Totally Adequate: Thanksgiving Edition

Being Totally Adequate is not just a part-time responsibility; you're on all the time. This is even more true for the holidays, when events necessitate putting up with other people and impressing them all with your adequacy.

If someone invites you for Thanksgiving dinner, try to be your most Totally Adequate self:

• Bring cheap wine. Don't take the chance that your hosts aren’t wine people and wouldn’t appreciate the thought and expense.
• Don’t shower or dress up that day. These people invited you, not some gussied-up image of you. So just come as you are.
• Try to dominate the conversation at the table with tales about yourself. For one thing, this removes the awkward silences as everyone tries to think of something appropriate to say. Besides, these people are probably really interested in knowing more about you or else they wouldn’t have invited you.
• If your hosts don’t offer, ask if you can take home the leftovers. It’s usually a chore finding room in the fridge for all of it, so you’ll be helping out. Besides, you can eat well for a week on that stuff. Don’t take everything, though; leave the stuff you don’t like, with appropriate phrases like, “You can keep this – it was pretty gross.”

Be part of what you can be: Be Totally Adequate.

Tips on Being Totally Adequate

In this confusing world in which we live, where it’s always “rush-rush-rush” and “Would you like whip on that Viente?” and “You’re standing on my foot,” we need to take a step back and think about what really matters. In the end, we’re all just people trying to get along and get by. Don’t you think that if we were all kind to each other and went out of our way to help on another that this would be a better world for all of us?

But being kind and helpful takes far too much work; who has that kind of the time and energy? Plus, we’d feel silly and might be ridiculed by others, and we should always let our actions be governed by peer pressure. As the saying goes, “To appear to be wise, let your peers be your guides.”

However, it wouldn’t take a lot of effort to be more adequate. In fact, you may find that being adequate is actually more time-efficient than other approaches. We needn’t really change the way we do things at all, except that when faced with a choice of behaviors we pick the one that causes the least disruption, so that everyone can get on with their business.

Here are some tips for leading a more adequate life:

When someone does something really nice for you, like giving you a present or saving your life, be sure to look vaguely in their direction and smile slightly. No thanks is necessary, because someone close enough to you to do this for you must know how you feel.

When you are driving along, approaching an intersection where you will turn and you see someone waiting for you because they think you’re going straight instead, don’t use the turn signal. Using it would let the person know that you intend to turn and they could go ahead, but that’s just forcing them into the awkward position of trusting you to not go straight anyway and plow into them. Also, a turn signal is just one more piece of blinking data in this already information-littered world; by not turning it on, you’re letting that other person’s brain relax slightly, enjoying the time that they spend waiting for you to possibly drive past. Besides, it’s so much effort to flick the turn signal stick; save that energy for more important things, like walking to get your next cup of coffee.

When you’re approaching a doorway and someone is there holding the door open for you, don’t acknowledge them. They were just doing this to be kind, and derived full enjoyment of it from the action. It would just be awkward if you thanked them.

Don’t make cruel jokes about others behind their backs; that would be mean. But do laugh when others do so. The victim is not even present and wouldn’t know, but the person making the jokes would be hurt if you didn’t play along. Besides, they might make fun of you next time unless they think you’re one of them.

These are just examples, and can’t begin to cover the full spectrum of ways in which you could lead a more adequate life. Think of them as parables. Or as allegories, without the annoying animals. Look for their inner meaning and see how you can apply it to your daily routine, and I think you’ll find yourself becoming totally adequate.