Emotional Capital

We have all experienced people with strong opinions, and after a lively or heated discussion, we realized that no argument could change their views. Eventually we try to avoid them, while favoring others with views similar to our own. This process of avoidance segments the society into groups such as conservative, liberal, religious, atheist, hip, square, gay and/or straight or any combination of these. We all seek out and gravitate to a comfort zone, an area of less stress and greater enjoyment. We are controlled by our psyche, our emotions and thoughts, most of which we learned during our maturing process. This psyche is the result of long time investment in what some people call emotional baggage but I call Emotional Capital.

Recently I viewed a segment of Ken Burn's documentary of the American Civil War. It described one of the many battles that the Union Army lost. Seeing this program before I knew the Union forces lost this battle, but while watching I found myself hoping that this time they wouldn't lose. Why, I thought, was I still hoping that a battle which ended 150 years ago would somehow have a different ending? How often have we watched sports replay with an event leading to our team losing and hoped that this time it also would be different? Those hopes are a manifestation of what we are, think and feel, an out pouring of emotional capital resulting from investment in or feeding of our psychic, and years of accumulated emotions.

None of us can remember our infancy, but by witnessing other infants, we know that we are all are born with a clean slate, no opinions about anything, just unconditional love for the care givers. There aren't any liberal, conservative or opinionated toddlers. Therefore, our current opinions are the sum totals of our life's experiences with heavy influences from parents and other significant people in our lives. That's why people are inclined to vote their parents way, drive the same make of car or choose similar careers. On the negative side of society we see other results of emotional capital such as bullies, abusers, or pedophiles. Most of which were victims of similar behaviors. The stronger these past influences were in our lives, the greater the likelihood of they becoming the good or bad of what we are today.

Similar behavior patterns manifest themselves in different forms especially after making significant investments. Working long hours on a project, restoring a car, or building a business or house, contributing to a marriage and/or investing in stocks all require time, sweat, emotion and/or hard earned money. The more resources, effort or emotion invested, the stronger the attachment and emotional capital and the less willingness to break the attachment. Here too individuals seek proof or justification for their thoughts and embrace like-minded individuals.

Years of experience, investing and generating this emotional capital, makes it difficult for us as individuals to change. In the case of social issues, the "truth" to us is what we believe and feel, and not necessarily what is "truth or reality". To deny "our own truth" is to deny our belief, deny ourselves. Thus we stubbornly avoid reality, we don't seek the truth to primarily to avoid the changes it may bring. Consider your computer. When working correctly 1+1=2, However, it's easy to program it to produce an incorrect result, or to perform a destructive act such as wiping out data. Without external scrutiny or intervention that computer would continue to perform incorrectly or destructively. Likewise, without outside intervention many of us would never know that our individual "programming" is lacking and not based on "true reality." Most of us at one time were believers of untruths. For example, recall as children believing in Santa Claus? How did you learn the truth, or did you figure it out for yourself? Did you do a study and learn for yourself that reindeer can't fly? Just as children learn and adjust to the reality of Santa and computer programs are corrected, we can also change our programming, our thoughts.

Many have had life altering experiences, traumatic events, loss of a loved one, a near death experience, an illness, drug or alcohol abuse or an incarceration. Flashbacks are experienced, self evaluations occur and the change process can begin. Reading the Bible or seeing a graphic motion picture can initiate a "rebirth of the soul" a change in our psyche. With an understanding of how we have been programmed, we can initiate a reprogramming, a rebirth.

Getting a better sense of our purpose in life, why God put us on this earth, and how our actions are contrary to that purpose is cause enough for us to change A true rebirth can cleanse our souls, initiate an era of cooperation, reconciliation, and liberty so all can be fruitful and prosper.

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