Several months ago, two friends and I started a gratitude text. Every night, we text each other three things we felt grateful for during that day. Sometimes we comment on each other’s list, but most often, we simply acknowledge the others’ contribution with a heart. For years, I have been recommending this very activity to my clients. I have one client who has done this nightly for ten or so years and occasionally talks about the impact it has on her day and general orientation to her experiences. I knew it would be a good thing to try, but as with so many things, I just never got around to it. Until now. And I can tell you, even after just a few months, it has been a positive influence on my life. Ending every day reflecting on what I am grateful for has started to alter the way I see even the hard days.
Last week, M tried out for the spring festival play. The festival play is a shorter play with a smaller cast performed in a daylong theater festival with schools from all over the state participating. The performances are judged by a panel and at the middle school level, awards are given out. Last year, M was part of the cast and had a great experience. Because our middle school theater teacher and director is such an incredible force for good and bringing theater to so many kids, the number of students auditioning has steadily increased. M had gone back and forth about whether or not he wanted to audition. Ultimately, he decided to and had come home from the audition really happy, sharing that he felt good about his audition and had a lot of fun performing. So when the cast list came out and he had a small part, he was understandably disappointed. Getting any role in this show was a major accomplishment, given that less than a third of the kids who auditioned were cast. And I knew he was hoping for more.
M is my third child. As Anna Quindlen noted about parenting multiple children, “The first child got me shiny new, like a new pair of shoes, but he got blisters, too. The second child got me worn, yes, but comfortable.” By my third child, I wasn’t just comfortable, but secure in the knowledge that not only did I not need to orchestrate every moment for this child, he would fare far better if I stayed in the wings, jumping in only if he was in true need or asked for my help. And so, when the cast list arrived via email, I gave him some time. When I hadn’t heard anything from him or seen him emerge from his room, we had a short exchange confirming he had seen the list and ensuring he knew that I was here if wanted to talk about it. And that was it. I let him be. I had enough other shows logged with him and his brothers to know that it would all work out, one way or another. I didn’t feel a rush of urgency that he might be upset and I needed to fix that feeling. I didn’t worry about how this casting might affect other casting decisions in his future. I didn’t see this as a defining or crucial moment in his life.
We are steeped in a culture obsessed with more, better, faster, higher.
Excel. Achieve. Reach higher. Produce more. Return on the investment.
DO MORE WITH LESS.
In my previous job, a Wall Street investment banker turned psychologist decided the behavioral health department (a department that had to routinely justify its existence to the c-suite because it barely breaks even) should invest thousands in having clients fill out measures of anxiety, depression, and overall well-being before every appointment. These data would be used to chart the client’s relative progress over time. Oh and they could also be used to measure a provider’s effectiveness and success rate in treatment. The compliance rate in completing the surveys was so low, the numbers couldn’t be used to determine any reliable patterns, but in the pipeline were definitely ways to monetize these results. End therapy if a client reached a certain degree of wellness. End therapy if a client wasn’t showing significant enough progress. Tie provider compensation to treatment success rates.
If you have never been in therapy, you may not know how absolutely absurd this is. But it’s easy to think about. When you are trying to change your behavior, sometimes, things get considerably worse before they get better. You may learn new and even better ways to approach challenges in your life. That doesn’t stop the challenges from coming. It sometimes means that you learn how to let yourself actually feel the hard feelings around those challenges more. Having more or better ways to deal with difficulty won’t necessarily show up as forward progress on a survey. Being a skilled mental health provider is not neatly equated to a linear progression on a measure of your clients’ anxiety, depression, or well being.
Human experience is so much more complicated than yes or no responses or Likert scale measurement. Human suffering does not relent in a ever-forward moving line. Bearing witness to and facilitating getting through hard things does not always result in measurable difference.
I try, as much as I can, to let the moments of my children’s lives be just that:
Moments.
Not measures of their personal worth. Not notches on an ever-growing list of achievements. Not indicators of their likelihood to be Broadway stars or famous engineers or college wrestlers or future elite college students. Or conversely, that they are on a road to delinquency and addiction. And perhaps, just as important (or even more important?), not measures of my worth or success or achievement as a parent.
Because as exceptional and wonderful and beautiful as they are to me, they are mostly just ordinary kiddos. Who will go on to have mostly ordinary lives. Just as I have. Just as their father has. Just as most everyone around us has. Sure, we have had some moments of sparkling success, notable achievement. But what I value most in my own life is not the achievements, not the successes, but the connections, the kindness, the ways in which other people showed up for me, the ways in which I could truly be of service to others. What matters most to me as a psychologist is not the articles I’ve published, the treatments I developed, but when my client says to me that she knows whatever her state, I will be happy to see her when she comes to therapy. And that has made all the difference. When a client gave me a book of poetry by Alice Walker entitled Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth and in his note says that he hopes someday to see my book on therapy. A therapy that believes in the absolute goodness of all people instead of the pathologizing and diagnosing that he had previously experienced with mental health providers.
My hope for my boys is that they learn earlier than I did to find what truly matters to them. To recognize that life is full of small moments. Some are dazzling and bright. Some are joyful and exuberant. Some are full of breathtaking beauty. Some are despairing and painful. Some hurt like hell. Some are ordinarily magical. If you spend your time quantifying and maximizing and striving, it will never be enough. Because there are always more accomplishments, higher goals, greater strides. You can work incredibly hard and still feel behind if your gauge is set beyond your capacity.
Sometimes, you enjoy being in a show more when you have a small part with easily remembered lines. You can spend the time with your friends, connecting, being together, being part of a larger whole. Sometimes, the best moments come from working really hard at something you didn’t know you wanted.
When you end your day with gratitude, you learn to look for those small, sparkling moments of beauty, kindness, connection, and growth. You remember to live in this day, this hour, this moment and not keep your gaze on the far horizon of later and more and better.
Life is short; childhood, even shorter. I hope my children will look back and remember not that I expected high achievement and greatness, but that their very being brought joy and gratitude to my life. That whether they were Freak #1 or Patrick in SpongeBob SquarePants, I was just as delighted to see their face on stage. That the B in a class they struggled with and worked hard for meant just as much, maybe more, than the A in a class they barely had to try for.
That a small kindness to a stranger or a friend means more than any academic, professional, or financial achievement ever could.
That when I write my nightly gratitude list, their names are always included.
I’ve shared it before, but how can I not end with this beauty of a song?
There's been blessings and crooked roads
I've made mistakes that I regret
But I've held dreams in my own hands
Too big to dream in my own head
And all the love that I've been given
Wish I could return tenfold at least
Cause there isn't one ungrateful bone in my body
~Lori McKenna