Post #21 of 40
Giving Up thinking it Matters
For a decade, we kept the poem, “Washing Doorknobs,” stuck to the refrigerator, first with Scotch tape and later with a magnet when we moved. I cut it from the New Yorker one Christmas break while flipping through magazines for our New Year’s Day vision boards. The part of the poem that I have memorized is “How happy we are, how unhappy we are, doesn’t matter.”
Since finding, clipping, and reading over and over “Washing Doorknobs,” I have been fascinated with the word - matters. Lately, I’ve been playing with these questions:
What matters to me?
What matters to someone else?
How does our own mattering impact our lives?
What matters in an existential way?
Do goals or outcomes matter?
The questions above that are in bold are the ones that I decided to explore today, and the part that goes with the title of this post is at the end.
What matters to someone else?
I knew by the age of six that I had to work harder than other children, especially my sister, to have a tidy room and neat handwriting. I gained no pleasure from a clean room or from neat handwriting, so taking the time did not make sense to me.
I was sent to my room on occasion to clean it. I never did a good enough job. I have heard the term “clutter blind.” Maybe, I just didn’t see the stuffed animals on the floor or the Barbie clothes on the end of the bed. But, I realized the tidiness of my room mattered to my mother. I knew she loved me, and while she wanted me to have a clean and tidy room, she did not expect perfection or hours of drudgery. She wanted me to enjoy being a child - climbing trees, playing basketball with the kids next door, or training my pet mouse, Rover.
At some point, though, I noticed that not only did it matter to my mother that my room was tidy, it mattered to her that I learn each time to do a little more, to always strive for a slightly tidier room.
And, that’s when I came up with the idea that I would purposefully leave out one giant and easy to put away item that would give her pleasure as she “taught” me that it matters to try just a little more.
After this ah-hah moment at about the age of 10, the next time she came to inspect my room, she said, “Okay one more thing, just put the globe back on your desk, and straighten your lampshade, and then you can head outside.”
That was easy! Her wish to help me do one more thing had been accomplished, and I got to go outside.
Figuring out what mattered to her made my life easier.
As I grew older, I had a knack for noticing what mattered to friends, relatives, and even to talent show judges. I noticed and commented on a rugby shirt that Kate expertly sewed in one weekend; I brought ice cream to Nana, and I added movement and dancing to my act in the next talent show.
Figuring out what matters to others is one of the keys to being a good friend and relative and to achieving success.
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How does our own mattering impact our lives?
My parents were 22 years old when Janet was born and 25 when they had me. I don’t really know how they parented so beautifully. I never doubted that they loved me or that I mattered to them. In fact, I always had the sense that I, Kathryn, mattered in a bigger way — not just to my parents.
A month or so after returning from Okinawa, I was in the kindergarten show at my grandmother’s church. My mother and Nana sewed a white, sparkly snowflake ballerina-type costume that was identical to the other girls’ costumes. Waiting for our entrance, the other snowflakes pointed out that my white tights had a pattern, and they were supposed to be a solid white. I told the snowflakes that my mother wanted me to have special tights.
Where does a five-year-old snowflake come up with this answer? Somehow my parents, who were barely 30, had instilled in me that I mattered and that others’ opinions didn’t have to bring me down.
How can we make sure that we project, “You matter” to the people we meet, the ones we raise and teach, the teens and stressed out parents at our church, our spouses and our neighbors?
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Do goals or outcomes matter?
Some friends and I were discussing life with a capital L last fall during a potluck dinner. Diane’s sister became a topic of conversation. Sometimes, it’s easier to talk about a sister than ourselves. Diane’s sister, Meg, had been trying to decide whether to move to a warmer, sunnier spot for a position that was basically a lateral move. The weather was calling her, and a change was too. Meg had talked to her therapist hoping for some clarity, or at the very least some probing questions to help Meg figure out if her life would be better and if she would be happier if she made this move. “Guess what the therapist said!” Diane had us on pins and needles, and with a playful grin, she said, “It doesn’t matter. You’ll be the same person either place, either job.”
I think we were all stunned. We explored the decisions we had made in life thinking they would “matter.” Did we find success in jobs after leaving the ones we didn’t like? When we moved to a bigger house with two bathrooms, did the morning arguments stop? When we lost 20 pounds, were we suddenly happier?
We enjoyed exploring this idea of whether making a change really matters if we are looking for a specific outcome. We took turns talking about what “mattered” to us and what goal or outcome we were working toward.
I confessed to the women that what I really wanted was a happier marriage. Tom and I were happy, had been married for 35 years, but we were going to be entering a new stage within a year or so if he retired. Wasn’t this the time to cross the t’s and dot the i’s and make sure we had the happiest marriage possible? I knew he loved me, and I loved him, and we enjoyed spending time together, but I was hung up on this idea of having a happy marriage.
Diane said, “Maybe you should decide that it doesn’t matter if you have a happy marriage. You do you. He does him. You’re both loving and kind to each other. Continue to be considerate housemates. Spend time with each other, but then at the end of the day…that thing we call marriage…does it have to fit into some sort of category of being ‘happy’?”
The idea of deciding it doesn’t matter if we are in a happy marriage seemed so backwards, and yet…and yet…I liked the idea of trying it on for size.
I took Diane’s advice - be kind, loving, and considerate; be a good housemate; enjoy spending time together. Give up this expectation for us to have a happy marriage, though.
Within a week, I sensed a difference in our home. More joy, more laughter, more peaceful moments together. We were lighter with each other.
How could giving up the expectation of a happy marriage actually make for a happier marriage?
Today I told a friend about this post - about my fascination with the word “matters.” I told her the story of giving up thinking that it matters that we have a happy marriage. She said, “That makes me think of holding lightly.” As she said this, she cupped her hands in front of her as if she had a butterfly resting where her fingers meet her palms.
I think I may have figured out the secret…for me, at least.
I take our marriage seriously, but I hold it lightly.
I challenge you to look at the outcomes you may be holding onto, the ones that are so good and noble in theory. Maybe there is a way to take them seriously, but hold them lightly.
Maybe it doesn’t matter if you publish that book or run the marathon or travel to all fifty states. Maybe, just maybe, the secret is deciding that the outcome doesn’t matter.
Just take it seriously and hold it lightly.