The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download Chapter One for free at DrKenner.com and at Amazon.com

And welcome to the show.

Hi, thank you.

Yeah, you're having some difficulty with your career. Tell me what's going on.

Well, I'm a project administrator at an engineering firm. Our engineering firm just did a huge layoff. At the same time, I'm going to school full-time for civil engineering, and I'm beginning to feel like civil engineering isn't what I want to do. Now, I have to tell you that every time I pass by a construction site, every time I pass by a road being built or a bridge being built, I just get really, really excited. But at the same time, I think about the classes that I'm taking right now. I'm taking calculus and physics and a surveying class, and they are just—they're so hard. And I feel like right now, when I feel like I have to go in there and do my homework, I just—I almost want to cry. I just—I don't. I almost feel like that's part of the reason why my passion for it is going away. And I'm wondering if I should consider another career or something. It's just weird for me right now.

So it sounds like your ambivalence is around the question: Can I conquer calculus and physics? Can I learn them? Maybe the teacher doesn't speak English. Maybe they're not teaching it in a way that's stepwise, or they're going too fast for you. You know, is it possible to learn those two gateways into this career that you would love? Or are you finding that you just don't like the math and the physics involved, and even though you love the construction, maybe you'd like a different aspect of it?

I'm wondering if that's the case. You know, I was listening to Ed Locke's CD, Ways to Improve Your Life and Happiness: Goal Setting—wasting because your life. Excellent CD. You know, it was kind of a rude awakening yesterday when I was listening to it because I thought, well, maybe, you know, maybe I need to really think about: Is this something that I really want to do? Because when I really think about it, I get so frustrated thinking about being an engineer. Maybe I need to go into structure management instead of engineering. And maybe that's the answer to my question. I'm not sure.

You're doing some good thinking though, right? These are the—The first thing that you want to do for yourself is raise the questions that are bouncing around in your mind that are just driving you crazy. When I ask myself, what do I like doing? Do I—You know, and I love doing physical things. I love running and dancing and, you know, doing physical things. And I love intellectual things. I love reading philosophy and Tara Smith's book on Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics, right? I love both aspects. But even when I think about physics, I think about—I love learning it, but I don't know if I have a passion for it. I don't know where my passion lies really. I'm, you know—And I listen to Andrew Bernstein’s How to Become an Impassioned Valuer, and, you know—And I love thinking about going out and seeking values. I love those ideas so much.

So you're in love with loving your life, and you have many different areas that you could branch off into. The one that you've chosen is road construction or bridges or civil engineering, yes? And you're finding that some of the stepping stones along the way are barriers that may make you take a detour.

Yes. And the thing about it is I have so many interests. I mean, I thought about being a lawyer. I thought about being in psychology. I thought about being sort of like a wellness coach for people who want to transition their lives from being maybe the crappy life that they have to a better life and trying to show people how to improve their lives. I thought about so many different things, and I'm wondering, am I missing my boat here? I mean, maybe I would be better at something than civil engineering. I'm just having a lot of self-doubt.

Okay, but if you package it as self-doubt meaning, "Am I inadequate?"—you know, self-doubt is a real undermining feeling, as opposed to, hey—

I’ve got to interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. I wish I knew more about what girls want from a relationship. Well, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where’s that ad I saw? Here it is: The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download Chapter One for free at SelfishRomance.com and buy it at Amazon.com. Huh. The Selfish Path to Romance. That is interesting.

If you package it as self-doubt meaning, "Am I inadequate?"—you know, self-doubt is a real undermining feeling, as opposed to, I'm in a candy store, a toy store with all these wonderful careers. Let me put them side by side. I can only have one due to time limitations. You know, I can only—I want one of these toys—or toys are probably better than candy—but I want one of these toys. Which toy do I want in the toy store for my lifetime career? You know, what direction do I want to go in knowing I can be flexible? If I need to modify it, I can do that. And so you want to find something that gives you that passion. And there's no reason why you can't try out some of the toys.

Let me tell you what people—Have you been to career counseling before?

I think I'm going to do that next week at my school. That’s what I need to do.

Okay. When I was at a school, I was actually a career counselor for a while. We would give people a worksheet, and what we would do would be—they would just—it would be called an exploration sheet. You would explore a particular career. And on the sheet, you would first name the career. So you could have five different sheets in front of you. One could be—what was it? A wellness coach. One could be intellectual pursuits, whatever it was—philosophy. One could be civil engineering. But you do one at a time. And you list three things that you would do—three duties required by the—correction, use the word duties, but—three responsibilities, you know?

And then you would say, well, what does the net—another section is career qualifications. What educational requirements are—What do you require in college? What degree is needed? What college courses are needed? And what education beyond college is needed? And then another category is, what personal qualities are needed in this career? For example, if you're a really shy person, you wouldn't go into necessarily theater, you know, performance activities—unless you wanted to get over your shyness. What physical requirements are needed? What legal requirements? What skills are required?

So you look at the different categories of what's required in that particular career, and as you're getting the specific details, you're processing it: Is this for me? You can look at the job outlook. Will there be jobs in this field when I graduate or 10 years from now? That's really important in this economy. You want to look at the employment conditions. What's the average beginning salary? How many hours would I work? You know, you're going to look at different aspects of it, including advancement opportunities.

And here’s a little more from Dr. Kenner that’s kind of sensitive. Listen.

Phil, as a psychiatrist, anything you tell me will be kept in the strictest confidence.

You know, it's funny how the more you bottle things up inside, the bigger they seem to be.

Well, I've never told anybody this before, but—Okay, here it goes.

Six years ago, I was abducted by aliens.

And that’s from Frasier.

And what do you do if somebody tells you that? Or what do you do if somebody's going to a fortune teller or a psychic or having strange experiences that they say—excuse me—are inexplicable? As a psychologist, my goal is to help them see that things are causal. Things that happen to you—even psychological things—are causal. Especially—they—there’s no special category that suddenly things become ethereal or unexplainable. Everything is causal.

So you want to figure out, "Why do I feel I've been"—if you're this guy—"Why do I feel I've been abducted by aliens?" Well, maybe you saw a bunch of movies. Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's that you feel you need to feel special. And so you've come up with some story, and then you convinced yourself of it—but not really. And the only way that you can shine the light of reason on it is to bring it out in the open and to see what's behind it so you can fix it.

That's obviously an irrational idea. I mean, it's totally bizarre.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com, and please listen to this.

Here’s an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Ellen Kenner and co-authored Edwin Locke:

When your tone of voice and body language contradict your words, your partner will react to the nonverbal cues. If your partner says, “But you really seem upset,” and you answer, “There you go again. You're always reading into things. I'm just fine,” communication has been choked. Faking your feelings only masks and compounds the problem and delays any resolution. Stifling your legitimate feelings, suspending your thinking, ignoring your own values, and nodding “okay” to please or appease your partner is a self-defeating tactic. Stand up for what you want. Then, instead of feeling “what's the use,” you feel, “We can manage this difference.”

You can download Chapter One for free by going to DrKenner.com and buy it at Amazon.com