Believe that you might be wrong.
It’s one of those classic both-can-be-true-at-once ideas that seems contradictory but is not.
Would you like to buy this print? Every week, there will be ten prints (and that’s it, forever) available for $8 each (including shipping). Each 5x5” print is numbered and signed. Be sure to choose “WEEKLY PRINTS ONLY” for your shipping option at checkout. Last week’s sold out, so hop on while you can! Here’s that link again.
A note for you, if you’re having a bad day.
Dear Friend,
Usually, we talk about how you are beating yourself up too much. I stand by the importance of that topic: each of us is expert at knowing exactly the most hurtful things to say to ourselves, and we often whisper those hateful platitudes in the depths of our worst days, reminding ourselves how unworthy we are of other people’s love — when actually, it is an absolute shining-golden truth that you are, exactly as you are, worthy of love right now, no matter what.
Today, however, I am going to bring up a different idea. It’s one of those classic both-can-be-true-at-once ideas that seems contradictory but is not. I am going to talk about taking responsibility for mistakes, missteps, misbehavior, and the like. Humility is, weirdly, one of the pre-requisites for radical self-love. One of the great foundations of believing in your own worth is also believing that, about most things, you might be wrong.
For my part, I’m wrong all the damn time. I’m also stubborn about my rightness, even when it turns out to be wrongness. It’s embarrassing to write specifics here — I’ve typed and erased a lot of anecdotes already. Wrongness can be small (I believed that Skittles were full of gelatin), or it can be big (I believed that charter schools were the be-all-end-all of education), or it can be enormous (I believed no one would ever really be able to love me), but it’s basically inevitable if you’re going to live in the world as a human.
Entering conversations and relationships equipped with the understanding that you are going to be wrong about things probably more than half the time has two important implications:
You are honoring the inherent worth and dignity of any human being with whom you’re interacting. You see people as whole: they bring entire lifetimes of learning with them. There is no one who doesn’t have something to teach you. This is the same as having compassion and empathy. It is the same as understanding life on earth as a collaboration and not a solo project. Ultimately, that isn’t just better for the people you interact with; it’s better for (and it’s easier on) you.
You are honoring your own radical capacity for change and growth. The metaphor I often think of (and it’s pretty saccharine, so please feel free to email me with a better one) is about sunflowers. If sunflowers were sentient, and were to believe at any point in their lives that they were done growing — that they were complete and had nothing new to learn — they would atrophy as sprouts and never actualize into magnificent butter-toned fireworks that feed goldfinches as they die. Taking ownership of the things you get wrong means you are making space for your own sunflower-explosion. You are saying, “I believe in my own ability to be more than I am right now. I am going to feed some god-damn songbirds.”
Crucially, you aren’t wrong on a fundamental level; you aren’t wrong at your core. Your feelings can never be wrong, either. Not a single person is equal to the worst thing they ever did, or the best thing they ever did, including you. We are more complicated than that.
To that end: boundaries are useful (“I am still hurting too much because of what happened between us to talk to you”) while broad judgements are usually not (“you hurt me; you are a hurtful person; you are an abuser; you need to stay away from me”). Remember, too, that it’s OK for people to draw boundaries with you. It doesn’t mean you are bad; but it might mean you were wrong.
The sooner you can take ownership of the possibility that you messed up, the sooner you will have space to grow taller, brighter, and into your best possible sunflower-self.
Love,
Sophie
Add this to your to-do list.
It’s the time of year to start paying attention to leaves. Notice the trees that go yellow or red early, and the ones that change colors more gradually. Use an app like Seek or PictureThis to learn the names of the trees (these apps let you take a picture of a leaf with your phone, and then they tell you the species), so you can appreciate their final moments before they take the whole winter off.
Speaking of taking the whole winter off: look at your calendar / to-do list, and cancel one plan. (If you really can’t, then take some joy in cancelling this one.)
A drawing.
I posted something about crying / tears today on my Instagram, and had a few outtakes that I didn’t end up putting up. The first two are from this piece I did in 2018 for SpiralBound on Medium called “The Crying Chronicles” (you can read that for way more fun facts about crying). The second is a more recent context-free list of everything that made me cry in the month of June.
What’s on my mind this week.
(This will be about pregnancy. Skip it if you don’t want to read about pregnancy.)
I’ve turned a corner. Every day is physically worse than the day before, so I’ve started reframing my experience as, “Today I feel the best that I will feel for the rest of this pregnancy.” In other words, rather than feeling sadness and dread that tomorrow will always be worse than yesterday; I try to feel gratitude that Right Now will always feel better than tomorrow. This seems like Pollyanna-ish thinking that should not be helpful, but it’s actually vastly improved my mood. On the other hand, I am eating “badly.” My legs are so swollen that there are no standing-up activities, including making salad, that feel accessible. (Except teaching. Teaching is my mom-lifting-a-car-off-a-kid thing. I’m glad I get to keep teaching during this time.)
Extras.
I’m finally reading “Maybe You Should Talk To Someone” by Lori Gottlieb. It is so totally delightful and absorbing. It’s not the kind of book that will change your life, but it is the kind of book that will remind you why you love reading.
Old episodes of “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood” on in the background while you do other things is a good, healing soundtrack.
Pitchfork re-reviewed albums that they decided were initially scored incorrectly, and “Take-Offs and Landings” as well as “Begin to Hope” got the upgrades they absolutely deserved. High school me feels VERY vindicated.