Spoiler alert: In the third season of the British TV show Downtown Abbey, the charming blue-eyed husband of the protagonist, Mary Crawley, dies in a sudden car crash. Mary goes into shock. She retreats into herself, barely paying any attention to her newborn son and slinking away from all responsibilities. After 6 months (or, well, 15 mins in TV-time), her family gives her a wake up call. It is time to move forward, they say. You must make a choice. Choose death, as you have been, or choose life. This cold-water treatment knocks Mary out of her stupor, and she begins to take on responsibilities and a role in the world again.
The harsh but deeply loving suggestion to dispel grief with obligations struck me. I (and many of my friends) struggle with the freedom-obligation conflict. Obligations are all the things we know we should do. Work hard. Exercise. Go to that networking event. Get good grades. Be productive. Freedom is the shrugging off of all of that. Endless days with no commitments, and the ability to go anywhere at anytime doing anything.
The freedom story is tantalizing. There’s an entire therapy narrative around throwing out ‘shoulds’ and being gentle with yourself. Yet, despite how it appears, living without shoulds is a one-track road to unhappiness.
Amidst watching Downtown Abbey, I was in a bout of running away frantically from shoulds. I had been holding a gun to my head to force myself to fulfil obligations, and I resented it. I found any excuse to turn away from the gun, avoiding scheduling calls with friends and saying no to side projects. I pined for a feeling of vacation and endless days without commitments. Then, I read the Art of Gathering by Priya Parker.
It sounds like a strange source of emotional advice, but hear me out. Priya, with insight and captivating stories, breaks down types of hosts of gatherings:
The generously authoritative host exerts her power in the best interests of the guests. If everyone at a table is introducing themselves and one person has been talking for 10 mins, a generously authoritative host would step in and ask to move to the next person. They're authoritative, in guiding social behavior, and generous, as it protects the guests.
Ungenerous authority is exerting power that is not in the best interests of the guests. Priya gives an example of a dinner hosted by an alcohol company. Despite serving dinner at 10pm (i.e. famished-o-clock), they made everyone wait until a panel of experts had explained the dinner and how it paired with each of the alcoholic drinks. The organizers held the guests hostage for purely self-interested motives.
And then there's the dreaded Chill host. The chill host abdicates power because they don't want to impose; they think that leaving guests to their own devices is magnanimous. But, in the absence of the power of the host, someone else steps into power. You end up with that one loud guy monopolizing the conversation the entire night. In trying to create freedom, you instead create a space where anyone can step in and shape people's experience.
How does this relate, you ask? I realized that we're actually hosts of ourselves. We so often host ourselves with ungenerous authority – enforcing shoulds that are really societal expectations and not in our best interests. I should get coffee with this person. I should work an extra hour. Yet the opposite, being a chill host, is equally as bad. By giving ourselves freedom, we let anything step into the power vacuum that emerges. And, let me tell you, binge watching Netflix and browsing Twitter are powerful guests. Depression, in part, comes from learned helplessness. And if we don't impose structure on our lives, other forces will, leaving us feeling helpless.
What we really want is to be generously authoritative hosts towards ourselves.
Obligations can be in our best interests. If you want to write a novel, you need to write a little bit every day. If you want to build a community, you need to consistently call friends. Everything that is meaningful takes discipline and commitment. The danger comes from mixing up the obligations from social expectations (like I should work an extra hour) and obligations that are good for us (like going to sleep early).
Once you realize this distinction, you can throw out the ungenerous shoulds without throwing the baby out with the bathwater; you can start to be disciplined in a way that's kind to yourself.
I'm still thinking of Mary Crawley's friends looking her in the eye and saying: You're stronger than this. Get up, go outside, and take back your responsibilities, because you need to choose life. I'm working on developing that kind but firm voice for myself, giving up the fallacy of freedom and signing myself up for obligations that are good for me.
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