I'm willing to bet that most of us, unless you're my dad and for some unexplained reason have an extreme opposition to Friends, have seen that episode where Joey claims that there is no such thing as a selfless good deed. Phoebe goes to extremes to prove him wrong, including allowing a bee to sting her and pledging $200 to PBS even though the channel broke her heart as a kid. Each time, though, Joey finds a way to spin the act as selfish, so that by the end even Phoebe is left questioning whether selflessness truly exists.
One of Ashley's favorite sayings is, "there's a little bit of truth in every joke." So while I recognize that this storyline might seem purely for comedic effect, I've recently found myself wondering how I know whether I actually like to make people happy, or if I just like the feeling of success.
I absolutely LOVE to bake, but I'm one of those people who uses recipes as more of a suggestion than a rule. With practically every allergy under the sun in my extended family and the almost inevitable fact that I'll discover that I don't have one of the ingredients I need, I usually end up scrambling to adjust a recipe to fit my needs. There was one particularly notable incident where I was meaning to make chocolate chip cupcakes for a bake sale on campus, but they turned into banana peanut butter chocolate chip muffins when I realized I didn't have any eggs, oil, butter, or confectioner's sugar! Needless to say, a lot of my baking adventures turn out...questionable, you could say.
But one thing I'm really good at baking is bread. I'm not the kind of person who is quick to call themselves successful at something, and in fact I don't think there's anything remarkable about my homemade French bread loaf. To me, it just tastes like any other ol' loaf of bread. But my dad and sister are obsessed with this bread. Every time my dad reaches for another piece, he'll comment, "There are very few things I'd choose to snack on over sweets, but I just can't get enough of this!" My sister, who has recently developed a repulsion to most breads, never misses a chance to remind me that my bread is the only bread she'll eat right now. So when I want to bake something I know will be a success, bread is usually my go-to.
My mom, however, is gluten-free, and I have yet to find a successful recipe for a gluten-free loaf. So a couple of weeks ago, when I was on my second batch of bread in 24 hours, I wanted to make something my mom could eat, too. I had also been curious to experiment with other kinds of bread, so when I found a recipe for a gluten-free cinnamon raisin loaf, I decided I might as well try it.
This was one of those recipes where I made up most of it and realized as I was putting it into the oven that I hadn't actually read any of the instructions, so I was pretty curious to see how it was going to turn out! But let me tell you, if my French bread was good, the cinnamon raisin bread was phenomenal. It was perfectly moist with just the right balance of cinnamon and sweetness, and it didn't taste gluten-free at all (Side note: If you bake gluten-free, I cannot recommend enough the Walmart-brand flour substitute. You wouldn't expect it to work well, but it has by far the least distinct "gluten free" taste of any flour substitute I've tried). Everyone LOVED this bread, they couldn't stop talking about how good it was. We had a family friend staying at our house, and the next morning she told me that she woke up thinking about the bread. I felt jubilant. I was just thrilled that I made something that made everyone else so happy.
Late at night this same day, I was in the kitchen making a snack when I suddenly heard uproarious laughter coming from my sister in the other room. I assumed Ashley was listening to a podcast while she was working; it wouldn't have been the first time that week where she had burst into uncontrollable laughter while listening to Armchair Expert. I smiled; I sometimes find myself anticipating that Ashley will be in a bad mood when she's up working late, so I was pleasantly surprised to hear her so joyful, it didn't really matter why. But when she was still laughing after a good minute, though, I inquired about what was so funny.
"I'm reading chapter 8," she tells me between fits of giggles. She was referring to the chapter I had just finished writing of How the Twins Saved Christmas, the holiday-themed children's chapter book we decided to write together because no, between our podcast, blog, and 501(c)3 theatre company, we do not already have enough on our plates. I was hit by a moment of shock that something that I did could be that entertaining to her. Almost immediately, though, I was overjoyed. It wasn't some random show or stranger's story that had her cackling, it was me. I didn't know I could do that, but I was proud.
It was at this moment, though, that I started to wonder why making other people happy makes me happy. In my head, I'd like to think it comes from a place of selflessness. I bake bread for my family because I hope that they will like it and it will improve their day even by just a little bit. While I wouldn't call writing a book a good deed, my ultimate goal was still to make the readers laugh and bring them some joy, so hearing Ashley laugh is satisfying because it's proof of her joy.
But there's some fallacies to this thinking. I wonder, am I so excited that everyone likes my bread because I am glad that they're happy, or is it because it makes me feel successful? When I choose to bake for them, is it because I want to do something nice or is it because I know I'll get a positive reaction in return. I certainly don't consciously think, "Oh, I really want some validation today so I'm going to make bread so that everyone will tell me how amazing I am," but I also wonder if a little bit we all make the decisions we make based on our desire for positive reactions from others. Would I be just as inclined to make more loaves of bread if no one had said anything about it? And would that be because I wasn't sure if they liked it, so I didn't want to make something they didn't like, or would it simply be because without their praise I had no motivation to make more? When Ashley laughs at my writing, am I happy because I gave her something to laugh about? Or am I just happy because her laughter makes me feel like a good writer?
I don't really have any profound answer to this. And it's not as if I'm sitting here thinking I'm a selfish person, it's just a curious thought to me how I truly know why I like making people happy. For example, I'm pretty sure that me vacuuming my room would make my mom equally as glad as me presenting her a baked good. But nobody oohs and awes at how clean the floor is after I vacuum. Is that why I'd happily bake her every dessert under the sun but I dread cleaning the house? I think it's probably because cooking is fun and vacuuming is boring, but then I start to wonder why. They're both just housework, so does the final product have anything to do with our perception of what is enjoyable and what isn't?
Last week, Ashley and I put on a "pay-what-you-can" week-long acting performance intensive for teens through Stagebugz, the non-profit theatre company that we started. Our mission is to make arts education more accessible, so one of the ways we decided to try to do this is by offering classes as "pay-what-you-can," so that families without the means to pay for an acting class could still participate. Knowing they otherwise would probably never get an experience like it, I was glad to be able to offer this class to the kids who participated. Nevertheless, we had very few participants who could pay, so after accounting for various expenses neither us nor the organization was making more than a trivial amount. Between managing registration, writing the script, planning rehearsals, directing the show, communicating with parents, and the many other elements that Ashley and I were solely responsible for, we easily put in a hundred free hours of work. I'm not complaining at all, but certainly this had to be selfless, right? I was pouring my time and resources into the show, and doing it solely for the benefit of the kids.
But then the class started, and by the end of the first rehearsal I had watched a group of strangers become immediate friends, one of the best side effects of being in theatre. The third day, in the midst of a major snowstorm, one of the youngest girls gushed about how thankful she was that we didn't have to cancel rehearsal. Our tradition is to end every session of class or camp with "roses and thorns," where we go around and have everyone share the best and worst part of their day. Every time someone said their rose was "coming to rehearsal" (which was often), my heart would melt. More than anything, on the day of the final performance, I got to see kids who just a week earlier were afraid to speak in front of their peers now fully enveloped in their characters, projecting loudly and confidently to the back of the theater. I couldn't help but think, we did that. The friends they made, the fun they had, the ways they grew as performers, were all because of us.
And then I had my Phoebe Buffay moment, because that's exactly why I wanted to start Stagebugz. There is no feeling quite like knowing that you've had an effect on someone's life that will last forever. No matter how much each of those kids got out of class that week, I got more. At least to me, the pride in knowing that I've made a difference is priceless. But with that comes pride in knowing that I'm capable of making a difference, the validation that we've succeeded in our goal to touch people's lives with art.
So, maybe there really is no such thing as a selfless deed. I have to imagine that even the biggest sacrifices come with at least some degree satisfaction in the knowledge that one has made a difference. I think this idea is cyclical, though, because if we do something for someone and don't feel good about it, perhaps that means that thing wasn't actually so good? I guess my point in saying all of this is that even if we have to accept that there is no such thing as complete selflessness, it's okay, because feeling good about doing something for others still means they are benefitting too. There are plenty of ways that people seek happiness at the expense of others, so if I or anyone else can find joy by doing good, then there's no reason to feel guilty about it. Like I said earlier, I don't have anything profound or Earth-shattering to say, I just think it's interesting to consider why the things that make me happy do. I worry a lot about being selfish, but in my opinion it's okay that making other people happy makes me feel good about myself; at least that means I am the kind of person who wants others to be happy!
Comentarios