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Hello –
I recently read two blockbuster celebrity memoirs while holding my dear son during his nap times. Over the course of a couple weeks, I finished Jennette McCurdy’s I’m Glad My Mom Died and then Matthew Perry’s Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing in a quiet corner of a dark room with noise machines whirring and the rhythm of a tiny snore nestled below my left ear. I’d let a sliver of light peek through the blackout curtains so I could see the text, turning the hardcover’s crisp pages slowly so as not to wake a sleeping baby.
While not as literary as another memoir I’m reading (Notes on a Silencing by Lacy Crawford), both books gripped me and wouldn’t let go. I couldn’t wait for naptime so that I could enter the world of these books. What drew me in most were the candid and detailed accounts that both McCurdy and Perry share regarding their various addictions. I was amazed at how they “managed” the extent of what they were going through while working on some of the biggest shows ever. Both lived through mountains of horrifying experiences that don’t make any of the fame or money seem close to worth it. Each book includes some celebrity dishing, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would, but what I really liked best were the glaring reminders that bludgeon the pages – to paraphrase Perry, fame and money don’t fix anything, and no one will believe it unless they experience it themselves. He shares that at the height of his career, when he was on Friends and starring in Hollywood movies whose billboards were plastered with his name and face above the Sunset Strip, his addictions and mental states were at their worst. He was sad, depressed, isolated. He claims that he’d trade his fame and fortune for the life of a friend / contemporary who never made it as a working actor and who lives in a rent-controlled apartment (unlike Perry’s various mansions and penthouses). Perry writes over and over again how he wishes more than anything to be in a settled relationship and to be a father. I felt grateful as I listened to my son’s quiet snores despite finding it hard to believe that the monumental fame and fortune weren’t all that great.
While McCurdy was chasing her mother’s dream for fame, Perry was chasing his own. Regardless of how they came by their desire for the quest and eventual conquest to be some of the biggest figures in entertainment, both actors sacrificed their health and sanity at the expense of serenity and joy. In each actor’s case, there seemed to be a lot of if/then thinking, i.e. if I get that big role, then I’ll be okay… or if I get that next big house, then I’ll feel comfortable in my own skin… There didn’t seem to be much space for presence or enjoyment of their success while they were going through it.
As I pursue my various endeavors, I often wonder what the light at the end of the tunnel will be. When my cup runneth over with clients, then will I feel like a successful coach? When my bands are featured in the press with glowing reviews, then will I feel like a worthwhile musician and bandleader? When I have my own pickleball facility, then will I feel like an instructor that people love to learn from? When my son exceeds development milestones, then will I feel like a good dad?
Both memoirs etched into my present mind the fact that there’s nowhere to get to. We are already here. And that it’s my relationship with the here that counts most. And can where I am right now, and the path that I’m on toward the future, be good enough as it is right now? Do I have to wait until everything is perfect according to my own wishes and fantasies to do certain things or be certain ways?
After finishing both memoirs, I thought a lot about a review I read a couple months ago for a new philosophy book by MIT professor Kieran Setiya, called Life is Hard. The review, which is titled “Positivity is Overrated” by Irina Dumitrescu, includes many nuggets of wisdom that had me underlining many points as I read along. For starters: “Trying to live a perfect life in difficult circumstances, ‘only brings dismay.’”
The “difficult circumstances” that Setiya refers to can vary from person to person. And it goes without saying that some people have more objectively difficult circumstances than others. However, in light of reading the celebrity memoirs, it’s obvious to me that no one is immune to the inherent plights of human nature. So how do we navigate? For one, Setiya challenges the concept “that happiness should be life’s primary pursuit. Instead, he argues that we should try to live well within our limits, even if this sometimes means acknowledging difficult truths.” Living well, according to Setiya, isn’t about accomplishing everything one sets out to do or being the most renowned or externally successful person imaginable. Rather, “it lies in embracing one of the many possible ‘good-enough lives’ instead of aching for a perfect one.” It also deals a lot with cultivating compassion for others. To quote the review:
“‘Life Is Hard’ pushes back against many platitudes of contemporary American self-improvement culture. Setiya is no friend to positive thinking — at best, it requires self-deception, and at worst, such glass-half-full optimism can be cruel to those whose pain we refuse to recognize. He describes a situation many of us have experienced: We tell someone about an illness or a fight we had; they try to convince us not to worry so much, or to focus on the bright side. Worse still, they might tell us that ‘everything happens for a reason.’ This grotesque bromide is, explains Setiya, ‘theodicy,’ an attempt to justify suffering as part of God’s plan. The problem is not that it cannot be true — theologians can extend divine providence to anything, even childhood leukemia — but that such thinking can easily serve as an excuse to avoid compassion.”
I avoided compassion the other night during a text exchange with a friend who’s going through a crisis. As he texted me messages along the lines of how much his life sucks right now, how he thinks he’s the worst, etc. I found it hard to be compassionate. I told him that it’ll all be okay one day. I sent him a Brené Brown TikTok. I didn’t pick up the phone to give him a quick call. Granted I’m his longtime friend and not his coach, I did all the things I learned in my coaching training of what not to do when someone expresses dismay about their current state. I remember during one of my training sessions when my instructor Damian told us never to say to a client who, after sharing about some of their current troubles, something along the lines of, “At least you don’t have Covid,” “Don’t worry, everyone goes through stuff like this,” “It’ll all work out in the end. You’ll see.” etc. It’s much simpler and much more challenging just to listen and bear witness to someone’s pain and strife than trying to fix it. And yet that’s often the most helpful thing to offer someone else, that is bearing witness and being present to their strife.
For years, neither McCurdy nor Perry let their loved ones or trained professionals know the actual extent of their pain and suffering. It seemed like part of their individual resistance to being vulnerable was due to some thinking along the lines of: who would feel bad for them given their whopping celebrity status? Despite millions of people knowing them, both Perry and McCurdy were partitioned off from anyone knowing who they really were.
Dumitrescu writes in her review that:
“The golden thread running through [his book] is Setiya’s belief in the value of well-directed attention. Pain, as much as we wish to avoid it, forces us to remember that we are indelibly connected to our bodies. Ideally, it also helps us imagine what it is like to inhabit the bodies of others, imbuing us with ‘presumptive compassion for everyone else.’ Listening carefully, whether to good friends or to strangers on a bus, can help us feel less lonely. ‘Close reading’ other people, trying as hard as possible to see them in their full humanity, is a small step toward a more just world. By cultivating our sensitivity to ourselves and to others, we escape another destructive modern myth: that we are separate from other people, and that we can live well without caring for them.”
One thing I missed most about life during the height of the pandemic was the chance to spontaneously connect with people, whether good friends I’d see in certain places each week or strangers in waiting rooms or at the yoga studio. These inherent moments of connection got me out of my head, got me to stop thinking about the past or the future, and generally consisted of joyful moments. No agenda, no wishing things were better or different or the way they used to be. I would call these moments unintentionally mindful, which is why they were so freeing:
“Mindfulness is also Setiya’s answer to the threat of personal failure. If we can teach ourselves to notice all the splendid, varied incidents of our lives, he claims, we are much less likely to brand ourselves with a single label, winner or loser. He encourages readers to abandon simple narratives about success over the course of a lifetime. I suspect this is why Setiya so often finds his conclusions in poetry, not in philosophy: The experience of suffering leads to messy, counterintuitive truths.”
Thankfully the poetry of daily life is somewhat back to how it was pre-pandemic, yet there are still many opportunities to create structured moments of poetic interactions or breakthroughs. When Dumitrescu concludes her take on Setiya’s book, it almost sounds like she’s giving a testimonial for a powerful coach: “Reading [Life is Hard] is like speaking with a thoughtful friend who never tells you to cheer up, but, by offering gentle companionship and a change of perspective, makes you feel better anyway.”
If you’d like to create structured moments of compassion and gentle yet powerful perspective shifts, I invite you to consider a coaching session with me. Please contact me to test-drive a 1:1 session, or fill out this interest form for my first-ever group coaching program, which begins in January 2023: https://tinyurl.com/baronaccountabilitygroup.
Until next time,
Matt
P.S. I’m adding episodes of my podcast/audiocast to Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Please have a listen!