It’s All in the Programming
People—parents, bosses, spouses, etc.—send us messages about who we are and who we will become in the future. When we take on their ideas of who we are, they are “programming” our identities.For instance, when I was a kid, my mother programmed two things into me: 1) I was smarter than all of the kids in the neighborhood and (2) I was a slob. I realize now that the first notion was part of my mother’s natural desire to have a successful son. The second was a product of my mother’s own need to be neat and tidy. The result? I grew up with a delusional faith in my own intelligence, and I was a horrible slob. My mother had programmed me to believe that these attributes were integral components of what made me me. It wasn’t until I started understanding the dynamics of identity that I began to realize: (1) I wasn’t always that smart and (2) I didn’t have to be a slob.


“You’ve come a long way since the psych lab,” I said, trying to make a joke about the “new” person sitting in front of me. “It’s the culture,” he said. “Everyone in my company is there for only one reason: to make money. I was told that in order to succeed in this environment, I would need to become like everyone else. I guess that I have.” He didn’t disagree that he was a changed man, or that this change was not all positive. He simply gave himself a free pass by defining his new personality by his industry’s ‘programming’. And this is where the flaw can be found in our acceptance of our programmed identity: It can easily become a convenient scapegoat for our behavioral mistakes.

Through the years I’ve become a connoisseur of people using their “programming” as an excuse. I’ve heard overbearing people who always need to get their own way blame the parents who spoiled them and gave them everything they wanted (Blame My Parental programming). I’ve heard overweight people blame their inability to shed pounds on their genetic makeup (Blame My Genetic programming). I’ve heard bigots blame their intolerance on the hateful small-minded town where they were raised (Blame My Neighbors’ programming). I’ve heard aggressive don’t-get-in-my-way salespeople blame their boorish behavior on their company’s ruthless Darwinian culture (Blame My Company’s programming).
At some point, usually when we’ve suffered an unambiguous moment for the second or third time (e.g., getting fired or passed over for a promotion again), it finally dawns on us that maybe we can’t lay all our problems on our programming. That’s when we stop turning to the past and to others for our sense of self and look to ourselves.
Life is good.
Marshall