The positive effect of project-related conversations on mental well being

My brother Earl, would never hurt anybody, and not only because he comes from the best family in the world; but also because he installs floors for a living. It’s not just the measuring, cutting, laying, nailing, and other things that he does, that makes him a good person; it’s the conversations he has about doing those things.

Try being an asshole with other people when you are talking to them about installing new floors in their house, putting a new roof on it, or mowing the grass around it. Sure, you might get away with not being nice a little while, but pretty soon it will destroy your name - the word of mouth around you and your business- and you will find yourself looking for another line of work, one that does not involve conversations with people. But it is not simply an image or personal-brand issue, there is more to it than that.

Try this. Catch yourself mad about something and then while you are still mad, go to the hardware store and talk to someone who knows a lot about a project you are trying to complete around the house, let’s say, repairing a ceiling after a water leak in your attic. See if you can stay mad. No cheating. If the person you are talking to is angry or unreasonable, that does not count. But if the person is concerned about your project, offers good advice and shows you where to find the tools and supplies you need, I would be shocked if you did not leave the hardware store calmer than you entered it.

No disrespect to my friends who work in the field of psychology as researchers, professors or practitioners; but I would be willing to bet it is hard to find any better therapy than a conversation about doing something useful, particularly something with your hands.

How many accounts have you heard of a self-employed electrician spending all week solving household and commercial electrical problems, only to find himself shooting up a crowded theater on Saturday night? He might wind up falling in love with one of his customers, which of course, is a problem in itself; but he is not apt to hurt one of them.

I am not sure what to call what I am talking about, maybe something like: the positive effect of project-related conversations on mental wellbeing. 

The effect I am speaking of, starts when you walk into a hardware store. Just getting out of your truck or car and making your way in the door, calms you down. Then when you ask a clerk how to find something or how to do something, and you get the information you needed, you are reminded the world is not so bad after all.

A couple of years ago, around midnight during a winter ice storm, a huge tree fell on our house – actually our house was largely spared, but it hit our screened porch pretty flush and cut gashes in our siding and tore off the gutters. During the ensuing three or four months, I must have had a dozen or more conversations with various people on getting the tree removed from our yard and the repairs done to our house. Several times I felt like one of the contractors could have done his part faster or better, but every time I caught myself wanting to get angry or impatient, we would have another conversation and I would be peaceable again.

The guy drives into my driveway and gets out of his truck with the radio still playing and a younger assistant waiting on him, and walks up to my front door. I greet him and he tells me he is there to talk about getting the tree removed from my fence. We agree it was a big tree, although not the biggest one he has seen. In fact, he says he had one a few weeks ago two men together could not wrap their arms around; that fell on a house and took out part of the roof. We agree I was comparatively lucky. He tells me they will probably take a backhoe through my gate and into the backyard and have a guy stand in the shovel while they hold him up to the roof and let him use a chainsaw to cut through one of the big limbs keeping the tree up on my roof.

And sure enough, in a few days time I am standing in an upstairs family room window and there is a guy not two feet from my face, standing in the shovel of a backhoe with a large chainsaw, cutting through the limb. When he makes it all the way through the limb, the tree falls to the ground and the limb he has cut, swings wildly, but he is out of harms way – just barely- and the guy operating the backhoe lowers him down to the ground. I am thinking, better them than me.

Drawn like a moth to a flame, I go out on the porch and I hear them yelling above the sounds of the tractor and the chainsaws – there are other men with chainsaws cutting other parts of the tree – and during one of the breaks in the noise, one of the guys waves at me and smiles. I give him a thumbs up and say something like: “That’s a pretty rough job.” And he yells back, “Nah, all in a days work.”

Then he yells to one of his coworkers to be sure to steady himself on the limb he is on. A couple of the other guys are on the ground watching for a minute, taking in what they have accomplished so far and planning their next line of attack.

When the tree fell that night, and it did not come through our bedroom window and end our lives, it brought with it a lot of rigamarole; but it also brought the promise of weeks of project-related conversations. They say whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That may be, in part, because recovery is a social process.