Pay it Forward was a simply horrible movie.  So I sort of cringe to broach this topic because discussions of this nature always remind me of that movie and, well, make me cringe.  Nevertheless I came across this piece on The Huffington Post last night and it caught my attention.

Author David Nichtern points out that one of the hallmark tenets if Buddhism is the belief in the ripple effect.  That is, that there is a relationship between cause and effect, and that we can exert our influence over the happenings in our lives by taking actions that bring about certain reactions.  He comments:

If we manifest grasping, aggression and ignorance in the smallest details of our interaction with others, these energies gather power and strength like an avalanche. If we lace our smallest exchanges with awareness, courtesy, consideration and compassion, we can create a ripple effect with a different outcome.

Nichtern goes on to point out that adding such awareness and compassion to our interactions with others are really just the basic elements of common courtesy.  And I think that common courtesy is far too often overlooked.  Call me old fashioned (and in some ways I am), but it seems to me sometimes that the world has gotten big enough that we believe we can afford to abandon common courtesy.  If we step on someone’s toes today we may not ever see that person again, so why not just look out for ourselves?  Perhaps we can get away with this approach for a while, but I don’t think it sounds like a very satisfying way to live.

So, in the interest of keeping this post brief, I will part with this thought: do something courteous today.  Do something nice for someone who didn’t ask for it.  It doesn’t have to be anonymous.  It doesn’t have to be significant.  Hold a door.  Offer someone change for the vending machine.  Let the person in a hurry take the taxi you just hailed.  Or whatever other opportunity avails itself to you.  I highly doubt you’ll regret it.  And it might just circle back to you.

I’ve been on a bit of a Tina Fey kick this week.  It started on Monday with Curtis Sittenfield’s essay about Fey in the New York Times.  Then on Tuesday I recorded and watched her appearance on Oprah.  And on Wednesday, by pure chance, I happened to catch her being interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air while I was out running errands at lunch.  It was this last encounter that I found most interesting.

Terry Gross is a fantastic interviewer.  While the gravitas of her delivery can sometimes be a bit self-important, she has the amazing ability to render any subject fascinating.  She delves into aspects of her guests’ lives and work that are often overlooked in other media outlets.  And I always appreciate the depth and nuance of the responses she elicits.  Tina Fey was no exception.

Ms. Fey talked about many of the expected aspects of her rise to fame:  The supportive parents, the make-ends-meet job at the YWCA, the first meeting with Lorne Michaels, her first experiences in front of the SNL cameras, and so on.  But it was her commentary on the rules of improvisational comedy that struck me most. 

As Terry Gross probed about her time in The Second City comedy troupe in Chicago Fey talked about her appreciation for the structure that exists in a scenario that seems (at least to the outsider) to be pure chaos.  In particular she mentioned two rules that resonated with me.

Rule Number 1 – Make declarative statements.  In improv scenes you are supposed to say something.  Don’t ask a question.  Don’t make a statement with the intonation of a question.  Say something – anything – for the other person to respond to. 

Fey talked about how this is most often a challenge for women.  Many women get into that moment on stage and their fear of saying the wrong thing corners them into wishy-washy, question-based dialog that immediately puts the onus on the other person to come up with something real to say.  I know that here in the blogging world we tend to be fans of questions.  We love to ask questions that don’t really have answers.  We love to explore shades of grey and levels of nuance.  These are all good things.  But I think we are also inclined to use our affection for questions as an excuse for not saying anything definitive.

Rule Number 2 – Enter when you’re needed.  Apparently it’s a bit of a chore to teach new improv students the appropriate moment to enter a scene.  Is it when you come up with something funny to say?  No.  Is it when the scene is getting funny and you want to be a part of it?  No.  Is it when you have an idea for a new character in the scene?  No.  You enter the scene when you’re needed.  You enter when you feel it start to lull and when you can tell that the actors on stage need the injection of a new character to maintain their momentum. 

Applying this rule to my life feels like taking a breath of fresh air.  I am not always needed.  Quite often the people around me are doing just fine on their own.  It is okay for me to sit back until I am actually needed.  I don’t always have to be the first person to jump up.  I don’t have to participate in everything.  I can sit backstage, watch the scene unfold, and enjoy myself.  I only need to enter the scene when I’m needed. 

Figuring out exactly how and where to apply these sketch comedy rules to my life is going to take some thought.  But they seem like the kind of rules that ought to be applied more broadly.

Around this time last year I was wrapping up a month-long vegetarian experiment.  Its purpose was not only to challenge my dietary boundaries, but to learn about the nature of our food supply, so I augmented my vegetarian practices with some educational reading.  By the end of the month I had determined that I would reintroduce meat into my diet, but that I would be more selective about the sources of the meat.  And for a long time I lived up to that commitment.  But I’m here to confess to you today that lately I have backslid.

See that roast chicken?  The one right up there?  It looks delicious, doesn’t it?  Well, I can assure you it was.  That very chicken was served for supper in our house last night.  I served it with orzo pasta and roasted vegetables.  Yum yum.  However, in spite of its deliciousness, I have some major ambivalence about it.

You see, that chicken – the delicious one up there – represents a moral failing on my part.  When I purchased that chicken I stood in the butcher section of my grocery store and looked at it.  Then I looked at the free range, organic, air chilled one next to it.  The second one truly did look better.  Then I looked at the price tags.  My chicken (about 4.6 pounds, for those who keep track of such things) cost $3.23.  The guilt-free bird (of comparable size)?  It was a little more than $16.  Sixteen dollars!  For one chicken!  I just couldn’t do it.  So I picked up the cheaper chicken (or, the “chipper chicken” for those who have watched Father of the Bride too many times), and slinked away.

People like Michael Pollan would tell me that a chicken should cost about $16; that factory farming has artificially created an economy that allows me to purchase a chicken for $3.23; and that while I may not be paying for my chicken at the cash register I am paying for it in other ways (such as filth in our food system, environmental damage, and the moral degradation that results from supporting shameful animal husbandry practices).  And they would be right.

So why, then, do I find it so hard to pay what Pollan types would argue is a fair price for a chicken?  And why am I still worrying about it days later?  And why am I fessing up here in this blog post?

I guess I’m here writing these words because I feel like it’s the honest thing to do.  This?  Having integrity about the source of the food we eat?  It’s hard.  Factory-farmed food is easy.  It’s cheap.  And it’s highly convenient.  I’ve read books and newspaper columns and magazine articles and blog posts about our food system.  Most of it sickens me.  And yet, in spite of all my knowledge, when faced with two chickens and a $13 price difference, I made a choice I’m not proud of.

During my vegetarian experiment last March I never did watch Food, Inc.  I think my conscience could use a jump start in this department, so I’m vowing here to watch it soon.  In the meantime, I’m hoping that by coming clean in this post I’ll be able to shame myself into being more conscientious in my shopping habits.

I’m not perfect.  And while I’ve never claimed to be, there for a while I had some pride about my dietary morality.  So I’m here confessing my shortcomings, and hoping that a dose of humility will serve its purpose.

On Saturday night I teased my hair up into a high bun and twisted a silver ribbon around it.  I put on a grey jersey dress, grey patent stilettos, and some uncharacteristically funky silver jewelry.  My pink lips were the sole pop of color in a tone-on-tone ensemble.  We were headed to a wedding.

The wedding was lovely.  It was a perfect reflection of the bride and groom, and it brought together friends from all corners of their lives.  GAP and I had a good time sipping our drinks and chatting with old college friends.  And throughout the evening the dance floor was full, as the newlyweds are music lovers and put a great amount of effort into finding a great band.

It was a winning night all around, but the highlight for me was a six-year-old girl.

Once the bride-and-groom and parent dances wrapped up she took to the dance floor with her dad – he in a dark suit with a sunny yellow tie, and she in a pleated white chiffon dress with black sash and black cardigan.  He twirled her under his arm.  He held her wrists and spun her as her feet dangled beneath her.  I smiled at them and then turned back to my conversation.

At first it looked like any wedding dance floor where the child pulls the parent to the floor and the parent obliges until the song is over, and then returns to the table to reclaim a cocktail and an adult conversation.  But this was not that.  Four songs, five songs, six songs later – they were still at it.  The father’s shirt had come untucked and his temples shone with sweat.  His performance was not obligatory.  They bounced and boogied.  They did the twist, the mashed potato, and every other move in the book.  They were tireless.  It wasn’t until the dance floor had been open for more than an hour that they took a short break.  Moments later they returned to the floor, the dad without his jacket and the girl without her shoes.  The twirling and spinning resumed.

Then, as the father picked his girl up her pretty party dress shifted and that was when I saw them.  Underneath her dress she wore a pair of white bike shorts.  I beamed.

She knew.  She knew that she planned to spend the entire reception on the dance floor.  She knew that her father would swing her around.  She knew that she would twirl, and that her skirt might fly up.  Or at the very least she hoped for these things.  And so she came prepared.

Four days later I’m still thinking about her night on the dance floor.  I’m thinking about her frame of mind.  So often we prepare for the worst case scenario – the seatbelt, the bike helmet, the rainy day savings, the life insurance policy.  But how often do we set out to do something with a best case scenario in mind?  How often do make our plans expecting the best?  How often to we go to a wedding with bike shorts on under our dress?

I can’t speak for you, but I know that my own answer is “not often enough.”

To some extent we have to plan for the worst.  We have to know that when plans go awry we will withstand the challenge.  And I would argue that safety nets of this nature actually allow us to enjoy the here and now a bit more since we can relax knowing that a contingency plan is in place.  Nevertheless, I think most of us could stand to imagine the best case scenario a bit more often.

I may never actually wear bike shorts to a wedding, but I think the analogy could serve me well.

Last night as I put the finishing touches on my Friday post, GAP and I got to talking about it.  As I told him of my topic and my perspective on it he furrowed his brow.  He didn’t like where I was going.  I’ve written many posts that GAP disagrees with, and I’m fine with that.  I don’t write with or for his approval.  But while I don’t care if our opinions on a topic differ, I care greatly what he thinks of my writing.

Last night, while he did disagree with my perspective, his larger objection was with my approach.  He felt that I was parroting a refrain that has been exhausted in the national media, without taking the time to consider it critically or to look at the other side.  He was right.  His criticism stung then (it still does) but I have a greater appreciation for it this morning.

So I come to you today with half a post, but not half a point.  We should all exercise careful judgment when choosing the people whom we allow to assert their influence over our beliefs and actions.  But once we’ve made those choices we should hear what our counterparts have to say, even when we don’t like it.  My conversation last night was certainly one of those times.

My original post will be published at some point, once I’ve researched it further, based it in fact rather than anecdote, and broadened my perspective to represent other views.  In the meantime I am thankful that GAP (a bit like Mrs. Elliott) reminded me that I am capable of more.  It seems that these are lessons we must learn more than once in our lives.

Do we need change even when we don’t want it?  If we avoid change now do we pay for it later?  How big does the potential payoff have to be before we will abandon a known quantity for the promise of something better?

I got to thinking about change and its repercussions yesterday in response to Aidan’s post.  Aidan wrote about being stuck; about how we all reach moments in our lives when we feel as though we are spinning our wheels to no avail; about the scarcity of change in the moments we seem to need it most.  Her post wasn’t about change exclusively, but that was the direction I went with the comment I left on her site.  By the time I finished typing my lengthy response I realized that perhaps this topic was worth exploring further on my own turf.

I wrote:

As children, teens, and young adults life provides us with near constant changes and opportunities for growth and evolution. We learn to walk and talk. We learn to ride a bike and play sports. We learn to write in cursive and to multiply. We learn to drive and to think critically. We vote. We go to college. We graduate. We get jobs. We get married. We have kids.

Then, for many of us, we get to our mid-thirties and realize that nothing big has changed in a while. Career is plugging along. Kids are plugging along. We look around and things are much the same as they were five years ago. And we think, “I’m stuck.”

The fact of the matter (I think, anyway) is not that we are stuck, but that we have arrived in a place where life is not doling out big changes all the time. It is now incumbant upon us to make those changes for ourselves. On one hand, this can be very empowering because we are in more control of the changes we experience. On the other hand, it is very easy to stick with the safety of what we know, continue to spin our wheels, and then deal with the frustration of a life that, in rare moments of real truth, perhaps doesn’t live up to its potential.

All change is stressful.  Obviously, bad change is stressful.  But good change is too.  I’m not quoting specific studies, but any good psychologist will tell you this is true.  Given this, I wonder if we are all hardwired with some base level of disinclination toward change.  This doesn’t necessarily ring true to me – that we are all change averse – because I’ve known people who always seem to be looking for change.  But I’ve never met a teenager or a 20-something with these same complaints; that life has stagnated, or that they feel stuck.  It strikes me as a problem unique to adults.

When we are young change is foisted upon us all the time.  And, for the most part, we embrace it.  The responsibility of a drivers license is welcomed because of the freedom it brings.  We may experience nerves and jitters before moving into our freshman dorm, but I think for most of us those nerves are outweighed by the excitement of a new place, new people, and new experiences.  The same holds true for marriage and the happy eagerness we feel awaiting the arrival of a first child.

So why, once life’s big changes have come and gone, do we settle into adulthood without stirring the proverbial pot every so often?  Aidan’s post indicates to me that this wheels-spinning frustration is something that many adults experience.  Why don’t we just make changes then?  If we are able to embrace change when it is barreling toward us regardless of how we might dodge or cower, why can’t we do the same when it is our choice?

I think the easy answer is that by the time we are older, settled into careers, with spouses and children depending on us, the aftershocks of our decisions reach much further.  We have to consider how big changes will affect our families.  But I also think it is easy to lean too heavily on that rationale, transforming it from a consideration into an excuse.

I wrestle with this conundrum too.  I get itchy and twitchy and feel a need to shake things up.  It’s hard.  Sometimes I chicken out.  But in none of the instances when I’ve been brave and made a change that was hard or intimidating, have I ever regretted it.  I need to bear this in mind the next time I want to let change pass me by.

There was much about my transition from public to private school at the start of eighth grade that challenged me.  Most of it was social and cultural in nature.  I joined the ranks of an eighth grade class with remarkably few girls, which cast a bright spotlight on my arrival.  I knew only  a few people and had to make new friends at an impossibly awkward age.  And perhaps most difficult, I saw dollar signs everywhere I went.  It is no secret that the demographics of the prep school set differ vastly from those of your local junior high, which took some getting used to.

Thankfully for me, though, the academics came easily.  With two exceptions I was free from worry about the academic rigors of my new environment and able to throw myself fully into the social adjustments.  One of those exceptions was algebraic story problems, which I eventually mastered.  The other, interestingly enough, was writing.

Mrs. Elliott knew me pretty well at the start of eighth grade.  The previous spring she tutored me in Latin to help prepare me for the two years of it I’d missed in the sixth and seventh grades.  She knew I was smart.  She knew I was hardworking.  She knew what I was capable of.

Sometime in the first semester of that year her curriculum called for us to write an essay.  More than a book report and less than a senior thesis, we were assigned our first “paper.”  She expected us to use a thesis statement, and the A-B-B paragraph structure she’d taught us.  Our topic: Jack London’s The Call of the Wild.  I wrote and submitted my paper without much concern.  English was one of my strengths and I had no performance anxiety.  So naturally I was filled with shock and dread when Mrs. Elliott returned our papers to us and mine bled red marks throughout and offered a comment at the end which read something along the lines of, “Gale, this is not an acceptable submission for this assignment.  Please see me to discuss your rewrite.”  She didn’t even offer a grade.

Quelle horreur! A punch in the gut, to be sure.

After class I walked, heavy with embarrassment, up to Mrs. Elliott’s desk.  She was firm, but also gentle.  We arranged a time to talk further, at which point she explained to me that my paper was so far off the mark she realized that I didn’t fully understand the assignment.  We discussed paragraph structure and topic sentences at length.  Then she dismissed me to lick my wounds and rewrite my paper.

She received my second submission with slightly more enthusiasm.  It, too, bled red, but less so than my first attempt.  I scanned through her edits and markups, scared to turn to the final page and read my letter grade.  Little did I know that the words awaiting me on that page would, on some level, change me forever.  The grade was a C+.  The comment that followed it was, “Want to try again?”

I didn’t realize at the time the magnitude of her comment.  I was burdened by my initial failure, and hardly buoyed by my C+ consolation prize.  An A student my entire life, I now walked through unfamiliar and unpleasant territory.  I knew that I would write a third paper because I had no intention of leaving well enough alone with a C.  What I didn’t know was that I would remember her words for the next 19 years, and that they would bolster me against all manner of failure in many arenas of my life.

Perhaps it will sound trite, and Mrs. Elliott would never be trite, but in offering me a third chance what she really said was, “Gale, I believe in you.  I believe you are capable of more.  I want to see what else you can do.”

Things could have turned out differently.  It would have been easy for her to fail my first paper and let me learn my lesson the hard way.  It would have been easy for her to take my C+ effort as evidence that I was getting back on track and be done with our little coaching exercise.  Had either of those things happened I think it might have shaken my confidence as “an English student” irreparably.  I might not have matriculated into sophomore English as a freshman.  I might not have journaled every day for the next eight years of my life.  And I might not be here today, blogging three times each week about my thoughts, and self-identifying (finally) for the first time in my life as a writer.

Although I haven’t thought consciously about it in those moments, I believe that Mrs. Elliott’s confidence has guided me through many hardships in my life.  The lesson I learned from her (in addition to the proper construction of a topic sentence) was that I don’t have to accept my first attempt.  If I try and fail that isn’t necessarily the end of it.  I can try again for better results.  And I can try again after that if I’m still not satisfied.  If I’m capable of more, I can work for more.

Since I started this blog a handful of people have complimented my writing and advised that I should consider writing a book.  A few book ideas sit neatly in a corner of my brain, waiting for the right time to be written.  When that time comes, if my words are to be published, I will owe a great debt to Mrs. Elliott.  Actually, I already do.

Once upon a time I was a traveling salesman (woman).  A sales rep for a medical software company, I peddled my wares across the upper Midwest for two years.  I flew out on Monday mornings, and back on Thursdays, usually with a quick stopover at home on Tuesday nights for MBA classes.  There is a lot about those two years that I don’t miss.  The life of a frequent flier is filled with headaches.  Time away from home and husband were draining.  Add part time graduate school to a full time job with regular travel and in retrospect I often wonder how I did it.  (I didn’t have kids then, is the answer.)

There was one thing I did love about all that time away, though: forced relaxation.  When you are in a hotel in Bismarck, North Dakota your to-do list is rendered irrelevant.  It doesn’t matter if your floors need sweeping, if you need to go to the grocery store, or if a thousand other things are hanging over your head.  When you are alone in a hotel in Bismarck (or Omaha or Dubuque or Oshkosh) there is not much option but to sit back and relax.

Yesterday was a similar day for us here in the Midwest.  We got ice overnight on Monday and it sleeted throughout the day on Tuesday.  My office was closed.  GAP’s office was closed.  Nanny stayed home.  And while there was regular checking of e-mail and the odd follow-up phone call, the day was, for the most part, quiet.

I do my best not to lead a life that is forever harried by an unending list of commitments and obligations.  But no amount of effort can fully compensate for the fact that the life of a working mother is a busy one.  If I want to pursue my career, be involved in my son’s life, devote time to my husband, and still have time for friends and hobbies the sacrifice that I make is my quiet time.  I don’t regret the way I’ve ranked these priorities, but I still appreciate the moments when unforeseen logistics step in and upend my little equilibrium, giving me fallow periods that I don’t usually get to enjoy.  There is value to quiet time, and it’s easy to lose sight of that when you’ve forgotten what it is that you’re missing.

When Anne and I were kids quiet time was a regular part of our day.  During the summers when we were too old to nap, but too young to go a full day without my mother needing a break we had “quiet time” every afternoon.  Mom went back to her room to read or write or nap.  And Anne and I were also assigned to our respective rooms.  There was no agenda.  We could read.  We could sleep.  We could play with toys.  The only rules were that we couldn’t play together, we couldn’t leave our rooms, and we couldn’t bother Mom for an hour.

As I remember it I wasn’t a huge fan of quiet time.  I was an active and energetic kid and I imagine I found it boring.  But as an adult I see it in a different light.  One obvious benefit was that it gave my mother respite from my sister’s and my antics.  But more importantly it was the beginning of learning how to be alone.  It was when I first learned the value of pace and patience.  It was when I learned to stimulate my own mind without the influence of other people.  In retrospect I realize that it was an incredible gift.

I mentioned the other day that I’m reading The Not So Big Life by Sarah Susanka.  I’m not through it yet, so I can’t say where it will take me.  But I sense that it’s leading me down a path that will empower me to identify these aspects of my life that I value, but yet have somehow sacrificed (like quiet time).  And I hope that it will also help me better understand how to recalibrate my life to make room for these things, and perhaps trim away aspects of my life that have been improperly prioritized.

Perhaps one day I will look at my life and find it perfectly balanced.  In the meantime, though, I will relish in the snow days and hotel stays that force me to downshift a couple of gears.

Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand. – From The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

“Monkey, you look loved.”

Those were the words our nanny spoke as she and IEP were picking up toys at the end of the day.  Monkey (pictured) is the starting quarterback on IEP’s team of stuffed animals.  There is also a sea lion from the Oregon coast, a bear from the gift shop at The Masters, a mouse from Nanny, a lamb from Williamsburg, and a sock monkey (from Target…).  But Monkey is the favorite.  Monkey helped IEP give up his pacifiers.  Monkey helps IEP sleep in new and different places.  Monkey comforts IEP when he is sick or scared.  He is as much a part of IEP’s life as any of the rest of us.  And it shows.

His seams are worn.  His coat is soft, but pilled in places.  His once-stiff limbs now flop easily.  He’s “gone swimming” with the laundry many, many times.  He hasn’t quite reached the Skin Horse’s description in The Velveteen Rabbit, but I suspect one day he will.

Nanny’s comment came at an opportune time.  As it turns out, Monkey isn’t the only creature who’s been on my mind lately who “looks loved.”  We spent the weekend celebrating the life of GAP’s grandmother.  She, too, looked loved.  Her body was frail and her skin was wrinkled.  And yet she was still completely beautiful.  Much like Monkey, and the Skin Horse, and ultimately, the Velveteen Rabbit himself, she was loved, and she was real, and she could never be ugly.

This trifecta of thoughts (Monkey, GAP’s grandmother, and The Velveteen Rabbit) has been dancing in my head for several days now and has prompted me to think further about how we define beauty, and what we may give up in its pursuit.

We work so hard in this life to have big experiences.  We embrace laughter and hardship.  We travel.  We stay home.  We get sick.  We get well.  We fall in and out of loved.  We break hearts and have our hearts broken.  We learn and forget and remember.  We want, more than anything, to live our lives fully, and to be a reflection of this vast set of experiences.  And yet at the same time we work hard to look just as we did when we were young and green and largely stupid.  We dye our hair.  We don our Spanx.  We have facials and Botox and plastic surgery.  We try to shed years in every way possible which to me (a regular with my colorist since the age of 24) is paradoxical.

Nearly by definition, we can’t know much of anything when we are 18.  And nearly by definition we can’t help but know almost everything when we are 81.   If we are very lucky we will all live a very long time.  We will scrape our knees and our hearts.  We will double over in laughter.  And we will love to the brink of implosion.  Life will leave its mark on us.

At the age of 33 I still contend with a certain amount of vanity.  But in the long run I think I want to be like Monkey.  I want people to look at me and say, “She looks loved.”  Because ultimately, little else matters as much.

A Note About This Post:  I originally wrote and published this post one week ago, on Martin Luther King Day.  It lingered here all day, garnering no comments – a first in my blogging existence.  By that evening I was convinced my title had given the wrong impression of my beliefs about Dr. King, so I took it down.  For the full explanation of my actions (and the thought process behind them) you can read last Wednesday’s post, which is available here.  I offer this explanation so that when you reach the end of this post and I write, “Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day…” you will not presume me incapable of reading a calendar, but will realize that this is the second time out of the gate for this post.     

There’s something off about the American dream.

I’ve been thinking about this intermittently for the last month and I’ve finally put my finger on it.  The American dream is too simple.  It is not nuanced or multi-facted.  It is plain, and brute, and a little crass.  Quite plainly, the American dream is financial.

I realize that this country was founded on principles of opportunity  and the freedom to pursue that opportunity.  And these are very worthwhile principles.  But over time we have come to a single, shared interpretation of them: money.  Sure we still value the opportunity to speak freely, congregate as we wish, worship as we believe and so on.  But when we talk about the “American dream” as a concept what we are talking about is the pursuit of fortune.

As a person who likes money and the things it can buy, I realize that there is value in the financial interpretation of this dream.  For people who live paycheck-to-paycheck it is a compelling idea that with hard work and some good luck they could live awash in comfort and luxury.  But for the rest of us who live somewhere in the middle of the socioeconomic strata, I think the American dream makes us myopic.

I started thinking about this last month when Aidan asked the question “Is bigger always better?” When I first commented on Aidan’s post I focused on the implicit expectations of “bigger.”  That is to say, the bigger something is the more we expect of it.  Sometimes we find that when we opt for something smaller we are ultimately happier because we are unburdened by massive and sometimes-unrealistic expectations.  I have thought more about this since then, though, and decided that this diagnosis falls short.

I happened back upon a website I bookmarked a long time ago called The Not So Big Life.   A few years back architect/author Sarah Susanka wrote a book about home scale and design call The Not So Big House.  In it she described how the American dream has eradicated everything we love about our homes.  New houses traded thoughtful design, charm, intimacy, and attention to proportion and scale for carelessly conceived vaulted ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, and giant open floorplans that leave us feeling unmoored in our own homes.  The success of the book indicated that Susanka had struck a nerve and she went on to apply the same attention to “composition” that she uses in home design to the rest of her life.

Susanka points out how much of our lives are crammed with obligations and activities that we have piled onto our existence without consideration for what value they bring (or what value they destroy).  She argues that we pay little attention to the way that we compose our lives and that as a result we are left with days that are filled to the brim, yet leave us feeling empty.

I wonder how our cultural evolution might have been different if the American dream weren’t about success; or perhaps rather if success were measured by some yardstick other than the dollar sign.  Might we live in homes that were designed with more regard for our needs and less regard for our reputations?  Might we think more carefully about the ways we choose to spend our time?  And might we be more inclined to say “No” every now and then, leaving more space in our lives for things that really matter?  If the American dream didn’t drive us to prove our success to the rest of the world would we find ourselves happier, and with less?

At this time of year our New Year’s Resolutions are still fresh in our minds.  Mine focused on ways that I can improve myself, my relationships, and my imprint on the world.  As I thought about how I want to be different in 2011 the pursuit of fortune and the acquisition of more material belongings did not factor into the equation.  I think this is true for most of us.  When we really take time to consider the aspects of ourselves and our lives that matter the most we get it right.  I think the problem is that we spend so little time really considering them.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  Today we will think about his dream for America.  We will laud his vision and applaud his leadership, and rightly so.  We should also remember, however, that his dream – perhaps the most noble of any dream dreamt by an American – had nothing to do with bigger begetting better.  Tomorrow, when the commemorations have passed and we are back at our regular lives, we would do well to remember that there is nothing wrong with wanting more from our lives.  But we should ask ourselves “more of what?”