This boat is plenty big for all of us.
When I was a kid, our family’s mail was delivered a mile from our house, to a mailbox that looked like a miniature barn. I loved that little barn and the anticipation that there might be something waiting for me inside.
My other daily pleasure was the rubber-banded newspaper I always found in the little mail barn. I loved reading the “Dear Ann Landers” column, marveling that there was actually a person you could write to with any imaginable problem, and she had answers. (“My boyfriend hates my cat! Help!” “My best friend has a light mustache. How do I tell her?”). To my middle school psyche, it was awe-inspiring that someone knew so much about everything.
Living through this time of unrest and unfamiliar, without access to Ann Landers-worthy answers, sometimes gets the better of me. I started last Monday feeling an age away from the weekend, and my image in the zoom room reminded me of melting candle wax. My resemblance to a candle on its last gasp did nothing to improve my mood.
That terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad Monday ended with what in hindsight can only be described as a tantrum. Without pause, I let my fellow human candles have it. I whined and sniveled, I criticized and interrupted, I lectured. I sucked. Interestingly, I had almost no awareness of it in the moment, and it wasn’t until a few hours passed and one of the kindly souls checked in to see if I was OK that I realized the subtext for “you doing OK?” could deservedly be, “you are a raving lunatic.”
Here’s what that unfortunate Monday afternoon reminded me: we’re on a path together, one that is about direction, not perfection. I don’t have a good feeling when I fail to do what I write about, talk about, focus on, and preach about. But I do. I fail a lot. Every day, in fact.
But a few things keep me inspired…one, this work tends to plop really incredible people into your life, so I am surrounded by smart, compassionate types. And their compassion is sometimes the fierce kind, when they tell me, as Ann Landers might have offered, “to go to hell in a way that makes me like the trip.”
I often lean on the part of mindfulness practice that teaches us to notice when we are making bad situations worse by layering on blame, “what if’s,” or other generally unconstructive responses. So when I catch myself in that loop, instead of using my energy to defend myself I try to use my energy to pause, reflect, apologize, and get back in the saddle. It’s not perfect. But it is human.
As we finish our first 21 Day Challenge, with hundreds of you cultivating these capacities together, we are inspired to see the vision of a mindful community beginning to take shape. It’s happening. We want to remind you, as you write to confess that you’ve missed days, stopped doing the challenge altogether, feel like you missed the boat . . . you have not missed the boat at all. It’s right here, and if you’re reading this, you’re in it. And in this boat, there is space for everything. The being human and making mistakes, and the being human and trying again.
Ms. Landers loved to pepper her columns with tried-and-true phrases like “practice makes perfect.” Like many if not all of you, I sometimes focus on the wrong part of that cliché, striving for perfection with everything I set out to do. How funny! Because the real utility of that phrase is in the practice part.
Practicing new ways of thinking.
Practicing decency.
Practicing forgiving yourself for being a jerk, so that it’s easier to forgive other jerks.
Practicing noticing your frustrations, your gratitude, your emotions.
Practicing remembering that every person you encounter has thoughts and dreams and worries exactly the same size as yours.
So let’s keep practicing together . . . practicing noticing we’re just a bunch of people doing the best we can, going after the things we need. Just like me, you want safety and health, some food to eat, clean clothes to wear. Just like me, you fall down, make mistakes, get a little messy, and then clean up your act and go at it again. That’s the practice part.
With much love and care,
Sara and the Becoming Jackson Whole team