When the TEAM reps sat down around a set of couches at Sal & Mookie’s on that sunny February afternoon to brainstorm a final theme for this school year, for this season of March-April-May and all that it entails, we kept returning to the fact that so much of our stress originates from self-imposed expectations for ourselves and our students. We thought to ourselves, “what does that stress produce, and what would it mean for ourselves and our students and our colleagues if we gave ourselves permission to let go?”
But when it really comes down to it, how good are all of us, really, at letting go?
Letting go of resentments. Letting go of assumptions. Letting go of plans. Letting go of positions. Letting go of control. Letting go of deeply rooted ideologies. Letting go of ridiculous expectations for ourselves and others. Letting go of relationships that no longer serve us. Letting go of the desire to win the argument or have the last word. Letting go of our children as they grow up. Letting go of bad habits. Letting go of a shirt that has a memory of that one time we went to California and I was pregnant with Alianna and needed something cooler to wear.
Yeah. I’m not great at any of it.
(The irony of it all is, the things we need to “let go of” often are things we never had control of anyway. We are fabulous tellers of this particular lie, “I am in charge of my destiny.” Then a thing happens and it is all like “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU THOUGHT YOU ACTUALLY HAD ANY SAY IN YOUR LIFE HAHAHAHAHAHA.” Then some time passes and you pick up that lie of supreme self importance again because it’s convenient and empowering and makes you feel a little god-like. It’s no wonder that surrender is such a central concept of the Judeo-Christian faith, and probably of other faiths I am less familiar with around the world. We humans need a boost from the divine in this particular realm.)
At a recent conference I learned about something from one of my favorite podcasters (“Hidden Brain’s” Shankar Vedantam) called the IKEA effect. (For an episode on the phenomenon, check this one out.) Basically the idea is that we as humans are naturally resistant to change in general, but we are especially prone to dig our heels in deep when the change involves something we built, created, or began. Why is it deemed “the IKEA effect?” Just think of that furniture (and Swedish meatball) wonderland, the joy you get from buying super-cheap unassembled furniture, loading it into your car, and then spending hours putting something together yourself. It may be crooked and made of fairly cheap material (in my case, it’s a miracle if it’s standing), but BY GOD, I BUILT IT, SO IT IS NOW MY MOST FAVORITEST, PERFECTEST THING IN THE WORLD AND YOU CANNOT CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE.
So is the delusion of the human condition.
I feel the same way, by the way, about writing and revision. Anyone here who has dabbled in academia knows the fury that Reviewer 2 almost always invokes. “HOW DARE THEY TAKE APART MY ARGUMENT THAT WAY?!” and “THEY WANT ME TO DO WHAT to my perfect MANUSCRIPT?” An outside eye is rarely off base, and yet, our writing and research is just so deeply personal. We are so close to it we cannot see the forest for the trees. The slashing of even a single phrase feels like the removal of a sub-appendage. I am the type of writer who loves the novelty of a blank page, the invitation to fill it, the promise that it entails. But I am also the type of writer who hates to revisit that page once it has been filled. The fun part is over; the tedium now begins. I’m already bored by the ideas that once thrilled me. Ughh.
Still, this year I felt supremely convicted by a passage I encountered with ENG12 in Kiese Laymon’s Heavy:
“‘The most important part of writing, and really life,’ you said, ‘is revision.’ . . . . For the first time in my life, I realized telling the truth was way different from finding the truth, and finding the truth had everything to do with revisiting and rearranging words. Revisiting and rearranging words didn’t only require vocabulary; it required will, and maybe courage. Revised word patterns were revised thought patterns. Revised thought patterns shaped memory. I knew, looking at all those words, that memories were there. I just had to rearrange, add, subtract, sit, and sift until I found a way to free the memory.” (Laymon, Heavy, p. 86)
Is letting go fundamentally an act of revision? Is it, when it comes down to it, a brain surgery of sorts that shapes our identities and perceptions and our constructions of past-present-future? Sometimes in our letting go we rearrange. Sometimes we add. Sometimes we (my least favorite) subtract or sit or sift. Could this all be in service of a type of freedom?
My mother rarely loses an argument. She is, even in her middle 70s, far sharper than I and even in her mellowed out phase of life she tends to win the last word. I recall sometime in my growing up she encountered a helpful phrase from one of her favorite Christian preachers-teachers, the fiery Joyce Meyer: “I think I’m right, but I COULD be wrong.” Not only did this defuse some of our recurring familial clashes, but I found it supremely helpful, the ability to simultaneously assert my truth (I’m not backing down in this particular value-laden argument) while also making just a tiny room, an inch for the humility to acknowledge that you never know. That dependent clause represented imagination, which is really the prerequisite for any future possibility of letting go or revision or whatever you want to call it.
“What if that thing that felt so important was taking me in the wrong direction?”
“I think I’m right, but I could be wrong.”
“This wasn’t in my plans, but hey, let’s give it a try.”
Maybe you are in a season of letting something go. Maybe you (like me) tend to feel like letting things go is a failure or a compromise or a confession that you screwed up. Maybe this month’s theme of “permission to let go” is just what you need to let in the light of a little more imagination. Maybe that imagination could feel a bit like freedom. And maybe that newfound freedom could buy all of us a much-needed breath of fresh air.