Line upon Line

As one of four boys in the family, my husband grew up in a culture of daredevils. “I dare you to eat that spider,” Bret said, and the brothers did. They dared one another to jump off high cliffs at Lake Powell, to jump off the back of a speeding boat, to climb out onto the highest limb of a live oak. Some dares resulted in cheers and high-fives. Others led to the emergency room.

 Why do we dare one another to do crazy/dangerous/scary things? Why do we accept those dares? As a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, I have worked with plenty of adolescents who took some ridiculous dares because they thought they had something to prove. They had to prove they were “cool” so they chugged their first beer. They had to prove they were brave, so they stole candy from Walgreens. They wanted to be accepted by the popular crowd and the price for acceptance was often very high.

The reason we take dares, or agree to do things we really don’t want to do, doesn’t always occur because we want to prove that we are “cool.” We may not care about those high-fives. A traumatic experience in a seminary class revealed another reason we think we must prove ourselves.

Fried Grasshoppers

One morning my seminary teacher brought fried grasshoppers to class. The lesson was about giving in to peer pressure. To teach the lesson, the teacher was determined to get every student in the class to eat a fried grasshopper. There were lots of us in his class, twenty students or more. The teacher’s game took the entire class period. First, he passed the can of grasshoppers around and the curious (but not very picky) popped one into their mouth. Eight students down, twelve to go. The rests of us had no interest in eating the grasshoppers, but the teacher persisted. He used the “everybody’s doing it” line. A few more students were convinced the grasshoppers would do no harm and they chewed up their own crunchy delicacies. The rest of us were the hold-outs. He shamed us with the “scaredy-cat” label and a few more students gave in.

Finally, I was the only student in the class that would not eat a fried grasshopper. The class was almost over. It was time to go to school. Still, I wouldn’t budge. The entire class ganged up on me, “Come on, JeaNette, join us. Don’t be a party-pooper.” I ignored them. I didn’t care if every single person in the class rejected me. I was not going to eat a fried grasshopper. Then the teacher piped in.

“Don’t you love me?” he asked. 

Of course I loved him. I adored this teacher. He was fun and funny and cared about me and I learned a lot from him.

“If you love me, you’ll eat the grasshopper,” he dared. After all the kindness he had shown me, I felt obligated to prove that I loved him. I ate the grasshopper. No high-fives. The students had already fled. Class was over but the lesson was not.

I felt sick. Not because of the fried grasshopper—it was harmless. I felt sick in my heart, like my heart had sustained a bruise. My teacher, whom I trusted, had used my love for him against me. He had made me do something I really didn’t want to do just to prove my love. I went home in tears and wept in my daddy’s arms.

In the safety of our living room, my dad taught me a lesson that was far more impactful than the one that had broken my heart that morning. Dad reenacted the scene with me. He told me exactly how to respond if, in the future, anybody tried to manipulate me by using my love against me. We did a role-play and Dad played the role of my seminary teacher:

Teacher: “JeaNette, don’t you love me?”

Me: Of course I love you.

Teacher: Then eat the grasshopper.

Me: Do you love me?

Teacher: Of course, l love you.

Me: If you really loved me, you wouldn’t ask me to do this.

Dad wanted me to know that I did not have to prove my love, or my bravery, or my “coolness” to anybody. If I didn’t feel good about something, I didn’t have to do it.

Never Too Old

As mature adults we may still find ourselves thinking we have something to prove. The invitations no longer begin with, “I dare you…” However, we still feel the need to prove ourselves. Perhaps we think we need to prove that we are open-minded, or youthful. As a result, we find ourselves doing things we have no business doing or agreeing with people when we really don’t agree.

I know a bishop with a bad back who wanted to prove that he was willing to do service and he incapacitated himself lifting concrete blocks in a member’s yard. I know a grandmother who wanted to prove she wasn’t old and she tore a hamstring racing her granddaughter. I know people who wanted to prove they were open-minded and lost their testimonies as they failed to be true to what they believed. The need to prove oneself can put us at great risk.

The danger lies in doing or saying something we don’t feel good about, simply to be accepted. We mimic the adolescent who just wants to seem cool. Ideally, we will be true to ourselves and not be manipulated into doing or saying anything we will regret.

This means we must be honest with ourselves. We accept our limitations, whether they are physical or emotional. We don’t have to pretend to like something just to be accepted. We don’t have to do something that could be harmful just to be accepted.

There comes a time when everybody must “just say no.” The only being to whom we must prove ourselves is the Lord. He is the only one qualified to judge us and the only one qualified to redeem us. Letting go of our need to prove ourselves to mankind can save us from regret, and perhaps spare us a broken bone or two.

JeaNette Goates Smith is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and the author of four books on family relationships. For more information consult www.smithfamilytherapy.org