Are you weird, special or ordinary-extraordinary?
By Jena Griffiths | May 25, 2011
My son is busy harvesting zombies
so that he can launch an invasion
…..to eat the brains of the “bad guys”.
Should I be worried?
Granted this is “just” an ipod game.
Still what’s this really about?
Am I bringing up the next Genghis?
Are our children being trained
behind our backs? Or
systematically desensitized
to …..what?
“Mama you think too much!”
is my son’s answer.
But do I?
We humans are pretty weird sometimes
and the same is true of our fingerprints.
Every now and then one comes across
a fingerprint that breaks all the rules.
This is known as “a weird sucker.”
What do these unusual fingerprints mean?
We’ll be discussing weird suckers and other
unusual fingerprints in our call with
Richard Unger next week.
But what if you don’t have unusual fingerprints?
Is ordinary a bad thing?
In her book The Self Esteem Trap
Polly Young-Eisendrath discusses the
importance of being ordinary.
She says, when we’re continuously told
we’re special this puts undue pressure on us
to be exceptional. The results are shame,
alienation and feeling defective.
This leads to a sense of entitlement and
dissatisfaction with our lives.
We get caught up in obsessive self focus
along with extreme fears of being humiliated.
Polly asks, are we setting a trap for
ourselves and our children by focusing
on the need to be special or famous?
“Basing our lives on the importance of being
ordinary….is a whole new approach
to self confidence” she says.
The key to happiness is mutual support;
being a member of the human community.
I’ll be exploring Polly’s ideas on how being ordinary
builds confidence in a future post.
Here’s her 10 point Xtreme makeover for parenting
In the meantime, wishing you no zombies
but lots of zeal about being real,
ordinary-extraordinary,
alive and well on this beautiful
planet of ours.
If you’d like to join us for the forthcoming
Earth School class on composite fingerprints
go here. The date of the topic call has been
changed to Tuesday, 31 May.
The advanced threading call on this topic will be
on Thursday 9 June.
« Are you a floppy surfboard? | Home | The Self Esteem Trap – are we sabotaging ourselves and our children? Interview with Dr Polly Young-Eisendrath »
Topics: rollercoaster life | No Comments »