In the late 1900s, my wife and I learned about emotional bank accounts.
We weren’t devoted to “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey but read the book and went through a few days of training.
We both liked the emotional bank account idea. Treating someone badly causes withdrawals while doing nice things causes deposits. Simple.
It’s an equation and a metaphor to help people like me, who often do the wrong thing at the wrong time and need ways to make up for said wrongness.
The beauty of the system is you don’t have to wait until you mess up to make a deposit. You can do it preemptively and hope your significant other remembers the next time you botch things.
It’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of when, so why not prepare?
One of the ways I used to make deposits was to put on the soundtrack from “Once,” a movie that came out in 2007. Wikipedia calls it a “romantic musical drama,” which sounds about right.
We borrowed a copy of the DVD from a co-worker and fell in love with the film. The story’s set in Ireland, where a guy without a name meets a girl without a name. They form a quick friendship and sing a lot of fantastic songs.
I won’t tell you any more because I don’t want to spoil it for you. I will say that though there’s no mention of emotional bank accounts in the story, you can see the concept play out as the characters get to know each other.
Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová played the guy and girl and wrote most of the songs. They won the 2008 Academy Award for Best Song for “Falling Slowly.” It’s one of many gems on the soundtrack.
For a time in our lives, I made deposits into my wife’s emotional bank account by playing that soundtrack. She’d make an “ahh” sound and look at me in her special way. I consider that look the prime benefit of Covey’s “Highly Effective People” system.
Years passed, and creative types turned the movie into a Broadway musical. The production won eight Tony Awards in 2012, and the cast album won the 2013 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
I’d never seen the musical version. My friend, Tom Booth, is executive director of Tupelo Community Theatre He’d never seen the movie but saw “Once” on Broadway and again when a touring company brought the show to Memphis.
He was smitten enough to convince the team at TCT to present “Once” as the opener for the 2022-23 season.
And I was smart enough to scoop up some tickets.
There are a few differences between the movie and the musical. A song was missing and some of the arrangements had been changed. The story of the musical isn’t as subtle as in the movie, but it works wonderfully.
I’d like to say I was entranced by the production. I was there for most of it but kept looking to my right to see my wife’s expression. It was the look of a woman with an overflowing emotional bank account.
I talked with some performers before the show and suggested I might start singing along. They said that would be fine.
I sang a little bit, but mostly, I listened to the performers and my wife, who quietly sang throughout the show and filled my emotional bank account to overflowing.
Thanks for reading – Scott
