Power, Control and Choice

Almost everything I learned about power and control growing up turns out to be distorted or in many cases purely inaccurate. And the search for understanding around these issues remains primarily intellectual as opposed to experiential in nature. Any understanding of power, control and choice must be experiential in order to have an impact on individuals. Access to real power comes from the little things in life. Emptying the garbage is one of the best demonstrations of this particular phenomenon I know of. It also creates the opportunity to understand the absolute interconnectedness of power, control and choice.

Let’s assume for a moment that you live in a house with either family or friends. In your house there are no hard and fast set rules regarding who does what chores (more about this later) and so people simply do what is wanted and needed when it strikes them to do so. In any environment, trash accumulates. There are five clear choices available to each resident regarding when to take out the trash.

1. You take out the trash when the can is full
2. You take out the trash when the can is overfilled (it has been crushed down as much as it will go) so that when you put something in, the can puts something out.
3. You take the trash out when it develops an aroma
4. You take the trash out when it has a life of its own, usually hundreds of little white creatures called maggots.
5. You decide not to take the trash out, but rather have your house become the newest landfill

Unless you choose the last alternative, you will take the trash out, eventually. The only question is when? How many times will you pass it, hoping someone else will take it out? You did it last time, you are sure. How long will you debate it in your mind? How much energy will you use in rationalizing your decision?

In the “What One Person Can Do” conversation, people are asked to do various assignments and report back on their results and effectiveness or lack of same. One of those assignments is to pick a chore and do it with energy and enthusiasm and as if it were the most important job in the world. Those of you who have not participated in the WOPCD conversation would be well served to stop reading here and pick a chore that you do not like doing, or consistently put off doing, and go do that chore, now.

If you are still reading and have not done a chore with energy, enthusiasm and as if it were the most important job in the world, you might want to look at why. There are a number of possibilities.

1. You already know that everyone can do any chore with energy, enthusiasm and as if it were the most important job in the world and you do all of your chores that way so that they get done faster, you spend no time dreading them and you realize that everything you do is a contribution and a contribution is most satisfying to the one doing the work.

2. You think that the idea of doing something you don’t like to do with energy, enthusiasm and as if it were the most important job in the world is just plain stupid. Notice you weren’t asked to like it. See if you are willing to reconsider and go do it now.

3. You enjoy defining yourself by complaining about situations, taking longer to accomplish tasks and generally enjoy not doing what people suggest that you do, on principal.

For those of you who did the chore with energy, enthusiasm and as if it were the most important job in the world, and were successful, acknowledge yourself! You have discovered that you can do this with any task or situation.

What attitude do students have about recess? What would happen if they brought the same attitude to math or English? If we can’t do our chores with energy and enthusiasm and as if they were the most important jobs in the world, how dare we ask young people to bring energy to things they don’t like? Mastering things in life is not about liking them. It is about deciding to make the best of any situation.

When youngsters are young, they are dying to help with “big people’s chores like vacuuming, washing the car or doing the laundry. What happens to that enthusiasm regarding the desire to contribute? For years they watch the adults around them complain, moan and dread the work. Where is the realization that everything we do is an opportunity to contribute to others? How many children know that what they do contributes to the workability of their family? The success of their Mother? Or Father?

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned. However early a man’s (person’s) training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he (she) learns thoroughly.

Thomas Huxley

The above exercise is about choice and no longer having your attitude “controlled” by what you are doing. When we have done this work in prisons, the inmate participants immediate reaction is, “We can’t do this here. Do you have any idea where we are and what we get to do here.” Quietly, I answer “yes.” Stories of being asked to clean up after a spree of fecal communication in the bathroom follow. Rooms that have been used as trash containers are described. During the next week, usually, at least one person gives it a shot. When one is successful, another may try it. Where else could you use what you’ve learned here? What would happen if you no longer responded at all to the taunting bait laid out by those with keys? What would happen if you no longer responded to others trying to get you reactivated? The Warden in one institution asked me why people in the “What One Person Can Do” group had stopped rising to the bait, I responded, “I guess they have decided it wasn’t in their enlightened self interest.” The question is, “who has the power now?” How many places can you find where this skill would clearly be in your enlightened self-interest? Your children’s? Your employer’s? The country’s?

If I experience that I can choose my attitude in any given circumstance, then I have the power to make situations work for me. What would happen if we made the best use of every learning opportunity presented to us? The only reason we do not do these things is that we have an idea before the mind that they are not possible.

So where do these attitudes come from? Clearly they are not “the truth.” So why are they so widely held? Most of it comes from a lack of clarity regarding the basic issue of what causes what, when, why and how. Let us look for a moment at the basic relationship of cause and effect as it is practiced in Western culture.

If we are sitting together and I douse you with a cup of water, you are wet, cold if the water is cold and probably ticked off because I soaked you.

Cause—————————————————-Effect:

Soaked with waterWet, cold, upset

And that is how we hold things. I am angry because it is raining and therefore, I can’t play golf or go to the beach. Your Mother bakes a chocolate cake for birthday and you wanted lemon. Upset. Other people have more money than you do. You are depressed. You wanted sex this morning, your spouse said, no. You are disappointed. You married the wrong person and you’ll never be happy. Cause and effect.

In reality, there are two categories left out of the demonstration chart, our reaction and what choices are available, as follows:

Cause Reaction Choice Effect

Soaked with Wet, cold, Get dry clothes, After you are dry,

Water, Upset No longer, wet none after the hour

Or cold. Choose of upset. Except

Upset for one where would younever sit if you see me with a glass?

Following a rather nasty prank as a kid, I awoke in a bed of cold hock being spat upon by three other youngsters. To this day, even watching a baseball game, when I see people spit, I remember that feeling clearly. There is nothing quite like waking up in a bed of cold hock. Then I remember I have a choice, am no longer in that bed and can choose to let it go. Imagine the feelings Joy had on that day in 1979. I bet she remembers them perfectly. And she is no longer, eight, no longer in that terrible situation and she can choose to participate in life. So can you, in any situation. R.H. Macy went bust six times before a business of his succeeded. They call it Macy’s. Lincoln went bankrupt before being elected President, Jefferson after. Why are these things not commonly known? Nelson Mandela survived twenty-seven years in a prison and with his captor, desegregated the country of South Africa. That ability to choose is within you. It is within all of us.

The real question is, what do we nurture on a day in and day out basis, what do we encourage?