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From: kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT)
Newsgroups: net.jobs,net.singles
Subject: Re: Headhunters, hearthunters.
Message-ID: <516@hounx.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 17-Jan-86 09:59:46 EST
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Posted: Fri Jan 17 09:59:46 1986
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Jack Orenstein poses an interesting dilemma regarding relatives
trying to "fix him up" with jobs and dates.

On the one hand, such relatives are well-meaning.  They are
worried that you'll go jobless or dateless without their
assistance.  They want to play a useful role, and share their
knowledge of available opportunities.  Problem is, if their
guidance isn't taken, they feel unhappy about.

There is a trap here.  In providing unsolicited guidance,
they create an expectation that you will take their counsel.
If you fail to meet that expectation, they feel hurt (disappointed,
frustrated, angry, whatever).  The other side of the coin, Jack,
is that you have free will.  You would like to have your brain
run your body rather than Mom's brain or the Aunt's brain.
When you reluctantly follow their lead, you are abdicating
control of your life to another agent.  Bad vibes.  Who wants
to be a robot, programmed by someone else?

Psychologists have a name for the process whereby another
person creates an expectation of you, and your failure to
meet that expectation causes their unhappiness.  It's called
manipulation.  Your Aunt owns her feelings.  She creates them
as a result of her expectations vis-a-vis reality.

Since your Mother is Jewish, she understands the idea of Mitzvot,
doing good deeds.  The key idea is that the individual *chooses*
(of his own free will) to do good deeds.  When someone *tells*
you what to do, they rob you of an opportunity to do a Mitzvah.
The very same act on your part, which would have made you feel
good had you chosen to do it, now makes you feel bad because
you are doing someone else's bidding, which creates a superior-
subordinate relationship. Bad Karma.  (Incidentally "karma" and
"mitzvah" mean the same thing--deeds.)  

I say to my (Jewish) Mother:  I'll make you a deal:  My brain runs
my body and your brain runs your body.  Please don't rob me of my
free will.  In return for your pledge to allow me to have free will,
I promise to use it constructively, to help myself and others, and
to avoid hurting anyone or anything.  Deal?  (How can she refuse?)

 
				-- Barry Kort
				...ihnp4!houxm!hounx!kort

	A door opens.  You are entering another dementia.
	The dementia of the mind.