Obviously, a person who grows up with the harshness of winter, the threat of tornadoes, in the shadow of war, or has experienced multiples moves have a different mindset than people who have the stability of living on the same farm for generations. These have a different mindset because they come from different environments. People who live in the south with snakes and scorpions have different experiences than those who live with mosquitoes and ticks. Even the political background of our beginning years influences who we are. Those of us who grew up during Vietnam have a different political environment than those who experienced the wealth of Reagan, or the scandals of Clinton.
Routine. I was once asked by a teacher who lived alone, “Why it is that we live in routine? Why do we eat at certain times? Why do we sleep at certain times? Why do we do what we do when we do it?”
Let’s look at the hierarchy. Routine is in the second category: under the category of safety and stability. It is also a discipline. When you wake, what is the first thing you reach for? A cup of coffee? Maybe you did not go to bed early enough. I had to teach this to my children: What time do you want to get up? 6:00 am? If you want eight hours of sleep, what time do you need to go to bed? Ten o’clock. So when should you start getting ready? Me? I like to be in bed by 7:00. But then I get up at 3:00 to write and pray.
It is part of planning and scheduling. Is eight hours of sleep enough or too much? Plan accordingly. What time do you want breakfast? Noon meal? Evening meal. Which is the heavy meal? When do you take care of physical needs, exercise? What about emotional needs. Do you need to stop during the day to recuperate from the day’s emotion? We can handle only so much emotion in one day; then we need rest. What about spiritual needs. What time do you read the Bible and for how long? When do you pray? This is all part of routine. The greater the routine the greater the stability. This is level 2.
Yet, I need to extend this further to include possessions and neighborhood environment. If we have a drought, a hurricane, a blizzard, a flood. If a thief breaks in and steals our television or the television simply stops working or the car stops working: all these are physical and they affect us in one form or another.
In a perfect world, the blue birds would be common and land on our shoulders and eat from our hands.
The environment then, is what we see, hear, touch, taste and smell. These include our experiences as well as our health and body.
What are some of the differences between men and woman?