Information Superhighway-Road Kill

     JBruce here to talk to you some more about the power of information.  The old model of raising young adults is also being reevaluated due to the Information Superhighway.  The number of ways to communicate has increased tremendously.  As the youth are being bombarded by millions of bits of information, each institution intent on helping the young adults is looking for the emotional stability tools needed to combat the number of distractions the kids are currently receiving from the public media.

    Because of the whole concept of communication. as one of the stabilizing tools that each individual must practice, Emotional and Cultural Intelligence are now being looked at as fundamental mental tools for the youth of  today. Empathy is one of the basic emotional intelligence tools a young adult can use to combat the destructive voice in the mind. When the focus is moved from the behavior of other people and reconfigured to include the voices that are speaking to the individual in question it is possible to "shift the focus" and experience what the person is doing without judgment of any kind. Even if someone attempts to see the world through the eyes of another it is important to understand that the programmed mind of the other person has a certain filter or lens through which that person sees the world. When attempting to see the world through the eyes of another, it is not possible  to see clearly what the version of truth is that the other person is using to determine right from wrong.

When the person attempts to step into the shoes of another the impressions of what the other person is experiencing  is limited. The process then is to just be curious about what the other person is thinking, and ask clarifying questions. The mental split occurs when the individual becomes the observer of the  Ego, both the  internal and the external manifestations.  The internal is the self-talk that goes on in the mind that keeps the mind distracted and consuming mass quantities of goods. The external is the ego role that the person is playing to receive a conditional pattern of love.  Even when someone thinks about practicing empathetic listening, the person is listening for confirmation of what the person's assessment is of the other, not necessarily the actual other person. This means that there is no real ability to truly know what is going on in the other person's mind without asking a question or two or three.  This means that one of the prerequisites of dealing with young adults is to practice empathetic listening and suspend all assumptions about what the young adults are doing or what their intentions are.
  
Recently I had a conversation about a young adult, in his mid 20s who had pursued a specific study in an industry of choice. For example the music media industry, the young man had completed some study at a university and then was unable to connect with people in the industry.  Because there are so many qualified people in different industry cultures, corporate, media, medical, law, and so on the determining factor for success is one: the deep understanding of the industry culture that is of interest, and two: the personal "relationship skills" the individual has that will allow them to find and develop a sponsorship in the industry of choice. 

Here is the catch 22, because more and more young people are using text, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other electronic communication tools young people are moving farther away from the personal skills needed to build lasting relationships. In the case of the conversation I had with a mom who was offering contacts for her son to enter into relationships that could allow the son to penetrate the industry, the son was having problems contacting and building the necessary relationships.  The focus then becomes providing some fundamental mental tools for relationship building. Where are these tools for emotional and cultural intelligence being provided, in the colleges, high schools, middle schools, anywhere? 

The Expansion of Mental Wealth workshop series includes this kind of awareness training as well as critical insights into the workings of the conditioned mind that are preventing the youth of today from practicing what individuals in the" people industries" all ready know about building relationships. Many parents still offer solutions for imagined barriers the kids have without asking critical questions that would surface the real fears the kids have about entering other industry cultures, different from their own personal life culture, and their inability to build lasting relationships that would sponsor entry into these cultures and industries.
  
Next blog I will begin to surface the "love conditions" for external approval that many of us learned between our birth and age seven that still affect the way "each of us show up in the world". Physical, personal and financial behaviors are determined by this early conditioning. I will begin to surface some of these basic misconceptions we have of who we think we are in relation to our upbringing and our assigned societal role.
   Until next time J. Bruce signing off.