What Ought to Be Taught in Schools

There are so many lessons. There are so many ways I look at my niece (three months old) and other niece (three years old) and nephew (almost six) that make me sick with delight. They are sponges in a swirly tide pool of a life they haven’t even begun to oyster crack. They’ll get pulled here and there. We all do.

I wish I had more answers to things, sometimes. Which is to say, I wish I had more confidence in my ability to consistently meet my own uncertainties — and sometimes I can — but not always. Not without reminders.

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Lesson 1: Know what needs doing and be done with it.

Life is your Spotify Liked Songs — you discover and explore and hand curate it exactly how you please, yet somehow it always ends up playing the same six songs.¹

You have to accept what is the daily toil, the daily monotony, and move on. It doesn’t serve you to do otherwise. You have to take back the power from the dishwashing, the meal prepping, the bed making, the pet walking, the counter wiping, the office tidying, the floor sweeping, the plant watering, the commuting, the pickups, the drop-offs, the garbage taking outing.

Learn what needs daily doing and just do it. No more, no less. Fill out the grocery list. Cancel the useless subscription. Text back the friend. Book the appointment. There are right things and wrong things worth fussing over. Don’t outsize the to-dos. Don’t give them more power than they ever needed, then they somehow ballooned. Do it and be done.

📷 Cred

Lesson 2: Apologizing is a gift.

I dislike the term conflict management. I ain’t totally swayed. Not only does it stink of a mandatory HR workshop somehow led by the most passive aggressive colleague you know, but it’s a bit of a misnomer. The wrong word gets framed front and center. Even introducing it puts up your guard. Conflict is all we’re lasered on. Conflict as someone who’s right versus someone who’s wrong.² Management as its tug of war. Learn to play strongest and you’ll avoid domination, embarrassment, shame.

Should we call it apology management? What if we just called it apologizing? I mean that. Don’t roll your eyes.

I can’t speak for other cultures, but citizens of AmericaLand — that is, land of the free-refill-semi-automatics-sales-tax-and-tip-not-included-ice-clinking-red-solo-cup-drinkin’-Black-Friday-flag-flyin’-home-of-the-“But how will we pay for that?!” — are not socialized for humility. We do not learn to prioritize the soft pillow of the apology, its back rub and hand squeeze. We are stubborn. I can say this with confidence because I’m an American AND and a Taurus.

Learning to apologize is an open gift for others as much as it is an unburdening for yourself. You’ll never be worse off owning when you cause hurt, even unintentionally.

Lesson 3: Problems that don’t affect you, or don’t make sense to you, are still problems.

I don’t have much more explanation on this one because frankly read it again.

The hope here is anyone who’s aged through the concrete operational stage of developmental cognitive psychology grasps this. Hint hint, that’s you reading, and really anyone past the age eleven.³

Though it’s not perfect. We’re often challenged by inconvenience, unfamiliar narratives, leaps in judgement, metallic-on-the-tongue bias, or sometimes just plain ole’ mental and emotional fatigue. You know the drill — we find ourselves with little sympathy for friends complaining about work when we can’t even get a job; homeowners complaining about lawn maintenance when we’re thirty-something and renting; graduates with student loans when we could never even fantasize about continued education because we already had a family to care for, bills to pay, a roof to hold over heads. It burrows on.

Listen anyway. Most of that is envy talking — and envy when you listen isn’t much more than sadness or self doubt sneaking into your psyche. There’s a whole experiential pie out there. It’s so much bigger than your eyes.

Lesson 4: Everyone else’s story only seems happy.

You know this. But do you really??

It gnaws at your gut. It itches. It sometimes burns. You can’t shake it, that wormy creepy crawly. Others out there make so much more money. Others have dream partners, dream families. Others travel dream places. Still others are funnier, skinnier, fitter, cooler, stabler. Out there is a waterfall of fun and purpose and skill and ease, yet somehow you get only its mist.

This predicament predates social media but it sure as fuck ain’t helped by it. I don’t know how to reassure you, other than reassuring you, and it’s all curation anyway. Truly. Not-so-deep inside everyone are InstantPots a few seconds away from exploding, and we’re all just praying we sealed our lids right. Or we’ll catch it before everyone notices.

It’s a lifelong endeavor to recognize when we’re writing ourselves a leading role in others’ experiences. It’s a lifelong endeavor to witness others’ joys, wave at them, then move along.

Don’t compare watermarks. Don’t be a Patrick.

Lesson 5: No one knows what they’re doing. Some people just do it anyway.

I wrote this on a Post-it note then stuck it to the bottom of my computer monitor. This was weeks ago. Not a day’s gone by where it hasn’t brought me relief.

Do not come for my chicken scratch nor my desk dust, heathens!!!

Life’s deepest resentments come from overanalyzing but under-action.

Dive into that shit. Seriously. That’s it. That’s the Ted Talk. If it scares you, that means it’s likely candidate uno for pushing higher up the give-it-a-whirl list. I’m not talking transactional or ephemeral experiences either, like you’re scared of sky diving so guess what you’re doing on your 40th birthday. And I’m definitely not talking the Instagrammable fuck-it-let’s-ball, either. Maybe I am. But I don’t think so.

What I’m saying is stop pushing aside the pangs. Stop being a voyeur of your own soul. What I’m saying is map out the hiking trail. Start the poetry notebook. Do the comedy sports class. Apply for the job. Adopt the dog. Rekindle the long-lost but fondly remembered friend. Discuss the divorce. Start therapy. Finally try for the kid. Finally confirm you do not want kids. Feel it? That was another second slipping by. And another. And another. Now you’ve read this sentence so that’s another. Please. Please, just put one foot in front of the other.

Lesson 6: In that head of yours, you are so fckn mean to yourself. (!!!!!!!!!)

Imagine a microphone broadcasting your inner monologue. Every sliver of a thought, every exclamation, every endless half-spark of a sentence there then gone. Every wallpaper of a word. Endlessly. Exhaustingly.

This broadcast would be disastrous. You’d scare loved ones, and rightly so.

No one speaks to you how you speak to yourself. No one smears around the deprecation, the demands, the vulturing judgement, the straight-up chains. The day you begin realizing, without contest, without exception, the uselessness of this nastiness is a sort of graduation day.

Lesson 7: Life is actually pretty boring.

Most days I wake up, snooze my alarm, delay the launching about of things. The comforter presses against my cheek. Not because I feel dread at meeting the day. No, it’s something smaller and plainer, something ever palm sized.

This isn’t to advocate throwing your life away in search of something chest-poundier. Few people (meaningfully) flip the switch by Eat Pray Loving their entire existence, and I promise if you tried, you’d just transplant those boredoms and regrets along with your carry-ons, only now each oversleeps in a new AirBnB.⁴

I think the best soft spot we’ve got is neutrality. Some days will be leisurely, some exciting and loud, some absolutely heart-pancakingly painful, to points you have to remember there are people who love you and also you need to eat. It’s zooming out. It’s knowing the mundane isn’t all bad. Until you believe this — really, actively believe this — you’re in for a bumpy ride.

Cred

Which slip-n-slides nicely to the next and final life lightbulb….

Lesson 8: You have to operate with hope.

*big important deep breath*

…but you also have to know when that hope interferes with action.

You have to see the best in people. You have to cave to the benefit of the doubt. You have to point your antennas towards levity and generosity and comfort in whatever ways wind-chime reverberate. You have to know your edges, which ones you’re willing to bend. You have to make beautiful meaning. The alternative is a pit. As is living forever in your mind’s story of your life instead of that life itself.

Woof. Well, that’s the assignment, kids. Luckily, I grade on a curve. 🎱

-Amy

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What did I miss? What life perspective reminders do you have squiggled on a Post-It? I’d love to know below.

1. Goddamnit now you hate said six songs. And Spotify’s shuffle algorithm.

2. Not you. Of course never you.

3. Though apparently certain political party policies seemed to, erm, overlook this.

4. FWIW I think the Eat Pray Love analogy is overused and a bit oversimplified at this point — yet here I am using it anyway. Because you’ll instantly know what I mean. But you are, also, allowed to crave and enjoy travel and other Big Life Special Uncommon Events. Just know it won’t solve all your problems. Which I’m also allowed to say with gusto, as someone who ran away halfway around the world for three whole months in winter of 2020 largely because her marriage, among other things, had black-holed. A story for another time.