127. Better Than You Think

Nora reminds us that you’re almost always doing better than you think you are.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

INTRO MUSIC

 I’m Nora McInerny, and this is It’s Going To Be Okay. This is a daily podcast slash group project where we bring you a little bit of okay for your day. We imagined this would be the kind of show people would listen to right when they wake up, but it turns out a lot of you listen at other times in the day, and we just want you to know that’s okay.

You can listen to this podcast whenever you want. Nobody can stop you. Sometimes our okay things come from you, our listeners, and sometimes they come from us here at the team at Feelings Co. And sometimes they take the form of a little bit of a pep talk. So here’s a pep talk for ya.

There’s something in the air lately. Something other than Canadian wildfire smoke, something other than aliens, which we just found out are real. And I have to say, if they’re listening, I’ve always believed in you. There’s something in the air and it is this crushing sense, physically perceptible in so many people that I know, that we’re falling behind and falling apart at the same time.

That the many flaming torches you are juggling while riding a unicycle on a thin stretch of wire strung between two skyscrapers are all going to fall onto the oily pile of rags that lay below, or perhaps lie below. I’m a writer who never knows which word to use and when. This is an actual text exchange with one of my favorite people.

them. Let’s actually do a little bloop. Everything is terrible and I want to lay down and disappear from this earth. Not in a call 911 kind of way, but in a please make this all stop kind of way. Now I am learning to just shut up and listen when people in my life are going through things that I cannot fix.

This is a huge change. from the version of me I’ve been since I can remember being a person. A version of me that shows up at Home Depot and says, Look, I know I’ve never ever done any of these things before, but I feel like I could replace my own garbage disposal. I tend to show up to the lives of people I love like an amateur contractor with too much confidence in her own skills.

I’m essentially saying whenever I arrive, Oh, Oh, your life is unmanageable. Well, why don’t I step in, swing around a hammer and see what happens? But not this time. This time I just held the phone to my ear. And I listened to a list of all the ways that this wonderful person was obviously failing at their career, failing at their family, failing at their lawn maintenance, which was obviously the biggest concern.

And I just offered some soft affirmations. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Until it seemed like the worst of it was over, and it was time for us both to go to bed. The next day I get another text. Insert text noise. Feel, feel a lot better today. Boss just told me I was doing an amazing job. Guess I’m doing better than I thought.

And wow. Aren’t we all? Aren’t we all? I think with a few exceptions, most of us are actually more critical of ourselves than any of the people that we assume are evaluating and criticizing us. I have yet to meet any person who has ever judged me harder than myself, and I am continually, and I am a person who, and I’m, and I mean, I, and I read the comments, okay.

I’ve yet to meet a person who has ever judged me harder than myself, and trust me, people have said some pretty mean things to and about me, and yet I am continually shocked by the dissonance between how I see the people I love and how they see themselves. So I don’t know you, of course, but I have to assume that you are a halfway decent person with exceptional taste and a great sense of humor.

That people love to see you walk into a room and that the care and attention that you have put into the work that you do and the people you love has not gone unnoticed. I am almost 100 percent certain that you are actually doing a pretty good job holding it together in what often feels like the very last gasp.

That the people around you would be just fine if you let one of those flaming torches go out, if you stopped pedaling so hard, if you stepped down off the wire and just took a minute. I am 100 percent sure that you are doing better than you think you are.

I’m Nora McInerny and this has been It’s Going To Be Okay.

OUTRO MUSIC

CREDITS