The Spirit and Roots of Generosity and Miserliness

Our culture and socio-political environment call for us to be jolly and generous in the holiday season.  Piles of solicitations from myriad organizations serving the needs of homeless children and helpless animals, museums and arts’ organizations tug at our consciences and yank at our heart strings.

Many of us experience these requests as demands and may resent what they experience as an obligation and feign the spirit of generosity.

On the other hand, what a great pleasure to give out of a real sense of gratitude and appreciation!

We know there is no strict correlation between economics and generosity. Some people possess no more than the basics and find giving easy. While others with an abundance of material wealth struggle to give.

One explanation lies in a person’s connection to money beyond the obvious power to purchase things. Money and material possessions can be an attempt to replace the love and nurturance the individual didn’t receive in early childhood. But “stuff” doesn’t gratify in the way genuine connections (of caring) about other people do.  It is those caring relationships with other people (and animals and causes) that give our lives meaning and fill us with positive feelings of generosity.

The classic story of Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol reinforces the truth of this disparity. Scrooge is a wealthy but stingy business man who hates Christmas and abuses his employees, demanding long hours and paying a meager salary.

But one night the three ghosts of Christmas visit him in a nightmare to inform him that people will be glad to be rid of him and he will die a miserable death if he doesn’t change.

Dickens, a genius writer and natural psychologist, intuited the roots of stinginess. The character of Scrooge experienced emotional deprivation early in his life. His mother died and his father resented his son’s existence. Furthermore, Scrooge botched up past opportunities to reform. He had been engaged to a beautiful, loving woman, who left him when she realized he cared more about money than about her.

In brief, Scrooge’s nightmare transforms him from a miserable miser to a generous and happy person. He also benefits by gaining a sense of his power to lessen suffering in the world.

We can experience gratitude and relief that our contributions are not vital to each and every cause; there are others to pitch in. Reality dictates that we have to be prudent and selective in our giving in order to take care of ourselves.

For example, in an overwhelming spirit of generosity, Ms. W. almost gave away her savings. Had she done so, she would be unable to take care of herself and would  become a burden to others. In brief, indiscriminate generosity could turn into disaster.

To return to the pile of solicitations, they can be organized into the following categories to help us decide to whom to give:

1. I have to give to this person/organization/cause because it is politic for my career, public image, etc., to do so. 

2.  I really want to give to this person/organization/cause out of feelings of gratitude and/or kinship.

3.  I really don’t have to give to this individual/cause/organization and won’t.

We can keep in mind the goal to experience generosity as power, not depletion. Expressing authentic giving, melts resentment like ice around the heart and becomes a gift to ourselves.

Conclusion: Generosity is a state of mind that goes beyond the possession of money and material goods and relates to feelings of abundance from positive connections. To own an authentic sense of generosity is a gift we give ourselves.

 Dear Reader, I welcome your thoughts.  jsimon145@gmail.com

Keeping Our Eyes on the Ball: When (and Where) Expectations meet Goals

The goal in baseball is clear: to score a home run. In real life,

keeping our goal in sight and mind may be more complex than tracking a baseball in the air. We can get distracted, waylaid, and discouraged before we’re able to swing a bat, hit the ball and score the run.

Mr. W. for example, felt isolated after the death of his wife. For years, he had dreamed about writing his life story.  Expecting to meet people to encourage him, he joined a writing group,  In the beginning, he found the group to be supportive. But when one member suggested he change the focus of his essay, he felt criticized and angrily withdrew from the circle. Instead of seeking out another venue to pursue his goal, he allowed anger and hopelessness to overcome him, acting as if he’d been defeated, tackled and knocked to the ground,

Although he blamed others, perceiving the obstacle to be outside himself,  he was responsible for keeping his eye on the ball, the goal of writing his story. Had he kept his aim in mind, he might have reconsidered his decision to withdraw from his writing group.

Often, life doesn’t conform to our expectations and instead throws us curves, conflicting messages that alternate between encouragement and discouragement.

Another example is found in the recent film “The Imitation Game,” the story of Alan Turing, the mathematician considered the father of the modern computer. An outlier who evokes criticism, misunderstanding and abuse from people throughout his life, from schoolmates to military officials, he persists in his objective to break the German code of “Enigma,” save lives, and put an end to WW II.

Another real life example is Ms. B. Employed at a clinic she received appreciation for years until the administration changed. Although her work performance remained beyond reproach, no one seemed to care. Instead of feeling disheartened and quitting, she reframed her expectations.  Her goal was not to be appreciated, but to do a good job and earn a salary.

Conclusion:  We do well to define our ambition in order to gain the clarity of a baseball player who keeps his eye on the ball and home plate as his goal.

Dear Reader, I welcome your thoughts. jsimon145@gmail.com

The Observing Self: A Tool Essential to Save Ourselves and Our Planet

When I mention the term “observing self” or “observing ego” most people look at me with a quizzical expression as if such talk should stay in my office. But the “observing self” has broad application in and outside the psychotherapist’s terrain because it can create an awareness of self and a sense of place in the world.

The observing ego, or the split between our experience and our observation of it, allows us to perceive and change. By contrast, without the observing self, we experience ourselves as “acted upon,” or lacking control, and In the extreme, as a victim, similar to a caged animal.  In short, developing an “observing self” early on and with great effort helps to impart agency. “Agency is not automatic,” The New York Times journalist David Brooks writes. “It has to be given birth to with pushing and effort. It’s not just the confidence and drive to act. It’s having engraved inner criteria to guide action. The agency moment can happen at any age, or never.” (The New York Times, “The Agency Moment,” November 14, 2014).

Early in our evolution, we humans perceived that we were at the mercy of the Gods. We believed that powers operated on us. We lacked a sense of agency and probably didn’t believe we could overcome fate. The course of development has shown that we possess the potential to change, but doing so requires the observing self.

An aspect of psychological treatment is to nurture the delicate seedling of the observing self, this sometimes mysterious entity that some of us possess at an early age and that some don’t acquire in spite of extensive psychotherapy.

For example, Mr. O. suffered severe abuse as a child. During his years of psychotherapy, he was able to develop a keen observing self/ego that alleviated his paranoia, freeing him from his psychological cage to grant him a wide panorama of his world of relationships.

By contrast, Ms. Q. did not develop an observing self. An aspect of the observing self is the ability to see ourselves in all dimensions-—our positive as well as our negative attributes. Ms. Q. continued to insist that her son was “the bad one,” the source of the problem, and to view herself in a positive light. She paced back and forth, like a caged animal, unable to help herself or her offspring. 

Parents can play a critical part in fostering a sense of agency during a child’s development. Preventive pediatrics is now recognized as vital to a child’s health and to a nation’s financial well-being. Preventive psychiatry—education for each and every parent—would be a great evolutionary step. We have the psychological knowledge but lack the awareness and the legal structure to institute the discipline.

The ground-work (of knowledge) has been laid in the textbooks of child development, but the recognition and implementation of this knowledge may not happen for centuries. The same phenomenon—-of “agency” and observation applies to each one of us as well as to our entire species.

Conclusion: It is the observing self that grants us a sense of “agency” with the capacity to change ourselves and our world.

Dear Reader, Your comments are welcome. Jsimon145@gmail.com