Throw Your Stereotypes in the Wastebasket

As a child, I adopted many chiseled-in-granite ideas about how an adult should live. That wisdom included:

1. A couple should marry in their early twenties and spend every night together for the rest of their lives.

2. A good father plays baseball with his sons and takes his children to picnics in the park.

3. A woman stays home and cooks. A man handles the money.

4. If you’re going to college, you have to start immediately after high school and continue your education without interruption until you finish.

5. If you ever accumulate a large amount of money it will eventually disappear.

6. When you praise people they lose all incentive to perform well.

7. Other people are out to get you.

8. Length of life is more important than quality of life.

9. Work is unpleasant and should be avoided as much as possible.

10. If you are too smart, other people will dislike you.

Where did I learn these rules? From my family, as well as my schools, teachers, and other children. In short, from the cultural stereotypes of my childhood.

My early beliefs were not entirely wrong. Quite the contrary. Many fathers play baseball with their sons and enjoy taking their children to the park for a picnic. Many women cook, and many men handle money. Some couples marry in their early twenties and live reasonably happily together ever after.

But living solely by stereotype can be treacherous because it often masks your own personal needs. One size does not fit all.

Those ten particular rules didn’t work for me as an adult and I don’t believe them anymore. Specifically:

1. I first married when I was twenty-one. Now, for more than thirty years, I have enjoyed my third marriage. I also admit that I enjoy an occasional overnight business trip alone.

2. I have two adult sons who are doing well in the world but I don’t recall playing baseball with them. I do remember picnics in the park.

3. My wife seldom cooks. We each handle money well.

4. Many years after completing my basic college education I returned to earn additional degrees.  My wife started college when she was twenty-four and graduated when she was twenty-nine.

5. As a lawyer I discovered that many people die leaving a large estate. Their wealth did not vanish before they did.

6. Praise motivates and criticism discourages.

7. Most people, including teachers, doctors, and friends, are actually out to do me good.

8. While the length of life is more easily measured, the quality of life is more important.

9. Work can be fun and fulfilling.

10. People used to dislike me not because I was smart but because I was obnoxious and sarcastic.

Gradually, over the years, I have discarded many of those “truths” I grew up with. I put them in my mental and emotional wastebasket, because they didn’t work for me anymore.

Many stereotypes of “how to be” exist largely in our own heads.  Some beliefs work for us but many do not. We grow. We change. The world changes. What satisfies me may not satisfy you and vice versa. This is why I use the People Tool of the Wastebasket to throw out those ideas or values that do not work for me today, which is the only day I have.

Whatever your beliefs, act on what your judgment tells you is appropriate today. Discard those “truths” that may have been helpful yesterday. You can always change your mind tomorrow, when circumstances may be different.

And use today to build new, more useful beliefs. Throw your obsolete, rusty tools into the Wastebasket. That’s what it’s for.

Alan