I do tend to give people the benefit of the doubt when I shouldn’t – and I keep trying to learn that lesson. But I am human and never do. It is just that I try to see the good in people, be compassionate – and then that gets pushed too far, I guess. But at least usually when I close the door, it’s closed – and I don’t regret it. Or the time or the things I have done with/for those people. But just as I cannot control it, I also know when I cannot continue it.
I have realized that almost all people are completely out of control and indecisive – and I have to be the decisive one – or as America’s best-ever president (hahaha) Geo W Bush said, “I am the decider“. Haha. And I need to be the adult, the caretaker – not all people are always going to like that, but regardless of their role, at least the issue is fucking decided and it’s back to the drawing board. No wishy washy BS for weeks, months, years that prevent all parties involved from moving forward and taking responsibility for the things in their lives. That is what making decisions – even incremental ones – enables.
“Goodbye my almost lover/goodbye my hopeless dream/I’m trying not to think about you/can’t you just let me be?/So long my luckless romance/my back is turned on you/shoulda known you’d bring me heartache/almost lovers always do…”
The same actually applies in business. Not that I want to equate the misery of indecision in romantic entanglements with unclear business strategy – but when am I not talking shop? I recently decided to follow an online “basics of marketing” course as kind of a refresher since I work in marketing but was never a marketing student. One of the fundamental points made in creating a strategy is: you can’t do everything, you can’t cater to everyone. Right – this is why we segment and target. But the same principle applies in creating a general business strategy. You can’t really set seven major goals and expect all of them to be met. Choices need to be made and a focus decided. I see this lacking – a lot of talk about strategy and endless meetings about and revisions of strategy but nothing real and tangible that one can bite down on, take a chunk and work toward meaningfully.
At least in a relationship, you can bite down, take a chunk and work toward something if you really want to. But that is a matter of making the choice and focusing too. That’s my conclusion in my old age, sage wisdom and experience – not unlike the great wise, leadership of Captain Stubing on The Love Boat. Hahaha.
A cow in my neck of the woods, western Värmland, Sweden
Lately I have thought and written a lot about farming – or adopting semi-agricultural activity into my life (e.g. getting some hens). I was happy, then, to stumble on an article about a year-old magazine, Modern Farmer, that has rather defied the odds both in being successful (as print media is not really the cutting edge of publishing, is it?) and in being popular – and lauded. I could not be happier about it.
The new age of modern farming perhaps ensures that we will not see the last farmer so soon.
I remember, entirely without fondness, those nights in childhood when my “friends” and I thought it was a great idea to spend the night at one another’s houses. What could be better than extending the illusion bought during recess and other stolen moments of playing together that we were such great friends that spending 24+ hours together would somehow enhance the “friendship”? My own participation in this ritual and seeming rite of passage was reluctant – at the time I really thought I wanted to do it, and that if I did it, I would somehow grow accustomed to it and how awkward and uncomfortable it always was, particularly for a person like me (shy, quiet, accommodating and always aiming to please – willing to endure hell for the sake of keeping peace). And endure I did. If I once went to someone’s house, I might have been suffering in silent misery, as I often did, but if I had decided I was staying there, I stayed. The only memorable exception to this happened much later, when I was in high school. I had been invited to someone’s overnight birthday party – a girl who was friends with friends, not really my friend directly. My discomfort outweighed my sense of wanting to preserve social harmony; I went home, mostly because it was time to acknowledge that even the friends in that situation were not really my friends.
But one of the strangest scenarios in these overnight adventures were the times when you would get a kid who was like an overeager puppy – so excited to come and stay with you, talking about all the things you would do together when they got there, how you were their best friend ever… and so on. And once they were there, and darkness started to fall, they also whimpered like a little puppy away from its mother for the first time, eventually the whole thing escalating into panic attacks and tears that no one but their mother could calm. This resulted in middle-of-the-night phone calls to their parents, who promptly came to pick them up, saying, “Maybe we can try this again next year when XXXXX is a bit more socially mature.”
I imagined that those kinds of events had ended when I became an adult. Imagine my surprise to find myself in a not entirely dissimilar situation with a full-grown adult who did everything short of calling mommy on the phone to come and get him (and he might have done had his mum been in the same country). I don’t really know how to apply words to this – to describe how jarring this is or how intensely it really takes me back to that awkward place in which I spent so much of my childhood. Really looking at the whole situation, though, all the same pieces were there, and had I not wanted to buy into the illusion now as much as I did when I was a child, I would have seen, understood and never let things reach this stage. I could have set aside the eager-to-make-friends kid I had been and let my inner, overreaching “parent” take over (since, as we know, I have always been a bit of a senior citizen) and be reasonable. Yes, reasonable. I could have seen that it was the same pattern playing out – the eager puppy, full of excited plans, grand words, high and undeserved praise – all empty, really. Not that nothing had been true in the friendship – just that it was applicable in a “limited-time-only” kind of way (not unlike the KFC Double Down sandwich. HA!). That is, when we were “at recess” together or spending time in our fertile imaginations, things were beautiful. But reality is different. Long-term reality is apparently worthy of panic and backpedaling and fearful apologies that cite all the reasons why I should not feel bad, i.e. because it’s “not about X, and it’s not about Y” – but I know, because these are the first and only things mentioned, that it is exactly about and mostly about X and Y.
I am not sure that I have ever been in a weirder situation. I have been in situations that I became a part of because I wanted to believe in them even if I knew it was a foolish idea because I always hope things will be different than reality has taught me. Sometimes someone – a friend on the playground or a casual wanderer through my life’s landscape – will pique my interest enough, show just enough understanding and enthusiasm – that I set aside the doubt and step furtively into the house constructed of walls that some other person built. I did not construct these illusions – I just watched and went along with it because it seemed like such a welcome respite from everything else. Because I wanted to believe maybe the walls they built would somehow, finally, stand – and be solid.
I get something even from the failures (something positive) and reinforcement that I really need to listen only to my instinct and absolutely nothing else – but ultimately the negative outweighs the positive and is always an expensive lesson (both literally and figuratively) – sending me further into the guarded cocoon where I live out most of my days.
Pregnant with mandrakes, or with something else That might prove useful and yet never proves, That never fits a corner or shows use, Or finds its hour upon the loom of days
As usual I don’t know much about or celebrate the Swedish holidays, other than gladly taking the days off they afford – especially now that I am paying attention (I started the year off with a bang – or should I say an alarm – by setting my company’s alarm off just after the new year – had no idea it was a holiday, so I have been careful to take note now).
This weekend we celebrate Valborg (“Walpurgis Night“). For me that means very little except maybe “hello, spring!” and time off. It’s welcome time off really… feel a need for recovery, kickstarting certain endeavors in earnest.
I am usually so dedicated to writing here every day, but if I go off track and don’t for a few days … this is why. Trying to adjust to new endeavors and routines.
“Love is not a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” – Fred Rogers
Mr Fred Rogers on love
It’s no secret that I am a hater. Or at least a surface hater. That is, I am impatient, don’t like crowds, don’t like slow drivers, don’t like the people at the store who block the entire aisle or wait until their huge cartload of groceries is fully checked before getting out their debit card, or people who treat motorway onramps like that is the best possible place for viewing the scenery (i.e., going slow and not accelerating to the speed at which they need to go to merge). I don’t know why I am in such a hurry – but I just can’t fathom why other people are so myopic and inconsiderate – they go slowly (fine) but do so it seems largely because they think they are the only people in the store, on the road, in the world. Thus, I go through life a wee bit irritated, and I cope with this by making my little hate lists, or ranting briefly but not very seriously, about my annoyance. And then it’s done.
(I have never really met anyone who understood this – but when I did, I knew I met my match.)
Apart from this, I tried very hard today to keep things off the hate list. It was the most gorgeous day – warm, sunny, really indicative of why I live here. I had to go out to do a lot of errands, and I am not the biggest fan of Sunday driving in the country, particularly when the weather turns nice, Norwegians come to Sweden in droves – and worse yet, Germans and Dutch will soon arrive. But I kept my cool for the most part. I almost got mad in the grocery store because an old man kept getting in my way. But, despite not interacting with him, I tried to view him in a different light. He seemed to have gone to the store just to get out for a while – and in the end selected carefully and bought himself a bag of loose candy (which all Scandinavians seem to live for). Then he drove himself away at a snail’s pace in an old, original VW Bug. I had passed by the car in the parking lot wondering to whom it belonged (I was parked across the parking lot and had to put my groceries in the car and return my cart and somehow still ended up finishing before this old man got to the car). Once I saw him drive away – slower than slow – it was impossible for me to hate him. He probably owned that car since it was brand new (or at least that is how I like to imagine it). Imagining that he fired up the old car just to go get candy on a Sunday!
This shift in perspective was quite conscious – and although we did not, as I said, interact, acknowledging his humanity made a difference. When I got home, I stumbled on an article that reinforced the same underlying themes. We all follow unspoken social rules and don’t generally make eye contact or strike up conversations with strangers – and I must say unequivocally that this is almost an absolute in Sweden. This article, however, examines some evidence gathered by behavioral scientists who contend that interactions with strangers improve our mood – maybe first by forcing us into a “pretend friendly” mode – but usually by the end of the encounter, the pleasantries and positive interaction has created genuine positive feelings.
“One of the perks of being a behavioral scientist is that when your partner does something annoying, you can bring dozens of couples into the laboratory and get to the bottom of it. When Liz tested her hypothesis in a lab experiment, she discovered that most people showed the “Benjamin Effect”: They acted more cheerful around someone they had just met than around their own romantic partner, leaving them happier than they expected.
Many of us assume, however, that our well-being depends on our closest ties, and not on the minor characters in our daily lives. To investigate the validity of this assumption, our student Gillian M. Sandstrom asked people to keep a running tally of their social interactions.”
Another point is hard to gauge in my current environment; I just had a conversation about this with a colleague the other day. The seeming social taboo of acknowledging strangers you pass in the street (here in Sweden). (I have encountered exceptions but it is usually because something happens requiring conversation, and then you can’t get them to shut up.)
“Simply acknowledging strangers on the street may alleviate their existential angst; and being acknowledged by others might do the same for us.”
When I lived in the US, it was common courtesy to acknowledge someone passing you on the street while walking past. Maybe not in a big city but certainly in small to mid-sized towns. I never liked it much, but I made eye contact, said hello. It was so ingrained despite my dislike for it that I continued to do it after I moved to Iceland – but quickly learned to stop because I was looked at as though I had said something deeply offensive or threatened the other person. I have comfortably filed right into the sheep herd here in non-confrontational Scandinavia – sometimes it’s sad but it’s how I have always been (as a shy person). I have always relied on other people (and you could always rely on Americans – or even other members of my family, who fall far afield of anything resembling shyness) to make the first move.
Whatever the case, the casual can be difficult to deal with but I am actually a pretty sensitive, shy and loving person somewhere underneath. And when I do love I really love – whether that is a love for my friends, a partner or a cause. I become fiercely protective of those people and things. And, like the Mr Rogers quote above explains, I love actively – it is a constant state of accepting – I may not accept or like everything someone does, but that does not change that the love I feel is unconditional. I also love myself unconditionally, and sometimes that means that even if I do love someone, it is healthiest to move them out of my life – but even that won’t put conditions on how I feel about them. Their role just shifts.
It is all very complex but at the same time strikes me as very simple – whether it is accepting and even embracing the idiosyncracies of strangers in public places and seeing them as more human or loving and accepting those closest unconditionally.
The idea of volunteering may exist to some degree everywhere but, in the US, volunteering seems to be in the blood. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics even publishes an annual report on the state of volunteerism in the US. It reports that more than 25 percent of Americans actively volunteer in one capacity or another. A 2013 Gallup poll puts the numbers even higher, with 65 percent of Americans claiming to volunteer and more than 80 percent practicing some form of charitable giving. The tendency to think that voluntary organizations/charities will take care of everything seems to be a uniquely American (and sort of puritanical/conservative) way of looking at things. I suppose it comes down to the American obsession with doing things for oneself and the desire to pay the least amount of tax possible as well as the tendency for Americans to be quite active in church/religious activities, which are often charitable in nature.
Volunteer organizations and efforts spring up as a result, and there is a value placed on volunteer experience. Not just internships that are often required when a person goes to university – but just volunteering as a separate endeavor from one’s work or personal life. The volunteer mindset and philosophy is ingrained. When I was in school and later when I was just living and working, the idea of volunteering time at organizations that needed unpaid help somehow appealed to the part of me that obsesses over continuous learning.
Many of the volunteer functions that are seen as voluntary or charitable matters are not seen that way at all outside the United States – many of the services provided sit squarely on the shoulders of the government (what else are taxes paid for?). Americans are apparently a “nation of givers” (an article that’s a few years old puts some statistics on it, comparing charitable donations and volunteer time Americans give against the money and time other countries’ people give). Sure, the US tax code makes charitable giving a way to avoid paying as much tax as one might otherwise, which is why corporations often give so much. But for individuals this is not a driver of their giving (only about one-third of Americans apparently itemize their taxes, meaning they don’t get the deductions to which they are entitled).
I had this discussion many times in particular with French people. My ex-boyfriend (a Frenchie) could not comprehend why I was volunteering spare time – my own free time – to basically donate labor to organizations that should be supported, in his mind, by public funding. While I might have agreed with him about what functions governments should provide, in the absence, I saw nothing amiss or “wasteful” about giving my time to further some cause or help someone else. Granted, some volunteering is not necessarily a tangible “help”. Being a volunteer art-museum docent does not have the hands-on, immediate value that cooking in a soup kitchen or building housing for low-income families does. But it’s not always about that kind of obvious help. It’s also about education, culture and getting something from what you give. When I volunteered at an art museum, for example, I gained experience, knowledge and skills that I would never get elsewhere. In those situations, the volunteer is not just giving – aside from the general sense of “doing something good”, there is always some kind of payoff.
Volunteering for Americans encompasses a kind of pride and mutual promise of giving and getting. A nation that has major federal programs, entirely based on volunteering, such as the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps and Senior Corps, must be at least somewhat driven by the idea put forth by John F Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”
It’s not only in America that volunteering exists – it’s just not woven into the fabric of everyday life everywhere else. Recently I applied to be a volunteer board member for a few public entities in Glasgow, Scotland. This is yet another kind of volunteering – I thought the experience would be quite valuable and I knew I would provide a very different perspective to the boards to which I applied (I was invited to interview for one of them but then my situation changed, and regrettably I could not attend). This was not a lowly “scrub-the-floor” kind of volunteer experience but instead one in which experienced professionals were expected to bring expertise and ideas to the table – and still voluntary (with some travel costs reimbursed). I regret not being able to do it because I actually thought it, like most of my past volunteer experiences, would be enriching.
On a similar note, in a relatively recent Forbes article, Baby Boomers were in focus as not volunteering as much as they should or could – or as much as other parts of the American population. Volunteer organizations, apparently, are finally starting to catch on that they need to target the retired and retiring Baby Boomers to capture their experience and skills. The contention is that Boomers want to do something meaningful and results-oriented with their volunteer time rather than something like stuffing envelopes or making phone calls.
“According to the Volunteering in the United States survey, “providing professional or management assistance, including serving on a board or committee” is the second most popular form of volunteering for Americans over 55, after “collecting, preparing, distributing or serving food.”
I suppose, aside from that stubborn “we can do it ourselves” kind of attitude, there is also a “we’re in this together” attitude that leads to volunteering and the types of people who put themselves out there as volunteers. We don’t have to wait for some official entity to qualify our idea as worthwhile – we can start our own initiative (or join one we believe in and want to give our time to).
Over the years I have become better at glossing over details – realizing that people don’t need to know all the details of everything. I have always been private about some things, but at some level and in some situations, it always feels like I need to go into detail when in fact, it would be just as well to gloss over details.
Speaking of gloss, I have been looking into different pink lip glosses recently. I did some research and was nearly ensnared at an airport duty-free store (as I always am by lip treatments). I chose nothing but as it turns out a friend in France chose a variety and sent them to me. Now all the experimentation can begin!
Pile of pink lipgloss to try
And what would any discussion of lipgloss be without a song of the same name?
“Culture jamming is an intriguing form of political communication that has emerged in response to the commercial isolation of public life. Practitioners of culture jamming argue that culture, politics, and social values have been bent by saturated commercial environments, from corporate logos on sports facilities, to television content designed solely to deliver targeted audiences to producers and sponsors. Many public issues and social voices are pushed to the margins of society by market values and commercial communication, making it difficult to get the attention of those living in the “walled gardens” of consumerism. Culture jamming presents a variety of interesting communication strategies that play with the branded images and icons of consumer culture to make consumers aware of surrounding problems and diverse cultural experiences that warrant their attention.
Many culture jams are simply aimed at exposing questionable political assumptions behind commercial culture so that people can momentarily consider the branded environment in which they live. Culture jams refigure logos, fashion statements, and product images to challenge the idea of “what’s cool,” along with assumptions about the personal freedoms of consumption. Some of these communiqués create a sense of transparency about a product or company by revealing environmental damages or the social experiences of workers that are left out of the advertising fantasies. The logic of culture jamming is to convert easily identifiable images into larger questions about such matters as corporate responsibility, the “true” environmental and human costs of consumption, or the private corporate uses of the “public” airwaves.”
This sort of “jam” rather than “yam” is pretty cool although I am not particularly creative enough to go down this road. I just thought it would be fun to revisit the blog my group created over a year ago. My post naturally went way over the word limits but did get to incorporate the Yes Men – love them!
And rather randomly connected with one of the guys from culture jamming musical pioneers, Negativland, thanks to knowing something about culture jamming.
How is it that something reads “collegiate” when “collegial” is meant? I know how it happens. You think you heard it or saw it that way and eventually start using it with confidence. And next thing you know you’re throwing your misheard/misused word around all over town. But it’s wrong and could be fixed by just checking and confirming it in a dictionary first. Just to be sure, even if you are sure you’re sure.
I am almost always sure, but I like to double check. (Or, to jump in and use a phrase I hate – and discuss below – Don’t double down until you double check.)
I saw a job ad today that put itself out there as a high-end, exclusive luxury branding manager kind of role. But then in the bulleted highlights, it read: “collegiate environment”. I dunno about you, but if I were going to take on a luxury-goods senior brand management role, I don’t want to feel like I’m back in college – kegger anyone? Which is what “collegiate” means.
In a similar vein, my mom did some work for a writer who wrote the line, “She reached into her brazier” when he actually meant “brassiere”. He was offended when she corrected it. But, pardon the pun, would you rather look like a boob… or actually use the right word for what is essentially… a boob holder?
The Swedish J to Y
It isn’t that Swedes cannot say “J” as in “just” or “judge” or “jet lag”. In some constructions, depending on where the “j” comes in the word they want to say, they say the “dj” sound. In many others they pronounce it “y”. Many Swedes pronounce it “y” always. So it’s “yet lag”, “yust”, “yudge”, “yoy” or “enyoy yourself” – or, as I heard today, “yam” when “jam” was meant. There was some discussion that employed the word “jam” – and it was all I could do not to laugh when people quite earnestly said “yam”. Candied yams all around. I should be used to this now, and for the most part I am. I never so much as flinch when I hear the common words from the mouths of Swenglish speakers every day. But this may well have been the first time I heard “jam” as “yam”.
Doubling Down on Dumb – Vernacular Abuse
I was none too pleased quite some time ago when KFC launched a sandwich called the “Double Down” – it is basically two fried chicken patties in place of the bread that would normally house a sandwich. The media has enjoyed the launch and limited-time relaunch of this “sandwich”, with The New York Daily News going so far as to question what constitutes a sandwich, and The Guardian calling it “controversial”, almost as much as the eating, feasting public likes the (as described) “bunless, protein-rich, fat-filled” concoction.
Double Down on coronary artery disease
All that aside, and my point for even bringing it up, I am not at all a fan of the term “double down”. I noticed it creeping into everyday language a few years ago (and wrote about it) – especially from the babbling mouths of political pundits, usually criticizing other politicians who had a bad idea and then “doubled down” on the same bad idea. (“Double down” is a gambling term – doubling the bet on whatever one was wagering on.)
Now, this build up of “doubling down” has finally reached its peak (or given how poorly I think of it, its nadir). I sat in a corporate meeting today and TWO executives mentioned that we will “double down” on some part of the strategy. Can we get a collective Nancy “My life really began when I married my husband” Reagan (that is, “just say no”) here? Once its in the corporate jargon lexicon, it’s past annoying. It’s vomit-worthy.
