It has happened every time. While each of Brené Brown’s books builds upon her earlier ones, and much information is repeated, each successive volume has brought me a great new gift. Each has brought me old gifts: reminders of the secrets I learned previously and perhaps lost sight of, or left unintegrated into my current life. And they bring me new gifts: truths I had not realized before, about human nature and about myself.

I would like to share the best new gift I received from reading Brown’s most recent book, Dare to Lead. It’s a research-based lesson about values, including instructions on figuring out what your own values are. Here’s some information that Brown shares about values:

“We have only one set of values. We don’t shift our values based on context. . . . The research participants who demonstrated the most willingness to rumble with vulnerability and practice courage tethered their behavior to one or two values, not ten.”*

One or two?! That’s not very many. Can you name your one or two core values, off the top of your head? I couldn’t. Sure, I could come up with ten or twenty values that I hold dear; but I had no idea which one or two of them I prioritized—or should prioritize, if I want to stay true to myself.

So Brown’s next move was helpful for me. She provides a list of dozens of values and encourages the reader to circle those to which he or she feels a particularly strong personal connection. I circled 17 of them. Then, she says, force yourself to select the one or two of these that are most essential to who you are. To my surprise, I immediately knew which two they were. It wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Brown has posted her list of values online here. I invite you to take these steps for yourself, right now, before reading the rest of this blog post. (She welcomes you to write in your own values if you think of some you like better than the ones listed.)

Did you do it? Did you learn something about yourself? Here’s what Brown says she learned about herself upon doing the exercise (she always does what she asks her readers to do):

“My two central values are faith and courage. I hated not circling ‘family.’ But as I dug in, I realized that while my family is the most important thing in my life, my commitment to them is fueled by my faith and courage.”

Something similar happened to me. My two core values are truth and wisdom. I hated not circling “creativity.” But I realized that, for me, being creative is not an end in itself. I don’t engage in creative writing for its own sake, but in the service of truth and wisdom. (Another creative writer might feel differently about this, and that’s okay!) I also hated not circling “curiosity”—but again, my curiosity is due to my search for truth and wisdom, not the other way around.

It was also a profound experience to think about the difference between truth and wisdom. I truly could not choose one or the other of these values; for me, they are intertwined like yin and yang. Seeking the truth can be a lonely—even toxic—endeavor, if not tempered by wisdom. And seeking wisdom can lead one astray, if not tempered by truth. Truth is facts; wisdom is knowing how to act in light of those facts.

At this point in Dare to Lead, Brown provides further information about values, as well as more exercises for the reader to do. Her goal is to help the reader not only identify his or her one or two core values, but also act in ways that are consistent with those values. I found all of this immensely useful, as well: do check it out if you get a chance.

What are your one or two core values? Tell me which ones you selected, if you feel comfortable sharing them. I’m so curious to know which ones you chose!

*Rumble with vulnerability is Brené Brown-speak for having hard conversations in which you put yourself out there and express yourself honestly, while being openhearted and generous with your interlocutor(s).

It’s always interesting when you read something that corresponds so germanely to something that is happening in real life. I was recently talking to a wise friend of mine, who pointed out that every family has issues—even, or especially, the ones that seem perfect. No one should feel that their family is exceptionally messed up in comparison with other families, my friend said, because we all struggle. We may struggle in very different ways, but we all struggle.

Not long after having this conversation, I read this passage in the book Almost Everything by Anne Lamott:

“Almost everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, scared, and yet designed for joy. Even (or especially) people who seem to have it more or less together are more like the rest of us than you would believe.”

All of this reminds me of Tolstoy’s maxim about happy and unhappy families. It’s true that, sometimes, everything falls into place and life rides along nicely. But this is very rare. It’s counterproductive, not to mention false, to assume that you are the exception if you or your family is going through a tough time. In reality, the exception that proves the rule is those few people and families who are right now, somehow, miraculously, doing well in every way.

In every way? That’s a heck of a lot of ways! Perfectionism highlights weaknesses while downplaying strengths, no matter how many strengths there are. So instead of counting up failings, let’s count up successes. Let’s count up the things we are doing well with right now—surely there are many, many things!—and be glad about those. If you need to wait for perfection in order to be happy . . . well, that could be a long, long wait.

Plus, you’ll have lots of company, here in the imperfection ring.

What are you and your family joyful about today?

I would like to discuss with you a modern problem, one that has the potential to strain relationships, upset family members, destroy old friendships, prevent new friendships, and restrict opportunities of all kinds. All this, you say? Yes, the potential for all this, I say. What is this potentially destructive modern problem? you ask. Let me explain through a story, I explain:

I had gone on a few dates with a sweet, athletic, intelligent, family-oriented, and career-minded man. Wishing to communicate something important to him, I made the regrettable—for more than one reason—decision to do so through text messaging. I am a woman of the modern era; that’s my excuse. Well, and I may also be a rotten and thoughtless person. In any case, he called me the next day.

For twenty excruciating minutes, he beat around the bush. He wanted to talk about anything and everything, except for the content of my text. Meanwhile I, trying to go with the flow, did not intervene, but rather answered his questions briefly and without emotion (see: rotten and thoughtless person, above). Finally, he said, “Well, it doesn’t seem like you’re in the mood to talk tonight.”

“Um,” I blurted out, “don’t you want to talk about my text?!”

(By this point, you’ve probably guessed where this story is going. . . .)

“What text?” he said.

He had not received the text! Caught off guard, I proceeded to completely bungle an oral explanation of what I had written, communicating in the most uncomprehensible English my convoluted point of view; and things ended badly.

In addition to having experienced outbound texting failures, I have also been on the non-receiving end of things. In the past year, I have failed to receive text messages from my mother, my psychotherapist, and my housemate. That last was an especially interesting case, since it was a group text, and the other recipient got it just fine.

Having felt frustrated by this problem for months, I finally found the time to scamper off to the Internet. There, I discovered that many others are having this issue. And then I discovered that my phone service provider offers a text messaging app that can be installed on multiple devices (in my case, phone and laptop) and that, people claimed, solved the problem for them.

The setup of these apps went uncommonly smoothly. And now—whoa!—I can text from my laptop, not just my phone. This is an exciting development, as it means I don’t have to interrupt the flow of my work at the keyboard if I want to shoot off a quick text, or read an incoming text. Moreover, if my phone breaks or goes missing, I can still access my text messages.

Something else interesting occurred when I installed the apps. The missing text from my housemate appeared, in proper sequence, on my laptop’s app! . . . though it is still missing on my phone’s app. Such a mystery!

How many friendships around the world have been damaged, or prevented from flowering, due to missed texts? How many business opportunities have fallen through? How many mothers have sighed, thinking their children were remiss in sending love, when actually they were not? What countless words would Charles Dickens pen about this tragedy, were he alive today?

Have you ever missed an important text? Have you ever sent one that never made it out of the ether and onto the intended recipient’s phone?

Do you know the Norman Rockwell painting called Freedom from Want? It’s the one where an elderly white couple is placing a cooked turkey on a not-too-elaborately set table, at which sit their smiling children and grandchildren.

It a gorgeous painting, with a lovely sentiment behind it. Isn’t it wonderful, the painting seems to ask, to live in a country in which we enjoy freedom from want, in which we have the luxury to enjoy a holiday dinner with our family? In which we possess perhaps not the fanciest tableware and home furnishings and clothing, but very functional and good tableware and home furnishings and clothing: just enough for health and happiness? And, golly, look at how healthy and happy we are! God bless the U.S.A.!

If I shut off the analytical side of my brain, I feel enraptured by the painting. It’s a monumental work of art. And yet . . . there’s that pesky voice inside my head that’s bringing up a slew of pesky issues. Why are there only white people in this representation of America? What about the Japanese internment camps that were being established around this time (the early 1940s) in the U.S.? What about people living in poverty? What about the Native Americans? What about all those Thanksgiving dinners during which the adults argue about religion and politics and complain about one another and get drunk and violent, as the children break things and hurt themselves and bully the littler kids to tears? What about people who are alone on Thanksgiving? What about the turkey that died to make this idyllic dinner possible? And on and on and on . . .

I had a similar double-sided reaction to reading the novel Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. This passage, in particular, in which a man describes his wife, makes me cringe:

“She was miraculous. Her body, like his, was always thinking for her, but in a different way, shaping the children, or moving ahead of him into any room to change the atmosphere there to fit any particular mood he was in.”

Yikes! He mindlessly walks into rooms, as she bustles around nurturing the children—without his help—while also reading his mind and making things perfect for him? Bring me a bucket or an airline bag!

To be fair, this novel was written in the 1940s and 1950s, before the second-wave feminist movement of the 1960s began. Furthermore, to be fair, there are real, biological differences between men and women (on average, I hasten to add, with a wide and beautiful variation among individuals).

However, living in the 2010s as I am, I can’t help noticing threads throughout this novel that I would classify as overly sentimental and of narrow cultural scope. Of particular concern to me are the strict gender roles depicted, the pervasive nostalgia that (by definition) elevates the past to a greater glory than the present, and a disconcerting (in light of the politics of the present century) nonintellectualism that elevates “how things have always been done” over new ideas (which may or may not be good ideas, but should not, in my opinion, be discarded simply because they are new).

And yet . . . the compulsion to analyze everything can be oppressive. In truth, sometimes things are idyllic. There are rare occasions when the family is gathered and healthy, when Aunt Sue and Uncle Robbie have come to an unaccountable truce, when the children are excited about the flakes of snow and the picture books, when everyone is warm in both senses of the word and making jokes that are actually very funny, when everyone is enjoying hot cider mixed with various other ingredients, when Grandma’s old-timey recipe is out on the counter; and then you open the oven and carefully pull out the rack, and the turkey is perfect, just perfect.

And for decades, you cherish your memory of that one uniquely miraculous holiday gathering.

Happy Thanksgiving!

My brother and his family recently moved to my area, which has been a wondrous and unexpected blessing. For the first time in my adult life, I am living near relatives.

There’s a part of me that wants to say, “Go away—you’re encroaching on my territory!” but that’s my self-destructive side. I am not used to having family nearby; I am used to the grittiness of going it alone. I have learned that I am fully able to tough it out . . . but life is tough enough without imposing extra, unnecessary hardships upon oneself.

The better part of me—in both senses of the expression—are thrilled, thrilled, thrilled at having family nearby. And so, I appreciated the early scene in Kamila Shamsie’s novel Home Fire in which one of the protagonists, having recently moved to another country—and continent—to further her education and career, reflects on the fact of her family being so far away . . . as well as on the word touch:

“She touched her shoulder, muscles knotted beneath the skin. Pressed down, and knew what it was to be without family; no one’s hands but your own to minister to your suffering. We’ll be in touch all the time, she and Aneeka had said to each other in the weeks before she had left. But ‘touch’ was the one thing modern technology didn’t allow.”

Of course, it’s not just modern technology that doesn’t allow touch. The word touch has been in use for at least 700 years; however, its meaning of “communication”—as in “let’s stay in touch” or “we fell out of touch”—is more recent, having originated in 1884. In the late 1800s, people presumably used the word to refer to (among other things) communication through letter writing: a more ancient form of technology than digital devices, but a technology nonetheless.

Whether you’re in touch with your family through Skype, as in the novel, or through older forms of remote communication (text . . . email . . . landline . . . snail mail . . . telegraph . . . smoke signals . . . carvings in trees . . . rock arrangements in strategic locations), no technology can replace a shoulder massage, hug, kiss, pat on the knee, or gentle and playful kick in the butt.

When was the last time you were in touch with family, not just in the communication sense but literally?