The Next Awesome

 The other day I had an argument with a family member that spiraled into me spending the better part of an afternoon thinking about all the past wrongs this person had done to me and worrying about what it will be like when I interact with them next. I’m less bothered by the specifics of this incident with the family member, and more this tendency to dwell on negative things and let them consume so much of my time. What can I do to brush things off better and worry less?

It’s been raining on much of the Eastern seaboard, which means extended time in close quarters with family members for a lot of people. Cabin fever can set in as early as 2 pm on a rainy day, and by dinner time, battle lines are drawn. It can be really tough.  Rainy day card games can’t fix everything. 

Since I live alone I’ve spent part of this rainy day on my own, cleaning, sorting, cooking ( I made steak!!) and preparing this post of course. 

I know what this is like, this problem of yours. I have a tendency as well to sit and ruminate over things for way too long. I think part of the problem is believing that you can “unravel” the issue by poring over the facts and looking for patterns. The problem for people like me and maybe you is that you can create patterns and connections in situations that aren’t really real, and are just produced by imagination, hurt, and the overthinking process in general. Then you’re stuck in this situation of being mad, or upset or anxious or whatever the feeling is that this situation brought on, and you can’t quite get out again. 

There are several ways I deal with this. One is to try to limit the amount of time I’m going to dwell on the topic. I know I’m going to do it anyway, just sit there and replay the conversation or go through the steps of what happened, so I might as well just get down to it and try to keep it short. I even set a kitchen timer for ten or fifteen minutes so I can be sure to keep to the prearranged time. (The timer technique is also a key element to a method of time management known as the Pomodoro Technique. Worth looking into.) Sometimes, rather than setting the timer, I’ll add my worrying/stressing to another activity, as in “I’ll worry about how that meeting didn’t go according to plan while I go for a run, and get as worked up as I want to while I’m running.” Whatever technique you use, you have to STOP worrying about the thing when the time or the activity is up. It will be really, really hard at first but it takes practice. If you need to schedule another worry session for hours or days from now, go ahead, but for now you’re done. 

This works for me because “stop worrying” is like saying, “stop thinking about a pink elephant.” Suddenly all I can do is worry, or sit and picture a placid elephant, bedecked in pink wrinkles and peppermint stripes, munching leaves against a darkening savannah sky. 

By just allowing yourself to worry (or pout or rage or whathaveyou) but only for a limited time, you’re sort of making a deal with yourself. You’re giving into your dwelling tendencies but only if you can get some time back to move on in a healthy manner, which is what you really need. “Both of you” win. 

My partner and I are both non-religious (apatheistic and agnostic, respectively) and want to have kids at some point. We plan on telling them that grandma and grampa on my side are Jewish, and grandma and grampa on my partner’s side are Catholic, but we are humanists. Our kids will get some sense of their extended family identity, but hopefully learn religion is not a barrier to people getting together, and that it is an anachronism. Sometimes I think, however, that their Jewish identity is more of an ethnic identity, and worth imparting in them in that regard. I know ethnicity is a construct, that teaching this erodes the above mentioned lessons, and that it privileges their Jewish background over their Catholic background (so does my partner). Should I try not to be a hypocrite, or is their validity to my concerns that requires a balance?

I had an extremely difficult time trying to think of or find a picture that went with this question that wouldn’t run the risk of offending anyone or any religion, which is the last thing I wanted to do.

So I chose this scene from one of my favorite films ever, Annie Hall (yes, I know it’s a lot of people’s favorite, and yes I like roses and cheeseburgers and other common favorites OK?).  It’s when Alvy contrasts the WASPy Hall family dinner with memories of his own boisterous meals with his Jewish family back in Brooklyn. It’s a funny yet warm depiction of the clash of cultures two people can bring into a relationship.

Also, can I just tell you, I found this picture on a very engrossing site called Every Woody Allen Movie. I’m going to have to go back and dig into that later. I could talk Woody Allen for hours. I’m interested in what the author has to say about, well, Every Woody Allen Movie, obviously.

But now back to your question. I think you’ve got a really interesting situation here. Two very different cultural/religious backgrounds, two fairly different positions on personal spiritual belief (apatheistic and agnostic), and a desire to raise children who have a sense of being part of a strong cultural heritage while also learning how to make up their own minds about the world. That’s what I see. It’s a lot to handle. Ain’t love grand?

I’m not sure I totally see the hypocrisy in your plan. Is it that you feel like you’d be teaching your children to be culturally Jewish without teaching them to be spiritually Jewish? Look, you need to do what you’re comfortable with. And what you want to do. They (will be) your kids and you can screw them up raise them as you see fit, as long as you’re clothing them and sheltering them and providing them a safe place to learn and play and grow, which it sounds like you’re more than willing and eager to do.  I don’t think teaching them about their Jewish culture (without the religion) necessarily HAS to rob them in some way of their Catholic side, although I understand your concerns there. Catholicism is in many ways part of the cultural identity of the places where it’s most common ( ie the Italian take on feast days, South American holiday traditions, etc) and yet it’s less common and more difficult to talk about Catholicism as something that has such a strongly specific ethnic/cultural association, as we do with Judaism.

I don’t see hypocrisy though. If it’s important to you to balance, then balance. Personally, I was raised with both Christian and Hindu holidays by my parents who had emigrated from India to the Southern US. My mother was raised by an Anglican mother and a Hindu father and so grew up with a mix of both religions, which is also what we practiced in our house. I’d say I grew up mostly agnostic but with a good sense of what religion meant to my parents and what they wanted it to mean to me, even if I didn’t feel it myself in the same way. I think they were pretty respectful of that, as long as I was respectful of their traditions and values. Which I mostly was.  It’s a pretty amazing way to grow up spiritually, to be honest. I’m still not sure how they did it.

There’s every possibility of course that despite everything you’re planning to teach your kids, they’ll grow up to be the opposite of everything you believe in. Or they’ll respect your worldview and filter it through the way they see things. Or something else.

Just follow the #1 parenting rule this non parent has: let them read whatever the heck books they want. 

Even though kids who read a lot often get you into a situation like this.

—The Next Awesome.