Dear Duderino:

You wrote that you don’t want to have the perfect image you had of your father to be “a subconscious anchor” because you spent most of your life trying to mold yourself into a perfect person based on that image, that anchor. These efforts have been holding you back, leading to not trusting yourself, to second guessing yourself. You want “to find a healthier place from how to react”.

This is my understanding: a young boy does look up to his father as perfect, all knowing, all powerful. Ideally, the father, although imperfect in reality (as the growing child always finds out), is kind and respectful toward his son, skillful, capable and able to teach and guide his son toward a good life.

But you didn’t/ don’t have a father whose steps you can follow. You have to lead your own way, step by step. There is no way to  do it, as I see it, without second guessing yourself because you don’t have the all-knowing, all-powerful figure to follow with blind trust.

So you take a step and you evaluate it: did it work for me, did I achieve what I wanted to achieve, was that step effective? You answer your own question best you can and decide whether to take another step in the same direction or change direction, or maybe take a break and rest before proceeding. You carve your path in life one step at a time, evaluating your progress or regression, failure or success, deciding on what return you get on your investment, and you proceed accordingly.

Doe that make sense to you?

* I will soon be away from the computer for about fifteen hours.

anita