What has taken place before a person walks down the aisle? What do we bring to this union? What is the mind-set of people entering marriage? In essence, why are we the way we are? What has conditioned us and how?
We are all alike in one sense. We all want the same thing peace. Most of us never find it because we are looking for it in the wrong place. Free will is for many the summum bonnum. If we can do what we want, we think this will guarantee happiness. The idea seems to be that happiness is a gold ring to grab as we go round and round on the carousel of life.
We have been conditioned to win. We are taught from an early age that winning is a great thing. Just watch parents at a little league contest! And look at our society today with the enormous importance placed on winning and gaining control. Vince Lombardi, the great NFL football coach said, “Winning isn’t everythingit’s the only thing!” We often take this saying to heart, as if it were a heavenly pronouncement. Rarely does a day pass in the average household that the husband isn’t glued to the TV, savoring the triumph or cursing the defeat of his favorite team. Elated investors watch their stock rise as a big company takes over a smaller company.
The extent to which we go to insure our rights, our privileges and our wants is amazing. Anything that interferes with or threatens our way of life is the enemy and must be dispensed with quickly. Look at what happens on the highway. People drive like maniacs, determined to stay at the head of the pack. At the same time, a person who disrespects another’s rights in traffic may be in for a frightening encounter. People have even been shot and killed for violating another driver’s space. Observe also the recent rash of teenage mothers disposing of their newborns in trash bins. Our egos have been inflated and indulged to an extreme.
Children naturally want to get their way, so their parents curb them and set limits. As they approach adolescence, children who previously had no power and no ability to determine their own lives begin to sense new strengths, even the ability to procreate. Children test these new strengths and all the boundaries that have been set up by their parents. They yearn for autonomy and begin to stretch parental boundaries to the breaking point. Free will exerts itself and constantly repeats the mantra, “This is my right. I can do what I please. Don’t interfere with me.”
This attitude metamorphoses gradually into ego, and ego tends to expand, solidifying its gains much like an advancing army.
Out of this cauldron of urges and rebellion comes the average young adult who one day decides to get married. Many young adults are woefully unfit for marriage. They have become accustomed through their upbringing or lack of it to getting their own way. They have seen little or no tolerance or compassion in their families of origin. Their driving motivation is to escape pain and experience pleasure. “Life owes me a living. Look what it’s done to me.” Seeking and experiencing pleasure has subtly and gradually replaced seeking and practicing goodness.
To one degree or another, this is the mind-set most of us bring into marriage. We are flying free, young adults who have broken out of the cocoon of parental conditioning and influence. We cherish our new freedoms, and we are eager to perpetuate and strengthen them. We are flying, and we value highly our right to fly where we will, stop where we will and do as we please.
