The Self Needs Help

a review of Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed

When I was 10 (actually, not sure what age… substitute whichever you think would be most normal), I wrote this weird and wide-ranging list of New Years’ resolutions that I called “T.N.I.A.” I have no idea what it stands for. The New Inspiring Amy? This is Not Interesting or Advised? Tasks No-one Is Advertising? Whatever. It’s a typed, double spaced bullet point list in 11-point Arial font that implores younger me to “stop pulling peoples hair” and “be especailly [sic] friendly to friends” and “improve work by millions.”

I have written reams of these lists over time--in journals, on scrap paper, on report cards, and on post-it notes stuck to my bedframe. I have stopped pulling people’s hair, and I am especially friendly to friends; I go out of my way to make people feel good, special, and not taken for granted. I strove for effortlessness for 25 long years; and felt the entire catalog of negative emotions when it did not manifest. I quit instruments rather than running scales, abandoned math in 4th grade, proceeded with the bare minimum in sports because I could never be as good as Nicole Wanty. I never resigned myself to mediocrity, instead keeping my nose to the ground for quick tips on how to skyrocket towards general excellence, fame, and a widely beloved reputation. I. LOOKED. EVERYWHERE.

I’m not alone, dear reader. The self needs help! Enter: advice columns and Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed. Her column Dear Sugar ran on the rumpus.net, an online publication that may have published me but is now defunct so it is a moot point. These columns are perfect in their specificity and universality. Our problems are all hand-molded, so uniquely us, but so mundane. They’re urgent but not newsworthy. They capture the breadth of human experience, framing out relationship fissures and trolley-problem decision making. And they all show that no matter how much we wish for a “YOU ARE HERE” sign, it will never appear. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: we are all groping around in the dark like a freshman boy in the jug [a grimy underage college bar].

I know Dear Sugar, because when I was making a life decision that would ultimately create a relationship fissure, I scoured her columns for an identical situation. I felt like when you make a big decision, you do all the research you possibly can beforehand. I read Modern Love columns back to 2009 and asked friends for advice. There was nary a barroom acquaintance I didn’t tell: Yeah, I think I might tell my best friend that I have feelings for him. The constant secret sharing was short-sighted and ill-fated and all the negative multi-hyphenates you can conjure. People didn’t f*cking care!!!! It was a juicy story for a moment until I brought it up for the twelfth time over Allagash Whites.

No matter how many WikiHow articles I read (with helpful graphics to boot), there were no answers. Ditto Dear Sugar. I think that sometimes it just feels good to have someone noodling through the personal dilemma along with you. Sugar doesn’t have skin in the game, but she thinks as if she does. It feels like when you have Sugar in your corner of the ring you can’t lose. Good advice makes you like even if you bungle the situation it’s still a life experience filed under “personal growth.”

Enough about moi. Long live advice columns and the big hearts and minds who run them. I’m a big fan of The Cut’s Ask Polly. And I give fantastic advice, particularly if you have an issue with pulling people’s hair (stop).