The Themes of Dr. Seuss

In Alex's last year of high school, the musical production was Seaussical The Musical. It jams a b'zillion Dr. Seuss books into a single production. Some characters get only a mention. Some have minor roles. Alex was Gertrude, the bird who longed for a better tail so she could attract Horton's attention.

There are so many important themes in Dr. Seuss books that are applicable to life in general. I thought, wouldn't it be fun to do a series of blogs based on those themes. So Imma gonna. Over the next several weeks, I'll offer you my take on Dr. Seuss and how his messages apply to life, the universe and everything. If you're young at heart, you can have a read and learn a lesson or two along the way. If you're raising kids, you can use these Dr. Seuss books to talk to your children about important life lessons.

One of the stories I wasn't familiar with when I saw Seussical was I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew. It's about a young'un who wants to escape the troubles of life by getting to the mythical city of Solla Sollew, "where they never have troubles, at least very few."

Wouldn't we all just love to find a place where the crap that is so much a part of life just evaporates? But just as the protagonist of Seuss's story discovers, there always seems to be a green-necked quail waiting to bite us in the butt.

Sometimes we're so determined to avoid "troubles" that we jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.  As the protagonist heads off to Solla Sollew, things go from bad to worse… a crappy boss makes him work hard, a sickness has him confined to bed for twenty weeks, and there are many sleepless nights.

Sound familiar?

Hey, there's always going to be some crap … that's life. It'd be nice if you could escape it, but all you do is swap the crap you know (and can hopefully cope with) for crap you don't know. Imma sticking with my crap.

And that's the lesson Dr. Seuss's young protagonist learns. You can't escape troubles. But you can arm yourself so that you have a way to cope.

And the punchline is… get yourself a bat!

That's what the munchkin uses to beat back the troubles in his life. Your financial bat: An emergency fund and enough and the right kind of insurance. It's Gail Rule #4: Mitigate Your Risks.

The other important lesson, of course, is that you can't escape troubles. So you're best of figuring out what to do to cope. And it helps if you have a great song you can sing while you're dealing with whatever life has thrown at you.

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