. As intimidating as this can sometimes feel, it’s something to be gleeful about. Thank god we’re not dependent on other people for happiness! I shudder to think what the world would be like if that were the case.

Now, it is true that there are many, many things we don’t have any control over. I’ve already mentioned the past and other people. We also have no control over the weather, or the government (for the most part), or whether our employer will remain in business, or countless other things that do, in fact, affect our lives. But we do have control over our attitude toward these people, places, and things, and also over the choices we make about how to deal with them. Nobody holds a gun to your head and forces you to remain victimized by a narcisstic parent, for example; you just have to be willing to deal with the consequences of not doing so (and granted, they can be nasty!). Also, there is no law that says you can’t go to therapy and go back to school at the same time; that is, you don’t have to wait until you’re “healed” to move forward with your life. And if there were such a thing as a cosmic justice system, it would never demand rumination over old wounds beyond that required to heal them; resentment can be a nice (or at least necessary) place to visit, but living there is soul-sapping.

I suppose the truth is that the only thing we really do have control over is our own attitude. But that is enough, because your attitude determines your values and, beyond luck and biology, your values determine everything about how your life will go. Granted, luck and biology are big factors, but your attitude, your values, will also determine how you handle it when the luck and biology don’t go your way. In short, values are everything, and values of personal responsibility offer the greatest opportunity for self-determination in a world of fragility and uncertainty.

So choose wisely those choices that are within your power to make. The buck stops here, at your own feet, and that is a most powerful truth to understand.

Being careful with money is a virtue. Shopping sales, buying in bulk, buying off-season, using coupons, comparing prices–all are wise practices. No matter what your income, frugality feels good. Nobody wants to pay more than they have to for anything. More importantly, being careful with money is a source of security. It creates a sense of well-being, and taking care of yourself this way is as important as any other way you learn to take care of yourself. Knowing you can spend wisely, and even put something aside for the future, brings about a kind of confidence that can’t be had by any other means. Frugality is a way to feel powerful and in control of your life.

But some people have a skewed image of frugality. If you struggle with self-esteem issues, or grew up in a family where you weren’t valued as much as you should have been, then you may have learned to use frugality as a way to deprive yourself. I call this the garage sale mentality.

People with the garage sale mentality have an uncomfortable relationship with money. They have frugality and self-deprivation confused, so their decisions about money tend to be extreme and irrational, rooted in the belief that they are undeserving of good things. But because they aren’t consciously aware that their views about money are the result of deeper emotional issues, they feel pride in their ability to live in scarcity, even if that scarcity might not be necessary. These people are usually women, as it tends to be women women who have the cultural role of running a household and who most strongly identify their self-image with frugality. When such identification is combined with low-self esteem or other self-worth issues, the garage sale mentality is often present.

Here are a few examples. I know many women who love garage sales (and yes, this was how I got the idea for the title). Their houses are cluttered with items that they beam with pride about because of the great deals they got. But the vast majority of these items are unnecessary, taking up physical and mental space for these women, while many of their real needs go unattended. I believe that such garage sale purchases literalize how undeserving these women feel, and how emotionally needy they are. They long to be filled up, but the only way they feel okay about doing so is with stuff they don’t really want or need. By doing so, they feel like they’re filling their emotional needs and creating a sense of economic security (I’m a wise shopper!), but sadly, they miss the mark on both counts, so neither need ever gets filled in a satisfying way. If the garage sale shopping is combined with impulsive overspending, as it often is, the result is a double whammy of shame and remorse that feels truly awful.

Another friend of mine loves clothes. But because of her self-image of frugality, she would never consider buying high-quality fabrics or name brands. For her, it’s quantity that’s important, so her closet is packed full of cheap clothes. Pilled acrylic sweaters and out-of-fashion prints, ill-fitting suits, vinyl shoes and purses that crease and crack after a few uses. She can afford good clothes, but it doesn’t occur to her that it might be better to have half the amount at ten times the quality, that she would look better, feel more confident, and be more comfortable if she could bring herself to buy better clothes. In this case, she takes care of her needs, but she does so with an unconscious sense of deprivation that she’s not only unaware of, but even smug about: she has admonished me more than once for spending “too much” on good clothes, although my clothes budget is a fraction of hers, and she knows it. I don’t know how she rationalizes this cognitive dissonance to herself, but it is no coincidence that this woman grew up in a horribly abusive family. Her attitude toward clothing is one of many ways she doesn’t take very good care of herself, yet believes she’s doing the exact opposite. (The most glaring example is her fundamental Christianity, which she thinks has cured her painful upbringing, but in truth has only re-created its shame and rigidity on a different level.)

Yet another woman I know takes her frugality to an extreme on every front. She has a six-figure income and lives in a big, expensive house, yet spends money on nothing. She has a beautiful kitchen and loves to cook, but she has low-quality cookware and knives which, if you are into cooking, you know are the two essentials for a cook to spend money on! She’s like this with everything: clothes, food, household purchases; hers is one of the few houses I’ve seen that is truly sparse–no books, no plants, few knick-knacks, entire rooms void of furnishings. It wouldn’t be so noticeable except that her husband is the opposite. He would never consider depriving himself of something he wanted. Maybe she’s compensating for him, or maybe she’s just taken her role as household organizer to the extreme in an effort to gain approval from a selfish and critical partner. Either way, it misses the mark, having the feel of deprivation all over it. And once again, there is a smugness about it that also feels off, as there is no reason for her to deprive herself of anything, much less express pride in doing so or derision for people who don’t (which she does often). Maybe in this case, frugality is a manifestation of how empty and unsatisfied she feels in her marriage (which I know to be the case), or perhaps with life in general.

I mean no disrespect to any of these women; after all, I am one of them. I mentioned smugness a few times because I think it is an important element of the garage sale mentality. People who are simply frugal in ways that aren’t tied to deeper issues lack this smugness. They aren’t concerned with how other people choose to spend their money, or at least, their concern doesn’t have a strong emotional feel to it. So smugness or judgment about frugality is a good way to recognize the garage sale mentality, in other people and in yourself.

Other clues that you might have the garage sale mentality lie in how you relate to money in general. Does the prospect of having it intimidate you? Do you keep yourself in low-paying jobs, unable to imagine yourself earning more? Do you resent or look down on people who are financially successful? Do you worry about your economic well-being and secretly believe you aren’t capable of taking care of yourself on this front? Do you feel dread at making a budget, or obsess over it? Do you frequently experience buyer’s remorse, even over small items? Do you scrimp and save for months and then impulsively spend too much on something you don’t need? All are indications that you may be using money to deprive yourself because you feel undeserving of good things.

Money is a charged issue for most people, regardless what angle you approach it from, regardless how much or how little of it you have, regardless of sex, race, color, or creed. The garage sale mentality is just one of many, many issues people can have around money. It doesn’t make you bad or weird or different, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. But if you’re in this camp, or even suspect you might be in this camp, then you may want to develop a relationship with money that feels better and doesn’t involve depriving yourself in unnecessary ways. Like everything else, money is a way we relate to the world, and having a comfortable relationship with it indicates a comfortable relationship with ourselves. It’s a window into self-awareness, and paying attention to it can result in surprising new ways to know, love, accept, forgive yourself.

The unexamined life is not worth living. – Socrates

Another bumper sticker sentiment I’ve always kind of liked is “Question Authority.” But as much as I am against blind conformity, I believe blind rebellion is equally bad. If you don’t practice discernment about what you question, it’s difficult to get to the true purpose of questioning authority, which is to arrive at your own set of carefully-thought-through values.

Of course, a bumper sticker can’t contain all that information. Nor is it supposed to–my personal preference for bumper stickers is humor, as any deeper thought is at high risk for misinterpretation. So, because “Question Authority” fits that category–it’s a popular sentiment that is not very well understood–I’m using it as a jumping-off point to take a deeper look at what it’s really about: values.

Awhile back, I wrote a post called The lllusion of Nonconformity that talked about how people want to see themselves as nonconformists without really being nonconformists, because being a true nonconformist means being seen as “different” or “eccentric.” So they dress up in costumes that give the appearance of defying conformity without really taking the risk of doing so. The example I used was middle-classed Harley-Davidson riders, but this phenomenon goes far beyond that. It’s rampant, really, and the reason it’s rampant is that most people haven’t taken on the difficult process of arriving at their own internal values. And when people don’t have strong internal compasses to guide their decision-making process, then they’re ripe for any marketing campaign that appeals to them.

In an absurd irony–ironic mostly because it works!–one of advertising’s most powerful claims is that buying a product can make you unique. If you drink this soda or wear that brand of clothing or drive this type of car, you’re a freedom-embracing individualist. In this way, what is really quite conventional, establishment-supporting behavior is packaged and sold as individuality. Nobody who brandishes a product logo on his body or vehicle considers himself a conformist. And yet, that is exactly what he is.

Much the same irony is true for people who feel that wearing a costume makes them unique. By costume, I mean shocking clothes or hair, tattoos and piercings, or anything other external trappings that affiliate you with any given subculture. Yet there is no real questioning of authority here; there is simply exchanging one kind of conformity for another. Conforming to a subculture is still conforming. Not to say that you can’t have affiliations and be a free-thinking individual, because of course you can. The issue is how strongly you identify with those affiliations. For example, if you think your costume is proof that you’re questioning authority in any meaningful way, then you’re missing the bigger picture about what questioning authority is really about.

The point is, if you don’t think through what it is you’re rebelling against, you end up rebelling against the wrong things or rebelling against nothing at all. Questioning authority is healthy, but it’s only half of the equation. You also have to come up with some meaningful answers. And that’s the hard part.

How do you decide which authority to discount and which not to? On one level this is easy. You have to meet all of your social and financial obligations. You have to obey laws. You have to treat other people with respect. In short, you have to meet all the basic requirements of adulthood and decency. You also have to decide what parts of conventional culture appeal to you. Do you want children? A career? A college education? Nice material possessions? Some conventional measures of success are appealing; that’s probably why they’re conventional measures of success. Liking nice things, for example, is no more a gauge of your internal values than are costumes–once again, it’s about how you identify with those things.

So these are the easy decisions: conform how you must, and conform how you want to. But the rest is up to you! This is where it gets hard, because the answers lie within, and the only way to ferret them out is with a concerted effort to know thyself and to thine own self be true. For it is only by knowing yourself, your wants and needs, what matters to you, what gets your heart thumping, to the very best of your ability, that it is possible to find happiness.

Happiness is an inside job. You won’t find it in movies or sports or any other sort of popular culture–while such things can sometimes get the juices flowing, they are mostly distractions from the real source of happiness: the inner journey. Introspection. Meditation. Paying attention to your strong feelings. Analyzing and distilling thoughts until they become guiding values. And once you have guiding values, and not until, is it possible to be truly happy, happy in the inner-peace, inner-contentment kind of way that everybody is seeking whether they are aware of it or not. And sometimes, rules are just wrong, and questioning them is how social justice progresses. So questioning authority can result in not only your own happiness, but consciousness-raising for the entire planet.

So by all means, yes! Question authority! Such questioning is essential to a life well-lived. Even if you decide that conventional society is where you belong, then at least you will have arrived at that conclusion on your own brainpower and embraced it on your own terms. Questioning authority should always be undertaken with the intention of finding your own answers, answers that are better than those offered by external authorities–and answers that go beyond external trappings of rebellion, which mean next to nothing. If you don’t have this end in mind when you undertake a rebellion, then you’ve missed the whole point.