When two people in a marriage are more concerned about getting the golden
eggs, the benefits, than they are in preserving the relationship that makes them
possible, they often become insensitive and inconsiderate, neglecting the little
kindnesses and courtesies so important to a deep relationship. They begin to use
control levers to manipulate each other, to focus on their own needs, to justify
their own position and look for evidence to show the wrongness of the other
person. The love, the richness, the softness, and spontaneity begin to deteriorate.
The goose gets sicker day by day.
And what about a parent's relationship with a child? When children are little,
they are very dependent, very vulnerable. It becomes so easy to neglect the PC
work -- the training, the communicating, the relating, the listening. It's easy to
take advantage, to manipulate, to get what you want the way you want it -- right
now! You're bigger, you're smarter, and you're right! So why not just tell them
what to do? If necessary, yell at them, intimidate them, insist on your way.
Or you can indulge them. You can go for the golden egg of popularity, of
pleasing them, giving them their way all the time. Then they grow up without a
personal commitment to being disciplined or responsible.
Either way -- authoritarian or permissive -- you have the golden egg
mentality. You want to have your way or you want to be liked. But what
happens, meantime, to the goose? What sense of responsibility, of self-
discipline, of confidence in the ability to make good choices or achieve
important goals is a child going to have a few years down the road? And what
about your relationship? When he reaches those critical teenage years, the
identity crises, will he know from his experience with you that you will listen
without judging, that you really, deeply care about him as a person, that you can
be trusted, no matter what? Will the relationship be strong enough for you to
reach him, to communicate with him, to influence him?
Suppose you want your daughter to have a clean room -- that's P, production,
the golden egg. And suppose you want her to clean it -- that's PC, Production
Capability. Your daughter is the goose, the asset, that produces the golden egg.
If you have P and PC in balance, she cleans the room cheerfully, without
being reminded, because she is committed and has the discipline to stay with the
commitment. She is a valuable asset, a goose that can produce golden eggs.
But if your paradigm is focused on Production, on getting the room clean,
you might find yourself nagging her to do it. You might even escalate your
efforts to threatening or yelling, and in your desire to get the golden egg, you
undermine the health and welfare of the goose.
Let me share with you an interesting PC experience I had with one of my
daughters. We were planning a private date, which is something I enjoy regularly
joyce
(Joyce)
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