Not just an omelet

Sam-I-am, I do not like green eggs and ham.

Oh, this is a story so many of us have heard, Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham” — a story for children and so loved, dearly, as much as we did Br’er Rabbit, dearly as much as we did the Fox and the Hen, the Tortoise and the Hare, and all those bits and pieces from Winnie the Pooh. For where else would we have learned that “weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them”?

But, let us part with the introduction, as Pooh would also remind us, and get on with the book, for there is something to be said about not liking green eggs and ham.

How often, really be true and honest, do we say “I don’t like this” — this being a most simple thing as eggs or this being a not so simple thing as words you have said to me and how you have done so? How often, and now, really, I challenge you, be true and honest, do we say “I do like this” — this being something as simple as the way a particular scarf fits our neck or something not so simple as deciding where to live, how to occupy ones daylight hours (or not), or who you choose to keep around in your company and who you do not?

I think we justify. I know I do. I talk a rather good game, and since we’re being honest here, we all talk a good game. Talking a good game is necessary for getting along in this life where it is rather de rigueur to be simply “of it” and “with it” and most definitely not to be too earnest or sincere or, well, honest. Directness and clarity are not of fashion, did you know? Why say ‘yes’ when you can say ‘I don’t disagree’? Why say ‘not’ when you can say ‘I’m not feeling it’?

Justify. Equivocate. Compare. Weigh. Rationalize. Contextualize. Frame. Soften.

Lie.

Yes, and that is rather stark, is it not? Lie. Because the opposite of honesty, of not telling the truth, is not politically correct. It is not being sympathetic or empathetic. It is not ‘caring’; it is not loving; it is not not lying.

We sell ourselves short when we both give and receive things which are not coming from the “true place”. And what is this true place? What is the height and the breadth and the width of it, the measure and the matter of it? I have heard a rumour, wild and unfounded and it comes from a story told from a story told and passed down from the founding of the world that its dimensions are that of your closed fist, and on scales it tips less than 1% of all you are* but that it is more than enough. It is more than enough for all that you need it to be if you are willing to start from there and follow it wherever it takes you.

So the next time someone asks you something, anything, and you get that tight, tight feeling in your chest as you hover between saying what you think they want to hear, or saying what you think you should say or should feel or should—

Just be honest. Say, to start: “I do not like them, Sam-I-am, I do not like green eggs and ham.”

And go from there.

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*Some of us would call it “a heart”.