Here, try my specs...

kw: book reviews, self help

This isn't original with me, nor with Stephen Covey, from whom I heard it: Do your eyes trouble you? Having a hard time seeing sometimes? Here, try my eyeglasses. I can see perfectly with them. What, don't they help you? Strange...

Not so strange. If my eyes and nearsighted and yours are farsighted, or if we simply have quite different amounts of astigmatism, there's no way my glasses will do you much good...and vice versa. Some things are like that. My eyes are not your eyes.

Some are not. If you have a bad Strep throat, there are several antibiotics that ought to nicely clear it up. Of course, these days, the germ in question may be resistant to most antibiotics, so it may take a trial or two to find the one (or some combination) that will do the job. But, if the one causing your strep throat is one you caught from me, the same combination that works for me will work for you. One cause, one solution.

Are the emotional and mental quirks that we all suffer in the category of "one cause, one solution" or "my neurosis is not like your neurosis"? Hard to tell. Every self-help book I've read claims that this or that method or procedure will certainly work; it is all in the diligence you bring to it. That simply turns into a game of "blame the victim" when it doesn't work for someone.

So it is with the patterned behavior we all experience. I recently finished reading Make the Leap: a Practical Guide to Breaking the Patterns that Hold You Back by Farrell Silverberg, PhD. He has written a helpful book, if patterns are your problem. But what is a pattern?

We live by patterns. Most of us have a way we get to work, or church, or the grocery. We almost always go the same way. Whether we walk, drive, take the bus or train, we can do it without noticing; we are on autopilot. It is a useful pattern.

One day I was on the way to the library. The first half the way is the same roads I take to my son's school. I was nearly to the school before I broke out of autopilot, cussed, and turned back to the library. I was trapped by a pattern, if briefly.

Here is another, one that I cringe to recall. Like most school age boys, I had a few fights growing up. On a couple of occasions I was ambushed while sitting down. Many years later, when my son was 4 or 5, he dashed over to my chair and jumped on me. I hollered and thrashed, and he was flung across the room. Well, that was the first and last time he joyfully sprang into my lap. I was trapped by a pattern that hadn't been used for decades.

Some patterns are mild, some very strong. A very outdated, maladaptive pattern is what we call a neurosis. It is based on behavior that once helped, but doesn't do so any more. Now it harms us.

I'm not going to go into detail about the book. Dr. Silverberg is a very good writer, with useful methods to teach, but he makes no bones that it takes a lot of work on your part to see, understand, and break a pattern. It then takes more, much more, work to push it into permanent limbo.

I didn't find a pair of glasses that fit. But perhaps the things I remember will help me see any patterns that show up later. I happen to like my routines. I worked hard to set up many of them. I have reached the curmudgeonly state where I'd rather a few folks broke a pattern here or there, and left mine alone.