The Year of the Unicorn - Lesson 4: You Make Your Own Meaning

The worst happens.

That’s the lesson I thought I was learning for a couple months. The phrase came with a sense of peace, though it didn’t seem like it should. I gazed out of my crumbling tower and saw my friends in the windows of their own falling fortresses, the foundations of their lives cracking beneath their feet. Every headline in my newsfeed punched me in the gut, never allowing me to catch my breath between blows. The angry goblin voice in my head that I thought I’d finally muted pushed its way to the front of my brain to scream, “Ha! Told you so! The worst always happens! You are helpless to stop it! Life is just a sequence of random, meaningless cruelties!”

It was hard to argue with that. Doing so felt naive and deluded. I talk a lot about positive psychology and how we can improve our lives by improving our attitudes and expectations. It’s easy for me to proselytize that concept when I’m in a position of privilege, when I already live a life filled with fortune, in which I don’t fear running out of food or being shot at a routine traffic stop or being detained in a concentration camp. Positive thinking isn’t enough to save anyone from poverty, racism, disease (and its associated expenses), or any number of real-world threats to our physical needs.

When faced with the horrors of reality, both on a personal and a global scale, searching for meaning can feel not only pointless, but potentially insulting. How can you justify telling someone with a terminal illness that it’s all part of a divine plan? How dare we assign meaning to the preventable deaths of migrant children or dozens of US mass shooting casualties? Is it foolish to even ponder these individual or national catastrophes with a massive climate disaster on the horizon? What meaning can you glean from the avoidable destruction of the only planet currently capable of sustaining life as we know it?

Even typing that paragraph is enough to tip me toward an existential spiral. Understandable, then, that I’ve been really considering this lesson, letting it marinate in my brain juices. “The worst happens” isn’t a particularly unicorny idea, nor is “Your anxiety was right: everything is awful and we’re all going to die soon, probably.”

The Year of the Unicorn is supposed to be about seeing the world with childlike wonder and contributing our own brand of magic to it. It’s about joy and connection in spite of the hungry darkness pursuing us all. It’s about this bittersweet concept:

You Make Your Own Meaning

There’s this quirky video game called Night in the Woods (NitW) that I fell in love with last year (only last year? Wow, jeez, time is weird and fake). Playing it feels like coming home to a place that I didn’t know was my home, and that’s partly because I so strongly identify with the protagonist. So strongly, in fact, that if I’d found the game any earlier, I probably wouldn’t have been emotionally equipped to handle it.

The main character, Mae, struggles with mental health issues that look a lot like mine (the description of a depersonalization/derealization episode that she experiences is what made me recognize and then forgive myself for a similar experience of my own. No joke.). She’s haunted by the passing of a grandparent that she was exceptionally close to. She climbs things she’s not supposed to climb. She says things like this, which could easily have been part of my previous Year of the Unicorn lesson:

Just because that online test said that your best chance at being happy is a situation where everyone already likes you but they mostly leave you alone except when they're delivering food to you... that doesn't mean you can hide in your room and wait for that to happen. That's how hermits are made, Mae. And they die alone in the middle of winter. Waiting for pizza from friends they don't want to see.

Plus she’s an anthropomorphic cat, so… I was doomed from the start.

I bring up this game and this character for a couple of reasons. First reason being that I dragged my friends into cosplaying it with me at Gen Con this weekend. Check it:

Second reason is because of another quote that stuck with me months after finishing the game:

But when I die, I want it to hurt. When my friends leave, when I have to let go, when this entire town is wiped off the map, I want it to hurt. Bad. I want to lose. I want to get beaten up. I want to hold on until I'm thrown off and everything ends. And you know what? Until that happens, I want to hope again. And I want it to hurt. Because that means it meant something. It means I am something, at least... Pretty amazing to be something, at least...

NitW deals with a lot of issues, ranging from mental illness to economic inequality to organized religion to supernatural murder cults… But I’m getting off track. The point is, hopelessness and the search for meaning are front and center throughout the story, and it’s not always a chipper story.

The terrible events in your story are the irritants in the oyster’s innards, painful parasites or detritus that get coated over with time and effort to make something that’s not just pretty but gentler on the mullosk’s insides. The process of making a pearl of meaning requires effort and hope. And it hurts, but the hurt is what makes it real. The hurt makes way for something softer.

Maybe that’s just a story I’m telling myself to explain the pain away. But even if it is, what of it? If it helps, if it gives me a moment of peace and perspective, then it’s worth it. It’s a gift I can give myself.

Perhaps that’s how meaning works. In the face of the worst tragedies of your life, it may be one more unfair burden on your already bent heart, but it’s up to you to make meaning. Find a glimmer of light in the muck and carry it with you.

While I was digging around for those game quotes, I came across one more gem:

So I believe in a universe that doesn't care and people who do.

Worst case scenario, the thing I feared when I first contemplated the idea that the worst can and does happen, is that there’s no great cosmic reason for these hardships. The horrible randomness of it threatened to drown me. But even in a universe that doesn’t care (and I’m not saying that’s true), there are people who do.

There are people who care for you now. There are people you’ve yet to meet who will care for you. There are people who used to care for you, people who left you for one reason or another, people whose paths diverged from yours, people who are gone. Simply, achingly, impossibly gone. But for a time, they were there, caring for you, shaping your life, creating something with you.

And if nothing else, you always have yourself. You have these resources at your disposal to make a greater meaning out of all of this. Even if that greater meaning is something as simple as: “Life is hard, but jalapeno poppers are cheap.”

Or maybe: “I didn’t get the time I wanted with this place, or this career, or this person, but I’ll carry the good parts of that time forward and be better for it.”

So I’m making meaning for myself in wine-drenched 3 A.M. heart-to-hearts with my besties, in time spent walking my dogs in the sunshine, and in moments alone in the woods appreciating the susurration of the wind through the treetops.

It doesn’t obliterate the evil in this world. It doesn’t eradicate the gnawing grief in my bones. But it’s something to keep my soul alight so that I can live to see (and help create) a sunnier future. Sometimes, at least for this unicorn, that has to be enough.

The Year of the Unicorn - Lesson 1: Humans Are Fallible

Last year, I accidentally won a silent auction item which contained a coupon for a free Angel Card reading. You ever participate in a silent auction just because you want to say you participated in a silent auction? That’s how you win Angel Card readings, as it turns out. But I’m super into that kinda thing, so I forgot about it for a few months, suddenly remembered, and then managed to schedule a session with the reader with a couple weeks to spare before the coupon’s expiration date.

We met at a Starbucks where I nervously nursed an iced chai while we discussed my fate for about an hour. I like reading Tarot (if nothing else, it forces a perspective shift and gets me out of negative cyclical thinking patterns), so watching her place the cards in a ring to represent the months of 2019 felt familiar and comforting. The terrifying void of the future seems more tangible and therefore manageable when it’s laid out in a tidy 12 card circle, after all.

That void of 2019 loomed large for me at the time. Painful stuff was happening in my marriage and I felt I had no one to turn to who would understand or be able to help me sort through my own complex feelings. Plus, I didn’t want to hurt my wife by going too public with my hurt and fear. It was a complicated situation. A story for another time, maybe. I don’t think it’s fully my story to tell yet, despite the agonized part of me that wants nothing more than to scream my pain from the rooftops for the sake of my own relief and validation.

Anyway. A nice circle of 12 cards and a single card in the center to represent the overall theme of 2019:

Enchantment.

Enchantment ~ Card Meaning: “Recapture your childlike sense of wonder and awe. View the world as a magical place.” - Healing With The Angels Oracle Card deck, by Doreen Virtue, Ph.D

Golly, I sure do miss having the ability to resize images on this website. Anyhoo. I suppose that just means you get an extra-close look at the Enchantment card, which features everyone’s favorite fictional ungulate, the unicorn (actually, now that I think about it, there’s a pretty long list of mythical creatures with hooves, but are you really going to rank a Minotaur above a unicorn? Trick question. Don’t answer that.).

According to the reader (the very kind and joy-inspiring Karmen Fink), 2019 would be my year to embrace my magic and bring forward the suppressed pieces of myself that had taken the backseat in favor of the serious business of adulthood. In late 2018, my world looked bleak. In 2019, there would be a chance to reclaim some of my lost wonder and joy.

But there are no free lunches, are there?

My freedom and opportunity for joyful, unicorn-powered transformation came at a hell of a cost. My marriage ended in April despite my desperate attempts to save it. My soul feels skewered and I spend most days in a fog, mechanically going through the motions of survival now that the foundations of my future have been yanked from under my feet.

Through all the confusion and suffering, however, I’m learning some lessons and searching for a path through the unknown. I’m living my Year of the Unicorn, and this is the first lesson I’ve managed to digest:

Humans Are Fallible

I’ve known for a long, long time that I am fallible. I review my mistakes to an unhealthy extent and focus more on my shortcomings than my victories. I make a point of bettering myself wherever I can, though I’m not always successful (another shortcoming!). When something goes wrong, my first thought is always: “What did I screw up this time?”

There’s a flip side to fixating solely on my own real or perceived mistakes: I tend to ignore the possibility that other people can mess up too. Kinda self-absorbed of me, to be honest.

This isn’t about me faulting others or transferring blame for the sake of my own ego (though I’ve been guilty of that as well). This is about compassion. This is about not only recognizing that other people can make mistakes, but that empathy and grace should be extended to them despite those mistakes.

People screw up. People fail to think logically. People experience unresolvable internal conflicts that alter their decisions and interactions with the world. I am a being made of oopsie-dammits, and you probably are too.

A mistake by definition is an unintentionally wrong action. Nobody wants to botch a presentation at work or overcook their chicken parm, but these things happen despite our best intentions and most thorough preparations. Wouldn’t it be nice to live in a world full of other people who understand that and cut you some slack when you fail?

I’m trying to be a person who does that, and I’ve been on a trajectory toward that mindset since the start of my marital implosion. Instead of fuming over the driver that pulled out in front of me, I cool myself off and consider that it was a lapse in their judgment, and at least we didn’t hit each other. Instead of assuming a server is being rude to me out of spite, I recognize that they’re just trying to get through their shift, and their brusque greeting probably has nothing to do with me. In short, I’m determined to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I’m offering kindness first instead of offense or malice.

It’s not easy, and there are of course people who will act with deliberate cruelty toward you in this world. There are also the people who make mistakes that harm you directly, and then handle those mistakes poorly, even callously. Again: fallible, fallible humans.

For the most part, though, people are the flawed protagonists of their own narratives, and you have the opportunity to be a tolerant and positive background or supporting character in their story every once in a while. Perhaps someone can do the same for you in your own “hero’s journey”.

That said, acknowledging that all people err is not the same as automatically dismissing all errors. I’m simply aiming to start with a compassionate attitude, aware that my compassion may occasionally be misplaced (still, that’s a mistake I’m willing to make!). You can be wronged by people, intentionally or unintentionally. Only you can determine the parameters of your tolerance. At some point, you must prioritize compassion for yourself.

But I still think that erring on the side of forgiveness is kinder not just to others but to your own heart. That driver who cut me off in traffic? I didn’t have to hold that sense of anger and indignation in my heart for more than a couple seconds. I let it go, and the weight lifted from my chest.

Not everything slides off so easily. I am still learning the lesson of fallibility and struggling to master the magic of kindness despite experiencing the emotional equivalent of that one Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff comic about the stairs.

Yeah, that’s the one. Source

Anyway. It’s a lesson in progress, but I’m getting the hang of it. If I’m to find my wonder again and become that joy-sparking unicorn that I aspire to be, I need to worry less about the things that have gone wrong and focus on the good that still exists in this world.

I’m encountering other lessons as well, but I need more time to absorb those before I share them. I’m probably jumping the gun on this lesson too, but hey: learning never ends. I may as well share my work in progress. It will give me a benchmark for the future.

This is my Year of the Unicorn, and I’m just getting started.

Certified Financial Panic

It always happens at the end of the month. I look at my bills, and I look at the number in my checking account, and I run through a series of mental acrobatics.

If this bill has a grace period of five days but this one is a firm deadline, maybe I can pay the other one on payday and delay the first bill until the others have cleared and then pay it with my credit card, but only if the credit card bill clears in the first place... 

Then, because I just can't help myself, I throw in some emotional nuance. 

Of course, I wouldn't be in this position if I hadn't bought that one coffee last week, like some kind of Uncle Moneybags. And if I was really serious about saving, I would have dumped Netflix ages ago, but I'm a lazy, terrible, addle-brained consumer. This is my just desserts for being so confident and buying new glasses. What a fool I am. A fool with vastly improved vision and really nifty glasses.

Yeah, a lot of it is self-pitying and exaggerated. It wasn't just the one coffee. It was several coffees, and several weekends of going out to eat, and taking the puppies to get their vaccinations somewhere other than the specifically low-cost clinic (because I'm a little scared of that clinic, but maybe for the sake of paying bills on time, I need to buck up). Little budgeting things that I should keep an eye out for, and yet, feel somehow indignant that I have to watch out for them.

And that's because I've never had to worry about my spending before.

I'm privileged as heck, and while I try to be aware of it, I'm often straight up oblivious. Take last night's dinner, for instance. I'd baked some frozen fish sticks, and Kelsey asked for ketchup for them. I teased her for it, and we did a bit about me being unfamiliar with the condiments of peasant food. I hadn't grown up on frozen fish sticks, after all. I'd had grilled salmon with quinoa and fresh roasted vegetables, not ketchupy Kroger-brand fried pollock.

It's a silly example, but there was a ring of truth when Kelsey commented on how I hadn't grown up playing jump rope with the poverty line. My childhood needs were always met, with room to spare. Sure, money was discussed, and in the Scottish tradition of thriftiness, I was taught to carefully police my spending from an early age. But the stakes were low. An over-expenditure once in a while would never result in coming up short on the electric bill.

My parents paid for my college. My scholarships were the equivalent of a part-time job in terms of funding, but I never had to work that job, and I never had debt. After graduation, I didn't have loans lunging for my throat. I immediately got a good paying job, and began to save money, and sock away retirement funds, and never once felt like cash was tight. 

I never blinked at the end of the month as my automatic payments pulled. I knew they'd clear, and I'd be fine, and I'd not have to regret the beer I had with friends the week before, or the new sweater I'd purchased that month to beef up my winter wardrobe.

But I can't live like that now. Which leads me to the other invasive thought that hits me in the tail end of each month:

Things wouldn't be like this if I had just sucked it up and stayed at my old job. 

With that thought comes a tsunami of guilt. Guilt about my depression and anxiety, guilt about not being the pillar of financial security I thought I could be for my wife and my roommate, guilt about not being strong enough to survive a simple office job.

Except it wasn't a simple office job, and if I had stayed, I know for a fact I would have died. For once, I'm not exaggerating. 

That understanding is all well and good, but it's not enough to chase away the guilt, because part of the guilt comes from my new job, in which I'm studying to be a Certified Financial Planner.

Which sounds hilarious, considering I've gone from "If I maintain this level of contribution, I'm ahead of schedule for my basic retirement needs!" to "My retirement plan is to work until I can no longer physically manage it, then wander into the woods to perish, like they did in the old days." 

I'm neck-deep in these CFP classes, and it's no secret that I'm terrified of them. I want to be good at this. I want to help people plan their futures and find security. But I feel lost... I didn't study business, and standard education skimps on important practical subjects like taxes and finance. Not only that, but I can't shake a sense of bitterness about the whole thing. It feels like the world is collapsing... what's the point of portfolio management when the apocalypse is on the doorstep?

Again, an exaggeration... I hope. But the feeling remains. Not just for me, I imagine, but for many Millennials, particularly the 63% with more than $10,000 of student debt. We're supposed to be in our accumulation stage - that is, slowly paying off debt, but also contributing to retirement plans, and developing savings. But on top of the greater debt load, we're earning 20% less than our parents at the same stage of life. That 20% would look great in a savings account or an IRA, or as down payment on a house, or as a loan payment.

But it's not there. With 20% less to work with, it's hard to justify putting cash toward a future that looks increasingly, uh, nuclear. Small wonder ours is the most depressed generation on record. Even our humor is tainted by a virulent nihilism. 

For more oh no, webcomicname.com is a treasure chest.

I have to remind myself, though, that everything changes. I won't always be doing mathnastics (like gymnastics, but mathematical) at the end of the month. I'm capable of generating change, and so are you. I got myself out of a personal deathtrap job, and things got psychologically and physically better for me. I made a change, and made an improvement, even if it wasn't an immediate one, or a financial one (at least for now). 

Despite the odds stacked against us (I say us as in Millennials, but it's applicable to us as in humans, too), we do have power, and we do have a future, as uncertain as it may seem. For now, it's a matter of finding wealth in a non-financial sense. Reach out to your friends and your family. Pursue your passions. Protect your mental health. Change things for the better, even if they're little itty bitty things about yourself.

I'm going to do my best to overcome my financial panic, and to learn to be a planner. And if I'm not in the right place to be a planner right now, I'll take other steps to get there, or find another way to contribute to the wealth management firm I work at. 

It's all about doing your best, because most of the time, that's all you've got. And that's OK. And that's enough.

Happy New Fear

Holy wow, I'm just now recovering from my wild NYE celebration! Man, you should have been there. The music was bangin', the drinks had flecks of actual gold leaf, and at midnight, Catwoman-era Halle Berry descended from the heavens and kissed me.

Just kidding. Here's a picture of what actually went down:

Not pictured: Kelsey's favorite CAH card, "tasteful sideboob"

That's not even wine in our glasses, guys. It's grape juice. Straight up "Communion at a Methodist church" grape juice.

Anyway, brushing aside that weird thing I said about Halle Berry (and how middle school me kept a novelization of the 2004 Catwoman film in my locker at all times so I could stare at Halle Berry in a catsuit on the cover between classes while fiercely repressing my homosexuality), happy 2017!

At least, I hope it's a happy 2017. Let's face it. If we ask a Magic 8 Ball if 2017 will be better than 2016, I guarantee it will answer: "OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD," followed by condescending laughter. There is a lot to be afraid of this year. Take it from a professional worrier.

But I'm still holding out hope. Out of the pessimism of 2016, many new and impassioned voices are rising. I see movements of love on my Facebook feed, and hear people asking, "What can I do to help?". In our last days before the regime- uh, I mean, before the inauguration, that kind of desire to protect and support each other is vital. 

With that in mind, I truly wish you a happy 2017. May it come with endless love, safety, and progress. And maybe, just maybe, a little bit of tasteful sideboob.