Uncategorized

Marriage is Like an Arrow

A few years ago a good friend of mine got married after two years he met his girlfriend. He asked me then to give him an advice on how to keep a good balance between career and family. After a few days of pondering an answer I came up with this analogy that I want to share with you. An arrow is made of two parts, the sharp arrowhead and the shaft. An arrow without the head won’t work; an arrow without the shaft won’t work either. Each part in an arrow has its function: the arrowhead cuts, penetrates, advances, goes first; the shaft gives direction, weight, and supports the arrowhead. An arrowhead without the shaft doesn’t know where it should go. An arrowhead without the shaft doesn’t have the weight or force to penetrate deep and will stay shallow. A shaft without the arrowhead is dull, cannot advance, the air drags it; it is just a stick.

Twenty-first century couples have jobs, careers, and of course, most of the time, children to raise. So, the question of my friend was not an easy one. How do you share the responsibility of raising children and at the same time, hopefully, advance in your career. What I told him was this: you and your wife should be like an arrow, and you both -together- need to decide who will be the arrowhead, and who will be the shaft. The role of being the arrowhead or the shaft doesn’t have to stay forever, and you both may decide to switch roles along your married life. Whoever is the shaft of the arrow should take care of all the supporting activities to make the arrowhead shiny, sharp, penetrating, advancing forward and achieving his/her career goals. The shaft is the base of the family who takes care of most peripheral activities that consume lots of energy to liberate the arrowhead for the achievement of his/her career goals. Whoever is the arrowhead should work hard, advance, shine and execute without distraction. The arrowhead brings the financial stability to the family by achieving upper levels in his/her career thanks to having a shaft that pushes behind and support the overall goal of the family. What I also told him was that under no circumstances, they both should not play the same role at the same time. If both of them are arrowheads, the family gets unattended, the children mislead by the surroundings, and although you both may get to higher levels in your career, the family will eventually suffer. If both of them are the shaft of the arrow, there will be a lack of achievements, with fewer opportunities for the family to advance. Although it will initially be better off, a time will come when the lack of prosperity will catch up with the family, and they may lose their financial stability.

Is it possible for each partners be a full arrow with an arrowhead and a shaft? The answer is a clear yes, but you need to be aware that a very few couples are able to achieve a perfect balance. It requires lots of energy, and diversifying your skills in both areas (as an arrowhead and as a shaft). If you are both working as a team, as it should be, it may be easier to play one role at a time, become good at it, and progress together.

Ask yourself: am I the arrowhead, the shaft, or both?

C.A. Soto Aguirre©

The Two Most Important Decisions in Life

With age comes reflexions. One starts thinking of whether what you have done was done right or wrong. In my opinion if you make a decision with the most amount of information you can gather, there should be no regrets. However, we all know that this is not the case, and we always regret some decisions of our past. By observing other people’s lives it is easy to see when some decisions were the right ones, but self observation is not that easy, and many times we think we were always right. With age also comes the accumulation of experiences, readings, places, and people we meet that form the total persona you become as time passes. My observations make me conclude that there are two important decisions in life that we are unable to make optimally as I will explain. These two decisions are the answers to these two questions: What am I going to do for living? and Who am I going to spend my life with? We answer these two questions sub-optimally, and some times totally wrong, due to the circumstances at which they encounter us.

What am I going to do for living? I remember when I was a kid, my parents and uncles, always asked me this question. “What do you want to be when you grow up? Quickly you realize that this question is important, and that a decision has to be made some time in your life. However, it is in many cases the timing of the decision that causes the erroneous answer. We are barely eighteen years old when we have to make this decision. Just eighteen years of age for a decision that may mark our entire life for the next sixty or seventy years. Can you imagine? How many at the age of eighteen can make such a profound decision? I bet no more than five percent of the population. On top of that, the next four years, from eighteen to twenty two, when we go from being a teenager to an adult, will be defined by that decision at eighteen. Parents that are hands-off from their child’s decisions are leaving their child’s life to chance. What we need is a advisory system in high school that make sure that a high percentage of students make this decision with higher degree of success to ensure a better life thereafter.

Who am I going to spend my life with? For most of us, logic is in the brain, and love is somewhere else (some say it is in the heart), and because of that, this second decision is frequently made wrongly with that part of our body that is not the brain. We first fall in love using our eyes, the best sense evolution has given us. We like her(him) because of her eyes, or his wide shoulders, or her meaty lips, or his grave voice, and once we are enchanted by her(him) our brain can’t function as well as to make a good decision whether she(he) is the person we should spend our life with. There is no solution to this, unless we wait until we are mature enough to not follow our eyes, but instead follow our logic brain. Besides, there is nothing more exhilarating in life than falling in love without using our logical brain.

In summary, both decisions are presented to us when we are immature –just eighteen– and when our heart interferes with our thinking –in our twenties–, and we will likely make a bad choice that requires correction of course, like a good captain under changing weather in the sea, until we reach our goal in life: happiness!

 

 

 

 

 
 
C.A. Soto Aguirre®

Las Dos Decisiones Mas Importantes en la Vida

Con la edad llegan las reflexiones. Uno empieza a pensar si lo que ha hecho ha sido lo correcto o no. En mi opinión si uno toma una decisión con toda la información que puedes conseguir, no hay cabida para arrepentimientos. Sin embargo, todos sabemos que eso no siempre es así, y siempre nos arrepentimos de algunas decisiones de nuestro pasado. Observando la vida de otras personas es fácil ver cuando algunas decisiones fueron las correctas, pero autoobservación no es tan fácil, y muchas veces pensamos que siempre lo hicimos correctamente. Con la edad también llega la acumulación de experiencias, lecturas, lugares, y gente que conocemos para formar la persona que uno es con el tiempo. Mis observaciones me hacen concluir que hay dos decisiones importantes en la vida que no tomamos óptimamente como lo explicaré en breve. Estas dos decisiones son las respuestas a dos preguntas: ¿Cuál va a ser mi profesión? y ¿Con quién viviré el resto de mi vida? Estas dos preguntas las repondemos sub-óptimamente, y algunas veces completamente erradas, debido a las circumstancias en las cuales se nos presentan.

¿Cuál va a ser mi profesión? Recuerdo de mi niñez que mis padres y tíos siempre me preguntaban eso. “¿Qué vas a ser cuando seas un adulto? Rápidamente uno se da cuenta que la pregunta es importante, y que la decisión tienes que tomarla en algún momento de tu vida. Sin embargo, en muchos casos es lo temprano de cuando hay que tomarla el causante de la mala decisión. Tenemos apenas dieciocho años cuando tenemos que tomar esta decisión. Solo dieciocho cuando hay que decidir algo que puede marcar el resto de nuestras vida por los restantes sesenta o setenta años. ¿Te imaginas? ¿Cuántos de nosotros a la edad de dieciocho puede tomar una decisión tan importante? Seguramente menos del cinco porciento de la población. Y mas grave aún. los próximos cuatro años, desde los dieciocho hasta los veintidos, cuando pasamos de adolescentes a adultos, serán definidos por esa decisión a los dieciocho. Los padres que no intervienen en lad decisiones de sus hijos estan dejandoles una vida al azar. Lo que necesitamos es un liceo que asegure que un alto porcentaje de estudiantes tome esta decisión con mas alto grado de éxito para asegurar un mejor vida futura.

¿Con quién viviré el resto de mi vida? Para la mayoría de nosotros, la lógica está en el cerebro, y el amor en otra parte (algunos dicen que en el corazón), y es por eso que esta segunda decisión es tomada equivocadamente con esa otra parte de nuestro cuerpo que no es el cerebro. Primero nos enamoramos con la vista, el mejor sentido que la evolución nos ha dado. Ella(él) nos gusta por sus ojos, or por sus anchos hombros, o por sus labios carnosos, o su voz grave, y una vez que estamos bajo su encanto, nuestro cerebro no puede funcionar tan bien como para decidir acertadamente si ella(él) es la persona con quien viviremos el resto de nuestras vida. No hay solución para este problema, a menos que esperemos llegar a la madurez para mitigar el uso de nuestra vista y utilizar mas el lógica cerebral. Además, no hay nada mas vigorizante en la vida que enamorarse sin pensarlo con la cabeza.

En resumen, ambas decisiones se nos presentan cuando somos inmaduros –con apenas dieciocho– y cuando nuestro corazón interfiere con nuestros pensamientos –en los veintes– y seguramente tomaremos una mala decisión que requerirá corrección de rumbo, como lo hace un buen capitán ante tormentas marinas, hasta que se llegue el objetivo de la vida: felicidad!

 

C.A. Soto Aguirre®