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Lessons from Halloween Costumes: Trying On Change

My favorite child­hood Hal­loween cos­tume may have been the Spi­der­man one. Granted, it was nowhere near as cool as the ver­sions kids have the priv­i­lege of wear­ing today, what with the form-fitting span­dex, built-in mus­cles and mask that cov­ers the whole head. (In my dreams!)

Mine was made of the loose-flowing, ill-fitting cheap plas­tic that resem­bled Spiderman’s paja­mas way more than proper crime-fighting gear. The mask, too, was plas­tic, and only cov­ered half of my head, held there by a flimsy rub­ber band. And the mus­cles were my own: 100% nat­ural and unde­tectable to the naked eye.

But I’m not bitter.

The weird thing is that even though my cos­tume was severely lack­ing in authen­tic­ity, it never really mat­tered. As soon as I slipped that mask over my face, I was no longer a skinny shy kid named Jason. I was Spi­der­man. Brave, heroic, and thanks to all the plas­tic, uncom­fort­ably sweaty.

Although Adul­ti­tis still tries to med­dle with and ruin Hal­loween — hav­ing to wear jack­ets over cos­tumes, any­one? — it makes me happy to know that dress­ing up in a cos­tume is not the exclu­sive domain of childhood.

Peo­ple of all ages love dress­ing up for Halloween.

But why?

It’s fun, of course. But it also allows us to be some­one (or some­thing) else for a lit­tle bit.

For a sin­gle night you can be a super­hero, a wiz­ard, a bounty hunter, or the undead…and tomor­row you can go back to your com­fort­able life.

We’re allowed to “try on change” with­out any per­ma­nent ill-effects.

We crave the end results that come with a mas­sive change, but can become over­whelmed and dis­cour­aged by the sheer mas­sive­ness of it. Why bother with some­thing that seems impos­si­ble? And yet growth, improve­ment, and a bet­ter life can never hap­pen with­out change.

But what if you incor­po­rated this spirit of Hal­loween all year long? What if you made “try­ing on change” a reg­u­lar prac­tice? Instead of com­mit­ting to run­ning a full-blown marathon, what if you just took the stairs instead of the ele­va­tor at work?

Instead of buy­ing an expen­sive cam­era, why not bor­row a friend’s, or shoot 10 pho­tos a day with your lit­tle point-and-shoot?

Instead of quit­ting your job to fol­low your pas­sion, what if you spent a half hour a day for a month work­ing on build­ing a lit­tle side business?

Instead of throw­ing your TV out the win­dow so you can write that 500-page best­selling novel, what if you swapped a half-hour of TV watch­ing for writ­ing time?

Instead of becom­ing a hard­core min­i­mal­ist, what if you threw out or gave away one thing a day for two weeks?

Instead of elim­i­nat­ing all sugar from your diet, what if you just started with one less can of soda a day?

Instead of pledg­ing to be the best spouse that ever lived, what if, before you went to bed, you just thanked your sig­nif­i­cant other for some­thing spe­cific he or she had done that day?

The nice thing about “try­ing on” change like this is that if you don’t like it, you can go back to your com­fort­able life soon enough.

You never know, though. It might just stick, and before you know it, you’ll end up doing things that once seemed down­right superheroic.

by Jason Kotecki

Jason Kotecki is an artist, author, and pro­fes­sional speaker. Jason and his wife Kim (a for­mer kinder­garten teacher) make it their mis­sion in life to fight Adul­ti­tis and help peo­ple use strate­gies from child­hood to design lives with less stress and more fun. Stop by www.KimandJason.com for more tips for escap­ing adulthood.
Jason Kotecki
View all posts by Jason Kotecki
Filed Under: Fun/Recreation, Jungle Writers

Comments

  1. Chrysta Bairre says:
    October 13, 2011 at 8:07 am

    Thank you so much for this!

    I live a great life not by hav­ing every­thing I’ve always wanted but sim­ply by find­ing the joy, grat­i­tude and pur­pose in my life.

    My great­est accom­plish­ments aren’t the big things that hap­pen, instead they are all the lit­tle things that embrace in my day, such as try­ing on change.

    A lot of lit­tle moments soon add up to a col­lec­tive great life, and I’m hap­pier and health­ier than I’ve ever been!

    By try­ing on change I can appre­ci­ate the small stuff, and make lit­tle steps towards big­ger change. And in the process I allow myself the time to appre­ci­ate all that I have as I work towards my larger goals.
    Chrysta Bairre´s Last Fab­u­lous Post ..How to give con­struc­tive feedbackMy Profile

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  2. Tim says:
    October 13, 2011 at 12:18 pm

    Hi Jason:

    Great post…I like your obser­va­tions and sug­ges­tions. I can iden­tify with how you felt in your cheesy, plas­tic cos­tume. I had a very sim­i­lar one. I also remem­ber dress­ing as a clown, com­plete with crazy wig…this allowed me let out my inner clown rather than the nor­mally seri­ous side that I showed to oth­ers. If I’m read­ing you cor­rectly, you’re sug­gest­ing we let out our inner clowns (or super­heroes) every day, with or with­out cos­tume. That’s a great thought. There’s prob­a­bly a lot of “Clark Kents” out there who should be think­ing of them­selves as more like “Super­man.” And vice versa.
    Tim´s Last Fab­u­lous Post ..The High School Photo ProjectMy Profile

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  3. Sharon says:
    October 13, 2011 at 12:30 pm

    Jason. This is the first time I’ve seen your blog and just love the way you write and your per­spec­tive. There are a lot of things that kids do that we really should try to emu­late. I was giv­ing my daugh­ter a bath last night and she was 100% focused on the sub­ma­rine she was play­ing with. When was the last time you gave 100% (not 99%) focus to any­thing? We make din­ner while think­ing about the laun­dry. We watch tv while sort­ing through mail and think­ing about plan­ning a vacation.

    I love the post and I’m look­ing for­ward to read­ing more. Now I’m off to fol­low you on Face­book and twitter.

    Reply
  4. Mike says:
    October 13, 2011 at 3:24 pm

    Great arti­cle and I think that if more of us fol­lowed your “a lit­tle bit at a time” approach we would reach our more impor­tant goals much faster.

    Reply
  5. Jody - Fit at 53 says:
    October 14, 2011 at 2:41 pm

    This is a great post & I agree with Mike in the com­ment above! Lit­tle or baby steps can lead to big results, just like in weight loss! :-)
    Jody — Fit at 53´s Last Fab­u­lous Post ..Skinny Choc­Chip Cookie & Skinny Apple CrispMy Profile

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  6. Megan Bord says:
    October 14, 2011 at 8:38 pm

    Oh man, I was just talk­ing to a friend about those cos­tumes — I can feel the sweat bead­ing up on my face as I type this!

    I like the idea of small changes and think what you’ve sug­gested is a great start. I’ve also found, though, that swing­ing the pen­du­lum a lit­tle doesn’t always get me enough momen­tum to alter my life in the ways I truly want. And some­times I need a really big shift (as in “jump off the cliff and fly, Tin­ker­bell!” — sorry, that’s the plas­tic cos­tume I remem­ber best…). Tak­ing a leap and hav­ing fear­less faith that a net will appear is also some­times warranted.

    But for now, I’m going to think about how I can incor­po­rate the spirit of Hal­loween as you’ve sug­gested, and “try out” some changes I’ve been want­ing to make. Here goes!

    Reply
    • Jason of Kim & Jason says:
      October 18, 2011 at 1:10 pm

      Thanks Megan! Yes, as they say, it’s hard to cross a wide chasm in two small jumps. Some­times only one big leap will do. But in a lot of sit­u­a­tions, baby steps are always bet­ter than no steps at all!
      Jason of Kim & Jason´s Last Fab­u­lous Post ..Lost Mar­blesMy Profile

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  7. Jannie Funster says:
    October 15, 2011 at 6:41 pm

    I love thank­ing Jim for some­thing he did dur­ing the day. Or thank­ing him for sev­eral nice things he did, his usual day-to-day stuff that may have gone un-noticed. Nice reminder of that.

    It’s the lit­tle things that add up to Big Luuuuuv.

    AWESOME post, “Spi­die” LANCE!!

    xox­oxo
    Jan­nie Funster´s Last Fab­u­lous Post ..They Wanted To Be PoetsMy Profile

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    • Lance Ekum says:
      October 15, 2011 at 8:53 pm

      Hey Jan­nie!
      Glad you loved this one…although I can­not take credit for it, or for the Spi­die cos­tume. Nope, all that credit goes to Jason Kotecki (you should def­i­nitely check out his site — it’s all about FUN…and that’s some­thing you rock at!).

      Me…hmmmm.…I think I’ll play it safe this year and stick with my pink wig…

      xoxo

      Reply
  8. Noel says:
    October 16, 2011 at 2:03 am

    Hi Jason, what a great mes­sage you gain from Hal­loween. I love the idea of ‘try­ing to change a bit and get to switch back if it doesn’t feels right’. Just like me, instead of spend­ing a lot and brave myself to take on a dras­tic makeover, I try some­thing dif­fer­ent each week: per­fume first, then nail art, fol­lowed by new clothes… That makes adopt­ing changes eas­ier and less fright­en­ing :)
    Noël´s Last Fab­u­lous Post ..God’s plan for meMy Profile

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  9. Jen says:
    October 18, 2011 at 2:11 pm

    Hey Jason,
    I dig your vin­tage cos­tume! It is more cool these days to wear the out­dated stuff. My daugh­ter is still mad I got rid of all my 80s cloth­ing that is now back in style:)

    I love what you preach here.…I have pon­dered this every Hal­loween, about shed­ding a habit, try­ing on a dif­fer­ent, chang­ing my per­son­al­ity up a bit for the bet­ter. You make it easy and doable. What a great reminder that good chance is usu­ally the small, incre­men­tal change.

    A great read for me today!! Happy Hal­loween to you!
    Jen
    Jen´s Last Fab­u­lous Post ..Den Chron­i­cles on MamalodeMy Profile

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  10. Quote says:
    October 20, 2011 at 5:43 am

    I’d really love to see Hal­loween here in Malaysia. Unfor­tu­nately we don’t have such fes­ti­val here.
    Quote´s Last Fab­u­lous Post ..True fail­ure isMy Profile

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