Written by Paul Dail
First off, this isn’t really about socks.
While I might have just lost all of my sock enthusiast readers looking for an article about the newest in footwear, I hope the rest of you will indulge me for a moment.
It’s cold where I live with my wife and two young children. As I am writing this piece, I’m looking out on blue skies over snowy ground. Beautiful. But cold. Temperatures this morning were in the teens, and that was before considering the wind chill factor.
Yet here comes my two-year-old son—as he has on many such chilly mornings—with no socks on his feet. I know his feet are cold because I can feel they are cold. And because my feet are cold.
I’m a freelance writer and my wife is a teacher, which means we keep an eye on the heating bill. Much like my experience growing up in a family that wasn’t necessarily “well-to-do,” if you’re cold in our house, you put on a sweater.
However, this is assuming you at least started by putting on socks.
I try to explain this to my two-year-old, but as he will tell me, he doesn’t want them. He doesn’t like socks. My four-year-old daughter has finally figured it out, but she wasn’t much better last winter, dancing around the house in only her underwear. And she still only wears the bare minimum necessary to keep her limbs from stiffening in the chill.
I know they are cold, but they have chosen to ignore it for the simple sake of not wanting to wear clothes at that given moment. They wear clothes all day long. It’s not like I’m asking them to put on a suit of armor or anything. They would be able to quickly acclimate to having the added clothing—and consequently, the added warmth—and resume their play, perhaps even more joyfully.
They could be happier, but they’re unwilling to go through a little discomfort to get there in the name of being “happy enough.”
I think a lot of grown-ups still do the exact same thing.
(Okay, I’m aware that with a two-year-old, they also just haven’t made the connection yet, but now you see where I’m going, right?)
In my last column about some of the problems I see in modern communication, I quoted the prose poem “Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann. I do that often. It was always around when I was growing up, and I have a framed copy in my own home now for my family.
The last line of the poem is, “Strive to be happy.”
It seems so simple, yet we often complicate it. Or simply stop striving just because we are “happy enough.” The socks we are unwilling to put on because they might cause some temporary discomfort come in all different colors.
Let’s talk about the phenomenon of New Years resolutions.
Oh yeah, some of you are suddenly thinking. Those.
A report on New Years resolutions from the University of Scranton, Journal of Clinical Psychology showed at least 62 percent of Americans occasionally or regularly make resolutions.
So why do people make resolutions? When you look at the top ten types of resolutions for 2014, there is an obvious common denominator. From losing weight (#1) to spending more time with family (#10) to helping others achieve their dreams (#8), they all deal with one thing: making yourself happier (even if it’s through seeing someone else’s happiness).
We stand just a little over a week into 2015. Statistics say that of all the people who make resolutions, 75 percent of them have made it this far. The number drops to 64 percent making it past a month and less than half of them making it past the mid-year point. So why do we fail at making ourselves happier?
I don’t want to oversimplify human psychology here, but I bet with a lot of people, they just don’t want to put their socks on. Even though they decided they wanted to change and pinpointed something that could make them happier, they ultimately convinced themselves they were happy enough and that it wasn’t worth the temporary discomfort.
While it’s easy to associate this behavior with the start of each new year, I think it happens year-round. Complacency, fear, and pain avoidance conspire to keep us from doing things that could ultimately make us happier, whether it’s quitting smoking or finally polishing up that resume and finding a better job.
I’ll admit that I’ve been among the majority of resolution makers that didn’t make it past six months. Don’t ask me about smoking. Besides the failed New Years resolutions, I rarely made it past a month in any of my other multiple attempts before finally quitting for good. The thing that kept me trying—with smoking, as well as more and more of my endeavors these days—was my striving to be happy. Or at least happier.
The good news is that the study showed that people who explicitly make resolutions—regardless of the time of year—are ten times more likely to achieve their goals (ergo, more happiness) than those who don’t explicitly make resolutions.
Note the use of the word “explicitly.” You can’t just think about what you want to change; you gotta make it real. “Explicit” is defined as “stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt.” This means telling people, leaving no room for confusion or doubt. Or writing it down. Then taping it somewhere you see it every day.
And if it’s something you are embarrassed to admit (or that you don’t want you child or significant other to read), maybe all you need to see when you step out of the shower each morning is a note taped to your mirror that says, “Put your socks on.”
And just be happy, dammit!
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. What color are the socks in your drawer? Again, I’m guilty myself, so don’t feel bad showing them to me. I also really like hearing success stories, so brag away. For the first two weeks following the publication of each of my columns, I personally respond to all comments within 48 hours.
