I know who I need. I need the Eepster!
Once upon a time, long ago, I was in a session with a therapist who was helping me to find the smallest of the inner children in my vast collection.
I was finally able to identify her. She was so tiny, all she could do was huddle in a corner and say, "eep." She spoke in a little, mousy voice, and no one heard her or paid any attention to her.
I worked on getting the little Eepster to express herself more. I eeped in my car crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. I bought her a gorgeous Celtic harp and called it Eep's Harp. I eeped to my bird, Sweet Pea, in response to his sweet songs. Eventually I added a flapping motion with my arms when I'd eep to him, and this behavior has stuck with me.
Over the years, I've felt safer and safer to let the Eepster express more and more. Now I eep and flap. And sometimes I do these things in public. Today the Eepster has no trouble eeping in a crowd, sometimes accompanied by flapping and a happy tongue sticking out, if she's extremely excited about something.
You might think eeping and flapping are strange behaviors or that I am weird or immature. Am not! Am not!
The therapist liked the Eepster a lot when she first met her. She asked if she could share the Eepster story with other clients. I was delighted. She encouraged them to express their teeny-tiniest selves with an "eep." Now there are fulfilled women happily "eeping" all over the Bay Area. I swear to you this is true.
~~ How to Tell If You're an Eepster ~~
Adults don't mount bean pots on stands because they sound good when you hit them. Eepsters do. Adults don't march through their house chanting, "House Parade, I'm on house parade." Eepsters do. Adults don't drum in the Laundromat. Eepsters do and Eepsters will.
Adults say, "No, you can't" to others, or "No, I can't," to themselves. When kids are playing, they don't stop themselves in midsentence to think whether they can be something or not. They just go for it. A kid at play might say, "I'm Babaroo, king of the Universe," and believe it.
If Babaroo is lucky, his parents will say, "Yeah, you're Babaroo, king of the Universe." However, other adults would say, "No, you're Joshua Greenfield who needs to come in and do your homework, right now!" What a bummer. What joy we miss by conforming to someone else's version of reality.
Adults don't do a thing just because it makes them happy. Eepsters do. Adults need to accomplish something. Adults do things to get something done. That's how they know they're adults.
The only reason eepsters do a thing is because it makes them happy.
I like being an Eepster. I'm being the best Eepster I can be. I can play in the adult world. But for me, it's only play. Thank God, the Eepster has returned.
It's your life. Do it the way you want to. The Eepster dares you!
~~~~ Steps to Happiness NOW!~~~~
Enjoying oneself—let's call it "play"—is vital to being happy. Observe children at play. Unless they are fighting, they are having fun. That's the whole purpose of play. If you check the rulebook for grown-ups, I bet you won't find any rule that says at a certain age you have to give up playing.
When you play, it's important to do something not goal-oriented. Do it just because it is fun. Do it because it is something you love to do. When you were a kid, do you remember looking forward to recess? Start scheduling play into your daily appointment book. Having fun deserves your time and attention as much as working and making money.
The television not only baby-sits children, it baby-sits adults as well. Upon taking a walk in my neighborhood one evening, the glow of a TV set was visible from every house. If I multiply my neighborhood by the millions of neighborhoods around the country, that's a lot of people being baby-sat, and being lulled away from fulfilling forms of creativity. If you can't imagine living without TV, try unplugging it for just a month as an experiment. See what happens. (Okay, you can still tape your favorite shows!)
In addition to the TV set, people now spend their lives in front of computer screens rather than with friends. Friends contribute greatly to our feelings of happiness. Our friends know our ups and downs and all-arounds and still like us. Remember, machines wear out faster than friends do, unless you keep on neglecting them.
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Letter to the Author: Randy Peyser at rpeyser@aol.com