2631. Universal Motivators (Revised)

Being the superior gender, women have ability, but not all know enough to satisfy a man or themselves with a man. Most need more knowledge, and the following universal motivators  may help. I present motivational forces common to both sexes here and motivational differences in the next article. It’s also background for other articles.

God must have designed both sexes this way, because it’s the way we act and interact.

• Compatible. Both sexes are designed such that each man and woman can be a compatible mate. However, it may be harder to be one than find or keep one.
• Self-image. Since childhood, each of us carries and maintains a picture of who we are, what we can do, and how well we like ourselves in our various roles in life. The picture continually and subconsciously updates out of the life we live.
• Self-interest. We are all motivated by self-interest. It’s who we are in terms of what we do and think. Plus, we are all endowed with free will that provides the independence needed to live and guide self-interest to our advantage.
• Get My Way. Life is shaped by intention and ability to get our way with things, in events, and among people we encounter. Self-interest is the governor that guides us and by which we don’t overdo it. Also, we try competitively to at least not lose in matters that directly affect self-interest.
• Competition. All four motivators above come together to energize us to compete with other members of both sexes. In that way, endless competition determines what happens on earth. Whether peaceful or not, it’s the most dynamic, balancing, and productive method by which everyone pursues self-interest. Having the ability and sensing opportunity to compete, we are inspired to do the best we can for ourselves. Others doing the same generates the balance.

Summary. Compatibility with a mate is life’s objective, and we are all invited. Self-image enables us to vary the speed of life. Self-interest gets us into and out of trouble, enabled by free-will that provides essential and independent thought. To get my way enables us to shape life as we desire it. Competition keeps us together and yet enables us to produce an independent and worthwhile life.

As necessity is mother of invention and frustration is the father. So, hope is the mother of competition and progress is the father.

In short, human design turns us loose to do the best we can serving ourselves in the hope that we can someday share our good fortune with a mate of choice. Pardon the hubris, but God must have also intended for us to multiply successfully enough that we would not become extinct. It’s next.

2349. Tribute to the Female Nature — 05: Love vs. Discipline

Some mothers raise their children so easily and problem-free, that it must be a piece of cake. Others don’t, can’t, or won’t. The difference starts with toddlers and revolves around two principles.

Toddlers become self-developers as soon as their conscious minds open and they become aware that they too are persons deserving of treatment similar to what others receive. They change direction a little bit shortly thereafter when they discover boys and girls are different and they are one and not the other. They fall quite naturally into their respective sex roles.*

Quite subconsciously to them but visible to mom, they expect to see that others believe as they do. Born with self-love, girls seek evidence that they are loved. Born with self-respect, boys seek evidence that they are respected. They both measure it subconsciously by how they are treated compared to others.

First, they look. They are unaware of why, but they react to being treated differently than they instinctively deserve. Girls expect to be loved equally with others and welcome as part of some group, such as with mom or sisters. Boys expect to be respected fairly. Relative to others, they sense that all are not equal and that individual independence is important.

Second, they earn. Without early recognition that parents and others agree with them, they try to earn the confirmation they seek—girls loved equally, boys respected fairly.

Third they struggle. Failing to earn what they think they deserve, they ‘fight’ back rather than try very hard to earn confirmation of their worth. IOW, if they don’t get what they are born to deserve in their little hearts and minds, they struggle against the status quo. You know and have seen what that means for family quiet, peace, harmony, and mom’s frustration threshold.

It’s all part of self-development. When mom doesn’t go along to meet their ‘demands’, which are subconscious meanderings to see how far they can go or what they can get (self-interest), it can easily make mom sorry, frustrated, unhappy, and lost on what to do next or better. Especially if she’s tied up with something important to her or hubby’s self-interest.)

That’s where two principles come in to make handling children a piece of cake provided mom exploits them with her toddlers. Children need a mature-adult mixture of both principles as they grow up but they impact boys and girls differently.

1) Love comforts. It doesn’t teach except to be easy on oneself.

Comfort confirms a child’s self-image of who, what, and how valuable he is and, consequently, has developed. Also, mom’s applications of love both warm her heart and relieve anxiety in both mom and child.

Girls deserve and need more love than boys. It both confirms a girl’s inborn self-love (she’s worthy of cuddling) and establishes her self-respect (she is as independent as she desires) that is absent at birth.

2) Discipline teaches self-discipline. It doesn’t comfort but breeds self-confidence through achievement.

Discipline’s minor side is to behave in certain ways usually prescribed by social norms, authority, or in our case here, mom. However, the major component is to think in certain ways. Good discipline is not about doing what mom says although that avoids trouble, it’s about doing right and not doing wrong. (Mom won’t always be there to guide.)

Boys deserve and need more discipline than girls. Mom’s discipline is the bedrock of each boy developing his self-discipline, which is vital to the healthy sense of responsibility that adult men need to be mature and successful.

Girls are born with an innate sense of right and wrong. Almost like an inbred moral code, They need far less teaching than boys. Personal discipline is still required for girls, however, to prevent them from over using their ability and strong desire to express and spread love as solution for everything. They need to be disciplined to balance love and discipline when their children come along.

Carrying an undeveloped infant and giving birth endows mothers with a gift no one else possesses. The ability and willingness to forgive her own. It’s a weakness that too easily convinces that love conquers all. When mother depends on it, she aims her children toward immaturity in adulthood, i.e., adultolescents.

Both too much love and too much discipline discourage initiative. The former implies all is well and the child has little responsibility to help himself. The latter teaches that initiative brings on criticism. Too little love has the same end result; the adult looks for comfort from others. Too little discipline makes the child disrespectful of authority. All those conditions render immature adults.

Mature adulthood begins in the third year of life. Mothers are in charge and they have these obligations: to love and to discipline, to comfort and to teach, to confirm value and to prepare toddlers to successfully self-develop themselves.

It amounts to this. Love and discipline go together, comfort and self-discipline go together, well-loved and self-disciplined toddlers are mature beyond their years.

——

*I purposely avoid speculating about boys that act as girls and vice versa in early childhood. It’s outside the scope of this article.

2334. Suggestions for Raising Children — Part VIII

Tactical Parenting: Encouraging Toddlers

Numbers are only for easy reference.

Toddlers: This part will become more complex than readers may like. Tough to study. However, the toddler phase is the most important to stabilize a child’s personality around the quality that parents expect. Heart and mind are the most open they will ever be to parental input. The earlier a child learns something, the more indelibly it’s imprinted. I advise mothers and yet-to-be mothers to study several times that which follows.

1. A child’s development process begins in the third year of life as a toddler’s conscious mind opens further and further, first signified by the child recognizing who they are. They take on the aura that, Hey, I’m a person too; pay attention to what I have to say. And, they expect to be respected just as they see others respected.
2. Parents produce what they hope to develop by generating the firmest of foundations in toddlers. Teach morality early because toddlers buy in more easily to good teaching before they can recognize examples to the contrary. (Better they know what’s right than to follow deviations of others.)
3. Gently convey parental convictions. Teach principles about life that parents value and each child’s maturity can handle, such as right and wrong, boys don’t hit girls, everyone sits quietly in church, and responsibility comes before entertainment. It’s vital to stay within each child’s level of maturity. Think thrice before expecting toddlers to act as adults.
4. The overriding principle about teaching is this: Match child’s new responsibilities with their maturity so the child can easily succeed. Success is far more important than both achievement and fulfilling responsibility.
5. Lessons learned through success are lasting. Failures impact kids two ways, and they often view mistake as failure. Fail themselves and they learn from experience, which they learn to deal with by improving. It’s part of their self-development ‘package’. Fail to meet parental expectations and they feel inadequate and tend toward unworthiness, which is the birthplace of tween and especially teen problems for parents.
6. Self-image begins to form in toddlerhood. That much of who and what they think they are at any given moment determines their behavior more than parental direction—except as the latter may be forced of course.
7. Additionally, after toddlers realize how boys and girls are treated differently, self-image includes how they like themselves as male or female. Unless parents belittle them, self-like develops in boys as the result of how they do and accomplish things right now, today, this moment. If parental feedback isn’t the opposite, a girl’s self-like develops as the result of how she relates to others according to her hopes, desires, and wishes for today and for doing better next time.
8. Subliminal hardwiring of the subconscious mind that began in infancy continues until the reflection of adult treatment is made less important than the toddler’s appraisal about treatment versus that deserved. Thus, the reflection of how he is treated slowly fades and is replaced by new programming as his conscious thoughts start to prevail and swell over time.
9. Instinctive self-development swells toddler thinking to pay more attention to themselves. It’s the most fertile time for parental expectations to become more guidance than dictate. The latter has the undesirable effect of belittling as unacceptable the child’s expectation of who and what he is. Guidance confirms that he’s openly accepted to compete for his own place in the family.
10. Toddlers make their own decisions about themselves, which form and develop into an ever expanding picture of self, and which instinctively includes the freedom to continue developing.
11. A toddler had no conscious involvement with earlier formation of self-esteem but his conscious mind soon learns from experience. He concludes from how he’s treated plus his accomplishments just how much and thoroughly he likes or doesn’t like himself. It’s no longer one-sided based on treatment in infancy. Self-conviction about successes and failures fulfilling responsibilities determine their self-like.
12. Gifts intended to enhance self-esteem fail to do what’s intended. Self-esteem can’t be changed. Self-image is earned and unearned gifts don’t uplift it either.
13. Toddlers think they deserve to be handled like others treat each other. But yet, parents have to exclude toddlers from certain adult events. It’s much easier to do if parental trust has been given and toddlers have learned to respect parental interests and decisions that are hard for toddlers to accept.
14. Consequently, the environment toddlers live in, together with their accomplishments and relations, helps to form high or low self-image, which is the governor of their behavior for life. IOW, we follow our own; we all choose, decide, and live according to the self-image we develop previous to the moment.
15. The toddler opts to believe what happens to him more than blindly accepting what the actions and words of others try to convey. Although not fully aware of what he does, independent thought about his status and value forms both from and into a revised picture of self.
16. Within a short time boys and girls become more conscious that they receive different treatment. Each comes to deserve their own unique version of adult and sibling interest and respect. In addition, trust begins to show up as different by sex. Self-image forms more intricately around the displays of parental and sibling trust, which improves the toddler’s interest in those around them.
17. Self-esteem, as reflection of how they are treated, slowly stops growing as the toddler’s conscious mind begins to pay attention to its own conclusions. They start to alter with conscious thought the opinions they perceive in parents and siblings.
18. Parents should start immediately—if not before—to respect the toddler as a person. Later, when they identify as boy or girl, respect as such should follow. Parents naturally show interest in their children but it doesn’t mean that respect follows. When child perceives a parent’s trust and not just interest, it bounces or reflects back as interest in parent and respect for what they say and do.
19. Toddlerhood lasts until first grade. Respect in the form of interest, nurturing, and allowing self-development work best. As each child seeks to self-develop, boys expect no assistance. Girls seeking to master the art of relating with others expect guidance but not excessive oversight.
20. Early on the toddler’s self-image is an undeveloped negative. It’s why interest and trust are vital to be shown by parents before the picture starts to solidify as negative self-like.
21. When high self-esteem and low self-like are different or reversed, children proceed conflicted. Alternating, they bounce from liking to not liking themselves. When SE and SL are both high, they confidently face the world as movers and shakers. When SE and SL are both low, confidence seldom finds them except for niches of particular appeal to them.
22. When SE and SL are both super low, kids and adults feel urgent need to resurrect their image tarnished by self-loathing or -hatred. (Out of which can far too easily come depraved killers and others of their ilk.) Super low self-like works similarly with girls but with less dynamic results.
23. (WADWMUFGAO. Teens and adults who loathe or hate themselves feel good about themselves when they make others feel the same way or they make them wish they felt the same. They seem motivated to make someone pay for their misery.)
24. Each child seeks to self-develop. They first explore what they should aim at. As soon as they recognize that they will grow into an adult, that’s what they want to become. Personal and self-image development follow that course. As they figure out what kind of adult, they look for samples, ideas, and models and tend to duplicate those they admire of their own sex.
25. As self-image develops fully as a super-teen, self-like displaces self-esteem. How they like themselves as a person becomes far less important than how they like themselves as man or woman and filling their various roles in life.

The toddler instinctively develops the picture of who and what he is in his world of people. As a subset, it includes his determination about liking and disliking himself as man, woman, and their roles in life. Throughout life, each person’s continually changing self-image, unchangeable self-esteem, and consciously derived self-interest guide their speech and actions and in effect govern their behavior.

2333. Suggestions for Raising Children — Part VII

Tactical Parenting: Encourage Infants

Infants. The foundation of life-long self-appreciation develops before a person’s conscious mind opens. It lasts virtually unchanged as a subliminal appendage to their self-image that develops later.

Self-esteem is the basis of how a person likes himself as a person. He is taught by caregivers to like or not like himself as a human. Not as male or female, which develops later and not their various roles in life which develop even later.

1. Mothers know this instinctively but it’s not natural to men. Shower an infant with love, kind nurturing, and a quiet and undisturbed life and the result is healthy. Such intense interest automatically conveys motherly interest and respect. The absence of such tender loving care (TLC) causes unhealthy programming of the subconscious mind. Either result remains with the child throughout life.
2. Self-esteem develops as a reflection of how an infant is treated by mother and caregivers. Gentle, quiet, and non-disruptive care with much touching and prevention of discomfort reflect the interest and high regard of others, which generates high self-esteem. Thus, the basic model of successful human relating begins in infancy.
3. To the degree those caregiver inputs above are opposite of TLC, self-esteem develops as less and lower. Ignore, scare, bring on sudden disruptions, and maltreat an infant and it breeds low self-esteem that can hit bottom. Reflecting off cruel and mistreating caregivers who most likely loath themselves, the infant’s absorbent subconscious mind becomes permanently programmed with self-loathing and even self-hatred. (Out of whom later and too easily can emerge psychopaths and sociopaths.)
4. The infant’s subconscious brain continuously hard-wires itself until the conscious mind opens in the third year of life. After that, development of self-image slowly overrides self-esteem as motivator. As a subset of self-image, self-like as male or female develops from success and failure as they fulfill the various roles in their lives. More and more, as the hard-wired self-esteem as a person fades into background, conscious judgments and decisions prevail based on self-image and self-like as developed by male or female with their personal successes and failures.

subconscious mind, infant, infancy, self-loathing, self-hatred, self-esteem as person, self-image, TLC, caregiver, male or females,

2171. Mid-life Dating — C6: Internal Burnout aka Bowel Distress

Surprise, ladies. I can’t hazard a guess of how many, but some of you may not be healthy enough for uninterrupted dates. So, I hereby stick my neck into an arena for which I’m unqualified by normal standards. I admit the chivalry articles partially inspired this opinion piece.

Disclosures:

• You’ll think I’m crazy, but stick around for a highly unusual and perhaps controversial or perhaps worthless example of What Women Never Hear.
• I’m neither a medical doctor nor other medical professional. However, I’ve studied human nature and motivation for 64 years. The following describes my analysis of bad habits of thought and emotion that lead to poor body functioning, specifically that which leads to frequent bowel disturbances.
• I neither understand nor describe the process that happens. I just identify likely causes of adverse bowel functioning that plague some men and women. I leave the details to medical professionals, while I focus on causes and the behavioral changes that can relieve discomfort.
• Let me know what you think. Those of you or who know someone with continual bowel distress, see if I am pretty close to identifying your or their causal habits. Everything is relative and nothing is precise.

Our physical condition is a function of what we eat. Our body functions are impacted, sometimes severely, by the result of how we feel and think about emotional matters. The following causes ‘internal burnout’, the result of special kinds of anxiety, to which I attribute bowel disturbances.

I choose self-image as the concept around which to explain causes. Self-image, the picture we each have of ourselves, governs our lives. We assiduously live within that picture of who we are and what we do, can do, and expect to do. We are motivated to pursue our self-interest, and our self-image contains our guiding beliefs and juggles our emotions to match our pursuit. If we fall out of line with it, or in effect contradict our self-image, we correct or rationalize deviations. We see normal functioning in this truism: If you think you can, you can, and you act accordingly. If you think you can’t, you’re right, and so you choose to do something else.

While it can’t be called faulty, some people’s self-image interferes with the proper functioning of their bodies. That’s where this is headed. What might the causes be of the symptoms that adversely disturb bowel functions?

Let’s look at it under four headings.

1. Internalizing. We should all know about this factor that plagues both introverts and extroverts. Many people focus too much on themselves. Their thoughts turn inward with personal concerns. They focus mostly on negative functions; they worry, agonize, and find faults in relationships, jobs, and their body. Thoughts such as, this ain’t right, that doesn’t work right, that hurts a little, it could be serious, and what am I to do? And worst of all, they focus far too much on things and about people they can do nothing about. Such as, how do I make someone like me? How do I impress them? How do I hide my bad side? How can I help someone, when I have the same fault?

Some people are so vulnerable to internalizing that it consumes their spare time. It causes them to fall prey to stirred-up emotions and hormones, enzymes, and digestive juices in excessive doses that act almost as if foreign to one’s GI tract and connected functions. It’s not what they internalize so much as too much of it. Not good, but then most of us have learned about the repercussions of too much worry, and so nothing new in all that. It’s just my recap of what too much internalizing leads to.

2. Guilt. Women live continually with guilt. Much of it reminds of their bad side, which stirs certain guilt to plague their spare time. Their focus on it intensifies by internalizing about their relationships.

Men are less prone. Their guilt swings mostly around their actions and independence. Guilt doesn’t make them bad, it stirs them to action. I’m not good enough, or I should do better; I have to try harder. Or, how do I handle that SOB or hide my cheating? A man’s sense of independence disconnects others from his guilt; he’s more a loner to relieve it. He can more easily than women take action that relieves guilt. Women have no such ‘easy release’ because their guilt is tied to someone else; they’re less independent.

3. Judging. This is new ground for readers. People don’t naturally talk along these lines. Too personal, too descriptive of our personal motivation, which is not usually a discussable subject. You may find yourself uncomfortable.

We judge and it takes place in two ways. Part of the shaping of our self-image is judging ourselves. It’s usually not much of a contribution to internal burnout, because natural pressures push us and sense of independence enables us to do something about it. (Example: I have to lose weight, dress more attractively, smile more, get a better job, give spouse more attention.) We are the only ones involved with fixing whatever we judge to need it. Action displaces disappointed emotions, and so we learn to either fix or accept and live with the rest. Internalizing about it usually does not make us sick.

But some people make themselves sick by ‘comparison shopping’. That is, judging themselves relative to others.

We are always in the process of judging others; it’s required for our own safety. For some, it gets out of hand. It’s an irresistible urge for all of us. But those vulnerable to internal burnout find themselves excessively wanting or lacking. It self-demeans their worth and belittles their picture of themselves.

Such people fuss with themselves. Not to work on recovery, but to stew about comparative shortcomings that can’t be fixed. Stewing takes less courage and steadfastness than to change habits, create different beliefs, develop new behaviors, or just take actions that keep one busy enough to divert attention from internal stewing.

They find themselves unhappy with what they do, want to do, or can do. Their self-image shrinks relative to others, while their self-interest urges them to do better. Confusion exacerbates anxiety, which invites more stewing.

4. Image Projection. There are two kinds to be covered, do it for yourself or for others.

a) Imagine one’s abilities and qualities to be different for the sole purpose of pleasing oneself. (I suggest the book The Magic of Thinking Big.) You can become a much better, powerful, influential person without inducing illness. The difference is this. You have to do it for no one but yourself.

b) Do it for others and you can too easily induce illness. Some people develop their behaviors and habits in order to generate an image to others that just isn’t what’s in their hearts. They don’t have to be phony or out to fool people so much as to convince themselves of who they are or want to be relative to others. They worry constantly even if they are being successful. They just want to be better instead of somebody definite, so there is no end to their internalizing about it.

Essentially, they are wannabes, such as women to be prettier or more important, guys to be more respected or admirable, alphas to be easily recognized as such, or who they really are as person to be hidden. Their internal problems come from this phenomenon; they set an objective, which is a process without an end, and so they manage progress, which induces internalizing, which impacts their gut.

Too much internalizing of emotional issues, excessive guilt, unproductive judging, and convincing others of one’s qualities cause internal burnout. Deliberately change your actions and you change your feelings. Deliberately change your feelings and you change your thinking and vice versa. Deliberately change your behaviors and you change your habits. Deliberately change them all and you can calm if not end bowel disturbances and malfunctioning. Then, you’re healthier for mid-life dating.

Deliberately changing oneself is very difficult for men. Not so for women, whom I advise this way. Change first to quit thinking in parallel with or emulating man-think and masculine values, standards, and expectations. If you return to specialize in your feminine nature, you can more easily and deliberately change the makeup of your beliefs and emotions in ways that are healthier.

Finally, there’s even a simpler way. When believers sin they can take it to the Lord and be forgiven. When people disappoint others, they seek forgiveness from the disappointed or offended. However, too many people can’t forgive themselves; they don’t think they deserve it. It intensifies their internalizing, which almost automatically stops with true forgiveness of oneself. Whether through the Lord or self, forgiveness generates better health.

 

2167. Dating in Mid-life — Part C5: More Personal Planning

First, you have advertise. Then you meet. Then you screen. Then you accept his invitation to date. I suggest you plan what you want and how you will get those things by talking to yourself in the mirror. You will also get to know yourself better, which means more confidence and dedication to your mission of dating anew. Your best friend in the mirror will also help convince you that dating is to find a man worthy of you rather than making yourself worthy and available for even the most gorgeous of men. (There ain’t no Mr. Right until you make him so.)

You are precisely in life today where you have chosen to be. Whoever, whatever, and wherever you are produced the results you see in the mirror. The fact that you seek a date means you need an upgrade. Every gal needs it periodically even if not dating. Makeover? New clothes? New hairdo? More neatness? More feminine? More modesty? More mystery? Less selfish? Less weight? More other-centeredness? More lighthearted persona? More smiles? Reinforced sincerity to prevent using phoniness to get immediate gratification? You’ll figure out what you have to have or just want, if you spend enough time with your reflected best friend.

Perhaps you can or should improve all of the above. The more time you spend at the mirror, the more and better you will figure out just what needs to be done to satisfy you (which never happens anyway except temporarily). Why is it important?

Simultaneously, you will be reinforcing your self-image, your picture of self, which governs how you live your life. We all act according to the picture we have of ourselves. When we ‘fall out of line’, do something out of character for example, we either alibi it to ourselves or others, correct it if we can, or apologize if we should. IOW, we take some action when we fail to stay within the limits set by our self-image of who we are, what we do, and how we live life.

But let’s move on. Stay away from cleavage, exotic, and erotic. You can expect those things will get you invited for dates. But, when a date’s mind gets transfixed on sex first, it doubles the difficulty for you to convert his interest back to your person. If you’re not his primary interest, his actions to please you won’t likely develop into devotion, just commitment for temporary sex.

Sometime, and I suggest at the mirror, you need to specify to yourself just where you stand on values, standards, and expectations to control his behavior. If you don’t expect these things, they will not happen. For example, these should be minimal:

• You expect to be treated respectfully as person, female, and guest of a presumed gentleman.
• He must respect your modesty religion, moral standards, and whatever you choose to disclose about family, friends, and self.
• He can’t touch your erogenous zones if uninvited and you don’t expect invitations to be forthcoming until…? (I suggest after his diamond commitment. Nothing sacred about it, but deep arousal should be delayed as long as it takes him to become devoted to you.)
• Foul language is unwelcome. (It’s an easy distinguisher to separate you from other women, make you unique among your competitors.)
• Sex is not a discussable topic unless you mention it. If he brings up the subject of sex, you counter with the subject of marriage. Keep the latter going until he stops the former. The objective being to get off sex rather than stay on marriage. (But, incidentally, if he can’t abide you mentioning marriage, it’s a red flag that he can’t think about it.)
• Finally, have a few ways of making him uncomfortable when he goes too far for your comfort, or objectives, or intentions, or pledges to yourself. Find other softer ways to say, No ring, no booty.

All of the above enable you to take stands that earn respect simply because you claim them as who you are, and you do it with pride, confidence, and disregard for whether others like it or not.

If you really want to seal the deal of venturing into the dating arena with a stronger and more appealing presence, I suggest that conclusions you make at the mirror be transcribed into a journal. Put in writing what you commit to about yourself, standards, and expectations. For example, what red flags are sufficient to call it off for a man?

Now ladies, I recognize that I have been talking like a man. You all know how to water down my rhetoric and make it more relevant to your condition with less directness and more understanding. Essentially, that applies throughout this mid-life dating series. In the process of being indirect except for offenses that you won’t stand for, you’ll know how to do it better and more polished than I describe it.

 

2161. Dating in Mid-life — Part B5: Conquest and Marriage Matrix

At 2159 Her Highness Emma wondered if “higher urges of sex drive or need for admiration” dismisses the urge for a long term union. I’m not sure alpha-ness, testosterone, or any other single feature is the ‘determinator’ of either a man’s drive to specialize at conquering women or his preference for a short or long term marriage.

A dating man can never completely know you. Conquest convinces that he knows you quite well enough to deal with you as he desires. On the other hand, the better you know men and learn to know one without having to yield, the greater your advantage. I know women are better readers of men than the other way around. While the table below may seem too abstract, it may well help you along.

The table presents the dating arena as three dimensional: conquest, marriage, and time, presuming that both sexes will appear slightly different at different times. It reflects the combination of mental ingredients and psychic determinations that I think contribute the most motivational force in each direction of the dating arena.

HOW MEN PURSUE CONQUEST AND MARRIAGE	Self-esteem: How well he likes (high), regrettably dislikes (low), or even loathes himself (lowest) as a person.	Self-image: Picture he has of himself as an effective and easily satisfied man or, perhaps, the opposite, or somewhere in between.	Self-interest: His personal intentions and goals that urge him to action and inaction; the same way self- interest motivates everyone.
High interest in conquering many women.	Low or lowest self-esteem; he can’t highly esteem others until they prove themselves highly worthy of respect and maybe not even then.	Dominant self-image; uses it to prove himself superior to women and men he can dominate or outcompete.	Uses sexual excitement and achievement to earn self-admiration, personal satisfaction, and significance.
Low interest in conquering many women.	High self-esteem; shares it by readily respecting others; has special esteem and even respect for the weaker sex.	Self-assured self-image; satisfied with who he is and what he does; needs little from women because he can be easily satisfied by one.	Has other challenges than frequent conquests; other goals have better return on investment for his time and effort.
Not interested in long-term marriage; thinks more of not closing off options.	Low or lowest self-esteem; has very limited ability to like others for very long time; tires easily of familiar personalities; seeks excitement.	Poorly defined self-image; easily frustrated and keeps options open to escape easily at his discretion.	Has broad rather than deep interest in marriage; keeps options open to easily shift from tiring to fresh challenges.
Interested in long-term marriage; willing to commit with expectations for life.	High self-esteem; likes himself so well he readily and enjoyably shares his likeability.	Self-energizing picture of himself; eager to step up to greater responsibility.	Envisions pleasurable life in companionship and challenge of greater responsibility especially for others.

2127. Mirror Time — Part V: Early Reveille

Women long for happiness. It has to be earned, which means it comes at a cost. I propose a simple but not easy change in daily routine.

The way you appear at an event sends a message of how respected and important others present are to you. Have you thought about breakfast? Getting others to school or work in the morning? Sending those messages in an indirect manner that pleases you even more than them?

It’s not likely. Instead of paying the fare to jump aboard, you start the day by throwing yourself under the happy bus. You rush tiredly out of bed and rush yourself into an over-used or unsightly robe. Hair a mess, you disregard your appearance and mumble about your problems. You rush to help others before you help yourself. Rush to help everybody else and their daily start up, disrupt breakfast routine with irritation or anger, and add pressure to everyone’s departure so they rush to escape you. Consequently, by just not finding satisfaction with yourself first, you do all the wrong things for self and others. If you escape with sanity intact, you feel guilty, droopy, and worse but definitely dissatisfied for the rest of the day.

All your energy wiped out by one simple miscalculation. You didn’t start your day by proving to yourself that you’re still pretty and in charge in spite of what’s happening in your life. You didn’t renew vows to yourself that you like who and what you are even if others don’t. If you don’t know how to renew those vows, stick around. Details follow.

A simple but not easy way exists to jump on rather than under the bus. Take the rush out of your life and replace it with calm, smiles, and obvious dedication to those you love. You need only take charge and put it into habitual practice. Turn simple pretty time into extended mirror time and do it before others arise. You’ll see the people around you appreciate you much more just by you appreciating yourself much more.

First thing and before anyone else arises, spend 30 minutes before your mirror exchanging thoughts with your reflected image aka best friend. You have to make four sacrifices. 1) Go to sleep earlier. 2) Dedicate yourself to convert boring dead time into productive time for your mind, heart, and dreams. 3) Find the multitude of ways that make you like who and what you are by producing various results that enhance your prettiness, appearance, confidence, belief in self, and determination. 4) Quit quitting when trying to drop an old and develop a new habit. (Such as quitting New Year’s resolution.)

You’ll be surprised how it enables you to improve upon the world in which you live from reveille to taps. If you can’t figure out how to produce those results, sit there for 30 minutes every day and you will soon figure it out. Boredom will eventually open your eyes, mind, and heart, if you don’t quit. You’ll see that blaming others does nothing more than relieve you of doing the right thing, of taking and keeping control over your life.

Reasons and excuses always exist for not helping yourself when you don’t deserve it in the first place. Blaming others or endless wishes compensate when you don’t help yourself first. However, if not already very happy, you probably have at least one side of your life still buried in the multiplex of misery—unwanted singleness, disappointment, unhappiness, abandonment, loneliness, isolation, hopelessness, despair, divorce, depression, husbandless, childless, dreariness, gloom, self-discipline, loss of child, discipline with kids, cheating mate, or prospects of doom in legal or economic arenas.

You chose where you are in life and got there by not making better choices to help yourself; you deserve what you have. Oh, you don’t deserve it? Well, take 30 minutes at the mirror and ask your reflected friend about that point. Are you accurately stating your case? (Also, read Path to Victory at blog top.)

I understand you’re discouraged at the thought of committing 30 minutes. You’ve gone quiet, but I can hear you, ladies. Mumbling and grumbling at the thought of taking so much time out of your busy day. You say, it’s unreal and you can’t do it. You can’t do without that last 30 minutes of sleep. You must tend your infant during that time of day. You don’t need 30 minutes to plan your day, your future, or even your whole life. And, on and on. You tell yourself you’re doing well enough, at least for now. But are you? Are you happy enough now with your importance to self, family, and date or mate? Your prettiness? Your daily appearance? How you look in church? At work? On dates? Start your day at the mirror and you’ll take the rush out of your life and that of family members.

The 30 minutes is about planning your life while painting the barn and looking for ways to improve your prettiness. It’s about using your imagination to analyze your situations, exploit your self-gratitude, and upgrade your day and future to first exit the multiplex of misery and then refine your life into your girlhood hopes and dreams. Millions of dollars won’t do that for you. Neither will face lifts, liposuction, analysis, breast implants, or wrinkle removers. It’s in your heart to do it, if your mind will only enable it.

If self-gratitude, self-importance, and respect for others isn’t resurrected in your heart by using your mind, then your happiness will not develop as you wish. Happiness has to be earned out of gratitude, and it starts best at the mirror. As you take greater charge of your life each day, self-importance and respect for others also grows and puts you on the entry ramp to a great day for yourself.

Why 30 minutes? To provide enough time for your inborn female nature to energize itself into multi-tasking. You can’t just sit there and do nothing. Your mind will take advantage of the boredom that inevitably sets in when you run out of ideas for improving your prettiness and appearance—aka pleasing yourself first. Thirty minutes allows for emotional motivators to come awake in your heart. Emotions that move you to action such as shame, guilt, sorrow, competition, grief, anxiety, gratefulness, cooperation, prettiness, duty, debt, love, and hunger for importance and appreciation. Plus, internal values that need frequent reinforcement or recovery because they shape your mental health such as self-love, self-esteem, self-interest, self-image, self-gratitude, and expanded belief in yourself. Those and other blessings are available and usable through self-talk with your reflected image. Use the committed 30 minutes plus your mind to energize your curiosity and imagination in search of making your life more important to yourself and those around you and at the same time look more appealing. Thirty minutes without interruption about improving your prettiness, appearance, and life will work wonders to improve the various attitudes that flow from your heart.

Serendipity. You finish mirror time feeling GREAT about yourself. It’s the strongest possible foundation for facing life with confidence, patience, and understanding. Why? Because you grace yourself with qualities fed by your prettiness with inner peace left over. The ultimate expression of power is forgiveness. When you ignore the little and forgive the big things—and especially forgive yourself—harmony floods your home. When you as single woman or mom isolate yourself at the mirror each morning, you earn the ability to switch the world ON to make things go your way. With kindness ignited by belief in yourself, can your forgiving spirit be far behind? With kindness and forgiveness renewed in your heart, it makes both personal and family harmony easier and more permanent.

We all do what makes us feel good about ourselves. I propose that women isolate themselves for 30 minutes upon arising in the morning. They have the talent and skills but need to use them more productively to calm the waters of their high pressure, super-rushed lives.

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P.S. So, you can’t do 30 minutes? Impossible, you say. Okay. The number is not as important as your dedication to yourself and commitment to neither change whatever minutes you choose nor quit the daily routine. But anything less than 20 minutes will likely sink your ship before you start. Without the boredom that will set in, your mind, heart, and spirit will stay focused on escaping the problems of life rather than producing improvements for a better life. In that case, you will find little or nothing to reward you for sticking to your time commitment, and you will soon quit.

G.