The other day I was listening to an essay on our local public radio station and a man was describing his experience of interviewing Mr. Rogers, and what it was like to be in his presence for an hour. He said he was struck by the simplicity of Mr. Rogers and his calm centeredness. He described the impact of that meeting and how he later, after Mr. Rogers died, remembered the change in himself as a parent.

He had wanted to be an entertaining father to his kids but one day it came to him that Mr. Rogers was never entertaining. He recalled that Mr. Roger’s was just himself, and that the message he conveyed to little kids was: It really is OK to be yourself. “There’s no one like you” Mr. Rogers would tell children, “No one just like you” and “I’m glad you’re my friend.”

It seems that Fred Rogers had landed on that paradox that people in recovery know so well as addicts and addicted people. It’s that thing the Big Book talks about: being an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. And this message from Mr. Rogers is the perfect antidote to that complicated personality dilemma: We want to be special but we feel so insignificant. Or, we feel we are not enough so we try to puff up and be a big big deal. “There is no one just like you,” Fred Rogers says and it’s all there: no need to puff up, you are special as you, but so is everyone else. It’s like the statistical improbability of Lake Woebegone: Where all the children are above average. In a sense we are all above average despite what that does to the averages.

This man on the radio said that he caught himself being a clown to his own kids and buying them things, and trying to be the “great dad” when he could simply be “their dad”

He said, in his closing and this shot through me to my core: “I realized I could simply be a glass of water instead of a can of Coke.”

I understood immediately. So often I want to be a can of Coke because I think I have to be to be enough. And even after so many years there is still a part of me that does not get it that I am enough. Or I think of the recovering woman sitting next to me in any meeting: “Well, she may be enough, but not me”.

A glass of water rather than a can of Coke. I think I need to be shiny and red and sugar sweet instead of cool and clear and simply thirst-quenching. Is there anything more thirst quenching than a glass of water? Anyone more relaxing to be around than a person who just is?

Yes, this is another way to say “Be yourself,” and “You are enough.” But I like this question: Am I trying to be a can of Coke or glass of water?

A glass of water is enough.

Diane C.
Albany, New York