One of the things you lovely blog readers now have to look forward to, since I’ve become a student, is random writings on things I’ve learned about in class. I’ll warn you now, I take interest in some of the oddest things and I can find a life lesson in just about anything.
Today was the first day of my Ethics class and it was a doozy. I have to be careful to not let my emotions get wrapped up in the sometimes ‘worldly’ mindsets that exist today. I felt myself getting fired up a few times and I have to remind myself that the class is not about a right or wrong subject but rather a discussion of beliefs.
Something I found very interesting was our discussion of the “Procrustean Bed”. I’d never heard of it. Here’s the story.
Some time ago, in the middle east, there was a Highwayman called Procrustes. When the professor asked if we knew what a highwayman was, I took the opportunity to get the first laugh of the day in by piping up with “a carjacker!’ Once a class clown, always a class clown, I guess.
Procustes would waylay his victims on the road, which of course back then meant they traveled by horse, donkey or mule. He’d drag them back to his lair and place them on his ‘bed’, which was a stone slab. Any body part that hung off the slab, he’d take out his sword and lop off. Any body part that was too short to reach the edge of the slab, he’d stretch until it did fit.
The principle behind this is that he always made the person fit the slab, instead of the slab to fit the person. An attempt to make someone conform to an idea or principle would be putting them on the “Procrustean Bed”.
Which got me thinking….how many of us, today, are trying to make ourselves fit a slab instead of finding a slab that fits us? In our jobs, our relationships, our homes, our parenting styles….it is applicable to any area of life. We have a standard set by society perhaps, or by our parents. We have to fit a certain mold in order to be ‘right’. I know I’ve done this in many areas of my life, mostly in work. My desire to be successful prompted me to try to make myself fit into something that I truly didn’t fit into. The truth is, most of us won’t fit onto a slab made for someone else, we have to go find our own!
Becca! This is awesome! I sincerely hope you put anything like this on your blog from now on! I have heard that if we find that in life that we love to do, it is no longer work that we get paid to do.
I have to say that I had never heard of this “procrustean bed” principle, but there is a lot of truth in it. I have felt like that at different times in my life, but think I have a better handle on where I fit at 60 years old!! We can’t make people over the way we want them & we can’t make ourselves fit into what we think someone else wants us to be either. So it’s a learning process as we go through our lives, I suspect. Good thinking……..