I have three goals for this blog: 1) if my kids ever read this, perhaps they will be provoked to consider new thoughts and maybe even learn a few things. At the least, they can get to know me better 2) in writing things down I might learn to see myself, others, and the world we live in differently 3) perhaps a few friends might be entertained.

One of the main themes I want to explore is the understanding of human behavior (both our own and that of others) in order to maximize our human relationships… which I believe is a key to happiness. We are social creatures who need good relationships in order to thrive.

But this is so, so messy. We are all so very hard to really understand.

For thousands of potential reasons, we behave in various ways at various times to various people. I’m not sure that even a PHD Psychologist after 30 years of therapeutic research has a wide and deep (and accurate) understanding of why we do and say the things we do and say. Understanding our behavior goes beyond just psychology but probably would need to include a thorough understanding of the impact of physiology, diet, exercise, pharmacology, sleep, DNA, income level, culture, spirituality, politics, life experiences – the list goes on. So many things can impact our mood, reactions, beliefs, brain patterns, etc. which all results in how we perceive and react to various situations.

However, it seems to me that understanding human behavior is a key to success in our relationships as well as careers… so how do we relatively quickly bridge this understanding gap? I have no idea. I certainly won’t get there in this lifetime. But I’m going to keep trying. Every little bit helps.

One thing we often do is take short cuts. We guess. We assume the intent of others. We make assumptions. And then we move on. We don’t have the time (or ability?) to really understand what led to the current situation. We can shift the direction of entire relationships based on assumptions that are built on top of previous assumptions. After this house of cards is stacked, we don’t question the bottom layer – we don’t want the house to fall down! If we previously didn’t have time to accurately figure out reality for a single layer… how would we have time now to investigate all these underlying truths?!

To be continued in a many part series…