MAVERICK FOR LIFE

Learning Myself

He who knows others is wise;
He who knows himself is enlightened.

Lao-tzu

My abstinence was not caused by fear only, although it was definitely a major factor. For better or worse, my parents tried hard and succeeded to instill in me their romantic view that a man had to put a woman on a pedestal, that physical love had to be always subordinate to spiritual one, and therefore love followed worship and not the other way around. “Will you respect me in the morning?” was not a part of their vernacular. They would have been right if the entire world had the same view, but very few people had it in real life. This view excluded love as consensual fun with no predefined time commitments and deprived a person of one of the few God-given joys of otherwise dreary life. It could also make a person vulnerable to different kinds of female vultures who would play the game for their corporeal benefits.

Blindly following the “pedestal” view in my youth had almost ruined my life. I should have seen that my parents were a strong evidence that it was wrong. They were the most incompatible couple I have ever met, victims of their romantic involvement followed by a dreadful uninspired life their marriage produced not only for them but for their children. However, I did not make the connection. Before I had finally realized how dangerous one-sided worship was, I made some mistakes, costly and painful but luckily reversible. My first marriage was one of such mistakes.

However, the good and bad in life come as a package, and my parents’ teachings were not an exception. They had a strong positive effect on my life, forming in me an undying sense of responsibility for other people, starting with women. It later spread to all people who depended on me regardless of whether I met them in my private or professional life. It was this sense of responsibility that made me a strong natural leader and a fairly good people manager. I felt being a sort of “the buck stops here” guy, someone who should stay calm in explosive situations and make decisions that would be acceptable for the people involved. However, being Solomonic is great unless you start playing the role of demigod who always knows what is good and bad for other people. Leaders have to constantly keep themselves from falling into this trap. I must admit that I was caught in it and not once.

I have also learned something about myself. I realized that for better or worse, my behavior was controlled and driven by logic rather than emotions. It did not mean that I had no emotions as watching my behavior from outside could suggest. While I pondered the course of action, I found myself in almost constant struggle between the rational and emotional, but whenever it came to making critical decisions, the rational part of me always won. I allowed my emotions prevail only when acting one way or another did not make much difference.

Since my decisions were rational I could not blame their unexpectedly negative consequences on other people. I had taught myself to look for their reasons in myself, in my ponderings, behavior, and decisions. It helped me find my own mistakes and, hopefully, avoid repeating them in the future. I have been always saying that there are so many different mistakes in life to be made that it is plain stupid to repeat the same ones. Education makes a person smarter, but only learning from one’s own mistakes can make the person wiser.