my life, my pace

New research shows that adults are now more immature than ever. Now that explains a lot, doesn’t it? However, the scientist studying this phenomenon dubbed psychological neoteny doesn’t think it’s a bad thing. He actually calls it “characteristic of highly educated and, on the whole, effective and socially valuable people.” Say what? Sorry, but I don’t think so. My in-laws are definitely not highly educated, effective, or socially valuable people. They don’t contribute to society, they leech from it. He also goes on to say that professional people (such as scientists) are often immature outside of their areas of expertise in that they are unpredictable, don’t have their priorities straight, and overreact a lot. Again, I don’t understand where this statement comes from. In every profession, there are always the few who are immature and like to throw tantrums, but to generalize this to all professional people? I sure as hell don’t act the way he describes when I’m outside of my area of expertise. The words immaturity and cognitive flexibility are used interchangeably in this article and I suspect that what he means is that those with more cognitive flexibility (and not necessarily those who are immature) tend to do well in life. Now that makes sense since having an open mind and being able to adapt to all sorts of situations (thought-wise and otherwise) are essential for success. Now I don’t think that having cognitive flexibility = immaturity and vice versa. A person can be immature as hell and still not be receptive to new ideas (need I mention mother-in-law here?) or successful. I’d like to think that I’m cognitively flexible, but that I’m not so immature. And I’m pretty sure that most other professionals out there are successful because they are more cognitively flexible than immature. At least I sure hope so. In the meantime, all this study does is give all those annoyingly immature people (and by immature, I mean those pesky college kids who think they’re so entitled, those grown women who throw tantrums if things are not done their way, mother-in-law) another reason not to bother with bettering themselves. In other words, it’s telling sand people that it’s okay (actually that it just might be good) to be sand people.

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1. i have an early morning tomorrow……so we can have sex but no sleeping on my chest afterwards. Actually, can you sleep in the other room? You see, it’s nothing personal and I really would love to give up half of my bed to sleep next to your warm (preferably naked) body. It’s just that this study says that men who share their beds with someone don’t do so well cognitively the next day. And I really could use all the smarts I can get. Well, it’s kind of odd, actually, because sleeping together leads to both of us having disturbed sleep, but only I’m affected cognitively. I guess it’s a guy thing. So don’t worry, you’re not becoming dumber because you sleep with me, though sleeping with me does mess up your dream recall. And besides, we can still have sex. That won’t affect how I function cognitively in the morning and it’ll help my dream recall. And aren’t you always complaining about how I take up 90% of the bed and kick and punch you while I’m sleeping? This way, we’ll both win. I won’t be so dumb and you’ll get a good night’s sleep and better dream recall. Sound like a plan?...
2. the worst in-laws everI haven't been posting much lately, but once I get through with this doozy of a story, you'll understand why.Two weeks ago, we got our arms twisted into visiting the in-laws because these super-awesome relatives from outside of the country came to visit (which they only do once every 10 years or so) and we were obligated to see them because they gave us soooo much money when we got married (Asians like to give money at weddings, and no, their little monetary gift was no where near the top sum that we received). Trust me, I complained about it as much as I could, but to no avail, because even in my bitter little heart, I myself was raised too well to not visit them. Of course, being agreeable didn't make the visit any less painful. I wanted to give them some sort of nice gift (because Asian people also like to give gifts to people they visit), but of course, mother-in-law had different ideas and silly husband graciously gave in to her plan without so much as consulting with me first. Her idea, of course, was much more painful to my wallet as it involved taking these visitors plus any other relative who decided to tag along out to lunch. I protested and I protested, but of course, I failed. So now I'm out $120 when I didn't have to be if only I had decided not to show up until dinner time for the going-away party that...
3. there are four in-laws in my house right now……and need I say that I’m not happy about it?  Let’s just say that my sister-in-law is something else.  Something else that I really would like to smash to pieces.  There.  That sure feels better.  Well, not really. At times like these, I turn to my how to deal with crazy in-laws bible: Toxic In-Laws by Susan Forward.  I purchased this book in my dark days of being hurt again and again by my in-laws while still trying to please them, thinking that if only I did what they wanted they would stop hurting me and accept me.  Well, thanks to this book, I now know better.  If for nothing else, this book is a sympathetic supporter, which I did not have in my husband.  It affirms that other women suffer through the same hell as I do and that it’s not my fault that my in-laws are highly unreasonable people.  The book is divided into two parts: the first includes descriptions of the five different types of toxic in-laws and the second part describes strategies for dealing with them.  Strategies include how to set boundaries, how to get out of their negative conversations, and how to get your spouse to understand and be on your side.  It was and is a quite useful book for dealing with my in-laws even though I don't get to use those great conversation stoppers too much because of the difficulty getting the same point across in a different language.  I do wish that it...

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