Once upon a time, there was a columnist who was scheduled to give a talk about The Lighter Side.
The thing about dates like this, whether they’re a speaking engagement, a comedy gig or a Bar Mitzvah, is that, once they’re inked on the calendar, every single minute between where I am standing, and that particular date, seems to sprout accidents and happenings, until I feel like I’m on some demented fun-house ride.
Look out, we’re headed for the Snow Storm of the Century!
Ah, it came a week early and now we’re all shoveled. Oh, no, did the car battery die? No, that was a false alarm. But I’m catching laryngitis!
Oh, thank goodness the doctor helped me get rid of that. And so on.
Finally, finally, everything is under control, and all I need to do is polish my lines, and my nails, until the booking on Monday.
But wait! What’s this?
A text from one of my children? His college debate team, en route back to school from a far-away tournament, might need a place to stay in the New York area, Sunday night, before their flight out Monday morning.
“If all other hotel plans catastrophically fail,” he asked, can they stay overnight with us? And just like that, all my carefully-laid plans went out the window…or off the track.
I want credit for marshalling my responses in the right order. “Egads!” was how I felt, but what I texted back was, “Sure, honey, if it comes to that.”
Only after that message was sent, and acknowledged, did I ask what I really needed to know: “How many are you, anyway?” Because if a Greyhound bus was going to be pulling up in front of Casa Judy, I might need divine intervention. Not to mention a special permit.
But if your college-age child is sufficiently desperate to let his peers meet his crazy, age-addled, pathologically uncool parents, you really can’t turn them away. “It’s just three of us, total, mom.”
“Okay, but I won’t have time to shop for groceries,” I warned him.
“We just need beds.”
“Or cook anything.”
“We’ll have pizza.”
“Or dust and vacuum!”
“Mom: Chill!”
Of course I dusted and vacuumed, anyway. Till my husband caught me.
“Judy, why so miserable? Look at it this way — we get an extra visit with our boy, and some of his friends! Plus, we don’t have to stir a step, they’re coming to us!”
“I know. I know I should be happy — and I am, underneath it all. But I can’t help also feeling like I’m under siege.” And I began feverishly shoveling papers from the dining room table, into a plastic bag. “They’ll be here any minute!”
“Now, honey, don’t get hysterical. What would it take for you to Look On The Lighter Side, here?”
“Um…a miracle? Or maybe this!” And I picked up a book from the table.
“‘Mindset’? What’s that?” asked my husband.
“‘It’s psychology. I was reading it for a school board meeting I covered. But actually… it might be worth a try.”
In “Mindset,” Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck contrasts two ways of looking at the world — and oneself.
One mindset regards the intelligence and abilities we are given as “fixed” quantities, which we are unable to change.
The other believes in “growth” — that intelligence can be improved, like a muscle — especially in response to a challenge.
These two mindsets are separate, but not equal.
In her book, Dweck sets out example after example — from education, sports, and business — where individuals with a “growth” mindset are better able to weather life’s setbacks than those whose view is “fixed.”
But what captured my attention was an early scene, where she explains how she discovered that she, herself, initially held the “fixed” view of intelligence.
Working with 10-year-old children doing difficult puzzles, she was startled when some of them said, “I love a challenge!”
“What’s wrong with them?” Dweck wondered. “I always thought you coped with failure, or you didn’t cope with failure. I never thought anyone loved failure.”
That story resonated with me, because that’s how I had always felt, myself.
Reading further, I learned that if you tell people with the “fixed” mindset that they’re smart, they tend to avoid further challenges, lest they lose the flattering label. It’s like walking through life with a book balanced on your head; all that can happen, really, is that sooner or later it will fall off.
Luckily, if you can adopt the “growth” mindset, then every new challenge that comes down the pike — or the fun-house track — becomes, not a trial, but a growth opportunity.
I began to calm down. In fact, I began to smile.
As it turned out, thanks to American Airlines, and its pathological fear of “weather,” the kids stayed with us till Tuesday.
They were delightful; the speech was great fun; and everything went well. But if it hadn’t, that would have been okay too — now that I have the right “Mindset.”
