Throwing Large Parties and The Dip

When my house moved into where we currently live we took one look at the main floor and new we had to hold events here. Our sizable living room has been affectionately named ‘The Solarium,’ and the dining room has a 3ft chandelier built into it.

To help incentivize and facilitate event throwing, we put together a fund that we all pay into just for things that are “extra”. This includes furniture, fancy foods, a back patio space heater, food for gatherings with friends, or parties large and small.

We just threw our second New Years Eve party and it was a blast. We had hundreds of fine folks come through, the Solarium was packed with people dancing to live music, ample food was contributed by guests, and people’s bedrooms became quiet sanctuaries for tea and chats. A testament to the Bay Area dancing community, there was no drama in the house, nothing broke and nothing was stolen; people were good to each other and the space. Parties like this wouldn’t happen if it was any other way.

Compared to last year, throwing the party for 2020 was way easier. I believe this is largely due to the bonds the housemates have formed, the strengths that we all acknowledge and appreciate in each other, and the trust that we have in each other.

When the day came people broke out and did their things. Alex made signs for the whole house, Ted took care of sound, Seth set up his tea service and made the back patio a place worth going (instead of freezing on), Drew and Alex handled all forms of drinks and set them up around the house, Deanna and Bryne made spaces feel special with added details and attention, Bryce immediately made everyone lunch and decked out his bedroom with squish, Emily ran around and facilitated everything happening while makes everyone’s lives easier. Meanwhile, I saw the party from a high level and helped make decisions or empower people to make their own calls.

The ease with which we set the house in large-scale-party-mode came from all the events we’ve put on the whole year prior.

When we threw our first NYE party we had way more group meetings about what to do with what space, where this couch should go, who would pick up food and drinks, how were we going to pay for things, who was hosting what and when. Generally, we had much more process. Hell, we were still unpacking since we had been here for only a month and a half. It was a struggle to share our home when it was still struggling to feel like home at all.

My favorite book by Seth Godin, The Dip, is all about quitting. If you want to be the best in the world at something, you need to do a lot of quitting and you need to be able to identify what to quit. To get there he recommends identifying if the thing you are doing maps onto, what he calls, a cul-de-sac, a cliff and a dip.

A cul-de-sac is a horizontal line that never goes anywhere. You do and do and do and things don’t get better. It’s a dead-end job, another binged Netflix series for “creative research” instead of doing, or another time you correct your partner (because this time they’ll learn).

A cliff is a line sloped upward with a sharp drop at the end. These you can’t quit until you fall off. This is smoking, repeated all-nighters to meet deadlines, or social media.

A dip occurs on the long slope towards mastery. On the slope upwards in competence there’s a dip of an indeterminable length. This could be hustling for clients, organic chemistry as a pre-med, or establishing standards as a community.

If you’re heading to a cliff or on a cul-de-sac you need to quit immediately, at least in Seth’s opinion you do. The trick with dips is that they can feel bad and we can quit before we get to the other side.

5-or-so months into living together we were firmly in the dip. Seeing this, we went on a house retreat to a creek-side cabin. There we bonded, played games, enjoyed the hot tub, and went to the beach. We also talked about what was hard to deal with in the house. After smashing together four households, trying to figure out how to live with 7 or 8 new people all at once, and struggling for a sense of ownership in common spaces many of us were frustrated and needing recovery. Some were talking about not being sure that the house was going to “make it”, as in the house would disband prematurely.

It was tempting to quit then because of how hard things were or had felt. The thing was, things were never going to be this hard again. We had already made systems that were working, we had figured out how to arrange the house into something that felt like home, we had working financial models. All this and more. Of course we were all tired and carrying some hurt.

The reframe that brought us off the brink was that we had already done all this tough stuff and we’re still here. We’re still figuring things out and making things more awesome than they already are. To turn back now would be to undo all the positive work we had done and enjoy none of the benefits.

When taking on something new it helps to learn enough in order to know where you’ll encounter dips. From there you can evaluate if you’re likely able to make it through the dip or not. If you determine that you can’t make it through the dip then you’re better off not starting. Put your effort towards something where you can reach the other side.

We, the Lighthouse, started living together because we believed there was something worth striving towards. In the success of our 2020 NYE party I believe we’ve firmly found the other side of the dip; ease, laughter, growth, trust and the ability to share those things with our broader communities.

Even with our collected enthusiasm we still looked into the void at the house retreat. Whatever struggles are on our plates and whatever ambitions lay before us it’s important to remember that we choose most of them. We can quit what isn’t working or isn’t worthy. And we can go forward knowing that the things worth doing will have their dips. There are no smooth seas on the path to something worthwhile. (Photo credit: Tiny Glow Photo)