Wrestling with Tom Payne
by Mark Kolesar

I recently attended the annual AACE Conference in Kananaskis, where I saw Tom Payne's presentation entitled "Wrestling the Gorillas". His message was introduced with a simple analogy: "When you wrestle with a gorilla, you are at his mercy. You wrestle when he wants you to and you rest when he lets you." (I'm paraphrasing a bit here, but you get the idea). Tom likened the day to day life for many people to gorilla wrestling, because many of us feel that circumstances and other people control our lives and limit our choices. In a dissertation punctuated by the kind of folksy humour popularized by Samuel Clemens, Mr. Payne encouraged us to take more control of our lives and to realize that we do have choices that we often fail to exercise.

This is not a bad message for most of us to hear. Some of us, including me, need a little 'kick in the pants' from time to time...reminding us to stop whining about the things that we don't like in our lives and to recognize that we often do have alternatives that we fail to see or are too lazy to act upon. And if the message had stopped there, I (and at least some of my fellow attendees) would have been adequately entertained and satisfied with the session in which entertainment (as opposed to philosophical debate) appeared to be Tom Payne's forte. Unfortunately, like many of the 'self-help gurus' of the 90's, Tom went onto expound further (with some prodding from the audience) on his 'personal responsibility prescription' for the ills of modern society.

This prescription, founded on what Tom calls the 'Results Model', is that everyone must take responsibility for themselves, their predicaments and their actions. Briefly, his 'Results Model' postulates that events (external to us) occur to which we respond with certain reactions (which we choose), thereby generating results which we may or may not like. Our objective then, should be to alter our reactions to prevent results that we do not like. However, all of our reactions (or behaviours in general) are a function of how we feel about events, which in turn is a function of our beliefs.

Consequently, the way to get at the results we want is to choose different beliefs, thereby changing the way we feel about events and allowing us to choose different behaviours- ones that will generate desired results. Tom cited inspirational examples of individuals (including himself) who triumphed against tremendous odds to change their lives for the better. You may recognize this model as the basis for many world religions: "Believe what I believe and you will interpret events, behave and feel the way I do and the results will be wonderful".

The unfortunate corollary is that, if you find yourself in undesirable circumstances you have only yourself to blame. So, those born into poverty, subjected to abuse, denied an education, etc. have only themselves to blame for not choosing to believe that they can change their lives by acting on that belief.

Tom attempted to contradict this 'blame the victim' corollary, and my impression was that he does have genuine empathy for those less fortunate in society. However, individuals who triumph against tremendous odds are generaly the exception, not the rule, and should be admired and commended for their achievements. If Tom Payne can motivate even one person to overcome tremendous odds, then perhaps he is to be commended as well. But the injustices of our society over which they may have triumphed will not be diminished by simply recommending that everyone emulate these exceptional individuals, because most are not able to do so. The reason for most people's failure is twofold: socialization, and conditions within our society.

Behaviours are often learned from a pattern of events and results beginning early in life that eventually establishes a person's belief system and behaviour pattern. For example, it is not surprising that abusers are almost always the product of an abusive up-bringing and series of subsequent abusive relationships.

Secondly, the nature of our society has given rise to undesirable conditions for those less fortunate. Therefore, it is the societal conditions that need to be changed before we will see a significant improvement in how many people conduct their lives. Just telling people that they must take personal responsibility for their circumstances won't help them to change these circumstances on their own.

It is an interesting phenomena in our society that those experiencing an increased standard of living are apt to adopt the Tom Payne philosophy of personal responsibility. Perhaps it is because we want to take credit for our successes by claiming that we alone are responsible for our happy circumstances. Unfortunately, this mindset is usually accompanied by a loss of tolerance for those who are less fortunate, creating an environment that condones the reduction of social programs. However, if we are honest with ourselves, we have to realize that our own good fortune is the product of many factors including luck, opportunity, a periodic helping hand, as well as our own intelligent (or fortuitous) choices.