How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - How to Fail: A Christmas Message

Episode Date: December 25, 2020

An alternative Christmas message for anyone who needs it.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. A Christmas message from How to Fail. I was going to start by saying happy Christmas, but the more I think about it, the more of a conspiracy it seems. Happiness is relative after all.

It's nice to be happy, but on this particular day, in this particular year, in the midst of a global pandemic and with nothing but uncertainty to look forward to, the pressure of having to be happy might feel a little too much. So forget happy. If you happen to be happy right now, I'm thrilled for you and hope you rejoice in the feeling but if you don't feel happy, that's absolutely fine. I don't expect it from you and you shouldn't expect it from yourself. Perhaps you feel sad or anxious or worried. Perhaps you feel sick or scared or lonely. Perhaps you feel misunderstood or heartbroken or exhausted. Perhaps you just feel drunk. Whatever emotion you're experiencing, please remember that feelings are like the weather. They can be really, really rubbish, but they do pass of their own accord.

And every feeling in our register of sentient emotion has validity. Every feeling teaches us something about what it is to be human. If you feel sad, I promise you that when it passes, and it will, the contentment on the other side will seem all the better for it. Life is texture. As for the Christmas part of Happy Christmas, well, I've long believed it's a bit overrated. Never forget, it is a day we have accorded special significance in a calendar we invented in order to give the enormity of time the illusion of linear logic. We are surrounded by loud voices telling us all about its importance, fueling the notion that if we aren't gorging ourselves on mince pies and watching Home Alone on repeat while

decorating the house in fake snow and performing a karaoke version of Mariah Carey while surrounded by 55 members of our close loving family, then we are somehow failing. It's exhausting living up to the myth of other people's projected perfection of what Christmas should be at the best of times. perfected perfection of what Christmas should be at the best of times. This year, it's impossible. You could argue it's religiously significant, but then so is Diwali and Eid, so is Hanukkah, none of which we've been able to celebrate in the usual ways this year. So let's imagine that Christmas is just another day. Let's accept that happiness is, at best, a transient feeling. Let's acknowledge that this year, we are allowed not to feel happy on this random day in an invented calendar. And let's all take a deep breath. We made it. We are here. And all the extraordinary,

we are here and all the extraordinary unprecedented moments of this year the big stuff and the small has brought us to this wholly unique point in time where I am talking to you and you hopefully are listening we're connecting with each other that's enough you are not alone I'm right here with you I'm right here with anyone who doesn't have a conventional family, who perhaps doesn't have a family at all, who is grieving the loss of loved ones or unlived lives, who might be working today, who might be in a hospital or a care home looking after others, who might be missing their friends, who might themselves be ill or self-isolating, who might have had to interrupt life events, both major and minor, from fertility treatments to funerals, from holidays to significant birthdays,

from hinge dates to hen do's, all because of a virus beyond our control. I'm here. I see you. As we look ahead to what lies beyond this single day, I want to recall the wise advice of two of my former podcast guests, Mo Gaudat and Alain de Botton. Mo believes in optimism, Alain in the power of constructive pessimism, and most of us, I think, fall somewhere in between the two. Mo would tell us that we are not our worst thoughts, that when our brain gets caught on an anxious narrative loop, it is not serving us. Often when our brain is thinking anxious thoughts, it fixates on pointing out all the things that might go wrong, rather than the things that might go right, that we might have to be positive about. The next time your brain tells you we are doomed, challenge it on the objective evidence

behind its assertion, because you are the boss of your brain, not the other way around. And if your brain does not have objective evidence for its negative assertion, ask it kindly to replace the negative thought with a positive one. In this way, we can politely train our brains to be happier. Life, Mo would say, is an exercise in managing expectation. If the events of our lives are equal to or less than our expectations of how they will be, then we can be content. Because pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. This year has undoubtedly caused us all pain. But we do not have to live in a place of repeated suffering, constantly replaying the awfulness of it. We need only concentrate on right now. And here's the thing, almost no one actually knows what's going to happen. So it could just as likely be the good stuff that lies around the corner rather than the bad.

If we seek out the good, we are happier in the present moment. Why ruin the present moment by worrying about things that haven't happened yet? Alain de Botton, by contrast, would counsel confronting all your most terrible fears face to face. by contrast, would counsel confronting all your most terrible fears face to face. Invite yourself to think about the worst case scenario and then ask yourself if you could cope with it. Most of the time, unless you're thinking about death, the answer is yes. You wouldn't want to have to cope with it, but you could. So if you're worried about work, the worst case scenario is that you would lose your job. Not ideal, but could you cope with it and still be a living, breathing entity? Probably yes. The best case scenario is that you get promoted on a vastly inflated salary and end up retiring

in six months. Also, sadly, unlikely. Extremes always are unlikely. The reality will probably lie somewhere in the middle. Once you realise that you could cope, it's a liberating feeling. And once you've named your fears, they become less likely to cause you anxiety. So can you cope with what lies ahead? so can you cope with what lies ahead yes because you already have you've got through this year well done as for the future well it hasn't happened yet so let's not worry about that today instead for now i'm raising a glass to wish you if not a happy christ, then one more day of being human and of getting through. I'd like to leave you with a poem that has helped me through some of the toughest times of my life. It is The Guesthouse by Rumi. This being human is a guesthouse. Every morning a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all, even if they're a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture. Still, treat each guest honourably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. Love that poem. Be grateful, my friends, for whoever comes. Here's to you, here's to us, and I'll see you soon. if you enjoyed this episode of how to fail with elizabeth day i would so appreciate it if you could rate review and subscribe apparently it helps other people know that we exist