Hello, amazing humans 👋🏽
The Tupperware Wars have begun!
I have been laughing all week at your shares about the Lids On Method. Some of you with children insist on lids on, while some who have very small kids with plastic container fetishes say its a terrible exercise in futility that they will revisit in three to five years, thank you very much.
Some swear by separate lid stacking so the plastic can “breathe”, while others have overhauled with colour coding.
My friend Beth horrified me by revealing her method of hurling them into a cupboard above the kitchen counter:
My greatest vindication came from Dan who promptly tried Lids On, and realised he could still fit all of his containers into the same cupboard. Lids On Victory!
But I’m not here to pick fights or tell you your way of doing life is wrong.
If lids off/stacking/chaos shelf works for you, GREAT! A huge part of what I want to explore here on Excited Adults are those ways of being that have become the default — for no other reason than that’s the way we’ve always done them.
Ultimately, the question is: Do these ways of being work for me and my life?
🍰 Family Traditions
I was once told a story about a woman who asked her mother for a famous family cake recipe. This was a cake that had been passed down generations, and always served at family gatherings.
“Don’t forget,” her mother said, “you must divide the cake batter into two pans! Your grandmother’s recipe has that underlined three times, so that’s how you have to make it.”
The daughter only had one pan, but before she went out and bought another, she called her grandmother to check.
Her grandmother managed to dig around and find her mother’s original recipe, and noticed at the bottom it had a note about the two pans. Turning the paper over, she read her own mother’s note that the cake rose too much in the oven, and would only fit if she divided it in two.
The women all laughed that they had been making this cake for 80 years, and still always in two pans to fit great grandmother’s first ever tiny oven.
The cake turned out perfectly, baked in a single pan, in a modern fan forced oven 🤣
💡 Questioning The Status Quo
Why do we do things the way we do them?
I think for me, this line of questioning is somewhat my default. Why is it that way? Why do we put up with it? Lately, I’ve noticed I’ve become angrier in my questioning, and more frustrated with the answers.
Maybe it’s because life has changed so much in the past few years: Melbourne had the world’s longest lockdown during the height of the Covid pandemic, and suddenly so many freedoms I took for granted were taken away.
Maybe it’s because I notice myself wearying at the long debunked excuses given for why there aren’t more women working in tech, or being funded, or getting senior roles.
Maybe it’s watching yet another conflict play out, with tens of thousands more senseless deaths, oppression and violence.
There were times when I thought I might grow out of my endless questions, but as I’ve gotten older, I’m realising they are intrinsic to who I am.
My greatest wrestles with mindfulness and meditation have been teachings around “accepting what is” — surely easier to do when the status quo serves you, when your belly is full, when you are safe, comfortable, and avoid anything political.
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras are some of the best known texts on yogic philosophy: they outline the 8 Limbs of Yoga, which contrary to popular western belief, are not about wearing Lululemon and twisting yourself into pretzel shapes, but about internal expansion, and how not to be an a$$hole in the world.
The Sutra's list “Santosha” as the second of it’s niyamas, or internal observances. Santosha is most commonly translated as contentment, sometimes as deep joy, but my favourite interpretation is to be in the present moment in peace. Essentially, being cool with things, exactly as they are, and exactly as they are not.
🌺 Beauty In The Breakdown
Beth, of the chaotic Tupperware drawer, told me a story about making her own cake, where she lifted the beaters from the batter too soon and splattered the walls.
She was so consumed with making the cake, that the spatters were still there when her housemate came home to find her carefully decorating the cake with flowers, ardently concentrating on making it beautiful.
I imagine the chaos of this scene: the mess, the walls, the smell of freshly baked cake, and at the centre of it all, beautiful Beth, glowing with focus and love for the task at hand. To know Beth is to know this is a package deal, and you likely wouldn’t get that delightful glow without some of the mess.
As Imogen Heap sings:
“So let go, so let go, and jump in,
Well whatcha waiting for? It’s alright,
Cause there’s beauty in the breakdown.”
(Happy Birthday, Beth! Here’s to a messy, chaotic, delicious year, full of sweet delights and amazing humans who adore you.)
🧪 Excited Adult Quotient
Could I live with Beth? No. Or at least, not without having to wrestle deeply with my militaristic cleaning tendencies. But all humans, like all situations, come with cake spatters, AND joy. How unreasonable is it to expect to have one without the other?
No amount of Tupperware drawer organisation is going to make me truly happy. It saves me time, and gives me the illusion of control, at least in my little corner of the universe. But things inevitably get messy, get out of whack. My ability to be able to recalibrate myself, to breathe and reset when they do, is the superpower I want to work on more than any drawer. Surely Santosha is our ability to find that joy amidst the chaos?
✍🏽 Let’s Do It Together
What is something that frustrates you in your daily life? Is it something you could easily change? If yes, what are you waiting for?! Have the conversation, shift the cabinet, make the call! But if it’s not an easy fix? What can you do, right now, that would afford you more peace and internal space about it?
Here’s a short meditation to guide you on being with messiness, and creating a little bit more of that space.
🧘🏽 The Snowglobe Meditation
❤️ Right Now I’m…
📚 Reading Kristin Hannah’s historical fiction novel, The Women, about a American nurse who served two tours in the Vietnam War and her struggle returning to a US wrestling with its involvement. So many parallels with the current state of affairs in the world (why don’t we learn?!) and with the quiet devastation suffered by women and children equally affected by conflict, yet not acknowledged.
📺 I know y’all are watching Bridgerton, but may I interest you in some hilarious rewritten history in the form of The Great? Elle Fanning is brilliant as Russian ruler Catherine The Great, and the supporting cast are ridiculous, at times idiotic and yet somehow, still highly loveable. I’m a huge fan of Australian writer, Tony McNamara’s snappy, clever dialogue — he also scribed the films The Favourite and Poor Things.
🎵 Listening to wonderful LA based Melburnian artist Ben Abraham’s boppy “Never Been Better” and relishing the lyrics:
“Well I've never been worse
But I've never been better
And I'm in love with the person that I'm becoming but I'm more insecure than ever
And the more I learn the less I know but it's alright
Two different things can both be true at the same time”
🦮 How Can I Help?
You can hear me answering curly work relationship questions at 745am AEST Thursdays on Libbi Gorr’s Enterprise Breakfast show on Disrupt Radio, and on Disrupt’s The Advisory Board.
If you need a keynote, something to shake up your team, get them working well together, or even a loving, relaxing meditative treat to celebrate a job well done, let me know by replying here, or book me directly through my website. I also run workshops on preventing burnout, mindfulness, clear communication and my personal favourite: “How Not To Be An A$$hole”.
Aww love this so much Megan <3 Thank you for the beautiful words and I am excited to hear from other Tupperware throwers ;)
Great newsletter. I’m a lids off, but sorted by shape in the front of the drawer and the containers stacked by shape. It’s an effective method to my messy madness.
Also, on my drive home I listened to some great podcasts - Adam Grants Rethinking had Mae Martin talking about snow globes and thought it relevant to your meditation. They also talked about their love of improv which you know I relished. Until they talked about their dislike for the word play and playful. Can’t win ‘em all…
https://www.ted.com/podcasts/rethinking-with-adam-grant/the-art-of-vulnerability-and-connection-with-mae-martin-transcript