How to Not Make Things Worse

On Personal Inventories. Marc Maron. Anger and the Stoics. New tunes for the playlist.

It’s Sunday, so this issue is for paid subscribers. The very low cost of eight bucks per month gives you access to the full archive and commenting privileges. Plus, you’ll get a short essay, remixed old essays, and a breakdown of my weekly recovery program — what I read each day, how many meetings I went to, what I’m grateful for, afraid of, self-loathing, self-seeking, self-compassion and all the other routines that keep me fit as a fiddle.

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Since it's October (the 10th month of the year), I focused on Step 10, which is about continuing "to take personal inventory, and we were wrong promptly admitted it." (I always want to make a "persona" inventory to figure out which parts of my newsletter personality are entirely false, wholly constructed by my ego, eventually causing me to lose huge chunks of what we commonly refer to as "emotional sobriety." Another week.)

But it wasn't just October that brought me here—it was actually Marc Maron's Monday WTF newsletter where he described a scenario when he and his girlfriend were on the way to a wedding, she realized that her car had been stolen the night before, so plans were disrupted. Maron admitted that he's historically not been great in these moments. Here's what he said:

"I had to not make it about me and escalate the crisis by somehow blaming her or getting aggravated that we'd have to get a new car or any number of ways I could have just made it worse. I didn't do that. I'm very proud of myself. Because it's my impulse to make things worse somehow."

Man, I have that impulse, but I have never recognized it as "making things worse," which is most likely a byproduct of growing up in a household with lots of yelling.

So what to do? When someone we love is stressed or has screwed up, how can we not make things worse?

I went deep into Paths to Recovery last week in search of a remedy. In 12-step literature, remedies usually take the form of acronyms, and that is the case here. But this one might work.

Before you say anything destructive, THINK about it.

T - Is it Thoughtful?

H - Is it Honest?

I - Is it Intelligent?

N - Is it Necessary?

K - Is it Kind?