Familius

The Industry of Perception

Today’s Guest Blog is by Greg Marshall the author of Bodyfit: A Beginner’s Guide to Fitness, forthcoming from Familius fall 2012.

All advertising is designed to hit your insecurities so that you can purchase things to fix yourself. You know, like the picture of the guy with the perfect abs or the girl with the thighs that do not have an ounce of cellulite on them. But remind yourself that those pictures are airbrushed and digitally enhanced for the specific purpose of attacking your inner core self-value and your self-image to take money out of your wallet and put it into the pocket of Company X.

As a personal trainer, I hate this marketing tactic. It certainly gives people the wrong impression about how they should look and feel. 

I have a friend who works very closely in the Industry of Perception, as I like to call it, and he says that everything that industry does tries to make us believe that we, the general public, are somehow “messed up” and need to be fixed.

I want to challenge you to stop comparing yourself to those photographs in magazines and ad campaigns. It’s okay to like how the pictures look and want to strive to achieve similar attributes, but it is not okay to base your self-worth on those pictures.

We are not “messed up” physically but we are getting “messed up” mentally by giving up on our own potential because we don’t think we can measure up to pictures that are illusions.

Instead, the best way to measure your success is to compete against yourself. Know what specific goals you want to achieve. Know why you want to achieve them.

Look at your core issues and face them. Change your inner dialog. Know that part of the achievement is simply working to better yourself every day. Then focus one hundred percent of your energy on reaching those goals and before you know it you will be there! Healthier in body and mind.

The Law of Gravity

Regardless of whether you believe in the law of gravity or not, if you slip and fall, the law has full power over you and there is no belief or argument or opinion or discussion that can change this fact.

We learn that the power of gravity is like stretching out a blanket and putting a large ball in the middle. The blanket’s space will warp around that ball. If you then place a smaller ball on the blanket it will roll toward the larger ball. Without going into the physics, the larger ball’s mass warps space and the smaller ball inevitably moves toward that space. This is gravity.

If we know that the gravitational force is universal and we have learned not to argue with gravitational force and we understand that there is consequence when this law is broken, why is it that we believe that in our own human relations we can break the laws of respect, fidelity, love, parenthood, responsibility and that there should be no consequence?

Of all the lessons we should teach our children it is this: You are free to choose. You have your agency. However, once you choose, you are no longer free of the consequence of that action.

Choose wisely.

Access

Today's Guest Blog is from Louie Crew of New Jersey and the Lessons From My Parents crowdsourced book project found at http://www.familius.com/1lessons-from-my-parents. It includes a video recording if the author's reading. 

Visiting home from my first job teaching I read an ad in The STAR.

“Want to go, Dad? Isaac Stern is here tonight for the Knox Music Club.”

From 7th grade onward, Dad had sat with me on the hard seats at the high school for all recitals in the Club's season.

Dad's closest classmate in college was Knox S., named ‘Knox’ for his mother's people, who for three generations had brought “culture” to our mill and foundry town.

Mother begged off to play bridge during our adventures.

“Want me to call for tickets?” I asked, excited. Stern was better fare than the Club used to draw.

“I hope you'll go, but I have a confession that only now is it the time to make,” Dad said; “I don't really like classical.”

“But all those times, and you said you liked it!”

He smiled.

“Knox liked it. Other classmates liked it. They had a treasure that would not open for me. I knew you might close your ears too soon if I helped you to.”

Almost I mistook it for hypocrisy, but Stern's recording covers me half a century later in Dad's love.

How to Improve Society

Find more information about strengthening families and society in the Familius article library.

This post may be controversial. Be warned. Last Friday an armed 24-year-old University of Colorado student stepped into a packed theatre where an audience filled to capacity was fifteen minutes into the new Batman film. He was dressed in body armor and carried weapons including tear gas and an assault rifle capable of firing sixty rounds a minute.

He opened fire, killing twelve people, including a six-year-old girl who had just learned to swim, and wounded 58 others.

Yesterday, he began preliminary trials on charges of homicide. It’s doubtful we’ll ever know why he did this or what led him to this atrocity. I imagine his family is in a state of disbelief and wonder what they did wrong. His victims’ families are grieving for their lost family members. No answer will bring them back. Our hearts go out to these families.

When I was a young man, a friend of mine and I dressed in Army fatigues and carried Uzi machine water guns into our high school a few days before school ended. We were seniors and thought it would be fun taking a few teachers and the vice principal (we referred to him as The Terminator) hostage.

We succeeded, including taking over the vice principal’s office and using the school’s PA system to announce to the school our nefarious plot. The teachers, the vice principal, and the students all played along. It was fun. A prank. This was 1986. Had we been born a few years later, the school would have had a security guard or an on-campus police officer, and we would have been shot dead.

What has happened in a few short years where we hear daily of people committing acts of hatred and aggression? I imagine that there are a number of reasons including the disintegration of the family unit, where the natural mentoring process has broken down and people receive tutoring from mediums and teachers that do not inspire or lift. I also believe that the aggression we see has to do with what we watch and experience (regardless of what the authorities say).

It’s inevitable that a certain percentage of those who view pornography will be attracted to act out their fantasies to experience the endorphin release that makes them an addict. Like a drug user, the pornography addict needs harder-core material to achieve the same high. Research this topic. You’ll find enough studies supporting this theory that you’ll wonder why we allow pornography to legally creep from soft to hard to the underground and illegal that is too inhuman to discuss.

Likewise, it’s inevitable that a certain percentage of those who spend time playing violent video games will be attracted to act out their fantasies to experience that endorphin release which makes them addicted to killing people virtually.

I realize that we do not know whether James Holmes was addicted to violent video games. I realize that there are no conclusive studies of whether playing violent video games encourages someone to kill another. (We do have evidence that marathon gaming has killed players in the act of playing long hours without rest or food.)

I write of the overall thread of societal breakdown, where we wonder what the consequence is or the actions will be of those who entertain a steady diet of infidelity and killing. I contend that nothing positive comes from either behavior.

Can we legislate our way out of this malaise? No. John Adams said that the United States constitution was written for a moral people and is entirely inadequate for any other. I do not agree with legislation that removes a society’s freedoms in any way. By having freedom to choose and act we receive the positive and negative consequences of our actions and we are able as a society to correct behavior. Consequence, in my opinion, is the best educator.

The way to improve this aspect of society is through an understanding that filling our minds with prurient and violent material is inviting a percentage of our population to default to extreme negative behavior. We must educate our society, focusing on each generation, teaching children that there is consequence to individual behavior, even if that behavior is in the privacy of their own rooms or minds. Teach them to replace the vulgar with the inspiring. Teach them to replace infidelity with integrity. Teach them that morality is not relative or a moving target. Teach them that there is still right and wrong and that small decisions lead to big actions.

Perhaps we should stand with the late martyr Paul, regardless of religious persuasion, and believe that “if there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report" we should seek after these things.  

Three Ideas to Improve Your Day

Be Grateful: An attitude of gratitude is key when improving one’s outlook. Even in the most trying of circumstances, there are things to be grateful for. Consider Corrie Ten Boom’s story in The Hiding Place. Her sister Betsy encouraged her to be grateful for fleas during her time in a Nazi concentration camp. Because of the fleas, the cruel guards left them alone.

Be Strong: The human body and mind have far more capacity than we often consider. Given time and discipline, the human mind can memorize around 2.5 petabytes of data. This is equivalent to three million hours of television—shows airing constantly for more than three hundred years. Further, humans now find enjoyment running more than 100 miles across mountain ranges in under twenty hours in extreme races. These races gain and lose more than 29,000 feet of altitude. That’s going from sea level to the top of Mount Everest in under one day.

Be Friendly: Abraham Lincoln once said that the best way to destroy an enemy is to make him your friend. By calling your bank clerk by her first name and thanking the grocery checker by his first name and greeting those around you with a smile and a hello, you’ll find that people like you and in realizing that you are friendly, your friendships will increase. And those with friends are rich.

You have much to be grateful for. You have great capacity. And you have friends who will be there for you. Enjoy your day.

The Pursuit of Happiness

“Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.”

--Aldous Huxley

The Power of Thunder

The reason we hear thunder when lightning strikes is because a bolt of lightning heats the surrounding air up to 60,000 degrees Fahrenheit. This is hotter than the surface of the sun. Air heated so quickly violently expands and then contracts. These “mini” explosions create the sound waves we call thunder. This thunder traveling 1,087 feet per second can be heard for miles.

Have you noticed that in your family a violent outburst heats the emotions of those around you and can cause them to explode? We are not immune to the emotions of others. They are like lightning and thunder and can quickly cause the air around us to be significantly charged.

Take care when feeling charged. Your thunder can have far reaching impact and can be heard long after you’ve struck.

“They say all marriages are made in heaven, but so are thunder and lightning.” —Clint Eastwood  

Love is a Battlefield

Last night my oldest son called to tell me he had received orders to deploy to Afghanistan. I remember when we invaded Afghanistan eleven years ago. I was in London, England, working at the London Book Fair. I was concerned that terrorists might choose this international event to make a statement. When our plane left the ground my stress level dramatically decreased and I felt even more secure when we landed back home in Utah. That same month my son turned nine years old.

My stress has returned.  Even though I’ll be in Utah, my son, a combat medic in the US Army, will be in Afghanistan, working to help wounded soldiers stay alive until they can receive adequate medical attention. It’s what he’s wanted to do. It’s what he’s trained to do.

What do you say when your son calls to tell you he’s going to war and  you can hear in his voice simultaneously the echoes of soldier interest in being called up for an important mission and the concern of the reality?

I think that you say, “What do you need?” and “We’re here for you” and “You are a great young man” and “We love you.”

Our lives are intertwined, like thousands of webs. Each decision and path we take causes other webs to vibrate, other lives to engage. If we work hard enough and pay attention, even in the most difficult of circumstances, we can tune our own webs to harmonize with others. It is in these moments where we bond with each other and find where our priorities lie.

“Love is like war: it’s easy to begin but hard to stop.” —Henry Louis Mencken

How to Reap a Character

Maintaining a yard or garden requires that we deal with the weeds.

Some put down weed barrier. This lasts about two years until the weeds grow through it and create a more difficult problem. Others put down mulch. This works for a couple of years until it breaks down and provides decent soil for weeds to take root. Others use a weed spray and kill the weeds. This works but it also poisons your garden and can kill the plants you want to keep.

Others decide that weeding is a necessary chore. Each day they allocate a few minutes to pull weeds. They get down on their hands and knees and pull them, one by one. They put them in a bucket and toss them in the compost. They realize that their garden will have weeds and that working on them every day usually keeps them under control.

Negative thoughts, negative comments, negative attitudes are like weeds. You can try to cover them, but they’ll push through. You can try to mulch them, but they’ll find root. You can try to poison them but you’ll cause more harm than good.

Or you can cultivate a daily habit of pulling the negativity from your personal garden and replacing it with flowers or something else beneficial that might grow.

Sow a habit and reap a character. Sow a character and reap a life.

The Expiration Date for Love

It’s easier to love a family member when they love you back. Or better yet, when they love you first. We’re selfish creatures most of the time.

If you want some traction with a difficult family member, someone you’re struggling to reach, try working on yourself, first. Work to love them regardless of what they do or who they are.

Loving someone else isn’t like a gift certificate. Love doesn’t have an expiration date and should be used whenever the person needs to use it.

“To love another person is to see the face of God.” —from the Broadway Musical Les Miserables