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Life in the Real World

Over the Christmas break I found a new game on my iPhone called tiny tower. The premise is pretty simple: build your own sky scraper, populate it with people and businesses, rinse and repeat. It’s wildly addictive in that you can spend tons of time in the game earning money and building more. It’s amusement at its finest. And thats why I stopped playing.

Amusement is good in small measured doses, not in vast quantities. The carnival or county fair only comes to town once or twice a year. Any more than that and it would lose its novelty and amusement. But I’m afraid that this natural law of diminishing returns isn’t as obvious in the virtual world.

As I played the game and built my tower, I began thinking about this little empire that I was building. It brought momentary pleasure to see my tower grow to 30, 35, and then 40 floors. But as soon as I turned my iPhone off, my building disappeared. It only existed virtually. And I began to wonder why I spent 20-30 minutes a day building something that will never be real. In reality I don’t know that building a real tower would provide much more satisfaction, but at least there would be something real to show for my work.

What I’m realizing about life is that unless we are engaging with real things and people, we will not grow. When we don’t grow, we get anxious and depressed. Life is not designed to be lived in the virtual world, even though the virtual world offers a painless and entertaining life.

Relationships are not amusing. They are challenging, difficult, and rewarding. Virtual rewards are just that, virtual rewards. It takes hard work to live life on the real world, which is why there exists an enormous quantity of escapes to the virtual world. Because these worlds are so accessible, we need to be aware of how much and when we use them.

One of the ways my family is combating this issue is that we do not use devices with screens between dinner and bedtime for the kids. This means no tv, wii, games on the phone/iPad, etc. it’s been harder than I thought to follow through with is. It’s easy to grab your phone and check Facebook, the news, your tiny tower, or any number of apps that are a daily part of life for some.

If amusement is bringing less and less to your life, create something. Build a Lego tower or town, write a shorty story, bake a cake, paint a picture, or start a new relationship with someone. Obviously this is a short list, but the idea is that life will be more fulfilling and enjoyable when you do something in real life, instead of the virtual world.

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Where Do You Go?

Where do you go when life shows it’s jagged edges, and impossible scenarios?  Often times in the face of pain or fear, we look for the easy button.  You know, the button that Staples has made famous.  Just press that button and all the problems of life will fade away.  Perhaps that button for you is alcohol, pornography, an unhealthy relationship, or isolation.

M. Scott Peck, in his best selling book The Road Less Traveled, outlines the core problem that all of humanity faces: “Life is difficult.”  A simple phrase containing three words sums up life pretty well, but wreak havoc on countless people on a daily basis.  While life will always be difficult, it doesn’t have to be unbearable.

We want an escape, a place to go when it seems that all hell is breaking loose in our lives.  We want to go back to where life felt peaceful, serene, and calm.  The problem is that when we escape to find this ‘better place’ we refuse to face the realities of life.  And when we run from our problems, our fears and anxieties grow stronger and stronger which leads to more coping and medicating.  The spiral gets darker and darker, until the bottom falls out.

The most difficult, but most promising, path from the difficulties in life is the path directly into the pain and fear.  Most of the time, this feels counter-intuitive.  We’re afraid of things, people, and situations for a reason, that’s why we run and medicate from them.

Remember Frodo from Lord of the Rings?  No amount of man made strength could destroy the one ring.  There was no place that they could hide the ring.  Frodo and his companions had to take the ring back to where it was birthed … and to get there his journey was perilous.

For you and I, our journey is sometimes perilous.  We have to walk the road back into our story, to relive, re-experience, and reenter some dark places.  The road to freedom is through the valleys, deserts, and the very shadows of death.  Like Frodo, we cannot go at it alone.

First and foremost; Hurt people, hurt people.  You might have to say this aloud a couple of times to get the meaning, but those who are hurting will often hurt others.  You have to deal with your own hurt before you can help others.

Secondly, you cannot change for others.  Often times participants of our groups will only be there because a significant person in their life asked them to attend.  While this is a good first step, inevitably this ends with disappointment because we cannot live others’ lives.  We must value ourselves, our goodness, enough to make the change not only for the benefit of others but for our own benefit.  Sometimes, this can be the hardest to address because most of us do not have a history of being valued and loved.

Thirdly, spend some time reconsidering what the golden rule really means.  Treat others as you would treat yourself is quite possibly the only relational advice that any of us would ever need.  The problem with this advice is that often times if we treated others the way we truly treat ourselves, we’d be without completely alone.  Do you heap an abundance of condoning insults at your friends or family members when they mess up or do something that was ‘stupid’? Likely your answer is no.  But when you mess up, you probably treat yourself in no similar fashion that you do with your friends.

Lastly, do not go about your journey alone.  As the great philosopher Plato once said, “be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” We are all wrestling, fighting, and struggling, and we don’t need to go about it alone.

New beginnings are here today, will you grab hold?

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Portrait of a Borderline

“The false self can dominate even extremely talented people who are likely to be drawn to careers where life can be lived vicariously, where within safe, protective limits they can deal with emotions and activities that they avoid in their personal lives because of the fears such emotions and activities would evoke. Any career such as reporter, photographer, psychiatrist, or minister which requires professional detachment places one in a position to project oneself into others’ lives and identify with life dramas being played out there without full committing oneself to the same emotions and activities in one’s own life. For example, a reporter on the scene may fee as if he or she were really a participant. A minister or therapist with a deflated false self can experience in fantasy the joys and problems of a close relationship without the fear of self-activation and self-expression or of rejection that the real commitment or intimacy would necessitate. Her readiness for projective identification, poor ego boundaries, and inability to perceive reality adequately all help allow her to experience vicarious gratification by interjecting herself into the lives of others.”

Search for the Real Self
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Narcissism and Separateness

Symington, in Narcissism: A New Theory , suggests that in “people dominated by narcissistic currents there is a failure of separateness between themselves and others, and they will asume that you think in the same way that they think.” These ‘narcissistic currents’ are significant in corporate settings but it’s because personal pathologies creation organizational pathologies.

In personal relationships, this current can be seen in the movement towards the abolishing of difference in striving for agreement. If agreement is the goal of relationships, it is impossible to care for the other. Listening will only be done as a way to weed our discontentment where disagreements occur, essentially looking to murder the separateness that I feel with you. So I either become like you, or you like me … neither option allowing for either person to be present with the other.