Subjects, Objects and Victims
If you are like me, you believe that we each are the authors of our own emotions. If you are like me, you also find that belief a slippery one, difficult to hold onto at the moment when something or someone seems to provoke an unpleasant emotion. And if you are like me, there is a lag of a few moments, hours or days between the time that the emotion arises and recognition of your responsibility for it.
The car won’t start, frustration arises, and the first thought is, “Damn this car.” Later, when the car finally does start, we are amused by how we created our frustration. The clerk in the store moves with excruciating deliberation, annoyance arises, and the first thought is, “Man, is she frustrating.” Later we realize that it is mid-afternoon of what has already been a very long day, and that we haven’t yet eaten lunch—we created our annoyance.
The lag is largely a product of our language (I am speaking of the English language and would very much like to hear if what I am about to say is true or not for other languages).
It is a basic principle of English: objects cannot be subjects. This principle prohibits us from saying (and thinking) such things as, “I am irritating myself,” when the car won’t start, or “I am frustrating myself,” when the clerk is slow. So if you think in English, the car or the clerk becomes the cause of the feeling because you cannot be both object and subject. Another way of saying this is that the structure of English inhibits us from acknowledging the effects that we have on ourselves. The language encourages us to experience ourselves as victims whenever negative emotions arise.
Note that we do say, “I am enjoying myself.” Apparently we are sometimes willing to violate the principle in order to take credit for our pleasurable emotions but not for the ones that cause us grief.
What to do to eliminate the lag between the emotion and taking ownership for it? Unless we are to launch an unlikely-to-succeed crusade to change the rules of our language, we must think differently than we speak. We must think, “I am (irritating, frustrating, angering, annoying, etc.) myself,” even if we wouldn’t say that out loud. Thinking in a different way than you speak is not an odd thing to do: multi-lingual people are often thinking in a different language than the one in which they are speaking.
The lag also occurs concerning most positive emotions, as we say, “(You, he, she, it) makes me happy,” instead of, “I make me happy.”
The net outcome of this linguistic principle–objects cannot be subjects– is that, in the moment that any emotion arises, we are very likely to be out of touch with our responsibility for it.
Monday, December 12th, 2005 at 6:07 pm ◊ Comment or trackback◊ Send this post to someone who will thank you for it »
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December 13th, 2005 at 6:57 pm
Well said. In ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, Stephen R. Covey states that between an external stimulus/event, and our reactions to it, we have a choice of choosing the reaction.
However, people often allow the external stimulus to decide their reaction, and fails to take responsibility for their feelings. Hence, it is often “She made me angry”. However, it should take “I permited her to make me angry.”
December 16th, 2005 at 2:19 pm
Thank you Cyrus. I had forgotten about Covey’s remarks.
It seems then that there are three levles in our ability to take responsibility for our emotions:
1. I am not responsible: (he, she, it) makes me sad.
2. I gave permission: I permited (he, she, it) to make me sad.
3. I am responsible: I make me sad.
In the interval between the event and our reaction that Covey speaks of, if we think according to the structure of English, only the first two are possible.
Now that I write all of that out, I think that if Covey was pointing us at taking responsibility for our emotions, he didn’t go far enough.
December 17th, 2005 at 4:47 am
Emotional responsibility - take control of your emotional life
Dick Richards over at On Genius recently posted an article entitled Subjects, Objects and Victims. In the article, he talks about recognizing our responsibility for our own emotions. For the most part, I agree. We are responsible for our own…
Continue reading at…
http://emsky.typepad.com/winwinweb/2005/12/emotional_respo.html
December 18th, 2005 at 2:33 am
Love the post and this thread.
Gotta push back a little, however.
Dick, you write:
===============
It seems then that there are three levles in our ability to take responsibility for our emotions:
1. I am not responsible: (he, she, it) makes me sad.
2. I gave permission: I permited (he, she, it) to make me sad.
3. I am responsible: I make me sad.
In the interval between the event and our reaction that Covey speaks of, if we think according to the structure of English, only the first two are possible.
===============
Well, respectfully, the structure of English is not the culprit. It is prevailing usage of the language. A clever convenience but not the cause.
Take your example above. There is another alternative which can evoke personal responsibility without contorting the language simply by shifting the noun to “I” and the verb to “feel.”
Example: I feel sad in this situation.
Now, one might suggest that this skirts the accountability issue. But it doesn’t. There is only one actor: I.
And this simple shift away from blame (Damn car!) to expression of acknowledging one’s emotional state (I feel angry at the inconvenience) is more neutral, and more constructive.
Why? Because it avoids negative blaming of either self (”I blew it again!) or another. But it does place self squarely in the position of action and responsibility.
“I feel” is a powerful pre-cursor to making a choice as to whether to continue feeling that way, or moving on with positive action.
Believe me when I tell you that I came to this realization much later in life than I’d like to admit. I once was a world class blamer.
BTW, I think a lot of that blaming language (”you made me so angry”) is simply to avoid admitting that we are experiencing the emotion. By dodging the whole issue of expressing what we feel, we believe we evade taking responsibility for it.
The structure of our rich language is less a problem than the intent of those who skillfully deploy it in the service of self-deception.
December 18th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
Don,
Now we are down to the nub of it–the confusion of “responsibility” with “blame.” When I say responsibility I mean that it is my system–the neurological, chemical, psychological, cultural, historical me–that creates the feeling. No blame, just, “I made it happen.”
You have added a fourth level (number three below):
1. I am not responsible: (he, she, it) makes me sad. Avoids all responsibility, might be blameful.
2. I gave permission: I permited (he, she, it) to make me sad.
3. I am experiencing it: I am sad. Avoids blame, but also avoids responsibility.
3. I am responsible: I make me sad or I am saddening myself. Meaning I created it, but not in a blameful way.
Combine the structure of the language with the false equation “responsibility=blame” and we end up denying or evading, if ever so slightly, our responsibility for our emotions. To the extent that we deny that responsibility, we become unable to change them.
I suppose that the simplest way for me to say this is: you are not just experiencing the emotion, you are creating it (no blame).
December 18th, 2005 at 7:32 pm
Speaking of the form of English getting us into bad habits of thinking, look into ‘e-prime’. It’s a recognition that using the ‘to be’ forms of verbs is clumsy and makes permanent and global, what isn’t necessarily. Eg, “He is fat”. I like this link for getting to the point of it:
http://www.wonderfulwritingskillsunhandbook.com/html/e-prime.html
(of course google will find you many more).
December 20th, 2005 at 11:35 pm
Jeff,
Thanks! And have a look at Don Blohowiak’s post about this >>
http://www.self-development.net/personal-power/19
August 24th, 2007 at 1:09 am
Programming Tutorials…
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…