On The Human Condition

  “You gave me no choice.” I have heard that sentence in nearly every setting I have worked in: from a husband explaining why he walked out mid-argument, from a teenager explaining a lie, from a professional explaining why he quit. I have said it myself. It almost always feels true. It is almost never quite true. In Part 1, we saw how a yes can arrive before we have chosen it, as the fawning response runs ahead of reflection. In this part, I want to look underneath the moment of choosing, to the place where most of our choices are actually made. Usually, that place is yesterday. When It Feels Like No Choice For years I worked evening and weekend shifts in hospital emergency rooms, or sometimes jails, doing psychiatric assessments. At the end of each evaluation came a decision: admit the patient to an inpatient psychiatric unit or send them home with outpatient follow-up. Patients rarely wanted to be admitted. That decision was never easy, and I never took it lightly. Yet it often f...

  Yes and no are among the first words a child learns, and among the last many of us master. When our son was about a 9 months old, we frequently had our eight-year-old nephew over. One day, we discovered that our nephew had been encouraging our son’s “no.” Our toddler was now shaking his head emphatically and saying no to nearly every question. Our nephew found his enthusiasm hilarious. Funny as it was, our son was doing important work. A toddler’s no declares that he exists, a person separate from the people around him. The teenager’s no comes next. We parents want our child to have a healthy no for those things we see as risks and dangers. The teenager no has strength before it has reasons, so it can turn against parents and convention. The mature adult’s yes and no are meant to be something different again: freely chosen, with reasons behind them. Many of us never quite arrive. In more than forty years of sitting with people, I have come to believe something simple: if you don’...

  We Go Where We’re Looking Last time, we talked about being on the same team: same jersey, same scoreboard, the problem as the opponent rather than the spouse. But even good teammates lose sight of the ball. We enter marriage intending to take on life together. Us against the world! But frustration, irritation, aggravation, and disappointment come along. Our failures and distractions can shift our attention from the shared problem to the performance of the other person. We start to keep score. Who did the dishes last? Who picked up the kids? Who apologized first the last time? The ledger grows, and every new entry gets weighed against the old ones. We compete in suffering. “You’re tired? I’ve been up since five.” Who’s more exhausted, more burdened, more overlooked becomes its own contest, and both people lose. We win the argument and lose the person. Being right can feel very important in the moment. But a spouse who has been out-argued isn’t necessarily persuaded. They may ...