Havrilesky - Ask Pollys Guide to Your Next Crisis

This world has told us lies about how small we are. We were taught to believe in our inadequacies, so our flaws are often mistaken for what defines us: I am selfish. I am too moody. I dont work hard enough. I am self-defeating. I am too critical of others. I am too angry. I am too lazy. I cant find my passion. I dont know what I believe in. We think that our flaws separate us from other people. But really, if we all wrote down our flaws, wed mostly find ourselves writing down the same things.

Theres a myth common to modern life, that normal people tend to move with purpose and direction, bounding ahead without fear, and the rest of us who hesitate, second-guess themselves, question what it all adds up to, get discouraged, and give up, are fucked up losers, pure and simple. But to believe this common fallacy is to misunderstand the nature of being human.

Humans are full of longing. Since the dawn of time, people have been recording their melancholy on page after page of tormented tomes. Being sad is a part of being alive. Feeling disappointed and angry at yourself is a part of taking responsibility for your path. Allowing the world to humble you and learning from it, allowing yourself the space to fail and be broken and get lost: This is what separates a person who grows from a person who stays locked in old behaviors and perpetuates old problems.

The gift of a crisis lies in its ability to offer us respite from our own self-hatred. When a huge disappointment or loss or tragedy grinds us into the dirt, when we feel like well never get off the floor again, thats when were the most in touch with the essence of who we are. Thats when we relearn our own potential. We understand ourselves as fallible, fragile things. We are forced to accept our lack of control over our circumstances. We are forced to yield ourselves to the unknown.

Theres grace in that moment of yielding, though. It involves laying your ego aside. It involves making some room for false starts and second-guessing. Even though our culture is built around the illusion of steady forward progress and the shared lie that we all know what we want and where were going and why, the truth is that were all stumbling and flailing, mostly without a clear plan, mostly while feeling a little bewildered and uncertain about ourselves and the future. And even if we dont feel so wobbly, we will one day. This brutal world will see to that.

This collection of Ask Polly letters and answers is about learning to welcome the gifts of being crushed, laid flat, devoid of hope, lost and afraid. This book is about trying to feel gratitude and clarity in the face of the worst darkness youve ever faced. This book is about drawing on your strength in ways you never have before, even though you might feel certain that youre not strong enough to make it through this. A crisis can make you power down your whole self and become a ghost, or a crisis can wake you up in ways you never though were possible. It all depends on how completely you face the truth of where you are. It all depends on your ability to let the darkness in, to feel it, to recognize how much it scares you, and to realize that without darkness, joy is impossible.

Our culture doesnt teach us to tolerate and accept both darkness and joy into our hearts at the same time, or to notice how they mix together to form a more balanced, less fitful, less anxious approach to our life stories. But joy is made up of darkness. Likewise, even the most hideous turn of life events signals the arrival of a new, unfamiliar flavor of joy. But its hard to reach that joy if youre mostly trying to hide from the darkness. This book is about recognizing that by letting yourself be humbled, you also allow room to forgive yourself and forgive this world for all of its injustices and tragic mistakes.

Every crisis has a message for you, if you look for it. Every crisis carries with it some kind of a gift that will make you feel more whole. It doesnt mean you would choose to experience the hell youre experiencing. It just means that you gain a lot by letting go of control and opening your eyes to what this world is trying to offer you.

The biggest lesson is this: You are not small. You are big and bright in ways youve never known. Only a trip into the darkness will allow you to see your potential. Only a time of extreme doubt will show you what you believe in with all of your heart.