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Nature versus nurture has been a long-standing debate, and not just among psycholgists or anthropolgists. Being a product of our genes is more easily accepted than being a product of our upbringing--especially in America where we still naively believe we can do or be anything we want.
The reality is we are all, to one degree or another, hostages to the biases, habits, and beliefs our parents, grandparents, grade school teachers, and other adults in our early lives shared with us by their words and actions--and by what they didn't say or do, as well.
I am all too well-aware that I ought to have been left-handed, and that my mom made me switch. When I was 3. I still remember the day she told me I was coloring with the wrong hand. I'm deferentially polite about it and blame it on my kindergarten teacher when anyone asks why I use a knife with my left hand, as happened at Thanksgiving at my parents house when I was carving the turkey. But I've accepted this, so I'm not really hostage to it anymore. What bothers me is the stuff I've not discovered, the things I haven't wrestled with (mentally, or as in the case of my handedness, physically) that I'm still hostage to, still beholden to obey without awareness or comprehension.
It's not about what I could have done or been. It's about what I can do once I figure out what other artificial limits there are going on in my life.
The reality is we are all, to one degree or another, hostages to the biases, habits, and beliefs our parents, grandparents, grade school teachers, and other adults in our early lives shared with us by their words and actions--and by what they didn't say or do, as well.
I am all too well-aware that I ought to have been left-handed, and that my mom made me switch. When I was 3. I still remember the day she told me I was coloring with the wrong hand. I'm deferentially polite about it and blame it on my kindergarten teacher when anyone asks why I use a knife with my left hand, as happened at Thanksgiving at my parents house when I was carving the turkey. But I've accepted this, so I'm not really hostage to it anymore. What bothers me is the stuff I've not discovered, the things I haven't wrestled with (mentally, or as in the case of my handedness, physically) that I'm still hostage to, still beholden to obey without awareness or comprehension.
It's not about what I could have done or been. It's about what I can do once I figure out what other artificial limits there are going on in my life.
