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A few years ago my daughter Autumn and my son Jonathan were playing the game "What's Different?" In this game, one player turns around and the other changes something about their appearance. The other player then turns around and tries to guess the change. For example, maybe a button was undone or glasses were removed. After playing a few turns, Jonathan was having a hard time figuring out what was different with Autumn. Eventually he gave up. When he asked, she responded, "My name is Rico."
Sometimes change is pretty easy to see. When we show people pictures of our wedding day, the general comment is to Nancy, "Who was your first husband?" I looked very young; in fact, not long after we were married and owned our first house, someone knocked on the door. When I answered, the person asked if my mother was home. Today I have some grey hair which I choose to see as distinguished, weigh a little more, and can feel it more after a workout (when those actually happen).
Sometimes change is difficult to see. The changes that I want other people to see are not quite as evident as the wrinkles around my eyes. A year from now I want my kids to see a better parent, my wife to see a better husband, and I want to see myself as the person that I want to be.
Hopefully I won't be the same a year from now, with the only difference in that my name was changed to Rico.
Monday, August 10, 2009
What's different?
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Aspriations, squared
Vocational aspirations keep popping up, so let's keep chatting about it.
In the book The Narcissism Epidemic (93), the authors talk about how American cultural trends are pushing people towards more and more narcissistic behavior. If you are on the fence about this, just watch the first month of American Idol and watch thousands of people line up to get a shot at fame, 99.9% of which have little signing talent and will be given the boot. Or take a look at MySpace, or the people competing to have the most friends on FaceBook. Or go to the malls and shopping centers, asking people how much they spend on clothing a year. On cosmetics and surgeries. Or read the book on many more ways that we Americans try to say: "Look at me!"
In 2006, 51% of 18- to 25-year-olds said that "becoming famous" was an important goal of their generation - nearly five times as many as named "becoming more spiritual" as an important goal. The most popular answer was "being a celebrity." "Good looks" and "being rich" rounded out the top three, making for a perfectly narcissistic triumvirate.Who is to blame?
The easy answer is the media, but I'm not buying (or trying not to buy it, literally). Media is just my fantasies played out because the media just feeds what we want. We have to take some kind of responsibility for our choices. I can't complain about the dire effects of fast food to my spouse while in the drive-thru at McDonald's. I can't complain about TV advertising with the TV on.
Another easy answer would be the government. While I think the government is pretty incompetent in many areas, if we don't like what is happening then all we have to do is elect someone else. It is up to us. Change 10 seats in the house and it would be a big swing in either direction and a statement. If we aren't happy about the current state of affairs, it's like looking at your reflection and saying, "You're not very good looking."
Well, my first answer has to be us parents. Not because we aren't telling the next generation any different, but because we aren't showing them any different. We aren't going against the growing trends, we aren't making the hard choices, we aren't living by different standards. There are many wonderful things happening in today's world, maybe we just need some more discriminating voices and actions to lead a grassroots movement.
Cutters go to the back of the line
Let me guess something about you - you don't like it when people cut in line in front of you when they didn't wait their turn. Maybe it isn't just the line at the store or at the DMV or at the amusement park (have you ever just wanted to throw your cotton candy at them?), but it is also who gets the promotion, who gets the job interview, which of your peers is doing better, which students get the attention.
Tom Vanderbilt says that it is not only a phenomenon that happens as you watch cars go by to get to the front of the line while you patiently wait in the middle (from Traffic, 42):
What really seems to rankle us is seeing people get ahead. This is why, says Richard Larson, director of the Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the world's leading authorities on queues, any number of companies - from banks to fast-food chains - have switched from systems in which multiple lines feed multiple servers to a single, serpentine line... Why? Social justice, says Larson. "If you have the single serpentine line, you're guaranteed first come, first served. If you have the multiple lines, you have what happens at McDonald's at lunchtime. You have the stress of joining a line with high likelihood that somebody who's joined a queue next to you will get served before you. People get really irritated with that."
If you can do something about it, maybe it is better to think about the system, or any system that you can do something about, and to figure out who needs to get what. How can we optimize it for everyone? After daydreaming about the proper punishment for those people, figure out what you can do about it in situations that really matter.
Monday, August 03, 2009
Aspirations
So what do you want to do when you grow up?
When people would ask my oldest son Jonathan his vocational dream when he was four-years-old, he had an amazing occupational aspiration. Most kids want to be a fireman, or a policeman, or an astronaut. My son, when you asked him, would respond, "I want to be a chicken!" He would then proceed to run around waving his arms around and making squawking noises. Isn't it great to have high hopes! At least he could have said something cool like Barn Owl, something a little higher up on the food chain.
If you ask him now as an almost-teen, he's likely to tell you that he wants to play video games for a living. Articles like this one don't help my cause to limit his playing time.
So what is it that you want to be when you grow up? Is it what you are doing right now? Maybe reality has a little something to do with that, but is there any reason that you couldn't use some of your spare time to learn something along those lines, take some classes, join that organization, learn a new language, make new connections, etc?
You can. Maybe you might have to watch your time, a little less tv, a little more productivity, but you will feel better about life if you are swimming after a dream rather than just floating downstream.
Friday, July 31, 2009
I'm getting passed!
I am almost done reading a great book called Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt. It is fun reading because all of the aggravations and behaviors that people exhibit while driving heavy machinery is discussed. Is it better to take the first available parking spot, or wait for the one right in front of the door? Where do those phantom traffic jams come from? Why is it weird catching someone's eye in the car next to you?
I'll pull out some of the observations that are interesting to me, and we'll have a great time learning why we both think we're above average drivers. Here is one that seems relevant to most of my life at the moment (42):
Drivers spend most of their time - anywhere from 80 percent to over 90 percent, studies have found - looking at the forward roadway. This includes, of course, the adjacent lane; estimates are that for every two glances we make at our own lane, we make one glance at the next lane - simply so we can actually stay in our lane. This means we are highly aware of vehicles passing us. We spend only about 6 percent of our driving time looking in the rearview mirror. In other words, we're much more aware of what is passing us than what we have passed.You know you've thought the same thing as you sit in a lane of traffic, apparently the slow one. So you change lanes, and of course this always happens to you - now you are getting passed again! Well, you really are feeling more pain by cars passing you than the joy of passing others (admit it, there is a little ego boost as you wave "So long Sucker!" to the cars you are passing).
Frankly, I don't think this is just a car phenomenon. It is easy to feel like people are passing me by in life as well.
"Oh look, another person got that job in front of me." "There is someone else who has hit it big." "I wonder who is building that gargantuan house in our neighborhood?" "Why does it seem like everyone has a bigger dog than us?" (Ok, everyone does have a larger dog than us, but I'm actually pretty happy about that.)
There is something to counting your blessings. I've got it pretty good. Comparing myself to others is a losing proposition, no matter where I end up. What is the best that I can do, in my circumstances? And stop counting those passing cars, turn up the radio and sing (some of you should probably roll up the windows).
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Naked
My daughter Autumn was two and in a naked stage of life. Clothing was not her thing. As soon as we would leave the room, she would shed the clothes and be one with nature.
One day, we were upstairs when we heard the doorbell ring. We heard Autumn, who was downstairs, scamper to the door. We were coming down the stairs when we heard the four-year-old boy next door say, in a tremulous voice, "Mommy, Autumn is naked!"
Welcome to America, Joel!
I am quite happy that my daughter is now a little older and a little wiser, and has learned the value of clothing (although she may haven taken it to an extreme with shoes).
I was having a discussion with a friend not too long ago about people who have openly confessed to having some issue or struggle in their life that they are trying to overcome, and the resulting reaction from people around them. Of course, there will be some who are graceful and compassionate, there will be those who would rather just not hear it, and those who will shun the confessor.
Why is this such a tough thing for people to handle? I think of our little neighbor boy who was unfortunately exposed to my daughter in an unexpected moment, and it worried him. Does bad news set us up on a path of negative thinking, now expecting the worst and wanting to hide from it? Does it remind us of our own frailty and hidden struggles, and we'd rather not think about our own exposure?
Our conversation covered the wistful freedom of being able to be completely honest and exposed to our closest friends, and the fear of being completely honest and exposed to our neighbors and the possibility of hearing footsteps running in the other direction.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Expectations and tutoring
I had several tutoring sessions with a bright young fellow that was having a little bit of math trouble. It was interesting talking to his grandmother about their own efforts to tutor him. I guessed right on some of their trouble - being able to sit down and help with patience. I know, because my emotions sometimes get in the way when I try to help my own kids.
It was easier for me to help the young man with some of his work than his relatives, not because they didn't know the material, but because they knew it and struggled with the learning curve. The difficult part of that curve is not necessarily getting from point A to point B, from staring at squiggles on a page to comprehension, but the gap in between them which is measured in time and in struggle.
When you are on the other side of point B it is sometimes hard to remember what that gap was like - you just see the two points and think that Scotty can beam you from one point to the next.
It is difficult watching people we have a strong relationship with labor in that no-person's-land between the points, fighting off doubt, trudging through misconceptions, sweating to build connections, swatting away distractions. We see it, and it is so easy to just say: "Here it is! Here is the treasure, here is Point B. No worries. No hassle." Yet the hassle may mean more ultimately than the treasure.
But frankly it wasn't really that hard for me to say, "How do you think it should be done," and then watch him struggle. And wait. All the while Grandmother is fidgeting.
I'm in my own struggle right now between points. I would love for someone to hand me Point B. Conceptually I know that the struggle will make me a better person, but I really like this quote:
Son, if you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now quiet! They're about to announce the lottery numbers. - Homer Simpson