- Here's Whitest Sneakers.
- Fantastic, congratulations! - That's the actual one!
And also, of course, though.
You know.
Longest Engagement.
- Hey There, Human
with me, Rainn Wilson.
Hey, everybody.
How's it going?
Nice to see you.
Welcome to Hey There, Human.
This is the show that you're watching.
Today, of course, we have this little pumpkin.
Jenna Fischer.
I was thinking about,
I'm usually a pretty upbeat kinda person.
I can get pretty dark sometimes,
but generally I'm pretty upbeat these days,
these last few years.
And then there's some days when I'm not
and I kinda am going, why am I not as happy as I could be?
Why am I not as joyful as I could be?
I was thinking about this
on days that, when I'm not joyful,
how can I be more joyful?
And I remember reading a quote
from my spiritual tradition about how,
if you're feeling low or feeling down
or kind of feeling bad about yourself,
you can make yourself feel better
by doing something positive for someone else.
This actually increases your happiness.
There was a study with the grand-pappy
of positive psychology, this guy Doctor Martin Seligman,
and his students did a happiness test.
They took a happiness test
when they first got to his class
and it was on positive psychology,
so they got a baseline.
And then, one weekend, he told all the students,
go do whatever's gonna make you the most happy.
So they went out that weekend,
they got laid, they gambled, they went shopping,
they had fun, they played video games, whatever it was.
They came back the next week and he's like,
let's take the happiness test again.
They took it again, and their scores were down
from their original happiness test.
Then the next weekend, he was like,
I want you to go out and do something for someone else.
I want you to go be of service to someone else,
I want you to do something nice,
I don't care if it's just holding open a door,
if it's just calling someone that might be suffering.
So they went out and they did this,
and they reported back what they did.
I called my grandmother, or I donated some food
to the food bank, or I volunteered my time,
or I held open a door, said a compliment to someone.
And they took the happiness test, and guess what?
The test scores went way, way up.
They were more happy when they had done something
of service for someone else.
So that's my thought of the day today.
My thought of the day is that,
people are feeling stressed out, they're feeling anxious,
they're feeling overwhelmed sometimes.
But can we take even a small amount of time
to do something for someone else?
So, please write in what you're doing for other people.
Hi, Jenna!
- Hi, Rainn!
- Someone said Jenna helped me 'cause she taught me
how to bake bread and she inspired me to bake my own bread,
and they said they were having a wonderful,
positive experience doing that.
- I love that!
I love that, Rainn.
Yeah, I started baking bread.
I self-taught myself to make bread
about a year and a half ago.
I've been making bread and living
in my sweatpants for a good year and a half now.
- So you were prepared
for the quarantine! - I love how everyone's,
everyone's now on board!
- Yeah, you were prepared for the quarantine.
Sweatpants and baking bread,
you were doing a good year before this whole pandemic thing.
- I did, yeah.
I've been studying, yeah.
- That's fantastic.
I love the way you've got, right behind your right shoulder,
you've got your SAG statues.
- What?
Did I put the camera angle up
to have my SAG statues and Dundies in the background?
- You've got some Dundies.
Can you angle it a little bit
so we get a little shot of your wonderful book there?
On the wall?
Oh, look at that!
- Yeah, I also wrote a book.
What? How is that all in frame?
That's weird, that's weird.
- [Rainn] Crazy how that worked out.
- Here's Whitest Sneakers.
- Fantastic, congratulations! - That's the actual one!
And also, of course, though.
You know.
Longest Engagement.
- Nice.
- I've got that one, too, yeah.
- Fantastic!
Jenna, how have you been doing?
- Well, Rainn, I was sharing with you privately
that I was struggling.
You know, because I, for years,
have struggled with nervousness and social anxiety.
This has been kinda good for my social anxiety
because I don't have to be social with anyone.
- Right.
- But my nervousness and anxiety,
this has cranked me up.
I'm a very high-functioning anxious person,
but you sent me this, Rainn,
which is on my wall in my office.
I told you I hung it up, I wasn't kidding.
You sent me this chart.
- [Rainn] Oh, man!
Oh, that's great!
- It's a whole list of the things you can control
and a list of the things you cannot control.
And so the things you can control are, like,
turning off the news, limiting my social media,
my kindness and grace, my own social distancing.
I can control my own social distancing,
but, for example, I cannot control
if others follow social distancing guidelines.
- Right.
- And I can't control it, and I can sit
at home and worry about it until I can't sleep at night.
- Yeah.
- But I have to accept that I can't control it.
- Yeah.
- I also cannot control how long this will last.
How other people will react,
and, unfortunately, this tells me I cannot control
if there is toilet paper at the store.
And that is true, I cannot control that.
I have found I cannot get my toilet paper that I like.
- Oh, you have a brand that you like?
- Yeah, you know, Rainn,
I really love Cottonelle toilet paper.
And I haven't had it for awhile now.
I'm having to go with a brand - Cottonelle is
- I don't love. - the extra plush.
It's extra plush.
- It is extra plush.
And you know where I ended up getting toilet paper?
- What's that?
- So there are some local restaurants
that, because they can't work as restaurants,
they have turned into mini grocers
in my neighborhood, and so a way for me
to support my local restaurants is by putting
in orders for produce and flour and rice
and eggs and milk from these little restaurants.
When they send you your order,
they put a roll of toilet paper in it.
I took a picture of it for my scrapbook
because I thought it was so funny.
There was bananas, some red peppers, a bag of flour,
and a roll of toilet paper.
- Picture for a scrapbook?
What does that mean?
- I'm keeping a scrapbook of this time.
I'm journaling and taking photos of this.
- You see, that's what's in your control!
You're keeping a scrapbook of this time!
That you can share with your kids
when you're a wizened old lady.
- Yeah, when my grandchildren ask me
why grandma has 90 rolls of Cottonelle toilet paper
in the basement, I'll be like, here's why!
- That's so funny.
I have lots of toilet paper, I don't know why.
We have 128 rolls of toilet paper.
- Is it Cottonelle?
- No.
But you know what I have
that's really good? - I was gonna come
to your house and ask you to leave some on your porch.
- No, I will trade you! - I'll give you bread!
- Do you want to barter?
- I'll give you some fresh-baked bread for toilet paper.
- I'm willing to part with three.
Four rolls.
- What?
- Four rolls.
- What?
- For exquisite, who-gives-a-crap, bamboo toilet paper
in exchange for one loaf of your shitty bread.
- Oh, I can't wait!
I love it.
This is great.
All right, my starter is struggling right now.
When I get my starter back into good shape.
- [Rainn] Okay.
- I will bake you a wonderful loaf of bread.
- Do you want me to know.
So, I'm happy to deliver the toilet paper.
You're gonna love this toilet paper,
and then, I can take the bread on consignment
or, you know, later, I trust you.
- All right.
I can't wait.
I love it.
- So, Jenna, you're a high-anxiety person
but you've been baking bread
which has given you solace
and you're giving back to the restaurants of your area
by ordering this stuff through them
and you're scrap-booking,
which is a very positive, creative thing.
What else have you and your beautiful husband been doing?
- Well. - Lee.
- I have been lowering expectations.
- Okay.
- And being very kind and accepting.
So, not only lowering expectations of
what I'm capable of, but lowering expectations of others.
You know, I just don't expect that,
if I write an email, that I'll get a response
as quickly as I used to.
Because everybody is, you know.
And also, just because someone has a good day one day,
doesn't mean that they're not gonna
have a bad day three days later.
So when I talk to people about the situation,
a lot of people are saying, oh,
I'll have these three great days
and I'll think, oh, those bummer, depressing,
dark days are behind me, they're behind me!
And then, all of a sudden, one comes up again,
and I'm experiencing that, too.
So just trying to strip myself of expectations.
You know, of myself and of others.
And accepting my limitations, you know?
One of my ways of coping with my nervousness
and anxiety is I love to be a highly-productive person.
- Yeah, same here, same with me.
- Workaholic kind of productivity.
- Yep.
- And so I have this desire to clean
out my entire closet during this pandemic,
but I accept that I might only clean out a single drawer
and I can't beat myself up about my lack
of productivity right now.
- Right. - So just stuff like that.
Things like that.
But then, also, noting really simple, easy things
that click me into a new positive space.
Like one of my bad triggers is reading too much news
but one of my good triggers is bluegrass music.
So, turning on some bluegrass music.
I find it very hard to be depressed
while listening to bluegrass.
- Like.
- Yeah!
- There's a turkey in the tree, a turkey in the tree,
turkey in the tree, hey, there's a turkey in the tree!
- There's a fiddle, there's a banjo, yeah!
- That's great.
So, staying away from news,
and staying close to bluegrass music.
- [Jenna] Yeah! - That's fantastic.
Hey, Jenna, thank you so much
for sharing your uplifting stories of you and your family
and your survival and coping skills and mechanisms
and for coming on Hey There, Human!
- I love it.
All right, bye, Rainn!
Do I leave now?
How do I go?
- I'm gonna kick you off, goodbye!
- Okay, bye! - Go away.
What a wonderful human being Jenna Fischer is,
sharing her spirit and she really is,
what do I say, my biggest compliment of Jenna?
I have so many positive things to say about her.
She really deeply, deeply cares
and deeply examines things with her own mind
and makes up her own mind about what's important to her
and I guess she really explores the truth for herself
and I really love that about her,
among, you know, big heart and fun and collaborative
and great to work with.
And let's remember, too, let's try
and do something nice and good for something else
and just notice how it raises your own spirits
and your own happiness level.
Hey there, humans!
Thanks for watching, so long!
♪ Hey there, humans ♪