Staff Photo by John Rawlston
A pumpkin glistens in the rain.A farmer eased a tiny pumpkin into a jug just to see what would happen. It grew to the shape and size of the jug and ceased to grow. The sides of the jug limited the potential of the pumpkin.
Like the farmer, we can put ourselves or others into jugs. We most often do this with our expectations. Every time we expect people to behave in a way that pleases us, we are trying to place them in our jug.
My son and I had a heart-to-heart one time in Dallas, and he said, “The thing I liked most about you was that you taught me to think for myself. When I asked for your thoughts about something, you would sometimes tell me, but you would always add that it was time I started thinking about my own view of that thing.”
I became aware quickly after becoming a parent that one of our greatest temptations is to try to create a child in our own image. I decided to get my fulfillment as a parent by watching my children learn to think for themselves. I have often laughed and told them, “I think I overtrained you!” From an early age they have been independent thinkers.
I knew a boy who painted commercial signs from an early age. His parents disregarded his desire to follow this trade and sent him off to to big-name colleges for advanced degrees. He became an alcoholic and had a complete nervous breakdown. Fortunately, they finally let him out of their expectation jug, and he was successful as a sign painter. He was very creative in his work. He was lucky. Some parents never release a child from their jug.
When we accept the expectations of others, the beliefs they hold about us can become unconscious – maybe even transparent, meaning we see right through them without even becoming aware of what they mean. We are unable to become aware of the role they are playing in our lives.
Society’s expectations can impact us dramatically. If you had been a girl raised in a Taliban family, you would dress in their way and not expect to receive an education. The Aztecs threw young virgins into volcanoes as a sacrifice for the sins of the people. In some cultures it was a firstborn son. This demonstrates the power of society’s jugs and the importance of looking at them. Maybe that was the reason Mark Twain said he got a little nervous when he found himself holding the opinion of the majority. He realized that some majority opinions were not based on rational thinking but are a consensus of biases.
Beliefs can get to be so “sacred” that we feel we cannot touch them. We cannot evaluate them and decide whether or not we wish to continue holding them. We need to clean out the closets now and then, getting rid of expectations and beliefs that no longer serve us. It is important that we choose our beliefs, or they will be passed down to us like secondhand clothes.
There come times in our lives when we must break our jugs and see where we got them in the first place.
Jug not and be not jugged.
Email Dalton Roberts at DownhomeP@aol.com.