Fail Often, with Great Joy

This is important. No one has perfect judgment. No one can, should, must, ought, or needs to be responsible all the time. No one can avoid mistakes. No one can live up to their own expectations or the expectations of others. In fact, assuming too much responsibility is more linked to trauma than it is too sainthood. I wish I had learned this earlier in life and I will spend the rest of my life giving other people permission to do what I could not allow myself to do for most of my life - fail often with great joy.

Fail at being 100% available.

Fail at avoiding pitfalls and mistakes.

Fail at trying so darn hard.

And notice, in the midst of all this failing to achieve, that everyone else is also failing.

Normalize failing and practice non-shaming responses. If we can pair those two principles together, then we can create an environment that is less traumatizing. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Armed with what we know - failing is not bad but it is inevitable - share failings aggressively. This serves several important purposes. It de-stigmatizes our shame and it encourages others. When Pete fails, I do not think he is a failure; I sigh with relief that maybe I do not have to be perfect either. It provides me a chance to remind him that we all fall short, so what? It helps to share with safe people, and that may require some additional failing along the way. I'm amazed at how differently humans respond to my own confessions of shortcoming. Sometimes I share and then feel that I made another mistake in sharing; I want to lie and hide from my limitations. But others get curious, ask questions, help me turn my failure into an experience, and remind me that I am not a mistake - I made a mistake.

2. Be the person other people can fail around. This doesn't mean that we never give feedback, we can and do (with permission). We just figure out how to be a safe person in the midst of recovering fromfailure.

3. Notice that the only way to avoid failure is to stop learning, growing, and leaning out over our skies a bit. It leaves one with a very, very small life.

How is fear of failure holding you back?

Just Say No

Just say no. Although this slogan was a complete failure in the war against drugs, it could still serve a purpose. When my friend Anne decided to become a goat and chicken mother on a little plot of land that certainly resembles heaven, she didn't get transported there through magic fairy dust. She had to DO a lot of purging.

For months I watched Anne let go of paintings, outfits, jackets, children's tea sets, matchbox cars, extra dishes and furniture. She had to actively reject the doubters and naysayers who thought a woman of a certain age might consider a lovely retirement home but perhaps should refrain from daring to dream that life could be MORE with LESS. Anne ignored it all; she discarded the advice of those who knew her but did not know the inclinations of her heart. Anne finally learned how to just say no so she could say yes to her life - not her friends' life or her children's life or even her beloved husband's life - her life.

I wonder if sometimes she felt the weight of rejection when not every single person jumped up and down with glee over her news to sell the family home and move. I myself remember floating the idea of downsizing one time with my adult kids and our son Michael said, "Who's going to pack up my childhood memories?"

I didn't know how to answer Michael then, but I do now - thanks to Anne. Now I would say to my son, "You. You carry your memories in your heart. You own the ones you save and the ones you pitch. You get to take the memories you treasure with you everywhere you go. Dad and I will text you our new address when we move."

Now, unlike Anne, Pete and I chose a different path of reinvention which required a home renovation. This means that all my children's memories are still packed away in storage bins with regular invitations from us to come retrieve them any time they want. We're still waiting on Michael to retrieve his precious memories - I suspect there is a lesson to be found in that small fact.

The word "NO" looks different for each of us but it does involve rejecting one thing for another. If we are not willing to purge, how will we ever make room for the newer, better problems and joys that await as we get more clarity about who we want to be when we grow up?

Piano Lessons and Letting Go…

Our grandson Christian is taking piano lessons. So am I. He and I agree that we do not like to work on correct fingering technique. Sometimes it's ok to cross that thumb under my middle finger and continue up a scale, but other times my fingers have a different opinion than the writer of the music lesson.

He and I were talking about our shared dislike for being told what fingers to use and he asked a great question. "Who even decided which finger we have to use Meme?" I mean, come on - the kid is smart but I have more experience!

Here's the thing. I do not know who decides the fingering system for piano lessons, but I know one thing for sure: they know more about playing the piano than I do. So I suck it up and follow the instructions. Meanwhile, Christian wants to talk to a higher authority about this miscarriage of justice. If this continues, I will make more progress than Christian will with my technique. I will be less frustrated. I will have few appointments with the higher ups. Although I appreciate his curiosity and I admire his desire to "do it his way", I am old enough to know that some things are NOT worth fighting over. Fingering on piano music is one of those things.

Sometimes all of us care TOO MUCH about things that do not matter. This saps us of energy for the things that really, really matter. And although sometimes questioning authority, taking initiative and finding creative new approaches to old ways of doing things is awesome - when over-used, it can make life harder than it needs to be for everyone.

I am in the process of explaining such things to Christian. I hope I will have many more opportunities to engage him in conversations about what to care about and what to let go. It has certainly taken me decades to reach this conclusion, but my life is more serene as a result of caring less.

What about you? What have you cared too much about? What do you need to let go of?

Go Solve Some New Problems!

For a variety of reasons, I grew up thinking it was my job to solve and even eliminate problems. My brother Bob was working on a project for scouts that involved staining wood. He was working in his bedroom for some reason that no one's brain can understand and accidentally spilled the stain on his bedspread. His brain knew that to go to mom for help would be disastrous, so he came to me. I solved the problem with my middle school brain.

I quickly sopped up what I could, ran the bedspread down to the utility room, threw in in the washer with extra detergent and then marched up to my parents' bedroom for affirmation for a job well done. I did a job alright - on the washer. Who knew varnish was NOT good for washing machines? My mistake was so BIG that I'm not sure anyone ever got around to asking Bob why he was staining a hunk of wood on his bedspread.

Today, I am happy to go back in time and report back to that little girl that she was doing the best she could with the information she had in her brain at that time. I would remind her that helping her brother is and will forever be her core value and that there is nothing wrong with that - ever. But I would also reassure her that over the course of her life, her experiences and situations will teach her how to "help" better. I would also give her some very key information - problems never go away.

Life is full of problems. Life will always be full of problems. Problems for the curious are not bad, they are opportunities to grow and learn. A rich and wonderful life can be crafted by ending up with better problems as we learn and grow.

I have spent way too much time judging myself and fearing problems. I believed that problems were MY FAULT. But mostly, problems are about responsibility. "Fault" is just a word we use to describe the consequences of a solution that is going to teach us something. It's not pleasant, but it is fully human and we can learn how to take full responsibility for that too.

I wonder what I will take full responsibility for today. I wonder what I will learn from it. I hope if I discover something today that I am at "fault" for from the past that I will be as gentle and kind to myself as I was to my brother all those years ago. It was easy for me to see that this cute kid made an honest mistake and try to protect him from an inappropriately (maybe understandable) harsh parental reaction. Why do we struggle so much to recognize that this is also true for ourselves?

Go solve some new problems!

Certainty is a Drag

When we decide that the pathway to growth is not through certainty, we take the road less traveled - taking responsibility for our lives. This attitude creates a whole new set of problems. Certainty brings with it a sort of script for life. Someone can bring up a topic and all we have to do is hit our own "play" button. We can spout off our certainty. But when we assume we are responsible we preclude certainty as an option. Life will keep presenting us with confusing opportunities to ....change.

For example, if I could be certain of how to advise families with loved ones in need of recovery, I could respond to all their questions (which are usually pretty predictable) by pushing my "play" button. Have a kid smoking cannabis in your basement? Kick him out if you don't like his behavior! That's a "play" button response.

But what if the kid has a traumatic brain injury? What if the kid has developmental delays? What if mom and dad's greatest fear is the kid will not be safe on the streets? These are legitimate questions that deserve respect.

I'm far less certain than I once was about how to support recovery for those we love who are struggling. This requires that I continue to take responsibility for keeping current on the latest research and best recovery practices. None of it is certain - even the newest approaches. But it makes for a better life.

Think of it like this - if we are certain, then we are probably irritated when people do not agree with us. Maybe we feel anxious when our certainty is challenged. But if we are constantly taking responsibility for our limitations, if we are curious, then we are perpetual learners. And maybe, just maybe, we can actually end up better equipped to help those we love.

Certainty is a drag; responsibility is a doorway to more joy and fewer regrets.