Gah, we tell ourselves exhausting stories
A weird life lesson from "The Blues Brothers"
Sometimes, we tell ourselves stories about an outcome before it’s even happened. We assume how people will react (usually a story we tell ourselves woven entirely out of fear) and contort ourselves accordingly, then the whole thing becomes emotionally fraught. But sometimes, things go way better than we even bothered to imagine, and once we actually do get it all out in the open, it’s actually fine, and all the energy we spent telling ourselves a story and agonizing over it is gone in a poof.
I’m reminded of a funny story in Chicago lore in which a young and nervous John Belushi met with the city’s then-mayor, Jane Byrne, to get permission to film scenes in The Blues Brothers that included driving a car through the lobby and a window at Daley Plaza, promising to have it all put back together by morning. Byrne said yes. But, Belushi was so sure there was no fucking way in the world she would agree to something like that that he just kept talking, allegedly sweating bullets as Byrne would later recall, until she finally cut him off with: “Look, I told you yes.”
Wild, right? So, where has something like that shown up in your life? Maybe you assumed your parents would throw you out when you came out of the closet, but instead they said, “oh, we know.” Maybe you assumed your lover would lose their shit if you asked them to define your relationship but instead, they happily answered even better than you’d dared to hope. Maybe you thought your professor would not wiggle on a deadline when your parent died the week of finals, and instead they gave you surprisingly beautiful grace and compassion.
Today write about a worst-case assumption that turned out to be happily, wonderfully, and completely wrong. Let’s write.
