Hopefully, The Dad's signature phrase can help keep things in perspective.
In his arsenal of wisdom, The Dad has a file on his computer labeled “They Can’t Eat You.” It is a photo from some corner of the internet that shows a little kid, 6 or 7 years old maybe, wearing a brown jacket and blue jeans, clearly at some kind of petting zoo with a camel and a donkey clearly visible. But the remarkable part of the photo is that the kid’s head is entirely in the camel’s mouth. The camel looks almost peaceful. The donkey is watching, an expression slightly like a smile on its face. The Dad likes to believe that the kid turned out just fine, leaving the experience with new knowledge about camels and a very entertaining story to tell in the future about the time that a camel tried—and failed—to eat him.
The Dad shares this photo whenever he needs to bolster his adult children’s courage from afar, and sometimes receives it back from his children when he is facing a tough situation.
They Can’t Eat You is essentially a positive spin on the worst-case scenario. Often, we have fear or anxiety because we don’t want to do something that we know we have to do. We suspect there will be unpleasant consequences. The context of They Can’t Eat You is simply to say that once you face something you have to do, and you walk through the possibilities in advance, how bad can it really be? People can be angry or disappointed, but there is a limit to what they can do to you.
Let’s try it on for size. I’m afraid to do a competition dive. I could land on my back— you might get stuck on the physical pain that’s at risk. But if you’ve trained properly, you would probably be able to handle any injury. Then there’s also humiliation from the audience or the judges seeing me fail! or my coach being mad at me… and what you will find is that any of those, while uncomfortable, are survivable. While there are degrees of terribleness— a zit that sprouts up right before a dance is probably not as terrible as not making the baseball team, and so on… it’s natural to want to avoid pain and discomfort, but it’s also not possible.
When a situation is shaping up to be a “They Can’t Eat You” one, The Dad tries to strategize and fix the problem, or find a way to work around it. But sometimes, you just have to go through it, not around it. The last strategy is always They Can’t Eat You. Once The Dad has tried everything to solve the problem, he identifies what the worst outcome might be, and what he will do if that happens. The Dad does not recommend dwelling on it or playing a game called “What If” that has no end and is very enjoyable to The Mom and The Daughters for whatever reason. Just naming the fear, tracing what would happen quickly, and imagining it tends to take away a little bit of the fear’s power. The situation is still uncomfortable, but it’s not as scary anymore… and almost always we find that it’s survivable. (In The Dad’s experience, we are more creative with our worst-outcome predictions than what actually happens.) So then you can go into the situation knowing there is a limit to how bad it can be.
In times like this, The Dad tells himself that there is nothing here so great as to prevent him from moving forward. No matter what, they can’t eat me. I will survive this challenge, messy as it may be. And a lot of times, you wind up with a good outcome or at least a good story to share in the future.
The Dad’s “They Can’t Eat You” Story
Many years ago, The Dad, who works in construction, wanted a promotion, so when a vice-president spot opened up in the company, The Dad went to the president and asked to be considered for the job. But the president hired someone else. So The Dad went to the president and asked what he could do to eventually get the job if it opened up again. Clearly there was something that made the president choose someone else over The Dad… so The Dad took a big breath and asked for a critique. The president wasn’t very helpful, just said that they wanted someone with experience. The president of the company didn’t give a very direct answer, and said something about wanting to go with someone who had experience in that position. How would you get experience in that position unless you were IN that position?
A few months later, the new hire quit, so The Dad, who can be tenacious when he wants something, went back to the president and reminded him of their earlier conversation. “I’d like to be considered for the position,” The Dad said, “and while you interview people, I am going to fill the job on top of what I usually do, and when you hire someone I will go back to my normal job. That way, the job gets done while you’re searching, I’ll get some experience, and you can critique me.” (All of these conversations were actually pretty scary in and of themselves.) And somehow, with the president’s reluctant OK, The Dad just moved into the former vice-president’s office and began doing the job.
This was when The Dad realized that he was in a They Can’t Eat You situation because there was no way to convince the president that The Dad could do the job unless The Dad actually got the chance to do it! But what if he didn’t do a good job? What if this didn’t work and he had to go back to his old position and everyone knew that he had tried for a better one and failed? What if the new vice president, once he was hired, didn’t appreciate The Dad’s initiative and tried to get him fired for overstepping his role? … The Dad realized that he had been on a comfortable ledge on a very steep cliff, and in climbing off his ledge to crawl up to the higher one, it seemed unlikely that, if he didn’t make it to the higher ledge, he’d be able to safely get back to the lower ledge. So The Dad had to walk through the fear, and what it would feel like to get fired, and what he would need to do once he was fired. And then, The Dad felt a sense of calm because there was no way around it: he had to do the job as best he could and then go through whatever happened…
As it turns out, the president did a couple of interviews, but never pursued it, and the company formally stopped looking for a new hire. The Dad had not been eaten! And he seemed to be safely on that new ledge. But as often happens, a new “They Can’t Eat You” scenario rose up from the first: The Dad wanted to be paid more for the additional work he was doing, and so he had to ask for a raise. But each time that The Dad wasn’t eaten, the more confident he became that almost 100% of the time, they can’t eat you.
Are you in the middle of a They Can't Eat You situation? Have you already survived one? Comment below to let The Dad know!
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