Family Deja Vu

Sometimes deja vu  seems to emerge even in one's own family history. In other words history seems to repeat itself. So you may have heard from your mum the story of a grand uncle who has rather unique characteristics or who has led a life different from the norm. Then you see similar traits in someone of the present generation. Noting the similarities gives us a deeper understanding of the situation and circumstances the earlier generation encountered. Of course going by genetics this may not be a strange phenomenon.

Checking  genetic family history for medical reasons is common and widely used to lower the risk of developing certain illnesses. Now how about checking family history for behavioral traits and tendencies so that one can be more alert in detecting the less favorable traits surfacing in your family's growing young generation. So say if your granduncle was infamous for squandering the family fortunes through gambling, the pathological gambling genes may be lurking in the family tree. Genes may influence a person's temperament and makes him vulnerable to certain triggers. Knowing this fact may alert us to emphasize the ills of such traits to the children in the family.

Needless to say, positive behavioral traits should also be picked up and remembered. So if your fiesty grandmother had no word as 'fear' in her life dictionary, such good genes should also be detected for potential development in her descendants who inherited them.

Then there is this eternal question why some in the family history are blessed with good hereditary traits whilst others struggled with difficult ones. If of any comfort, the following is a quote from Hermann Hesse:

“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.”


So if your granduncle's gambling streaks live in you, you can become a self- aware hedge fund manager who manages money for risk preferring investors.