Each creates a working hypothesis that says, "This is what life is about." When young, these theories are ingenious and help us to survive. Trouble happens when we grow, gain more experience and don't revise the hypothesis. Most people deny any such thing. They say they have impressions maybe, some prejudices and associations from things that happened to them as children. They don't know they have one because they have never put it into words. They are made up of vague feelings, unspoken apprehensions, the things we didn't dare talk about or even admit to ourselves as children. They deal with the most powerful and problematic forces in human life, like sex and aggression, that most families find formidable to discuss. We develop complex ideas about the nature of reality that we never communicate and never examine. It has been said that God created the world in a fit of absent-mindedness. We do almost as well. We build worldviews half asleep and let them, like tinted lenses, color our lives.
Often, if someone felt betrayed as a child by an important adult, the betrayal becomes a key experience in the way that someone sees the world. People can continue to have that experience by seeking out the kind of people who are likely to betray them or to imagine they are being betrayed by people who really haven't mistreated them at all. Whatever way they choose, they confirm their theory about what to expect from others, and this is very gratifying. Being right is one of the most satisfying experiences, but being wrong is one of the most unsettling experiences in the world.
To feel you have made a mistake and admit you were wrong is an awful blow to the ego. That is why people do not want to change. People would rather go on making the same mistake than admit it and cut their losses. People are very stubborn. They secretly believe if they keep on long enough with their misconceived behavior, reality will give in to their views, rather than vice versa.
People feel justified in anger by giving details on how unfairly they were treated as children. But they don't see they are cheating themselves as adults. By wasting energy being angry at something that happened in the past which can not be changed, their rage isn't hurting anyone, but it is crippling them. Life is not fair. Life doesn't mean revenge, it lies in another direction. It lies in letting go and giving up your grievances. You can stop yourself from giving up your whole life.
We all start being the smallest, least powerful person in our immediate world, the family. Helplessness is not a theory; it's a fact. In the early stages of coping with our world, we have to work through others. To accomplish our own thing as children, we must be able to manipulate adults and win them over. It is appropriate in childhood to look at others, to learn how to invoke their love, sympathy, and understanding. As an adult, everything doesn't depend on pleasing others. What others once did for you, you can now do for yourself. You are your own man-or woman-now. Many people will not realize that, because they are terribly afraid of losing something they think they cannot do without.
They are holding on to a childlike sense of security. When we are small and helpless, we feel we are in the presence of invisible, all-powerful adults and as long as they are there, we are not alone. What we fear most as children is abandonment. It is a terrifying prospect to a child. For an adult, aloneness is quite different. An adult needs aloneness to grow, get to know themselves and develop their powers. Someone who cannot tolerate aloneness is someone who doesn't know he's grown up. The courage it takes to let go of childhood safety is immense. The world may never seem so certain again when we take possession of our own separateness, but our own integrity continues that breath of fresh air!
What you achieve doesn't take anything away from anyone else. If you become more, it doesn't make me less, the world will continue to go about its business. Developing our human resources doesn't use them up; it only enlarges our possibilities. Resources do not keep. If you do not mine them now, they are lost forever. We don't have eternity; we only have "time." Time limits us, but there are no limits to how much we can grow and develop. People are often obsessed with aging, with what "time" does to them. Instead they should be concerned about what they do with time.
Growing up is not a one-way trip. It's all right to be immature at times, for being totally adult can be intimidating. Adults can be childish, just as children can act very grown up. What is usually lacking is the genuine desire to understand. Make the imaginative effort and accept the fact that others are different from you.
Growing up should be basically a reaching out to new ways of handling experience. Feeling bad about the old ways is the beginning of self-hatred. Genuine growth means having the courage and confidence to try new things and letting go of old ones. You move on because it is more interesting and exciting to take on new challenges, you may be scared, but you are attracted to them. Growing is not easy. It is painful and terribly difficult with so much uncertainty and ambivalence. Grow not by turning against your earlier self but by building on its strengths. Recognize that it served you well, but it is time for something else. You learn to let go of what you don't need any more and realize you are on to something better.
Growth is: doing things you've never done before, sometimes things you once didn't even dream you could. It is true, difficult things are a lot of trouble, and you have to want to do them very badly, but when you don't set limits on your efforts, great things can come out of them.