Happiness, my sister’s wedding, gold stars, and the duty to be happy.

I’m back at home after my sister’s wedding in Kansas City. It was a perfect weekend.

My mother did a tremendous amount of work for this wedding to give it a lot of beautiful, original, labor-intensive touches. I have an insatiable craving for the gold stars of praise and appreciation myself, so I kept giving gold stars to my mother – saying how wonderful, beautiful, thoughtful, well-organized, etc. etc. it was. And so did my sister.

I was struck by the fact, however, that my mother seemed only mildly gratified by this recognition. She was focused on getting everything done as best she could, and on making sure that everyone had a great time – especially the bride and bridegroom.

Which made me think about the duty to be happy. For my mother, it was far more important that my sister be happy with the wedding than that my sister be grateful or appreciative. Fortunately, that was easy. My sister loved every minute.

But what if she hadn’t been happy with the wedding? What if she'd been disappointed by the flowers, by the way the room looked, by the way the wedding turned out?

She should’ve acted exactly the way she did act: ecstatically happy.

How important it is to be easy to please! We pride ourselves on our critical faculties, our discernment, the subtle touches we use to express our personalities…but it’s far more difficult to be enthusiastic, to approve, to enjoy.

And of course, my mother had a duty to be happy, too. If she’d been snappish or frantic all weekend, because she was trying to control every little detail, she would’ve dragged down the mood.

It was tough, because my mother wanted everything to be perfect. I noticed that she kept repeating certain comments throughout the weekend, to keep herself calm.

“Often, it’s the things that go wrong that make the best memories, later.”
Someone makes a wildly inappropriate toast. The cake slides to the floor. The bride steps out of her shoe as she walks down the aisle. Later, this moment will be a wedding highlight.

“I’ll notice, but no one else will notice.”
My mother has an eye that astonishes me. As we neared the actual event, she kept reminding herself that other people wouldn’t even register details that she saw as less than perfect.

“Done’s done.”
At a certain point, my mother just let events unfold. She was able to have fun and enter into the moment instead of worrying about every little thing. This is very, very tough if you’re a perfectionist.

Research shows that your thinking style makes a real difference in your happiness. If my mother had instead been repeating phrases like, “If XYZ goes wrong, the wedding will be ruined,” “People can never do anything right,” or “We’re always unlucky with weather,” she would have been far less happy, even if the wedding had happened in the same way.

Comments

[Helen]

How wonderful that you were able to notice what your mother was doing as well as how she was doing it! Would you have noticed such things a year or 2 ago?
I grew up in large family that included a couple of very uptight, perfectionistic siblings. In order to cope, my sister and I now jokingly recall one comment uttered years ago at a family reunion - "Fine, everything is ruined now". We re-use that comment to lighten up the moment if one of us gets a little too uptight about how things are going. A ridiculous comment which helps us do a reality check.

[Gretchen Rubin]

I love it! "Everything is ruined now." That's exactly the kind of mantra that can make or break your happiness.

[Martha Garvey]

I have two mantras: "Make new mistakes." And (from a lovely Japanese movie): "To continue is to succeed."

[Heather]

What a great post. These are great pointers to keep in mind when you find yourself being too uptight...

[ozma]

I'm glad you had a great time.

All this is true but I think weddings are strange in the way that they draw out all sorts of unconscious issues. Thinking about how one should approach each moment is kind of like thinking about how you will approach a hurricane--the wind's pretty fierce, it's not such a good time for thinking. Stuff pours out of your brain that you didn't even know was in there.

[travelinoma]

I just attended a wedding where the mother was a perfectionist and the daughter didn't care. They were annoyed with each other the whole day, and I don't think either of them enjoyed it much. Guests could actually feel the tension. It was beautiful, and probably perfect in the details, but not much fun!

[Linda Zdanowicz]

Wow, what a great post. I'm so happy I found your weblog. You have amazing insights into simple truths.
Linda

[clkl]

What a wonderful family. Clearly the formula for happiness involves not getting in its way when it arrives.

Congratulations to you, your sister and your family on this milestone and on your attitude(s)!

All the best,
CLKL

[Shawn]

What makes weddings memorable? I'd say gifts. For example, I gave Hip Flasks to all of my pals and it's funny how they'd actually bring them to their offices since they look trendy.

[Mrs. Micah]

Wow, it sounds like you're describing MY wedding. :-) My mom and I worked hard on it, and we also worked in bringing it in on a low budget. But my goal for the day was to be happy. I oriented myself towards being excited and happy in anticipation, not worrying if things would go wrong. Then when it arrived...it may have been the happiest day of my life so far! I'm normally the depressive type and have low periods even on good days. But there were no low periods, just joy!

And I hear stories about girls with empirically "better" weddings--more flowers, more people, more money--who have a miserable time.

Having a good family who gets along helps a lot, too.

-MM

P.S. I love your first commandment--"Be Gretchen." Sometimes that's so hard for me to remember.

[Erika Sparks]

@Helen: In our family, it's "X ruined Y" as in, "Fred ruined Christmas", "Edna ruined Easter," whenever someone starts fretting about whether everything is perfect or not. (All said very jokingly.) We try to get the holiday ruined as soon as possible so we can go ahead and enjoy the rest of the day. Of course, we take turns so we each get to ruin a different holiday. :)

[The Minimalist]

Duty to be happy! Yes! Every day! I truly believe this. I have been accused of being Polly Annish and naive but I don't see why everyone has to look at what's wrong all the time! And I don't know how many times I have worried about some detail that no one noticed!