Economics

Next time think of it in terms of economics.  You’re about to enter a room full of people that you imagine to have an imagined value of you.  In that moment there is a currency exchange.  Like being in a foreign country for the first time, the tender can be confusing and you may find yourself asking others to help you determine value.  This is complicated by the fact that everyone else in the room has their own peculiar cash. 

It seems that humans learn this brand of economics around age four or five.  A younger child can accommodate the ambiguity of being assessed by his mother as the cutest and most capable child on the planet while concurrently accepting the assessment of the older and wiser kids in the neighborhood.  So, because he received both infobits from people in a position to know he believes himself to be handsome, adept, and worthy of the nickname “Big Chief Wetumpants”.  But somewhere in the development around year four an information filter is installed which allows for screening out of counterfeit information.  Counterfeit information does not meet the standard of the image he has believed to be true.

The information filter known as self-image is formed by the strong and/or consistent input we receive. The things we believe about ourselves are largely a product of adaptation to our early environment. Now, wait a minute, we’re not just talking about your parents. What you believe about yourself was gathered from just about anybody taller than you. And because the key time to learn this stuff happens before you are four years old just about everybody is taller than you. Parents, siblings, grandparents, and caretakers (this may have included both your day care provider Mrs. Beasley and her television) all give you input on what makes you valuable. They tell you that you are good or pleasing or smart or cute when you do certain things.

We humans are very fond of blaming.  We blame nature and nurture.  I take comfort in giving responsibility for my current choices to the action or inaction of someone long ago and faraway.  As if the past were who I am, rather than where I am from.  There are many deeply wounded people who rightly assign an abuser with the shaping pain of their history.  The tragic lie is that they also believe that the abuser is responsible for their current choices.  They label themselves survivor and live in reference to the event.

The events and impressions that shape self-image are not always negative.  Dearly loved children who never heard the word “no” have a filter.  Prodigies learn that when the bar is set high early they will live in fear of having peaked at three.  James Taylor recognized exceptional kids in a memory of his childhood, “we were ring around the rosy children, they were circles around the sun.” 

Accomplishment is an amusing currency to observe.  It can be seen in status symbols like handbags and houses.  Next time your out people watching count the shirts, bumper stickers, or other advertisements that sport accomplishment currency; I Climbed Half Dome, New York City Marathon, Harvard.  Just the idea that the statement may be true can change our impression of a person.  Although, I am suspicious of anyone wearing a NY Marathon shirt.  If they are to be believed then Harvard must be very crowded and Tony Romo has been hanging around at the mall.


In addition to environment it is clear that genetics, prenatal situation, and the amount of nurturance and nutrition received in the first year of life also play a big part in this.  Each of these factors affects brain chemistry. For instance, any of these factors can affect the part of the brain that reacts to a perceived threat. This can result it’s a “hair trigger” in the brain that makes one more reactive. All these factors influence intelligence, aptitude, and personality.  Again, this is an area of the past that we need to “think of with sober judgment.”  We have particular potentials, gifts, and preferences that need to be seen clearly and put to good use.  Hang on here kids, there are also areas in which we will not be equipped to participate or get a medal.  I know, it doesn’t seem right; feel free to blame somebody.

I like the way Carly Simon summed up the blaming thing when she sang, “sorry that your mother dropped you on your head, maybe her mother dropped her too.  In the end we all get dropped, we all get black and blue”.  We blame parents, genetics, astrological patterns, and low blood sugar for our behavior, and for our self-image.

This is the economy of self, that we see ourselves in reference to the currency standard we adopted early in life.  Some seek security in money or relationship; others earn favor through accomplishment or service.  There are many currencies.  Mine’s productivity, what yours?