Happy Little Trees
You know that moment when a cartoon character cozies down into a hot bath and lets out that big, ridiculous, relieved sigh? I feel like that all of the time.
I’ve heard psychologists and neurologists talk about how our patterns of thinking feed upon themselves. A good analogy is that of a wagon driving down a dirt road. The more the wagon travels back and forth, up and down that road, the more likely it is that the dirt gives way and creates tracks or ruts. And before long it becomes virtually impossible to drive down that road without going into those ruts. And then the wagon is stuck on that course and has only one destination: wherever it’s been before. Wherever it went last time.
Sometimes I used to go to the office in the morning and hear nine people say how tired they were before I even got to my desk. Or I’d hear people complain that “I don’t want to do this today.” Or “I just can’t even.” And I would think to myself… why are you telling me this? I mean, what am I supposed to say? “Oh you’re right, sorry, you weren’t actually on the responsible adult list today. Our mistake, you can go home.”
People act like adulthood is some burden that they signed up for by mistake. And it’s really obnoxious.
But more importantly, it makes me sad to see people treating themselves like this. When you allow your brain to entertain thoughts like this, you’re literally teaching your brain to think like a child. That’s what you’re doing. You’re doing long-term damage to the hard-wiring of your brain. You’re making sure your wagon gets stuck, morning after morning, week after week.
And I don’t like to let people get away with that. Not only because I genuinely don’t care if you’re tired (go to sleep earlier please), but because I want to see people do better than that for themselves. Jordan Peterson said that we ought to take care of ourselves as if we’re someone we’re responsible for helping. And, although I think he doesn’t do a great job of following that rule himself, it is a great piece of advice.
Would you want your child to wake up every day miserable? Would you want your child to go to school every day and be a negative influence on everybody around her? No, of course you wouldn’t. You’d try to gently and lovingly coach her to do better. So why do you allow yourself to be that person?
I can tell you that, after years of paying attention to my own thought patterns, I have stopped thinking this way almost completely. I don’t think I’m special, but I do find that I’m pretty happy most days. And that’s a good thing. It feels nice.
I don’t ever wake up in the morning and feel bad for myself that I have a job. I don’t ever allow myself to say pointless things like “I don’t want to do this today” or “I don’t want to be an adult.” I can honestly say that most of the time, my mind doesn’t even go there. Because I trained it not to. I carved out my tracks to better places.
Sometimes I’ll get a funny response from people when I’m eating a home-cooked meal. I cannot stop talking about how nice it is to have a hot meal that someone prepared for me. It’s the greatest, most loving thing in the world. Whoever cooked it will laugh at me, like “what, is it your first time eating a hot meal this year?” And of course it isn’t, but I enjoy home-cooked meals so much that I just can’t help myself. I want the cook to know how much I appreciate it.
When I get a back rub, I want whoever gives it to me to know how much it means to me. How, for those few minutes, nothing else in the world matters. That’s enough to make my whole week.
When I lie down in bed at night, I say to myself (out loud), “mmm, my bed. Comfy.”
People know me as the guy who is “really easy to please.” And it’s funny. But it’s also very true. Because I want my mind to notice these things. I want to show my mind, my body, and other people my appreciation. I want these little things to be cherished every time they happen. I want my mind to be trained to go there, not to idle complaining and fruitless unhappiness.
I find little things that make me feel like that cartoon character, all of the time. Because why not. I’m allowed, so why not.
You know who else did that?
The Trinity of Wholesomeness
Bob Ross did that. And Steve Irwin did that. And Fred Rogers did that. You might know Fred Rogers by his nickname, “Mister.”
All three of them are dead now. But they represent, to me and to a lot of people, some sort of holy trinity of wholesomeness and positivity.
I’m not one of those people who’s going to tell you that life is all butterflies and candy and rainbows. Because it’s not. I believe that life is pain. And anyone who says differently is selling something. That’s my favorite line from the Princess Bride. And as far as I can see it’s also a fundamental truth of life.
But I also believe that you can do an extraordinarily good job of punctuating that pain with lots of little good things. And, more importantly, with gratitude for those little good things.
Maybe I am trying to sell you something. But it’s not religion. And it’s not an instruction manual. Maybe it’s an attitude. Maybe it’s just a good day.
I was reading about Bob Ross recently. He’s not as simple as we thought he was. We remember him as the guy who joyfully painted landscapes while instructing us in his gentle, endearing voice. Roughly 90% of us who watched his show were not even painting. What a telling revelation. That means that almost all of us were watching him for the same reason our kids watched Mister Rogers or Steve Irwin — because his company was what we wanted. The little things he did. The way he painted. The entertainment value and the relaxation value. The positivity.
But Robert Norman Ross was still a man who had to experience the realities of life outside of his TV show.
For instance, did you know that Bob Ross was married three times? His first marriage ended with, hard as it is to believe, accusations of his infidelity. His second marriage ended when his wife died in 1992 — a time when he was actively filming The Joy of Painting.
Did you know that Bob Ross smoked for almost his entire adult life? I never would have guessed that.
Bob was also in the Air Force. When he was 18, he enlisted. After 20 years, he retired as a master sergeant. That means that the Bob Ross we know and love had to spend years of his life yelling at people and being a hardass. When later asked about his military career, he said that he was tired of it and never wanted to raise his voice again.
Soon after, Bob’s painting really took off. And then he had to deal with a shaky partnership with Bob Ross, Inc. — a company run by people who he partnered with early on and later possibly regretted. They wanted all of the rights to his likeness, they bullied him for better splits of profits and royalties, and all around were probably not great people for him to have in his life. Bob was a very detail-oriented person and he wanted to put out a great TV show, but he was not a ruthless capitalist. All of this bickering and litigation was more than he wanted to deal with. It weighed on him. And then his wife died.
Bob wasn’t an effortlessly happy guy. I will never forget a quote from one of the episodes (S23 E3) of his show. He was talking about how life is about being able to deal with both the good times and the bad times. And then he said, gentle as ever, “I’m waitin’ on the good times now.”
Bob Ross, as well as Fred Rogers and Steve Irwin and your favorite celebrity and anyone else, have dealt with their fair share of life’s pain. And maybe the reason they found such joy in the everyday things in life was because they went looking for it. Because they made a decision to find it.
Mr. Rogers chose to have a beautiful day in his neighborhood. Steve Irwin chose to find joy in risking his own skin to teach us about animals. And Bob Ross chose to paint happy little trees. He could have made them miserable, shitty little trees. But he didn’t.
It’s easy to discount such people as naïve or weak. Harmless. But I instead see them as the strongest among us. They choose to color things with vibrancy and gratitude. Because they know how awful life can be if you choose not to.
So when I see Bob Ross painting Happy Little Trees, I don’t just see an artist’s gentle quirk. And I don’t see someone whose life is easy. I see a decision about what kind of man he’s going to be. I think that’s pretty noble. And I’d like to try to live up to that.
Drink some water and thank the faucet,
JDR
“I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.” - Arthur Rubinstein