I have been going on and on about how my skin is so thin, I take everything personally, wah, it's so hard for me to put myself out there, my feelings are hurt, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I am on a committee at the kids' school to put on a fundraiser that includes a silent auction, so we need to find donations, and encourage people to attend, etc. There's another mom on the committee, who, like me, is showing up and trying to be helpful, despite maybe not having fundraising so much in her blood. She is a professor at the university near here, and came up with an idea that all the profs who are parents at the school (about 20 of them) could go in together on an ad for the program. They could all meet to have their picture taken somewhere on campus, and it would only be about $10/family, and that would give a bunch of people a fairly easy way to contribute and maybe help faculty parents meet each other and feel some connection. Sounds like my kind of idea.
So she sends out an email to twenty faculty. Ten respond and say they are interested; one responds and says he or she is not. So she sends out another email, to coordinate the next step of scheduling the photo, and only four of the ten respond. So now she's in a position of a picture of 5 people in the program, not really representative of anything, and the price has now gone up from $10 per family to $40 per family, and so she's going to have to email those four people, tell them this, and see if the still want to do it. She was very surprised and disappointed, and, I think, pretty hurt that she was trying to do something thoughtful and helpful and got so little response, when what she was suggesting would have involved so little investment from the people involved.
As she was talking about this, I just kept thinking, "I know how you feel! That's just how I feel about the neighborhood group!" But before I could begin to commiserate, Madge spoke up.
Madge is the development person at the school. It is her job to ask for money and donations and to get other people to do the same. When Madge addresses a group, she tells jokes, she warms up the crowd, she never uses notes, she is funny and engaging and gets her point across at the same time. And this is what she said: "Aw, that's frustrating. But I really believe that people are well-intentioned. We all let things slide, but it's not because we mean to. Except for a few actual duds out there, people mean well and want to help, but sometimes they just don't. For whatever reason, it just doesn't happen. They'll probably come up to you at the event, holding the program, and ask you if it's too late to participate!"
Later, there was discussion of a particular parent who had volunteered to help with something, but was basically MIA. Madge said, absolutely good-naturedly, "Yeah, every year she says she wants to help, but she just doesn't end up doing anything. And some people are just like that. And you just ask every year, and, who knows? Maybe this year is the year they'll do something."
She didn't take it personally. She didn't get angry. She just keeps trying things, sees what works, tries to put her energy toward the things that have the greatest return, but she never stops casting the net, seeing who wants to help or give, who will actually come through. And when I said that I was happy to streamline spreadsheets of contacts and send out letters, but that I didn't want to call anyone on the phone or visit any businesses to ask for donations, she didn't bat an eye. She is infinitely generous in her evaluation of other people's comfort zones, abilities, self-perceived abilites and limitations, forgetfulness, and general failure to do what they said they wanted or were going to do.
And generosity, you know, is maybe the number one thing that I think creates abundance. I mean, isn't it interesting that the same people who are uncomfortable putting themselves out there are often the same people who are quick to judge other people's non-action or neutral suggestion to be criticism? If I were more generous in my reading of others' actions, would I be in an atmosphere of abundance of spirit, where I would be less likely to assume other people are judging me harshly? Is this paucity of spirit a vicious circle that feeds on itself? And would more generosity of spirit lead to an abundance of spirit in my life, where maybe I would not see well-intentioned suggestions as angry criticism?
Showing posts with label first world problems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label first world problems. Show all posts
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
"Constructive Criticism"
Hi. It's been a while since my last real post. Almost a month. For a couple of weeks that was because I was just busy with other things like a birthday party and an erupting volcano cake and visiting family. And then, for the last couple of weeks, it was because of a vacation to Canada, a child falling downstairs, and an associated stay at a very nice hospital in Toronto. But here I am again, and things have settled down a little.
In my last real post (that wasn't someone else's cartoon) I was talking about putting myself out there and how uncomfortable I am with it and with trying to lead something, and how trying to start a neighborhood group is really putting me in touch with that.
I am trying to start this neighborhood group because I want to feel a sense of community. Because I want my kids to have friends to play with in the neighborhood. Because they say knowing your neighbors is one of the biggest things you can do to increase neighborhood safety. Because twenty years ago, everyone in the neighborhood knew each other, and I think it can be that kind of neighborhood again, despite that fact that it's now a mix of empty-nesters who are on the verge of retiring and younger families with little kids, with others thrown in here and there.
We moved here almost four years ago, and I have been waiting for someone else to start some kind of group. An email list serve, maybe, or a Facebook group. Where we can share information about the Verizon VOIP conversion, or the repaving of a road, or robberies in the area.
So finally, in February, heartened by getting to know a neighbor who seems like someone who can get things done, I suggested we start a group ourselves. She is very busy, runs her own company and takes care of her little kid, but she cheered me on, and I decided to go ahead and do it.
Now, the first part of the project was totally challenging me within my comfort zone. I tried out GoogleGroups, GoogleDocs, GoogleMaps, and GoogleSites. I made a website with a picture and a survey and a map, and a sign-up form that would automatically populate a spreadsheet that could later be available as the group directory. I got advice about neighborhood boundaries from a realtor friend, and advice about community building from another friend. It was a lot of work that I really didn't have time for, but it was fun, and Dr. J worked on it with me some, and it was the kind of thing I used to enjoy doing before I had kids. It was great.
And then it was time to "go live". And you may have read what happened over the first few days.
Now, I like to think that I am someone who knows how to benefit from constructive criticism. But as I have said before, I have the thinnest of skin, and once I am out of my comfort zone, putting myself out there, it does not get any thicker.
So over the first few weeks, in addition to two people leaving the day they joined because it was "not what I expected" and "I have a family to take care of," I got other feedback.
"The area is too big."
"These (waves hand, standing in front of her house) are my neighbors. I don't need to know all those other people."
"I think the area is just right."
"People are squeamish about putting information online these days." Yes, but the only required information is name and address, which are freely available on the county tax site!
"People don't want to get so many emails." This, for a group that so far has probably averaged less than 2 messages per week. I mentioned the digest option where you can get all of each day's emails, if any, combined into a single email. "One email per day is too many. I mean, from my friends, yes. But not from every Tom, Dick, and Harry."
"I personally thought that the boundary of the neighborhood is too wide to start the group. Why don't we just start with [four streets] then expand it in the future? Actually, the apartment buildings over behind the shopping center may need this kind of connection also." So...it should be smaller, and not include the whole official neighborhood, but we should then add all the people in the apartment buildings on the next block who aren't technically in our neighborhood and who are bound to have different concerns, since they are not homeowners anyway?
"I think the boundary of the group is just fine."
I suddenly had great sympathy for people who go into public office. I'm sure most of them do it because they want to do good and help people (whatever their political views). And then, everyone is mad at you because you aren't doing things the way people think you should be and/or acting like you are purposely trying to ruin their lives by trying to do right by everyone.
To be fair, those quotes above came from just a small handful of well-meaning friends, none of them mad at me. But every single not 100% approving comment or suggestion gets under my (as I have admitted, very, very thin) skin and tortures me. I feel as if the person is mad at me. As if EVERYONE is mad at me.
And then I just want to hide.
In my last real post (that wasn't someone else's cartoon) I was talking about putting myself out there and how uncomfortable I am with it and with trying to lead something, and how trying to start a neighborhood group is really putting me in touch with that.
I am trying to start this neighborhood group because I want to feel a sense of community. Because I want my kids to have friends to play with in the neighborhood. Because they say knowing your neighbors is one of the biggest things you can do to increase neighborhood safety. Because twenty years ago, everyone in the neighborhood knew each other, and I think it can be that kind of neighborhood again, despite that fact that it's now a mix of empty-nesters who are on the verge of retiring and younger families with little kids, with others thrown in here and there.
We moved here almost four years ago, and I have been waiting for someone else to start some kind of group. An email list serve, maybe, or a Facebook group. Where we can share information about the Verizon VOIP conversion, or the repaving of a road, or robberies in the area.
So finally, in February, heartened by getting to know a neighbor who seems like someone who can get things done, I suggested we start a group ourselves. She is very busy, runs her own company and takes care of her little kid, but she cheered me on, and I decided to go ahead and do it.
Now, the first part of the project was totally challenging me within my comfort zone. I tried out GoogleGroups, GoogleDocs, GoogleMaps, and GoogleSites. I made a website with a picture and a survey and a map, and a sign-up form that would automatically populate a spreadsheet that could later be available as the group directory. I got advice about neighborhood boundaries from a realtor friend, and advice about community building from another friend. It was a lot of work that I really didn't have time for, but it was fun, and Dr. J worked on it with me some, and it was the kind of thing I used to enjoy doing before I had kids. It was great.
And then it was time to "go live". And you may have read what happened over the first few days.
Now, I like to think that I am someone who knows how to benefit from constructive criticism. But as I have said before, I have the thinnest of skin, and once I am out of my comfort zone, putting myself out there, it does not get any thicker.
So over the first few weeks, in addition to two people leaving the day they joined because it was "not what I expected" and "I have a family to take care of," I got other feedback.
"These (waves hand, standing in front of her house) are my neighbors. I don't need to know all those other people."
"I think the area is just right."
"People are squeamish about putting information online these days." Yes, but the only required information is name and address, which are freely available on the county tax site!
"People don't want to get so many emails." This, for a group that so far has probably averaged less than 2 messages per week. I mentioned the digest option where you can get all of each day's emails, if any, combined into a single email. "One email per day is too many. I mean, from my friends, yes. But not from every Tom, Dick, and Harry."
"I only want to get messages about topics that interest me. Can you change it so that I only get emails I'm interested in?" Uh, no. Actually, I can't. Google didn't design their Groups that way, and it turns out that hacking GoogleGroups is beyond my area of expertise. She then went on to suggest that I talk to a neighbor who is a professor of IT, who has expressed not a shred of interest in the group, because maybe he could fix it.
"I personally thought that the boundary of the neighborhood is too wide to start the group. Why don't we just start with [four streets] then expand it in the future? Actually, the apartment buildings over behind the shopping center may need this kind of connection also." So...it should be smaller, and not include the whole official neighborhood, but we should then add all the people in the apartment buildings on the next block who aren't technically in our neighborhood and who are bound to have different concerns, since they are not homeowners anyway?
I suddenly had great sympathy for people who go into public office. I'm sure most of them do it because they want to do good and help people (whatever their political views). And then, everyone is mad at you because you aren't doing things the way people think you should be and/or acting like you are purposely trying to ruin their lives by trying to do right by everyone.
To be fair, those quotes above came from just a small handful of well-meaning friends, none of them mad at me. But every single not 100% approving comment or suggestion gets under my (as I have admitted, very, very thin) skin and tortures me. I feel as if the person is mad at me. As if EVERYONE is mad at me.
And then I just want to hide.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Optimizers in the age of the Internet
This is and XKCD comic related to some posts a while back about Optimizers vs. Satisficers. Thanks to Dr. Jay for passing it on!
Friday, March 23, 2012
The Bunny Poop Trilogy: The Final Chapter
The other night my husband was away, so my friend J invited the kids and me over for dinner. It was a lovely, unseasonably warm evening. We ate out on the porch, and several times, out the window, I saw my friend L ride by on her bike, doing laps around the block, training for a race. It was beautiful: nice weather, and the feeling of being (almost) surrounded by friends in a neighborhood. I was feeling like maybe everything (i.e., living in this city; raising my kids in this neighborhood) was going to be all right. After dinner we were going to go finally get the long-awaited and much-discussed bunny poop.
So we drove over in L's truck, J, L, and I. The bunny lady met us in the garage. She introduced us to a foster bunny she was taking care of because he had the sniffles and couldn't be in the shelter. His name was, I think, Jupiter. She told us about a funny trip to Rite Aid to get him medicine, and how that was the first time anyone at Rite Aid had filled a prescription for a bunny.
So we all stood outside in the twilights and talked about the weather and birds and chickens and farms and stars, and then we each went home with a bag or two of manure to put on our gardens. I was really looking forward to adding it to my garden the next day. After the whole long bunny poop saga, with the bread, and the celiac disease, and the emails to the neighborhood group, and the neighbors with families to take care of, I thought I was finally reaching a happy ending.
There I was. I dumped it out, spread it around and then quickly emailed L and J:
So we drove over in L's truck, J, L, and I. The bunny lady met us in the garage. She introduced us to a foster bunny she was taking care of because he had the sniffles and couldn't be in the shelter. His name was, I think, Jupiter. She told us about a funny trip to Rite Aid to get him medicine, and how that was the first time anyone at Rite Aid had filled a prescription for a bunny.
So we all stood outside in the twilights and talked about the weather and birds and chickens and farms and stars, and then we each went home with a bag or two of manure to put on our gardens. I was really looking forward to adding it to my garden the next day. After the whole long bunny poop saga, with the bread, and the celiac disease, and the emails to the neighborhood group, and the neighbors with families to take care of, I thought I was finally reaching a happy ending.
There I was. I dumped it out, spread it around and then quickly emailed L and J:
Just threw the contents of the bags on the garden. It's a little different than last year. Lots of hay and lots of bunny food and very little poop. After all the trouble this poop has caused me, I can't imagine why I would be surprised about this. Honestly. There were also a few other things like tootsie roll wrappers and cardboard tubes and twist ties. Then, just at the end, after I had spread it all over my beds, I found, I swear to god, a syringe. A syringe. Seriously?! SER-I-OUS-LY!!?? I mean, there was no needle on it. And it must have been from the bunny's meds, right? RIGHT?! But I just stood here starting at it. I mean, come on! A syringe has got to be one of the very last things, short of maybe a human hand, that you want to find in your garden. Please tell me you think this is from Jupiter's meds, and not, you know, anything else.
Wtf! I give up.
Monday, March 19, 2012
The Curse of the Bunnies
So last week I started recruiting people to join the neighborhood group I am trying to start. I had originally started out with my husband and my two friends, L and J, on the Google Group for a couple weeks while I sent emails, letting them know about things I had changed on the website and what did they think; and lots of emails called "test" because I was trying to work out how the whole thing was going to work. I wanted to really get as many ducks in a row as possible before we "went live," because I didn't want to bug people with a bunch of emails they didn't need.
Finally, around Monday or so, I sent an email to the other 3 people in the group saying I thought we really were actually ready, and letting them know that they were welcome to start inviting people. On Tuesday, I invited 3 people. One joined. On Wednesday, I invited 5 people. Two joined. Plus, another one, who for some reason did not join, told me on Thursday that she had invited 12 other people to join! I was on top of the world, brimming with optimism. So I thought it was a good time to email the bunny lady and clear the air. (See previous post for more on why the air needed to be cleared.)
So I emailed her, and apologized for not having emailed before I showed up to accost her with baked goods last month. I told her that if she had poop to give away, I knew a couple of other people who were also interested, so to let me know. Whenever it was good for her. I went out of my way to not be pushy or to inconvenience her in any way.
And she emailed back, and said that on the morning I showed up, she had been working on a novel, and my visit had moved her from thinking to actually writing, so it was a good thing I had come by. This seemed like a very nice thing to say, and she told me she had 6 bags of poop and we could coordinate a time to come get however much we wanted.
AWESOME! I was starting a neighborhood group AND fixed things with the bunny lady. I felt like a million bucks. Then I had a great idea. I sent an email to the neighborhood group saying that if anyone was interested in rabbit manure for their garden, to let me know.
The next day, Friday, 2 people joined the group THAT I HAD NEVER EVEN MET BEFORE! We were up to 12 members, and I was making new friends! I decided I would have a potluck in a couple of weeks so everyone could meet all the new friends they were going to be making. It was awesome.
And then. And then, my two pals, who had so patiently suffered through email after email as they helped me work out the kinks of the new group, endured "test" emails out the wazoo, cheered me on, etc., sent a few emails back and forth, planning the details of a trip to get poop.
Let me say here that I am very concerned, always, with not sending the wrong email to the wrong people. You might even say I am mortally terrified of accidentally "replying all" when it's not appropriate. I double check--I triple check!--the "to" field before I send any email. But when I saw this exchange, I realized that L and J didn't know other people had joined the group! I quickly emailed from my phone to try to end the public planning, since I needed to coordinate with the bunny lady before we planned anything, anyway. And the only way I knew to be certain L and J got my email was to email the group, since I wasn't sure which email addresses they were checking. So, as I waited for my kids' parent teacher conferences to start, I dashed off an email saying it was great they were interested and I would contact the bunny lady and get back to them.
An hour later, when the conferences were over, I checked my email, and I felt like I'd been slapped. One of the two new members I'd never met before was apparently fed up with the 5 emails she had received on the subject and wanted off the list. It wasn't what she expected, she said. And, as she pointed out, she didn't have time for this, as she had a family to take care of. OUCH! Within a short time, the other new person had sent a brief but clear email to the group: "Unsubscribe Please!"
I was beside myself with embarrassment. Were all 7 other people on the list angry that I had tricked them into joining a group just so I could have an audience for planning 4-block car trips with my friends? Did everyone think I had no sense of Netiquette? Plus, I was confused. How many emails had she gotten?! Was everyone getting all kinds of stuff they weren't supposed to be getting?
So I got very upset, but composed what I think was a gracious response. I apologized to the group for the emails that should have been private, but pointed out that L and J, who had been helping me, were blameless. I took all the responsibility for the emails myself, explained that there was also a digest option to cut down on the number of emails received from the group in a day, and supplied the requested information about unsubscribing (which, I did NOT point out, if the requestor had bothered to read the helpful Welcome Email I had sent her a few hours before, she would have already known). And I thanked everyone for their patience while we were still working out the kinks. "Since," I did NOT say, "you know, I created the group to be nice and to try to help everyone in the neighborhood, even though I don't really have time for this and I have a family to take care of."
As L pointed out later, the bunny poop is my downfall every time.
Finally, around Monday or so, I sent an email to the other 3 people in the group saying I thought we really were actually ready, and letting them know that they were welcome to start inviting people. On Tuesday, I invited 3 people. One joined. On Wednesday, I invited 5 people. Two joined. Plus, another one, who for some reason did not join, told me on Thursday that she had invited 12 other people to join! I was on top of the world, brimming with optimism. So I thought it was a good time to email the bunny lady and clear the air. (See previous post for more on why the air needed to be cleared.)
So I emailed her, and apologized for not having emailed before I showed up to accost her with baked goods last month. I told her that if she had poop to give away, I knew a couple of other people who were also interested, so to let me know. Whenever it was good for her. I went out of my way to not be pushy or to inconvenience her in any way.
And she emailed back, and said that on the morning I showed up, she had been working on a novel, and my visit had moved her from thinking to actually writing, so it was a good thing I had come by. This seemed like a very nice thing to say, and she told me she had 6 bags of poop and we could coordinate a time to come get however much we wanted.
AWESOME! I was starting a neighborhood group AND fixed things with the bunny lady. I felt like a million bucks. Then I had a great idea. I sent an email to the neighborhood group saying that if anyone was interested in rabbit manure for their garden, to let me know.
The next day, Friday, 2 people joined the group THAT I HAD NEVER EVEN MET BEFORE! We were up to 12 members, and I was making new friends! I decided I would have a potluck in a couple of weeks so everyone could meet all the new friends they were going to be making. It was awesome.
And then. And then, my two pals, who had so patiently suffered through email after email as they helped me work out the kinks of the new group, endured "test" emails out the wazoo, cheered me on, etc., sent a few emails back and forth, planning the details of a trip to get poop.
Let me say here that I am very concerned, always, with not sending the wrong email to the wrong people. You might even say I am mortally terrified of accidentally "replying all" when it's not appropriate. I double check--I triple check!--the "to" field before I send any email. But when I saw this exchange, I realized that L and J didn't know other people had joined the group! I quickly emailed from my phone to try to end the public planning, since I needed to coordinate with the bunny lady before we planned anything, anyway. And the only way I knew to be certain L and J got my email was to email the group, since I wasn't sure which email addresses they were checking. So, as I waited for my kids' parent teacher conferences to start, I dashed off an email saying it was great they were interested and I would contact the bunny lady and get back to them.
An hour later, when the conferences were over, I checked my email, and I felt like I'd been slapped. One of the two new members I'd never met before was apparently fed up with the 5 emails she had received on the subject and wanted off the list. It wasn't what she expected, she said. And, as she pointed out, she didn't have time for this, as she had a family to take care of. OUCH! Within a short time, the other new person had sent a brief but clear email to the group: "Unsubscribe Please!"
I was beside myself with embarrassment. Were all 7 other people on the list angry that I had tricked them into joining a group just so I could have an audience for planning 4-block car trips with my friends? Did everyone think I had no sense of Netiquette? Plus, I was confused. How many emails had she gotten?! Was everyone getting all kinds of stuff they weren't supposed to be getting?
So I got very upset, but composed what I think was a gracious response. I apologized to the group for the emails that should have been private, but pointed out that L and J, who had been helping me, were blameless. I took all the responsibility for the emails myself, explained that there was also a digest option to cut down on the number of emails received from the group in a day, and supplied the requested information about unsubscribing (which, I did NOT point out, if the requestor had bothered to read the helpful Welcome Email I had sent her a few hours before, she would have already known). And I thanked everyone for their patience while we were still working out the kinks. "Since," I did NOT say, "you know, I created the group to be nice and to try to help everyone in the neighborhood, even though I don't really have time for this and I have a family to take care of."
As L pointed out later, the bunny poop is my downfall every time.
Monday, March 12, 2012
Why I think you should take a break from Facebook, and what I think you should do instead
I think Facebook lessens feelings of abundance. You compare yourself to all the stuff people post that gives a totally skewed view of how awesome their lives are. Plus, it's addictive. You actually get a little tiny burst of dopamine when someone comments on your post or likes your link. So you find yourself constantly checking, looking for the hit. It distracts you when you should be driving. Or working. Or cooking dinner. "I just need to look real quick..."
At least, that's how it is for me. Plus, there are certain political topics that I like to assume everyone agrees with me about, and it is possible to learn on FB that some very lovely people do not agree with you. But I have the thinnest of skin and would go so far as to call myself a Highly Sensitive Person, so the very absolute last thing I ever want to do is engage in any kind of political debate. I wish I were someone who wants to be informed and engage in a mind-enhancing back-and-forth of lofty ideas. But I don't. I want to preach to the choir, and only the choir.
So I have taken a break from FaceBook.
...and started a Neighborhood Group instead. I used Google Groups and Google Sites and Google Docs and Google Maps, and made a list serve and a website, and I'm trying, along with a friend, to get people to join. We started spreading the word last week, and we are up to a whopping, uh, 13 members. Including me and her and my husband.
Anyway, so now instead of getting the dopamine hit from FB, I am getting it from checking to see if anyone has asked to join the group or filled out the "neighborhood activity survey" or left comments on the site. But my hope is that the formation of this group may result in some actual face-to-face interactions. Meeting new people who live around the corner. A sense of non-virtual community. And I think that would really increase the feeling of abundance in my life.
I'll let you know how it goes, but I can tell you this: we will be trying very hard to avoid any political topics.
At least, that's how it is for me. Plus, there are certain political topics that I like to assume everyone agrees with me about, and it is possible to learn on FB that some very lovely people do not agree with you. But I have the thinnest of skin and would go so far as to call myself a Highly Sensitive Person, so the very absolute last thing I ever want to do is engage in any kind of political debate. I wish I were someone who wants to be informed and engage in a mind-enhancing back-and-forth of lofty ideas. But I don't. I want to preach to the choir, and only the choir.
So I have taken a break from FaceBook.
...and started a Neighborhood Group instead. I used Google Groups and Google Sites and Google Docs and Google Maps, and made a list serve and a website, and I'm trying, along with a friend, to get people to join. We started spreading the word last week, and we are up to a whopping, uh, 13 members. Including me and her and my husband.
Anyway, so now instead of getting the dopamine hit from FB, I am getting it from checking to see if anyone has asked to join the group or filled out the "neighborhood activity survey" or left comments on the site. But my hope is that the formation of this group may result in some actual face-to-face interactions. Meeting new people who live around the corner. A sense of non-virtual community. And I think that would really increase the feeling of abundance in my life.
I'll let you know how it goes, but I can tell you this: we will be trying very hard to avoid any political topics.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Bread giveaway FAIL
We're getting down to the end of the month! I am behind by a couple of loaves to give away, so this morning I took two loaves of piping hot bread with me in the car when I dropped off the kids at school. On the way, I knocked on our neighbors' door. They are runners, up early, and I thought they'd appreciate some whole-grain bread. Well, I guess they had already gone to work. Oh, well.
So I dropped off the kids, and then headed over to the house of the woman who fosters bunnies and who gave me bunny poop for my garden last year. I have been torn about this all month. She was someone I wanted to thank, but only met once for a few minutes while we shoveled poop into a bucket and the kids met the bunnies she was fostering at the time. I decided not to email her, because I didn't want it to turn into a weird, complicated scheduling thing that would inconvenience her. So I stopped by a couple of weeks ago at about 9 am on a weekday and no one was home, so I decided that she must get up and go to work on weekdays before that time, based on, really, no information at all. So at around 8:30 this morning I pull up, and there's a car in the driveway, so I go to the door and knock timidly on the storm door. Nothing. So I try the bell, but my finger sort of slips off, and I don't hear anything, so I have no idea if it rang. So I wait. But I don't give up. I decide to just knock decisively on the door. I do, then immediately decide I'll leave, when she opens the door.
I don't know if I woke her up, forcing her to get dressed and answer the door, but I am afraid that on this day I had arrived, unannounced, a little too early. Or maybe she was just wondering what the heck I was doing at her door. I re-introduced myself and told her I had made her bread, whereupon she told me that she can't eat bread.
"No gluten?" I asked. Oh, no. I told her that I know how to make peanut butter cookies without gluten, and I could bring her some of those sometime. She insisted that it wasn't necessary, and asked if I wanted some poop, which made me afraid she thought I had just come over to get poop, rather than to strengthen neighborly bonds. I was determined to turn my gesture into something less weird. Apparently, I decided the best course of action would be to refuse to give up. "Are peanuts ok?"
"Yeah...but it's really not necessary."
"Well, I can bring them sometime when I come to get some poop."
"And no eggs."
"Oh."
I was beaten. She insisted that she really didn't need any baked goods from me, and that what she really needed was someone to take away poop. I don't really remember how we ended it. I'm sure I apologized, but, typically, I didn't think to find out when would be a convenient time for me to come and get the bunny poop.
So I dropped off the kids, and then headed over to the house of the woman who fosters bunnies and who gave me bunny poop for my garden last year. I have been torn about this all month. She was someone I wanted to thank, but only met once for a few minutes while we shoveled poop into a bucket and the kids met the bunnies she was fostering at the time. I decided not to email her, because I didn't want it to turn into a weird, complicated scheduling thing that would inconvenience her. So I stopped by a couple of weeks ago at about 9 am on a weekday and no one was home, so I decided that she must get up and go to work on weekdays before that time, based on, really, no information at all. So at around 8:30 this morning I pull up, and there's a car in the driveway, so I go to the door and knock timidly on the storm door. Nothing. So I try the bell, but my finger sort of slips off, and I don't hear anything, so I have no idea if it rang. So I wait. But I don't give up. I decide to just knock decisively on the door. I do, then immediately decide I'll leave, when she opens the door.
I don't know if I woke her up, forcing her to get dressed and answer the door, but I am afraid that on this day I had arrived, unannounced, a little too early. Or maybe she was just wondering what the heck I was doing at her door. I re-introduced myself and told her I had made her bread, whereupon she told me that she can't eat bread.
"No gluten?" I asked. Oh, no. I told her that I know how to make peanut butter cookies without gluten, and I could bring her some of those sometime. She insisted that it wasn't necessary, and asked if I wanted some poop, which made me afraid she thought I had just come over to get poop, rather than to strengthen neighborly bonds. I was determined to turn my gesture into something less weird. Apparently, I decided the best course of action would be to refuse to give up. "Are peanuts ok?"
"Yeah...but it's really not necessary."
"Well, I can bring them sometime when I come to get some poop."
"And no eggs."
"Oh."
I was beaten. She insisted that she really didn't need any baked goods from me, and that what she really needed was someone to take away poop. I don't really remember how we ended it. I'm sure I apologized, but, typically, I didn't think to find out when would be a convenient time for me to come and get the bunny poop.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
The big rocks, Part I
I keep starting posts but not having time to finish them. My goal is to write a little on the blog every day, even if it doesn't result in something actually being posted every day. I'll just keep plugging away and hopefully more things will get posted soon.
Years ago, back before we had kids or were even married, when my husband, Dr. J, and I lived in temperate Northern California, we thought we were busy. Once you have kids, you just shake your head and laugh because you thought you had no time before. Hahaha! Anyway, we both read a book by Stephen Covey et al. called First Things First. In it, Covey suggests identifying what is important in your life and identifying specific goals and activities related to these important things. The idea is that these important activities are often of a non-urgent nature, so they are always getting pushed aside by urgent-but-not-really-important things. For example, you would like to take your kid to the zoo, which is important because spending time with your kid is important to you, but since it's not urgent,* you keep putting it off so you can deal with other, non-important tasks that are urgent. You may even feel, as I would, that SOON, I will catch up on all these little tasks, and THEN I will have all the time in the world to spend some real quality time with my kid. Exercise could be another example. You feel it's important, but it CAN be put off for a day. But if you put it off for one day every day, it never happens.
So what you do instead, Mr. Covey says, is when you are scheduling your week, you put in these important-but-not-urgent activities into your schedule first, and then squeeze in the little things around them. Because once your schedule is full of little things, you can't fit in the big ones. His analogy is filling a jar with rocks and sand: if you put in the sand first, then the little rocks, the big ones don't fit, but if you put in the big rocks first, all the little stuff will fit in around them. Here's a YouTube video demonstrating this with actual rocks and sand. There are a million videos of it, but this one was short, if not very neatly done.
Gotta move on to another big rock. I'll continue this soon, I hope...
*unless you have this guilt-inducing song running through your head all the time, as I often do
Years ago, back before we had kids or were even married, when my husband, Dr. J, and I lived in temperate Northern California, we thought we were busy. Once you have kids, you just shake your head and laugh because you thought you had no time before. Hahaha! Anyway, we both read a book by Stephen Covey et al. called First Things First. In it, Covey suggests identifying what is important in your life and identifying specific goals and activities related to these important things. The idea is that these important activities are often of a non-urgent nature, so they are always getting pushed aside by urgent-but-not-really-important things. For example, you would like to take your kid to the zoo, which is important because spending time with your kid is important to you, but since it's not urgent,* you keep putting it off so you can deal with other, non-important tasks that are urgent. You may even feel, as I would, that SOON, I will catch up on all these little tasks, and THEN I will have all the time in the world to spend some real quality time with my kid. Exercise could be another example. You feel it's important, but it CAN be put off for a day. But if you put it off for one day every day, it never happens.
The idea that you should identify what is important and do those things before all the little things on the list are done? That's golden. I have talked about that before on here and elsewhere, but not in a Covey way.
So what you do instead, Mr. Covey says, is when you are scheduling your week, you put in these important-but-not-urgent activities into your schedule first, and then squeeze in the little things around them. Because once your schedule is full of little things, you can't fit in the big ones. His analogy is filling a jar with rocks and sand: if you put in the sand first, then the little rocks, the big ones don't fit, but if you put in the big rocks first, all the little stuff will fit in around them. Here's a YouTube video demonstrating this with actual rocks and sand. There are a million videos of it, but this one was short, if not very neatly done.
Gotta move on to another big rock. I'll continue this soon, I hope...
*unless you have this guilt-inducing song running through your head all the time, as I often do
Saturday, February 4, 2012
My First World Problems
Two days ago I was pumped up and primed to tell you all about Day 2 of the February Bread Challenge, and how hard it was for me because I was, as usual, overthinking everything and just couldn't figure out who would be best to give that day's bread to. But these tribulations are a story for another day. So there I am, logging onto my year-and-a-half-old iMac, and it keeps rejecting my password. A few restarts later, it became clear something was very wrong. Trying to get the computer working again has eaten up a bunch of time over the past couple of days and it still isn't working; even if it does start to work, there may be damage to the hard drive (the desk-ish thing we bought at IKEA to house the computer may not have allowed for enough ventilation, and we may have fried the hard drive). Plus, although we had backups of most of the stuff on it, there may be some very old things that weren't backed up, but we aren't really sure. You know, it's been a pain.
As always, The Onion really gets to the crux of the matter in this Point/Counterpoint, although once you get to the second half the humor really drains away.
The problem of the IKEA desk with poor ventilation is, of course, a First World Problem. As my husband put it, I have it so hard because one of the 3 computers in the house may have died (here I disclaim: "the other 2 computers are old and we don't really use them anymore; I don't want you to get the impression that we use 3 computers in our house! I mean, unless someone in visiting, and my husband brings his work laptop home...") and the iPhone and 2 iPods ("one of those we got free when we bought our iMac!" I protest; "good heavens, it's not like we BOUGHT 2 iPods!"), are so hard to type on, how will I ever post to my blog?
And pretty much all of the problems I have addressed on this blog are First World Problems. "Oh, I have SO MANY CLOTHES in my closet, it just makes me feel like I have NOTHING!" "Oh, I own 2 houses (disclaimer: not outright; we have mortgages), if only I could just SELL one and be DONE with it!" "Oh, I have to CHOOSE which TV to buy but there are TOO MANY OPTIONS!" "Oh, I have SO MUCH BREAD! How will I EVER give it all away!" Please. It's disgraceful.
But is it really simply that I'm a selfish boor? I think it's maybe part of human nature. From the Wikipedia entry for hedonic treadmill:
And now, if you feel like you need to assuage some First World Guilt, here's a link to Heifer International.
When you start a blog, (and when I say "you," of course, I mean, "I") you are putting yourself out there, open to criticism and distain from, well, anyone around the world who has access to the Internet. You start to imagine who might read what you say, and how someone in a different situation than yours might judge you, say, for writing about trivial matters while people are starving.
I don't know if it was this vulnerability to judgement that got me thinking about First World Problems --problems you have to live in a rich country to even imagine-- or if it was an article called "Half the world's richest 1% live in the United States" that my cousin-in-law, who works for the World Bank, posted on Facebook. Here is a quote that has been sticking with me:
In the grand scheme of things, even the poorest 5% of Americans are better off financially than two thirds of the entire world.I do not post this to trivialize the very real problems of Americans living in poverty. But wow. That is really saying something almost incomprehensible about 2/3 of the people in the world.
The problem of the IKEA desk with poor ventilation is, of course, a First World Problem. As my husband put it, I have it so hard because one of the 3 computers in the house may have died (here I disclaim: "the other 2 computers are old and we don't really use them anymore; I don't want you to get the impression that we use 3 computers in our house! I mean, unless someone in visiting, and my husband brings his work laptop home...") and the iPhone and 2 iPods ("one of those we got free when we bought our iMac!" I protest; "good heavens, it's not like we BOUGHT 2 iPods!"), are so hard to type on, how will I ever post to my blog?
And pretty much all of the problems I have addressed on this blog are First World Problems. "Oh, I have SO MANY CLOTHES in my closet, it just makes me feel like I have NOTHING!" "Oh, I own 2 houses (disclaimer: not outright; we have mortgages), if only I could just SELL one and be DONE with it!" "Oh, I have to CHOOSE which TV to buy but there are TOO MANY OPTIONS!" "Oh, I have SO MUCH BREAD! How will I EVER give it all away!" Please. It's disgraceful.
But is it really simply that I'm a selfish boor? I think it's maybe part of human nature. From the Wikipedia entry for hedonic treadmill:
The hedonic treadmill, also known as hedonic adaptation, is the supposed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.[1] According to this theory, as a person makes more money, expectations and desires rise in tandem, which results in no permanent gain in happiness.So maybe it's not our fault, per se, that we think Cracker Barrel running out of Chicken and Rice on a Saturday night is a major problem. Maybe we in the first world are no shallower than those in the world who have, literally, nothing. Just a whole lot luckier to live where we live.
And now, if you feel like you need to assuage some First World Guilt, here's a link to Heifer International.
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