From the moment a man appears in the world, he gets things. First he is a baby, so everybody cares for him and keeps trying to meet all his needs. Then he grows a little to become a child, but the principle remains the same: if the child needs something, the adults give it to him. Give him clothes, toys, sweets, the first book, bicycle, watch, the first computer and the first sip of coffee.

Then the child goes to school. Theoretically, it is the time of first duties, but in practice – it is the basic university of how to manipulate the adults to make them give him good grades. A child at school learns that in order to achieve its goal it is OK to lie and cheat, and that it is generally accepted by the entire world - provided the lies and cheats do not come out to light. Sometimes even the adults pretend they do not see, accepting the fact that student cheat on examinations, write off assignments or provide false excuses for absences. Who would prosecute all the lazy students who which do not want to do their homework?

So the school teaches that the important thing in life is to get good grades. If you get good grades, you are cool, adults praise you, and if your parents are satisfied with you, you will get from them whatever you want.

At the end of the secondary school there is a “maturity” examination, which is nothing more than a confirmation of the golden rule of getting things. The thing is to get good scores on the school certificate. It does not matter how you get them.

A nineteen year old man starts his adult life with a subconscious conviction that his future success depends on whether he will be able to manipulate the people met on the way to "get" whatever he might need in life.

He will learn to write his CV in such a way as to emphasize the advantages and hide his faults. He will learn how to show self-confidence and being nonchalant in order to make an impression on strangers. He will learn how to lie without a blink, if circumstances so require. He will learn to hide the failures of his work – thinking the same way he did at school – that as long as the boss does not know that something is not done, it does not matter.


In a relationship he will behave the same way – he will lie and manipulate, pretending to be someone he is really not, all in order to make the other person dependent on him and then use the commitment, playing on the sense of responsibility, use emotional blackmail and create a situation in which he will be able to be the eternal child and just like in his life so far – hee will continue to "get" what he wants.

Such a man is like a sloth in the jungle, perfectly matching the requirements of the surroundings and enjoying the situation where he does not have to do anything more than what is necessary.

Sometimes there come up some problems, but he will try to sweep them under under the doormat. When they grow and come out from under the doormat, he will throw them into the bucket and only when they come out of the bucket, he we will start to worry about them.

I should explain the life of a sloth in an Amazon jungle. This is a rather large animal covered with dense hair. At each paw the sloth has has three curved claws, which help him hook itself upon a branch and hang with any effort. The sloth eats, bears children and dies hunging. Sometimes their dead bodies hang from the tree for a log time, safely hooked with the claws.

In the course of evolution the sloth splendidly adapted to the surrounding world. He has a great stomach, which is able to digest kilograms of leaves. He has very slow metabolism and relatively low temperature of the body. In his fur live special bacterias that give it him the green hue and in times of famine also serve as food.

The sloth does not move if it is not necessary. If his favorite cecropia leaves grew quickly enough, he would not never move away an inch from his tree.
  
A man with the personality of a sloth behaves the same way. It is not about what does on the outside, because he may seem to be very active – engaging in a sport or growing tulips, reading books, diving, collecting stamps or keeping a blog on the Internet ... He may be a manager, teacher, captain of a ship, a journalist or the owner of a company. On the outside he is busy with many activities but inside he is a sloth. He does not like any effort, he does not have any specific goal to achieve, hanging calmly on his tree and overgrowing with his green fur full of bacterias.

A man with the personality of a sloth in love also like to hang. He is focused on his own needs. He strongly avoids the confrontation with any problems, and from his point of view, the perfect situation in a relationship is when he does not have to deal with any problems of the other person, but at the same time he would gladly shed all his frustrations, anxieties and fears upon his partner.

A man with of the personality of a sloth is subconsciously manipulating the other person in such a way to make her take care of him and all his needs and forget her own. She should be like a cecropia leaf, obediently growing on a branch to satisfy his hunger.

A man with the personality of a sloth can sometimes be nice and sweet as honey, but sometimes, whenever he considers necessary, he will lie, cheat, use emotional blackmail and avoid responsibility. He will behave like a child who wants to get what he feels he should get, without giving anything in return.
 
When a relationship is made by two persons with the sloth personality, they will live together fighting, arguing and accusing each other of their weaknesses, because there is nothing more that they have in life.

And this is a basic truth about unhappy relationships. If at least one person in a relationship is emotionally immature and has never grown out of the childish expectations to get what he or she wants, convinced that if he gets it, it means it was meant to be his – or in other words, if he or she has the personality of a sloth – this relationship will never be happy.

People think that the journey through life does not require any additional qualifications. They think that together with the identity card you get a driving license into adulthood. Sometimes they even make an attempt to improve their life. They go to see a psychotherapist, give up smoking, divorce or make another strategic decision. And they start thinking that they have already graduated from the school of life. They lived through difficult corners, managed to get back to the surface, regained their strength and from now will they will just live and be happy.

But it does not happen this way. Looking from the point of view of a sloth, they were simply forced to change the tree from which they are hanging. They did not changed their way of thinking, so their soul is still hanging from the tree, shaking of cold and fear during the the storms of life.

The real change requires much more. It requires the change in the way of thinking and looking at the world. It requires hard work on their own character and personality.

It requires the courage to admit that you are a sloth on a tree and a strong will to change the sloth in a courageous warrior.

It requires the effort to get rid of ugly defects, become opened to the world and other people, finding a positive goal in life and be persistent about achieving it.

A sloth is focused on his fears, stresses and anxieties. He is afraid of changes, instinctively avoids any effort, officially condemns lieing and deceiving, but privately uses them quite often. He likes to be focused on fun and pleasures, trying to ignore any unpleasant thoughts about problems that need to be taken care of. He also has the feeling that that the rest of the world is directed against him and often feels attacked.

A warrior can overcome his fear, is resistant to stress, does not ignore obstacles but tries to deal with a difficult situation with courage, trying to resolve it in a reasonable way, thus cleaning his life. He is not afraid to make an effort, drawing more strength from it. He is a friend of himself and has a positive attitude towards to the rest of the world, including plants and animals.

People usually stop in their emotional development at the level of a sloth. They do not know that if they wanted to, they could go down from the tree, become warriors and start living a more beautiful and fascinating life with the chance of having a happy relationship.

Excerpt from the book "In the Jungle of Love", published by Latarnik 2008