So what to talk about today. I am a little tired from a bout with tossing and turning last night. Work and life get on my brain too much. That happens sometimes. How is everyone really doing? You know I have found one of the major keys to happiness in life is "Active Participation" - copyright 2008. For instance if you want to be happy in work you need to participate and you need people to work with you. If you want to be happy in marriage and family you need to participate in each other's lives. If you want to be happy on the internet you need to participate in other peoples lives as well as your own. If you want to be happy spiritually you have got to participate spiritually - by praying, reading the Bible and going to church. Giving content out is part of getting content back in. That is the crux to being social and really being alive.

I think I understand all of that but doing it will always be a learned behavior. The next key is called "Active Communication" - copyright 2008. It is a subset of active participation where part of what you do is communicating on an authentic level. For instance the standard "how are you", "OK" dialogue is severely lacking. I remember how mom used to say her life story about being divorced with 2 kids when we were younger to anyone who asked "how are you". Back then my embarrassment meter would get raised, but really she was just being honest.

The part that is hard about active communication is the active part. When your personality is a mix between passive and active it makes it harder to communicate. As the years go on your barriers start to break down. I think it has something to do with frontal lobe degradation, the part of the brain that tells you to mind your manners. In our Sunday School class we work on being authentic with one another. In another married's course there is a policy of radical honesty. The problem is we are not raised like that. In white middle class America we are told by parents in nonverbal cues to keep these things inside, to bottle them up, no one cares and etcetera... To not wear our hearts on our sleeves. For some people who have that tempermant or genetic predisposition it is actually OK and easy to do. But for others, like myself, who was a sensitive child, a need is there to get things out but the frontal lobe prevents that. It is probably due to some level of insecurity.

So what am I getting at? Nothing really. I have just stumbled across a key to life being active communication and am now going to figure out how to put that in practice.

For instance, the other day my boss said "stop me if I am wrong, but we haven't done much since we started." I of course said nothing but should have said something because he was wrong. I make things look easy, but I know that we'd be delayed if we had someone who was a regular developer on the project. For some reason I could not correct a superior who was wrong, who even asked me to stop him. Many people have no problem with that. I of course do and am doing to soul searching to see what the problem is. Definitely, the problem is insecurity. I think ego can coincide with insecurity.

So the first step in active communication is to be secure. To be secure in a relationship the question becomes "Am I loved?" To be secure on the job a main question has to be answered "Am I wanted?" Aha, I just figured it out. I was not secure at work because in the back of my mind I am not sure if I am wanted. Logically I am wanted because they hired me, but emotionally I have gotten no response to feed my ego, which in turn feeds my security.

So the very first step in active communication is to be secure. The second one has to be the active part, speaking. This is hard for passive people because we can't even get past the insecure step to get to the point of speaking. So let's say that a passive person can be secure. Speaking does come easy to those who have security, but speaking in a tone that is correcting of someone is harder to do. I have done that but only to developers because they needed to fix things, never to a superior.

Fear is an obstacle right after insecurity. Fear is wrong to have in an active conversation. Being active means that it is not just one person telling the other something, it is an active dialogue between two parties with responses that need to be dealt with. It's like it may be hard to jump off the high dive, but you still have to swim when you hit the water. Passive people prefer to get out of the pool area and not even get to the high dive.

In conclusion to this long diatribe, active communication can help you become a bigger participant in all areas of your life. Do not be afraid to speak because you are wanted, you are secure because you were hired, you are secure because you are loved. Lose your fear and you will gain a good conversation. I was telling Holly the other day that this blog is maybe 25% of my thoughts and feelings. It is a shame if my future kids ever see this how they will think something entirely different then if they knew me back when. So from now on I will be more open in this journal. Many thanks to people who actually read my longest post ever! WooHoo! I am a writer!