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Show " """"""" Let's Talk Doing your own thing may hurt others By REV. ff. LEE TRUMAN Copley News Service Many of the people you meet each day will be persons per-sons who are irresponsible and also undisciplined and consistently unhappy. These persons are those who cannot or have never learned to put their own pleasures second. The result is they get into trouble solely sole-ly because they do as they please. They act without regard re-gard for the painful consequences conse-quences or the hurt which could come to others, or to themselves. In counseling, I find they are irregular in their habits of eating, sleeping and working. They cannot establish estab-lish a consistent or a healthy life pattern. John's life was coming apart for just these reasons. In talking to his mother, she told me her son as a boy would often decide to take a bath or get a haircut just as the family was sitting down lo dinner. She went on and illustrated this attribute of being undisciplined again and again in his life, and also how unhappy he has always seemed to be. John, 39, can visit a bar, meet a friend or some interesting inter-esting story teller and he will stay until the place closes, completely disregarding disre-garding his wife who is frantic fran-tic with anxiety wondering what has happened to her husband. He is always sorry, feels guilty, but keeps on doing the same thing many different ways. This is a man who is very unhappy and making everyone every-one close to him miserable. He is living a broken, fragmented frag-mented life because of his basic lack of discipline. This kind of behavior is like that of a child. The spirit of rebellion, refusal to conform to the many disciplines of school, home, church, living for the moment always living in a fragmented pat tern and is always out ot step. John went into his adulthood adult-hood refusing to conform. His "child" as Eric Berne has pointed out, is almost totally in control. In this attitude style, he has contempt con-tempt for anyone who settles set-tles down in one place and lives an ordinarily disciplined discip-lined life with norms that others can expect of him. The undisciplined person looks upon the disciplined without any comprehension of the other, feeling he is sensibly living a full life, and having all the fun, and therefore feels a disciplined person is to be pitied. John fails to realize that his sprees, nervous breakdowns break-downs and other illnesses, including his aborted business busi-ness ventures, have cost his responsible relatives a great deal of anxiety and unusual quantities of money. He also fails to note that when he is sick, broke, or in debt he falls back on the disciplined for help, money or security. The free-spirited "black sheep" forgets when he is up, how often he has been unhappy and also how often he has resisted efforts of his family and friends to help him find a happier and more successful way of life. John prefers to remain an outsider, outsid-er, a person above the rules. All of this is a part of the cost of civilization. There was a time when the undisciplined undis-ciplined man could become successful and even famous doing the individualistic and dangerous work of pioneering. pioneer-ing. Such persons are often decidedly gifted. Some of our most creative writers are of this type. Adventuresome men such as Lawrence of Arabia use these distinct talents and eccentricities ec-centricities and leave their marks on history. But most often, It is the frustration which leads them to the tragic. Such is the cost for a person who walks always f out of step - |
