Category: Happiness

“We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it.” – Marge Simpson

Okay, I used this last year.  But, really, fizzy toots?  It’s a holiday classic.

Thanksgiving morning I was in bed, in that half-slumber that I slip into when there’s no danger that I have to go to work.  The Mrs. stirred next to me.

“When’s the turkey going to be done?”

John Wilder:  “Yeah, babe, when is the turkey going to be done?”

The Mrs.:  “No, I mean it.  I have some other things I need to cook.  When will the turkey be done?”

John Wilder:  “Ohhhhh, I haven’t put it in the oven yet.  I thought, as much as you were making six other dishes, that you were gonna do the turkey, too.”

This was, of course, a stupid idea.  I have cooked the turkey every year, ever, since we’ve been married.  Everything else (except pumpkin pies) has been The Mrs.  Why would I assume that The Mrs. was going to cook the turkey?

I have no idea.  But I did.

We Wilders are night owls, when allowed to go feral unconstrained by the tyranny of work, so having a dinner at supper time (or a supper at dinner time) would just be fine.  Since we bought everything we’d need for dinner yesterday, I knew we’d be fine – no last minute trips to stores for us, and that was good.

Reprinted with permission, now 50% off!

Because I hate going to the store – especially anytime between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I hate it so much, that when I was (much) younger, I’d do all of my shopping for presents during a two hour period on Christmas Eve.  But yet, there are people who look forward to Black Friday, which to me is the sort of hell I imagine that H.P. Lovecraft reserved for Beto O’Rourke, except Beto’s hair would be on fire and he would have surgically attached flippers instead of arms.

Black Friday is a day that some people look forward to.  While I don’t share in their enthusiasm, I can understand it.  There is something about shopping that makes people feel good, unlike the turkey tartare I tried to serve the family on Thanksgiving.  Who knew you had to thaw the turkey before sticking it in the oven?

Shopping is of vital importance to businesses – they want to capture as much of your money as possible.  They study ways to arrange merchandise so it is most attractive, to create advertisements that engage with your psychology to drive you to purchase, and purchase from them.  If you look at shopping as a science, shopping has been studied by economists, business majors, and psychologists more thoroughly than I studied Cindy Crawford’s, umm, charm, in my younger days.

Remember, actresses are different than models – actresses can read.  Also, I don’t know if I can fit an actress in the basement freezer.

Again, I don’t begrudge people who are on a tight or fixed budget that are attempting to get a good deal – that would be heartless.  But yet, isn’t Black Friday based at least in part in . . . greed?

The idea of getting a 65” 4K Philips® television for $278 when it normally retails for $448 is the essence of Black Friday.   $10 Crock© pots with a $10 mail-in rebate are Black Friday.

If you buy three Rose Tico™ figures, you’ll spike worldwide sales by 3000%, and give Disney® hope that Star Wars:  The Ruse of Soywalker© will be successful!

Why do we get such satisfaction over buying things?

• It is wired into us – once upon a time, we were hunter/gatherers. This is similar – shopping is  Hunting is still hunting, which is good.  Work?  Work is where men go to avoid gathering and think about hunting.
• Shopping distracts us from our problems. If we’re worried or sad?  “Retail therapy” can be cheap – if you have inexpensive tastes.  But when the shopping is done – if you have a real problem like having surgically attached flipper arms – they’re still there.
• In today’s world, there are a lot of people that live lives that are marked by a nearly complete lack of control. They’re controlled by spouses at home, bosses at work, and the number of choices that the own are small.  Shopping gives them a sense of control.

There was a hurricane this year named Karen.  Managers everywhere quaked with fear.

• Instant satisfaction is built into shopping. Why wait for later, when you can have it now (or in 36 hours with Amazon© Primeâ„¢)?  Rather than wait for what your goal is, you can have some smaller thing now.  And it’s certain.  Who cares if it derails your longer term plans?
• Shopping for neat things floods your brain with serotonin like an autistic clown with a firehose. Serotonin stabilizes mood, so if you’re depressed, shopping can make you feel better, and you don’t need a prescription for Xanax®.
• Shopping resolves boredom. Kids doing well in school, job going well, no financial problems and relationship with spouse is fine?  So boring.  Hey, let’s spice life up by shopping for things we don’t need!
• When we lived in Alaska, we would go to auctions because it was fun. Every so often some family would say, “That’s it!” and decide to move to the Lower 48.  Thus?    I bid $70 on a table saw that I could have bought for (drumroll) $70 – yes, it was a pretty crappy saw.  Why?  Scarcity.  People were bidding, and, well, I won.  And scarcity is the true key to Black Friday.  Only seven fruitcake-toasters at $92 off the retail price of $292?  I must have one!

Most vices, when kept in check, aren’t a problem.   But Black Friday seems like a drug that’s designed to take advantage of the various “satisfactions” listed in the bullet points above.  Thankfully, there are other cures.

We live in a society where most of the basic needs are easily met for most people, at least for now.  Yes, you might not have a 65” LED television that doubles as a tanning bed.  But nearly everyone has food.  Nearly everyone has power, heat, and access to a library.  How else could people spend those same hours and minutes that would otherwise be spent in a WWE®-level fight over an inexpensive radium-powered popcorn popper and a coal-powered flashlight?

In breaking news:  Coroners report that Jeff Epstein was injured at a Black Friday sale.

They could write.  They could visit a sick family member.  They could face digestive difficulties because Dad put the frozen turkey in the oven.  They could play cards or board games and have family fun.

Oh, wait – that describes the Wilder family.  I really should have realized that putting a turkey filled with ice into the oven wasn’t my best idea . . . .

Axis and Allies®, anyone?  I have Pepto®.

“Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion.” – Norman Schwarzkopf

“Jen, if this needle goes past here, you’re fired.  Does that make you feel stressed at all?  Does it?  Jen? Are you sure?  Jen?  Does it?  Are you sure?  Are you sure?  Are you sure?” – IT Crowd

Playing triangle in a band is something a Jamaican won’t do, mon.  It stresses them out to be responsible for every ting.

There is a love/hate relationship with the Holidays.  By the Holidays, I really mean Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve – and not any of the other 107 holidays in November or 69 holidays in December our crack Wilder research team was able to find with one Google® search.  There are (really) days like National Cookie Day on December 4, International Ninja Day on December 5, and National Salesperson Day on December 13.  National Salesperson Day?  I’m not buying that one.

One reason we love the Holidays is how we looked forward to them when we were kids.  The Holidays meant, at the minimum, time off from school.  In the American Dream Household®, there was time for snowmen, sledding, and mugs of hot chocolate while we sang Christmas carols for our neighbors.  On top of all of that, there was the smell of turkey on Thanksgiving, the tantalizing secrets of the wrapped mysteries under the Christmas tree, and the miracle of pulling Uncle Vern’s finger.

Okay, our neighbors had concertina wire and watch towers, so we couldn’t get within a quarter mile of their houses without the password.  I’m sure we would have belted out a few Christmas carols if they hadn’t fired those warning shots.

I did accomplish one thing last Christmas.  I won the Netflix® marathon.

As I got older, the hate part of the Holidays begins to show up:  stress from bills, stress from dealing with corporate Christmas parties, stress from having to decide which sets of parents get which visits on which days, stress from having to deal with relatives that you’d rather never see again, and stress from hiding the bodies of those relatives you will never see again.

Some people get hit so badly with this stress that they actually panic.  And panic can be a serious mental illness, not carefree and happy go lucky like the ones I have.  But I gave up on being upset at Christmas years ago.

I’ve learned the secret:  I don’t care.

I will say, the FBI looked more competent in Die Hard than they have for the last three years . . . .

Okay, that’s not entirely true, I do care.  But I choose what I care about.  And I choose what I don’t care about.

You see, the old line that “Aging is a matter of mind.  If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter,” slightly modified, applies here as well.  I’ll customize it a bit:  “Holidays:  If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”

I think the biggest problem that most people have is high standards.  High standards are a gateway to constant disappointment.  If your life is wrapped around making the holiday perfect, then you’ll stress yourself out by trying to make the holiday perfect.  And then?  When you fail to achieve perfection?  Your stress will increase that much more.  Your stress might then turn from disappointment to depression, which I admire, because that shows real dedication that you don’t seen in those millennial kids nowadays.

As bad as that quest for perfection is, it can be even worse than that – often people want to view perfection not through their own standards, but through the views of other people.  Now, on top of trying to meet your standards, you have to imagine what the standards of other people might be, and try to figure out how to meet those as well.  It’s why Bill Clinton doesn’t do threesomes – if he wanted to disappoint two people at the same time, he could have just taken Hillary out for dinner.

Bill was especially disappointed when Hillary lost because he realized he wouldn’t get a fresh batch of interns.

However, you can make the conscious choice to not choose perfection.  What happens if you don’t care if the turkey isn’t perfect?  What happens if you don’t care if other people are upset?

Well, nothing.

Certainly, there’s something on my list above from bills to parties to relatives that is (or was) on your list.  Me?  Sure, I’ve had a disappointment or two, and yes, I’ve gotten stressed a time or two.  But not recently.

If you’re feeling stressed at the holidays, the Internet will tell you to do lots of things.  The top five tips (really!) on one particular site?

• Take a walk in the sunlight.
• Smell citrus.
• Take yet another walk. (Yes, it was item one, and also item three.)
• Take a supplement.
• Squeeze between your thumb and forefinger.

Yes.  These will all certainly help – help a journalist on a deadline come up with a “unique” take on holiday stress.  I’ll admit, out of the 27 or so tips, there were some good ones.  But when “Take a whiff of citrus” is in your top two ideas for dealing with stress?  That’s almost as bad an idea as when they decided to put an “s” in lisp.

A journalist, an anthropologist, and a philosopher walk into a bar.  The bartender says, “Hey Anderson, still no job?”

Between now and the New Year, we’ll probably not get farther than 90 miles from the house, and that will be to celebrate Penultimate Day (Happy Penultimate Day 2018, and the Biggest Story of 2018: Societal Trust).  We’ll spend time with people we like, and not people we have to spend time with.

Might there be some stress?  Sure.  That happens.  But only if I want it to.