If you’ve got a problem, stop trying to work out how to solve it and instead ask what it’s trying to tell you
I haven’t done a scientific study, but I’d be willing to bet that among the problems most frequently submitted to agony columns is the kind that goes like this: “I’m seeing this woman, or man, and everything’s perfect, except for one thing…” The one thing varies, of course. Maybe her politics are the opposite of yours; perhaps his personal hygiene’s appalling, or you have totally different attitudes to money. But what all such dilemmas have in common is how utterly insoluble they feel. Everything except the one thing feels amazing – a chance you must seize, lest you spend the rest of your life regretting it. And yet the thing itself isn’t a minor flaw; it’s a true deal-breaker. “I’m thrilled and happy and we’re already talking about moving in because we ‘just know’,” as one man wrote to the therapist Lori Gottlieb, at New York magazine, the other day. “Except one thing… she has very strong feelings about not having children.” He wanted to know: could he change her mind? Or would two people madly in love with each other have to call it quits?
Whenever you feel torn between two equally compelling options, it’s likely there’s something you’re not seeing: a third alternative, a hidden assumption, a different way of framing the problem. And that’s often the case with what Gottlieb calls the “perfect-except paradox”. You might believe the person in question is perfect except for one thing, but there’s a good chance they really seem perfect to you because of that thing. This is your unconscious at work, Gottlieb argues. Maybe you’re scared of commitment, so you’re drawn precisely to a relationship that’s doomed to collapse. (See also: affairs with married people.) Or maybe you find a certain kind of person compelling, but for unhealthy reasons – they remind you of your drama-filled childhood, say – so your unconscious is actually protecting you, by zeroing in on someone who comes with a built-in reason not to proceed.
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