Matthew Dicks: preference

Transcript context

…And I think you touched on this. It's not just to collect a bunch of stories. There's a therapeutic element to this too, that you talk about. Yeah. Absolutely. Many therapeutic elements. First is you're recovering your time and slowing time down, which is beautiful. My kids are 14 and 11. Thank goodness I started Homework for Life just about when Clara was first born. Because they feel 14 and 11 to me. They don't feel like they were just born yesterday, which for a lot of parents, they do. Lots of parents say things like, "Oh, my God, you're not going to believe what my kids said. I got to write it down." But nobody writes it down. You're not going to believe what my kid said is in Homework for Life for me. So I'm holding onto the moments, stretching out time. You also start to do things like you start to see patterns in your life that you don't realize, unless you really think about your life. And I think you should. Storytellers tend to be slightly self-centered in a positive way, meaning we afford ourselves time to think about ourselves. You start to see patterns if you start doing this. So I think what I talk about in my book is I always tell people, my wife and I never fight. We've never raised our voices to each other. We really don't ever argue. But I noticed in my Homework for Life a moment when she had asked me to put in the air conditioners before I had central air in the house, and I hated it. I hated it because we agreed to never buy a house without central air. And every year the air conditioners somehow get heavier. I don't understand the physics behind it, but every year it's worse. And she always asks on the 98 degree day, "Hey, can you put the air conditioners in?" And there was a day when I was like, "No, I'm not going to do it. It's really hot." And she was like, "Okay, no problem." And then 10 minutes later, I'm in the basement pulling them out, complaining, grumbling, arguing. Only to myself banging them on purpose so she can hear. She's like, "What's going on?" I'm like, "I'm putting in the air conditioners." So that becomes a Homework for Life moment. And then a month later, she asks me to mow the lawn, on a 98 degree day. And I said, "I'm not going to mow the lawn. I'm busy and it's really hot." And she goes, "Okay, no problem. Maybe tomorrow." And then I sit for a while and I stew. And then I'm mowing the lawn, but I'm doing it aggressively. I'm running and just angrily mowing the lawn. And when I see these patterns, I suddenly go, "Oh, I do fight with my wife, on my own." I fight in a way that she's not aware I'm doing it. I yell at her through chores and she's not aware that it's even happening. That becomes a story that couples love. They think it's hilarious. You also start to see stories that you would've never seen. So it was a day last May when the neighbors to my left and the neighbors to my right came over to the house and had a cookout, the first one of the year. And that was a day when I didn't find anything in the day. I had one moment, which is very unusual for me. he neighbors to my right came over to the house and had a cookout, the first one of the year. And that was a day when I didn't find anything in the day. I had one moment, which is very unusual for me. And I remember thinking, "Really, all you got is you had a cookout with the neighbors, that's the best you got?" It's not even really a story. But it was the best I had so I wrote it down and I moved on. About four months later, the neighbors to our left announced they were getting divorced. It devastated us. Because they have two kids. We've got this big communal backyard with the three houses. Three boys to the right, two kids to the left, friends. Couldn't believe it that they're getting divorced. Known each other since high school. We just never saw it coming. One day later, neighbors to the right announced they're getting divorced. Left and right within a day of each other. And it becomes a story about how you never understand what's going on in a marriage unless you're in that house. But I don't have that moment in May when there were three couples on a porch, one of them was happy. I thought all three were happy. I don't get that moment unless I'm doing Homework for Life, and I write it down, and now I see a trajectory of a story. I have the opposite. Now I actually have an opposite moment which is I'm serving hot dogs to people I think are happy, but they're only pretending to be happy for our sake. And then they're returning to their homes, to discord and eventually to disillusion of a marriage. So Homework for Life gives you all of that that you don't normally have in life because we tend to live day by day, and we leave that last day behind.…

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