Table of Contents
A. Rule 1:- Sweater and Wool:- People and Their Insecurities Matter
Different colors of wool are knitted in a pattern to make a sweater. There are internal patterns. No one, including threads, can stop caring about the other threads. If anyone does and try to pull one thread away, the sweater will be gone.
We live in a society, where several people are intertwined with us by patterns(fabric). Disturbing this pattern can lead to problems in life by several others. Hence caring is a must.
Example
If your father is paying for your education, your not getting a job in the future will affect him. So if you want to do business, he may ask you not to. And you have no choices here.
B. Rule 2:- Separate the Threads
Those who have knitted sweaters for children have always unwinded the threads when the children grew up to make a new sweater with a new pattern(half sweater from the old full sweater, or another full by adding new threads).
You need to unwind the threads in the same way. We are interlinked with interdependencies of Survive, Thrive, and Reproduce needs.
Furthermore, in any relationship, there are several producer-consumer relationships. So when your father is paying for your education, he is getting the social validation of a good father from you.
(Only thing is we don’t realize or account for what we get from others).
I) Till age 5, you are dependent on your mother for survival, and your father for thriving.
ii) 5-12 you are dependent on the father to survive and the mother to thrive(emotions)
iii) As a child you depend on relatives for attention(thrive), they get energy from you due to the child’s happiness. As you grow this interdependency diminishes.
So, the faster you can survive and thrive on your own, you become self-sufficient(not independent).
C. Rule 3:- Relationships are transactional, but you don’t exchange the same things and all things don’t have an equal value
When a man brings food(or money), she gives healing(care, love) in exchange. She can’t expect the man to give her healing, if the man had the healing ability, he wouldn’t have needed her in the first place.
In the same way, she can arrange her food. However, the world is unsafe, and safety and being freed from decision Anxiety, and healthy children to get healing from are her needs.
Focus on what you have what no one else in the world has, but many needs. Transact strength against needs.
D. Implement the Rules now
i) Make a table with three columns(Relationship, Survive, Thrive, Reproduce)
ii) Put the names of the people you have in life in rows.
iii) In a relationship put Integral, Close, Inner, and Others
iv) Follow Mashlaow’s Pyramid to put survive and thrive needs.
Now apply the following ruleset
Care for the views of close, integral, and inner circle people for only the areas where you have a direct interdependency.
Example
So, if your father tells you how to have sex with your wife, don’t care because he is not your reproductive dependency. Same way when the wife says to take the father’s property, don’t care, as she is not meeting your survival need.
E. Conclusion
Often in the modern society, people live with their insecurities and try hard to mask them by their confidence. The more affirming statement one says, understand he is unsecured.
Many appears perfectionists, because they are afraid of loosing(their parents often bashed them for mistakes). During COVID I used to repeat several times to the team, don’t worry, we will raise fund. This was reaffirming repeatation because I was worried that we won’t.
Detect people’s insecurity and address them. The more you learn to address the insecurities people are not able to accept and tell but have, you have better opportunity to be heard off.
Opinions are nothing but a defense to protect oneself against possible insecurities. If one runs a grocery shop in a religious community, and the children marry to another religion, then he runs a risk of social rejection, which will affect livelihood.
When people oppose you, understand their insecurities, unwind interdependencies, assure them of no effect, and then proceed ahead.
All those social media posts of “Don’t bother about others’ opinions” are by the most opinionated insecure individuals who are reaffirming that all is well by creating an inverse narrative.
Gyaan doesn’t feed. Live real.