Just who do you think you are?
Let’s start with the bad news: I don’t have the answer to the above question. I can listen to your problems, I can accept you for you, and I can nod in solidarity or pat you on the back in sympathy. But I can’t tell you who you are. Only you can do that. (Or, like, maybe astrologers can do that? I don’t know. Like I said, not my department.)
Now for the good news: In my humble, unscientific opinion, most people already know who they are and what makes them happy. They may not know exactly how to be that person or get that life, but that’s what I’m here for. And if you don’t know off the top of your head who you are and what you want, I bet that if given the opportunity and absolutely zero outside pressure, you could figure it out.
(Did I mention I’m going to need you to do that before we can move forward?)
Don’t worry, though, figuring yourself out is not as intimidating as it sounds. Playing “Who do you think you are?” is like playing a video game, and even a seven-year-old with ADD can do that.
Ready player one
The first thing you do in lots of video games is choose a character. Let’s use Nintendo’s go-kart racing classic Mario Kart as an example. (You don’t have to know anything about Mario Kart to follow along here, but if you have played it and gotten the top score on the “Bowser’s Castle” level, hearty congrats.)
In Mario World, you could be Princess Peach, who rides fast but spins out easily when hit, or a slow, methodical koopa named Bowser, who doesn’t get rattled when other players get up in your grill. (Koopas are anthropomorphic turtles. Again, not my department.) Or you could be one of two unflappable Italian brothers who run a successful plumbing business by day and chill out at the track on weekends. Mario and Luigi are just here to enjoy the ride.
You pick your character based on their strengths (and in exchange, you accept their weaknesses). Which one suits your style of play and creates the best outcome for you?
I myself have pitiable reflexes, so I prefer a slower, heavier kart that’s less likely to go over the edge after a crash. You may have more dexterous thumbs and be willing to risk a lightweight chassis for the benefits of reliably leaving Bowser in your dust. Maybe the power of invisibility is preferable to the power of hurling fireballs at your competitors. You do you.
And since right now it’s just you, me, and a bag of Doritos, how about you also take this conveniently provided opportunity to identify some strengths and weaknesses that are more pertinent to your daily life.
Are you loud? Quiet? Big? Small? Quirky? Selfish, difficult, negative, or weird? And which column do those belong in, anyway?
Jot down a few of them here (or, for ebook readers, on any sheet of paper)—no need for an exhaustive catalog, just a little something to get the juices flowing:
| MY STRENGTHS | MY WEAKNESSES |
| _________________ | _________________ |
| _________________ | _________________ |
| _________________ | _________________ |
| _________________ | _________________ |
Next step in the game: choosing a “world” to play in. In Mario Kart, it would be a racetrack, such as Ghost Valley, Mushroom Gorge, or Moo Moo Meadows, among many others. Each has its pros and cons, but you would pick one to play based on how much fun it is for YOU.
This is a metric that shouldn’t be too hard to define, right?
Well, in life, you can also choose among various tracks: family man in the ’burbs, world traveler on the global stage, philanthropist, elite athlete, hot-dog-eating-contest champion. You can even play more than one at a time, because metaphors are not infallible and life is more complex than a video game. Regardless, only you can know which one(s) make you happy.
What’s your ideal world?
Try to come up with a sentence or two that describes it. There won’t be a quiz or anything, but writing this shit down is useful. Trust me.
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
All set? Great, now let’s talk about what happens when you exit the two-dimensional confines of Mario World:
When you’re faced with real-life decisions that impact your real-life happiness, do you plot your own course, design your own character, and play to your strengths? Or do you go with the computer-assigned role?
Do you feel comfortable, safe, and confident in your choices? Or are you just hoping to squeak by in the middle of the pack without getting run off the road by an anthropomorphic turtle?
These are the tough questions, and yes, I lulled you into submission and then snuck them in. But you don’t have to write down your answers, because we already both know them. If you were playing to your strengths and you did feel comfortable, safe, and confident in your choices, then you’d be out there kicking koopa ass and taking koopa names instead of reading this book and sucking nacho cheese dust off your fingers.
Hey, man, don’t hate the player. Hate the game.
No, if you’re still with me by now, I’m guessing your problem isn’t who you are or what makes you happy; your problem is that you feel like it’s not okay to be that person and want those things.
And why do you feel that way? Well, probably because other people are always telling you you’re too loud, too quiet, too big, too small, too crazy, too quirky, too selfish, too difficult, too negative, and “Hey, while we’re at it, STOP BEING SO WEIRD, WEIRDO.”
Yep. Been there, heard that.
If you hear it enough, life starts to feel like an infinite go-kart circuit where the most prudent path lies in riding the slipstream of the player in front of you—a disorder that is known (by me) as Lowest Common Denominator Living.
Lowest Common Denominator Living
This condition is evinced by the urge to stifle any or all unconventional, unusual, uncommon, odd, novel, rebellious, or unpopular aspects of one’s personality, lifestyle, or value system—and results in “just getting by” as opposed to “getting on with your bad self.”
If LCD Living describes your current circumstances, tell me, why should you waste another day in its clammy, limp handshake of a grip?
Especially when I can personally guarantee that it’s fun (and productive) to speak your mind in a meeting without caring whether people think you’re being difficult; it’s satisfying to tell your boss the truth instead of drinking the tainted Kool-Aid of office diplomacy; it’s an incredible relief to confess to a roomful of Southern ladies that you have absolutely no opinion whatsoever about china patterns; and it’s healthy to let it all hang out wherever, whenever a Shaggy song comes over the airwaves.*
Now for the best news of all: No matter what form your you-ness takes—princess, plumber, koopa—it makes no difference to me. Nor does it affect your ability to benefit from my advice. You Do You crosses sex, gender, age, cultural, and socioeconomic lines, because I’m helping you from the inside out, not the outside in.
Now, in order to keep you safe from the scourge of Lowest Common Denominator Living, we’re going to have to reestablish your relationship to yourself and to the rest of the world.
Again, this is not as hard as it sounds.
In a few pages, I’ll take you through the social contract and begin the amendment process, which continues through the rest of the book. But the social contract is just that—“social”—and therefore all tied up in your relationship to others. Before we can unpack that crate of cabbage, we need to talk about your relationship to yourself.
I’ve decided to talk about it using acronyms and Jesus. Hey, I do me.
WNDs and the second half of the Golden Rule
You may have heard of something called the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This twenty-four-carat nugget is paraphrased from the Bible, but regardless of its origin, it seems both reasonable and feasible, does it not?
(You might even say it underlies the entire social contract, and you would not be wrong. Hang tight.)
But it also seems clear—even to someone like me who last attended Sunday Mass when Wham! had two of the top three songs of the year—that you can’t follow the Golden Rule if you don’t first establish HOW YOU WOULD LIKE PEOPLE TO DO UNTO YOU.
In other words: What do you want, need, and deserve from life?
These are your WNDs. Not to be confused with WMDs, WNDs do not endanger the lives of innocent villagers or provide governments with an excuse to engage in an eight-year, multitrillion-dollar war. But just like WMDs, if you can’t identify them… you’ve got a big problem.
So, earlier in the book you spent some time figuring out who you are and what you’re playing for. Now, what do you want, need, and deserve in order to get there?
I’ll go first, to give you an example:
I want to make my own decisions.
I need to take care of my mental health.
I deserve to have my opinions heard.
If you intend to get the most out of You Do You, you’re going to have to answer those questions too. What makes you happy? What tickles your pickle?
I want_____________________________________.
I need______________________________________.
I deserve____________________________________.
(By the way, your WNDs need not be limited to the available surface of this relatively small page. Feel free to get yourself a notebook, start dictating into your iPhone, or graffiti a wall if you have to. The important thing is to identify them and keep a close watch over them as life goes on. It’s for your own good, not just the innocent villagers’.)
Once you’ve clarified your half of the Golden Rule and shored up those WNDs, we can achieve all kinds of pickle-ticklin’ goodness by negotiating—with the rest of the world—the best terms the social contract has to offer.
For YOU.
The social contract
The minute we exit the birth canal, we enter into a set of guidelines for human behavior that we all agree to follow (more or less) so we can live our lives in peace.
What’s known as the “social contract” is not a legal document, or even a tangible one, but just because its clauses haven’t been typed out and stored in a fireproof safe-deposit box with all of our important paperwork doesn’t mean we don’t know it’s there.
And boy, does it come in handy sometimes.
We all have to share space in the world—on highways, in dorm rooms, and in the pit at a Jamiroquai concert—and sometimes, shit happens that tests our capacity for reason and restraint. During those times, the social contract acts as a buffer to our baser instincts. It steers us back from the brink of road rage; keeps us off the dean’s shit list; and stops us at the last possible second from using a lighter to set fire to the hair of the girl who muscled her way in front of us even though we had been at the venue for HOURS before she and her oblivious friend showed up with their stupid fucking backpacks. (What? I said it stopped me.)
And I completely agree that there are clauses we should all observe: such as “Do not whip out your cell phone in the middle of a Broadway musical,” “Do not answer the door nude when folks come a-caroling,” and “Do not post unflattering photos of your friends on social media.”
But there are other clauses—lots of ’em—that we shouldn’t adhere to “just because.” Some have the potential to hurt us more than they help others; some are out of date, out of vogue, or out of touch; and some threaten to upset the very balance that the social contract was put in place to maintain.
These are the ones that lead, directly or indirectly, to a nasty case of LCD Living.
I chose fifteen of my least favorite to focus on—such as “Don’t be selfish” and “You will regret that”—and I’ve amended them to suit a much wider swathe of humanity, including but not limited to: weirdos, pessimists, loners, hot messes, and people who definitely will not regret that, but thanks for your concern.
Here’s a sneak peek at what’s on tap in Parts II to IV: