Quiet! I'm talking about others.

I wanted to let you all know that even if my posts might sound too serious, it does not mean that I am an angry bore. I have fun with friends, helping them, joking about life's foibles. We occasionally talk and go on about life over wine. What I write about is my take on life and to have a good intention to be a better and happier person. There is still a funny bone contained in my body, and I even pulled it out to enable me to heal faster ...laughing at myself.

My next thought is about the very American way of talking about others to paint a funny picture. This enables us to feel better about our self. We are each are different people, so how could we ever compare? Each person has a unique history and family, full of odd characters and small tragedies. So then why do we feel so bad about our self, why do we even bother with poor self-image? Perhaps because of advertising, or peer pressure or just ennui. I am very guilty of this, and while recently hearing friends or family talking like this made me want to be more aware. It does not make one more interesting to talk of others, instead it almost better to talk of ideas and passions. So changing this, will help me to become a more interesting and less sarcastic person. As a son of a sarcastic father this will take some doing.

Prisoner of Sorts

Sometimes you got to do the things that you don’t like. An early morning meeting with a client, just to let them babble on about their own life enabling them to get used to me. Walked away 2 1/2 hours later, and not a penny richer but was able to get under their skin. So I know they will call me when it is time to get started. I have to play games, never give out my phone number, and communicate by emails. I learned the hard way, when new people hear my voice, they immediately think “Quasimodo”. They ever say, “Thanks, but no thanks” or pretend they have a wrong number. Figuring two can play that game. Upon meeting me and thus feeling better, they joke, “So, that is why no phone number!” If I laugh with them, and they think they are so smart. Best of all, I am calm enough to work around other people’s fears and not fight them. Happy that when I left we felt like old friends after talking about other things than what they needed. I know it is important to give them a little bit of your life beyond work so that they feel connected. Came home a little tired, because speaking to new people for that long wears me out. I wanted to nap, but went directly to the computer to forward my other good clients emails to them.
Then I left to enjoy the sun, by going to the park to meditate. Full of kids, and happy noise yet I was still able to go inside myself for 40 minutes. Upon returning home I got tangled up in figuring how to use a new program to protect my photos. Finally, and again calmly eliminating bad results over a four hours time period, that any sane person would spend outdoors. I put fun on the backburner, just make me feel ok about providing my own photos on the blog.