RD 8 Impossible Dreams - A Model-Obstacle Relationship

RELATIONSHIP DYNAMIC 8 RD 8: IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS - A MODEL- OBSTACLE RELATIONSHIP - WALKING AWAY IS THE ONLY WAY OUT INTRODUCTION Model-obstacles are generated when a person accepts and, at the same time, rivals with impossible standards or expectations of perfection set for them by people they admire. The repeated pursuit of the impossible dreams and the goal of perfection are at the root of model-obstacle relationships.

Below are three settings where this can occur, among many others. Families: Parents or carers, rather than holding aspirations that are human and reasonable, can set impossible standards for, or have great expectations of, their child. Because the child loves their parents or carers, they seek to please them and strive to achieve their aspirations. The child or young person becomes stuck in a rivalry with these expectations. If it is expected that they will achieve all A’s at school, receiving all A’s except for one ‘B’ then feels like failure, despite it being an excellent achievement. Depression and despondency can follow from such model-obstacle behaviours. Workplaces, Schools and Colleges: Employers and educators can set impossible standards for the performance of staff and students. When they are unable or unwilling to negotiate these standards, people often uncritically accept the expectations set for them by significant others. They buy into trying to attain something that is impossible from the beginning. It becomes a standard to rival with, a model that becomes an obstacle to their growth and development! Even striving to do a perfect job is a form of model-obstacle. It is an aspect of becoming a workaholic, disappearing completely into our work! Culture and Fashion: Media portrayals of ‘beauty’ can generate model-obstacles. These airbrushed images peddle unattainable perfect faces and perfect bodies. The message is, “If I am perfect, I’ll be lovable and loved.” Some of us then strive with these ‘unique’ models of perfection, seeking to attain the same degrees of style, shape and glamor. In fact, we are engaged in a destructive rivalry with impossible model-obstacles and we lose our own being. In all three situations, the results are often self-loathing and depression. In this dynamic we are convinced that it is not that the expectations set for us are impossible; we prefer to buy into the debilitating belief that “we aren’t smart enough, good enough, or beautiful enough to obtain them!” “When I was young, I always looked in the mirror before going out on a date, as you do, and inevitably my after-shave laden pores exuded a ‘zit’. To squeeze or not? My rivalry with perfection, gaining that perfect face ended in despair and embarrassment followed!” This is a small example of a model- obstacle relationship with a perfect skin or a zit free complexion! For many people, model-obstacle relationships are more threatening and destructive.

Some young people end up in model-obstacle relationships that destroy their lives and they become depressed. • The rivalry with the perfect shape, that leads to despair. • The struggle to please parents and carers who impossibly ‘expect’ straight A’s in exams when only a very small number will attain that level. They may still do very well yet become deflated and even depressed. • The pressure to conform to heterosexual societal norms when they are LGBTQ+. Some people buy into political model-obstacle relationships that destroy them, becoming depressed. • Ethnocentric political identities can be model-obstacles. • Identity politicians promoting identity purity can generate model obstacles in diverse societies! • Failure to achieve a political dream based on purity rather than compromise is a model- obstacle and can make people become depressed. • Terrorists, promoting and failing to achieve an impossible goal of identity purity, can generate a willingness to die for the cause. For some people sacred religious beliefs can become model- obstacles • Fundamentalist religious beliefs that brook the voicing of no doubts, can establish a model- obstacle around a purity of belief, a belief that cannot be questioned. Even, peace itself can be made into a model-obstacle when it is viewed as the goal itself rather than the outcome of people living together well.

RD 8: IMPOSSIBLE DREAMS - A MODEL- OBSTACLE RELATIONSHIP - WALKING AWAY IS THE ONLY WAY OUT

Summary

It is suggested that slavishly following ‘model-obstacles’ can become obsessive behaviour that is very difficult to stop. It is made more difficult if such behaviours have become a recurring pattern in our lives. It often needs a friend we trust to drag us away from the pattern, to encourage us to shrug our shoulders and to not allow us to look back or stay linked to it in any manner. If the pattern is not broken, the outcome is often mental distress or even a breakdown. When such patterns of behaviour are deeply embedded and continuously repeated, they may lead some people to attempt to take their own lives.