Can't Follow My Own Advice

I am closing my practice, basically.  Tomorrow I go and pack some boxes.  Next week i head to the water's edge.  It will be my job to make sure the tide comes in on time.

My mind is just beginning to take a different shape.  Sometimes I wonder if I will ever stop thinking about the work I have been doing for the past forty-two years.  Sometimes I wonder if two months from now, I will think about it at all.

Briefly, and I am sure I will elaborate upon this many times, one of the things I have learned is that we are all a product of our genetic make-up, mixed with all of our experiences. We are shaped by those things to the degree that we can never easily become something else.  The forces that have shaped each of us, individually, are so strong and pervasive that we don't even realize what they are.  They are so much a part of who we have become..

Try these:
You like watching sports, or playing sports, or you really think it's a total waste of time.

You think Obamacare is ruining America.
    You think people who think that are morons and bigots.

You love to watch The Bachlerette.
      Why would anyone ever watch that show?

There is no moral justification for a woman to get an abortion.
     Why should a woman be forced to radically change her life just because she had sex and got pregnant?
             Or maybe you don't think about abortion much, and really don't want to bother now.

and even this one:
   Jihadists are all crazy. How can anyone ever get so co-opted.
            The infidels, with their new ideas, have insulted God, and they must learn to respect God and his laws or the whole world will suffer.

These are just a very few of the ideas about which many people tend to disagree, vehemently. Yet, I have learned from dealing directly with all sorts of people, that very few of the folks who feel any way about any of those topics are truly evil people.  Yes, there exits a small percentage of narcissists and sociopaths, but those are really very few.

The overwhelming majority of people are convinced that the world is the way they experienced it.  They have learned, mostly from their family and community, to think and believe as they do. They have learned that it seems right to be religious, or not religious.  There are Capitalists and their are Socialists, and there are a lot of people who don't know the difference, or really care.

There are people who believe all kinds of "crazy ideas."  Many of them think that what I think is crazy ( including this). They will continue to stick with their ideas and values, especially if doing some gives them some measure of belongingness, happiness and comfort.

So what?

So, my advice is this: try to spend some time with people who are different from you.  You don't have to agree with them, but you have to respect what they think and do.  Try to discover what forces made them this way.  Try to understand.

If you do this you will really learn how the world works.  You may learn something about how to make it better --- if you can decide what "better" is.

From my many years as a clinician I know this is true.  Can I do it?  Do I really live this way?
Of course not.
Although I rarely show it, I have very little patience for those who disagree with me.
I think they're idiots.

But now, I think I'll try; hopefully, sometime soon.