We all know the scientific method. It’s pretty simple in its essence – hypothesize, test, evaluate. Then you repeat with variations until you get it right.
Here is my question to you – Do you follow the scientific method in your life? Are you deliberate about figuring out what works, what is true, what is healthy, what is wise in your life? Do you experiment and find something to be true or false or do you just go along with what you have been told, afraid to test on the chance you might have to change what you think or how you behave? Perhaps you do experiment but you never learn it, repeating the exact same test over and over again even though you know it will end in failure.
I know in my own life the people I trust and admire the most are those I am confident will look at the evidence that is their life, will be honest about what is really happening in it and how they feel about it, and will adjust as needed, even if it is painful.
As it is in science, so it can be within yourself.
It’s the start of Sex Week at The Napkin Dad Daily!
Not equally interesting but actually more interesting, now that is a dedicated intellectual!
Sex always intrigues me because people are so driven by it, and have some variation of it on their mind so often yet are usually reluctant to discuss it openly.
That is especially a problem when dealing with teenage sons and daughters. Not talking about sex is really not a very good option. I always feel parents are abrogating their duty if they do that. But talking about sex intelligently and appropriately isn’t all that easy.
The best advice I can give in that circumstance (and many others) is to make sure you are on their side. Don’t be their enemy. To do that you have to talk about what is in their best interest. Not your interest, not your knowledge, not your reputation, not your circumstances. But what is in their best interest. To do that you need to ask questions, you need to walk through ideas with them about the issue.
You can’t do that if they think you will be judging them or lecturing them or against them and their ideas. They have to know you will stay calm and be willing to listen to what they are really thinking and feeling. THEN you move into offering your reflections on what they said, your ideas of where it might lead, and your cautions on things to think about they may not have considered.
“An intellectual is a person who’s found one thing more interesting than sex.” – Aldous Huxley, 1894-1963, English writer. Author of ‘Brave New World’.
I remember when I was burned severely as a teenager. My friends didn’t think they could handle it if it happened to them. And I remember realizing at that point and afterwards that ‘handling it’ is much more about what you take from the experience than going through the experience. Going through ‘the experience’ is often pretty automatic in some ways especially if you are in intense pain, turmoil or grief and you are not always consciously thinking about how to ‘handle it’. But, who do you end up being afterwards – Better or bitter, courageous or more fearful? That is the important question.
