Easter is a time to count our blessings. Our emotional equity in relationships is often put aside for financial profits. Often when people count their blessings, health and their loved ones may not even make the top three list.
It's easy to take our significant others, family and friends for granted. Dr. Oz often talks about happiness and mentions that people who demonstrate gratitude and do thoughtful things for others e.g., volunteering, helping a stranger, an act of kindness for a loved one, have less stress and health ailments in their lives.
Most of my blog posts to date have been about diet and exercise. What about our emotional well-being? Our relationship with ourselves and one another?
Below is a Q and A with Dr. Oz that I stumbled across on the web. Here is what he has to say about marriage, parenting, raising his children (he has four by the way) and the message he passed on to his daughter who recently tied the knot.
Dr. Oz on marriage and fidelity
Dr. Oz: Well in the animal kingdom it is very common for males and females not to bond for life. It’s a norm that they don’t, and there are even some cases where we’re pretty sure that there are actually infidelities occurring. And of course, proving this and putting a moral context to it is not fair, because in the animal kingdom there are different rules of engagement, so it’s hard to translate it directly. But it’s not unreasonable for anyone on this call to think that there’s a natural inclination for males and females to stray. But part of what’s made humans such a cool species is that we have been able to break rules from the animal kingdom. And one of the most important ones is trust and the ability to create a long-lasting relationship. We have over and over again demonstrated it correlates with longevity. Pay attention to the important things in life, which at the top of that list is the family relationship and the covenants you have with each other, is critical to the survival of our species. It always has been, it is what allowed us to come out of Africa 50,000 years ago and settle the entire world. And when we are at our best we pay attention to these covenants. We don’t make them rules that bind us and hold us from living life, we make them supportive, lessons that allow us to live life to the best and I think that where marriage ought to live.
Dr. Oz on how children can change a marriage
Dr. Oz: … Well you know there’s a couple of things that happen. When women
bear a child, especially the first child of a marriage, the father will often start seeing his wife as a mom rather than his lover… And that’s an understandable transition. There is something so sacred about a baby coming into existence. And the preciousness of that being gets in the way sometimes of the sexual relationships that we have that got us there in the first place. And so that needs to be clear to both father and wife, that they are there for each other and they have to support each other throughout that process.
And I remember I was doing an operation — I still do heart surgery — and so I was taking care of this guy and his wife was 24 weeks pregnant. And at 24 weeks, the baby is barely viable. I mean most of those kids, 50/50 will make it, maybe a little more. But it’s tough, and so before I went into the operation I had to ask the husband in private a very direct question. I said to him that he’s got two relatives on the table with me — you know his wife and to be born child — I said there is going to be a time probably in this operation where I’m going to have to make a decision that benefits one over the other. She had a mitral valve that had torn, so I had to do the heart surgery on her. And I said what’s your choice? And he said there’s no question about it, I married my wife, I know who she is. My child is, although I love the unborn baby and would love to have the baby, my loyalty is to my wife. And that’s what I think was the right answer in that case. And when we did the operation we paid attention to the mom and the child. But when the crisis occurred, we favored the mom a little bit. It turned out fine. The baby was born a couple of weeks later and everything worked out well. But that’s the ultimate decision you have to make in a family that’s just had a new child. Another thing with children, of course, (is) actually one of the benefits. The nice thing about a child is a child doesn’t care what you’re studying tomorrow. The child cares about now. So when you come home and you’ve had a difficult day — in my case if I’ve lost a patient or the show tapings didn’t go well — and when I get home and they want to play horsy. You know, it just changes your balance. You don’t care about the other things. It’s a very grounding experience.
Dr. Oz’s advice to his own daughters
I asked Dr. Oz what advice he gives his own daughters. I know my father was a strong influence on me.
Dr. Oz: Well the first important observation as a father is that your teenage daughters generally don’t care what you think. So you have to sort of insert yourself into their lives innocuously, and then over time sometimes they’ll open up. One very good way of doing that is to walk into their room and just sit there. I know that sounds crazy, but after you lie there for a while they’ll tell you that they don’t want you there. They’ll ask why you’re here and then after a few minutes they soften up and then they’ll say something, and then something else. When they were little girls, I used to always tell (them) bedtime stories because I knew that at night, when they were about to fall asleep, is when their guard come down. They begin to release and relax, and then you can actually start to tell them stories, fables and insights that might influence in a subtle way how they think about the world.
So what are the messages I tried to deliver them? First I emphasize that the smartest
thing that I ever did, the best thing that ever happened to me, was marrying their
mother, Lisa. I want them to hear that over and over again because it is a huge
bungee cord jump when you make that decision, male or female. Too often now, we
have people who are arguing about the hassles of marriage. And the beauty of
marriage is often not readily apparent to kids because they remember the conflicts
more then the bliss. So I emphasize that to them.
My eldest daughter Daphne, who just turned 24, just got married this summer… I told her when she was a little girl — and I tell her sisters — that I think getting married at an early age is a very wise thing to do. It gives you a lifelong partner, before you started getting jaded and change your mind and start feeling the pressure of getting married. And start to think that you’re going to marry the perfect person if you just wait long enough, and then you feel the time pressure because you never found that person. Just recognize that there is no perfect person for you. You’re going to find someone that you have an emotional and physical connection to that you love, but for good or for bad, they’re not the perfect person for you. You’re going to make them the perfect person for you either by changing yourself or changing them. And it’s that coming together that makes marriage a remarkable event. That’s why arranged marriages for so many years — I’m not arguing to arrange marriages — but that’s why arranged marriages were often such an effective way of binding people because if the families got along, at least you had a social glue to get the couple to make peace when conflicts occur which happens anyway. And so I wanted them to be comfortable making the decision to get married early, and not sense that that’s not the norm anymore. Because, you know, Daphne’s the first in her group (who) went to Princeton, of her graduates to get married. So they were all at the wedding. You know she must have had like 12 or 14 bridesmaids. I lost track.
And so as they were all sitting around talking about this, I noticed that none of them
were married yet. It did, I think, make a lot of people comfortable over time to see that, you know, it’s a choice you make and you live with it. And some of her classmate won’t get married for another decade. Some of them will never get married, but I didn’t want her to have pressure either way. When she found the right person, pull the trigger and she doesn’t have to wait. There’s no benefit to that and there’s no penalty if does find the right person either.
I found the ideas of Dr. Oz interesting because he does not often refer to his daughters or wife on his TV show. Nor does he speak much of specifics when it comes to giving fatherly advice.
I, Maija leave you with this Easter message:
Life is a lot like an Easter egg hunt. We spend much of our lives trying to look for and locate the "golden" egg. The egg(s) that will bring us good luck and fortune for the rest of our lives.
Jack and the Beanstalk stole the hen that laid golden eggs from the giant. He and his mother lived happily ever after. So what if he sold his cow for the beanstalk beans. At least he didn't sell his mother off.
But seriously, what I share with you is my own little nugget of wisdom. You will never ever be satisfied if you spend your whole life hunting for eggs, collecting as many as you can in your basket. While doing so, you will likely end up cracking and damaging the eggs. Eggs are fragile.
In the end, one's hunt for meaning in life comes down to this well known quote: Life is not about finding yourself. It is about creating yourself.
Create. Don't collect.
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