Do we shape the world or does the world shape us
This is a very interesting question that you have asked. I commend you for asking it.
I will first offer in common man’s language from a transactional analysis perspective and then answer at the end.
Our relationship with the world is bilateral.
Our life begins in childhood. Our parents and caretakers are the only persons who interact with us mainly - atleast till we are five years old. Our siblings start interaction around three years of our age. Their interaction is nominal.
Our parent’s treatment meeted to us shapes our personality. This process continues till we are 25 years old. (1)
- In childhood - Our parents
- In school - The significant teachers
- In growing years - our peers
- In teens - our significant elders
- In late teens - our peers / teachers / professors / employers / world at large
Our need is to survive and perform. We are cornered on many occasions at least in our early years of life. Our capacity to think, to feel, to belong, to love and be loved, to be close, to perform, to succeed, to be important, to enjoy our sexuality, to feel growing or grown up / or to feel small and young, to have a distinct identity, and in the extreme to exist and be sane are mildly, moderately or severly imposed due to parental pressure. (2) Our need to survive and perform is accordingly affected. We make some choices in this regard. They stick on till we are of old age in most cases. In addition to this we are sort of taught to feel certain feelings and not feel certain feelings. The feelings that we learn in this manner are to feel angry, hurt, pained, sad, afraid, cornered, victimised, good, good for nothing, bothered, blamed, and many more. What is the result of this. No matter what environment we face we feel the feeling we are trained to feel. Many people report feeling different feelings and emotions in the same circumstances. But they all mostly feel the feeling they feel in many different circumstances. Our personality is thus formed. With personality comes attitude. Our attitude shows up by the way we perceive, evaluate, assess, and draw conclusions. Our attitude may be parent-like dominant or child-like dominant or age appropriate grown up adult like dominant. It could be prejudiced, or deluded, or suspecting or biased or non accepting, or aggressive or assertive or sympathetic, or asympathetic.
Thus we understand the world according to our programmed personality. (3) The world, events, happenings, incidents, and people are what they are. We interpret them as per our personality structure and respond accordingly. People in the world also treat us in response to our behaviour and their interpretation of our behaviour.
Now I answer your question: Do we shape the events or do the events shape us?
Our relationship is bilateral. Meaning we shape the world and the world keeps shaping us too. We keep on getting out of the world what we need according to our programming - this is required for our survival and performance. People in the world also do the same. Therefore we are in a world that could be described as a place of a lot of commotion. This leads to lack of happiness and peace in the minds of a majority of people.
Therefore one needs to understand and answer these questions:
- What type of person am I - take MBTI, OCEAN and VAK tests to know.
- What types of persons are there with whom I interact. 16 X 5 X 3 Mainly with sub categories of 12 X 5. That makes 14,400 types of people.
- How many possibilities exist due to the way human behaviour changes - the same person behaves differently with change in place, time, position, role, conditions / circumstances. That is 25 possibilities. This brings possibilities to 3,60,000. Now we have a typical assumed image of ourself, others particular, others generally about our life, and about what we want out of life and how. These make 25 possibilities. So the total number of possible ways in which we present ourselves and find others presenting themselves is an astounding 9 million.
So now I leave you to draw your own conclusions about me, my thinking, about yourself and the world. Good luck.
Most of these conclusions are drawn from my long years of study of transactional analysis theory.
(1) As per Stages of Human Development
(2) Injunctions in Transactional Analysis - See Transactional Analysis Theory and Practice
(3) Programming in childhood - See Transactional Analysis Theory - Parental Programming and Script
No comments:
Post a Comment