Lessons from an Inmate on Surviving the Holidays

Be real. Don’t stew. Find common values.

Holiday gatherings are a lot like going to jail. You’re thrust into weird social interactions with people you don’t know very well — and maybe don’t like!

At Thanksgiving, you might be forced to listen to your uncle complain about how Black Lives Matter is a Jewish conspiracy. In jail, you have to listen patiently while a guard with a gun explains to you that it totally makes sense to have a phone used only by white people. In either case, it can feel hard to cope.

That’s why I thought now would be a good time for me to share a few lessons in life that have helped me in jail. Maybe they’ll help you if you’re feeling trapped — not in a jail cell, but by the holidays.

Lesson 1: Be Real.

In jail, the people who cope best are the people who try to be real. Outside, most people live life like a performance: covering up or creating various faces in an attempt to get what we want.

Jail life shows why that doesn’t work. When you are literally pooping three feet from your cellmate’s head (I measured) — staring into his eyes while your bowels move — there’s not much you can hide. So why not try to be real instead? E.g., be open about the shitty things in life, so you and the people around you can navigate around them!

Lesson 2: Don’t stew. Observe.

Everyone loves a good stew — whether for the holidays or made by the jailhouse kitchen crew. But what’s yummy for our bodies is toxic for our minds. There’s an inmate here who can’t stand bad smells. Sadly, jail is filled with awful smells. A few days ago, sewer sludge was literally coming up from the drains and flooding into the cells. In the face of this, the smell-sensitive inmate looked like he was going to kill himself or someone else.

But there’s a simple solution: shift from being trapped by your feelings to observing them. “This is interesting. I wonder why I am having such an intense reaction?” This “anthropological perspective” has been shown to alleviate negative feelings by taking our minds out of them.

Lesson 3: Find common values.

Most people in jail are far from vegan or woke. But all of them can relate to abuse of power. When I tell people in jail why they need to give up the tiny variety of foods they get in here and join me in peanut butter and jelly every day, they tune out or get angry.

But when I ask, “How’s the system treating you?” and learn how they have been abused by the system — and every inmate has mind-blowing stories — then they nod and understand. An inmate who initially mocked me became one of my biggest supporters in part because I found common values. This inmate was given a seven-year sentence for joyriding in someone else’s car — even though he thought the plea bargain was for at most a couple years. He understood what it meant to be wrongfully caged. 

You can do the same with your conversations during the holidays. Be curious and ask questions. Find areas where you have common values. You’ll find that once you’ve identified these common values, you can both be real with each other — and enjoy a situation that might have gone badly.

So that’s it! Be real. Don’t stew; observe. And find common values. Try them out this holiday season — or in jail, if you’re like me — and write to me to tell me how it goes.