I Have a Secret Wish...What's Yours?

My daughter, Christiana, babysits the most adorable little girl. She’s nine months old with big brown eyes and a mass of jet black hair. Sometimes, Christiana will text me pictures of her doing something cute. I’ve never even met this kid (or her parents), but her antics always make me smile.

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Today, the text read,

“Maleah just rubbed her peanut butter hands all in her nice long hair.”

“What a mess! I thought. “Peanut butter doesn’t come out of anything easily.”

I texted back: “Oh no! You’ll have to give her a bath!”

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The last time one of my kids had peanut butter in his hair was during The Great Bubblegum Debacle of 2010. We used peanut butter to try to dislodge a wad of gum that had been hiding in my eight year-old’s unruly hair for months. Then we remembered we were supposed to use an ice cube to get the gum out. Whoops! Ultimately, we resorted to SCISSORS. To this day, he still runs every time we threaten to chop those luscious locks.

But I digress.

I don’t often get peanut butter all over my hands, but when I do the last thing I think of doing is putting those same hands in my hair.

But why not?

A bath in the middle of the day! Hair washing! How utterly luxurious!

Have you ever had your hair washed by somebody else? It might just be the most glorious thing humans ever get to experience this side of heaven.

I always say that if I ever become a rich person I’m going to go to the salon twice a week just to have my hair washed and blown out by a professional.

Sometimes I think we overcomplicate joy, as if a fancy vacation or a new wardrobe will make all our despair disappear.

You know what’s weird? If I were to draw a graph with money spent on the X-axis and my happiness on the Y-axis, it wouldn’t be a line that goes up and to the right. I think there’s plenty of proof that money does not equal happiness.

And besides, today I’m thinking only of peanut butter.
And a good shampoo.

My husband sometimes talks about how is grandma used to wash his hair in the sink when he was a little boy. I don’t remember my grandma ever washing my hair, but she did like to to brush it. She would sit next to me on the couch and brush and brush and brush my curly hair until I looked like a younger version of Al Pacino as Phil Specter.

A few years ago, I discovered something called a tingler. It’s this little claw like device that you move back and forth across your scalp, and yes, it’s pretty cool, but the tingler will never replace a good salon hair washing.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really feel like I need big things to make me happy. There’s a whole lot of joy to be had right in my own house. I’m probably NOT going to put peanut butter in my hair on purpose, but I will eat a spoonful or two.

I like to mix mine with chocolate chips.

And then, maybe if I’m lucky, I can convince my husband to wash my hair in the sink….

These middle-age date nights are off the chain:)

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What is Your ONE Thing?

Our pet turtle is depressed.

I know this because I googled, “How to tell if your pet turtle is sad.”

To be fair, we are not the best pet parents. The number of fish who have died under our watch is embarrassingly high. Over the years, we’ve sheltered several cats—all have disappeared without a trace in the middle of the night. We also have a Yorkie, and I hear the neighbors tsk tsking us behind our backs because he embarrasses us regularly.  But despite little supervision and a failed attempt at obedience school, he’s still hanging on. Unlike our cats, this little one actually DOES have nine lives.

Sometimes my husband and I both look at each other utterly amazed that our actual biological children have survived under our roof for lo these many years.

When we moved into our new house last Spring, the turtle got an upgrade. He had been relegated to the unfinished basement so as not deter any prospective anti-reptile buyers. In the new house, he got a new tank, a new rock, a new light, and a new view.

We positioned him right next to a sunny window in our upstairs loft.

Oh, how he loved frolicking in his new habitat!

But you know how it is…life happens. I decided I didn’t like the placement of the new tank.
So I moved him.  
Then the light burned out.
Then I replaced the special reptile light with a “regular” human lightbulb and called it “good.”

Only it wasn’t.

The new L.E.D. light emitted practically no heat, and the new corner afforded little view of the outside world. Oh, we continued to feed him and clean the tank every once in a while, but I could tell—our little turtle wasn’t the same.

Until today.

Today I went to PetSmart and bought something called a basking light, and so today after months of huddling in a corner of the tank and refusing to eat, he BASKED on his rock and smiled from ear to red-eared-slider ear.

And it was so easy.
All I did was add light.
But not just any light.
The right light.

When it comes to our own happiness, sometimes I think we make it too complicated. Like our family turtle, we find ourselves huddled under our covers. Maybe we lose our appetite. Or maybe we eat too much. Maybe we stop calling our friends or we ignore our chores. Maybe we procrastinate.

It’s been amazing how much of my life I’ve spent trying to find the perfect combination of friends, work, activities, and hobbies.

But as I’ve shared before we are in a weird season and honestly things are already complicated. We don’t need to make things more complicated by trying to figure out how to make everything perfect.

Sometimes the simple thing is just the thing.

Our turtle doesn’t have a bigger tank, a cleaner tank, or a view of outside.

But he has his light.

The basking light made all the difference in the world.

What one thing might make all the difference in the world for you? That’s what I’m thinking about today.

What if we decided that one good thing could make a good day a great day?

Today I made gingerbread cookies, and the fragrance filled my kitchen with joyful holiday aroma. Our Christmas cards arrived, and I’m listening to holiday music. The Yorkie is curled up next to me as I type. (He’s being good!)

I realized finding one good thing isn’t really that hard because when I set my mind to it, I discover good things everywhere I look. It’s simple. I can do it.

And so can you.

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Do You Like Me?

Four powerful little words.

Do

you

like

me?

Isn’t it strange that even when I meet new people as a 45 year-old, those are the words still running through my head?

My happiness depends on the answer.

But I am not alone.

On some level, this is the question that haunts all of us. I internalized it very early. And so did you.

On the playground, at school, with your first crush.

I have four kids, one in college, two in high school, and one who just started middle school this year. (Poor baby).

I definitely don’t want their happiness to depend on whether or not they are liked. I like them. Heck, I even LOVE them. Shouldn’t that be enough?

And if I’m being honest, happiness has never been on my list of TOP FIVE goals for my kids.

The Happiness Hypothesis is the 2006 book written by Jonathan Haidt. In it, the author outlines three different ways to achieve happiness, all based on the presupposition that we flourish when we are connected.

So here’s the three kinds of connections:

1. Between Yourself & Others (Do you like me?)

2. Between Yourself & Your Work (Do I like what I do?)

3. Between Yourself & Something Larger than You (Does my life matter?)

If there’s a disconnect in any one of these three areas, happiness turns to disappointment, which often festers into resentment. Even though you are the only one who has lived your life, you can stifle your own potential for expression, connection, meaning and joy when you allow other people’s limitations to be transferred to you, something that kids do exceptionally well because they care so much about what people think about them.

She doesn’t like me because I like books and say weird stuff sometimes? Okay, then, I’ll just keep my mouth shut and pretend I don’t even like books.

I’m not smart. School is hard. I’ll make a scene and get in trouble, so I don’t have to stay in this classroom (where nobody likes me anyway)

It’s all about me, me, me. And I’ll cry if I want to!

Did you know the happiest people are those who do the most for others? Booker T. Washington said that, but a lot of other people like Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. had similar views. The causes we champion play a big part in our happiness.

I agree with Haidt; I love the idea of connection. Connection is important to healthy relationships, not to mention the reproduction and long-term survivability of every species on the planet.

But if we just want our kids to be happy, we deprive them of the opportunity to experience the good things that come from disappointment: acceptance of the things we cannot change, a commitment to make life better for ourselves and other people, and the compassion that can only be derived from lived experience.

Weird and quirky kids who have unusual hobbies find themselves marginalized. Ironically, these kids grow up to be the most interesting adults! Consider Reese Witherspoon, that icon of fashion and hospitality. An overachiever to the nth degree, she is a self-described “nerd.” So is Natalie Portman. She skipped the premiere of her own movie (Star Wars, no less!) to study for high school finals. And Rashida Jones (of The Office and Parks and Recreation fame) told a reporter she would read books in bed with a flashlight until late into the night as a kid (Me too, Rashida! Me too!). Total nerdom.

Whether you’re starting a business, opening a restaurant, or launching a product, the one thing central to success is an original idea, which acts like a magnet, drawing us to what’s interesting and unique with the promise of something better.

Telling a twelve year old to be original is like telling a terrier not to pee on a fire hydrant. “I don’t wanna be original; I just want to be like everybody else!” she will cry. (She does want to be original, she just doesn’t know it yet. “Do you like me?” mentality is winning. In service to that small voice in her head, she will squelch creativity, she will fight originality, she will shush the voice that dares her to be different.)

I wish I could go back and tell my twelve year-old self that the things that made me feel different were the things that would ultimately lead me to my passion and purpose. I wish I could have told the twelve year-old me that twelve year-old opinions don’t have the weight I assigned to them at the time. I’ve been carrying them with me all these years, only to discover when I brought them out in the open, they vaporized right before my eyes. At twelve, I was unhappy. I felt like nobody liked me. I didn’t even like myself. I don’t want my kids to feel that way.

Happiness is not our goal; wholeness is.

1. Be honest with yourself about who you are.

2. Own what’s unique about you; champion what’s unique In other people.

3. Disappointment is not a catastrophe; it’s a catalyst for compassion.

4. If someone else says something unkind, give yourself (and them) grace for the moment. The motivation is almost always related to that “Do you like me?” question.

5. Make sure the voice inside your head is the one that says, “You are fearfully and wonderfully made.” Psalms 139:14

Want more good stuff?

And just because I couldn’t resist, I’m posting a link to this Sesame Street song from Bert and Ernie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkivmh-24EY