Checking Your Core Values

When we try to use our core values to make decisions, we need to be very, very careful and proceed with caution. Why? Because often we are wrong. Some of you remember when a parent was whipping you with a belt (or switch or lead pipe) hearing your parent say, "I am doing this for your own good and because I love you." Maybe parental units were once taught that spanking a kid was good for them - that's not considered great parenting today.

I am particularly fond of all those meme's on Facebook that say something like, "I walked four miles uphill in the snow both ways to school and look how great I turned out." Or the ever popular, "My parents beat me with a paddle, gave me beer to put hair on my chest, and cured my bronchitis with whiskey and honey and look how great I turned out." And we wonder: why do so many of us struggle with substance abuse, anxiety and depression? Are we all really turning out "so great"?

This fits under the category of potential attribution errors. Attribution errors occur when we attribute behavior to external situational factors outside our control. Typically we tend to overemphasize negative motives to people we do not like and positive motives to those we do like. If we do not want to actually wrestle with the effect certain aspects of our childhood had on us, or if we want to blame our childhood for all our problems, we will "attribute" certain memories according to what suits our bias.

We do this with our own core values too. Sometimes we attribute our behavior to self-care when we are actually being selfish. Or we say we are taking a particular action because we love someone when in fact we are judging them.

Here's a suggestion: we should take responsibility for our lives without excuse. When we make a decision, we do not have to explain it or justify it - we take responsibility for it. We own the decision. We do not excuse it in any way. Some of you may be wondering - what? Wait a minute! I was not responsible for what happened to me!!! What the heck do you mean? Tomorrow, I'll do some explaining of my own.