Don't Ask Why You Suck, Ask Why You Think You Suck
A shift in tone and intent can turn the self-shaming question around and help you out.
I used to be an actor.
One time, I went to a voiceover audition for a McDonald’s ad. The tag line, McDonald’s slogan at the time, was “Did somebody say McDonald’s?” Here’s how I read it: “Did somebody SAY McDonald’s?”
As if I was disagreeing that McDonald’s had even been part of the previous conversation. Or that it was my stance “McDonald’s” had been communicated through gesture or smell. I did not book the gig. So much goes into tone.
Yesterday, I was struggling to kind of crack open this idea I had for a book by making a table of contents / outline for it. Usually, I can get an idea for the structure of a book this way and then the book seems more tenable so I can go to editors, etc. But in this case it just wasn’t coming together - some parts felt extraneous while other times I knew there was something missing but I didn’t know what. After much frustration, I became deeply dubious about this whole concept for this book. And I couldn’t concentrate on the whole thing. I’d check email or Twitter or watch a YouTube about ghosts.
“Why can’t you just fix it?!” I asked myself. “Why can’t you just pay attention and figure it out?” Also, “What’s the matter with you?” and “What’s your problem?”
All these questions and the thing is, they’re rhetorical. It was a matter of tone. I’m not going to give myself patient considered answers and the reason why is because I’m not really asking! It’s already been answered and the implied answer is because I’m weak, stupid, lazy, bad. The questions inherently posit that normal people, good people, would be able to do all those things and since I can’t, I’m less than those people.
This was a channel of negative thinking, it’s the Colorado River of my mind that has formed this horrible Grand Canyon.
Now, don’t worry about me, I’m fine, that’s just a tendency my mind has. I know when to spot it and slam on the brakes. And I got skills to fight against that and fix it. It requires some conscious effort but it works.
What I did was I shifted the tone, just like in that McDonald’s ad (except in a better direction this time.)
I switched the question from rhetorical and exclamatory to interrogative and sincere. Why CAN’T I pay attention right now? Well, a big part of it is that I saw the latest COVID stats for Minnesota and they were extremely grim. Minnesota is doing poorly and surrounded by four states that are doing even worse. So it feels like death and disease are all around us, like we’re in the Death Star trash compactor and the walls just started moving in. (Note: there are some lingering issues with that technology.)
The vaccines are coming, sure, but when? And how many people will die during that ramp up process? When death is outside your door, yeah, it’s hard to concentrate and make outlines, John! Or anyone else!
So no, my continuous salvos of implicit self-attack, “because you suck” isn’t the reason. It’s at least partially due the world in chaos. And it’s because what I’m doing is hard.
On the same thread, why CAN’T I make this outline work, I asked sincerely instead of rhetorically. Well, it’s possible that this idea I’m working on for this book just isn’t that good. Maybe it’s okay but not something I want to pour a year of my life into to write. And what a blessing that knowledge can be! I just got that year back!
Finding out what works and what needs tossing is a normal and essential part of the creative process. Why can’t Einstein teach a dog to fly? Because that’s just an unworkable idea. You can force Einstein to throw a dog but you mustn’t because that’s cruel. To both of them.
The idea of turning a self-shaming rhetorical question into a sincere one can be extended too. If the implicit answer to “Why can’t I do this?” is “Because I’m a bad, weak, stupid person,” the follow-up question is pretty obvious. “Why do you think that?”
That is, what’s behind the thinking that made you arrive at that point. You’re not bad or weak or stupid, some part of you surely knows that, so why is your mind pushing this idea that you are? What got you to that point? What ever gave you that idea?
And that’s the question to ask, to truly ask, to work on figuring out.
And that’s a HARD ONE! Because it will take you back, probably many years, to try to identify what got that thinking onto that track. IT MIGHT HURT TO FIND OUT. But you’ll be glad you did.
That’s one to explore with a therapist, with the help of meditation, with clergy, with whatever works for you. So don’t yell at yourself in the form of a rhetorical question, ask real questions.
Maybe you’ll have a breakthrough like the Friendos did.
“Pandemics can be stressful” is the unintentionally hilarious headline of this lengthy and actually pretty useful article from the CDC. I mean, really, CDC? THEY CAN? ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THAT AND THAT PANDEMICS AREN’T A RELAXING BALM OF REASSURANCE?
There’s a good rundown of crisis hotlines and some useful information on the circumstances that might make some people more at risk of stress-induced mental health problems than others. It’s a good list to check to see what you should be aware of.
The article is a bit limited in that the links go out to other sites by the CDC or the NIH. So you’re stuck learning about meditation from the government. Which is like rocking out exclusively to the rock bands of the US military.
Still, no, it’s a good page from the CDC. Good resources. No, I don’t want to hear 42 Romeo’s sick demo tape.
One thing I certainly did was write a book.
A new study about personality traits is not so much ground-breaking as ground-staying-the-same-as-it-already-was.
Psychology Today recaps the paper by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology running down the personality traits most often found in psychologically healthy individuals.
Openness to Feelings
Warmth
Positive Emotions
Straightforwardness
And the least likely to succeed traits?
Anxiousness
Vulnerability
Depressiveness
Hostility
Gotta say, it seems like there’s some overlap between number one and number twenty-eight. But yeah, warmth seems more healthy than hostility. Hostility doesn’t seem super healthy. Thanks, science.
Here’s a recommendation. Joe Pera Talks With You is a wonderful, calming, and very funny television program. It’s an Adult Swim series available on HBO Max.
Wikipedia says:
The series stars comedian Joe Pera as a fictionalized version of himself, living in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and teaching choir at a local middle school. Pera attempts to talk directly to the audience about mundane subject matter such as iron, Sunday breakfast, fall drives and sleeping.
Attempts being the keyword because as we follow Joe through his world, the subject matter veers to unexpected places. Unlike The Office or Parks & Rec, there is no implied camera crew and the other people in Joe’s life don’t know we’re there. We are present in Joe’s internal monologue.
Joe Pera, the character, is in his early thirties but walks and talks like a grandfather.
The show is not exciting. Nothing extreme happens. And that’s one of its best qualities. For 11-12 minutes at a time, you get to live this warm and quiet yet unusual life in the U.P. with/as Joe. The deeply odd jokes show up unexpectedly and that makes them more delightful.
If you have eleven and a half minutes to spare, and you do, why not try this?
I like to watch this show before I go to bed.
The thing that really got me here, independent of context, was "If you have eleven and a half minutes to spare, and you do—" I thought: I do. When is that not actually true? Not super often.
So then I felt obligated to watch Joe Pera Talks You Back to Sleep, even though I almost never click on videos—and holy heck. I laughed out loud multiple times, but in between the funny bits, it was just calm, so calm I felt like I could actually take a deep breath. I had time. I also wanted to pay close attention to what he was actually saying, something I miss doing more often. He says casual, beautiful things, like “One of the nicest things about teaching music is you can literally hear the students learning." It's like Mr. Rogers, kind of, but without the weird puppets and the having to pretend you're 4 again to really get anything out of the conversation. No it's not. I cannot quantify or classify or adequately compare this piece of art, and I'm glad. Thanks for sharing it.