The Gospel According to Michelle and the Bullshit of “The Dream X____”

As I was surfing the internet last night, I came across an advertisement promising I could save for retirement AND send my children to their “dream” college.

This is was opposite of click-bait for me. I couldn't read further.

I'm all in favor of people having dreams, but we need to scrap this whole idea of the Dream House, the Dream Job, the Dream College, etc. and replace it with the Good Enough House, the Very Nice Job, or the Pretty Good College. The focus of "Dream" implies that there is only one home, job or college that is perfect and everything else is less than, which is a load of crap. There are plenty of nice places to live, nice places to work, and nice places to go to college. Sure, we only live in one place, work at one job (except for people who need to work two or more jobs) and go to one college, so picking the right one is important. But there can be many good options, and they all could be right.

Think of these things as if they were dessert. Let's assume you like chocolate. You can choose from tiramisu or chocolate cake. Both are good. Is one a "Dream Dessert?" and the other a loser dessert? No. If you like both and you pick one, will you be okay with either? Sure.

I was walking to work this morning from the bus and was talking to my new friend, Slats. He works in higher education, and we talked about how the status of colleges is so influential in terms of where kids want to go. But is status necessary? For him, the status of a school implies you are buying an education, not earning it through hard work. With the emphasis on status, kids look at a college in terms of what it can do for them, not what they bring to the school community to make it a better place.

Which brings me to Michelle Obama and her new book, Becoming, which is awesome so far. She went to law school and was working in a big firm when she met Barack, who challenged all of her assumptions about what it meant to be successful. Even though he was wicked smart, he focused more on what he could contribute to the world rather than what it would give to him. Michelle began to doubt if law firm life was right for her, and was looking for a new path (page 146):

"I was realizing that the next phase of my journey would not simple unfold on its own, that my fancy academic degres weren't going to automatically lead me to fulfilling work. Finding a career as opposed to a job wouldn't just come from perusing the contact pages of an alumni directory; it required deeper thought and effort. I would need to hustle and learn."

I won't deny that fancy academic degrees open doors for people, but more important than that is "hustle," as Michelle says. Everyone--fancy school or not--needs to figure out their own path, and that will be a greater source of happiness and success, as we each define happiness and success on our own terms.

Which brings me back to Dreams Homes, Colleges and Jobs, and my conversation with Slats this morning. More of life--house, colleges, and jobs--is what we bring to it, instead of what it brings to us. I can find a dream house and never paint it or take care of it. I can go to my dream school and party away four years. I can find my dream job and become a slacker. Suddenly, those things aren't so dreamy. They lose their shine and appeal. Or, we can take a good enough house and plant flowers and paint and bake cookies and have friends over. We can go to a really nice college and have lots of friends and take interesting classes and attend campus events. Much of life is what we chose it to be.

Le Pichet and My Dinner with Michelle

First news: We got a condo. We closed almost a month ago. Like when I ran for School Board, I stopped blogging a) because I was busy looking for a condo, b) I didn't want potential sellers to read my inner thoughts and c) once we got the condo, we needed find furniture and that was a huge endeavor. Now that the place is livable (minus kitchen supplies like pots, pans and food), I have a few moments to write.

The week before we found the apartment we bought, I thought we'd never find a place in a location we liked, in a building we liked, that fit our space needs and had a nice layout and was affordable. I thought our search would be like two circles in a Venn diagram that have no data points in common, never touching.

Just as I was beginning to despair, the Seattle Condo Gods smiled upon us and we found a really, really cool town home.

Tonight, Jack and the Boy went to see Warren Miller's latest pre-ski season, testosterone fueled epic.

"Do you want to go?" Jack asked.

"No," I said.

"I feel bad going out with Peter and leaving you alone," Jack said.

He should never feel bad about male bonding with his son. Ever.

I went down to the condo, dropped off the dog, and then headed out to find a place to eat. Should I have cassoulet at Cafe Campagne or go some place new? I walked around and remembered a place my friend Diane and I used to visit for lunch when I was a stay-at-home mom. So I went to Le Pichet for dinner, a posh French bistro around the corner from the condo. I sat at the bar and ate dinner with Michelle Obama. I got the last copy of her new book at Third Place Books today. The bookseller had read up to chapter five and was crying about how good it was. We joked about how Oprah was endorsing it, as if Michelle Obama needed promotion.

In the opening of her new book, she talked about a night after Obama was out of the White House and she had an evening alone without her family. Barack was out of town, and her daughters were out. This was the first time she was truly alone. She went to the kitchen to make toast, and there weren't any White House kitchen staff there helping her watch the bread turn brown. She loves her family and her old life, of course, but still she had a night alone. And it was awesome.

As I was eating my steak, I overheard a man tell his wife how he needed her to support him working more. She listened quietly, and drank more wine. I looked out the window, watching city life go by. I left the restaurant, walked down the block and around the corner, and I was home. Fox was waiting for me at the door. I don't think he left the door since I left for dinner. I took him for a walk along the waterfront.

It was awesome.

Le Pichet, 1933 First Avenue, Seattle WA