Q: If my life is “perfect,” how come I’m not “perfectly happy?”
A: No one taught us how to be grownups.
This is a running theme of conversations I have with one of my oldest college friends, E (also writer, reader and book reviewer extraordinaire.) It becomes the bottom line of such disparate discussions as:
- Why do we have to compromise what we want in order to address practical requirements like paying the bills and feeding ourselves?
- I chose to opt out of a productive (by economic standards) career – if not a cohesive or particularly well directed one – to focus on making our home and our life more in line with our principles and desires, and to raise the absolute best child that’s within my power to do. So why don’t I value my unpaid time and economically priceless responsibilities the way I valued my workaday drudgery?
- How does one reconcile the self that exists to suit the demands of a dependent life with the self that was independent and free?
- How can someone lose 50 pounds in a year and still not be happy? Worse, be hungry all the time?
These, and many many more questions, are on our table whenever we talk. I know that E and I are not the only people who struggle with the discrepancy between what we think our lives should be like and what our lives actually ARE.
Ben and I recently had what I can only most honestly describe as a spat, as in words spat at each other demonstrating perfectly disconnected understandings of each other. The subject was utterly mundane: Ben eats Eggo waffles, and he likes to slather them in processed, preservative-laden, partially-hydrogenated and completely sugary commercial peanut butter.
He was doing this very thing, and complained that we were out of Skippy and could I please get him some non-organic, non-crappy peanut butter next time I’m out? Naturally I find this infuriating because I freeze homemade waffles whenever we have leftovers, and dammit my waffles are insanely good. I buy non-hydrogenated, no-sugar-added, crunchy granola peanut butter because that’s what I prefer Sami to be eating. I think it tastes better. Ben disagrees.
This is not all just a frankly personal tangential glimpse into the nature of my private life. This is where the rubber meets the road of making a relationship really work. This also falls into the wide, wide chasm category of Things No One Ever Taught Us About How To Be Grownups. An easy solution might have been to thoroughly vet my spouse to ensure wide-spectrum compatibility in patterns of thoughts, attitudes and emotions. But who has time for that? If only I could have had Secret Service background checks to maximize the security of my personal relationship choices at critical moments of my life, I’m sure everything would be different right now.
That’s not how it works in the real world. I based my choice of spouse on the few available indicators at the time: gainful employment, a decent (if sometimes incompatible) sense of humor, strong sense of responsibility for creating good in the world, smart, and had a house and car. Other factors were cosmetic – wasn’t fat, wore pants that fit, dressed appropriately for many different types of occasions. Had red hair and was cute. Without the help of a Magic 8-Ball, I’m pretty sure I did ok following my gut instincts and the sketchy indicators for the future.
I do have a “perfect” life. I am never hungry, in the scraping to put food on the table sense. I’m educated, healthy, successfully married with the kind of happiness that is always a work in progress (as it should be), I have a beautiful child, a lovely home, a husband who is an excellent partner and provider. A husband whose career choices afforded me the choice between the aforementioned productive career and the opportunity to explore the uncharted territory and find a different kind of fulfillment caring for my home and family myself instead of paying someone else to do it (also an option for which I am grateful.) We agree on our long-term life and financial goals, and have reached agreement on major life decisions where perhaps we didn’t necessarily agree.
The rubber doesn’t meet the road where we agree – we are still married even when we’re in the gray areas, or when we’re on opposite ends of a spectrum entirely. We’re still married when I’m buying organic, natural peanut butter in the highly reusable glass jar when Ben wants his High Fructose Corn Syrup dyed and flavored to look like Peanut Butter. And so we’re also still married at the moments where I have to decide – do I switch peanut butters for the sake of domestic tranquility (and really, there is a spectrum even within sugary commercial brands) or do I stick to my guns?
Experience has taught me that there have been, and will be again, bigger battles than peanut butter. Experience has taught me that willingness to compromise on stupid battles strengthens my position in battles where we both have something at stake. And so Experience teaches me to give ground on this one.
So that was Chapter 1 of the How to be a Grownup handbook. Any questions?
In the past, it’s seemed like a good idea to look to elders for guidance. I’m not throwing that idea completely under the bus just yet; however, it has its impracticalities and I think it’s unsafe to look for One Source of Failproof Rules for Success. My father’s advice in high school was to find a good, stable company to work for, and stay put for a good career. A good company would take care of a good employee. That was excellent advice at the time when it was given – the Internet boom and subsequent economic tumult of the late 90s had yet to change the job market forever – but as it turns out there is no chance of any such philosophy working for me now.
I look to my parents (and in-laws, and other people’s parents and in-laws) for long-range ethical views that can help me inform my decisions with another perspective. But I can’t look to them to make the decisions for me, because making today decisions with yesterday experience is a huge mistake. I wish I could have learned that from the Handbook, but instead I learned it from Experience.
So what is this “perfectly happy” thing I asked about in my subject line? It’s possible that a state of “perfect happiness” might exist out there. I’m starting to think it can only be a momentary thing. Personally, the closest I get to perfect happiness is the knowledge that every day is a sea of choices between what is more satisfying, productive and yes, happy; and what is less so. The search for “perfect happiness” might lead to fear of making mistakes, but this is a pitfall that I’m learning late(ish) in life to avoid.
A dear, dear friend recently noted that I’ve been writing on occasion lately about having things to say and not knowing how to say them. Her response was this quotation, culled from the links bar in her gmail account, which I think bears repeating:
You don’t get anything clean without getting something else dirty. – Cecil Baxter
Sphere: Related Content
I find that sometimes the best compromise on something like this is purchasing 2 kinds of peanut butter
And, yes, this is what my partner and I do, you are not alone *grin*.
Believe it or not, even people who live alone grapple with this issue. This isn’t a problem of two minds clashing; it’s a problem of the fact that I think we are taught that ethics are an all-or-nothing proposition.
I’ve been coming to terms with this in my own life. I feel strongly that I need to make ethical choices in what I buy and what I eat, but at the same time, there is a comfort in those processed foods that I’m not quite willing to give up. I love organic crunchy ground-in-the-store peanut butter just as much as I love Skippy. I love my macro vegan gluten-free noodles just as much as I love Slim Jims. There is a place for both of them in the wide spectrum of experiential value.
I’ve recently come to a conclusion about my own life guidelines, that I came to when thinking about my childhood friends– so many of my friends were “Kosher in the home” but understood that it was more complicated to follow those rules in day to day life and that they might not be willing to make those sacrifices. I’ve been cruelty-free in the home for a while and I’ve moved on to vegetarian in the home. I don’t buy any meat with the exception of free-range organic broths for use in my home. But when I go out? Well, let’s just say I just split a pastrami and liverwurst sandwich for dinner, if you get my drift.
My parents ran into the same issue you and Ben are running into, except they both fell even further apart on the spectrum– nothing processed passed my lips, ever, and I was raised vegetarian as a child. My dad, on the other hand, ate junk. I actually wish that I had been allowed junk as a kid. Not because I feel like I was deprived, but I think it would have taught me to make more responsible eating choices once I was able to decide for myself– I made very bad food choices through most of high school and much of college, partly because these new foods were available to me and there was no one to stop me from eating them. Now I understand that Skippy and the good peanut butter at my health food store may call themselves the same food, but they are two different foods with two different purposes meant to be enjoyed in two different ways. But it took me a long time to get there.
Tea´s last blog ..Everything Is Better With Chickens #1: Raiders of the Lost Cluck
Hmmm. This looks to me like it might come under the “what he said vs. what you heard” category.
What he said: “I’d like some Skippy.” (paraphrased, of course, since I wasn’t there)
What you heard: “I don’t value the thoughtful choices you are making to improve the health of your family while being environmentally conscious. Not only that, I don’t like your cooking. Therefore you are a failure.”
What he meant: “I like Skippy on my waffles. Please buy some.”
I’d buy him some Skippy – the reduced fat kind if it makes you happier – and keep buying the other stuff for Sami and you. It’s peanut butter, for cryin’ out loud – he’s not asking you to buy a Hummer.
As for the “happiness” question… have you ever heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? You might be interested in checking it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow’s_hierarchy_of_needs.
Hope it helps…
We should talk about this topic. I studied Spinoza’s philosophical views and he defines perfection as God and our journey is not to actually reach perfection (because then we’d be God and that’s not quite right), but to always strive to be more God-like, or more perfect. As we get closer to God/perfection, we experience pleasure and emotional derivatives of pleasure (hope, joy, etc). As we more further from God/perfection we experience pain and the emotional derivatives of pain.
So, I think you’re doing splendidly. So long as we are all doing our best based upon the experiences of our own individual lives, we’re all doing good. It’s when we fail to grow closer to perfection from our experiences (whether negative or positive) that we’re not doing so good.
Anyways, it’s really late where I live and I need to wake up for work in a few hours.
Many happy thoughts to you!
Di
First of all, I get your frustration. Even at 15 months, my kids don’t want to eat what we give them, they want to eat what we’re eating. If Sami sees her daddy eating Skippy, she’s going to want Skippy. And when she tastes that delicious corn syrup, it will be harder to get her back to Mama’s no-salt no-sugar boooorrring peanut butter. You’ve worked hard to give yourself and your daughter a healthful life, and you feel your choices are devalued by your husband’s Skippy-and-Eggo habit.
In reality, you haven’t made those choices in order to win your husband’s approval. So keep feeding your daughter the way you know is best for her, buy Ben his Skippy, and ask him not to eat it in front of her. I go through this with my husband about juice, donuts, and ice cream. Fortunately, he likes Whole Foods natural peanut butter, and so do the kids
But you’re not really talking about peanut butter, are you? To your larger point, I’d say happiness is an overarching state, added to or subtracted from by small events like peanut butter battles. No one ever did teach us how to be grownups, probably because no one has ever really figured out the best way to be a grownup. And I don’t necessarily think that being a “successful” grownup is the key to happiness. The key to happiness – I think – is learning to love what you have while simultaneously striving to improve it .
Dude. I should so write a self help book.
uccellina´s last blog ..Wren’s Video Pick of the Week
I don’t want to grow up – do I have to?
F&E makes some good creamy stuff, and also some good not super gooey organic stuff.
I think you’re doing great, and that’s from someone who is fairly involved.
HAHAHAH. BTW, my last post is missing – cannot find it. Can you help? I did it at work, so maybe it’s there??? What the heck??
Noelle´s last blog ..Okay, I slack.
The funny thing about this particular case is that what I heard and what he said were actually the same thing – “I don’t like this hippie-crap PB you want me to pollute my crappy Eggos with – and I know the Eggos and the Skippy are crap but I want them anyway.”
And what I felt was, “Dammit why don’t you just shut up and AGREE with me on principle once in a while?” Which was a feeling, and I didn’t say it out loud, because I don’t judge myself on my feelings but on what I choose to do about them.
What I did was compromise and get Skippy. Because we both give ground on what we feel less strongly about so that we can gain ground when we feel more strongly.
But as another commenter pointed out – it’s not really about the peanut butter at all.