What if we're all just lovable toddlers?

Photo by Josh Calabrese on Unsplash

After listening to a recent 10% Happier with Dan Harris episode on how to “Rewire Your Relationship With Money,” one thing really stuck out to me.

Basically, the expert kept coming back to the idea that we are surrounded by systems that are both designed to exploit us and, despite what we like to think, are much smarter than we are. For example, the people who design your phones know how to keep you looking at your phone, just like the people who designed casinos know how to keep people in their casinos (spoiler alert: they are the same people). Similarly, the recent Netflix documentary Buy Now! does a great job of explaining how “convenient” shopping was not created out of an altruistic desire to make human lives easier, but to encourage us to overconsume (which we do).

Therefore, this expert’s advice kept coming back to recognizing that we really can’t trust ourselves to make the best decisions. That said, she’s adamant that this does not mean giving up on our ourselves. Instead, and encouragingly, we can figure out ways to trick ourselves into doing that which truly align with our values, rather than what our puppet masters would have us do.

Listening to this, my initial, inevitably uncharitable thought was, “We’re all such idiots.” But then, I ameliorated what I recognized as unhelpful, perfectionistic, black and white thinking to: We’re all just lovable toddlers.

Over the last few years I’ve really gone to the mat over my aforementioned perfectionist tendencies. I’ve learned that the vast majority of perfectionist thinking is paradoxical. It doesn’t sound like, “Oh, look at how great I am now that I did ______.” Instead, it’s constantly thinking, “Oh, look at what a dumb piece of shit I am now that I did _______, which proves that I am, indeed, a dumb piece of shit.”

If you have any affinity for me, or for my work, I figure there’s a chance you resonate with this. Maybe you’re aware of it and maybe you’re not. But no matter where you are in your duel with perfectionism, I think everyone can benefit from realizing we’re all just lovable toddlers.

It’s the “lovable” part that’s the kicker. In another recent 10% Happier episode, Dan Harris talked about how he (much to his chagrin) discovered that the key to unlocking so much contentment and, dare I say, productivity is to stop being horrible to himself, in a way that he’d initially dismissed as hippie bullshit. Don’t we have to be harsh with ourselves, to drive ourselves forward mercilessly, in order to be successful?

And yet, even a self-professed “fidgety skeptic” like Harris discovered that we can’t like ourselves, or other people, or our lives, if we hate ourselves. And if we don’t like ourselves, other people, or our lives, it’s hard to do really hard things. We might tick lots of items off a to-do list, sure. We might even succeed in places where sociopathy isn’t frowned upon (halloooo, corporate America). But can we really engage with anything meaningful or difficult, if we’re terrified, or furious, or depressed?

Of course, capitalism teaches us the opposite. We need a coach yelling us at, someone who “tells it like it is” and “isn’t afraid to be honest.” Unfortunately, the voices in our heads often aren’t honest, and they’re not even ours. They’re the worst things we were told in childhood, either deliberately or as an off-the-cuff remark by someone close to us who, if we reflect on it, probably wasn’t the most self-aware or helpful influence.

So what if we pat those voices on the head, and thank them for trying to save us from being the dumb ass we were taught to fear being? What if we acknowledge their hard work and that they did serve us in some ways? Then, we can gently un-peel their hands from the steering wheel as they no longer get to drive.

Doing this allows us to be lovable toddlers. I can’t imagine putting a safety cover on an outlet and thinking “I’m doing this so that dumb piece of shit toddler doesn’t stick their dumb fingers in it.” Instead, I would probably think, “I’m putting this here, so that this beloved creature doesn’t harm themselves.” I would act out of love.

What if we did good things for ourselves, because we, too, are lovable toddlers? What if we automated savings, because otherwise, hilariously, we WILL buy “Live Deliciously” t-shirts the second we see one social media (guilty!). What if we take the time to lay our gym clothes out on Sunday night, because that Monday, 7:00 AM gym call feels VERY early to our lovable toddler? What if we know social media apps are designed to be addictive, so we take them off our phones, so that our lovable toddler has to confront the obstacle of downloading it and logging in every time it gets bored?

Some of you may already be aware of this sort of strategizing (doing small things to set yourself up to do big things), which is known of as “friction reduction” in habit wonk circles (and in psychology, so it is real). But what if we conceive of friction reduction not just as something a habits wonk told us to do but because we’re…lovable toddlers. We’re not doing it to hack ourselves or makes ourselves “more perfect,” but because we deserve to take care of ourselves out of a place of love.

Think of how this might shift our thinking around being “weak” or having “no will power.” I think one of the most destructive myths perpetuated in our culture is that of will power. Sure, will power does exist, but psychologists believe it’s really a bunch of cognitive tools that we employ (all of which are sharper or duller depending on lots of variables), that willpower is limited day to day, AND (I think most importantly) our will power is very easily circumnavigated by people trained to do just that (see: the aforementioned designers of phones, apps, casinos; marketing campaigns; food scientists, etc). As adults, we think we have will power and we chuckle as we read about the kids in that famous marshmallow test experiment, but, honestly, how many of us would pass it? Or pass it if it weren’t marshmallows but, oh, I dunno, a peanut buster parfait from DQ that I would probably shove you (or a toddler! I’m a monster!) over to get to?

So what if we stopped thinking we can be super(wo)men and admit we’re really just lovable toddlers, and then we can take care of ourselves so we don’t have to be so “strong” anymore?

Friction reduction admits we need some help, and it is both the same and different from the idea of “future you” thinking, another idea positive psychology talks about a lot. It’s imagining yourself in the future, and thinking about what will have helped you in the now. I do a lot of “future you” thinking when I don’t want to do a task in the moment and I think “I can do it tomorrow, or next week, or next month,” even though I actually have more than enough time and energy to do it now. I’ll imagine how nice it will be to have that thing done already, when it needs to have been done, and usually that’s enough to get me to do it. I also do a LOT of future you thinking when I go to the gym, and think about my mobility as I age. I’m good at “future you” thinking because it’s logical and goal orientated. If I squat at the gym now, I will hopefully be able to go up stairs when I’m elderly.

Honestly, this is why I wanted to write about being this “lovable toddler” concept. It is way more ideologically challenging than “future you” thinking to someone like me, who was taught by my culture and my family that I have to justify my existence by being perfect and/or productive. This is really why I find “future you” thinking so effective and it comes to me easily: I am justifying my actions as worthy because they’ll be productive, which is in my wheelhouse. The fact this can still be a problem becomes obvious when, instead of resting or doing something pleasurable when I’ve got extra time because Future Me did things to give me that time, I’m looking around wondering how else I can be productive, to justify my existence. That’s what the “lovable toddler” challenges—thinking of myself as lovable is difficult, period, and thinking that, like a toddler, I just might get to exist without justification is mind-boggling.

But this is exactly why seeing ourselves as “lovable toddler” is worthwhile. It’s doing things that make life easier and better for the part of us that is universally going to do the easier, not so great thing, because it’s how our brains were designed. It’s automating things, putting things out of reach, not bringing things home in the first place or getting rid of them, or setting time limits on things that I want to do but don’t really enrich me, if I’m honest. After all, I wouldn’t let a toddler play video games for three hours and not eat dinner, so why would I let myself? And I wouldn’t let a toddler do that because I love them, and they deserve better than that, and maybe we do, too?

At the same time, and this is also the kicker, you’d also let your toddler have fun, right? Or, even more radically, to just be? Your lovable toddler can buy an occasional “Live Deliciously” t-shirt, and play some video games, and spend some time on social media. We can love our toddler by setting them up them do important things at the same time we let them rest and play, and maybe even try to stick their fingers in a light socket that we’ve helpfully covered so they can’t actually die. After all, we want the best for them. They deserve to exist, they deserve to be happy, and they deserve to live deliciously. It’s true that sometimes they’re not all that bright. But that’s okay. We love them anyway.

Even, or at least as much, as peanut buster parfaits.