The Manual
Photo by Patrick Tomasso
The manual is the metaphorical instruction guide that we carry around for all of the people in our lives. This includes our spouses, children, friends— even strangers.
Our manuals for other people are chock full of all the ways we want them to behave, think, act, speak, dress, etc. This isn’t necessarily shared with the other person involved, but it is implicitly expected.
We sometimes feel justified in having certain expectations for certain people, however, we aren’t aware of the emotional suffering that these unspoken expectations create for ourselves.
Say that you expect your husband to take out the trash each night. Seems like a harmless, unspoken expectation that should be easily met. But then you wake up in the morning and realize he hasn’t taken out the trash. You become frustrated and angry and want to go scream at him because he can’t seem to do a simple, easy task.
But the reason you are angry isn’t because he didn’t take out the trash, it’s because you created a manual for him that he didn’t follow to your liking. The true emotional fault lies completely in your own hands, not his behavior. You’ll soon learn that there are no expectations that are truly harmless when they result in emotional disempowerment.
As long as you’re holding onto that manual that states clearly on page 67, “Husband should take out trash whenever it is full.” You continue believing that he should blindly abide by your rule book. You continue hurting yourself with these expectations instead of recognizing you only have control over your own decisions, thoughts, and emotions and you will never have control of another person’s, no matter how intimate or close we are to them.
When we refuse to let go of our manuals for other people we are only punishing ourselves. We are not in charge of any other human being’s daily decisions other than our own. It does not matter how much you disagree with someone else’s choices or how much you believe your intentions for them are the “right thing” to do.
Let’s say your 17 year old son has started drinking alcohol excessively, stopped showing up to class, and recently told you that he is going to drop out of high school and become a DJ. Your manual for him tells you that he should stop drinking, get back to school, forget about becoming a DJ, and graduate high school. You are clinging tight to the manual you have created for your son. In order to drop a manual we must recognize that we do not have control over this person, and then face the situation with reality instead of delusion. This doesn’t mean we have to agree with or approve of everyone else’s decisions, we just have to recognize that we are creating a manual for someone and this hurts us AND the other person involved. Even if our children are “underage” they are still the rightful owners and operators of their own daily decisions, no matter how great the illusion is that you, as the parent, have the final say.
We also have manuals for the world at large, for politicians, for drivers on the highway, for anyone and everyone! But the moment we recognize that these manuals are stressful, useless (because people are going to do and say whatever they want anyway), and a giant waste of time and focus, we finally get to start focusing on what we CAN control. OURSELVES.
The truth is, we aren’t even very good at controlling and managing ourselves to begin with, so we definitely shouldn’t be trying to control the world at large. Once we drop all the manuals we have, we free up the time and space to choose how we want to think and feel each day. We liberate ourselves from the responsibility of other people’s choices. We stop believing the lie that if other people would just behave as we would like them to, we would finally get to feel better. Other people’s behavior never has and never will control our feelings.
So how do we drop our manuals and face reality?
We begin by taking full responsibility for how we feel in each moment and stop giving that power away to the people around us. We allow everyone to be exactly who they are, without this illusion and need for control. Start to visualize a giant leather bound manual book the next time someone doesn’t meet your expectations. Imagine running your finger down the page and finding the exact clause number where it states, “Person in red car on highway shouldn’t cut me off.” And then throw the manual out of the window and fully embrace the reality of the situation.
Begin AGREEING with reality every chance you get. “This person SHOULD have cut me off on the highway because they DID.” It may sound crazy at first, but the true madness has really been disagreeing with reality for so long that you believe you are entitled to reign control over it. You will never have this control that you are seeking. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you step back into your own personal and emotional power.
