When the going gets tough

Things are tough in the United States right now. According to the kind of motivational slogans people wear on t-shirts, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. They don’t falter. They don’t whine. They put on their game-face and rise to the challenge.

Good for them. But what about the rest of us?

Well, being one of the not-so-tough, I know what I do. I falter. I whine. I search frantically through my drawers for my game-face, which I have somehow misplaced. Then I rise — reluctantly, imperfectly — to the challenge.

Whining seems, for me, to be a necessary aspect of rising to any challenge. (Procrastinating, moping around, and sighing heavily are others.) Since whining is unattractive and unpleasant for others, I try to confine the worst of it to my journal. Yet it’s such an indispensable part of my process that I long ago formulated a Rule of Life that goes like this:

            Rule #2: Everybody gets to whine.

            Corollary to Rule #2: Not too long, not too loud. Other people get their turn, too.

(Curious about Rule #1? You’ll have to wait.)

Once I get thoroughly bored by my whining, I remind myself to take the problem in tiny chunks. This corresponds to the story about how to eat an elephant. (Answer: “Bite by bite.”) Big problems get solved only in small, incremental steps. I start by identifying the real problem. (Harder than it seems! The real problem often lurks under cover of an apparent problem.) Then I try to do one small thing — almost anything — to make the situation better. Inertia is the enemy. Even if I don’t land on a solution right away, I’ve created forward momentum.

I also try to treat the problem as though it’s someone else’s. Because I was a teacher, this usually takes the form of, “What advice would I have given a student in this situation?” About 90% of the time, the advice I would have given is the advice I need to take.

       Intimidated by a writing project? Write a shitty first draft (that’s from Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird).

       At a loss in a social situation? Find a way to make another guest more comfortable.

       Annoyed at someone? Blow off steam elsewhere, then figure out a time to work it out when feelings are cooler.

And so forth. We know how to do these things. We just need to remember what we know and apply it.

Lastly, here’s a piece of hard-won, unwelcome wisdom: Relish every mistake. Human being learn by making mistakes. If we’re putting ourselves out there, if we’re moving forward, we make mistakes. So, after years of bewailing my many failures and errors, I finally formulated this as a Rule for Life:

       Rule #3: Everybody makes mistakes.

       Corollary to Rule #3: So you might as well be generous to yourself and others about it.

Those are a few of my solutions for tough times. I’ll bet you all have devised your own solutions – as well as your own Rules for Life. Let’s hear them!