Do you wish to control the lives of others?

free2beme

I want you to start eating less meat, as it makes me feel better? I want you to start investing in stocks, as it made me a lot of money? I want you to break up with your girlfriend as I do not like her?

Ever had someone give advice like this to you? Advice in which they did something, or felt a way about something, to the point that they see the need to tell you to do the same. I know it happens in real life and I know it happens online and it got me to wondering. Why is it, that we are stubborn about change and yet very aggressive about suggesting it? I know I have been guilty of it at times, and it has happened to me more times then I could ever count. So how do you deal with people trying to control your lives, in which they suggest you do something and then act like you are some sort of idiot for not listening. Do you follow and just go with the crowd, or do you do what you want and leave those who can not understand behind to either understand or accept your differences of opinion?

I am the "catch 22" in that I do not want others to tell me how to live my lives, but in so doing, I am trying to control their lives to ask that they not do something that only comes natural to us all.

What do you think?

Joel Wideman

I think it is important to realize that there is not a single path to happiness.

Eyebrow2

I do somewhat control my children's lives. One reason is because I have somewhat of an obligation to until they can totally fend for themselves. Sometimes I have to make them eat their vegatables, make them take a bath, and make them go to school. Right now I have a situation with my husband, that I would like him to change a certain thing. However, after many months of frustration, tears, and fights, I realized that I had to give up the notion of making him do anything. Once I gave up trying to change him, and just started trying to work on myself (my reaction), I felt a lot better. He has made some changes, too, although there is a long way to go. One thing I changed was to stop sending mixed signals: bitching about his behavior, but then enabling it. I stopped both. We still discuss it, but I don't enable the behavior any more. I show my intolerance for it that way, but we don't fight any more really at least. I think we sometimes try to control out of love, because we don't want our loved ones to be hurt, etc. Sometimes we try to control others because we want things to go our way, whether for the good or bad. As an employer, you have to have some amount of control over your employees to run the business effectively.

troucul

I don't wish to, but I do get a thrill out of it. Try and get that!

doofdaddy

Invariably, those that are free with advice are the last to drink their own medicine.

At times where I have felt compelled to "advise" another, I do a quick reality check to make sure the advice is not better applied by myself.

Have you ever had someone telling you what to do and it is glaring out of them that this issue is their major problem?

Black Sheep

I don't try to control people, but I do try to influence them.

In the end, it is up to them what they do and/or believe.

I have come to realise that I have been influenced by many people with faulty ideas and that what I believe today may not be what I believe tomorrow.

It is better to point people in a direction and encourage them to think, rather than to coerce them to believe as you do.

Chris