THPR Challenges

*THPR is The Happiness Project Revisited, and in January we have a week of prompts. Here are a few more. These are boring navel-gazing, fair warning:

Are You Promotion Focused or Prevention Focused?

Do I gravitate toward achievement-related goals, or risk-avoidance goals? She framed this as being the difference between setting a healthy eating goal as “eat more vegetables” (achievement goal) or “stop eating junk food” (risk-avoidance goal). I split riiiiiight down the middle. As the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter of the only daughter, the striver-servant spirit is strong in me. I want to get an A+ in everything I do – I love achievement for achievement’s sake, often to my own detriment. But as part of the Xennial birth cohort that has lived through a brutally competitive job cycle, and a lawyer who people call for help on the worst day of their lives, I see risk everywhere. So, I’ll take care in phrasing any goals or targets set, but either “eat more vegetables” or “eat less junk food” would motivate me.

What Do You Wish People Understood About You?

The first thing that came to mind is “I need help sometimes too.” I am capable and helpful and strong – I have very developed leadership skills and, I think, a generally deft and careful touch with coordinating groups of people in work projects, family trips, and the like. (Sometimes I am also annoying and pushy. But sometimes that’s what it takes!) But I think that maybe my usual resilience means that others don’t hear me when I ask for help. They’re so used to me being the helper, they don’t recognize when I’m flailing – we are stuck in the typical roles and it’s hard to break out. I was very ill at Thanksgiving. Niece/nephew germs took this girl OUT, I had a fever for days and zero energy, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t sleep. And Liam, my middle boy, my most self-sufficient and least social child, took on the job of caring for me on his own, without being asked. He checked in, tucked blankets, fetched drinks and food and aspirin. He saw me as needing help and he nurtured me in a way that was so impressive – with empathy, gentle concern, and consistent loving attention. And I didn’t even ask – he just noticed my need and filled it. (I was able to return the favor at Christmas, when he was taken down by the flu, poor man.) I told the Prof how lovely it was to be taken care of in that way. In this season of life I’m the carer, both due to personality and due to being the mom. And that’s ok, but when I need taken care of it’s so special to have someone recognize it and just do it, and do it lovingly and well. And that’s not something that often happens for this gal – even my mama this Thanksgiving was too tied up caring for the little germ gremlin nieces and nephews to have anything left for me on this Thanksgiving trip. And I told Patrick – she’s pretty much the only one in the world who cares for me like that. And Liam taking point made me realize that I wish I had more support like that, generally. (I don’t think she reads this, or any family on that side, but if anyone does, I am not mad! I hold no grudges! I’m exploring a prompt through recounting an experience with Liam and how the situation made me feel – not criticizing anybody.) (Thanksgiving this year was a marathon – 10/11 grandchildren were there, 7 of them aged six and under, and 2 of those were infants – everyone was exhausted! Lovingly, happily so, but still – those kids wore us all out! I can’t tell you how many times I said “my God I am too old for this.” Small children are for the young, for sure.)

Do You Feel a Pull Toward Work or Leisure? Has This Ever Been a Source of Friction in Your Life?

I am pulled toward work. I am driven by a motor – leisure is what I do to store up energy for work. By “work” I don’t mean my job, which I am weary of and would happily leave behind. But if I had two weeks vacation from my career, for example, I would likely take a day of napping and watching tv and napping some more, but the remainder of the two weeks would see me writing or reorganizing a closet or going out to museums and then looking up the works I see to learn more and then maybe writing about that. The friction sometimes is that a mind cannot be creative or productive without long periods of rest. I can get overstimulated, over-driven, kind of like a baby that stays up late enough that they can’t go to sleep even though they are exhausted. Creating windows of forced leisure makes me anxious – I visualize all of my tasks as a bunch of helium balloons and if I rest, I will let go of the strings and the will all fly away. Sometimes I have to force myself to think of them instead as stones to build a wall – heavy burdens that need attention, but aren’t going anywhere if I sit for a moment. Leisure is restorative, but I am by nature restless and . . . itchy? Not literally itchy but figuratively.