by Jamesscotthenson | Nov 25, 2016 | Blog
I hear a lot of talk about personal responsibility and
toughening up and how safe spaces suck these days.
Just about all of it is directed at the generation we call
the Millennials, or people who are between the ages of 18-34 right now. It has
been interesting to watch how a person can blast these weak, needy Millennials
one second and then call for their own form of safe spaces or cry about an
offense the next.
“Everyone is so sensitive these days, you can’t say anything
without someone getting offended…did you just take my Lord’s name in vain? How.
Dare. You.”
“These kids need to man up and grow a pair and not be so
sensitive, and how dare they be mean to my fwiend at the theatre! You huwt his
feewings!”
I’ve spent the last 9 years working with what we call the
Millennial generation in one capacity or another.
I have taught them in college classes, been a guest speaker
at their events, worked with them as a campus mentor, life coach and counselor,
and I’ve taught many of them to meditate. I play Magic the Gathering with them,
have many as clients, consider many of them friends, and I am currently
watching more than a few become colleagues.
Actually, I literally just realized I married one too.
Are some of them whiny and easily offended? Of course. Do
some of them want something for nothing and expect an award just for showing
up? Absolutely. Can they be self-absorbed and completely lacking insight? Yes.
But these things are true of every generation that came
before them, they are human things. Every generation has something handed to
them, and once they get it, it turns into a narrative of how they “earned” it
and how the generations after them are lazy good-for-nothings who expect
everything on a silver platter. The narrative is always about much harder your
generation had it than the ones after you. World War II was horrific, but World
War I was worse. Keep going back in history and you’ll read about massive
multi-day slaughters that led people to commit suicide by literally burying their
heads in the sand as they waited to die. This is what happens when things are
getting progressively better for us as a whole.
The scary part is that we may be turning a corner in our
country, and things won’t keep getting better.
This is part of what the Millennials are dealing with, this
was handed to them. If only someone could harness the power of promising
to make this country great again.
Anyway, you know who else I’ve worked with over the years?
The helicopter parents who wouldn’t let their kids doing anything for
themselves, and now complain that their children can’t do anything for
themselves. The parents who told every kid to reach for the stars and follow
their dreams, and now turn around and complain because the little assholes are
reaching for the stars and following their dreams instead of giving up and
going to get a job in retail.
In working with Millennials I’ve seen a generation that has
been left with the short end of the stick that always comes with a long and
unsustainable period of prosperity, while also being blamed for the end of this
period of prosperity.
I’ve seen a generation that wants to do something more than
phone it in at dead-end job so that their kids can have the latest iPhones and
Nike cleats (so they can then turn on them and tell them how much they
sacrificed for them to have the iPhones and Nike cleats).
I see a lot of good in the Millennial generation, and I
appreciate their willingness to challenge the conventions and norms they have
had placed on them even if some of it seems like nonsense as I begin pushing
40, but this is always the story of generations. I cannot wrap my head around
Furries and Otherkin, but I suppose my parents hand a hard time understanding
why we were all wearing flannel and piercing our faces and being just so
disaffected.
The Millennials are dealing with a difficult economic
situation, crippling student loan debt (often because they were told you HAVE
to go to college to survive), and a mess they didn’t make. They cannot afford a
house and car and family on two incomes, much less one income like the
generation that complains about them the most could, but they are trying to
create their own way of doing things. They didn’t give themselves participation
trophies, they didn’t ask their parents to do so much for them, but a great
number of them are working out how to deal with the results of their parents’
choices. When I am working with them in counseling and life coaching, I find
them very willing to try new things and they take being challenged and
confronted very well when it is done appropriately and compassionately.
So, I like Millennials.
I have faith in the positive impact they are going to make
on our society, and I have to wonder how much better this might go if the
generations that came before them owned their shit and took an interest in
helping and mentoring them instead of complaining about them. One thing we have
lost as a society is the civic and community engagement that helped us be more
cohesive in times of difficulty. This is one way that it could be engaged again
if we were able to get past our self-righteousness and condescension.
Just don’t ask me to understand Otherkin. Maybe I’m old, but
no, you are not a dragon.
by Jamesscotthenson | Nov 24, 2016 | Blog
This one is muddled and feels incomplete, I think there is
more here. I for sure didn’t manage to hit what I wanted to with it, I will
have to revisit it later.
Why do we spend time worrying about what we want?
Why do we think wanting something makes it inherently good
or worth pursuing?
How much suffering do we bring ourselves by focusing on what
we want?
These are odd questions, I get that.
But think about it, why does wanting something make it
necessary to pursue it?
All addiction seems to be is wanting something really,
really badly and pursuing it at the cost of everything else in your life. If
you ask someone who has an addiction why they are doing this, they will say
something along the lines of “because I need it”. They believe this, but apart
from very rare instances, they are not going to die without whatever “it” may
be. They want it.
If the best answer we can come with for why we are doing
something is “because I want it”, we may need to reassess our plans.
We don’t really do anything without wanting to, and we
really cannot be forced to do anything. If someone puts a gun to your head and
says drive me to Walmart so I can return my Redbox movie, they are not forcing
you. You are choosing to drive them instead of getting shot in the head. You
want to drive them to the Redbox more than you want to get shot.
Wanting things is good, it drives us and gives us something
to do, but we make a mistake when we start to think that wanting something
always means something. It tells us nothing about the value of what we want or
if it will be good for us.
Learning to not get what we want is possibly the most useful
thing in the world.
Some would say we just have to learn to sift between
God-given or love-inspired or karmic wants and those that are base and tacky
and all of that. I think it is interesting to try and dig down to the bottom of
every want and see why it is there, and ask myself if it is worth my time or if
it is a skillful choice.
Oftentimes, focusing on what we want just makes us less
happy as it takes the focus away from what we have. Other times, it rests on a
desire that might not be healthy or worthwhile for us, like craving sugar or
alcohol or a relationship outside the one we have now. Many, many times what we
want is irrelevant because it is not within our control to have it. My desire
to live on the moon by myself is irrelevant, I don’t even have a way to get
there.
What is something you want that drives you?
What does this want rest on – what is its basis? Is it
healthy and good for you?
If it is not, how do you go about letting go of it?
by Jamesscotthenson | Nov 23, 2016 | Blog
This is one of my favorite things. I am surprised it has
taken me this long to mention it here.
I first heard it meditating with the Buddhists here in town
years ago, but I think it is applicable way beyond just meditation though. It
can be useful in our every day lives.
Pick a few things today.
They can be anything. Your breakfast, your car, your chair,
your clothes, whatever.
Think of how many hands it took to get any of these things
to you.
The people who secured the raw materials, the people who
assembled them, the people who got them to wherever you got them from. There is
a whole chain for everything we have.
It goes further than this too.
No one could have collected the raw materials or processed
them or delivered them without the technology to do it, which came from people
well before them.
This goes for every step of the process.
This isn’t even to mention the fact that none of them, or
us, would be here without a long lineage of ancestors who came before.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: human babies are
useless. None of us would have survived even our first few days if someone had
not agreed to take care of us. Hell, someone has to carry us around inside
their body for 9 months for us to even get here.
There are no self-sufficient people.
We all exist using the tools and technology and wisdom of
those who came before us. We all need help from others in some way. Even if you
live in the woods hunting elk with a recurve bow, someone had to invent the
bow.
Let yourself explore this today, while also giving yourself
credit for the place you occupy and the role you play in the web that connects
us all.
by Jamesscotthenson | Nov 22, 2016 | Blog
I have quite a few people walk into my office wanting a
diagnosis, or having already diagnosed themselves.
There seem to be a few more popular ones as far as what
people are looking for or what they have already labeled themselves with. PTSD
and Borderline Personality Disorder are two, and more than a few people have
come in thinking they might be on the autism spectrum.
I blame Tumblr, WebMD and Reddit, in that order.
I really don’t diagnose as a counselor. This is a luxury I
am allowed because I don’t take insurance. This is good, because I have a hard
time understanding how we manage to diagnose many of the things people are
supposed to have. It seems like we take a series of trends and tendencies or
ways of living life and we attach a label to the whole thing. We only do this
to things that are problematic for the person or society. I have yet to see a
diagnosis for chronic compassion or relentless positivity.
Diagnoses often seem to be given in response to ways of
behaving or dealing with something that are completely logical.
A woman goes to see her doctor for a routine check-up, he
asks how she has been doing, she says her mother recently died and has been a
little down. So a healthy response to losing someone she cared deeply about,
right? Not at all, situational depression (adjustment disorder, more
specifically).
A kid is neglected, starved, physically assaulted and
sexually abused. He grows up angry, defiant, and mistrusting of authority.
Makes sense? Nope, makes for Oppositional Defiant Disorder (and later,
Antisocial Personality Disorder).
You know who I really worry about? The people who don’t have
a logical reaction to the things they experience.
Look, I get it, diagnoses serve a purpose, and they are
probably necessary to a degree. They are definitely necessary if you want to
work with insurance companies, and I meant it when I said it is a luxury that I
am allowed to avoid this.
But we have to remember that a lot of the psychological
diagnoses they offer us are theoretical constructs, not actual things.
They may tell us something about our behavior, or maybe what
we are struggling with, but nothing about us as people. Often, they do not even
tell us about the appropriateness of our response to our struggles or the
skillfulness of our behavior.
Some are MUCH more sound than others, I see this. But many
seem to simply be the result of not adhering to what society has decided is
right and normal and beneficial for society. The fox building the henhouse.
Who are you without the labels and diagnoses you have had
imposed on you by other people?
What gives them the right to define you?
by Jamesscotthenson | Nov 21, 2016 | Blog
A nice, light blog today.
I’m not well-traveled.
Apart from some ill-spent time in Juarez I’ve never left the
country. I really like being in Texas, and the only time I really feel the need
to leave this state is to go to New Mexico. I enjoy going to the same places
over and over, I like mining them for as much as they have to offer and
developing a deep relationship with them. And, I don’t like driving in
unfamiliar places.
Someone asked me about world travel, and there are places I
would like to go. This is a list of them.
Japan.
I’ve always wanted to go to Japan, I even had money put
aside for it and I have a guidebook I’ve read through a dozen times. I would
like to see the Zen temples and Mount Fuji. I would like to experience Shinjuku
and just see what it is like to be in a society that is widely regarded as
confusing as hell but always safe. I would also like to see the cranes up in
Hokkaido.
Peru.
I am super fascinated with the older cultures that have so
little written about them, and I would like to see Machu Picchu. I’ve
researched how you can hike there from one of the major cities camping along
the way, and that seems cool.
Alaska.
I pretty much just want to move here. It seems like a place
with overwhelming beautiful natural environments and not a lot of rules. The
people seem pretty independent and willing to leave you alone. All cool things.
New Hampshire.
The state motto is Live Free or Die and it looks beautiful.
I’m in.
Iceland.
As I mentioned a few weeks back, I order a guidebook to
Iceland in the middle of the night as I am prone to do. I’ve been reading it,
and I would really enjoy going over and driving the ring road that circles the
country and checking out the hot springs and volcanoes.
Patagonia. Specifically, Tierra Del Fuego.
I am not sure what fascinates me about this place, but it
always has. It seems so remote and uncompromising, just harsh beauty
everywhere.
I would also like to visit La Paz in Bolivia, the Chiapas in
Mexico, Antarctica, Russia and the Pacific Northwest, but I can’t really think
of anywhere I wouldn’t find interesting.
The thing is, I am pretty happy where I am too.
I like driving to East Texas to see my grandma and to the
Hill Country to see my parents. I really like going to Northern New Mexico. I
think I’m a fairly simple person. Maybe just easily entertained.
Where would you go if you could go anywhere in the world?
What draws you there?
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