Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

I love this book. The first time I read it was a year ago when I was reading it to my son and I was amazed; what wonderful advice for young and old alike. The colors are bright, the words delightful, and the message is realistic yet optimistic. Instantly I wanted to write an article about it but with the business of life and the birth of my second son, I kept pushing it back.

Then I ran across a HuffPost article about an adult’s perspective of this classic Seuss book. The message of this brief HuffPost article is really about stress while the message of the adult version of Oh, the Places You’ll Go! seems to be that work will kill you and there is little personal fulfillment in life...yikes!

First, stress can be costly and being dramatic, kill you. Managing your stress at work is a difficult endeavor and relies on many different factors; your ability to handle stress, the culture of your place of work, your boss, the direction of your company/institution, you personal situation, et cetera. Stress is a balancing act that requires you as an adult to: 1) recognize stress and 2) take some course of action to remediate it.

One of the best quotes from the HuffPost article states, "the truth is, taking space from the workplace is actually beneficial for our health because it helps our brains unwind...planning a vacation may increase our happiness levels."

As someone who supervises others I 100% agree. Work should not be overly stressful unless you are saving people’s lives, transporting liquid fuel or explosives, counseling people who need help, are in a war zone, or work as a cop (these professions force you to deal with stress or else...). For everyone else we need to figure out how to dial down the stress, care about what we have influence over, and have positive work relationships with the people around us.

Is this easy? Not always. But when you take vacations it helps you recharge, see the world, share precious time with family and friends, and helps you be focused and motivated when you return to work. Does work pile-up when you are gone, maybe, but that is what teams are for; we all work together for the betterment of all.   

The other notable quote from the article states that the adult version of Oh, the Places You’ll Go! “paints a different picture of adulthood than Seuss' rainbow-colored paths leading the way to goals and dreams. Think more work, less, well, anything else.”

Of the vignettes in the Seuss version of Oh, the Places You’ll Go! roughly 40% of them are realistic. They describe how sometimes you will not come in first place, you’ll get bangged-up, you’ll be in a slump, the streets will be unmarked and scary, you’ll inhabit the ‘Waiting Place’, there are games you cannot win, you’ll be alone, there are enemies on the prowl, and there are many distracting strange birds around. Although the book is delightfully rainbow-colored, I feel that it is realistic yet optimistic in a very healthy way.

Runonsentence, the anonymous person who posted the adult version of the classic Seuss story by the end states “your life is pretty much set out for you in every single way! So enjoy your brief periods of personal fulfillment! Being an adult starts today!”

Sad but I get it. When I was younger I looked at life much the same way; you live, you work, you might have some kids (or not), and you die. This outlook was terribly bleak and the weight of the world was on my shoulders until I was able to refocus how I lived, loved, and worked.

You have to find personal fulfillment in life by having hobbies, positive relationships, and healthy habits. Work for some is amazing and we average people are often voyeurs to those few fantastic and dynamic lives on Instagram that travel the world, have perfect bodies, are constantly smiling, and write books, travel blogs, or take pictures for a living. But these are the lives of others; we need not envy or feel bad about ourselves because of them.

Our lives and our work can be fulfilling if you have the right attitude and the right job. There are 1,000 self-help books out there about having a positive attitude because when you work in a cube, or something equivalent, it is up to you to be happy. If the person next to you is annoying only you can only control how you react. If others are stressing out because of a tight deadline you can only focus on your portion of the project and help the team collaborate. If you have had the same job for a while it is up to you, and hopefully with some help from your boss, to develop your skills professionally.

Then there is having the right job. Not all jobs are amazing but there are many jobs that allow for a decent, honest living. And then there are some jobs that are toxic and no matter how positive you try to be will be a challenge. Everyone has to find a job that works with their personality, their skills, their stage in life, and their ability to deal with stress.

Oh, the Places You’ll Go! is brilliant. It is a guide book for life that uses rainbow-colored pictures and cute verse to show that everyone struggles, yet is optimistic and shows that things will be okay and everything will work out.