Upper Limit Problems

     

The hemlock tree in our back yard has reached its upper limit in snow burden, more this winter than we've seen in a decade.

***

In the late 70's, during the year I took off between high school and university, I worked as a cook at Earl's, a family-run restaurant in the plaza by the Dairy Queen in Trenton. 

The town bailiff would eventually change the restaurant's locks, but before that happened, two waitresses and I killed time one afternoon sitting around the staff table, smoking and gossiping. The place was deserted, and had been for hours. 

One of the waitresses played at stacking acrylic menu card holders on the table. The holders once advertised daily specials, which Earl's no longer offered. I joined in. It became a reverse game of Jenga. The higher the tower grew, the more committed we were to its future. We had to stand on chairs to put the last two holders in place.

We were amazed our tower had grown so tall and seemed so sturdy. We'd done it without a plan, just a common objective. Our shared sense of accomplishment was palpable. 

The other waitress, who'd watched us build the tower but had not joined in, stepped towards us, maybe, I thought, to marvel at what we had done. Instead, she pulled on one of the holders at the bottom of the stack, and collapsed the whole thing, clattering, into a heap.

I could not believe what she did. She said she liked loud noises. She absolutely had destroyed the mood. Disgusted with her and mourning the lost moment, I returned to the kitchen to prep for whatever few customers might show up for their evening meal.

***

Although I'm telling this story now, I swear that, for more than forty years, I'd never thought of it.

What hauled it out of the deepest recesses of memory was Gay Hendricks's The Big Leap. I'm reading it for my course.

Hendricks is a psychologist. He provides therapy for rich, successful people, who, despite their success are not reaching their full potential.

People fail to reach their full potential, their full happiness, their "Zone of Genius" (Hendricks's term) because long ago, sometimes beyond the reach of memory, people learned when they were most impressionable that they didn't deserve to be happy, because they were flawed, or a burden, or had some other failing that the people in their lives (parents, friends, strangers on the subway) took the time to tell them about.

This feeling of not deserving happiness is called an Upper Limit Problem and often shows itself through self-defeating behaviour. You know the kind. Everything's going great. You've achieved something, you're doing well. You've built that impossibly tall tower of acrylic menu card holders, and then someone comes along -- usually you -- and brings the whole thing down.

And sometimes your upper limit problems make you wreck things for other people.  

I have to admit I'm not clear on why this book is assigned reading for my course, but I think I finally understand why that girl trashed our tower.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

The City of Toronto: where vaccination has become part of the brand.