5 Keys to Understanding Why Your Life (probably) Sucks #5
For each of the first four reasons why your life
(probably) sucks, we highlighted some underlying factor as
the cause. For our fifth and final reason, however, such
is not the case. The fifth reason why your life (probably)
sucks is:
You are the child of your parents
Before you accuse me of parent-bashing, let me explain.
The role of parents is a vital one in the life of any new
born infant. (I’m using the term ‘parents’ in the sense of
primary care givers) Parents provide everything the child
needs to grow and develop.
Along with the absolute necessities of life (food,
shelter, a secure environment) parents provide a set of
values and beliefs and a sense of self to the child.
And where do those things come from? Parents can only
pass on to their child what they themselves have. So the
values and beliefs, that sense of self passed on to the
child are those of the parents, who in turn received them
from their parents who received theirs from their parents
before them.
I don’t for a moment wish to deny the influence of the
social norms within which a family lives. However, that
set of values and beliefs, that sense of self are fairly
well established in the child by the age of six, before the
world outside the family unit has much influence in the
child’s life.
Maybe you have had a great relationship with your parents.
They are, in deed, very important people in your life. But
I can say with little fear of contradiction that your
parents set of values and beliefs, their sense of self,
while it may have worked for them, was not perfect. No
one’s ever is.
When it comes to the area of self-esteem there is every
chances that your parents were not even aware that such a
concept existed. That is because it was not until the work
of people like Abraham Maslow in the 1950s that self esteem
came to be understood as the influencing factor that it is
in people’s lives.
That is not to say self esteem wasn’t a factor in how
people lived before that. It simply wasn’t understood or
recognised. Now there is more to self esteem than I can
include in this piece, but simply put self esteem is “the
view or picture you have of yourself as competent, worthy
and lovable” and it is my firm conviction that self esteem
or lack of it that is at the basis of all the issues we
face as a society.
You see, I believe life doesn’t have to ’suck’. I’d even
go so far as to say it’s not meant to suck. In fact, I
also believe that life is the prize we all have for winning
the egg and sperm race! ( You just knew we had to get to
talking about sex sooner or later). So if your life is
less than what you want it to be, there is a way forward,
there is a better way of doing things.
But you are the only one who can change your life. I can’t change it for
you. Neither can your lover, your best friend, your family
or your fellow workers. The rest of us are so busy living
our lives that we just don’t have the time or ability, even
if we did have the desire, to change your life. So, if you
want your life to be better than what it is right now, the
next step is up to you. I look forward to seeing you “in
the good life”.
Graham Hunt is the founder of Prentis Carpenter Center, an organisation established to resource an environment where those people who chose to do so could discover and work towards their potential. One way in which Graham is doing that is through his website http://www.higher-self-esteem-site.com/ . Drop by anytime.
