Merging as a Metaphor

On my morning drive to work, there is an entrance ramp onto the highway where lots of cars need to merge from three lanes down to one in a relatively short distance. It occurs to me that there are two main types of people merging, and I think it probably says a lot about how they conduct themselves in other areas of their life as well. The first type is someone who pays attention to the rest of the cars on the road and will gladly adjust speed to allow other people to merge. They realize that if we work together with care and coordination, then it can be a painless process so that we can all continue merrily on our way to our destination. The other type of people, however, are the ones who put their own needs first and don’t always let other people in. They want to be the first in line, or the fastest driver, or would like to force people to move aside for them, or think that everything is a competition, or spitefully close up a free space for someone else… What do you think? Is it merely a section of highway or is it indicative of how a person lives his life?

Foreign Correspondence

It's been a while since I've found time to post on here, but I'm back with some thoughts on letter-writing. :) It’s a shame that people don’t put the same amount of time and care into correspondence as they did in the past. I sort of miss the days when people wrote letters back and forth to each other. I do still send lots of birthday and holiday cards, but admittedly, it’s much faster and easier to keep in touch on a regular basis with people through email. What I’m noticing lately is that people are doing so much more communicating via text messaging. I agree that it has its benefits, but what I don’t like is when I take the time to craft a lengthy email to someone and then I get a brief response back from their smartphone. It makes me wonder if they really soaked up all of the words, thoughts, and sentiments that I took the time to put together just for them.

I sometimes reminisce fondly of that intoxicating frame of mind from many years ago when I would eagerly await a letter in the mail (or wonder what treasures might be dropped off by the mailman) and bounce into the house from the mailbox upon receiving something fun and/or unexpected from a friend. Nothing quite compares to the whole experience from anticipation to ripping open an envelope and reading carefully sculpted thoughts...written with a pen! ...and then sitting down at some point afterwards to write a response to that valued friend. Sure, email captures some of that same rush, but it's just not quite the same.

Support the Troops AND the Soldiers

Have you noticed how the media always refer to men and women in the military as “the troops”? I find it disconcerting that at some point several years ago, we stopped hearing references to soldiers, and instead we hear about a “troop” who died, or a “troop” who was deployed to service. Do you suppose that was purposeful syntax to distance us from the human pain and suffering of war? When I hear a news item saying that 15 troops died, for example, it sounds less severe than hearing that 15 soldiers died or “15 human beings died”. In a case like that, that’s exactly what happened – 15 lives were lost – but a word like troops brings to mind images of random, faceless shapes in uniforms so that the statistics can remain generic and tidy. But to the friends and family members who lose a dear member of their life, it’s extremely personal and horrific. I know that casualties are a natural by-product of wars, but we should never lose sight of the fact that wars are fought by human beings, and human lives are damaged and lost in every war regardless of how the media relays that information to us.

Workaholics Are an Interesting Breed

I’m always surprised and very impressed with people who work extremely hard and put in an excessive amount of hours working at their job day after day with a relentlessness that most people would have trouble maintaining. It’s great when true passion is the driving force behind these work habits, and hopefully a lot of these people manage to balance out the other areas of their life to a point that works well for them. I can’t help but wonder about a couple of things though…For a person who works 10 or 12 hours a day and/or takes a lot of work home, when does he find time to take care of all the other details of daily life? And how does that person ever get enough sleep to function well? The other thing that perplexes me is people who have back-to-back meetings at work all day long with hardly any breathing room in between (this is common among managers in my office). How can that be efficient and productive in the long run? People usually need time to process discussions and notes from meetings that they attend, not to mention the follow-up task lists that are commonly generated from business meetings. When I have a lot of meetings filling my calendar, I get a little anxious about finding time to accomplish everything during the precious time in between. I work hard and take a lot of pride in the work that I do, but I wouldn't classify myself as a workaholic. I’ll leave that to the folks who really want to mold the majority of their life around their work.

Take advantage of your senses

We go through our lives on auto-pilot much of the time, don’t we? The people, sights, and sounds around us really blend into the background after a while. Sure, we notice a bright, colorful sunset, an unusual aroma, or an abrupt, unexpected sound, but how much of life passes by unnoticed in our day-to-day routines? I made an effort to really observe things around me for a couple of weeks, and although it wasn’t earth-shattering, it made me aware of how easy it is to ignore my surroundings. Here’s what I did: I spent a few days periodically looking at all of the colors around me. I know it sounds simple, but I had to keep reminding myself to LOOK at them. As a result, I noticed a more colorful world than what usually rushes past me in a blur. Even in a Wisconsin winter, I started to see more colors than the usual whites, grays, and browns. Then I spent a few days making note of shapes, and I found myself seeing so many basic shapes in nature and shapes in buildings where I had been a hundred times before but had never really looked around completely. My world felt much more 3-dimensional than usual. After that, I made an effort to listen to sounds as much as possible. Of course, it’s natural to ignore & filter out a lot of sounds in order to concentrate throughout the course of the day, but just listen to the world outside of your usual bubble sometimes, and it can be very calming. My last experiment was to take in textures of objects that I encounter on a regular basis. Again, it really expanded my observational experience and enriched my days. Try this, or any similar experiment on your own, and hopefully you will notice and appreciate so much that normally slips right by you.

Drop Everything

These days, with so many of us working in office cubicles and having a multitude of projects and “urgent” issues to address, I’ve noticed that we’re constantly interrupting each other less politely than we did in the past. There are times when I’m concentrating on my work, and someone will walk up to my cubicle and just start talking or asking questions without checking first to see if it’s ok to interrupt me. I sometimes do the same to other people, and I’m afraid it’s just become the norm. What ever happened to asking, “Do you have a minute?” or “I have a question. Is this a good time for you?” It’s too bad, because we often waste time trying to regain our concentration, and it’s difficult to complete a complex project when our time is chopped into so many small chunks. (Of course, this is also due to business meetings, telephone calls, and our own shifts in attention span in a typical day, and that’s not likely to change.) Conversational styles have shifted as well, and we are so much more likely to interrupt other people in a group (sometimes rudely) rather than wait for an appropriate pause in the conversation. For those of us who need a little extra time to compose our thoughts or who really enjoy crafting our words, it can be frustrating.

Thanksgiving Eve

It’s that time of year again when we’re about to slam into a string of holidays. For many of us, it’s a fun-filled chunk of the year when we celebrate with our families and friends, have a lot on our social calendars, and experience the joy of giving to others. I always go into the holiday season with a mixture of emotions, because for all of the fun events on the calendar, there’s usually a level of stress that accompanies it and lots of scrambling to complete everything that we want to do. We set expectations of sending out cards, shopping for gifts, cooking more elaborate meals that usual, and generally filling our calendars a bit too full. It’s hard to cut back on the traditions that we love so much, especially when we benefit from hearing from friends or spending time with friends and family whom we might not see as often as we’d like the rest of the year. I hope that you can find a good balance for yourself during this holiday season so that you stay happy, healthy, and sane!