Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009
This first appeared on 2.26.09 as the first ever guest post on Blommit called “People Not on Facebook Need not Apply.”
First dates are completely, totally, and inexcusably obsolete. There is just no good reason for them to exist any longer.
Join me, my friends, in the quest to eliminate first dates forever. I am hereby refusing to ever go on a first date again.
And it
Monday, March 9th, 2009
I find that most people approach writing the wrong way. They sit down at some scheduled time, and say to themselves, “Okay, time to write an entry for my blog.” It doesn’t work that way though. As much as that would be nice and convenient, you just can’t schedule ideas or inspiration.
So, you have to take notes.
I do believe that writing is something you need to set time aside for, but in order to succeed at it, you need to have a resource for finding something to write about. A method for figuring out your topic.
Personally, I do this by referencing a document called Topics, which is essentially a long collection of random statements, thoughts, phrases, and half-finished sentences that represent some larger idea that I have not yet found the time to write about. These fringe-thoughts are important to capture.
However, the content for my Topics documents has to come from somewhere. It’s actually just a compilation of all the notes I take. The best way to start putting together your own Topics document is to start writing down your ideas when you have them, instead of waiting until you actually have time to do something with them.
A few days ago, I Twittered that as much as I’d love to carry around a Moleskine to jot down ideas in style, I just can’t keep up with a notebook. Besides my wallet and keys, the only thing I can keep track of is my iPhone. So, I am always using it as my nerdy scratchpad.
I once read that Jerry Seinfeld keeps a notepad on the dresser next to his bed, because concepts for comedy frequently come to him in the middle of the night when he’s dead asleep. His notes don’t always make sense when he reads them with fresh eyes in the morning, but when they do, they’re always valuable material.
I have similar experiences. Oftentimes, ideas for essays come to me just as I’m drifting off to sleep. But of course, by that time, I’m too tired to get up, find a notebook, locate a pen, and laboriously write down the idea. And forget about getting back to sleep once I do all of that.
Fortunately, I sleep with my iPhone tucked under my pillow. So, it’s easy to just pull it out, open up Notes, and tap-tap-tap out whatever interesting thing I might be thinking about.
In fact, the iPhone has completely changed the way I approach writing, because my iPhone is literally never more than three feet away from me. I always have a way to record my thoughts, so the time at which I have these thoughts is now irrelevant. Because even when I’m in the shower, my iPhone always within the reach of my arm. (As long as I towel-dry my arm first.)
In an alternate universe, where I could actually succeed at carrying around a notebook, I still wouldn’t have it with me when, say, I’m standing naked in my bathroom and blowdrying my hair.
But I do have my iPhone. Which is exactly why I remembered to write this post.
Friday, March 6th, 2009
Everybody has different measures of success, but I’m only going to talk about the material ones today. For some it’s a house or a nice big salary, for others it’s fame, and for others still it’s a Ferrari or a personal plane.
For me, it’s much simpler than that.
1) Food Acquisition
Acquisition is not preparation. I enjoy cooking, especially with and/or for other people. That part is fun. It’s the going to the grocery store part that I despise.
When I’m intensely focused on something (which is all of the time), I can hardly remember to do normal, human things like, you know, eat. So, when I finally do realize that I’m hungry, food needs to be ready and waiting for me to prepare and promptly consume.
And it’s not just that I can’t be bothered with the acquisition of food. It’s that I am literally incapable of it. Acquiring food is an activity that I find acutely stressful and time-consuming. My life would be significantly better if I didn’t have to do it, and I cannot wait until the day I can afford to pay somebody to do it for me.
2) Laundry
This is another part of life that I know people just have to suck it up and do, but really, honestly, it’s something that I’m largely unable to accomplish.
I think this probably wouldn’t be a big issue if I had an in-house washer/dryer, but I’m not yet at the point in my life where that’s really an option. So, the whole sorting, separating, saving-all-of-your-quarters thing is too much for me to handle. Not to mention desperately hoping somebody doesn’t steal my favorite pair of jeans.
I hate laundry so much that I actually have a persistent personal mission to purchase new pairs of underwear. All the time. Because, really, I have such a ridiculous amount of clothing that I could probably dress myself for like an entire year without even wearing the same thing twice. So, the only time I am actually forced to do laundry is when I run out of clean underwear.
I’m probably up to about a hundred pairs, so currently, I only have to do laundry about once every three months. Score.
3) Chauffeuring
I used to love to drive. I guess I still do, if it’s a pretty day on an open, mostly deserted road. But after getting into a fairly serious car accident a few years ago, I am a much more nervous driver now.
But I still love being driven around in a car. Really. It’s relaxing for me to collect my thoughts and gather myself. Especially after the last two years of riding on public transportation, I crave that feeling of spending some quality alone time with yourself in your own personal bubble of your car, before you have to get on with the day and start interacting with people.
I’m also addicted to the feeling of constant motion and changing scenery. I think this could be contributed to the fact I spent a LOT of time in a motorized swing as a baby, but it’s also a pretty apt metaphor for how I live my life.
In any case, going to the extent of hiring a private driver isn’t really required. I just mainly like to rely on my boyfriend to take over the responsibility of driving and transport me to-and-fro. In return, I always offer good conversation, great music, and navigation assistance.
* * *
And that’s it. Three stupidly simple things.
Maybe this all sounds trite. To put it into perspective, I probably won’t ever need a secretary or a personal assistant. Because daily life activities like answering email, scheduling meetings, and making phone calls simply do not ever stress me out.
To each their own. I know that those might be the bane of other people’s lives, but they’re not the bane of mine.
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
One of my favorite books is The Truth Machine by James Halperin, which details what the future would look like if there was a truth detection device on every person’s wrist that infallibly indicated whether they were telling the truth. Though it may not be worn on our wrist, I think the effect of Facebook achieves the same purpose.
In describing our relationship with relationships on Facebook, people might say “it’s complicated.” However, it seems pretty simple to me.
The truth is, if it’s on Facebook, it’s truth.
Think about it. For instance, everybody knows that it’s not real until it’s on Facebook. So, it’s not really a relationship until it’s proclaimed as such on Facebook. When recently asking a friend about a new love interest, he said they were dating, but weren’t “Facebook serious” yet. It’s a big deal to be serious enough to put it on Facebook. (People not on Facebook need not apply.)
My boyfriend and I have been dating on and off for about four years now, but last year, when we got serious again, we had the DTR (or, “Define The Relationship” for the uninitiated) conversation on the phone. We determined that we were indeed together, and ultimately decided that Facebook needed to reflect that we were together. So, the conversation ended with him telling me: “Let’s see who gets to Facebook first.”
Similarly, I know that if people are dating somebody and it isn’t quite “Facebook serious” yet, they change your relationship status to reflect the ambiguity. “It’s Complicated” might suffice, or oftentimes, just removing the status completely. My generation is defined as much by what they don’t share as by what they do share.
I have a handful of friends who have gotten married over the least year or so, all of which had updated their Facebook relationship status to reflect “married” before they left for their honeymoon. Sometimes even before they had left their wedding! Obviously, it’s not official until it’s on Facebook.
I wonder if anybody has ever asked someone to marry them via Facebook. You know, like, “This person would like to enter a relationship of marriage with you. Can you confirm that you want to be married to them?” I know that when a couple gets engaged, it shows up on the news feed as something like, “So-and-so have gotten engaged and they would like everybody on Facebook to know!” If Facebook is going to act as the digital engagement announcement, they should at least let you customize the text.
Conversely, you aren’t really broken up unless you’ve broken up on Facebook. (Enter the sad little broken heart icon that shows up on the news feed.) In this case, it just doesn’t feel real until you’ve clicked cancel, and then selected “Single” from the drop-down menu.
Back in the dark ages of Facebook (see also “TheFacebook.com”), I once broke up with a guy via Facebook. I found out later that by ending the relationship on Facebook, my newly exed boyfriend received an email that said, “Melissa Sconyers has canceled your relationship.”
I would assume verbiage for such is a bit more politcally correct now, but I don’t want to find out.
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
I wrote this short story in the fall of 2006, for a class I took called “Linguistics of Invented Languages: Klingon and Beyond.” If you’re wondering, the answer is yes, I actually had to learn Klingon. Or, at least enough to finish the Klingon-English and English-Klingon translation exercises we were assigned for homework.
Although since the class was, fundamentally, about linguistics, one assignment required us to write about an incident where language causes a humorous or humiliating misunderstanding. My short story involves both.
An Alien Courtship
A year ago today, on August 8th, 2048, an alien species landed on Earth. Their spaceshoe crashed down in the small Chinese city of Xi’an, barely missing the excavation site of the famous army of terracotta warriors. China was only mildly annoyed at the near-loss of their two-thousand year old historical relics; they recovered quickly to realize that they would be the first country in the world to have contact with an honest-to-science alien species.
In the beginning, China called these aliens Xingren, meaning ’star people’ in Chinese. The entire human population of Earth waited breathlessly until Chinese linguists were able to learn of the alien language to have rudimentary communication with them. Soon, we learned that the species called themselves Qiguai.
Though the details were predictably classified as top secret by the Chinese government, it unfortunately became clear that the Qiguai could not survive on Earth indefinitely. To continue our contact with the Qiguai, we had to find a place for them to live. In a great act of generosity, the World Governing Organization sectioned of a small area on the planet Mars as a habitat for the stranded Qiguai to live. This alien reservation was called Xing, in honor of the first name that was given to the Qiguai.
It was my first intergalactic flight. As a moderately famous linguist, I was one of the people selected for a highly specialized and diverse group of humans to observe, document, and learn from the Qiguais. In the time leading up to my departure, I voraciously studied what little knowledge we had of Yuyan, the Qiguai language. On the day that I boarded the spaceshoe flight to Xing, I was armed with a relatively small vocabulary, but its size continued to increase quickly and exponentially.
Yuyan is a tonal language, a fact that lent the Chinese people, and myself, a large advantage during this first contact. However, as the powerful spaceshoe engines powered up, I realized that I was not well-versed in interpreting the tones that my stomach was making as a last-ditch effort to talk some sense into the higher powers. It didn’t take a genius to understand why my hands trembled as I fastened my shoelaces. I was going to have an interesting adventure, indeed.
For those of you who are reading a translated version of this account, ‘interesting’ just so happens to be the most non-committal word in the English language.
* * *
The Qiguai were strangely similar to humans. I found that I settled in far faster than I ever could have imagined. Within a matter of weeks I could function fairly well in most basic social situations in this budding, bustling settlement. Still, surprisingly enough, the tones in Yuyan language were more challenging than those that I was familiar with in Chinese, which often led to embarrassing moments with the Qiguai. Most of these mishaps were fairly trivial and harmless, until one blustery morning on the red planet.
“Qing wen,” I interrupted a tall Qiguai male as I fumbled in my purse to retrieve my map. When I straightened back up, I was surprised to see how handsome he was. As I was idly pondering the fact that I had not previously been attracted to any of the Qiguai, he leaned down and kissed me.
I jumped back in confusion. “Aiya! Dui bu qi, dui bu qi!!” I apologized breathlessly, shaking my head in an attempt to make sense of this odd situation. The attractive Qiguai male looked puzzled and ever-so-slightly amused, or so I thought. He could have been looking angry and possibly homicidal, for all I really knew. In addition to the challenges that I was facing with learning an alien language, I never anticipated the trouble I would with interpreting alien facial expressions.
“Uh, ni wei shenme wen wo ne?” As I made my inquiry, I stumbled over the word for ‘kiss.’ Suddenly, the situation dawned on me. Though I had been trying to politely ask him to pause and give me directions, I had used the incorrect tones and had mistakenly asked him to kiss me. At least he obliged, I thought as I slapped my forehead and shook my head again. With some luck, my actions were portraying bewilderment and not informing him of some underlying intent to kill. I hoped that it was at least adorable sort of bewilderment. Shit.
“Ah, wo zhidao. Mei wenti ba!” He simultaneously realized my error, and his, too, though he showed no outward sign of regret. Not that I would have picked up on it anyway.
“Ni xuyao bangzhu ma?“ He grinned in what I thought was a winning way and offered his assistance. I returned his smile and opened up the map that had been hanging, forgotten, in my hands. In my continual and varied attempts to increase my vocabulary, I was trying to find the specialty food market to educate myself about Qiguai cuisine.
“Ni… renshi… umm, zhe’ge shichang ma?” My face flushed red as I stuttered through my words again. Thankfully, his face lit up in recognition (or possibly, in utter disgust) and he offered to lead the way. With a quickness that surely betrayed my innermost feelings, I happily obliged.
* * *
That wayward kiss was the beginning of a beautiful friendship between two entirely different types of carbon beings. I inwardly smiled every time I remembered what my college best friend used to say about learning a new language: “You just need to find a cute native speaker and make him your boyfriend,” she always insisted. That was the way she successfully learned French, Spanish, and Italian, the last of which ultimately landed her a husband. Though I would have never admitted it to another, I had an ever-growing crush on Nanren and began to wonder about the radical and almost inconceivable prospect of marrying him. Although the population of Earth had finally come to terms with gay marriage, it greatly amused me to wonder what they might think of inter-special unions.
At this thought, a sly smile crossed my face, and Nanren immediately inquired about what I found so entertaining. He demonstrated an amazing capability for studying the facial expressions and interpreting the body language of humans; in fact, the skill he had acquired rapidly eclipsed my slowly evolving ability to pick up on the context clues of his culture.
“Uh… meiyou.” I hesitated as I considered explaining it to him, but we had never even discussed the possibility of a relationship beyond our friendship. It seemed awfully forward to discuss marriage at this point.
Instead, I shrugged in a semblance of apology, and his response was to shrug quickly three times in a row, pause, and then shrug twice again. These actions could possibly cause another human to question his sanity; the wide, lopsided smirk that belied his intelligence did not help. Yet this was one of our many inside jokes. Shrugging was an art he had not mastered so quickly, but he was keen on the fact that I found it so humorous. Though he could correctly execute this body movement in the company of other humans, between us, his initial over-enthusiasm had become the norm.
I turned my attention back to the American history textbook that Nanren and I were poring over. The lifespan of Qiguai was easily three times as long as a normal human being, so human history was always a subject that fascinated him. Our great accomplishments seemed even greater to him, for they were achieved in what he perceived to be such a short lifetime.
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, came The Question. “Ni riqi ren ma?“ Did he really just ask me, in plain and simple terms, whether or not I date? I flushed a deep shade of crimson, something that would have normally enchanted Nanren, but this particular time, he just looked somewhat befuddled by my reaction. At this point in my time on Xing, I was no longer entirely unsure of the emotions reflected on his face. There was obvious confusion in his violet-colored eyes, which in turn, completely confounded me.
“Duuuiii… wo riqi ren…” I responded slowly, taking a chance and shyly offered the affirmative. Sure, I had been on Xing for awhile now, I rationalized, but I had been known to date people in the past. ”Ni ne??” My eyes flashed indignantly as I returned the ball to his court, yet my heart skipped a beat in anticipation of his response.
“Dang ran.“ Of course, he answered with an obvious air of confidence that further muddled my understanding of the situation. Well, of course of course, I silently huffed. What was I thinking? How could a stunningly gorgeous alien life form not call on similarly attractive alien females? I had seen plenty of them on Xing, their tall, lithe, impossibly thin and chiseled bodies gliding effortlessly in the atmosphere. Well, hell, I was not someone to scoff at. I was reasonably attractive by human standards for sure, but Nanren had previously confirmed my allure to aliens.
I opened and closed my mouth several times, but the sound of my breath was the only sound that escaped my jaws. I was at loss on how to continue with this uncomfortable, yet significant conversation. Fortunately, though he was slightly disconcerted, he looked as if he felt significantly less awkward about the topic than I did. “Na’ge zhidu, ni juede ne?” He politely asked me what my thoughts were on the process.
“Bu tai jiandan.“ Despite his apparant ease, I stubbornly asserted that this particular matter was really not all that easy to discuss.
“Wei shenme bu??” He raised his eyebrows as he asked me why not, and his eyes turned a deeper shade of purple as he struggled to identify the emotions in my answer.
That was it. I just couldn’t dance around the obvious anymore. I went off in a long discourse about why matters of the human heart were just not as straight-forward and clean-cut as he obviously thought they were. Afterwards, I asked him if he understood where I was coming from. Nanren responded that he didn’t quite grasp what I was saying, but he lamented that these so-called “matters of the heart” seemed much simpler in his culture. When I asked him why not, he shrugged. Only once, and with such human perplexity that I momentarily forgot that I was in the company of an alien from outer space. I knew now, that he was not playing games. My heart ached as I prepared myself to ask the question that had been hanging in the air, thus far still left unsaid.
“Ni yao riqi wo ma?“ There. I had done it. I had mustered the courage to inquire if he wanted to date me. I closed my eyes and tried to stay my nerves as I waited impatiently for his response.
“Dang ran.” Of course, he said. When he said it this time, his voice was soft and he pronounced the words with delicate care. My eyes were still closed when he spoke, but they fluttered opened when I felt the warmth of his hand on the left side of my chest, above my heart and near my collar-bone.
I quivered at his gentle touch. “Zai zher? Xian zai??“ I couldn’t believe it. Right here? Right now? Nanren wanted to date me? A tiny amount of uncertainty that remained in his eyes, as he nodded his consent.
“Okay.” I said, using the utterly universal phrase of compliance. “Okay!” I repeated the word with a sudden, over-whelming sense of enthusiasm and anticipation. Perhaps we would go down in history as the first ever inter-special couple. I could get used to that idea.
He nodded briskly, acknowledging my return to good spirits, and offered me a number. “Wo juede er’shi sui. Chabuduo.“ He estimated I was in my twenties, give or take a few.
Though I stood rooted to the ground, my body began to waver in a dizzy, worrisome way. I was dumbfounded. Furthermore, I was humiliated.
In an attempt to save face, I sputtered out a confirmation. Because Nanren was, of course, entirely correct.
In my giddy infatuation, I had entirely forgotten that the Qiguai were equipped with a special sensory system that let the immediately and accurately identify the age of a being by merely touching an area close to their heart. The practice of carbon dating, as we humans call it.
I smiled in private amusement at my folly. Nanren looked greatly relieved that his guess had been successful and that I had returned to a seemingly normal state of emotions. A few minutes later, during a lull in the conversation, I locked eyes with him. Great affection filled the depth of my stare, but I doubted that he picked up on this nuance. Someday, I knew he would. Someday, I knew I would have the opportunity share this story with him and I knew we would laugh about it together.
Until then… The End.
Saturday, February 28th, 2009
A few days ago, I walked into a bookstore, and I was on a mission. I went there to buy a specific book, so I walked straight up to the help counter and asked specifically for it. My sources told me that it was one of those books that a bookstore would have in stock at any given time.
The nice woman behind the counter looked exactly like the stereotypical woman-working-in-a-bookstore. She was quiet, mousey, and wearing glasses with a delicate gold chain attached to them. She timidly typed the title into her ancient computer, clicked through a couple of screens, and then furrowed her brow.
“I’m sorry ma’am, we don’t carry this book.”
I inquired if the North location of the same store had it in stock. “No, actually, it appears that we don’t carry it in our stores at all. But I can order it and it’ll be here in a week or so.”
I had no interest in waiting that long. Particularly if I had to physically return to pick it up, which would be a pain, seeing as how I don’t have a car.
The next morning, I tried my luck at a different bookstore in town. Except that I had learned my lesson, and called first to see if they had it before I went. The friendly woman who answered, quickly ran the title through their inventory system, before apologizing to me. “I’m sorry, we’re sold out.”
The result was the same. I still didn’t have a copy of the book. But each instance of customer service had a completely different effect.
The first interaction left me with the distinct impression that the store couldn’t possibly be doing very well. For them to not carry a book like this reflected ominously on their business.
However, the second interaction made me feel as if business was good. So good, in fact, that hey were sold out, because this book was flying off the shelves faster than they could keep it stocked.
I’ve written before about the the nuances of service. This is a prime example of how customer service can make an enormous difference in the purchasing experience. Because the first interaction was actually at Barnes & Nobles, in one of its typically large and sprawling locations. Although B&N might be feeling some effects from the economy, as everybody is, I think it’s probably still doing fine as a whole.
Yet the second interaction was a small bookstore on a corner of campus called Intellectual Property. Even though it’s owned by Folsom’s, I’ve been of the staunch opinion that it’s been doomed from the beginning. And I was right, because it recently announced its going-out-of-business sale and it’s only a matter of time now before they permanently close their doors.
I once read the introduction to a sales-y type book, in which it talked about how one teeny, tiny, seemingly insignificant alteration to the scripting of infomercials was responsible for unbelievably huge increases in profits.
The change was this. They would display the 1-800 number on the bottom of the screen like normal, but instead of simply stating that there would be attendants standing by for their call, they added a short sentence: “Keep calling if the line is busy.”
This additional phrase seemed to unlock a part of people’s brains that suggested other people were also calling to buy this product. In masses. And this translates into some sort of primal need for approval from the herd. Meaning it validated their desire for the product by suggesting that a lot of other people also wanted it, and thus, drove them to call, and feel relieved and successful when somebody answered to take their credit card information.
And suddenly, sales were, literally and figuratively, off the hook.
Anyway, luckily for me, Amazon had the book I wanted in stock. It was delivered it straight to my door via next-day air. Now that’s good service.
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
In the past, both near and far, life used to be a lot harder. Everybody knows the Marx quote, “Religion is the opiate for the masses.” I’m sure in many ways, life was horrible and insufferable, which is why people back then needed religion to help them through it. To help them bear the pain and give them hope. To keep on keepin’ on.
I think that, now, popular culture is the opiate of the masses. Because life is “too good,” or perhaps, “too normalized” is more accurate. Meaning that we don’t really have any hardship, but we also don’t have any of the adventure and grandeur that we imagined we would have (and were told we would have) when we were kids.
Now, people have to constantly self-medicate themselves with TV shows like Heroes and 24, which make up extraordinary situations where only extraordinary people with extraordinary abilities can save them and thus, save the day in an extraordinary way.
So, then maybe it isn’t accurate to say that pop culture is an opiate, because an opiate is something that “soothes or stupefies” and dulls away acute pain. Maybe pop culture is actually a stimulant that allows people to feel again, because modern lives have become so banal.
It makes sense, right? All of these kids addicted to games like World of Warcraft? I asked a friend of mine, who happens to be a kid, why he loved WoW so much. And he said, “Well, duh, it’s way more interesting than normal life.”
He (and many other kids) are addicted to a game where there is a world they can dominate, with rules to break and systems to game. I mean, how would you go about getting that sort of excitement and challenge, that intense, visceral struggle for life and dominance, in a scheduled, supervised, sedated play date with some kid?
I find all of this is fascinating in the context of Emerson:
“I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe, for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to [get somewhat which he does not carry,] travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins.
Travelling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty, and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican, and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.”
Escapism is still escapism. It takes on different forms through the ages, but whatever means one uses, the purpose remains the same.
Tuesday, February 24th, 2009
Recently I’ve realized that it deeply irks me that I don’t have a “profession.” Meaning that if a child were to ask me what I did, I would have no idea how to answer in a way they would understand. Although I have lots of bullets on my resume, and I can obviously describe what I do, I cannot say seem to say what I “am.”
I am without a label.
Or, more accurately, I am without an identity.
My father was an entrepreneur, so I grew up with the assumption that I would be an entrepreneur too. However, as I’ve recently realized, defining entrepreneur is actually quite difficult.
Thinking about this further, it’s not just hard to tell a child what I do. I realized it’s really hard to tell anybody what I do. Usually, I just say that I’m in marketing. One word answers are bad. It’s the politician’s answer. Polite, but vague, which is exactly why I say it. I use it as a way to answer the question, but abruptly end the questioning right then and there.
I especially do this when I’m meeting somebody for the first time, because I probably haven’t had a chance to stalk them in advance, which means I’m likely feeling befoogled. So, instead of offering information about myself up front, I listen, get context, and see where I might fit in with that person. Figure out the best way to relate to them. It’s much easier for me that way.
Because at the great cocktail party of life, people don’t ask you who you are. They ask you what you do. As far as I can tell, it seems that in all of history, for as long as humans have been working, your job has equaled your identity. What you do IS who you are.
But I’m not a human doing. I’m a human being. When I stop doing, what remains?
It seems to me that, perhaps for the first time in history, we cannot base our identity solely and exclusively on our career. Because it’s not just about deciding what to DO with yourself anymore. It’s about figuring out WHO you are. Which is far more difficult and challenging, not to mention terrifying.
It’s scary to the point of actually being immobilizing.
I’m good at doing lot of things, but what I think I’m best at is working hard. I am an expert at applying myself to be good at just about anything once I decide I want to be good at it. And not for one second do I delude myself to believe that I’m unique in this. I think that my entire generation, as a whole, is really fucking good at doing things, whatever those things might be.
The real problem here is that the reason we’re so good at doing things is because for our entire lives, we’ve been told to do things.
I don’t think this is problem can be accurately attributed to the people in our generation, but rather the environment in which we’ve been raised. All throughout our lives of school, my generation has been acclimated to follow a model for success that looks something like this: Do these 5 things, get to the next level. Then do these 10 things, get to the next level.
We arrive at college, and the model seems awfully familiar. You’re an [insert major here], so take these classes, earn this many credits, get your degree, then get to the next level. It looks and feels the same as the model we’re accustomed to. But it’s missing that “next level” part that’s always been built-in for us.
So, we go to our career centers. And we ask, what do [insert major here] people do? The career center replies with a question. “Well, what is that you want to do?” At this point, the panic starts to slowly set in. We have no idea. We ask again, “Well, I don’t know. What do [insert major here] people USUALLY do?”
My generation doesn’t know what the next level is. Or even how to go about figuring out what the next level might be. Thus, my generation has learned and continues to learn (the shockingly hard way) that a major in college doesn’t translate into a career path anymore.
I know it’s true for me. It’s really, really, really difficult for me to decide what I want to do. Not what other people think I should do, or what I think other people think I should do.
We’re a generation of people who have been raised to believe we can do anything. And honestly? We’re a generation of people who probably could do just about anything we wanted.
But when you can do anything, what do you actually do?
It’s been proven that too much choice is crippling, and I believe that’s largely the root of the problem my generation faces. We’ve never learned how to make decisions, especially about our futures. We’ve only learned how to exponentially multiply our options and then eternally dwell in the possibilities. We’ve always been given a map to success, every single step of the way. At some point though, the trail extends off of the map we’ve been given. And we’re forced to find our own path. Choose our own adventure.
It’s hard for anyone to know who they truly are. Furthermore, knowing yourself is not an end point, it’s a constant, continual process. Which is why you should forget the soul search, and just do something. You’ll learn who you are through the process of making your own choices and making your own mistakes. It’s okay if you don’t get it right the first, second, or even fifth time. Ready, fire, aim. Start somewhere and then optimize for happiness.
Saturday, February 21st, 2009
John Erik and I had a discussion about what it means to be an entrepreneur, and what being an entrepreneur is or isn’t. We had different ideas about this, so we looked up the definition of an entrepreneur. We know it’s someone who runs a business. But this definition could also describe a manager.
The definition continues to say that it’s someone who runs a business with considerable initiative. But a lot of people run businesses (their own or otherwise) with considerable initiative. Neither of these points are the defining factor.
What makes an entrepreneur different is that he assumes risk. He puts his money, his time, his success, and himself on the line for what he’s doing.
Many people believe that the life of an entrepreneur looks pretty great: The conceptions are that they can work from home, or anywhere really; that they can work whenever they want, for as many or as few hours as they want; and that they never have to answer to anybody but themselves.
Sure, you don’t have to answer to anybody but yourself. But you still have to answer for yourself. And it’s surprisingly difficult to have the guts to do this in a country where people don’t take responsibility for themselves. In a society that seems to subsist on finding fault. Explaining problems away. When it’s just you, there is nobody to blame but yourself.
Also, you don’t have anybody telling you when you have to work or how many hours you have to work. But when you’re an entrepreneur, the work is never done. And the work is always yours to do. Yes, you don’t have anybody telling you when you should be working. Which sounds like a good thing in theory. It also means you don’t have anybody to tell you when to take a break, because you’re working too much and you need a break.
And finally, you might even get to work from home! All the time! Let me say that again: all the time. It sounds magical, but I dare that sometimes, it might feel like a prison sentence. If you have ever worked in an office, you’ll know how liberating it feels to leave the office at the end of a long, hard, trying day. Now, imagine never being able to leave your office. Because your office is your home and your home is your office. (Of course, this is why John Erik and many others are dedicated to helping entrepreneurs get out of the house and promoting the trend of coworking. But that’s another story within itself.)
I was an entrepreneur in the past. Being a young entrepreneur didn’t just change my life; it literally paved my way. But in all reality, I didn’t do anything that was hard. It was actually inordinately easy to be successful, specifically because I was so very young. I didn’t have to worry about putting a roof over my head and getting food on the table. I didn’t have bills or anybody to support (not even myself).
That’s the other small, minor, trivial part of being an entrepreneur that is usually overlooked completely. Being an entrepreneur, at least at the beginning, means you don’t always know when or where your next paycheck will come from. Or rather, more accurately, you don’t know when it will come. But you always know the where. And the where is you. And only you.
This is why post-college, it seems that I’m much more entrepreneurial than I am entrepreneur. I’ve kept the sense of drive, of proceeding with intent and purpose and considerable initiative, and I always have a constant radar for opportunities. But I also work for a company. Somebody else’s company.
I believe that entrepreneurs, and even entrepreneurial people, are an extraordinarily self-selected group. I believe that the people who want to do it will do it no matter what. They are the people who refuse to accept the The Way Things Are.
John Erik believes that people need to be exposed to the idea of entrepreneurship, to the idea that it’s even a possibility to change The Way Things Are, in their own lives or the lives of others. Maybe that’s true. And I’m not really against this idea itself. It’s just that I still think that people who self-select themselves to be entrepreneurs don’t need to know it’s possible, because in all reality, statistically speaking, it’s not possible. But they do it anyway.
I worry about making people want to be entrepreneurs when they aren’t necessarily cut out for it. I worry about making people feel like they’re failing or somehow lesser human beings if they work for somebody else instead of starting a company of their own. In what is probably my favorite movie of all-time, Searching For Bobby Fischer, there is a relevant quote: “To put a child in the position to care about winning, but not to prepare them is wrong.” And I believe that the only way you can prepare yourself for entrepreneurship is, well, to prepare yourself. Nobody can do it for you.
One way to prepare yourself is to keep your job and do it on the side. Dedicate all of your spare time to it, sacrifice sleep and fun for it. What is that you say? You don’t have time? Well, if you don’t have time to do it now, you probably don’t have time to do it full-time, because all of that sacrifice is quite an accurate preview of what it’ll be really like.
The reason being an entrepreneur is so self-selecting is because it’s really hard. You have to want to do it because YOU want to do it, because you couldn’t and wouldn’t do it any other way, otherwise you probably won’t make it. The point is, entrepreneurship is not the right thing to do, nor is it the wrong thing to do. There isn’t a right or a wrong, there is only what is right or wrong for you.
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009
A few weeks ago, my boyfriend installed a new app on my iPhone for me. And by “for me,” I mean that before I noticed, he sneakily managed to take my iPhone from me, navigate to the app store, download the app, and then all innocently ask me to type in my iTunes password. I petulantly did so, knowing that he had purposely bypassed me in this particular app acquisition process.
But, like always, he knows what was best for me.
The app is called Gratitude. I know, I know, I had the same reaction. We now need an iPhone app for expressing gratitude? What is the world coming to?
The Gratitude Journal, whose tagline is “zen at your fingertips,” is best described as a little private notebook, that you open up before you go to sleep each night, and reflect on the day by listing out the things that day for which you’re grateful. When you’re done, you can rate the day on a five-star scale, and even add a picture from your photo album to memorialize the day further.
My boyfriend thinks I need this app. Mainly because, in my personal life, I often have a really hard time seeing the bigger picture when I’m trapped down with the devil in the details. Sometimes I will have had a perfectly decent day, but then something small and likely insignificant will tip me over and all of the happiness from earlier will inevitably pour out and pool around my ankles. I’m exaggerating. But only barely.
Another reason my boyfriend thinks I need this app is because the last time this happened, I was tearfully lamenting, in breaths between uncontrollable sobs, that I couldn’t quantify “happiness” as a value on the spreadsheet I was making for my cost-benefit analysis of the problem. Since Gratitude lets you rate days on a five-star scale, he incentivizes that, after using the app long enough, I will indeed eventually be able to quantify happiness. Besides, studies show that practicing gratitude can increase happiness by 25%. How could I go wrong?
My first entry in this experiment was written after a exhausting, long, and acutely stressful day. I only wrote it because my boyfriend sat me down, handed me my iPhone, and told me simply, without any room for appeal, “Do your Gratitude Journal for today.”
So, my Gratitude journal for January 30th looks like this:
- Not having a nervous breakdown
- John flying in to help me move
- Being so happy to see John at the airport and feeling more calm immediately
- John being the best boyfriend ever and helping me pack up and move
- John being patient with me when I’m acting out due to stress
- So, basically, John
- Making the tough decision to move even at the risk of losing money, which generally immobilizes me
To my great surprise, I rated the day as three-star. Only minutes before writing the entry, I felt like I was in the pits. And only seconds after writing the entry, I felt lighter and well, happier. Look at all those great things I have to be thankful for! How can I be unhappy when I look at that list and realize I have the world’s greatest boyfriend? (Suddenly, his motivation becomes clear.)
In all seriousness though, John is one part of my life that I greatly appreciate, and I think he would agree that I do well at appreciating him. However, there are all of these other good things in my life too, that I tend to overlook. And that’s what he is trying to help me realize through my use of this app.
About a week later, my entry for February 5th reads:
- Battlestar Galactica
- Remembering to make John talk about his day, because I want to hear and he wants me to listen
- My dad being sympathetic about the car situation
- Writing down my feelings about the car situation and telling it like it is
- Watching John’s happy reaction to what I wrote about him
- Meeting Herb Kelleher, founder of Southwest Airlines, after listening to him speak at UT
And, lo and behold:
- This app, because it makes me reflect and remember and record
© MCMXCIV-MMX Melissa Sconyers