When I was fifteen my mom asked me if I wanted to see a therapist. At first I was taken aback, “was there something wrong with me?” But after my first appointment I realized there wasn’t anything wrong with me, but rather everybody else in the world had the problems (not really - but kind of).
Actually, it is where I learned how to be heard. My therapist was non-judgmental, a safe haven to be inquisitive, and simply to talk and listen with a person that had years of experience compared to my greenhorn 15 years. I turned 40 about a month ago and now I realize that 15 is like the flirting before foreplay stage of life; or the cocktail hour of your life, or something closer to the valet parking stage of life (the hors d’oeuvres, appetizers, oysters, salad, soup, antipasti, main course, dessert, aperitif, coffee, left overs, more cocktails, and then more leftovers, and then more coffee, and then water stages can be broken down similarly - I am currently 40, married with two children - which puts me somewhere in the antipasti stage).
I learned a lot through therapy: about divorce, relationships, addictions, family, roles, shame, guilt, feelings, communication, money, desire, ambition, anger, resentment, buddhism, marijuana, personality disorders, narcissism, music, grace, patience, listening, compassion, forgiveness, among other things. I continued going to therapy every week for about 10 years. I began to look forward to these sessions, never really sure what we were going to talk about. The night before my session, I would sit and condense my emotional well being and decide the heavy burdens I was carrying with me. By the time the session was over we’d crossed so far away from what it started and mysteriously the root of the object of my concern was a resistant cover-up to the true inquiry. That’s what a good therapist can do, hold space for what I want to talk about and then transform and investigate the conversation usually by means of hydraulic fracturing to the true origins.
One day he introduced me to the one-third rule. It’s pretty amazing how applicable it is to everything, and I mean everything.
The one-third rules states the following:
No matter who you are, where you come from, the color skin you have, the language you speak, or the age, weight, hairless or hairy, angry or sojourn, type-a or type-b personality, cantankerous, accepting, racist, despicable, creative, blasphemous or drunk. All characteristics, rich or poor, there will always be one-third of the people in this world that love you for you. Whether changing or stagnant, humble or stoic - they will love you for you. Alternatively, one-third will not care. Even if you give them one million dollars, pay for their kids college, steal their car, or marry their daughter, no matter they will not care, and there is nothing you can do about it- one-third will just not give a shit. It’s a fact. Finally, and I think you are getting the rule, will hate, hate, hate, despise, deplore, abhor, or even condemn all that you stand for, represent, create, and persuade. One-third will just not like you.
Most of us in the world, speaking on behalf of all human beings, generalizing and categorizing us, focus our efforts on the one-third that will not give us the time of day no matter if we promised rainbows and sunshine. We exert all of this energy to appeal and gratify a group that is uncompromisingly unconditionally uninterested.
Sometimes these people are our parents, teachers, supervisors and our elected politicians. It is unfortunate to be in a relationship, even born into family, in which the lower tier of our one-third are breathing the same air and sharing the same space. But there is nothing we can do about it, so get over it.
But all that being true, our lives can change and our intentions with it. We can spend all of our energy on the top one-third. Those truly willing and excited for our contribution; those that love and relish in what we are, no matter how we look and feel.
This is the meaning of the one-third rule. And it applies to more than just relationships, but our creative efforts as well. Artists can focus on the audience that seek out their work and ignore the critics and the audiences that do not care, will not care, or will denounce the effort regardless of its genius.
The one-third rule goes right along with another sentiment or mantra or whatever you want to call it, “your opinion of me is none of my fucking business.” I like this line and repeat it especially when I get caught up in the drama of others. I know it is silly and naive to think that what others think of us doesn’t matter. We are human beings, living in society of people connected by a culture of fitting in. The one-third rule applies when the stress of life becomes so burdensome with worry of others and their opinions especially to those that don’t love us and never will. It seems fruitless and recalcitrant to focus on such efforts, when it won’t change anything.
There is a wonderful book called the Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander which is loaded with great ideas and groundbreaking and creative and original ideas for teaching and being with others. One statement it makes is to always remember rule number six. Rule number six states, “don’t take yourself too seriously.”
My many years of therapy taught me to focus on every little piece of me and how I am in the world. But after so many sessions of putting my cards on the table it became easier to step back and realize how comical I am and how worked up I was over the most mundane, banal and really insignificant things.
My current version of therapy is as follows: remember the one-third rule and don’t forget rule number six.
Thank you Terry.
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