Reading the Secret History of Our Enemies: Lessons from 'Never Have I Ever'

Reading the Secret History of Our Enemies: Lessons from 'Never Have I Ever'

Ah, high school—years when crushes are crushed, friendships are formed (and sometimes shattered), and arch-nemeses roam the halls. We've all been there, haven't we? The irresistible urge to gravitate toward pleasure and popularity while doing our best to dodge anything remotely unpleasant. It's like an unwritten rule of adolescence (that never really ends). But you have a choice in how you respond to the ebbs and flows of good news and bad news as well as difficult people.

The Netflix comedy/drama show, 'Never Have I Ever,' is a delightful window into the complex world of human relationships. I'm a bit behind on my binge-watching, currently in Season 1, where Ben Gross takes the stage as Devi's arch-nemesis. As famous poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said, "If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility." And that's exactly what we discover as we peel back the layers of Ben's character.

Name It to Tame It

Navigating through new territory or high-stakes situations, such as the college admissions process, can evoke a range of emotions. It's common to feel like we aren't doing enough or that we ourselves aren't enough. We may also feel sad, angry, irritable, frustrated, apathetic, or a host of other emotions. Often, we aren't even aware of what we're truly feeling. To cope, we may try to push these feelings away or deny their existence altogether. Sometimes it’s really not fine, and you need to get help! Or call the fire department!

Ignoring these emotions won't make them disappear. They will continue to hold power over us until we acknowledge and accept them. Recognizing and naming the emotion can be the first step toward taming it. It may be a long journey, but once we name it, the emotion automatically loses some of its grip on us. In meditation, this can involve a practice of noticing what thoughts and emotions come up, and without judgment watching how they arise, stay for a time, and disappear. Ironically, when we actually give them a little room, and say hello to them, they are less interested in taking over our minds and bodies. Of course, uncomfortable thoughts or emotions can and do continue to arise, since we have years of deeply conditioned habits, but we can learn to relax into whatever comes up, even welcoming and experiencing the whole range of emotions and life.

Rankings + Happiness, College Apps + Stress

A recent New York Times article interviewed 11 high school seniors about their journey through the college application process this past year.

Some of the commentaries is perhaps obvious on the surface— no, attending a higher-ranked college will not lead to a happier life. But, if you stop and seriously think— do I really know that to be true in my full self? There might still be a tiny part of you that questions if there might not be some truth to it. And that’s okay!

As a culture, we are obsessed with rankings, including college rankings, so how can that not influence you even a little bit? Where we can get stuck is in the part of our thinking minds that knows— I don’t cognitively believe a particular outcome will make me happier, but in my heart, I want to be happy, so if there’s something that might make me happier, then I want that! Even if it’s not related to rankings, it can be really helpful to reflect honestly about what are my unconscious expectations or hopes about this application process or about my time in school?

The Wandering Mind

The Wandering Mind

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you're physically present, but your mind is somewhere else? If you're a human, then the answer is, most definitely, yes! Maybe you walked into another room and forgot why you went there or attended a class but have no recollection of what was discussed. As James Joyce wrote in Dubliners, "Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body." While funny to imagine, especially living in the information age, we can often think about our minds needing to carry around this body, which then gets a utilitarian treatment (shrink me, sculpt me, etc., a topic for another time!).

Being disconnected from our present experience can make it difficult to do many things, like manage difficult situations, build resilience, and critically think about our own perspective. A recent study done at Harvard suggests on average, we spend 47% of our time lost in thought. “A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” Killingsworth and Gilbert write. “The ability to think about what is not happening is a cognitive achievement that comes at an emotional cost.”

It's not to say you should be present in the moment 100% of the time.

Jumping for Joy

Jumping for Joy

Yesterday I took my dog, Jett, on a walk after a snowstorm. I clipped on my snow shoes for the first time this season, and we started down a familiar local trail we have walked countless times in all seasons. He leaped through deep snow, and I could imagine that if he could talk (which I like to imagine not infrequently), he would say, "this is the best minute of my life!" and one minute later, "no, this one is!" Reaching the furthest point, a piece of land that juts out with ocean on three sides, the afternoon light cast long shadows of the trees across the snow. I looked back from the way I had come and saw my snowshoe trail was marked by the sun's warmth and the darker shadows.