for most of human history what we did for a living was decided for us by our families we would either directly copy what our parents did or else we would referentially accept their suggestions for what we might do only for around the last 200 years have we been choosing jobs for ourselves and we're still at the beginning of learning some of the complexities of doing so on the surface most families claim to have no interest in their children doing any job in particular the standard line is that they simply want us to be happy but
we are not as free as this sounds we are always hemmed in by what can be termed family work scripts that is scripts that guide us often very subtly but also very heavily towards certain occupations and away from others part of properly growing up which may sometimes happen only in one's 50s means learning to find a way around the scripts we've been handed at the most benign level our family work scripts are the result of what our families understand of the working world every family has a range of occupations that it grasps because someone has
practiced them and in the process brought them within the imaginative range of other family members yet it isn't just a case that our families might not know about certain jobs and so might cut us off from them they might also be positively hostile or suspicious of other jobs we're liable to have received many little messages indicating that certain careers are inferior and therefore beneath us maybe dangerous phony or not quite right for our sort of station in life whatever lip service might be paid to gender equality families are also highly talented at sending out covert
messages about what a real man or a real woman should honorably do yet more darkly families may say that they want us to succeed but would be highly threatened if we actually did so a choice we make might remind someone of their failed ambitions ass success might make them feel like a failure we might try to sabotage our chances of winning so is not to leave a loved one feeling crushed often without realizing it we are being heavily controlled by our families controlled not by harsh words but by something far more poignant and yet far
harder to extricate ourselves from by our ongoing desire to be a good child to please those who brought us into this world by love love can control us as much as force or the law ever could we are liable to try to be good children not just because we feel love but because we fear losing love because we live in dread of being cast out if we were to dare to say what we want but here is the good news for the timid good children among us parents very very rarely disown their progeny it certainly
seems they might in our imaginations forged in childhood but the adult reality is that families are extremely good threatening to break apart but then also at forgiving one another and accommodating the most extraordinary challenges and tests we don't know your families but we can guess that you could do a lot more than you think a lot more that might be a bit bad in their eyes and still be forgiven we owe our parents respect and kindness we do not owe them our lives we should dare when the pressure has become unbearable to leave their scripts
aside at the school of life we're constantly developing new products to help us develop emotional intelligence to learn more follow the link on your screen now you
