[photo by Fabiana Zonca]There are some things everyone thinks they’re naturally good at like building relationships, raising children and thinking. Because these are things which can and do happen without much effort on our part, we rarely think we need to do anything to improve them.
One would hardly think of taking a job as an engineer, an automobile mechanic or an economist without formal training. Well, maybe an economist. But in general there are skills we regard as requiring training beyond what the average person would consider common sense and some we don’t.
Yet, it is often the most important activities in our lives we leave to gut instinct.
What could be more important than the ability to develop close, meaningful, mutually supportive relationships with those around us?
What professional success trumps raising happy, emotionally well adjusted children?
What could be more useful than the ability to think better?
The secret lies in what is not seen; the results of paths not taken and the insights from thoughts not imagined, the influences of forces beyond our control. Combine this with the lack of an immediate feedback loop and the unpredictability of other people’s behavior and we have all the elements necessary for self delusion.
We can continue to believe we’re good at building relationships even when we’re not because sometimes, by chance, we find people who are so tolerant and kind they are willing to put up with our socially juvenile behavior. We don’t know what it’s like to be in a caring, mutually fulfilling relationship so we think we’re doing okay.
For most of human history the feedback loop for successfully raising children was their survival. Your children lived to adulthood, job well done. I think we can and should have a higher standard for success. People put more thought into learning about their professions than learning about being good parents.
Too often we don’t think about improving something we already think we do well enough. When it comes to something as invisible as our thought processes, we’re convinced we do it as well as the next person. But in what other activity in life would we assume our inherent, untrained ability is the best we can do?
I believe we need to consciously determine what activities are important to us and apply ourselves to becoming good at those things. Merely being able to have a thought, or physically protect a child, or find a person we can get along with I say is insufficient.
We can do better at the things which matter most.
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