Your Life in Two Minutes

There's something surreal about going to see a mental health professional, relating your life story (in brief) and then hearing it parroted back at you, in even briefer form.

It's really weird to hear someone else telling you stuff you either don't remember mentioning last session, or, more likely, that most people don't know about you.

We trust our shrinks with so much.

And it's so much work to start a new shrink relationship. I had an incredible therapist before we moved who saw me (and my family, by extension) through thick and thin. He was awesome. But not, Swimfan-awesome, or I'm-in-love-with-my-therapist awesome. He was (is) just a great mental health practitioner.

And those are few and far between, I'm sorry to say.

There are a lot of people out there who want to make money solving your problems, so you'd best choose wisely. And EVERYONE is biased.

I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, as I heard a Cliff's Notes version of my life read back to me in two minutes today, I thought, wow, ALL THAT happened to me?

And here's where I think it's time to pay attention. Did all that HAPPEN to me, or is it more the result of my choices? The whole nature/nurture thing, you know? I mean, you can't control your birth or childhood situation, nor your genetic makeup. But once you are old enough to have free will, aren't you, at least to a certain extent, in charge of your life? You're in charge of how you perceive things, and what you do as a result.

So do my sloppy, drunken college years mean I chose to just check out for a few years? Apparently so. I didn't honestly know I had any other options. But there are plenty of people who go to college and don't disappear into drunken debauchery (okay, there are two, but you get my point.)

Why do we do what we do? Am I more in charge of my life now that I have years of knowledge? If I'd had some kinds of advice or insights back when I was on the brink of making major (or minor) life decisions, would I have chosen differently, knowing what I know now?

Am I choosing how I react to life, or am I just conditioned to my habitual responses? And if so, can these be changed? Happily, I would say, yes. But not easily. Not quickly. Plate-tectonically slow.

But at least there is movement.





Wow, am I channeling Cary Tennis or something? Very "Since You Asked." Send some good vibes his way. He had major surgery last December. Check his work out at Salon.com. He's awesome. And I mean that healthily.