adamquiney.com

Every two weeks or so, I come back home to Victoria and have to throw out mail from Shaw. The contents of the mail are generally offers for HDTV, or more channels, or better channels, or something else – none of which I care about.

I wrote to @shawinfo (Shaw’s Twitter account) indicating how obnoxious I found this behaviour. Ultimately, it just makes me resent the company. They’re wasting my time, paper and other resources.

The response I got back was to send an e-mail requesting that I be removed from the list. I’m reproducing the transcript from that conversation below – what do you think? Is this an acceptable response from Shaw?

Shaw

Thank you for contacting Shaw E-Care, Adam. We appreciate the opportunity to correspond with you.

We understand that you no longer wish to receive promotional/marketing material from us via mail to your address. We wish to clarify that as with most companies, we do issue bulk, unaddressed mailings to large areas. As these are not specifically targeted mailings and are delivered to all addresses, we are unable to stop these from being delivered to your door without you indicating to Canada Post that you do not accept unaddressed ad mail. However, for targeted mailings, we are able to prevent information from being mailed to your address. Please allow up to 8 weeks for this request to take into effect.

Please provide us with your mailing address so we can ensure your request has been processed and we have the correct account. Please also confirm if this is only for mailers you are receiving or emails as well.

Should you have any further concerns, please contact us at 1-888-472-2222 or visit our Online Customer Chat by clicking on the link

My response

Shaw’s final response came the next day

Thank you for your further email Adam.

We can confirm we have processed your request to discontinue targeted mailings from being sent to your address. Please allow up to 8 weeks for this request to take into effect as mailers may have since been printed and sent to your address.

Furthermore, we appreciate the time you have taken to forward your thoughts in regards to the mailers you receive from us.  While we appreciate your feedback, we are unable to stop mailers which are not addressed to you from being delivered to your home address.  We have forwarded you comments to the correct area for further review.

Satisfied?

As a consumer, do you feel that this sufficiently addresses your concern?  Do you feel that this ends the conversation?  In the same position, I would be following up this e-mail with another one from someone working higher up.  In general, I feel a little cynical about the state of ISPs and their customer relations – we can only wait and see if this experiment will alter that balance for the better.

Share/Bookmark

Everyday, I make a pont of taking the stairs whenever the opportunity presents itself (just for the record, I consider five flights of stairs in a building to be a borderline opportunity, while twelve flights is just a co-worker that stinks up your office).  Whenever I have a choice between getting in my car to go somewhere and bussing, I try and take the bus.  I look at the back of different products I’m buying and I choose the one that has 1% less sodium than the other one.

Over a decade ago, when I lived with my good friend Graham, I had mentioned this quirk of mine.  Graham stared at me blankly before asking, “What’s the point?”

Sometimes it’s the most innocent questions that deserve the most analysis.  So what is the point?

What Graham was really asking me was why bother with these small things when it was the big steps that would really move me to achieving my goal.  1% of sodium really isn’t going to make a big difference in the long run right?  It’s a common attitude that if you really want to accomplish a goal, you’re better suited to doing something big (in my case, this would have been not helping Graham polish off a box of ice cream sandwiches off in two days – those things are delicious).

Many of us fall into this trap, marginalizing the power of small changes, and operating with the false impression that if something doesn’t move us closer toward our goal in a giant step, it’s a waste of time.

The reality is that few of us even think about the process of setting goals.  Fewer still actually think beyond the initial point of stating the goal and actually asking themselves what achieving that goal would look like.  If your goal is achieving financial independence, I’m sure that you have a vision for what that looks like when you have finally achieved it.  it probably involves a boat, lots of women in bikinis and a mansion.  No wait, that’s this guy:

But what does the process of achieving your goal look like?  You have an idea for what the destination looks like, but do you know what the journey looks like?  If you aren’t able to derive small increments towards your goal like the ones we’re talking about, you’re going to have a hard time moving yourself in a particular direction.

What is the point?  The point is that you have to start somewhere.  If you aren’t willing to cut back on 1% of your sodium intake, how are you ever going to achieve your goal to eat a healthy and balanced diet?

If you aren’t willing to take the stairs, how are you going to achieve your goal to lose twenty pounds?  Now, you may have other ways of achieving these goals, but the point here isn’t that you start taking the stairs – it’s that you be aware of how important moving in increments is.

What’s the point? The point is that you have goals you want to achieve, and you’re human.  Figure out the next, smallest (new) action you can take toward achieving your goal and start doing it.

Bonus section where I draw connections to various diffuse subjects

Ah, you stayed for the bonus section!  Welcome.  Today we’re comparing software development and psychology.

Software development is ultimately about crafting algorithmic solutions to problems.  Because you’re generally better off innovating than you are re-inventing the wheel, there are many common solutions that have been documented that provide good ways to solve a similar set of problems.  These abstract solutions are termed patterns.

A real-world analogy might be that you have a common problem where you want to keep people away from your property, but want to be able to access it easily yourself.  The “pattern” to this problem is a door, with a lock that can be used to let only specific people in.  The “door and lock” solution is a pattern and can be applied to a wide variety of similar problems (such as your house, your car, a briefcase, etc.).

Patterns are very useful, and allow programmers a convenient way to talk about possible solutions using a single word to convey a broader and more abstract concept.  However, patterns also have a counterpart, termed an anti-pattern.

Anti-patterns are common solutions to problems that are actually bad solutions.  Anti-patterns generally catch on because they seem intuitively correct or present a quick solution to a problem that doesn’t seem problematic until some time has passed (usually enough that further development has occurred and it’s much more complicated and expensive to redo the original solution).

“What’s the point?”, and it’s companion thought, “Goals are only achieved in large steps”, is an anti-pattern to achieving your goals.  Don’t fall for these anti-patterns –  iterate in small increments toward that which you desire.

Share/Bookmark

I just came across this photo in my archive while adding some new photos.  If you can believe it, Bay’s personality actually manages to outshine how pretty she is.

Share/Bookmark

I asked the cloud this morning for blog ideas. Kelly suggested spaceships, and although cosmology and quantum physics have long been interests of mine, it felt a bit heavy.

Chris gave me a suggestion that also felt heavy initially, the words ringing in my ears like doom and gloom:

“Nuclear energy? Earthquake preparedness? Peak oil? The inability of the UN to do the very thing that it was created for?”

When I asked if this was his intent, he corrected me, and responded with:

“It is not doom and gloom, it is today. I am having a hard time coming to grips with the fact that this is reality and not some dystopian novel – people need help making sense of it, but then again everybody loves kittens ”

So we have him to thank for the title as well.

Chris raises a really good point.  There’s a lot of bad stuff happening right now.  Everywhere we turn, there’s media telling (/shouting at) us about a new catastrophe.  The subprime mortgage crisis, the global financial collapse, the proliferation of nuclear arms and energy, riots, government crack-down and suppression, crime, war, earthquakes.. tsunamis..

It’s hard not to despair and feel overwhelmed isn’t it?

Let’s start with the gutpunch:  There’s only so much any of us can do to change the world.  We all have limitations.  I have limitations.  You have limitations.  Even someone with as much power as Barack Obama, has limitations.  So what hope do we have?

This post contains some of my methods for coping with the world around us.  As with any piece of advice, take what you can from it.  Ask yourself if these things would actually work for you, rather than mindlessly assuming they will and getting discouraged when your brain doesn’t work exactly the same as mine.  There should always be something you can find to agree with, and something to disagree with.  The balance of what lies in the middle is for you to figure out.

Here we go!

Find meaningful ways to express yourself

Right now, you’re reading my blog.  This is one of the ways that I express who I am.  It allows me to share with people the way I feel about the world.  How I see things.  What concerns me, and the things that help me move through that concern.

I dance and love sharing my sense of humour with friends for the same reason.  It’s an opportunity to connect with the people around us, and let them feel who we are.  It’s a way to plug in to something deeper than just you, or me. (and if you’re skeptical, I can attest to the fact that sharing a moment of creativity with someone can be every bit as cathartic as sharing sorrow or a burst of laughter)

We are social creatures, and socializing with each other is a pretty important part of that.  Simply communicating how we feel with those around us helps us engage with opinions and inspiration that exists outside of our own head.  We can share the burden of sorrow with someone close, appreciate the good things that we have with family members, and understand both the tragedy and the comedy that exist in the world around us.

The more you can engage your sense of self-expression, the better you will be able to open up and share part of who you are with the people around you.  The more you are capable of doing this, the better you will be able to appreciate our existence, and what you have in your life.

Which segues cleanly to my next point..

Learn to be comfortable with your entire spectrum of feelings

I was walking home from work the other day.  As I walked down the stairs from the Chinatown sky-train station (there’s about three sets of terraced stairs), one guy, walking up the stairs with his friend, lost his step and slipped.  His response to this relatively benign accident was to turn around, throw his smoothie as hard as he could at the cube-van parked at the bottom of the stairs, and shout “it makes me so fucking annoyed”.  This guy was not comfortable with the feeling of being embarrassed.

You can try to shut out or suppress these emotions, but much like the Mensa candidate that threw his smoothie at the cube-van, they’ll find a way to surface.

You don’t have complete control over your life.  You don’t even have that much control over your life.  If you want to find some inner peace, you’re going to need to learn to accept that fact - it’s not going to change, so you have to.  More specifically, you have to change the way you deal with it.

Negative emotions are as much a part of our lives as positive emotions.  By learning to accept that there are times when we need to feel and express our sorrow, anger, regret, and fear, we can better equip ourselves to live with who we are.  Ride out the wave, and be sure to catch the next wave of positivity back up.

Learn to sit in the emotion (but don’t wallow in it), and avoid throwing the proverbial smoothie.  (As you can imagine, the other 15 or so people around were equally impressed with his action).

Be the change that you want to see in the world

This is probably the single biggest thing you can do to help yourself deal with the world the way it is.  This piece of advice is often touted by people that have no idea what it actually means, to the point of almost being a platitude (I guess it’s fun to quote Gandhi).  But that’s okay – you don’t have to concern yourself with what other people are doing.  That’s the whole point of this piece of wisdom.  Concern yourself with your own actions.

How many of us know someone that rages about what other people are doing on the road, and as a result, end up being worse drivers themselves?  Spoiler alert: We all do it.  As a matter of fact, this is an excellent place to start trying to make this change.  ”Adam, you’re a moron”, the voice in your head says as you read this.  ”How would trying to be a better driver make me better equipped to deal with the inequality in the world?”

To your voice, I ask what chance you have of practicing a philosophy of understanding and acceptance if you can’t even put it into practice while you’re doing a common everyday activity like driving.  You don’t simply need to understand and accept people’s mistakes – you need to be comfortable with the fact that the world is unfair.  This is a good place to start.

Now, I said above that we all have limitations.  And I’m right.  But that does not, by any stretch of the imagination, mean that we are powerless to effect the world positively.  In the grand scheme of things, there’s a very simple way to turn back and reflect on your life up to this point.  Have you lived your life in a manner that has contributed more positivity, rather than negativity, to the world around you?  If you can answer yes, then you have helped make the world a better place.

If you answered no, or are trying to bargain with yourself in order to be able to answer yes, ask yourself why this is the case.

Everyday, I pass two guys panhandling.  Initially they asked me for money, but I would always tell them no, and wish them a good day.  It’s gotten to the point now that we recognize and greet each other whenever I walk by throughout the day.  One of these two guys always smiles and wishes me a good day.  The other guy has never once smiled.  How do you think they would each answer the above question?

Now, I’m not so naive as to suggest that my situation is anywhere near the same as theirs.  But regardless of the situation you’re in, you will always be presented with opportunities to spread either positivity or negativity.  At this most fundamental level, ask yourself from time to time which you are doing, and try to adjust your attitude accordingly.

Is sharing a smile with a stranger going to solve the UN’s problems?  No.  Of course not.  But is anything else that you can do going to achieve that either?  The best we can do is try to lead by example and encourage the kind of behaviour and warmth that we want other people to exhibit.  It’s not going to change the world, but everything has to start somewhere – why not with you?

Think about it…

A lot of people have spent a lot of time thinking about these things.  Philosophy is arguably one of the oldest schools of thought, and people have spent a lot of time thinking about these difficult questions.  Why isn’t the world fair?  Does it actually mean something that inequality exists?  Socrates did not spend his time thinking about the oppression in Libya, but he and many other philosophers have certainly contemplated similar concepts abstracted.

Subject yourself to some philosophy.  While gazing at your navel will not create change in the world, it will help you gain the ability to put some perspective and distance between yourself and the overwhelming amount of tension, fear and calamity that we get presented with on a daily basis.

A good place to start, for those of you with a cerebral bent (and I did tell you that not everything here would work for everyone, didn’t I?), is the Philosophy Bites podcast.  I especially enjoyed hearing the most recent episode about Montaigne’s brush with mortality and how it affected his approach to death (and consequently, life)

Tune out and find some quiet pursuits

It’s a lot easier to get overwhelmed when you’ve got someone shouting it in your face every couple of minutes.  Even more so when you’ve got thousands of different voices doing the same thing.  While the inexorable rise of the Internet and technology has been a boon to our civilization, it has introduced a lot of noise to our daily lives.

Many of us don’t even realize how much time we spend attached to a digital device, and consequently, how connected we are.  While connection is a good thing, we must never forget how important balance is.  Discover some quiet pursuits that you enjoy, and make sure that you make the time to disconnect and engage in something focused and peaceful.

Physical exercise is a good starting point, if you’re the type of person that can use this sort of activity to ground them.  If you’re the kind of person that is prone to competition, you may find that exercise fills your head with noisy thoughts about beating your previous time, what to eat to maximize your training, what you need to do right when you finish to stay on time, and so on.

Devote some time to something like reading, fishing, or even taking walks.  Do something that allows you to peacefully disconnect and engage with yourself for a period of time every day.  Giving yourself some downtime will give you time to think about the bigger picture without being constantly prodded by the immediacy  of the short-term.

Challenge met?

So that’s how I interpreted Chris’s suggestion for a blog topic.  You may have a different interpretation.  If you do, I encourage you to express that opinion in whatever the most positive manner you can think of is.  That doesn’t mean that you post something on Facebook like “Japan got struck by a tsunami.  Yay!”, or pretend that everything is kittens (everybody loves kittens right?).  It means that you spend a little time and think of how you can both express what you want to say while providing some positivity behind it (Posting a link to the red-cross donation webpage would be a far better way to express your concern and compassion for Japan in a positive manner).

Above all, make sure that you take the time to appreciate what you have in your own life.  As I said, we don’t have that much control over our lives, and tragedy can strike at any minute.  The way you protect yourself from that is not to live in fear of the possibility, but to instead spend as much time appreciating what you currently have.  Don’t take life for granted.

Share/Bookmark

I had an excellent weekend.  After spending all of last weekend with a significant portion of the charter members of the OMC, I had all of this weekend with Bay.  I won’t go into the stuff that you didn’t come here to read, but I highly recommend meeting someone that makes you a better person and marrying their ass (and the rest of them too).  Your life continues to get better the more work you’re willing to put in to a relationship like this – win/win!

We hosted my parents on Saturday night to cook them dinner, play crokinole, and slice off a portion of my finger.  My finger didn’t ruin the night, and fortunately it didn’t affect my crokinole playing.  I also successfully managed to raise my Dad’s blood pressure by playing my shots before he had the time to tell me “aim for my finger Adam!”.  I’m pretty sure my Mum had the exact same look on her face that she did over 15 years ago in Majorca when he did the same thing at the pool table.  Ah.. fond memories.

Before that, however, I took the afternoon for myself to go down to Centenniel Square and dance.  I didn’t start with this intention, but no one else was available given the short notice I had provided, and it had been too long since I’d danced in my hometown.  I wasn’t going to let anyone else’s lack of availability affect my need to get some creative release.  I gathered up my stuff and headed down.

Centenniel Square is actually a pretty great spot to go and share some culture.  The main part of the square has been fixed and is much more open than it once way.  While there was an event happening (and I heard at least one deep house song that I like playing), there was plenty of room further back and closer to the road.  One of the great parts about this area is that there are a number of businesses along one side, and all of the glass there is one-way mirror.  Not only that – it’s covered.  No issues with weather.

For a good solo session, having a reflection can go a long way to making you more comfortable dancing in public.  And that’s the other great benefit about the Square – it’s got a steady stream of foot traffic, but enough open area that no one ever has to feel about having their space violated.

One of the biggest things I’ve been working on this term has been opening myself up more when I’m dancing.  Not just physically, but emotionally and, if you can handle this, spiritually (it probably doesn’t mean the same thing to you that it does to me).  Having a consistent flow of foot-traffic offers plenty of opportunities for an audience, and if you can’t be comfortable with an audience, you’re never going to be able to achieve what you’re fully capable of.  If you have trouble getting yourself to this point, check out my post about opening yourself up more – it’s a great starting point that will naturally lead you to what I’m describing.

I was practicing in front of the windows (after being told,  bemusedly, by two commissionaires that there were people that could see me on the other side and were watching me), and taking a break from really dancing (when the goes off, I have to too!) and sat there grooving.  I made a surprising discovery – I figured out how I could teach gliding.

The problem

Gliding has always been an elusive technique for me.  I’ve never really felt how it connects to the music.  When I first started trying to to learn, it was by watching Graham.  Graham’s an amazing dancer and a great glider, but he is highly intuitive.  Without anything technical to grab on to, I was never really able to pick up the foundation.  Graham picked the technique up so quickly and seamlessly that I couldn’t find a space in his movement to pick apart and build on my own understanding.

With a lot of time, practice and classes, I was able to slowly pick up the technique.  But I never really learned how it connected to the actually dancing that I was meant to do.  Without an ability to ground the technique in the dance, it was a very dead move that I had taught myself to do.  Don’t kid yourself – anyone that is actually listening to the music will notice straight away if you’re just doing technique without any dancing.  Without an ability to dance with the technique, I could never really figure it out.  The way I taught the class was the same way I felt about learning the technique myself: it was slow, arduous.. it was frustrating.

The seed

The seed for my own epiphany was initially planted by Jamieson – a good friend, dancer and teacher.  In Jamieson’s class, he had us performing the stationary front glide (almost a forced walk) to the beat of the music.  This was the first time that I had actually seen a glide properly connected to the music.  (Much to Jamieson’s credit, I have never seen him teach anything that wasn’t connected with the music).

Ready for the music to pick me back up, I stood in front of the mirror doing the following to the beat playing in my ears:

• Simultaneously raise my left toe and my right heel (1st beat).
• Simultaneously lower my left toe and right heel, and then raise my right toe and my left heel (2nd beat).
• Repeat

This is a simple motion, but it’s rhythmic, and that means that it’s a way to keep time with the music.  You should always strive to have part of your body moving to the music – this is how you stay connected to your dance, the rhythm, and the feel.  It’s how you know you’re actually dancing.  Have you ever watched a great dancer and seen them move like they had already heard the song before?  They haven’t – they’re just feeling music to the extent that they know where it’s going to go next.

The epiphany

Standing in place, rocking my feet up and down to the beat, I let my mind wander and focused on the music.  Rather than trying to think of what to do next, I allowed myself to sit in the groove.  I let myself know that it was okay to not do something new – I could do this for as long as it felt good.  This might sound trite to those that don’t understand, but this is the most fundamental principle of dancing that I can conceive at the moment.  If you can do this, you can dance.  If you can give yourself permission to enjoy a groove you’re sitting in, you don’t have to worry about how you look to anyone.

Reaching this conclusion is part of the greater (and ongoing) epiphany I’ve been having this term, thanks in part to the talented influences of my friends and teachers Dennis, Kyle, Kim, Johnnii and Jamieson.  Sitting with the groove in this position, I suddenly felt the tumblers in my brain fall into place.  I had gotten inside the glide!

Moving my feet up and down rhythmically, I was able to do the same while floating (the first is a foundation for the second), and almost magically felt everything snap into place.  If I could float to the rhythm, I could glide to the rhythm.  If I could glide to the rhythm… I could dance.

At the moment, I can’t provide any greater a breakdown of the technique I’m describing.  I need to teach it in order to understand it better myself.  What’s that?  You shouldn’t teach something that you don’t understand completely?  Why not?  Shouldn’t the teacher be allowed to learn with the students as well?  Surely this is teaching at it’s finest.  This is part of my process, and it’s part of why teaching, for me, is never just a one-way – it’s a two-way interaction.  Articulating an idea for someone should be a learning experience for both of you.

The good news is that I can promise more articulation in the summer months, for those of you that will be taking classes with me.  I’m looking forward to sharing what have been some profound changes in me as a dancer, and mutually working through those discoveries together in classes.  I have not yet found the right space for what I want to do, but that is currently in the works and once settled, I will be posting more information right here.  Suffice to say for now that I’m really excited about what is in the works.

TLDR

While the audience for this post may be different than some of the others I have written, I still think summaries are a good practice.  If not for you, certainly for me.  Here we go:

• If you want to excel as a dancer, you need to be open to your audience, whoever and wherever they may be (don’t be selective)
• If you’re nervous about dancing in public, find a place with a reflection.  Make sure you spend time facing away from it, but it can act as a security blanket when you’re feeling intimidated by those around you.  If you insist on staring at the mirror, make eye contact with your audience through it (it’ll catch them off-guard, I guarantee!)
• If you can give yourself permission to sit in a groove, you can dance (yup, step-touch and two-stepping counts – don’t move on until you’re ready to).
• No matter what you’re doing, try to keep some part of your body connected to he music (if you’re not sure why, see the point above)

And of course – I’m going to be teaching this summer somewhere in town, and it’s going to be awesome.  (and you should be there too!).

Share/Bookmark

After an exclusive voting process, The Original Men’s Club have voted and decided on our official club tie.

As shown in the image, this tie represents the Original Men’s Club’s colours and pattern.  When you see six well-dressed individuals walking past you sporting this tie, you know that they’re members of this prestigious club.

What’s that, you say?  You don’t know what the deal is with a club tie?  Allow me to enlighten you on this particular piece of habadashery.

Diagonal striped ties are considered the most traditional and a classic tie. The design
originated in the 19th century in Great Britain, where sport associations and country clubs added club colors. They were first displayed on the association’s flag, later then also on caps, jackets and ties, just like the red – green – white “Free Foresters Cricket Club”. The colors of regiments served as a base for regimental ties such as the red – blue combination of the “Brigade of Guards”. Club ties and regimental ties have been very popular ever since.

After the First World War, diagonal striped ties gained great popularity in Great Britain and the USA, as the former soldiers wanted to show proudly that they had fought bravely. While it was considered very inappropriate in Great Britain to wear colors, or regimentals, one was not entitled to; the Americans selected their ties without such restrictions. Even in continental Europe the diagonal striped ties were purchased purely based on taste, whether it was considered to be a British club color or not. Thus, with such rapidly increasing popularity, silk weavers provided more and more new color combinations aside from the traditional regimental ties.

*Original source: http://www.ties-necktie.com/ties-stripes/

Share/Bookmark

A quick post today, just to bring you an interesting article on the world’s Blue Zones.  These are the zones in which a significant portion of the population live above the age of 100 years.

Most relevant (in my own eyes) are the following things that each of the blue zones share in common:

• Family – Family is put ahead of other concerns.
  • This should help ground us all right off the bat.  On Planet Money’s most recent podcast, the host mentioned that he felt embarrassed when he would have people from Baghdad or Burundi come and visit him in New York, on account of the wealth that is displayed.  Much to his surprise his guests didn’t say this at all.  Instead, they consistently commented that “everyone here seems so lonely – they spend all their time working, and so little time with their families”.  This is a message we should all take to heart.  Family doesn’t necessarily need to be your immediate family.  It could be your close friends, or whoever it is that helps you through the day.  The point that I take to heart here is that we should spend less time worrying about our careers and money, and place a priority on those that are most important to us (including ourselves).
• No Smoking - Centenarians do not typically smoke.
  • This shouldn’t be a surprise to any of us – it’s never too late to quit!
• Plant-based diet – The majority of food consumed is derived from plants.
  • This is an interesting one.  At a risk of having every vegan on earth simultaneously say “told you so”, there’s a lot to be said for shifting your diet toward the consumption of more plants and less meat.  Bay and I made the decision to do this ourselves because of our own principles.  Sustainability and Ethics factored chiefly in my own decision.
• Legumes – Legumes are commonly consumed.
  • This and the last item were listed in Wikipedia’s article out of order.  Since giving up meat for the most part, I find myself eating a lot of legumes in order to make up the protein and iron (mmmm chickpeas!).  I wonder if these two items are related.
• Constant moderate physical activity – Moderate physical activity is an inseparable part of life.
  • When my brother and I were raised, it was never a question as to whether you were going to get physical activity.  Every Saturday was a soccer game, every Sunday was either swimming or skating with the family, and during the week we had soccer practice.  Although we can’t all have had the benefit of parents that gave us the awesome head start we were given, we can all take to heart the message that they imbued in me: physical activity shouldn’t be something that you do when it’s convenient.  It’s an ever-present part of your life.  Do you drive to work because it takes 30 minutes to walk there?  Start walking!  Do you take the bus to get across town because you’re in a hurry?  Start planning better and taking the walk.  Take the elevator up to your office?  Take it up to four floors beneath your office and walk the stairs the rest of the way.  Figure out ways to include physical activity in your daily regime, and don’t think of it as an option.  It’s simply part of your day.  Use the body you’ve been given.
• Social engagement – People of all ages are socially active and integrated into their communities.
  • As someone that goes absolutely mental without social contact, I can especially appreciate how important this element is to everyone.  Social engagement with your wife or husband is, of course, an essential component, but what about with friends?  Without outside contact, you’re never given the chance to question or challenge the beliefs that you hold in your head – and by direct correlation, you’re never given the chance to grow beyond your boundaries.

Definitely something to think about..

Share/Bookmark

Last summer, I ran a social experiment: No matter who I passed in the street, I had to force myself to make eye-contact with them.  You can read the full story about that experiment (and the surprising results) here.  The main rules for this experiment were only that I had to make initial eye-contact, and I couldn’t be selective about who I connected with.

This was a very rewarding experiment.  I learned a lot simply by committing myself to doing something positive that I wouldn’t normally do.  I didn’t set any additional rules, because that would have complicated things, and this first step seemed like enough to take on for now.  Thinking about it further would simply have complicated things and made me less likely to stay committed.

General Rule #1: If you’re trying to change a habit or take on something new, keep the terms of your goal as simple as possible, while still remaining true to the aim of achieving that goal.

Based on how much I got out of such a simple exercise, I knew that one of the things I wanted to do this Spring was conduct another experiment.  The first couple of weeks, while suffering from a lack of inspiration, I wasn’t sure what this experiment would be.  I wasn’t concerned that I didn’t have something in mind – it was enough at the time to know that I wanted to run something like this and leave it at that.

I ended up with the appropriate experiment after watching TV with Bay, of all things.  She mentioned how Patrick Jane, the main protagonist in the Mentalist, had a good bemused look, and that he and I share a similar smile.  I like Patrick Jane.  He’s charming, and he probably gets away with more than he should because he’s got such a pleasant and charming disposition.  Lastly, I liked the concept that lies behind a look of bemusement on someone’s face.  It’s like they know something that you don’t.  It’s the hint of a smile, ready to break free and show teeth at any moment.  It’s a little mysterious.

“I’m bemused quite often… why aren’t I showing that more?”

That was the question on my mind a few weeks ago.  So, I decided that would be what I was going to work on for the rest of the term.  I wasn’t concerned with actually feeling more bemused – I just wanted to practice the look more often so that I was comfortable having it on my face.

So, as odd as this may sound, I sat in front of a mirror for a few minutes and trying to figure out what the look on my face was that signalled this emotion.  I played with it a bit, and then took the bus back home to Vancouver that Sunday.  If you had been sitting across from me on the bus that day, you would have probably thought “That guy is nuts”.  I sat patiently and calmly, and settled in to my look.  It felt really awkward.  If you’re not used to holding your face or your body in a certain position, you feel like everyone is watching you when you do it.  In reality, you’re just hyper-conscious of how you look.  No one is paying any more attention to you than they otherwise would, but you’re going out of your way to pay attention to every single sidelong glance and incidental eye-contact that sweeps across your field of view.

This is actually a very interesting piece of psychology at work known as the spotlight effect.  I see this most often in the dance class that I teach (and participate in as a student).  Literally every single person in the studio is completely focused on themselves in the mirror, while simultaneously thinking “Oh my god, I just screwed that up and everybody saw me!” (oblivious to the obvious irony here).

Whereas the eye contact I had sustained last summer was typically brief and fleeting, I noticed right away that holding a look of bemusement on my face somehow made me feel less vulnerable when making eye contact with people (naturally I kept my newly-acquired habit of initiating eye contact throughout this).  I felt like, even if we were holding eye contact, the look on my face told them “don’t judge me so quickly – I know something that you don’t”.  Whether or not they actually felt this way, I have no idea, but that is never the point when we’re talking about our own psychology.

General Rule #2: When talking about your own psychology, it doesn’t matter what other people think.  All that matters is what you think.

The next thing that I noticed was that while I was initially forcing myself to hold a certain look on my face, over time, I really started to feel more bemusement.  The organic process started to take over, and my body started to take the natural cue that my face was giving it.  I knew something that my friend-in-eye-contact didn’t know!

This last point was very intriguing.  I had read most of Malcolm Gladwell’s books last summer (interesting books, but should be taken with a grain of salt), and one of the things he’d mentioned in Blink (I think it was Blink) was a story about two academics doing research into the many expressions that a human’s face can show.  Most specifically, the academics noticed that on the days where they were both taking turns practicing the unhappy facial expressions, they went home feeling awful.  After realizing that they both were feeling this way, the conclusion appeared obvious.  To some extent, your physiology can influence your psychology (and I’m sure it doesn’t require too much of a stretch of your imagination to imagine times where the reverse has been true).

General Rule #3: Be aware of the look on your face, and the attitude that your body language is projecting.  It affects more than you realize.

The last thing I noticed was my favourite.  With my new baseline having become the hint of a smile, my face was naturally closer to becoming a smile than it had been in the past.  As a kid, my dad had gotten me a book called “How To Make Anyone Fall in Love With You”.  ”It’s a good book!” he said, as I joked about it.  The gift was an interesting one, as I was dating a girl at the time (no longer though, obviously), and it’s kind of a weird gift to get from your Dad.  But, it was heartfelt, and he was right about the book – it was good.

The author spent a good deal talking about the power of eye-contact and smiling at strangers, and how simply knowing someone else is interested in you increases your own likelihood of finding them attractive.  Think back to the recent past.  You can probably remember times where you found out someone thought you were attractive and your own feelings were elevated for them as a result.

Walking around as a young, hormone-packed man, I couldn’t figure out how to smile at someone without it seeming like a huge leap.  I have a fairly animated face, and a pretty big open-mouthed smile (I’ve been described in the past as “Hey, you’ve got a lot of teeth”) – it’s a big leap to go from plain-faced to maximum smile.

When walking by people, I have tried to make eye-contact and smile at them, but it felt awkward and forced.  This time, none of that was the case.  With a bemused look on my face, I was already half-way toward smiling.  The natural progression if I caught someone’s eyes was for my smile to widen.

I loved this!  Finally I felt comfortable smiling at people that I didn’t know!  This ability to directly engage people and to smile at them if we sustain eye contact may read trite, but the concept is a very powerful one.  For one, I simply felt better.  –But why?  I suppose that part of it is simply feeling good to not feel the need to furtively shift my glance when I make eye-contact with someone.  (Don’t want them to think I’m staring at them!)

“Got a staring problem?!” – that was a cry I heard frequently as a kid when I had accidentally caught the glance of someone more cocksure and secure than I.  But now, I no longer wanted to pretend that I wasn’t looking at people – I actually found myself wanting them to know that I was looking at them.  If they did realize that I looking at them, I was comfortable holding my gaze, and even sharing a smile with them if they were willing to go that far with me.  If not, then I simply returned to my half-smile, and carried on.

With my default closer to a smile than my old deadpan expression, a smile that was not returned also felt less awkward.  Instead of my own perception being that I had been shut down, I felt like people that saw me smile at them but didn’t return it had a thought process that went something like “Did that guy just smile at me?  I don’t think so… he’s kind of half-smiling now..  Did he smile at me?  Does he know something that I don’t know?  Why is he smiling at me?  I’m intrigued!”.

Being the person that is willing to fully engage someone gives you an odd sense of humble confidence.  The connection that I am seeking to share with someone isn’t a challenge – it’s an invitation.  I’m extending a part of myself to you as we walk by each other and offering the opportunity to share in something brief together.  If that stranger is not willing to engage, then that is their, but I walk away from the encounter knowing that I put myself out there.  I exposed a small part of my self, and came back from it just fine.  Every time you successfully do this, you’ll find that you come back a little bit stronger, a little bit humbled, and a little bit better prepared to try it again.

What really underlies the way I was feeling is the most important thing to take away from this.  By putting more of myself out there, I was more likely to have that positivity come back.  Projecting a warm positive attitude does not have some magic power over people that makes them return the same.  But it does have a psychological power to it.  When you’re presented with warmth, you find yourself much more inclined to return that warmth.  When you see someone willingly exposing a bit of vulnerability, you find yourself a little more willing to do the same.

General Rule #4: The more of yourself you’re willing to put out into the world, the more you’ll receive back from it.  The person that risks nothing ends up losing everything.

And so that’s where things currently sit.  As far as the terms I set for myself, my experiment continues until the end of the term, but it has already been a success, and now that I’ve opened a gate to engage with people, I have no desire to close it.  Sharing yourself with people, in whatever quantity you can make available, is a wonderful feeling.

The Summary

I made things easy this time.  Here are the four general lessons or rules to take away from my experiment:

• General Rule #1: If you’re trying to change a habit or take on something new, keep the terms of your goal as simple as possible, while still remaining true to the aim of achieving that goal.
• General Rule #2: When talking about your own psychology, it doesn’t matter what other people think.  All that matters is what you think.
• General Rule #3: Be aware of the look on your face, and the attitude that your body language is projecting.  It affects more than you realize.
• General Rule #4: The more of yourself you’re willing to put out into the world, the more you’ll receive back from it.  The person that risks nothing ends up losing everything.

Share/Bookmark

Closet provided by my ever-gracious hosts, Brendan and Willough.

Share/Bookmark