Banana bread, y'all. The good kind.

I don’t know who I am or what I’ve done with the real Katie Levans, but I like what’s going on right now.

Maybe it’s all the yoga or the circling of the facts or the light academic load this semester or the fact that I just do not give a flying Weasel’s butt about anything, but I am so calm it’s frightening. I must be about to do something VERY stupid and impulsive… Oh, if only you knew…

So you know how I was saying that I completely resisted that whole circle the facts exercise? And it took a while for it to finally land with me? Well, according to my small-but-mighty teacher, this is why I was doing that:

I’d rather be right than be happy. And you would, too.

WHAAAAAT. Let it sink in. I know, right? Who does that?? You do. We all do. We’d rather be right than be happy. That’s what my teacher says, anyway.

Think about it. We get so attached to our stories, to these dramatic fabrications we weave in our minds, that we want to protect them, to uphold and honor them so that our point of view is seen. So we remain right. Even if they aren’t true.

We’d rather be right than happy.

It makes sense, I guess. Why wouldn’t we want to be right about the things we make up?

Of course she’s a bitch for looking at you the wrong way.

Of course he’s an asshole for not calling you.

Of course your manager is out to get you.

Because if they’re not… Well, if they’re not, then you’ve been putting yourself through a whole lot of misery for nothing. Think about how much time you spend trying to get people on your side, trying to convince them that your big dramatic goings-on are bigger and more dramatic than anyone else’s. And who wants to admit that the time put into that little effort has been wasted? No one.

Take my last relationship, for example. I think we both knew for quite a while that it wasn’t working and wasn’t going to work. But we held on to each other for dear life for entirely too long, both completely unwilling to admit that maybe, just maybe we were wrong about thinking we’d be together forever and ever. I (and I think he) had built up this whole story about our marriage and our future and all these things that didn’t exist. And since no one wants to be wrong, we put ourselves through hell to stay together just to make ourselves right.

So here we are building up our stories, doing everything in our power to convince ourselves and everyone around us that we’re right, and we’re feeling stressed and miserable the whole time. And you know what it would take to let go of the stress and misery?

Uh, letting go. Admitting you’re wrong. Admitting that you made up the “fact” that she’s a bitch or he’s an asshole or your manager’s a dictator because, really, you’re just feeling insecure or jealous or unstable and you need to blame it on someone else.

At this point in my teaching, my teacher literally held out a piece of paper, opened her hand and let it drop. “It’s just like that,” she said. “Let it go.”

But we don’t let it go. We let little things become big things. We obsess. We over think. We hold on for dear life. And you know why? Because we’d rather be right than be happy. Because if your little story  about how terrible everyone else is falls apart, then suddenly the blame is on you. Suddenly your happiness is your own responsibility. And I suppose that is a little bit scary. It’s a lot easier to blame someone else, isn’t it?

But you have a choice. You can obsess and fret and cry over things that don’t even exist outside your own mind, or you can let them all go and just be where you are right now.

So what’s it gonna be? Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

Also, do you want some banana bread?

Whew. I’m gonna need a book deal to get through this teacher training with all these rants I’ve got rolling around in my head… Somebody hop on that. My agent Weaz has been slacking.

Anyway, I made this bread yesterday morning before work because I was feeling particularly productive. It’s a recipe from Bittman’s How to Make Everything Vegetarian, but I tweaked it a bit to make it vegan and without the required one full stick of butter. You’re welcome.

I took this to my office without even trying it (they don’t even know they’re my guinea pigs) and people went nuts. My bosslady even called to tell me that if she were 10 years younger and a lesbian, she’d ask me out just because this banana bread is so good.

I can do anything good.

Yeah yeah yeah