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The Dark Side of Creativity

When the Gift Consumes

There is something that they all have in common, and it’s not just what you think.

September is Suicide Awareness Month. No better time to talk about such a horrific epidemic we find ourselves in. Before you bounce right out of here thinking this is going to be too heavy, I won’t go into those types of details. I intend to address a specific facet of suicide – creative people. Yeah you, Substacker, writer, visual artist, musical artist, culinary artist, you are who I’m talking about. I am who I’m talking about. To ignore our inclination toward suffering is to invite it to govern, rule, and ultimately destroy us from the shadows.

With the relatively recent suicide death of Anne Burrell, I began digging a bit deeper into literature that reflected the connection between creativity and an increased proclivity to suicidal ideation (SI). And what I found was, at the very least, alarming.

Culinary World

In the culinary world, it is a very fast-paced, high-stress, and at times, toxic environment in which to work. High demands are flying at them in a rapid-style fury. The consequences often include imposter syndrome – a feeling like they don’t belong because they’re not perfect. Such perfectionism undermines what joy the industry could bring. Additionally, intense environments, camaraderie masking dysfunction, long non-social hours, and high-pressure expectations in kitchens contribute to mental strain among highly creative chefs.

Notable Losses to Suicide in the Culinary World

  • Homaro Cantu: Chef, inventor, restaurateur
  • Anne Burrell: American chef and TV host
  • Anthony Bourdain: American chef and author

Entertainment

Then there is the entertainment industry, particularly the movie business. Acting requires deep understanding of other people. Deep levels of emotional empathy, experiencing emotions as if they are happening to you even when they are not. They are tasked to portray an array of emotions, attitudes, linguistic styles, physical attributes, and more. Often, what one finds in this industry is they spend so much time being someone else that they do not know who they are. This lack of identity often produces confusion. The industry also produces isolation because of being harassed by media and fans. Confusion with isolation is a lethal mixture.

Notable Losses to Suicide in the Entertainment Industry

  • Robin Williams
  • Margot Kidder
  • Dana Plato

Literary Landscape

Now to most of you reading this. Writers. You. Me. Writing involves a thought process that requires deep, intrinsic exploration. When you explore that deeply, you find things you forgot about. You find a mental box that was stashed away in hopes it would disappear, but it hasn’t. Writing also involves feeling another person’s depth of emotion. Writing displays this emotion, whether through a fictional expression, a self-help offering, or a liturgical grounding, with an aim to better the psyche through simplicity and ritual. The mind goes on an adventure, and the creative process fosters it in hopes it discovers some treasure trove of depth to unlock great mysteries that plague us.

Notable Losses to Suicide Among Writers

  • Ernest Hemingway
  • Yasunari Kawabata
  • Albert Camus
  • Pulitzer Prize winner Sylvia Plath (The “Sylvia Plath Effect” is a concept that poets are more susceptible than other creative writers.
  • (Please note that the first three are Nobel Literature Prize winners)

There’s one thing they all have in common, neuroticism. In psychology, the Big Five personality scale is the most widely used and cited as the most reliable method for understanding personality. The Big Five is comprised of Openness to experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (OCEAN). Standard knowledge within this discipline will tell you that on average, conscientiousness is an excellent predictor of success, agreeableness can have positive correlations with anxiety, and women score higher in all five personality traits, including neuroticism. But what does that have to do with creativity?

Research on Creativity and Neuroticism

  • (Peters et al., 2018) Neuroticism not only increases suicidal ideation (SI), it also significantly increases actual suicide. This same study found that men are particularly at greater risk of SI if they are unmarried, recently unemployed, or recently divorced.
  • (Brezo et al., 2006) Neuroticism and openness to experience showed elevated risk of suicide. More specifically, extraversion had the strongest negative correlation to suicide and social introversion had the strongest positive correlation to suicide.
  • (Blüml et al., 2013) Neuroticism and openness to experience showed elevated risk for suicide, especially in females. In males, extraversion and conscientiousness were significant protective factors against suicide.
  • (Preti et al., 2001) People involved in creative professions have suicide rates three times higher than those in other professions. As far as the three domains mentioned here, in a study reviewing suicides, 84% of the total suicides in creative professions were literary professionals.

To be clear, Correlation ≠ Causation. There is not a guarantee of someone creative having high levels of neuroticism. Also, neuroticism doesn’t reliably predict creative achievement, but highly creative people often score high in neuroticism. Creative individuals, particularly in artistic fields like writing, acting, music, and culinary arts, frequently score high on neuroticism, especially when combined with high openness to experience, which is a reliable predictor of creativity.

While neuroticism alone does not predict who will become a successful artist, writer, or chef, creative people, especially those who channel personal emotion into their work, tend to be more neurotic than average. This is the conundrum for people like us. Creativity often arises not despite emotional instability, but because of it.

Where Do We Go From Here?

So what do we do about it? If I know someone is going to push me, I can brace for it and find ways to lessen the impact, hoping I don’t fall. Knowing that we are prone to this is a good step toward mitigating the effects. Think of fire. If I walked into your living room and set a fire on your coffee table, you would not be very happy about that. But if I walked about eight feet over and started one in the fireplace, you’d be fine with it. Why? Because it’s contained.

If we learn to control the force of our creativity, guiding it rather than becoming enslaved by it, we discover its true brilliance. Creativity, when unbounded, can blaze out of control like a wildfire, consuming without discernment; yet, when given structure, direction, and purpose, it becomes illumination rather than destruction. To harness creativity is not to diminish it, but to transform it into an ally. One that uplifts, builds, and heals. In this way, we honor the gift without surrendering ourselves to its tyranny. We partake in its radiance while refusing to be undone by its flames.

This comes through calibration. Community. Conversation. The antithesis of isolation. Isolation leads to being on the lists above. Please, for all that is beautiful, do not let your creativity be the very thing that annihilates your potential to better the world around you with your gift. Guess what? I hoped you gained something from this, but I wrote that entire piece to me.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

References

Blüml, V., Kapusta, N. D., Doering, S., Brähler, E., Wagner, B., & Kersting, A. (2013). Personality factors and suicide risk in a representative sample of the German general population. PloS One, 8(10), e76646. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0076646

Brezo, J., Paris, J., & Turecki, G. (2006). Personality traits as correlates of suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and suicide completions: a systematic review. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 113(3), 180–206. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2005.00702.x

Peters, E. M., John, A., Bowen, R., Baetz, M., & Balbuena, L. (2018). Neuroticism and suicide in a general population cohort: results from the UK Biobank Project. BJPsych Open, 4(2), 62–68. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjo.2017.12

Preti, A., De Biasi, F., & Miotto, P. (2001). Musical creativity and suicide. Psychological Reports, 89(3), 719–727. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.2001.89.3.719

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Emotional Homeostasis

Men Should Cry More, but Not Too Much More

I’m in church. Something hits me. Gratitude. My daughter looks up at me and asks me if I’m alright. I’m fine. “Then why are you crying?” I wasn’t crying. But a tear did form and drop. And now my face was wet. And my daughter was worried.

See, I’m a large, masculine man. I don’t display emotional pain. I just grit my teeth and move on. So this had my daughter worried. The truth is, I’ve been tearing up at church for years. She just never noticed. But it’s the only time I do. Why is that?

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Jordan Peterson once said:

Be the strongest person at your father’s funeral.

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

That’s me. A few years ago my father almost died and I was the “strong one” in the moment. My daughter flipped her car and was worried. I was strong first, then the emotion of realizing I could’ve lost her hit me later.

I’m seeing a current call for more men to cry. I’m seeing it often. Men are saying they don’t want to feel emotions. Women are saying that they love it when their man cries. So who is right? The answer is… Yes.

Where is the Balance?

There is a need for men to become more emotionally intelligent. Most men find emotions binary: happy and pissed off. Learning the array of emotions makes a man more effective in assessing problems. It also helps a man better understand his wife.

A man needs to be able to express emotions. But here’s the catch,

  1. They aren’t going to express it in a communal fashion like women do. They’re going to express it alone.
  2. They aren’t going to do that right now. They must first take care of the issue at hand. Then they can be concerned with their emotions.

One example of this is can be found in this post:

Phases of Leadership In a Crisis

On the other hand, if a man is shedding tears every time something pulls at his heart strings, he isn’t very useful in his God-given capacity.

When sh*t hits the fan, people turn to the most stable person in the room. The one who manages emotions. They know that guy will make a sound decision not based on emotion. But if that dude is in the corner crying, he’s not worth much in that crisis.

So When Do We Cry?

Women cry when they are happy, sad, frustrated, anxious, joyful, angry, pretty much any given emotion. Men cry when they are overwhelmed. So for all the women that are saying, “I wish men would cry more, I wish they would release their emotions more”, I say be careful what you wish for. You’re asking him to be overwhelmed more. If a man is too weepy, he is no good in a crisis. If he is crying, he is overwhelmed about something.

Remember, male suicide is 4 times higher than female. One could propose that this is because they bottle up their emotions. And they might be right. One could also say that few care if men are ok. They would be right too.

There’s a balance. We definitely need to be more emotionally aware. No one questions that. But we also need to be able to control our emotions. Put them in their proper place; in service to us, not the other way around. Men do have a desire for control. Not to be tyrannical with it. But to protect with it. If I am in control of a situation, this means everyone around me is safe. If I am crying, I am not in control. This is why men carefully select times to cry. Having said that, if a man never cries, this is also a problem. We must find emotional homeostasis. Balance. Don’t be completely stoic. Don’t be completely emotional. Be what those around you need in the moment and be the other as soon as possible.

Ladies, be ok with him not being just like you. He’s different than you are. And that’s ok. Appreciate the difference. Love the difference. And understand that men are wired a certain way for a reason. And men, be that strong man everyone turns to at your dad’s funeral. Then later, get away and let it out. Don’t hold it back.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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10 Truths to Live By

I have had a couple of people that I hold in high regard recently all but chastise me, citing that there is no one way to do certain things and there’s no right way or wrong way to do other things. What those are will be for another day. Today I’ll list 10 verifiable, objective truths that everyone on planet earth could and should live by.

1. One should always aim high enough that the goal is unachievable while simultaneously making one better for taking steps towards such an ineffable aim. When you take one step towards the highest aim, the dopaminergic system kicks in and rewards you for doing so.

2. What one aims towards should never be another human being and should always be greater than anyone on earth, as people will let you down at some point. One must aim towards one that will never let you down. Aristotle once said:

Everything that is in motion was moved by another being in motion, but that this could not have begun by anything in motion. The very beginning of motion had to have been started by an eternal unmoved mover.

This is where our aim should be.

3. Anything you do for a child that the child is capable of doing for themselves has just delayed the development of that child in that area. Resilience and achievement are pillars for human flourishing.

4. Suicide is always preceded by isolation. We are social beings. The only thing that prevents us from becoming mentally insane is meaningful social interaction.

5. The greatest meaning in life is found at the crossroads of order and chaos. The greatest meaning for a man can be found at the intersection of productivity and generosity.

6. Life is about the journey. Not the destination. The destination takes care of itself through the manifestation of the journey’s steps.

7. To truly find meaning in life, make your life about others. Stop focusing on you and focus on others.

8. For children, self esteem is not the primary goal, but rather the secondary byproduct of the goal. If self esteem is the goal to aim for, it will be attained falsely and will not sustain without manufactured achievement. If personal self-achievement is the goal, self esteem is obtained through the successful merit of such achievements. Self esteem is the result of something else, not the primary goal.

9. If you marry because you feel love for the other person, you will divorce because you no longer feel love for them. The reason for marriage must reside on a much more sustainable foundation of compatibility, reaching beyond the fleeting nature of feelings into the cognitive process of knowing this person is right for you and you are right for this person, even and especially when times get difficult.

10. Pineapple ruins pizza (Ok. I had to put one funny note in here. But really, yuck. Don’t do that).

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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The Returning Rabbit

Are bunny rabbits cute? Sure they are. So let’s talk about them. One group of researchers took babies between the ages of 3 months and 7 months old and conducted an experiment. They put on a puppet show with little stuffed bunnies. They were wearing various colored shirts. The primary bunny had a gray shirt on. He was trying to get an item into a box and needed help. Along came a bunny with a blue shirt and helped the gray bunny get the item in the box. Nice thing to do. They did the scenario again, but this time a bunny with an orange shirt came and closed the box so the gray bunny could not get the item in. Not so nice. Afterwards, they presented the blue and orange bunnies to the baby and allowed them to choose which one to pick. Over 80% of the babies chose the blue bunny. They instinctively knew the blue bunny was good and the orange bunny was mean.

Next, they had a yellow bunny and a green bunny involved. First, the baby was to choose a food item, a golden graham or a cheerio. Let’s use the cheerio for this scenario. The baby chose a cheerio. Then the yellow bunny chose a cheerio. Next, the green bunny chose the golden graham saying the cheerio was bad. Again, they presented the bunnies to the baby and over 70% of the babies picked the bunny that chose the same food they selected.  

This last experiment is where it gets interesting. They used the bunnies who chose the food items, yellow and green, and conducted the first experiment. For instance, the baby chose the cheerio, and the yellow bunny had also chosen the cheerio. The yellow bunny approached the gray bunny and slammed the box shut so that the gray bunny could not get the item into the box. While the green bunny helped the gray bunny get the item into the box. This produced an internal dilemma for the babies. They liked the good bunny in the first experiment. They liked the bunny that chose the same food they liked. But what happens when the bunny that chose the food they liked is the bad bunny in the next experiment? When presented with the yellow and green bunny in the situation I just presented, the baby still chose the yellow bunny who selected the same food as the baby, even though the yellow bunny had been mean to the gray bunny.

What does this mean? The baby chose what was familiar over what was good. In fact, most babies in this experiment chose what was familiar over what was good. This indicates a natural tendency in humans to choose the familiar over the moral or ethical. The implication for human behavior is that when we encounter adversity in our lives, we quickly return to whatever is familiar. We like, and ultimately choose, whatever is familiar because there is safety in this. We recognize this. It shields us from the unknown. If abuse is familiar, this is what we will return to. We are quicker to return to abuse if we a) don’t know our worth and b) possess too much empathy for our abuser, also known as identification with aggressor (IWA).

Setting the tone for our children to learn and fully understand who they are and their worth is vital to adequate development. They must be taught what their actual value is. If they are not taught by parents, someone else will teach them, and it will likely be wrong. When we believe we have more worth than we actually do, this causes problems, as we overestimate our abilities, as seen in the Dunning-Kruger effect. When we believe that we have less worth than we do, this causes problems in assertiveness, standing up for ourselves, and allowing others to take advantage of us personally and professionally. The solution is simple. Who is God in you? That is the question. If we truly understand that we are nothing without God, but we are everything with Him, this gives us proper perspective. I have accepted this perspective, and subsequently, I do not allow someone to offer me less than what I deserve, but I simultaneously do not believe I am owed more than I deserve either. When you do not understand your worth, you allow things to happen to you that you would never normally allow if a) you knew your actual worth and b) it wasn’t previously familiar.

Another aspect of this conversation is empathy. Too much empathy can be absolutely poisonous. Empathy has a dark side to it that discriminates against anything or anyone not in perfect alignment with the individual you are currently showing empathy for, even in the face of moral or even legal dilemmas. This happens in the context of this subject as women try to show empathy to their abuser, believing there are good parts of them and they choose to focus on those aspects of the person they are in a relationship with. In this case, empathy drives IWA and blinds them to the reality of the boundaries this person has obliterated, in the name of empathetic dysfunction. A pre-covid study was done on this subject. Victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) were surveyed, and it was discovered that over 66% of women had reported to have left and returned to an abusive relationship once and 97% reported to have left and returned multiple times. There are many reasons for this, but the primary reason is not knowing your worth. It is fair to suspect these numbers are even higher post-covid.

This only highlights the need for parents to instill in our children good habits and good interpersonal perspectives. My parents forced me to go to church when I was younger. Then later, when life became very difficult, I returned to what I knew, church. Whatever you instill in them as a child, they will return to when things get tough. My parents made sure that I knew that I could accomplish great things, while understanding my place in the home and in the world, all while putting me in the position to return to healthy practices when life did what life does. Set your children up for success by instilling a balance of knowing who they are and who they are not. This will take care of the self-esteem issue and knowing their worth will help them avoid many obstacles in life.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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The Journey

It’s something that I still have a hard time with. I see the goal. I see the outcome. I see that I missed the goal, not once, not twice, but three times. But I have to be reminded of the journey.

I’m watching TV one night and I see this guitar player jamming away. I wanted to write songs. I’d seen my dad write songs. I begin to write. I write one of my first songs about a celebration of one of my friends from school beating cancer. I was insanely nervous singing that song in front of my youth group. That was the first and last time I was nervous singing. Made some good friends through that. I’m walking around singing one day and a friend of mine hears me. She says, “you should think about doing that for a living.” A few years later as I’m finishing high school, I begin pursuing a career in music.

I began going to writers’ nights. Met many great writers. I had cuts, mostly by new bands or artists that never made it. Made some lifelong friends during that phase. There are a handful of people I still talk to from that phase of life. People that if I called today, they’d help me with whatever I needed. At the end of the day, I did have three cuts that made some noise, one of which was an all-star cast of artists. It went to #75 on billboard. On that song, “Dare the World”, I was a writer, producer, played acoustic, sang background, and sang one lead line (because I forgot to get that line from anyone else).

Me and Eddie Dunbar

I then moved into being an artist. It started with sitting in with a band led by Eddie Dunbar. That led to 6 different production deals. With each step, I made friends with the producers themselves, the players on the sessions, and writers that helped contribute. I spent a great deal of time in studios. I made friends with engineers at these studios. Made lifelong friends. Still talk to many these days. Some of the more notable producers were Jay DeMarcus from Rascal Flatts, Rob Galbraith (Ronnie Milsap’s producer), Shelby Kennedy of the famous Kennedy family (with credits like Garth Brooks, Reba), among others.

During this time I played the bar scene in Nashville. I spent most of my time at a bar called the Fiddle and Steel Guitar bar. Here I met many cool people, met a couple of heroes, and made lifelong friendships that stand strong today. I got to hang with Michael English, Toby Keith, Eric Church, Gary, Jay, and Joe Don from Rascal Flatts, and a host of others. I met my future wife there. I became close with the pickers that played with various artists. That period of time was a blast.

Fiddle and Steel

After 5 production deals came to an end, I took one last shot. I formed a band of a bunch of great players. Started with players that are world-renowned. Two of them chose to move in a different direction in their career. I ended up with a group of amazing musicians that seem to gel together nicely. We began playing out, writing, and pitching our sound to various labels. We then went into the studio with Rob Galbraith and Regie Hamm to record some amazing music. Warner Brothers was on board. They loved what we were doing. We were about to be signed when they had a meeting and decided that were simply were not country enough for where the industry was headed. And like that, 15 years of pursuit came to screeching halt. I looked around and realized no one was looking for the next big 36-year-old. It’s a young man’s game.

The next two years felt like one long funeral. It felt as though someone close to me had died. I was attempting to come to the realization and understanding that the idea of me touring with a record was out the door. But it still felt like someone sucker punched me in the gut. It felt like I had been chewed up and spit out of the industry. This contributed to my divorce.  

Dink Cook

That leads me to the journey. Looking back on that, it was the journey all along that was the part I remember the most. It was those I made lifelong friendships with that stood out. It was the process, not the culmination. It was the journey, not the destination. To this day, I’m still close to Eddie Dunbar.   

As this was wrapping up, I began officiating basketball. I quickly moved from refereeing middle school to high school, to college, to minor league professional. As I began, I wasn’t sure if I was any good. As I began getting hired by college conferences, I felt that I may have something. I spent thousands of dollars each summer on training to get better and better. I moved up the ranks until I was given a verbal queue that I would be on a division 1 staff. That person was fired from that D1 position before he could see that through. I continued to push forward but fairly quickly saw the writing on the wall. And the writing was familiar. It was a young man’s game. I made it up to D2 and everything below. There I settled in. I failed again. But there was still high school.

I came to my 16th season of refereeing high school ball and was selected to the state tournament championships. There were only 14 refs selected, so it was definitely an honor. Of those 14, there was only one there that had been in the TSSAA longer than me. At the end of the week, 12 were selected to work a championship game. I had a very good week. But I was aware that the leader of the state simply did not like me. All I could do is do everything he asked of me to the best of my ability. And that’s what I did. It wasn’t enough. When asked what I could do better, I did not receive an answer that I could do anything about. He just didn’t like me. Once again, 16 years and I feel like I’ve been chewed up and spit out of a profession for nothing that I could control. I spent the next two weeks trying to find the energy to get out of bed. I’ve now failed majorly three times!

Mason Smith & Justin Dorris

This leads me to the journey. The refs that I’ve met through the years are now lifelong friends. I’ve had many times where they came to my rescue, and I’ve come to theirs. At any moment, if I’m near their town and I need anything at all, they’ll be there. I have no doubt.

If the why is people, I’ve been blessed beyond measure. It doesn’t make the ending any easier. It’s still painful. It still makes you wonder. But it was never about the destination anyway. It was about the journey. Thank God for the friends. Thank God for the fun stories. Thank God for the journey. If you take anything away from this story, the destination takes care of itself. So don’t ever lose sight of the journey.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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Till the Ground

Parents of small/young children, I’m begging you to read this.

The issues I’m seeing the most among parenting young children these days are:

  1. We plant seed before we till the ground
    1. Tilling includes
      1. Teaching them how to obey the first time.
      1. Teaching them that we act differently in public than we do at home
  2. Too much autonomy
  3. We make the child too important

Tilling obedience.

I see many parents of young children spend a great deal of time plotting out how they are going to do creative things to help their little one grow emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. And these are good things. But if we haven’t taught them to first obey you the first time you speak, the other things you teach them will be for nothing because a) they believe the world is all about them and b) they don’t really respect you or they’d obey the first time. Asking a kid to do something is not always a good thing. Sometimes it is, but not always. Sometimes, I dare say most of the time, it is a better idea to tell them to do something, rather than to ask. Telling them or asking them multiple times shows a few things. It shows they really don’t respect your authority. They don’t believe there is a consequence to deliberately ignoring your request or demand. It shows that they believe they are so important, they don’t have to listen to you. It also shows they don’t believe you really want them to do whatever it is you’ve told them to do.

Tilling how to act in public.

I see this all the time. Actually, every time I go out. Kids are not taught to act differently in public. Therefore, they act exactly the same way in public as they do at home. There is a clear difference on how to act to not disrupt social interactions. I understand that society has defined this. I also understand that if your child is to succeed in this world, they must learn social aptitude and develop social intelligence. Teaching them that it is rude and wrong to kick the back of a chair on the plane or at the movies is necessary. Teaching them when it’s time to sit calmly and quietly and when it’s ok to run and have fun is necessary. Teaching them that destroying their dinner table at a restaurant is rude and won’t be accepted… is necessary. Teaching them not to interrupt is necessary.

Too much autonomy.

“But why can’t I go to this party? Everyone I know will be there! I should be able to make my own decisions!” My response was, “At 14 you can’t operate a vehicle. At 15 you can but with someone else in the car. At 16 you can operate a vehicle without anyone in the car, but you can’t vote. At 18 you can vote, but you can’t buy a glass of wine. At 21 you can buy a glass of wine, but you can’t rent a car. At 25 you can rent a car. Even the government knows that with age comes the ability to handle responsibility and make better decisions.” She didn’t like that, but it’s not my job to worry about what she likes.

Children are being given way too much autonomy. They are being allowed to make way too many decisions. I understand the need to let them make some decisions so they learn how to make good decisions. That isn’t an issue. The issue is in our best effort to teach them how to make good decisions, we let them make decisions they aren’t ready to make. If their chances of making a good certain decision is 0%, they’re not ready for that decision and the parent needs to make it for them. Children shouldn’t be deciding where you’re going, when you’re going, and when you’re leaving. They shouldn’t be deciding where you (or they) go to church or dinner. With each birthday, they get to decide more, but in very small increments. But this leads to the last point…

Too important.

Children are being taught that they are way more important than they really are. They are NOT more important than their teacher, their coach, their principal, their boss. They are making those decisions we just talked about because they believe they are the most important person in any room. There are serious consequences to believing this and it going unchecked by their parents.

Repercussions:

The results of these not tilling the ground before you plant the seed is that the seed will fall on ground that won’t let the seed grow. They will not take the seed seriously. Therefore, the seed is planted in vain because the ground wasn’t tilled first.

The results of too much autonomy is they don’t really learn how to make a good decision because all they do is make bad ones. It also teaches them false social interactions. They believe their way is the right way and no one tells them otherwise and when they are confronted with this in the social world, they’re met with great opposing force and don’t know why. “Mental health issues” are to follow.

The results of them being too important is simple. It puts them in a place to believe something about themselves that simply isn’t true and prohibits them from succeeding socially.

Other results include being a total disruption to your home and any social interactions you may have as a parent with other adults. Some may read this and say, “well why are we treating social aptitude with greater emphasis than self-worth?” Good question. Self-worth will come when they realize where their REAL place is in this world. If they are not believing those in authority, making too many decisions too early, and believing they are more important than they really are, they are set up for disaster, not success. I’m firmly convinced that social intelligence is FAR more valuable than self- worth, self- esteem, and academic knowledge. When you are socially apt, the rest of those attributes fall into place. Liberty resides within a set of boundaries. Without the boundaries, there is no liberty. If you want to free your children, create boundaries.

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The Debate over Abortion and School Shootings Have a Common Theme

You can’t scroll two posts without seeing someone sharing their opinion on abortion. The division. The vitriol. Everyone has an opinion and they’re willing to lose friendships over it. It’s worth noting two distinct things: 1- I won’t be covering the opinions of abortion in this and 2- the recent ruling merely returned the jurisdiction to the states, where it belonged in the first place. Nothing has been banned. The fury is over the fear that it may be banned in their state.

Just before that, it was the shooting in Uvalde, TX. A young man decided to commit multiple evil acts. Shortly after this event, the conversation about fatherless homes began to gain momentum, and rightfully so. The young man who committed those acts did not have a father in the home. I’m not shocked.

What is the connection between the two events? Lack of fathers. I firmly believe that’s the reason for the most recent outcry. If men were upholding their end of the bargain after sex, we wouldn’t have nearly the fury surrounding this issue. Mothers wouldn’t feel so helpless and alone. There would be more money available because the man is helping provide.

It started a long time ago but went something like this: President Johnson decides to lay out his plans for the “Great Society.” In it, he lays out a plan to help single mothers. He offers financial assistance to any woman that had a child in the home and no father/male in the home. While it probably had good intentions originally, it incentivized mothers to remove the men from their home so they could continue receiving money for their child. They were getting a certain amount of money per child. So not only were mothers incentivized to raise their children without fathers, they were also incentivized to have many more children to maximize their income. This is what led to the jump in fatherless homes. In the 1940’s and 1950’s, approximately 8% of white children and approximately 25% of black children were born to fatherless homes. Both of these numbers tripled by 2015. 25% of white children and 75% of black children were being born to fatherless homes. This plan obviously did not work and those negative effects were irrespective of race.

Now we’re left with the statistical nightmare of fatherless homes. Here are some of those stats:

*90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes (32 times the average).

*85% of all children who show behavior disorders are from fatherless homes (20 times the average).

*71% of all high school dropout come from fatherless homes (9 times the average).

*85% of all youth in prison come from fatherless homes (20 times the average).

*Daughters of single parents without a father involved are 711% more likely to have children as teenagers AND 92% more likely to get divorced themselves.

*90% of adolescent repeat arsonists live only with their mother.

President Obama stated in a speech that children from fatherless homes are 5 times more likely to grow up in poverty and commit a crime, 9 times more likely to drop out of school and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. Tupac Shakur recognized that he joined gangs because he searched for the things that fathers provide. He stated, “I know for a fact that had I had a father, I’d have some discipline and more confidence.”   

Studies have shown that children living with both biological parents are 20% to 35% more physically healthy than children from broken homes. Following divorce, children are 50% more likely to develop health problems. A child raised in a married family can reduce the child’s probability of living in poverty by 82%. Studies have also shown that growing up in a two-parent household is influential on reducing out of wedlock births. Studies show that kids who grow up in two parent homes have higher high school and college graduation rates as well as a higher likelihood of sustaining long term employment.

You want to fix the abortion issue for good? You want to do away with almost all school shootings? Fix those stats. Men were originally told to get out but then settled in this new life of laziness. I’m looking for an all-out revival of men stepping up and being the man God designed them to be. It takes a few things to accomplish this.

First, it takes the man willing to admit he could be better tomorrow than he is today. That’s a huge step for most men. We think we have all this figured out. Then we’re forced to admit that maybe we don’t. Once we can admit that, then we can work on it. The next thing that has to happen is men have to find someone they trust to point them in the right direction. Then they have to apply what they’re learning.

Next, their wife/girlfriend has to allow them to be who God designed them to be. She is capable of stopping that by not allowing him to lead his family. If she takes care of everything and he has no real responsibilities, he will never operate in the gifts God has given him. The wife/gf has to allow him the room to lead and make mistakes. Ouch. That’s where it gets ugly. Make mistakes? I once had someone ask me, “Well, what if you just know he’s going to make a mistake? You just let him?” My response was, “Unless you are 100% certain that you know exactly what he’s going to do and exactly what the repercussions are, then you don’t know if it’s a mistake yet or not. And even if you do, if he loves his family, then he won’t make that mistake again.”

“Men Step Up to Help Foster Families in Need Amid Pandemic“

Men have to stand up and be men. Love your spouse in front of your kids. Get them up and help get them ready for church, be the initiator. Pray over your children. Don’t know how? Ask someone to help. Serve your family by listening and caring. Caring about them more than yourself.

I’m fully convinced that the solution to the mass school shootings AND the heated abortion debate resides in the outbreak of men taking their roles and responsibilities seriously and choosing to do the right thing, even when it’s not easy. If the decision to overturn Roe v Wade did anything, it called men to step up. And if men will step up, society needs to let them.

Stay Classy GP (God’s People)!

Grainger

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He Won’t: (So Love Out Loud)

“You have to get over here now! He can’t breathe! We need to get him to the hospital!” Words you NEVER want to hear about a parent ever, but especially in their 60’s. Covid had grabbed both of my parents and it turned into pneumonia. The bad part is that my dad had spent a night in the hospital and was sent home with oxygen. So, here’s what happened:

I’m coming home from Memphis and on my way, my brother Adam calls and says he’s taking Dad to the hospital. So I tell him I’ll meet him there so his wife can stay with mom. Adam and I, with the help of an old friend named Wendy Sewell, help get him in and settled. They eventually get him admitted and won’t let us in because of covid. The next morning, I’m thinking about what to do. I’m scared. Then I think about the verse that says to come to God with a child-like faith. So I think of my children.

So I text 2 of my daughters with this: “I need you to make me a promise. Promise me that you will pray out loud where you can hear yourself say the words. I need you to pray for your healing (one of my daughters had covid) and for those you love.” One of my daughters forgot. Haha. My 19-year-old didn’t forget. When I asked and she replied yes, I told her that her Papu was going home from the hospital.

That was the first time he went into the hospital. The second time it was a little different. My brother and I try to get him to the car, and he didn’t have the strength to go 10 feet. We have to call an ambulance. Once he’s in, the word gets out and the prayers begin. We get word that a large group gathering will take place at someone’s home. There is a group of people that convene outside the hospital and go on Facebook live and pray for my Dad and one of his elders that was in the same hospital. There were hundreds of people everywhere praying for this man. That was Monday and Tuesday.

On Wednesday he had continued to decline. By the end of that day, I felt very hopeless and full of despair. I kept it to myself, other than my conversations with my wife. I had become one of the “strong ones” for my family. So I had to keep being strong around them and for them. But once alone, the despair and emotional wreckage unfolded. I had to pull over while driving one night because I just couldn’t see through tears. By Wednesday night, I had begun to think of how life was going to take place with our Dad gone. I thought of all the things that were going to be very different.

The next morning something hit me. I wondered why I had felt so hopeless when I knew that there were hundreds of people praying for Dad. ALMOST AUDIBLY, God made two statements to me. 1- “You asked your daughters to do something that you haven’t done yourself” (pray out loud, not just in my heart, spirit, or some other froo-froo word). 2- “You feel hopeless because you are leaning on the prayers of others.” WOW!

He was right. I felt like they had it covered, but it didn’t fix my despair. So I said “Ok!” I began to talk to God out loud. I asked for 20 more years but would be ok with 15. But I needed at least 15. I felt like God started bringing up me being in some sort of ministry again. I thought that was a strange time to bring that up. So I said, “Then I need 15 more years. He’s been my guide most of my life. I have a very good pastor, but I need Dad too.” No, I was not negotiating with God. God doesn’t do that. But I was pleading with him.

This took place between 9:30am and 10am. Talking to God out loud so that I could hear myself say the words. For some reason, this was very important to God. Sometime between 10:30am and 11:45am, the nurse at Dad’s side called my sister-in-law, who had been our medical liaison through this journey. The nurse said that his oxygen levels had increased without manually increasing the intensity for the first time since he arrived at the hospital. Then about 30 minutes later, the levels went up again. Then by the next morning, they went up again! W-W-W-WOW! It worked. He spoke. I listened. He listened. He chose to act in accordance with my, and many others’, requests. I was a bit dumbfounded. Not that prayer worked, I’ve always known prayer worked. But that this interaction seemed so specific and purposeful.

Do I think it was my prayer that did it? Nope. That would be very arrogant and very NOT God-like. Do I think God was trying to get my attention? Yep. No Doubt. Dad is still in the hospital and if God decides to fully heal him, it will be because of the hundreds of prayers, the doctors, all the nurses, Erin Grainger, Wendy Sewell, the drug Baricitinib, Dad’s willingness to fight, and an enormous love between two love birds that married when they were 18 years old. In fact, of all of my brothers, their wives, and my wife, I contributed the least. But make no mistake, God knew His timing would get my attention. And it did.

One thing that has stood out so far is the stoic steadfast approach that Dad has had through all of this. It is as if he never once questioned the fact that he was coming home to us, and that God would heal him. He was never shaken too strongly. He knew something the rest of us weren’t sure we were convinced of. He knew that when everything around him was shaken, he was glad he put his faith in Jesus. He had seen him be faithful through generations. He’d seen joy in chaos. He’d had peace, at times, that made no sense. He knew that his lack of strength only meant more strength for God. He knew that God had never let him down. So why would God fail him now?

He Won’t.

“Rain came and wind blew

But my house was built on you

And I’m safe with you

I’m going to make it through.”

For me, the lesson learned is that you can’t rely only on the prayers of others. You must join them and also pray. Pray out loud. Love out loud. Live out loud. And if God has never failed you before, why would he start now?

He Won’t.

Stay Classy GP (God’s People)… and listen to this song!

Grainger

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Eliminate the E.N.D.

The last kid is moved into college and the parents are back at home. The very next thing that happens is the husband and wife look at each other as if they’re looking at a stranger. The husband says, “who are you and how did you get into my house?” The wife says, “I was just about to ask you the same thing.” Slowly they begin to realize they’ve been married for 25 years and end up divorced because they don’t know their spouse anymore. I call these “Empty Nest Divorces” (E.N.D.).

I get these calls all the time in the insurance business. The wife calls to tell me that we need to split her and her husband into separate policies because they are going through a divorce. The situation is almost predictable. They are in their mid to late 40’s to mid 50’s and their youngest kid went off to college. I’m telling you that I get that call more than once a month. How can this be? How can that many people be divorcing after that many years?

Unfortunately the answer is quite simple. They put so much time, effort, and importance on their children that they never took time to cultivate their own relationship. As a result, they look up at each other and don’t even recognize the person they’re married to. They forgot that all relationships require time and effort, even their marital relationship. It’s not something you can just take for granted. Because if you do, you’ll be calling your insurance agent asking to separate the policies. You’ll be trying to explain to your grown children why thanksgivings will never be like they were. And they will begin thinking that they were the cause. If they wouldn’t have gone to college, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Believe me, just because they’re older and wiser doesn’t exclude them from the internal belief that a divorce is their fault. It happens to all children, no matter the age.  

So how do we eliminate Empty Nest Divorces? It’s not easy, but here are some steps. First, date nights must be priority. Once every 2 weeks is ideal. Once a week is too hard to accomplish and once a month may not be enough. This is top level priority. You don’t cancel, you don’t “come back to it.” You go. Go somewhere. Don’t spend money if you don’t want to. But go. Get out of the house and spend quality time together, with NO children around.

Having said that, the most important thing you can do to avoid an empty nest divorce is to keep your children Third in your life. Your life must reflect God’s design for living. In God’s design, you should have no gods before Him. Also in His design, what He put together, let NO man (mankind) separate. This includes your children. So based on that, your first relationship priority is your relationship with God. Your second relationship priority is your relationship with your spouse. That means that your relationship with your children comes after that. For more on priorities in relationships, click HERE.

Your children simply were not designed to be that important in your life. They were designed to learn from you and you being there for them to prepare them to “Leave mother and father and cling to one another.” Your children weren’t meant to be placed in a position where they are more important than your spouse. But if they become more important than your spouse, your spouse becomes a stranger to you. You grow separately and because you grow separately, you are in different areas of life. You have to grow together.

But is it really that serious? Is it really that rampant? How many people is this actually happening to? Glad you asked (ok, I know you didn’t ask, work with me here). In 2015, for every 1,000 married persons ages 50+, 10 divorced, which is up from 5 in 1990, according to data from the National Center for Health Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau. Among those ages 65+, the divorce rate has nearly tripled since 1990, reaching 6 people per 1,000 married persons in 2015. With the surge in divorces for those 50+, the empty nest puts couples at higher risk for divorce than ever before. So yes, it’s kind of a big deal.

So for those that have a chance to reverse this trend, please work on it. Your children will thank you; your spouse will thank you. Date your spouse. Don’t neglect that. Keep your children third. Then, when that last kid gets moved into college, you can look at each other and say, “now we can REALLY have some fun!” Life only gets better as you grow closer to your spouse.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger

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The 4 L’s

In December of 2015, the New York Times released an article after following a group of 85-year-old people for a year. What they concluded was that it was certain what mattered to them was laughter. They spent “no wasted time on anger and worry.” They were quoted as saying “with old age, I listen a little more.”

What did matter to them was The 4 L’s: Life, Laughter, Listening, and Love. Notice what did not matter to them; none mentioned a thing about current events, politics, donkeys or elephants. Only life, laughter, listening, and love. 

I’ve learned that I have no control over what someone does in the White House. I have no control over what they do in the Tennessee capital. I have no control over what happens in the Sumner County sessions. The closest thing I have to control is a vote. And I use that to the best of my ability. After that, it’s out of my control. 

Think back before covid. Who did you go to concerts with? Who did you have dinner with? Who did you hang out with, double dates, play dates with kids? Remember when it didn’t matter how they voted? 

What’s changed? Boredom and Social media. And a lack of pursuit of the things that matter. We’ve turned our focus away from the friends that make us laugh at dinner and decided they’re no longer dinner-worthy because they dislike Trump. Or they’re no longer someone you want to go to a concert with anymore simply because they don’t like Biden. Think about it, do these politicians know who you are? Do they care? Debatable.

Boredom. Covid put us in a place where we were in search of something to do. People were playing the stock market that had never done so before. There were no sports. This was the closest thing to it. 

One thing that is stoking opinionated fires needlessly that not many are mentioning is social media. Social media has unintentionally, yet successfully driven a wedge in our relationships while trying to bring them closer together. How could that be? 

Originally, it was meant to bring people together. Family that didn’t live close by could keep in touch. People would be positively reaffirmed with “likes”. But it was free. They had to make money. So the social media platforms sold data on what people were clicking on and watching- the algorithm. In order for them to make money, you had to stay on your phone. In order for that to happen, they put things in front of you they knew you’d like and agree with. Algorithms again. 

You kept feeding their data machine and they kept sending you things you liked and agreed with. The more you watched, the more money they made. Little did they, or you, know that the things they were putting in your face were creating total political polarization. 

So now we’re willing to lose friends, people we’ve been doing life with, over things we can’t control. That’s how ridiculous this has gotten. It’s gotten so out of control that an idea about something you have no control over, an opinion, is driving wedges in families, friends, communities. 

There has to be a point when we realize it’s just not worth it. That whether I back the blue or believe Black Lives Matter, or manage to believe both has no effect on the years of closeness I’ve had with someone prior to this social media experiment. 

I seriously doubt we’ll be 85 saying “I’m so happy I ended that 20-year friendship over my opinion on a police department in Wisconsin.” That just won’t happen. We’ll wake up with so much regret we won’t be able to function. We must get to a place where we focus on what matters: Life, Laughing, Listening, and Love.

Stay Classy GP!

Grainger