Just The Facts

Inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions


What would you do if you were put on a planet and given a life with a big fat question mark for a purpose. Turns out there is absolutely no one or no thing that can tell you what to do or when or even how to hold on to a fuzzy little sensation called happiness. An absolute truth you are given as that your life on this planet is not infinite, you have a good 85 years if you manage to escape thousands of possible deadly illnesses, fatal accidents and stay out of the way of murderous criminals.

You have been given this nifty little gift called free will. This means you have options and you can make decisions! In fact you can make a million decisions through the course of one day out of one year of your life between 100 different options! Or so it goes.

Unfortunately, you are not the only one with this special free will gift. In fact every other fellow human (all 9 billion of them) have this gift too. This complicates things because now you see you have no control over how most of your decisions on all of your options turn out.

So for instance....

Your born a male and you decide your going to wear faded blue jeans, red sox t-shirts most days of the week, and become a professional baseball player. So you choose to go to the right college, play as hard and as much as you can, and yet couches decide you don't have what it takes and neither do the scouts as you are continuously ignored and rejected. All of that hard work utilizing your free will and you got nodda.

So now what?

You decide to go to a trade school, take up a trade and decide to become an electrician, You take the right classes, become an apprentice, become certified and bam you've done it and you even get hired. Free will, you've got it now! You Just chose all of the right options, great. Things are going well with your girlfriend, you ask her to marry you but it turns out she had been exercising her free will to get to know some guy at her job and says something much harsher than "no thanks"

So how do you go through such a life? No instructions, free will, limited life span, and no control over outcomes. Further meaning there is no accurate way to use your free will, no distinct pattern of decisions or right or wrong decisions, your free will plan will be interrupted (for better or worse) no matter what...eventually.

How do you then, with this information decide to live your life the best way possible? What motto or philosophy of life should one follow to live such a life? Can one find a purpose and/or does one need to?

All you have to do is let yourself go

The greatest part about taking counseling classes is that I learn something new about myself almost every day! It's like killing two birds with one stone, I am paying for an education AND therapy!

Yesterday in class we discussed family roles in family systems. (Based on systems theory of counseling). I learned that when the family is unbalanced in terms of a parent who is addicted or suffering from a mental disorder (or other reasons) the family members take on roles to maintain homeostasis (balance). So I am going to insert my situation to explain what I learned. So for instance, my mother who was suffering from some if not several mental illnesses as my sister and I were growing up forfeited the traditional parental role and kicked my dad out of the house while she was at it. This left our family unbalanced. Even though my dad was still in the picture and took me every other weekend (and was still a great dad), he did not live with us and couldn't always be around because of work obligations and my mother's unjustified fury. So my sister took on a role coined in the family systems theory and other psychological theories as: "The little Parent", she cooked me dinner, took me for hair cuts, took me school clothes shopping, made sure I did my homework, and even grounded me if I did something wrong. As a characteristic of this she also became protective and fought my mom or stuck up for me every time she tried to or succeeded in doing something psychologically damaging to us. My role was the "Lost Child" which I fit really well. The lost child escapes any and all conflict which I did every time my mom acted abusively towards us. As the lost child I also never stuck up for myself, at all costs avoided my mom, and never ever yelled back. I cried or hid in my room alone for hours. She left me home alone for hours and often acted as If I was invisible (which to me was better than her being verbally abusive so I was relieved during these times).

So what does this all mean?

Well as a consequence, when the lost child grows up they have difficulty being in deep meaningful lasting relationships. They run and hide at the first sight of conflict or even deep intimacy. My whole life I have avoided conflict and caved at the first sight of disagreement between myself and someone else. I am terrified of intense emotions, especially angry ones. I do have a few long lasting relationships but it seems as if I have done a great job keeping them at surface value, never allowing them to become more intimate or personal. This has especially been true in romantic relationships where I abandon ship every time things became difficult or even just unpleasant. What has forced me to confront these aspects of myself and my past is not only the knowledge I have gained in my class but also in truly wanting to make things work with Luc. Just a few weeks ago I was ready to break it off with the best man I have ever dated or could dream up just because he made one big mistake and things started to feel unpleasant and intense. It was uncomfortable but I stuck through it and now I am happier than ever. It has also made me reevaluate friendships in my life and confront why I have let great friendships fade away or become less sincere. I want to become more intimate with the people I care about, I want to take more risks, and present myself more honestly with them.