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Psychobabble: The Joke About the Hat

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There’s a comic strip – it’s a classic Calvin and Hobbes strip -  tacked up in my office.  Four panels, all featuring our young hero, which read like this: “Here I am.  Happy and content.  But not euphoric.  So now I’m no longer content.  I’m unhappy – my day is ruined.  I need to stop thinking while I’m ahead.”

Lake Effect essayist Linda Benjamin understands where he’s coming from.

There are ways we all can make ourselves miserable. And, despite being a therapist, I am as guilty of this as the next person. That’s why therapists have therapists, because we can’t be objective or objectively supportive of ourselves. One way I notice I can make myself unhappy, is to compare myself to others and find myself wanting. When I was a high schooler I remember wishing: If only I had her hair (straight and shiny, while mine was curly). And if I had her figure, which was tall & willowy, while mine was short and chubby. And if I had her clothes, which were whatever mine weren’t. I wouldn’t have changed my family for those of the other girls or my sense of humor. Even today, who hasn’t thought: “If only I had his money or her fame or their kind of marriage.” The truth is, we really don’t know what somebody else is dealing with unless we are them. And maybe part of being human is having that little fantasy that somebody else has got the perfect life---another way of never feeling quite satisfied with our own.

Here’s a little story I consider the story of my life at times (and possibly yours!)

A grandmother takes her little grandson to the beach. It’s a beautiful sunny day as they throw the beach ball back and forth. The little guy, who’s about two years old, is giggling and chasing the ball in the shallow water and having so much fun.

And, then, there’s a thunderclap, and a huge wave comes and sweeps the boy away.

Of course, the grandmother is beside herself. She raises her hands to the sky and yells to God, “He was only two years old! Why did you have to do that? My daughter in law is going to kill me!”

She carries on like this for a long time. And then, there is another thunderclap, the water calms and the sky clears, and a waves comes in depositing the small boy at his grandmother’s feet, not a hair on his head harmed.

Whereupon the grandmother looks up, raises her hands to the sky and shouts: “He had a hat!”

I’ve called that my defining joke and I’m only half joking when I say that. But how often do we ever think: It may not be perfect, in our country, but it is possible to fight back by getting a lawyer or starting a movement or signing a petition. Or, the people in my life are challenging, but imagine how I would not have grown had they not been in my life. Or, I may be worried about my future, but haven’t I worried about my future before and hadn’t it turned out just fine.

Even the most difficult situations we go through, most difficult people we deal with---have their teachings. And, as the saying goes, “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me strong.” So, while we can all gripe and moan about what isn’t working just the way we want it to—as my favorite Buddhist Nun, Pema Chodron has said: moment is the perfect teacher.” Maybe the real joy in life is in appreciating the little and the not-so little miracles all around us and in weathering the missing hats.

Lake Effect essayist Linda Benjamin calls her series “Psychobabble.”  She’s a Clinical Social Worker in private practice in Milwaukee.