I'm a Grown-Up and So Are You

By April Capil

Tired of the narrative that life is something that happens to us, as opposed to something that happens for us, author and cancer survivor April Capil shares her advice for how to cultivate personal agency in a world where responsibility for life's disappointments is increasingly attributed to factors outside of our control. In this short but impactful book, Capil argues that the thoughts we think are the greatest power we have over our circumstances, and learning to be aware of and direct them can give us the motivation we need to change our lives for the better.

From the Introduction:
In many ways, men are still raised to be providers, so it can be uncomfortable and even frustrating to be with a partner who doesn't need you. To thrive in such a relationship, you would have to be a man whose self-worth doesn't depend on your ability to supply or control anything in your partner’s life. You would have to be someone who takes responsibility for yourself and expects your partner to take responsibility for themselves. In other words, you would have to be a grown-up.

A grown-up is someone who:

1. Is responsible for, and holds themselves accountable for not just their actions, but for the beliefs that drive their actions. A grow-up understands and accepts that in the Information Age, knowledge is a choice.

2. Is responsible for, and holds themselves accountable for their emotions. A grown-up is not naïve enough to believe that other people can read or control minds. A grown-up understands and accepts that no matter how frustrating it is to acknowledge, no one can make you feel anything without your consent.

3. Defines a balance of power as everyone pulling their own weight in the appropriate measure, given the circumstances. This might look like you carrying me for a while, then me carrying you for a while, but for us to truly be in a partnership, the scales must balance.

4. Acknowledges that change is possible for anyone, given a commitment to improvement (or a commitment to destruction). A grown-up understands and accepts that anything you are not changing, you are choosing, even if change doesn’t seem possible right now.

In this day and age, when responsibility is increasingly shirked or attributed to institutions and influences outside of ourselves, I am writing this book to suggest something radical: that it is time we embrace our agency, take back the responsibility for who we are and where we are, and grow the f*ck up.

Because I'm grown-up and so are you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: April Capil
• Release date: Jan 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9798215619254

April Capil

April Capil is a breast cancer survivor and author. She holds a Green M.B.A. in Sustainable Enterprise and lives in Northern California.April has been a guest speaker at the First Descents Annual Gala (2010), the Life Beyond Cancer Conference (2011), the OMG Summit for Young Adult Cancer Survivors (2013, 2014), and the Conference For Young Women (2014).

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

You should know some things about me, before you read this book.

First, just be advised that your PawPaw might describe me as one of those women's libbers.

Second, full disclosure: I am a cisgendered, able-bodied, heterosexual, half Filipina woman who passes for Caucasian. I grew up middle-class in the San Francisco Bay Area, so my perspectives on life and accountability and responsibility and sexuality are pretty particular to my experience. This book is not a manifesto on The Way Everyone Should Live. It's just a collection of my opinions, given my journey. I’m sharing them in the hopes that they can offer insight to those seeking it.

Raised by a single father, I was taught that I should never rely on a man to take care of me. I was encouraged to speak my mind, expected to pursue an advanced degree after high school, and was told in no uncertain terms that I would have to make my own money to pay my own way as soon as I graduated college and secured a marketable profession. And although I did not become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, I still think my dad would be proud.

One thing I don’t think my father realized is that, when you're raised to never depend on a partner to support you financially, you don't really know how to let a partner support you. At all, really. You become so accustomed to seeing it as a personal weakness to need someone to treat you to lunch or open a door or carry something heavy that you refuse to let anyone try. You begin to confuse letting with allowing, and your life becomes a refrain of self-sufficiency: (No) thanks; I've got it!

In many ways, men are still raised to be providers, so it can be uncomfortable and even frustrating to be with a partner who doesn't need you. To thrive in such a relationship, you would have to be a man whose self-worth doesn't depend on your ability to supply or control anything in your partner’s life. You would have to be someone who takes responsibility for yourself and expects your partner to take responsibility for themselves. In other words, you would have to be a grown-up.

Which brings me to this book.

In my mind, a grown-up is someone who:

Is responsible for, and holds themselves accountable for not just their actions, but for the beliefs that drive their actions. A grown-up understands and accepts that in the Information Age, knowledge is a choice.

Is responsible for, and holds themselves accountable for their emotions. A grown-up is not naïve enough to believe that other people can read or control minds. A grown-up understands and accepts that no matter how frustrating it is to acknowledge, no one can make you feel anything without your consent.

Defines a balance of power as everyone pulling their own weight in the appropriate measure, given the circumstances. This might look like you carrying me for a while, then me carrying you for a while, but for us to truly be in a partnership, the scales must balance.

Acknowledges that change is possible for anyone, given a commitment to improvement (or a commitment to destruction). A grown-up understands and accepts that anything you are not changing, you are choosing, even if change doesn’t seem possible right now.

In this day and age, when responsibility is increasingly shirked or attributed to institutions and influences outside of ourselves, I am writing this book to suggest something radical: that it is time we embrace our agency, take back the responsibility for who we are and where we are, and grow the fuck up.

Because I'm grown-up and so are you.

PART ONE

YOUR BRAIN IS YOURS

CHAPTER 1

THE LAW OF ATTENTION

We’re living at a time when attention is the new currency.

PETE CASHMORE

I think any grown-up can agree that your brain controls your body.

Your central nervous system works in tandem with your brain to collect feedback, interpret that feedback, and respond accordingly. When you touch a hot stove, receptors in your fingertips send a signal to your cerebral cortex, which sends a signal back to your muscles to pull your hand away to protect it from being burned. This happens automatically and nearly unconsciously because it has to.

It has to because if our brains had to stop and evaluate every possible stimulus to calculate an appropriate response and determine the next right action every time we were faced with a threat, we wouldn’t live long enough to face the next one. Habitual behaviors based on past experiences are one of the ways humans protect ourselves - they are part of how we evolved over thousands of years, enabling us to survive long enough to reproduce.

Habitual behaviors also benefit from a very powerful bio-feedback loop, thanks to something called our Reticular Activating System.

Our Reticular Activating System (RAS for short) is the network of neurons that is responsible for what we pay attention to. It is constantly collecting feedback from the world around us, for exactly one purpose: to ensure we are informed of what’s important. Our RAS highlights not just what we already know, but also what we believe we need to know, in order to survive and evolve. It actively filters information about the world around us, and highlights or dismisses information based on how important it might be to our current situation.

How does the RAS decide what information is worth paying attention to and what information can be ignored?

There’s the rub.

You see, what the RAS highlights and what it dismisses is based on one thing: what we believe. Not what we know, but what we believe.

What we believe about the world, what we believe about other people, and most importantly, what we believe about ourselves determines what information our RAS highlights, and how our brains and bodies are going to accept, reject, and use that information.

Your brain controls your body, but your RAS controls your brain.

The truth is, what most people think of as an all-powerful, metaphysical Law of Attraction is actually, thanks to the RAS, an all-powerful, biological "Law of Attention." What your RAS pays attention to is what defines the world around you, quite literally.

If you believe that something is a threat to your health and well-being, then whenever you are around it or even when you are just thinking about it, your RAS will trigger an avalanche of hormones and chemicals - like catecholamines, which speed up your heart rate - to prepare your body and brain to respond to a perceived threat.

If, on the other hand, you believe that something is the source of all your happiness and comfort, your RAS will trigger a relaxation response when that source is present, releasing hormones like acetylcholine to slow your heart down, and endorphins - our natural painkillers - to calm you. Removing that source of comfort from your environment, or even thinking about it not being available can go so far as to trigger the opposite response - a flood of chemicals associated with stress, anxiety, and fear.

This Law of Attention literally controls your world, by controlling what your brain and body focus on in real time. This is why what you give your attention to will expand, not just in accordance with the importance you give it in your life, but even to the extent that your awareness about everything else will be filtered out accordingly. Cortical real estate is restricted by the physical space your gray matter takes up in your skull,