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On Easter, I went to a kids egg hunt that got a little bit awkward. The mom who arranged it had said the party would start at 10 am, and the egg hunt would be at around 10:45.
I got there right at 10, and most of the other people who’d been invited were there by 10:30 or so. The kids were getting pretty rowdy prowling around the backyard as they looked—but couldn’t touch—around 200 eggs. And at about 10:40, the mom who had arranged the party announced that the egg hunt was about to begin. The kids all lined up, and she yelled, “Go!”
If you’ve ever held any sort of egg hunt, you know that it takes an hour to prepare and 14 seconds to happen. The kids swarmed the backyard and within two minutes, the whole thing was over. At about 10:44, a mom walked in with her son and found that the egg hunt had already happened. They were devastated. I felt really bad for them, and I felt really bad for the mom who had busted her ass to organize the whole thing.
The mom who organized it was mortified—I’ll call her Heather (not her real name). She apologized profusely to the other mom (I’ll call her Mary), and scrambled to grab some of the eggs and candy and give it to the kid. The awkward part was the exchange between these two moms, who were both heartbroken that one of the kids had missed out.
Heather said, “I am so, so sorry. I should have waited a few more minutes.”
Mary said, “Yeah, you had said the egg hunt was 10:45.”
Heather said, “Oh no, did I?”
Mary said, “Yep, that’s what you said. I have it right here.” And she held up the text as evidence.
Heather looked even more devastated. “I’m so sorry. I had meant that as an estimate. I should have probably waited.”
And Mary said, “Well, I did say I was coming, so I wish you would have waited for all of your guests to arrive.”
When the whole thing had begun to unravel, I felt like I had one foot on each side. I understood why the organizing mom had gotten the egg hunt started a few minutes earlier than originally intended. I also had thought of 10:45 as an estimate, not an official start time.
And I saw the faces of the mom and the kid when they arrived, and that was a gut punch. I felt for both of them.
But then I swung toward Heather, the mom who organized the whole thing. I get being bummed out, but I thought Mary had started to really pour on the disappointment sauce. Want to mention once that you thought she had said 10:45? Sure, fine, I wouldn’t do it, but go for it. But to go back to that well over and over again? That felt like unnecessary roughness to me.
And this is just my two cents here, but I think when you get invited to a two-hour party with a big event in the middle, I actually think it’s a little rude to just show up for the big event. Imagine if you invited your friends over at 6 for your birthday party, and somebody asked to just come and eat the cake and then leave.
I’m talking about this on my sober newsletter because I noticed a very distinct change in my behavior throughout the exchange. It was extremely awkward the entire time. All the parents were staring at their feet or uncomfortably wandering around during the conversation between Heather and Mary, and a few tried to jump in and make everything okay one way or another. I just stayed out of it. I know that probably sounds bad, like I was a weak bystander, but it’s more like minding my own business and overcoming a character defect.
The character defect is that I have a serious issue with people pleasing. I need people to like me. I need people to like you. I need people to like both of us. I need all people to like all people. And I absolutely cannot watch as two people don’t like each other in front of me—I need to jump in and save the day.
That might not sound like such a bad thing, but it is a recipe for failure in life. People pleasing means I go outside of boundaries to try to make everybody and everything okay, and that doesn’t work. It took me a long time, but the longer I have been sober the more I realize I am never going to have a 100 percent approval rating. So I need to do the next right thing, even if somebody ends up not liking me.
It also means I don’t constantly try to play peacemaker in random situations. I used to do that all the time, and it inevitably ended badly. I’d try to moderate the situation, or jump in with some funny comments to try to make everybody smile and maybe that would end it. I’d always end up involved in an inappropriate way, and I’d end up with some pain in a situation that didn’t have anything to do with me. You can’t really solve other peoples’ issues for them.
And by random situations, I don’t mean ignoring two of your kids fighting in the living room or seeing somebody assault a server at a restaurant. In those cases, I think you have an obligation to intervene. But if I see two people arguing at the grocery store, or an email exchange where two people are bickering, or an egg hunt timing dispute, if I am not involved, I’m probably better off not diving in to try to make it all better. If I were to be asked to step in, I probably would. But in this case, nobody asked me to make it all better. I have to sit back and trust the universe.
So I didn’t get involved and I stayed out of it. Heather apologized profusely and just stopped engaging in the argument, and the universe did indeed step in. The other kids had begun to notice that one fo their friends had missed the egg hunt. So the kids started coming over, one by one, unprompted by any of the adults, and they gave the late kid some eggs they had found. Over the course of 15 minutes, I watched this kid’s basket fill up more and more and more, and by the end, he had more eggs than anybody else.
That’s when I stepped in and took some eggs for myself… just kidding. The moral of the story—if there is one?—is that people pleasing at Easter egg hunts is bad. And also, show up when a party starts, not just for the goodies.
Or some s**t like that.
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
HEARD AT MEETINGS
"Drunk is feeling sophisticated when you can't even say it."
(Credit: AA Grapevine, December 2003, by Anonymous)
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