Right Sizing

Oh, man, I need to write about how Shtopping wrapped up.  Also, I need to figure out how to write about my epic journey to Thailand.  It's not that there's nothing to write about--it's that opening up that faucet is hard to do in blog-sized chunks and so I need to figure out how to make sense of it in pieces.  That might take a little time.

But what I want to write about right now is the idea of Right Sizing.  "Right-sizing" is a term that engineers use when they're designing a new technology or product.  It's a framework that encourages you not to over-engineer something, to provide a bunch of features or size that isn't necessary for the way people actually use something.

An example would be your typical remote control.  Most remote controls have tons of buttons on them that you probably never use, right?

I hate that, don't you?  You go to someone else's house, and you're babysitting or housesitting or burgling them, and you just want to sit and watch some HBO, but you can't even figure out how to turn their TV on because they have sixteen remotes and each remote has a hundred buttons.  Not right-sized!  Over-engineered!  Counter-productive!

When we moved here my dad gave us a Roku.  I loved that interface immediately, mostly because of the very simple remote.  Just the buttons you need, one little box, easy to use.  Right-sized.

You might be able to guess where I'm going with this, but in case not, I'll spell it out:  I've recently realized that my emotional remote control is not right-sized.  It is extremely over-engineered.

This actually came to me in a very loud, very clear conversation with an imaginary moose who just happens to be my spirit animal.  You're laughing right now, which I totally understand because once, when I was on a train in Anchorage, I saw a moose running.  That is one animal who should probably not be running at any point in his life, ever, because:  parts flap around everywhere.

I'm guessing if you were riding one of those guys the sound of all that flapping and slapping would be downright deafening.

But moose is actually a very awesome spirit animal, and very wise, and when I was in Thailand I learned to have conversations with him whenever I have a problem.  If you're curious about this and want to do more, you could bop around this website a little.  All I know is that it works.

Your eyeballs are stuck, rolled back in your head.  I hope you get help with that problem soon.

Anyway, I recently went to Moose because I was frustrated again with E., and I was like, "Moose?  What the hell!  I'm working so hard on building some Real Love and realizing we are all drowning and therefore all in this together, and so why do I get so mad when my husband knocks back four beers on a Friday night and then keep myself up until 2 in the morning thinking about running away to Bali?"

And Moose, who is usually placidly chomping on some grass when we have our chats, was very quiet for a minute.  And then, he said:

Right Size.

And that was it.  He said it.  I never use that term and try in general not to talk about engineers so it came through loud and clear.  Also:  cryptic much, Moose?  At first, I was like WHAT THE.  Moose is an engineer?  And then I laughed.  Because Moose was totally right.  I was blowing some shit clean out of proportion.

Now don't get me wrong:  I was bummed that E. chugged those four beers for no reason I could see on a Friday night.  We had to have a talk about that and about how the drinking keeps us from connecting.  That's a legit conversation to have.

But, you know.  Four beers:  no big deal, in a cosmic sense.  He just laid about on the couch afterwards.  He didn't drive, or beat anyone up, or get stupid, or use it as an excuse to go shoot heroin.  He just basically fell asleep a little early.   Not a federal crime.

But my emotional remote control has a few too many buttons, and really, allowing each one of them to get pushed every time I turn around does nobody any favors.

Four beers doesn't warrant me staying up all night indulging in escape fantasies, in other words.

So that's my mantra for this week:  right size it.  Feel what I feel, talk when I need to talk, but then quit taking everything so damned seriously.  Cut people some slack, cut myself some slack.  Trade in my over-engineered emotional remote for a Roku-type emotional remote.

This has been so liberating, the few times I've tried it.  It just allows me to step outside my own madness and to observe myself over-reacting.  Instead, I can think about whether my reaction is right size and whether there's another way to deal with my funk.