Tears and Laughter Make us Rich

Every Christmas, Robyn and I watch It’s A Wonderful Life together, and every year I cry harder.

This year, I felt myself resisting, but eventually, I let myself go. And when Harry Bailey walked in the door and said, “A toast, to my big brother George, the richest man in town,” I just wept.

And it’s not just this film, I’ve noticed. When I read A Sick Day for Amos McGee at bedtime, I cry harder and smile bigger because the simple story of friendship between a zookeeper and his animal friends reminds me of my own experiences of friendship. When I hear the song Joe, I can’t help but feel my lips tremble mid-verse while I’m singing it in the car, even though I’ve never lived through addiction or recovery. It just gets me, because the protagonist—a gas station attendant—is a hero because of the content of his character and his success in slaying his own demons, not because of any external measures of success.

Or in Finding Nemo, now, I cry for different reasons in both eyes. When Nemo and Marlin reunite, I now understand the perspective of both father and son. And I find myself marveling at the beauty, relevance, and power of children’s stories—these tales we dismiss as childish often hold the simplest and truest wisdom.

And when I watch comedy specials—whether it’s Matt Rife, Hasan Minhaj, Dave Chappelle, or Trevor Noah—I laugh and laugh and laugh in ways I didn’t know were possible without being a bit drunk with my college friends at the pub.

As we get older, we just get it more. Because, if we’re doing this right with each passing year, we’ve actually lived more.

I see now how courageous it is to be an everyday guy who consistently swims upstream to do the right thing, like George Bailey does in that classic film. In a way, writing the book Character by Choice has been my attempt to figure out how to be more like George Bailey.

I find him so remarkable as an example of what a good, everyday man can look like. Because at the end, George doesn’t even “win” in the conventional sense. He doesn’t walk away with a big payout or a victory over the villainous Mr. Potter—he’s still a modest business owner. But his years of sacrifice are validated when the rest of Bedford Falls comes to his aid.

Now, I get how special it is to sacrifice for others and to accept the sacrifices they make for me.

And I also see the mirror universe of what my life could’ve been, just like George Bailey does after he “saves” his guardian angel, Clarence. It’s like I started making choices for myself as a teenager, and each of those choices was a fork in the road—left or right. Over time, those choices compounded as I kept making right turns. Again and again, at each fork, I went right.

And now I see so clearly what my life could’ve been. I could’ve been richer, with fewer kids and responsibilities, probably living in Washington, D.C., or San Francisco. That version of me would’ve had a nicer house and a more vibrant professional and social life. But would it have been a universe where I was here with Robyn, Riley, Robert, Myles, and Emmett? Probably not.

Honestly, I would’ve probably found a way to rationalize my story if I had made all those left turns instead of right. I might have convinced myself I was content. But damn, I’m glad I’m here and not somewhere else. And that clear, honest realization—that it may never have been this way—keeps my heart from stiffening.

And so the tears flow.

Maybe this is good, maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s a sign of strength, maybe a sign of weakness. Maybe both. Honestly, I don’t really care. I’d rather avoid the culture wars and punditry about men and crying. That kind of commentary—no matter where it comes from—feels reductive and unnecessary.

Because at a minimum, I think crying and laughing harder is an indicator of acceptance—of life and all that it brings. It’s a sign that I’m letting myself live life—letting it soak into my bones and my soul, rather than keeping it at arm’s length.

It’s not the choice everyone makes, but for me, I can only hope that as I age, I let myself live more and more. I can only hope that with each passing year I cry harder and laugh harder. Because in my own way, that makes me feel like one of the richest men in town.

For Men, It's Bigger Than Just Crying More

While I don’t speak for all men, I believe many share this view: phrases like "it’s okay to cry" and "you need to talk about your feelings" are not always helpful.

To be healthy, human beings need to express themselves. The problem with the phrases I mentioned (and others) is that they prescribe a specific means of expression. Not everyone likes or wants to express themselves through conversations about their feelings or through tears.

Personally, I express myself through words (writing, talking) and physical expressions (tears, laughter, singing, dancing, hugs). But those aren’t the only healthy means of self-expression. Athletics, fine arts, martial arts, carpentry, cooking – these are also healthy ways to express oneself.

While these phrases are true – it is okay to cry, and people probably do need to talk about their feelings to some degree – throwing them around can cause withdrawal. Men who aren’t naturally cryers or talkers withdraw when others impose a specific means of expression onto them. Even as someone who is a cryer and a talker, I feel controlled and violated when people insist that men need to cry and talk more, despite agreeing with the statements themselves.

It’s more productive to remind everyone, regardless of age or gender identity, that we need to express ourselves to be healthy. Instead of saying, “it’s okay for men to cry,” it’s more effective to ask, “how do you express yourself, and what type of forum do you need?”

This post may sound like a rant, and in some ways, it is. However, I appreciate the intent behind encouraging men to talk about their feelings because many men, myself included, have faced or will face challenges. I’m glad people are starting to understand that men and boys – and other groups too – have unique mental health challenges.

These challenges are reflected in suicide rates. Here are three informative data sources about suicide rates and how they intersect with gender, age, occupation, and other factors. The punchline is that men have higher suicide rates than women, particularly Native American and White men.

• American Foundation for Suicide Prevention - Suicide Statistics

• CDC: Suicide Rates by Industry and Occupation — National Vital Statistics System, United States, 2021

• Population Reference Bureau: In U.S., Who Is at Greatest Risk for Suicides?

I’m suggesting there’s a better way to communicate with men about mental and emotional health. While I appreciate well-intentioned phrases like “it’s okay to cry” and “it’s important to talk about feelings,” I believe they often lead to closed doors, particularly for men. A more effective approach is to emphasize the importance of expression and begin a conversation about how each of us wants and needs to express ourselves.

When our kids have hard days

The first words he said to me, as he had the purple towel draped generously over his wet hair and entire frame, were,

“It was a hard day, Papa.”

And then he melted into me, and I, on one knee, wrapped my arms around him and started to rub his back - both to help him dry off and comfort him. And we just stayed there, hugging on the bathroom floor for awhile.

And that’s one of the saddest type of moments I think I’ve had - when you’re kid is just sad. And yes even at three years old and change, he can have hard days and recognize that those days were hard. 

And it wasn’t even that I felt and explosive, caustic sadness, where you feel the sadness growing and pushing out from core to skin. Like a sadness that smolders into my limbs and mind, and makes them feel like burning. 

It was a depleting sadness, where I started to feel my heart shrinking, my bones and muscles hollowing, and my face and skin starting to feel...transparent maybe. It was a sadness that made me feel like I was disappearing.

When your own children - the ones you have a covenant with God and the universe to take care of - are truly sad, it’s a feeling you want to pass as quickly as possible, and never want to have again.

And when I realized that I “never want to feel this way again”, I started to get these two primal-feeling urges.

First I wanted to “fix it”. And “fixing it” has two benefits. First, it just stops this horrible feeling of depleting sadness. Because if I fix it, my son isn’t sad anymore, and therefore I’m not sad anymore.

But also, if I were the one who failed my son somehow and caused him to fall into this genuine sadness, fixing it is my redemption. Fixing the sadness is what helps me to feel like I’m not to blame. Because if I’ve fixed the external problem causing his sadness - the problem wasn’t me, it was that thing. Fixing it gives me the illusion that I’m the hero in this story, not the villain.

But beyond wanting to fix it, there was a more insidious urge, that crept on me slowly, was to believe this falsehood of, “maybe he’s just not ready” or “maybe we need to protect him more”. 

And the fuzzy logic of that urge is this: If my kid is sad, there’s something out there that he can’t handle yet. And if I hold him back from going back out there, he’s less likely to have a hard day. Then he won’t be sad. And then I won’t feel this depleting sadness either.

But the problem with both of these responses is that if I find a way to let myself off the hook, it also deprives him of the opportunity to grow, and muddle his way through his sadness. Our kids will have hard days, and those days will suck. And on those days, we have to bring our best selves as parents. Because that’s when our kids need us to guide them, and love them, and coach them, and encourage them. And, many of those times we won’t be good enough; we will fail as parents and coaches. And they will have to muddle through that sadness for a longer. And we will feel depleted for longer, too.

But, damn. From those hard days, and that sadness, comes strength and confidence for our kids. Once they muddle through sadness, they have one more datapoint to add to their model to remind them that they can do this, they can figure this out, they can be themselves, they can be at peace, and they can rise up and through adversity. 

And even though my instinct is to help my sons avoid sadness, I cannot let that instinct win. Because that instinct is selfish. What that motive truly is, is me wanting to avoid that horrible, depleting sadness that comes when your kids are sad. 

Because these kids will have hard days. They will be sad. And even though my instinct is to make it stop as quickly as possible, and to never let this happen to them ever again, I must resist that selfish urge to fix their problems for them.

What I really need to do is comfort them, encourage them, love them, and coach them, and show them that no matter what happens I will be with them in this foxhole of sadness until they find a way out, no matter what.

And that I will be there, and support them in a way that doesn’t deprive them of the chance to come out of it stronger, kinder, and wiser.

Radical Questions, Radical Diversity

Over the holiday, my father-in-law asked me a very interesting question along these lines: after asking questions on facebook for so long, what have you learned?

Over these past five years or so of asking an almost-daily questions, I’ve tried not to ask gimmicky or empirical questions. I’ve tried to ask simple, specific questions that require reflection and emotional labor. This is not for any special reason, I just I think those sorts of questions are most interesting and yield the most wisdom on how to live a good life and be a good person.

What has been surprising is how often someone says something incredibly perceptive and relevant. Like, nearly every response I’ve ever received to any questions I’ve ever asked is something valuable. Individually, everyone has something profound to contribute.

At the same time, I’ve come to realize how deep but narrow of an understanding each of us have about the human experience. Nobody’s perspective fully explains or grasps the full truth on how to live a good life or be a good person. We all have a fragments of it. We all have a remarkably clear understanding on the little piece that’s been made clear to us by virtue of our most unique and compelling experiences.

If the truth of life were a large tree, we are not photographers standing from afar that can see the whole tree. Rather, we are each little birds that understand just the leaves and branches right around us.

Which leads me to two big takeaways - to understand the big truths of our human experience we need radical diversity and radical questions in our lives.

RADICAL DIVERSITY

The importance of diversity in teams trying to solve complex problems is not a new idea. Scott E. Page (Go Blue!) has done fascinating research in this area. I loved his book on the topic, The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies.

But what I would say, is that diversity isn’t just important for team problem solving. To understand the tree of human experience we need radical diversity in our live so that we can learn about the far reaching parts of the tree we’re all in, so to speak. Like, we don’t just need to learn from people who are different from us, they need to be radically different, from branches on the tree that are far, far away from us.

For example, there’s just some things that drug addicts understand better than others. Straight up. Or people who have lost parents early in life. Or people who have been bullied. Or people who have been insanely wealthy or dirt poor. Or people who have lived abroad. Or people who’ve had to execute massive projects. Or people who’ve studied the arts. Or people who have built things with their hands. Or people who have been abused. Or people who have raised children. Or people who have lied or have been lied to. Or people who have been to space. Or people who have served the most vulnerable. Or people who grew up in most typical suburbs. Or people who have been farmers. Or people who have committed heinous crimes and returned from prison.

Or whatever radical experience it is. There are just some things that folks who have had certain kinds of radical, intense experiences just understand better than I do. To really understand the human experience, I can’t settle for knowing people who are different than me - I have to learn from people who are radically different than me.

RADICAL QUESTIONS

At the same time, I will not learn much about the human experience, even if I have radical diversity in my life, if I only talk to those people about topics like the weather, sports, politics, or celebrity gossip.

To learn about human experience we have to talk about the radical things that have happened to us, which means we have to ask radical questions.

I don’t claim to be great at this yet, but I have learned a lot on how to ask good questions. And radical doesn’t mean sensational. It means questions that are reflective and require emotional labor.

And yes, I’d suggest that those sorts of questions are indeed radical. Because honestly, the bar on asking radical questions is really low. Even though the questions I tend to ask aren’t extremely radical most of the time, it’s easy to clear a very low bar.

Most questions that we’re ever asked in our day to day lives are boring and sanitized. Think about every customer feedback survey you’ve ever taken: boring. Think about every question asked during a panel discussion you’ve attend: boring or loaded with assumptions. Think about every question you’ve ever talked about chit chatting at a bar or waiting in line somewhere: boring or safe.

There are so few forums where we ask or are asked questions that require reflection or emotional labor. And so, all we ever learn about is our little twig on the tree of human experience, even if we’re surrounded by radical diversity.

And I’d also say that it’s not that scary to ask a radical question, though it may feel that way. If you haven’t, you should try it sometime.

We are so deprived of radical questions in our lives, I’ve found that many people seem to feel liberated when asked a radical question. We’re just waiting for the opportunity to share something radical, if we believe we are listened to, safe, and respected.

Radical listening and radical love in settings of radical diversity lead to radical answers to radical questions.

I think most people, at least my age, care about this wisdom of how to live a good life and be a good life. We can help each other do this. We really can.

I am determined - 2020 will not become a hashtag | Hurricane-proof Purpose

I am determined not to let this year, 2020, become a hashtag. Every time I hear the punchline of a joke or a meme end in something like, “well that’s 2020 for you” I cringe. To me it’s defeat. It’s a resignation that we do not have agency over our own fate, or at least our reaction to our fate. I am determined not to let 2020 become a hashtag, even if it’s just in my own head.

In most instances, this is where I’d insert an “easier said than done”, but I don’t think so. It’s actually very easy to bounce back from a “that’s 2020” mindset. All it takes is focus on a higher purpose.

If a higher purpose for my life is clear, then all I have to do is focus on that purpose. And just consistently think about that north star purpose and work on that. Focusing on that pre-established higher purpose pushes all of 2020’s qualms - both the legitimate trauma this year has brought, and the whining too - out of my mind.

The key is that purpose can’t be petty, shallow, or ego-driven. It has to be deep. It has to stir to the core. A higher purpose is only higher if it can withstand the hurricane times, like the ones we are living in. 2020 is not the hard part, building a hurricane-proof purpose is the hard part.

For me, that purpose falls into two parts - one related to my private life and the other related to my public life. I have been thinking about this for years, I think, and it’s starting to become clear. But my personal purpose is a bit beside the point right now. What really matters is, “how?”

Three friends of mine, Alison, Glenn, and Nydia, were among a handful that sent me some transformative comments to an early draft of a book I’m writing. Their particular comments pushed me on this point: the difficulty in living a purposeful life is not just living it consistently. That is hard, but how do we even figure it out? What’s the mental scaffolding we can lean on?

I have much more thinking and writing to do on this, but where it starts, for me at least, is being really good at noticing things. And luckily our mind, body, emotions, and perhaps even our soul are very sensitive instruments for finding these purpose-fulfilling moments if we calibrate them properly. Just listening to our mind, body, and gets us pretty far. But for that to work, we have to know how to listen and what we’re listening for.

Step one, I think, is calibration. Perhaps a good exercise is thinking of 5 or 10 instances where you had very strong emotions or were deeply immersed in thought. Maybe there are a couple of moments that you think about obsessively, even though they were seemingly small.

And when I think about my 5 or 10, some of them are self-indulgent feelings. They are times when I had a strong emotional reaction because of external affirmations, power, recognition, and ego. Throw those times out of your sample, they are false positives. Those aren’t the moments that lead to a discovery of higher purpose, in my experience. Rather, those are the moments that have taken me in the precisely wrong direction.

And then, remember those remaining moments vividly in your mind. Really feel them. How would you describe those feelings? Let your guard down, and let the deep feelings of peace, joy, or courage flow through your body. Try to amplify the feeling until you feel it in your torso or your limbs. Get to cloud nine. Go higher. Get to the place where you know in your bones that something about this memory is related to a hurricane-proof purpose. This feeling is your filter to exclude the memories and experiences that are false positives.

Step two, I think, is adding data to your dataset. Think of all the times where you feel similar feelings of deep emotional courage, peace, and joy. Think of all the times where there was something that stirred in you nobly. Think of all the times you felt flow or a state of pure play. As you go through your day, take a pause if you feel the beginnings of those feelings.

Organize these moments in your mind, write them down if you have to. Get as many data points as you can, being careful to separate out the moments that are simply ego-boosters and not examples of the deep, purposeful stirrings we’re looking for. Try to filter out the false positives.

I find zen meditation techniques to be helpful practice for getting better at this type of noticing.

Then explore the data and find the patterns. Talk about it, journal about it, do whatever you have to do. Slowly, the right words to describe purpose emerges. And then it changes as you get more data. And as you get more data, your filter gets better too. It’s very bayesian in a way.

This post became something much different than I originally intended. Whoops.

But the point is, I am personally determined not to let 2020 become a hashtag. The best antidote I can think of is focusing on a higher purpose. It’s easy to say go do it, so these reflections are the best advice I have to offer, so far, as to what that higher purpose may be for you.

I don’t know what help I can be, but please let me know if you think there’s something I can do to support you if you’re on this type of journey. It’s kind of like applying an algorithm to ourselves and what we feel.

4-Part Daily Gratitude

Starting a gratitude changed the course of my life. I don’t even think that’s an overstatement.

In my times of highest anxiety, thinking about gratitude helped me to think about and even feel my feelings. I suppose it may vary from person to person, but I am not able to function normally when I’m completely gripped by high-intensity emotions. Being emotionally stable is a necessary condition for living out my best intentions.

Writing down gratitudes helps me stay centered, even, and calm. There are many ways to do this. Here is how I approach it, which I took from a meditation class on Glo.

I write down four sentences as part of my morning routine. I happen to do this as part of my first order of business before I start my work day.

I recommend keeping your gratitude journal in the morning, but doing this at any time daily is great. Here are the four parts to my daily gratitude journaling:

• Who is someone I am grateful for?

• What is something I am grateful for?

• What am I grateful for in the coming day?

• What is a problem I am grateful for?

If I’m feeling angry, I might add, “Who do I forgive?”. When in despair, I might add, “What do I pray for?”.

There’s no 100% right way to do a gratitude journal, as long as you write out what you are grateful for. It’s hard at first, but definitely worth going deep on, every day.