Take In The Good

It's a practice

Hello friends!

A still, shared by a friend, from a Zohran Mamdani (as Young Cardamom) music video

You might have heard we had a little mayoral primary here in NYC this week. And the results surprised a lot of people!

That surprise gave way quickly to a million takes out there on the politics and symbolism of it all, what it portends for the future. Some of these are good takes. They are out there if you want to find them. Tomorrow they will be replaced with a zillion more, as, despite, or perhaps because of, the upheaval in media business models, the take economy gushes on and on like a broken slot machine.

I am sorry that some of my people, Jewish people, have been baited into feeling worried and scared because of the outcome of this race. I thought

Bess Kalb

wrote about this in a beautiful way that sums a lot of my feelings up as well.

But most of the people I know, within and outside NYC, are at least a little bit psyched. They were actually surprised into being happy, if only for the moments it took to process the news.

Mamdani’s primary win is like finding a forgotten $20 in the pocket of your jeans—a windfall, something good turning up when you didn’t expect it. Especially when there has been so much bad news happening, so quickly, for months and months. (And months. Can you believe that we’re one year out from Biden’s disastrous debate with Trump? Oy, what a year.)

Or it’s like if someone had been serving you some kind of horrible boiled slop, some undifferentiated prison mush loaf, meal after meal after meal. And you had no choice but to swallow it down and try to metabolize it somehow.

And all of a sudden they handed you a gorgeous, tree-ripened, purple, sunwarmed mulberry.

I want to yell: do not hold your nose and gulp this down too! Slop is back on the menu tomorrow.

Instead, pause. Take in the aromas. Crush it slowly on your tongue. Taste the sweetness.

This can actually be a scary, vulnerable thing to do, so it’s understandable if there’s resistance.

Maybe you’re happy that Zohran Mamdani was able to marshal so many volunteers, small donors, and first-time voters. His win feels especially small-d democratic, and brings the city together with its message of hope and optimism.

Then immediately, another voice in your head—or maybe another person—will bust in and say: Yeah, but the oligarchy isn’t going away overnight. The city’s moneyed interests who invested $35 million to beat him, are going to keep trying to bring him down in the general election and when he’s mayor, if we even get that far. They will hate that he doesn’t owe him anything.

Brene Brown writes in Atlas of the Heart that almost everyone does this:

If you’re afraid to lean into good news, wonderful moments, and joy—if you find yourself waiting for the other shoe to drop—you are not alone. It’s called “foreboding joy,” and most of us experience it.

I would add that there’s social pressure to rein in joy and rain on every parade: like it makes you more “savvy,” mature or realistic.

But it’s not necessarily always realistic to think that way! Because guess what, the SuperPAC that was set up to sweep a creep back into office wasted all their money. Voters didn’t care. Sometimes the good guys win, and if you don’t think that’s possible, whose side are you really on?

Brown’s antidote to foreboding joy is to practice gratitude. She says the relationship between joy and gratitude is “an intriguing upward spiral.” People who are joyful by nature are more likely to be grateful, and people who practice appreciation are more likely to feel joy.

So: I am grateful to my friends and family who knocked doors and made calls and gave money to Mamdani. His win belongs to all of us.

It’s often said that our brains are wired to dwell on the bad more than the good. This is a survival mechanism. But there is a research-tested antidote.

Positive psychologist Rick Hanson developed a course on this, called the Taking In The Good course. It’s designed to cultivate our ability to savor positive moments. An experiment found: “participants reported significant increases in composite measures of Cognitive Resources, Positive Emotions, and Total Happiness, and decreases in a composite measure of Negative Emotions; these results persisted two months after the course ended.”

It’s almost silly simple. Basically, how this works is, you dwell. You concentrate on something good, either while it’s happening, or in memory. Call up as many sensory details as you can. Focus your intention on remembering the positive feeling. Tune in to how it feels in your body—heart rate going up? Warmth in your cheeks? Act it out in some way with gestures, like a hand on your heart. Stay with it for as long as you can, soaking it up. Do everything in your power to turn a moment into an experience.

Presto: Total Happiness Score increased!

Mamdani’s primary win was not a very dramatic scene: I was on my couch next to my husband, both of us refreshing the New York Times results, and posting in the group chat. Cozy, but not electrifying.

Instead, maybe I’ll use my imagination and dwell on his victory speech. Listen to the triumph in his voice. Picture myself there, on a hot, sweaty rooftop in Queens with a cool bottle of beer in my hand, charged up with excitement, maybe hugging a friend.

May your summer be full of windfalls and delight, and may you take it all in.