The year was 1992. I had been living and
working in Japan
for about 5 years. I had come to Japan
directly upon graduating from the university
and took on a sales role with an international publishing company in Tokyo. By late spring
1992, we already had two young children and my Rika was expecting our
third child that summer.
I had worked hard while in Japan
and in a few short years had moved into a management role. I was expected to
work long hours. It was hard, but I felt I was doing my best to balance my many
roles between work and family. My success at work was satisfying. My income had
increased substantially and I was proud of the fact that we were eventually
able to move our little family from a small Japanese apartment into a larger
house with less of a commute to my office. Rika appreciated me working hard. She
knew that was expected of business people in Japan. Although life was not easy
for her with two small children, one on the way and a busy husband, she never
complained. I was getting tired, but felt that sacrifice now would benefit my
career and family in the future. I kept telling myself, the long hours are so I
can provide better for my family. I believed what people said about quality
time vs. quantity time.
My role at work included regular monthly
trips to several Asian countries. These business trips took me out of the home
for weeks on end. I would miss my family dearly on these long trips. They
became times for me to think about what was really important to me.
In fact, one particular trip I took stands
out in my mind as a turning point in my life. It caused me to see myself,
family and career in a new way. It brought on a paradigm shift.
I was attending a major management and
executive meeting for my company. The meetings were held at a resort in the mountainous
jungle outside of Manila in the Philippines.
Rika was only a few weeks away from having our third child. I felt bad leaving
on a trip with her in that condition, even though I was scheduled to be back
before her due date. But this was an important conference and meetings,
critical to my career. After all I am working and doing all this for them, I
told myself.
A few days into my trip, I received a
phone call from Rika. She told me she was having some problems with the
pregnancy and had been to the doctor. She said she was worried and wanted me to
come home.
Many things ran through my mind. How can I
tell my company president that I need to leave? It will surely hurt my future
career. Should I wait a day and see how she is before making a decision? I now
shutter at the fact that I wondered if I should go or not and that I even
hesitated. What did I value more? My job or my wife and children? It was at
that point that I began to realize I was not working for my family. I was
working for my own career, satisfaction and ego. I fooling myself when I
claimed my work was for them. I was not seeing myself correctly.
I thought about my situation and after a
few hours decided to go to my boss and tell him I needed to leave due to my
wife’s situation back in Japan.
While I am sure he wanted me to stay, he agreed I needed to get home. It was
already late afternoon and I called to arrange a flight and for transportation
back to the airport in Manila.
To my surprise, I was told I could not leave the resort until the next morning.
They told me that being an American it was not safe to drive through the jungle
after dark. The outlying areas were known to have extremist rebels that would
not hesitate to rob or kidnap someone like me in hopes of gaining publicity and
a ransom. This caused me great frustration and pain. I now had made the
decision to get home as soon as I could, but was prevented from doing so. The
ensuing hours waiting to get home gave me a lot of time to reflect on what
really mattered to me. And it helped me see more clearly. I had the beginnings
of new paradigm about myself and my family.
I eventually made it home. Rika had our
third child, our son Eric, on July 4th. Both were healthy and there
were no complications. But the feelings I had while being separated from my
loved ones at a time when they really needed me, and not being able to be
there, caused me to change my paradigm. I had felt so helpless. Never again
would I put my career above my family. And today I can look back and say, I do
not think my career has suffered one bit from this change in my thinking and
seeing. That experience changed in the way I view or see my family and career and
has molded my behavior ever since. How we see, influences how we act and what
we do or say. And what we do and say, determines the results we get in life.
If we want a stronger family, a happier
marriage, better behaved children, etc. we need to start seeing our family
relationships differently.
As I have thought about this paradigm
shift I had many years ago, I thought about some other common paradigms people
often have regarding families and related roles. Take a look at this list of
paradigms. They are listed in pairs each representing an extreme. As you look
at these, think about your own paradigms related to your family, marriage and
raising your children. Do you have any of these paradigms? What are your
paradigms? Could there be value in adopting a new paradigm in your life as it
relates to your family relationships?
Opposite Family
and Marriage Paradigms
- Raising the children is the responsibility of the wife
- Raising the children is a shared responsibility of husband and wife
- Teaching morals is the responsibility of the schools
- Morals and values should primarily be taught in the home
- My job and career are the focus of my life and time. This is how I take care of my family.
- My job and career are important to me and my family, but my family and their well-being is more important.
- We each have our own separate lives
- We are individuals and respect that, but we are a team and united as husband and wife and parents
- Housework/yard work is her/his responsibility.
- We can share chores.
- The family is a convenient and necessary social structure.
- The family is an organization that requires leadership, management, a sense of purpose, vision, and clear values to guide behavior. It is the most important unit in society.
- The home is place for us to live, eat, and sleep.
- The home is a sanctuary, a safe haven where all members of the family can feel safe, secure and loved.
What are your paradigms about marriage or your spouse and children? Are they correct ways of seeing them? Would a new way of seeing improve your relationships?
Why is it
important how we see others?
Our paradigms (or how we see) affect our
actions and behaviors. How we see others influences how we treat others. How we
treat others influences how they act and to some extent how they end up seeing
themselves. And how people act determines who they ultimately become and in
turn how they treat others themselves. People treat others how they see them
which is often a reflection of how they see themselves.
SEE – TREAT – ACT – BECOME
If you want people to act or behave
differently, you must see them and treat them differently. And sometimes, in
order to see others differently, you need to start seeing yourself differently.
This is what we mean when we talk about change starts with you! It starts with
your way of seeing everything.
Here is the principle:
Behavior change, your own and others',
begins with a new paradigm. How you see yourself and others.
Think of how this can apply to a marriage
or raising children. Many problems families encounter are based on how we see
others and our expectations around that paradigm. When we tell a child he is not very smart because he is behind in his
class, we are only reinforcing the low self esteem the child may already be
developing. Simply put, if you want to change behavior, treat people as you
want and expect them to be. You will be amazed how people, especially children
respond to this. A wife who only complains that her husband cannot get a better
job, is taking the wrong approach. She should focus on building him up and
helping him develop the confidence that will help him see himself differently
and may enable him to take the necessary steps to get a better job.
This well known Quote by Goethe sums this up wonderfully:
“If you treat a man as he is, he will
remain as he is, but if you treat him as he ought to be, and could be, he will
become what he ought to be and should be.”
-
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
To bring about personal change and change
in others, lasting change that can help build strong relationships and great
families, work on seeing them and yourself differently. See the good and the
positive and building on that.
Thanks for Reading!
Bill and Rika
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