Getting A Grip
Knowing how tightly to hold onto things is useful even if you aren’t playing Smoke on the Water at 2am in your underwear (he said, purely hypothetically). Unfortunately, our instinct about how to hold things is often wrong.
The Things We’ve Handed Down
Traditionally, we Chinese are big on respecting our ancestors. When my grandfather died, my grandmother set up a little shrine in their cramped Chinatown apartment, complete with burning incense and a picture of him as a young man. At Grandma’s behest, my brothers and I had to stand in front of the shrine and bow to pay our respects.
To Have and to Hold
Two friends of ours recently had a surprise wedding. They were visiting family over Thanksgiving, and after dinner they told everyone to go out into the yard, then they appeared with a veil and some rings and tied the knot right then and there. And though it seemed spontaneous and a little crazy, it was anything but thoughtless. They were perfectly clear about the promise and commitment they were making to each other. It got me thinking about the promises we make in life, and the courage it takes to make them.
To Wonder At
As two people go through life together, they can no more avoid change as a pair than they can as individuals. Every relationship has a path of its own: a beginning, a journey full of twists and turns, and eventually (at least for us mortals) an end.
How Annoying
When we’re annoyed or irritated at someone, we get to disown the emotion we’re feeling. It doesn’t really belong to us. It’s an unsolicited gift that some jackass left on our doorstep, so we can shake it up, open the can and spray it all over the place without taking any responsibility.
How Are We Doing?
Everyone wants to know if they’re doing okay. The problem is, that’s a really hard question to answer.
Say You Want a Revolution
“Revolution” is an interesting word. Often, it’s used to denote a sudden, profound change. But it can also mean the completion of a circle, as in: each year is a revolution of the earth around the sun. That this one word has both meanings gives us some insight into the way humans used to think about change.
The Cost of Standing Still
When we resist change, do we fear the outcome or just having to change?
Turning Points
As long as people have been tracing the paths of human existence, they’ve noticed that our lives go through a series of distinct, predictable stages. Shakespeare wrote of seven: infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, judge, old age and second childishness. Other versions, like the Hindu Ashramas or Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, include more or fewer steps, but the similarities between them are remarkable. In each case, they speak to a fundamental truth about human development: over the course of our lives, we go through not one identity but many, each with its own set of challenges, tasks and discoveries.
The Paradox of Permanence
I’ve been thinking about paradoxes. Three examples, from three different writers, have been bumping around in my mind.
1. From Adam Grant: Learning isn't just about accumulating knowledge; it's about unlearning and rethinking what we believe we know.
2. From Esther Perel: Building strong relationships isn't about building impregnable fortresses; it's about learning to rebuild, so you can weather the inevitable cycle of harmony, disruption, and repair.
3. From Anne Lamott: Good writing isn't about getting it right; it's about getting it out, then rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. All first drafts are shit.
The War is Over
Sometimes, parts of us get stuck in the past, especially when we have to deal with difficult, painful experiences. The trauma of those experiences forces us to go into self-protection mode, and those incidents stick with us. That’s why, when we feel threatened or ashamed, we sometimes regress to those old, self-protective personas and apply the only strategies they know--ones that don’t serve us anymore.
Humans Hate Change
We tend to equate comfort with familiarity. We’re fine with a little novelty--something new, something different, something to break up the monotony of the day. But when it comes to big changes, the kind that shake our world and crack our foundations, we scramble to find a familiar refuge where we can safely hide. And really, you can’t blame us--it’s just the way we’re wired.