Self-fulfilling prophecies, or how to carve out a failure yourself

I'm going to tell you the story of Oedipus, but not the part that everyone knows, when the character in Greek mythology falls in love and marries his mother, but what happens before; the series of unfortunate events that lead to the bizarre denouement.

The prequel, to be in tune with the times.

Oedipus and the fate of the Oracle of Delphi

Oedipus lived happily with his parents in Corinth. However, it seems that he had a somewhat anxious nature... Worried about what the future held, he once decided to consult the Oracle of Delphi, something similar to the modern horoscope but more sophisticated, related to the divinatory abilities of certain gods Greeks.

Faced with the uncertainty and insecurity of Oedipus about his future fate, the Oracle spoke in a tragic and forceful way: "Your destiny is to assassinate your father and marry your mother." Of course, Oedipus was horrified at the idea.

How could he ever do such a thing? He seemed to her something unthinkable, inconceivable; but the truth was that the Oracle had an impeccable reputation: he was never wrong when predicting the fate of those who consulted him. What the Oracle anticipated was fulfilled. It was law.

Oedipus knew it perfectly, as did all the inhabitants of ancient Greece. However, he refused to resign himself to his fate, he had to do something immediately to avoid being involved in such atrocity. Without knowing the reasons that could lead him to patricide and incest, but convinced that this would be the case if he did not take action on the matter, He decided to leave the house where he lived without giving further explanations and go to another city, far away from the temptations that lurked in the future.

So he mounted his horse and headed to Thebes..

The journey went smoothly, until one day, in a desolate place near the entrance to the city that would take him in and deliver him from his dire fate, as Oedipus believed, he had an altercation with an old man who was driving a carriage. They argued over who should go through first, insulted each other, and before both men knew it they had engaged in a terrible fight that would have the worst ending: In the struggle, and blinded by anger, Oedipus ended up killing the old man and fleeing scared from the place. In traffic matters, nothing has changed since then.

Some time later, already installed in his new home, Oedipus met Jocasta, the queen of Thebes, who had recently been widowed, and they fell in love. To simplify the story a bit and save details that are not relevant, I am going to say that they were dating for a few months and then they got married.

What continues is the part of the story that everyone knows. Oedipus discovers that whom he believed to be his true parents, in reality they were not, since he had been adopted when he was very young. The old man he had stumbled upon on the way to town was none other than Laius, the king of Thebes and Oedipus's biological father, and the woman he had married, his real mother. A disaster of Greek proportions, no more, no less.

Horrified by what he had done, and in the most pressing despair, Oedipus gouged out his eyes with his bare hands and he sentenced himself to exile, the worst of punishments at the time, and only applicable to those who committed the most serious crimes. aberrant.

The Oracle's dramatic designs had been carried out to the letter. Finally Oedipus had been overtaken by his fate.

The self-fulfilling prophecy that leads us to failure

The reader is probably wondering why I am telling you this in an article that promises otherwise in its title. Well, it seems like an interesting starting point, a nice metaphor to understand what follows.

Actually, it was the "belief" in the certainty of the oracle that caused, precisely, that the prognosis of the oracle became reality. When Oedipus decides to leave Thebes, instead of seeking more information about it, he set in motion the mechanisms that would lead him directly to his final destination.

Beyond the obvious paradox, here it is interesting to observe the power of belief over reality.

Expectations and how we are hostage to them

By definition, a belief is a statement or a premise that influences our thinking and behavior, without actually that statement is reliably demonstrated or we have valid evidence to support its veracity.

Believing "something" is not synonymous with the fact that this "something" actually exists. However, the mere fact of believing it is often enough to turn it into a reality that is later verifiable. That is why we must take care of the influence that our expectations play in our way of thinking. In the story of Oedipus, “believing” that he was going to end the life of his father was what triggered, neither more nor less, to end the life of his father.

The set of our beliefs, before our own reality, often determines the things that happen to us in life, and how we feel. This is how we are. This is how we work.

Beliefs that generate stress and anxiety

Certain beliefs are often at the root of vulnerability to stress. Let's look at some typical cases.

1. Ramiro, he wants to flirt by showing eccentric

Ramiro believes that in order to attract and win a girl, he has to be eccentric, resourceful and sophisticated. "If I show myself as I am, no one will like me," he says to himself.

Under this premise, when Ramiro goes out with a girl for the first time, he wears a character that is actually totally alien to him. In his eagerness to please, he does not stop talking about himself, highlighting his values, openly bragging about his virtues and maximizing his achievements.

Let no one be surprised that Ramiro does not have a girlfriend. The women who have dated him describe him as unspontaneous, egotistical and boring. The poor boy never gets past the first date. Once again, this modern Oedipus takes the flight that takes him nonstop to perdition.

2. Silvia, feels the need to have a partner

Silvia, on the other hand, believes that it is impossible to live without love. And as long as she feels loved by her partner, she is capable of anything.

She avoids conflict by any means, because she thinks that a fight can trigger the breakdown of the relationship. In this context, Silvia never argues with Franco about anything, she closes her mouth to everything he does and it bothers her; and she immediately accepts, whether she agrees or not, everything he says or proposes.

Silvia believes that you have to immolate yourself for love, and that is how your relationship develops, until one fine day, Franco, exasperated by so much submission, passivity and lack of initiative, decides to suddenly end the relationship.

Who I ask, Franco has no qualms about explaining that he needs a real woman by his side, not a daughter, much less a servant.

3. Carla, she is convinced that her fiancé is unfaithful

Carla is dating Fernando, an important lawyer, and she for some time she has gotten into her head the idea that her partner is unfaithful to her.

Because of her profession, the man spends a lot of time outside of her, but beyond that, Carla doesn't actually have any proof that her boyfriend is cheating on her.

However, Carla is obsessed. She constantly she checks her cell phone for any incriminating evidence, she calls him countless times a day just to control where she is, and she gets angry and scolds him frequently, before small slips of him, such as arriving ten minutes late when they meet to do something together, a fact that for her is always significant and leads her to suspect that she is “up to something cloudy".

Scared and resentful of her boyfriend for the ideas that are brewing in her own brain, rather than for reality, Carla spends a good part of the day in a bad mood. By way of revenge for his improbable misdeeds, she half the time she treats him with cold indifference and the other half is well disposed to argue about any trifle.

It doesn't matter how many times he tells her everything he wants from her, that he gives her chocolates, that he takes her to dinner every weekend, or gives her a full day at a spa for her girlfriend's day; Carla systematically disregards all these positive gestures and continues stubborn in her fruitless search for her to prove the veracity of her paranoid beliefs.

In this context, Fernando, of course, feels neglected, unrequited in her love for her, and often mistreated. She sometimes even jokes with her friends that he has fallen in love with a Gestapo officer.

One day, by chance, without his proposing it, Fernando meets a girl who is the sister of a client. She strikes him as cordial, friendly, and unstructured. They like each other and before they know it, they end up having a coffee and talking in a bar close to Courts, and then... Well, I leave what happens next to the reader's imagination.

At this point, probably if the relationship with Carla had not been so deteriorated by her indefatigable distrust, Fernando would not have been tempted or had the need to seek affection in another woman.

Carla, like the previous characters in these little fictional stories inspired by real cases from my clinical experience, has been the architect of her own destiny.

The importance of not being blindly guided by our beliefs

We thus establish that our beliefs and expectations affect the way we perceive ourselves and others., and it can lead us down the wrong path.

To make matters worse, we are always well predisposed to looking for evidence to confirm our previous beliefs, and we are very lazy to look for evidence to the contrary. We are great enthusiasts when it comes to corroborating what we think, and equally lazy to investigate the reasons why we could be wrong.

The paradox here is that, many times, trying to dismiss our own opinions is the most sensible way to know if we are right or not.

I think it is convenient to periodically review everything we believe in, especially if it is negative, because it could be exerting a powerful impact on our day to day, without our being aware of it, and push ourselves, without realizing it, to create a reality that does not favors.

Someone once said: "define a reality, and it will be a reality in its consequences." It is absolutely true. Oedipus can teach this.