Seeking Validation

What we do in this life often amounts to nothing more than seeking to validate our own self-perceptions. Who I am is not the sum value of what I say and do, who I know, where I hang out, what my job is, what my hobbies are. But that is our perception, so we sometimes find ourselves lost when the things we "knew" about ourselves are no longer "true."

What we believe, where we worship, are very much the same thing; things we seek after to validate our own perceptions that we're good or worthy, that we're loved. In some cases, it is to feel that we're loved, or that we deserve to be loved. The only thing, again, is that Jesus didn't come to validate us.

Big Open-ended Questions

I purchased the Total Transformation program for my family, because my middle son suffers from ADHD. It is supposed to equip parents to be able to deal with the behavioral problems, something that the medical community has yet to do for us, even though they've diagnosed him as having ADHD.

One of the situations the program discusses is to avoid questions that begin with "Why".

"Why did you make that mess?" or, "Why isn't your room cleaned up?"

The program explains that the question why gives the child an opening, an opportunity, a blank check, if you will, to blame someone or something else. It allows the child to deflect the focus from their own behavior and onto someone else's. It allows them to justify their behavior.

I think that, as adults, we've learned to take this and make it more effective by using the question why for ourselves, to distract others from addressing our perceptions; to justify feelings of self-pity.

"Why does this have to happen to me?"

"Why can't I be happy?"