As I scan my past entries I see that this has been brewing for quite a while, and just today I was blessed with a wonderful insight that hit me quite out of nowhere.
Well, it wasn’t actually nowhere, but it seems I’ve not been paying any attention at all to that quadrant
I layed there, broiling in thoughts of how “they” are always getting what “they” want while “I” always have to make the sacrifices that make “them” happy and contented.
I lamented. I wailed internally. I filled in at least two and a half crossword puzzles, and then it hit me!
“It” has everything to do with why Koreans get into trouble in the cockpit of an airplane!
Huh?!?
To explain…
I’m always being cast in a supporting role – I’ve always known that – but it’s that I’ve never been “acknowledged” for it. That was the distinction I made TODAY!
Not being properly acknowledged for a role you play in Hollywood will get you broke quick, because no one ain’t gonna pay you nothin’ for your work, and so it goes in one’s life too.
If I ain’t bein’ acknowledged for what I do then why would I ever get paid for it? Or as Mae West puts it “first you gotta tell ‘em what you’re gonna do, then you do it, and then you tell ‘em what you just did.”
She was talking about men.
It took me almost 20 years to realize that goes for just about anyone you’re ever going to do anything for!
So what does any of this have to with Koreans in Cockpits you ask?
Listen to this snippet from an NPR interview with Author Malcolm Gladwell… If that doesn’t work, follow this link. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97117414
Well. It turns out that Koreans pay excessive deference to authority, and people of higher rank, and curtail their own ability to speak plainly to them in doing so.
Shazam!
Turns out that I may have been raised in a Korean family, or maybe my own family really liked the mores of Korean culture. Either way, I was bred and trained to heed authority, beginning with Mom and Dad.
Fierce discipline, limited communication opportunities, and shouting.
Turns out the way I was treated at home set me up for the “external” world, and soon teachers at school, other kids and the Principal would take turns degrading me, debasing my intelligence, and shouting.
In other words, “authority, and people of higher rank” ended up being almost everyone external to me.
Being of incredible intelligence (tongue in cheek), I quickly adapted, and turned myself inwards to my own universe. I read everything, learned the innermost intricacies of language, and went off on faraway adventures… all imagined, never expressed.
What I understood deep in my subconscious core was that nothing that I thought, said or presented was of any use. In short, I was rubbish, so why open myself up to further criticism? It became easier to just shut up and be done with it!
Fast forward to November 21, 2008: I’ve carried all those early lessons with me, and have actively refused to air any of my ideas, feelings and even pet peaves with any one I don’t COMPLETELY trust, and that’s just about everyone.
They may as well be conversing with a Dog.
That has also carried into my concepts about money, because I’d have to have something of value to warrant my getting money for the exchange (you don’t pay a Dog for the emotional support it provides, do you?), and since my unworthiness had been drilled deep into my core, why would I think anybody would want to compensate me for anything I have?
How it gets expressed is that all I do is give give give, with a burning desire for someone to RECOGNIZE my innate worth (without actually telling them about it), and like a lost child, have them pick me up and tell me they “love” me (be my friend, or compensate me for what I’ve done).
I look to the outside world to show me my worth, because I can’t see it through the lenses I’ve got, and subconsciously ask it to bestow unto me the worth I’ve been yearning for them to see IN ME.
Scratch!
We’re in the 21st Century, Dammit!
You are supposed to reflect to others your worth, or you’re nothing.
You have to insist on your worth, you have to be self made, “always the creator never the victim,” etc., etc., etc….
But how do I do any of that without having the deeply held notion that I’m actually worth something?
Why would I heed any of my observations (not to mention that “little voice”) when I can’t bring myself to believe in me?
Reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode where an Air Traffic Controller gets a landing request on a foggy night and realizes the aircraft in question is the very airplane that had officially crashed and burned, with no survivors, years before, on his shift.
The man couldn’t believe what was going on, but the plane kept coming, along with the radio transmissions. It landed and taxied to parking with its engines blaring, refusing any further communication.
He finally runs down to the tarmac to see if he can get onto the plane and explain away what logic refused to countenance.
The hoax would not vanish, and exhausting all communication channels, he finally decides to walk up to the great spinning propellers of the DC3 and stick his hands into them, challenging, in doing so, the impossible reality it presented… to prove that it was his mind that was holding on to the ghost of an airplane he’d lost in the fog, or lose his arms proving it.
Just as soon as the hero sticks his hands into the prop, the plane vanishes, never to return, followed, of course, by the voice of Mr. Serling, advising us that these things often happen within the folds of our own 3 pound Universe.
Our hero challenged his belief only to prove it a false one. QED.
Likewise, in my life, it’s time for me to stick my hands into that proverbial prop and challenge the beliefs that I make myself cling to, and just as it was with the TZ Hero, it’s not going to be a walk in the park. I am going to have to work for it! Lay it all on the line and throw the dice with everything I got!
I’m going to have to challenge all of the voices out there that scream out my iniquities, beat the birds out of the bushes, and take the reins of my own destiny lest it plunge nose first into an all encumbering Sun and take the chariot with it.
Good news is that I might find my courage along the way, understand, perhaps for the first time, who I really am. Get to do all of the things I’ve always dreamed of, and maybe check off at least six of the goals I’ve got posted on my profile, and walk away a happy camper.
That would be a WOW! moment.
To recap::
-I have something worthwhile to contribute
-Others need, and will benefit from my work
-I am the Champion of my own Value
-Unchallenged beliefs grow stronger
-They can’t use my resources to my detriment unless I let them
-I become stronger when I support others in this manner
-I can be proud of how I support others
-I am not afraid to be alone until the world sees me for me
-I am the change I’d like to see in the world
-It all starts with me
