Three Day Rule
November 10, 2024 Last week, I anticipated writing a different newsletter. I was going to talk about generational change in our nation’s leadership and what that meant for intergenerational relationships at work.
Full disclosure: I am of the democratic persuasion. I’ve had careers in the arts and education and I hail from generations of democrats. I married into a Republican family, but my husband was the outlier. Honestly, I had a great time campaigning for Harris & Walz—doorknocking, yard signs, t-shirts—I was all in. So the election results felt like a gut punch.
My first instinct was to follow The Three Day Rule. I learned it when my husband had cancer and every so often the oncologist would deliver devastating news and then impose this rule. We were to go home, close the curtains, go to bed and wallow in the injustice of it all for three days. Just be miserable. On the morning of the fourth day we opened the curtains and saw that the world carried on. And then we rejoined it.
The Three Day Rule does not disappoint. It gives us permission to be vulnerable and totally human. It lets us grieve while reassuring us it won’t last forever.
When I shared The Three Day Rule with friends and family last Wednesday, I was touched to see how much it meant to the younger generation—who then shared it with their friends.
Oh, I thought, this is what elders are supposed to do at a time of upheaval! Assure younger folks that ultimately everything will be okay. Not in a superficial way, but in a way that is backed by lived experience and hard-won empathy.
I flashed back to the fall of 1980 when Ronald Regan won the White House and I was sure the world as I knew it was over. I was 25 and positive my disappointment would last forever. Now I feel nostalgic for the Regan-era optimism. Who knew?
In 2004, the day after John Kerry lost his bid for the presidency, a group of students came to class devastated and in tears. I hit the pause button on our exploration of Roman theater architecture, arranged the desks in a circle and let students emote. By now I knew these feelings would pass, but first, they needed to be affirmed.
But here’s the flip side to that class session. There were a handful of students in our class who were very happy with election results but they didn’t make a peep. Instead, they went to the chair asking why they were paying tuition to talk about politics in a theatre history class? They had a point.
It is humbling to admit how clueless I was as a teacher 20 years ago—that I could not acknowledge the value of viewpoints that did not align with mine. Confirmation bias? You bet. I saw only the students who supported what I already believed, and I totally ignored anyone whose values conflicted with my beliefs.
Here I am, two decades later, wondering how I could have structured class differently. I didn’t yet know about The Three Day Rule, but if I had, would I have imposed it? Or would I affirm that when a big national event takes place and we are feeling raw we can spend one class session processing it voluntarily? Or would I instead be clear that there are multiple ways to react to the same outcome?
Our primary job is to listen for as many different perspectives as possible. Why? Because that’s the only way we really learn.
After all, Shakespeare said “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Remember: there’s always a little ambiguity tucked away in the most decisive outcomes.
Whatever you’re feeling on this side of election day, I hope you’ve taken your three days or allowed others to take theirs. Then, let the listening begin.
More Soon,
Mary