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Or some people with negative childhood experiences learn what not to do and lead totally different lives as adults, and relish the difference.
My parents split when I was five after I stopped my father from continuing to beat my mother, who was lying in a pool of her own blood in the hallway of the projects we lived in, by hitting him in the head with with my tennis racket. My father was a product of the depression and a WWII combat vet. My mother had PTSD from WWII in Europe and I had two nut job step fathers that only lasted a couple of years each. There was always violence in my mother's marriages. We moved around a lot. From kindergarten through high school graduation I was enrolled in 10 different schools in 8 different cities from coast to coast. We were dirt poor, living in one bedroom and studio apartments. We never had a car until I got my license at 16, and bought an 8 year old Ford from my uncle.
So I worked my way through college. It was the 60's and I had my share of sex, drugs, alcohol, and rock and roll. I knew how to have a good time. I fell in love at 25, got married a year and three months later and we are still together 50 years later with kids, grandkids, having spent our working years living in Brooklyn and Staten Island and retired to a nice house in NJ, all within an hour's drive away from each other for the past 50 years.
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Originally Posted by Thoreau424
I think it mostly goes back to how one was raised, and the example of their parents, as well as people and influences around as one "grows up". I always had very positive and productive influences, and believe I've continued those throughout life. They've kept me moving forward, and out of emotional "ditches".
If you are used to healthy influences, you tend to automatically reject negative influences. On the other hand, persons used to negative and dysfunctional influences seem to continue with them since they are so familiar.
1. You learn from them. My goal is to not repeat the action that caused regret.
2. You can make amends to those who you might need to make amends.
I have regrets...but I don't dwell on them too much. I'm thankful that I'm not wired that way. My biggest regret is giving a child up for adoption...not the actual adoption...it was the right thing to do, but it's real hard giving up a child, and I regret hurting the people I hurt...and there were plenty.
1. You learn from them. My goal is to not repeat the action that caused regret.
2. You can make amends to those who you might need to make amends.
I have regrets...but I don't dwell on them too much. I'm thankful that I'm not wired that way. My biggest regret is giving a child up for adoption...not the actual adoption...it was the right thing to do, but it's real hard giving up a child, and I regret hurting the people I hurt...and there were plenty.
My only regrets are that I should have treated a few people better than I did. Most often there is no way to make amends except by trying not to repeat the same mistakes with someone else. But every road you take makes you what you are, so maybe the lessons you learn benefit someone else.
Isn't one's temperament almost entirely inborn and evident almost from birth? I thought we discovered that decades ago, or at least I remember learning it in school. Some just naturally have a sunnier more optimistic personality, resilience, and enthusiasm for life...
Each person is born with a certain temperament and nervous system. Some people are more sensitive than others. There are many other possible variables, but I think it's 95% nature.
Isn't one's temperament almost entirely inborn and evident almost from birth? I thought we discovered that decades ago, or at least I remember learning it in school. Some just naturally have a sunnier more optimistic personality, resilience, and enthusiasm for life...
Here we go: The neverending nature/nurture thing...I firmly believe (and personally experienced) good parenting and an upbringing that modeled resiliency, confidence, and realistic optimism. It can certainly influence those natural inclinations. Just because you're born being one way doesn't mean you can't learn to compensate for it to some degree. So much of how we face our lives is learned behavior, not innate.
I am somewhere in between. I can move forward because there is only so much information I can keep in my head. When by myself, I may think about my past and miss it; it made me who I am today. When with others, I am careful not to repeat a feeling or event - most people already know these things about me.
My strategies are pretty solid; it took years to develop them. But I know not everyone will have reliable "how-to" strategies. Therefore, I like being patient with loved ones who have a hard time letting go.
So, that being the case, I feel that the naturally cheerful get undeserved credit for their constitutions, being widely admired, whereas the naturally morose are generally blamed and condemned for theirs, as well as shunned for being "negative people" since society has become so enamored of positive thinking and nearly phobic about so-called "negative" (what I call realistic) thinking. Now we're expected to "learn" how to think differently than we naturally think and react differently than we naturally react to conform and are judged harshly if we don't.
But that's more a contemporary and cultural bias. I know there was a time and am sure there are still places where serious, thoughtful, even somber personalities are valued.
I, for one, have overcome and bounced back from a lot in my life, which was more of a challenge for me than other temperaments, but do feel I've hit a wall, as I can't seem to muster a lot of enthusiasm "moving forward." Whether it's age, menopause, dysthymia, world weariness, or a combination I do feel stymied by disappointments and regrets and believe my best years are behind me. That's probably an accurate assessment, as I'm nothing if not pragmatic!
If you're referring to "letting go" as in forgiving others, if that's what's holding someone back, I DO feel that's a choice and a gift you give yourself.
Last edited by otterhere; 04-12-2022 at 10:01 PM..
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