Who was your favorite Beatle?
It was 1964. I was in second grade. My friend Cindy who lived down the block said Ringo was her favorite Beatle. I figured it was because her last name was “Starr,” but who knows. I picked Paul. John looked a little too much like my cousin Johnny, besides almost everyone else I knew thought Paul was the cutest. Secretly I thought George looked sweet and really smart. But what did I know? I was only eight. No one I knew had picked George as their favorite. Fortunately I never let anyone else dictate who I loved after that, but choosing my favorite Beetle was actually not about love even if I had a little girl screaming crush on Paul, or George.
The only thing I knew about love was that Stevie Mulvaney wanted me to be his girlfriend back when I was in first grade. I got my heart broken. Not because I was in love but because Stevie moved away before I could decide whether or not I loved him. I would go on to fall for Frank Schmidt in third grade. He was the one that got away because I was too stupid to realize what an amazing human he was, and probably still is. I was never able to find him after his mom got remarried to the blind piano tuner, and believe me I’ve tried. Everyone in third grade made fun of me when I suggested the name “The Little Puppies” for our reading group. Everyone except Frank. I was so embarrassed about how everyone had reacted to the name that I didn’t vote for it myself. Frank did. He didn’t care if anyone laughed at him. He also patiently explained to me that the name might have won if I had been willing to vote for it too. (If you happen to run into Frank, please tell him to call me.)
But like I said, choosing my favorite Beetle had very little if anything to do with love. It was about making choices. Making choices true to who I was. Many of us pride ourselves on making the so-called big choices in our lives in a manner that matches our core beliefs. We either know without a doubt which way to go when it comes to these bigger decisions or we end up arguing with ourselves until we find the courage to do what feels most right and “fitting” to us. But what about the little stuff? We’ve been famously, and often, told not to sweat the little stuff. I know that advice is not necessarily about making choices but I’m here to tell you that the little stuff, those small choices we make on the daily, matter. In a big way. It’s as if we’re stringing a strand of pearls that create neural patterns in our brains.
These little choices can start to affect not just how others see us but also how we see ourselves. We begin defaulting to the same type of choices without being conscious of why we are making them. And if these choices are fueled by an unconscious desire to belong, to be seen as acceptable, or even to be accepted by a certain group, they can eventually start to have an impact on the bigger choices we make. Even those of us who pride ourselves on not walking mindlessly in lockstep with what is deemed appropriate by others sometimes hear little niggling voices deep in our subconscious warning us not to step too far outside of the lines others have drawn for us.
If we want to be true to ourselves. If we want to decide who and how we want to be instead of following what is expected of us by others, then we must examine our own lives as we live them. But it’s not enough to put your choices under a microscope. You have to make sure you are looking at them with your own eyes.
