Each time we show up for ourselves or for someone else, it’s like we’re turning on a single bulb in a strand of Christmas lights. A bulb can be anything: a text, a hug, a pair of pajamas, a puzzle. Occasionally, we’ll get to make a grand gesture that illuminates several bulbs at once, but for the most part, showing up is done one small, quiet act by small, quiet act.
Every single day is a new opportunity to show up—to be curious, connected, soft, brave; to create a kinder, healthier, lovelier world. My wish for you is that you’ll take each chance you’re given, no matter how small. Because when more of us show up for ourselves and each other regularly, the more lights we collectively turn on, and over time, we’ll create a connected line that glows brightly, lighting the way when life gets dark.
*
Notes
1. Kristen Bialik, “Americans Unhappy with Family, Social or Financial Life Are More Likely to Say They Feel Lonely,” Pew Research Center, December 3, 2018, pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/03/americans-unhappy-with-family-social-or-financial-life-are-more-likely-to-say-they-feel-lonely.
2. Juliana Menasce Horowitz and Nikki Graf, “Most U.S. Teens See Anxiety and Depression as a Major Problem Among Their Peers,” Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends (February 2019), pewsocialtrends.org/2019/02/20/most-u-s-teens-see-anxiety-and-depression-as-a-major-problem-among-their-peers.
3. Kelsey Crowe, PhD, and Emily McDowell, There Is No Good Card for This: What to Say and Do When Life Is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People You Love (San Francisco: HarperOne/HarperCollins, 2017).
4. Louis Menand, “What Personality Tests Really Deliver,” The New Yorker, September 3, 2018, newyorker.com/magazine/2018/09/10/what-personality-tests-really-deliver.
5. Olivia B. Waxman, “Where Do Zodiac Signs Come From? Here’s the True History Behind Your Horoscope,” Time, June 21, 2018, time.com/5315377/are-zodiac-signs-real-astrology-history.
6. David Walton, Emotional Intelligence: A Practical Guide, London, UK: Icon Books, 2012.
7. “Needs Inventory,” The Center for Nonviolent Communication, 2005, cnvc.org/training/resource/needs-inventory.
8. Andrea Bonior, PhD, “10 Important Boundaries Everyone Should Set in 2019,”BuzzFeed, January 2, 2019, buzzfeed.com/andreabonior/a-definitive-guide-to-setting-boundaries.
9. Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World (New York: Portfolio, 2019).
10. Teddy Wayne, “Are My Friends Really My Friends,” The New York Times, May 12, 2018, nytimes.com/2018/05/12/style/who-are-my-real-friends.html.
11. Andrea Bonior, The Friendship Fix: The Complete Guide to Choosing, Losing, and Keeping Up with Your Friends (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2011).
12. Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter, The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results (Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2018).
13. Anna Borges, “Everything You Could Possibly Want to Know About Therapy,” BuzzFeed, October 23, 2018, buzzfeed.com/annaborges/how-to-start-therapy.
14. Rachel W. Miller, “How Often You Really Need to Shower (According to Science),” BuzzFeed, January 12, 2015, buzzfeed.com/rachelwmiller/how-often-you-really-need-to-shower.
15. Rachel W. Miller and Anna Borges, “Here’s How to Use a Bullet Journal for Better Mental Health,” BuzzFeed, August 19, 2016, buzzfeed.com/rachelwmiller/mental-health-bullet-journal.
16. Rachel W. Miller, “10 Life-Changing Things to Try In 2016,” BuzzFeed, January 4, 2016; and Rachel W. Miller, “15 Tips From Marie Kondo That Have Genuinely Changed My Life,” BuzzFeed, January 14, 2019.
17. “Why We Need to Create a Home,” The School of Life, theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/why-we-need-to-create-a-home.
18. Florence Williams, The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative (New York: Norton, 2017).
19. Online Etymology Dictionary, “habit,” etymonline.com/word/habit.
20. Tonya Dalton, The Joy of Missing Out: Live More by Doing Less (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2019). Copyright Kotori Designs, LLC.
21. Meg Keene, A Practical Wedding (Boston: Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2012).
22. Shasta Nelson, Frientimacy: How to Deepen Friendships for lifelong Health and Happiness (Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, 2016).
23. Rachel W. Miller, “Not Great, Bob! The Case for Actually Being Honest When People Ask How You Are,” SELF, June 19, 2019, self.com/story/not-great-bob.
24. Bonior, The Friendship Fix, op. cit.
25. Wayne, “Are My Friends Really My Friends,” op. cit.
26. Diane Weston, Small Talk: How to Start a Conversation, Truly Connect with Others and Make a Killer First Impression (Hamburg, Germany: Monkey Publishing, 2019).
27. “How to Cope with Snobbery,” The School of Life, theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/how-to-cope-with-snobbery.
28. Jeffrey A. Hall, “How Many Hours Does It Take to Make a Friend?” Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 36, no. 4 (2019): doi: 10.1177/0265407518761225.
29. Allie Volpe, “Why You Need a Network of Low-Stakes, Casual Friendships,” The New York Times, May 6, 2019, nytimes.com/2019/05/06/smarter-living/why-you-need-a-network-of-low-stakes-casual-friendships.html.
30. Ibid.
31. Nelson, Frientimacy, op. cit.
32. Bonior, The Friendship Fix, op. cit.
33. Gyan Yankovich, “11 Tiny Ways to Keep Your Long-Distance Friendship Strong as Ever,” BuzzFeed, March 7, 2018, buzzfeed.com/gyanyankovich/long-distance-friendship-tips-advice.
34. Nelson, Frientimacy, op. cit.
35. Susan David, Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life (New York: Avery/Penguin Random House, 2016).
36. Joshua Foer, “Feats of Memory Anyone Can Do,” TED, February 2012, ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do/transcript.
37. Celeste Headlee, We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations that Matter (New York: Harper Wave/HarperCollins, 2017).
38. Crowe and McDowell, There Is No Good Card for This, op. cit.
39. Susan Silk and Barry Goldman, “How Not to Say the Wrong Thing,” Los Angeles Times, April 7, 2013, latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-xpm-2013-apr-07-la-oe-0407-silk-ring-theory-20130407-story.html.
40. Crowe and McDowell, There Is No Good Card for This, op. cit.
41. Andrea Bonior, The Friendship Fix, op. cit.
42. Deirdre Sullivan, “Always Go to the Funeral,” All Things Considered, NPR, April 8, 2005, npr.org/2005/08/08/4785079/always-go-to-the-funeral.
43. Harriet Lerner, Why Won’t You Apologize?: Healing Big Betrayals and Everyday Hurts (New York: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster, 2017).
44. Ibid.
Further Reading
The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker
I’ve been raving about this book to anyone who will listen since it was first published in 2018. It is absolutely worth your time, especially if you care about having better, more meaningful hangouts with your people.
There Is No Good Card for This: What To Say and Do When Life Is Scary, Awful, and Unfair to People You Love by Kelsey Crowe, PhD, and Emily McDowell
I love this book, which offers a thoughtful, practical, and relatable foundation for showing up for other people in bad times.
The Friendship Fix: The Complete Guide to Choosing, Losing, and Keeping Up with Your Friends by Andrea Bonior, PhD
Dr. Andrea Bonior is a therapist and writer who always gives realistic, thoughtful, and genuinely useful advice. This book is all about complicated friendship dynamics, and it takes a deeper look into some of the topics I’ve touched on in this book.
Frientimacy: How to Deepen Friendships for Lifelong Health and Happiness by Shasta Nelson
This book is a great read for anyone who wants to dive deeper into making and keeping friends; it includes a lot of frameworks and tips that I’ve personally found helpful.
Unf*ck Your Habit
at by Rachel Hoffman
If you are living on your own for the first time and/or tend to struggle to care of your space, this book—and the blog of the same name—is for you. Hoffman covers the basics and offers practical tips (some of which you might remember from Chapter 3 and Chapter 5) in a truly kind, non-judgmental way.
We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter by Celeste Headlee
I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in making the most of their conversations with friends, or who is worried about not being the best conversationalist.
Captain Awkward blog, written by Jennifer Peepas
The Captain gives truly excellent advice on pretty much everything, including Showing Up–adjacent topics like dealing with difficult family members, supporting a friend who is depressed, and advocating for yourself when someone is making you uncomfortable. Jennifer is so thoughtful and smart, and reading her blog for years has made me a better person.
captainawkward.com
“The Missing Stair” by Cliff Pervocracy
This essay, which I first discovered via Captain Awkward, offers a highly useful metaphor for a common social group dynamic, and is really helpful if you’re dealing with a jerk (or an abusive person) in a group setting.
pervocracy.blogspot.com/2012/06/missing-stair.html
Ask a Manager blog, written by Alison Green
Yes, this is a workplace blog, but our workplaces are home to many important relationships (that are complicated by things like money, ego, office politics, power imbalances, and the need to keep it professional) and present a lot of opportunities to show up. Alison writes with so much empathy and humor, and her blog has made me so much more confident in dealing with tricky situations.
askamanager.com
Recipe: Deb Perelman’s Quick Pasta and Chickpeas
This recipe is my go-to weeknight recipe; it’s filling, nourishing, vaguely healthy, very inexpensive, and extremely delicious. (It’s also meat-free and dairy-free and warms up well the next day.) I’ve sung its praises to many, many people, and they are all believers now.
smittenkitchen.com/2017/10/quick-pasta-and-chickpeas-pasta-e-ceci
Recipe: Sue Kreitzman’s Lemon Butter Angel Hair Pasta
As I mentioned in Chapter 5, this recipe is one I turn to when I need to feed myself but am kind of struggling. (I also make it when I’m not struggling—I just like it a lot!) Though literally nothing about it is French, I sort of think of it as the “French girl” version of boxed mac and cheese. It comes together in less than twenty minutes, tastes great, and feels elevated and special.
food52.com/recipes/75234-sue-kreitzman-s-lemon-butter-angel-hair-pasta
Permissions Acknowledgments
“How to Say No to an Invite When Your Reason Is ‘I Just Don’t Want To’” was first published in slightly different form as “The Art of Saying No to Invites When You Really Don’t Want to Do Something” by SELF.
“Canceling Plans” was first published in slightly different form as “How to Cancel Plans Without Losing Friends and Feeling Like a Jerk” by SELF.
The introduction to Chapter 5, is adapted from the essay “The best $16 I ever spent: Old Navy pajamas after my husband left,” originally published by Vox.
“How to Tell People You’re Going Through a Tough Time” was first published in slightly different form as “Not Great, Bob! The Case for Actually Being Honest When People Ask How You Are” by SELF.
“Getting Dressed” contains language from the article “Giving Myself A Dress Code Changed My Dang Life,” originally published by BuzzFeed.
“Why Venmo Is My Favorite Sympathy Card” was originally published by BuzzFeed.
Acknowledgments
The Art of Showing Up wouldn’t exist without Terri Pous, Gyan Yankovich, and Anna Borges, who were my coauthors of the BuzzFeed post “A More Or Less Definitive Guide To Showing Up For Friends,” which inspired this book. Thank you for your insights and your generosity. It also wouldn’t exist without my excellent editor, Batya Rosenblum, who didn’t flinch when I turned in a first draft that was approximately twice as long as the book you just read.
I’d like to thank two of my best friends and best editors, Sally Tamarkin and Alanna Okun. Sally was the first editor of “How to Tell People You’re Going Through a Tough Time,” “Canceling Plans,” and “How to Say No to an Invite when Your Reason Is ‘I Just Don’t Want To,’” which first appeared in my column at SELF, and was generous enough to read my manuscript in progress and give her feedback. Alanna edited the longer version of the Old Navy pajama story that was originally published as part of Vox’s “The Best Money I Ever Spent” series. There are few moments more vulnerable for writers than letting someone else read the first draft of something you’ve written that you care deeply about, and I feel so grateful that these two, along with Batya, were the ones in my Google Docs.
I’m so grateful for my dear friends/colleagues Tom, Mackenzie, Anjali, Kayla, Devin, Julia L., Julia F., Rachel C., Augusta, Lauren, Cara, Jordan, Terri, Gyan, Alanna, and Sally, who have showed up for me in ways big and small over the years, and who cheered me on as I worked on this book. Thank you to my mom, the most generous person I know, and the person who taught me to show up at a very young age. And my whole heart to my girlfriend, my favorite person in the world. I could not have done this without you.
About the Author
RACHEL WILKERSON MILLER is the author of Dot Journaling—A Practical Guide and the deputy editor of VICE Life. Previously, she was a senior lifestyle editor at BuzzFeed for four years. Along with VICE and BuzzFeed, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Huffington Post, the Hairpin, and SELF, and she’s been a guest on NPR, the Today show, and Good Morning America. She lives in Brooklyn.
rachelwmiller.com | @the_rewm
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