The following is a guest post by one of my workshop students at East Hill Writers. Phyllis Satter is a very accomplished woman–writer and human being– and I wanted to share her piece because I think the message jives so well with what we talk about here. You might want to ask yourself about your own set of rules.
When I was 15, I sometimes babysat for the Smiths, a young couple from our church, with at least two kids. It felt like more. Whenever I arrived to look after them, their house was a mess! One evening after I finally got my charges to bed and to sleep, I sat down and wrote out a set of rules for myself for the future, when I would be married, with children of my own. I even labeled it, “The Smith Doctrine.”
The gist of it was to live exactly the opposite of the way the Smiths were conducting their life. Pick up clothes off the floor, clear the table after meals, wash dishes right away, don’t leave toys everywhere, or newspapers or magazines. In short, live a clean and orderly life! (Once while I lived in England, a young French woman, a fellow teacher, visited me at our home. I had a one year old son then. I’ll never forget her observation that my house was “drolement proper” – amusingly clean – a double edged compliment if ever there was one.) The Smiths seemed perfectly content with their mess, and left it behind without a thought to go out to dinner or the movies.
More rules evolved from that: judge and compare yourself to others.
The first rule I was aware of forming came out of “The Lesson” about the garbage men: don’t trust my feelings. Also don’t tell others what I’m feeling. I might not be right. Keep feelings a secret. Keep myself a secret – even from me! If someone figures out what I am feeling, I feel “found out.”
Rule: Produce. Have something to show for yourself, your day, your time AND then tell others what you have produced. Example: “How was your day?” Answer: “I made a dress – want to see it?” Show and tell.
Rule: Perfect. Whatever you do, do it very, very well, preferably, better than anyone else. This leads to constant comparing and competition, not relationships. There is no other alternative to being the best other than NOT being the best, not exactly the worst but sort of non-existent.
I was almost always the best at school through 8th grade. Then Lee Manning came along and he and I vied for the positions of valedictorian and salutatorian right till graduation, when, finally, Lee was valedictorian and I was salutatorian. At our 50th high school reunion, I learned from Lee and two other top students that they had all flunked out of college their freshman year! Somehow, deep down, it pleased me to hear that. Being valedictorian had not kept Lee at the top. But honestly, I had so wanted to quit school then, too.
At my very competitive college, full of valedictorians and salutatorians and Merit scholars, I had lost my place, my identity as the best. I couldn’t figure out how to be one among many. But that year, I worked all the time, really, really hard, so that by the end of the first semester, I found to my utter surprise, I had gotten all A’s but one, a B in math. An English professor read aloud to our class a bluebook test I had written on The Great Gatsby, as the best of all the essays. I was transfixed and yet completely confused. I had no belief in myself anymore, no confidence in my ability to do this again, no trust in me. In fact, I knew that at lunch, just before the test, I had convened a discussion about the book, and I know I used in my essay many of the ideas we had shared, so I felt a bit like a fraud, a cheat at the same time that I felt proud to be held up as the example.
So: to have to be perfect turns out to be a terrible rule. It gave others power over me! Even when they were praising me. It taints relationships because it has meant that I have to be the “top” in friendships. Wow. Perfectionism can be isolating.
My dad had a playful yet serious way of asking why a rare A- was not an A on my report cards. Conversely my A’s were highly praised yet expected. A or nothing.
Rule: Protect. Don’t show how you feel. This will make you vulnerable. You will get “it” wrong. Be watchful. Eventually this rule becomes an automatic habit rather than a choice.
Rule: Don’t ask for help. “You should have known better” was one of Mother’s frequent scolding rants. So I took this totally to heart as “You should know everything,” a bad combination with the rule about not trusting myself. Alone in a hole, and can’t ask for help.
Sometimes at night, after mother and daddy went to bed, I listened at the radiator vent in my room that went right by their bed, in a desperate attempt for the information I was afraid to ask for. Once I heard, “She just seems to have to learn things the hard way.” Bad. This led to another rule.
Rule: Don’t make mistakes. Mistakes made me turn beet-red, my stomach churn, and my ears ring. That was a terrible feeling, one to be avoided at all costs. But impossible for a human being! Sort of like trying to live without breathing. In first grade, spelling tests occasionally did this to me, but later it was social faux pas.
The whole idea of living with all these rules feels very claustrophobic, like being in a cage, with the words of the rules printed vertically on the bars.
On the other hand, there is a little girl in me who just adored breaking rules – not mine, theirs. At college I repeatedly defied curfews and sign-ins just to do it, usually so I could continue an interesting though not urgent conversation with a boy.
Even for pleasurable things there are rules! I used to love to cross-country ski. So when it snowed, I would drop everything to ski, even if for just half an hour in the dark streets of my suburban neighborhood. But it was a rule: I called it that: If it snows, you ski. Snow often melted soon after it fell and if you waited too long, the opportunity would be lost.
And now, at 72, I have made rules for dealing with a bad back. Activity for an hour or so, then rest – read or talk on the phone – then more activity, then more rest. This happens to work. But more often, rules lead to rigidity, eliminate thinking of new ways, and block creative choices. Rules are inflexible like bars on a cage. Like trying to walk a tightrope instead of strolling comfortably down a wide forest trail.
My next rule will probably be to make a rule against making rules.
