This week I received six requests for lists by Wednesday morning:
How to write a letter of recommendation
What to pack for Costa Rica
Where to eat in Barcelona
Maybe if these requests had come to you, you would respond in long-form poetry, or with screenshots or a god-forsaken-audio-message*. But for me, these are clearly requests for lists.
People *love* lists. Listicles. Five Ways to Wear a Scarf or Six Ways to Wrangle Your Mother-in-Law or The Three Most Important Features of Your LinkedIn. Don’t you want to read Eight Ways to Grill a Cheese? (if not, scroll on)
For this reason, and because I have a handful of new paid subscribers (thank you!) and an alarming number of new free subscribers (welcome?!), I’m adding a new mini feature to the [virtual latte]: the random short list, which will precede the regular programming. Everyone will get the list, the first paragraph or two of the full piece, and the rest will be reserved for paid members only. As more paid members join, I devote more time to writing. Some of that is evident in the [virtual latte], and other writing time is devoted to forthcoming books.
Don’t love lists? Just scroll.
Love ‘em? You’re welcome. You might even learn something.
HOW TO HAVE A FAMILY CRISIS
1. Keep Secrets - not maliciously, but so as not to inconvenience the other members of le fam. See how long you can put off disclosing your needs, failures, and requests and save them up for a wildly inopportune time. Then share them all at once, inspiring a deluge of truth nuggets from everyone else.
Example: try not to mention your pending divorce, moderate gambling addiction, and loss of job until at the airport, ideally with members of your extended family who are all experiencing travel delays on nonrefundable fares. Theresa, your quasi-aunt will feel equally open to sharing that she plum forgot her luggage and credit cards, and has - oh by the way - added a plus one to the party who she met thirty minutes ago at Hudson News whence she was attempting to purchase a romance novel and bag of Funyuns, air travel’s most perfect food. Welcome, Robert the Rescuer, let’s all go international.
2. Stockpile grudges - under the rug is a great place to keep score on every little whiff of a miff. Feel slighted? Treasure that nugget until a most inopportune time and then strike!
Example: do you remember Christmas Eve, 1994 when your sister got to ride in the front seat of Santa’s sleigh on the neighborhood jolly ride even though she didn’t care one iota about it because she was an angsty teen and it was the thing you wanted the absolute most in the entire world? Hold onto that puppy until she is having an emergency gallbladder surgery and needs you to watch her dog. You’ll be glad you did.
3. Establish a disorganized, decentralized, and multivariate decision making process - rather than defaulting to a merit, talent, or experientially-based process, consider attempting many different ways of collaborating simultaneously.
Example: your uncle is an honest-to-god lawyer (so much as a such a thing exists) and rather than asking him to help the family make difficult, complex and legally-lasting choices about grandpa’s estate, you ask your six year old twin nieces to collaborate with grandpa’s dog-sitter and his best friend the post master. What could go wrong?
BONUS: Let the internet hold you. Rather than receiving emotional support from trusted advisors or fellows on the path, take to the internet to wield your wack all over the bot parade.
I don’t need to explain this one, do I?
and now, onto your regularly scheduled latte…
Today (which is not the day you are reading this) is the third anniversary of the release of my book Better Boundaries which feels quite a bit like eight lifetimes ago. I’ve been re-reading it along with a group of virtual book clubbers, which might include you. While the sales had originally started with mostly my dear friends and colleagues, they have now blossomed into quite a few therapists to whom I am not directly connected, as well as some fascinating business applications and some rogue Twitter-based counsel I’ve offered to people Tweeting into the void... (see bonus, above).
The methodologies are sound. So far, I have not discovered a scenario in which these methodologies do not apply to weed out drama and soften conflict. But I do keep looking…
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