April 21, 2021,
Family, Fundamental Human Needs, Life, Love, Relationship, Script 
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Here’s an example from my own life story. My father grew up in a very large family during a difficult time in history. He was born in Europe just after the First World War and was the second youngest of eight children.
Needless to say, he would have had to make his presence known fairly loudly to have any of his needs met, which probably included having to speak very loudly to be heard over all the other people in his family.
I also know that my grandfather was a very successful businessman before the First World War, but that it was very difficult for him to continue to provide for his family afterward. I can only imagine how difficult and frustrating it must have been for my father’s parents at that time to raise their children while struggling with the aftermath of war.
So what sort of environment must this have been for my father to grow up in? Not only was he the seventh born, but his family must have been angry at the injustices of the time as they struggled to make ends meet after the devastation of Europe.
I remember that when I was a young child, my father was kind and generous, but he could also be “loud” and prone to extreme fits of anger. When something didn’t go his way, he would strike his large fists on the furniture and slam doors while yelling obscenities.
Where did he learn that? I think it could only have come from the frustrations of his own parents who, due to their own struggles, were unable to show my father how to express his anger in an appropriate way.
Maybe my father was driven by anger that was actually a leftover from his own early-childhood experiences. Maybe my father’s anger was a response to his parents’ reaction to what was happening in their lives at the time. So his rages so many years later may have actually been a response to something from his or his parent’s past rather than just about the situation my father found himself in his present.
So, by now, you’re probably asking, “And what about you? What about your anger?” Well, as it turns out, I am not a particularly angry person. Why not? There may be a couple of reasons for it.
First, my mother was not a particularly angry person. And maybe when she became angry, she had better skills to manage it than my father did. So, just as I was learning from my father, I was also learning from my mother the ways to manage anger, and, because of my personality, I was more inclined to follow her lead than his.
Second, I think that when you have seen the force of someone’s anger at such close quarters, you can make a subconscious decision, even very early in your life, that you will not behave in that way. I think, maybe, I did that.
Of course, there is also the possibility that I was just not born that way. The age-old question about whether nature or nurture is the dominant force in forming our personality still exists. I believe there may be a bit of both present. When egg and sperm united at the moment of your conception, the DNA carried deep within your genes set into motion a process that ultimately determined your hair and eye color, your height, and maybe even the basic characteristics of your personality.
Those things had an impact on you and your personality as you also affect them, your environment, and the people in it. So the way your mother affects your life, for example, is also affected by the way you affect your mother’s life.
To the wonder of you,
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