I hope you had a great 4th of July! Mine was very restful – I saw the new Pixar movie Inside Out, which was fantastic. A must-see. If you don’t already know the plot, it’s about a young girl named Riley and her emotions – which are all characters onto themselves. It put me in a very introspective mood about feelings and how we emotionally adapt over time. It reminded me of something I read last week that I wanted to share with you.

There was an article in the NY Times Magazine last weekend about psychoanalysis. They talked about the work of a psychoanalyst and researcher named Dr. Andrew Gerber. He was describing the transformation of some of his patients as similar to the chemistry process called “annealing.” I had never heard this term before, but the author of the article, Casey Schwartz, described it in layman’s terms as:

“the act of heating something so that all its molecules dance around wildly and then slowly cooling it back down so that it assumes a new and more stable state.”

I thought this was such an interesting way to describe the process of psychoanalysis and therapy in general. I’ve never done psychoanalysis, but I have done therapy. And sometimes you do go through this process whereby you think it’s not working at all and you’re vacillating between extreme feelings about the whole experience and your own emotions, but then somehow, at some point, you realize a big shift has taken place. It’s somewhat hard to describe without it sounding vague and nebulous, but it’s basically when you feel like you’ve become a new version of yourself after a certain period of internal turmoil and transition.

Therapy aside, I think there are several time periods in one’s life that act as “annealing” processes, if you will. When you’ve reached your 30s, you’ve probably gone through at least a few of them. For me, puberty, college, and the several years haze after college when I emerged into the real world were those periods for me.

How many times in our lifetime do you think we go through a process of emotional re-assembly?

So I’d been starting to get SAD in my new apartment because of a bizarre lighting setup.

When I say SAD, I’m referring to Seasonal Affective Disorder- the state you get into when seasons change, and you start to get depressed because it’s dark. This usually happens in winter, not summer. But because my apartment was very dark, it was more difficult to feel sunny- in every sense of the word.

There are no overhead lights in my main room- just the kitchen and the hallway. This alone would leave the main room very dark, but the situation is compounded by facing into an alleyway, surrounded by a brick wall which very much blocks the sunlight.

I fretted about this for quite awhile once I moved in. I definitely had other things to think about, but for whatever reason, fixing the lighting issue consumed my mind. I thought about all the different lamps I could get. I worried about all the money I’d have to spend on more lamps. I already have two lamps, and their dim yellow glow didn’t make the room any less dreary.

On a recent trip to CVS, I went to buy detergent and spotted a cool looking ‘Flood’ lightbulb sitting on a shelf. It was cheap and it was 90 watts. I couldn’t remember the wattage of my current lightbulbs, and the floodlights seemed like they might be better, so I bought two of them.

When I replaced the lightbulbs I already had with my new findings, the room lit up. Problem solved.

Its so funny the things we sometimes stress about forever that can be solved cheaply and easily in minutes. Occasionally an item on my to do list that I’ve been agonizing over for weeks or months and finally force myself to do ends up being finished in minutes. This was one of those lightbulb moment times.

Of course then there are the times when you think something will take minutes, but it takes hours. And that can suck.

But it the point is, you have to force yourself to start- to at least try SOMETHING- in order to figure out if you have a simple lightbulb task on your hands.

And wouldn’t it be nice to cross that task that’s been bugging you for weeks off your list- in minutes- once and for all?

I’ve realized recently that our thirties are a kind of world-building decade. We figure out if and who we want to marry and settle down with, perhaps we gain some clarity on our passions and career goals, and maybe we have children. So while you’re creating your future, hopefully you’re at least periodically asking yourself, what do you ultimately want from your life, what’s your ultimate purpose? It’s a question we should probably ask ourselves more often, and we shouldn’t settle for surface answers.

I’m somewhat obsessed with this great existential question as I bet most of us are in some way or another. Personally, when it comes down to life goals, I toggle between wanting contentedness living a simple life with family, friends and a meaningful job but then wanting to be an incredibly successful writer that people adore. I suppose that’s the ego-driven part of me that wants to be special. When that ego driven side of me rears its’ head, I want to be someone who’s considered exceptionally talented and creative. Someone like Mindy Kaling. When I look at her Instagram feed, I can’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy – wondering why I haven’t gotten where she is. It’s more than just jealousy though, I also feel sometimes like if I don’t achieve that level of success, I will have failed. But when I step back and think about it, I know that not everyone can be a Mindy Kaling, and all of our journeys are our own. And maybe there’s a kind of vast journey continuum – where some of us are on smaller journeys – like indie films as opposed to sumer blockbusters.

So, this essay in the NY Times couldn’t have come at a better time. It’s a fascinating peek into how people find purpose in their lives.

The Small, Happy Life by David Brooks:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/29/opinion/david-brooks-the-small-happy-life.html?_r=1&assetType=opinion

What does your small, happy life look like?