At work, we have a book club. It was started about six months ago, and maybe 15 people seemed really interested initially. Now, we have five dedicated members, and every Thursday we meet in a small conference room in the back of the building during the lunch hour. We have a really great time together – it’s a diverse spread of people with wildly different backgrounds and roles in the company. We swap funny stories, and talk about life, the future, the past. We never talk about work, but we do read short stories and poetry. Sometimes we even talk about the book we’re reading, which usually comes in the form of a “book club kit” from our local library.
However, something odd has happened in the last few months. While in the beginning, lunch was “whatever you could get,” it slowly morphed – as these things tend to do – into an opportunity for everyone to splurge a little. Now, every week, we squabble a bit before agreeing on a place we all would like to eat, and then we go and get food to bring back to the office. Sometimes it’s crazy cheap (like the small cafeteria in the AA building next door) and sometimes it’s a little more expensive (like this one time when we went to La Madeleine – bad idea). But what it boils down to is:
We have taken a shared activity that is COMPLETELY FREE in its natural state and turned it into something that damn near requires that money changes hands every time we get together. Not only is that not economical, it’s also not necessary. Book club shouldn’t be about food – it should be about the books. And yet, going out to eat has become a big part of what we do every Thursday.
Last night, my husband and I were discussing our finances (we’re going on vacation next week) and he politely requested that I not participate in the purchasing of lunch food during book club this time around. I began to protest, but was firmly reminded that we truly do need to hang onto every penny we have in preparation for our trip. So I sullenly agreed. This morning, while getting ready for work, I was still sulking and pouting about it. “But I always get lunch with the group! Everyone’s going to be going out except me!” And other such whiny bitchings. I was SO MAD while I was making my peanut butter sandwich that the less immature side of my brain forced me to stop and look at myself for a second.
I was being a total baby, and why? Because for one week, I wasn’t going to be able to participate in a “ritual” that has nothing at all to do with books. And I joined the book club because of the books…not the possibility of food. So I said, “Fuck it!” and decided that everyone else’s eating habits wouldn’t – couldn’t – affect me anymore.
Of course, that got me thinking about all the other useless rituals that we cling to so strongly in this world. How many times have you heard someone say any of the following (or anything similar)?
“But we’re at the movies! We HAVE to buy popcorn!”
“Every time I go to the bookstore, I always stop and get a coffee at the Starbucks inside.”
Perhaps you yourself have uttered similar declarations from time to time. But really, how important are these little “rituals,” especially when you’re already doing something that is fun or special by itself? Must we tack on additional tasks (particularly ones which involve “treating ourselves”) when the thing by itself, unadorned, is treat enough? Have we really turned into such self-pandering, self-absorbed, me-me-me assholes that even when we’re already treating ourselves we have to do it some more to make it feel “extra special”? Why don’t we see special things for what they are? I mean, you can wrap a present in the most beautiful wrapping paper in the world, but once the paper is gone, it’s forgotten in lieu of the gift itself. Similarly, I cannot wrap a fulfilling book club meeting in a sandwich wrapper and expect that the lunch will be the thing I take away from it. It would almost be offensive to think so.
And as it turns out, I did have a good time without going out to eat. In fact, we had a particularly nice lunch, and nobody really seemed to actually care what anyone else was eating, least of all me. The food was good (I knew it would be, because I prepared it myself), the conversation was better, and the book we’re reading – The Time Traveler’s Wife – is turning out to be excellent. And that’s what it’s really about, in the end.
For a Total Change of Heart: I urge you to find, analyze, and if at all possible destroy those little rituals that add an artificial sense of heightened enjoyment to an already perfectly enjoyable activity. Get back to the roots of it – what was it about that activity that drew you to it in the first place? Why do you go to the movies? It sure as hell ain’t for the popcorn. Would you still go to that bookstore if there wasn’t a Starbucks in the middle of it? Probably. Reconnect with what you’re really after when you set out to have a good time – everything else is superfluous.
