Category Archives: The Ones Where I Try To Give Advice

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4 Thoughts on Groups

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Today, for seemingly unapparent reasons, one of my psychology professors broke us up into random groups. I haven’t been in a random group since high school. Here are some thoughts I had about groups:

1. Groups need a purpose. When you break people up into a group, they expect you to give them things to do. That task can be as simple as “get to know each other,” but there has to be one. Otherwise, it is quite possible the individuals of the group will sit in total and utter silence.

2. Determining a group leader is tricky. I am one of those people who likes leadership to be thrust on me. I dislike seeking it out for myself. The former technique appeals to my ego. Other people get to tell me how great of a leader I am and why I am important to a group or organization. I naturally assume that everyone prefers leadership to be thrust upon them. I also naturally assume that without knowing me, random strangers will see the great halo of leadership that emanates from my radiant body and will beg me to take the group leader position. Because leading things grows tiresome, sometimes I swiftly lead the hand of fate in another direction and thrust the leadership role onto someone else. Also, this allows me the chance to lie to myself and say that I want more people to have the chance to lead things. I did that today and then realized how much of a jerk move that is. All of a sudden I’ve become that guy – the group leader has reason to dislike me because I gave him more responsibility and everyone else is a little off-put by the fact that I chose the leader. Not very diplomatic. And just so you know, while this paragraph reads as over-the-top, these thoughts literally went through my mind.

3. There is always a Negative Nelly. Negative Nelly’s happen. I try not to be one. Sometimes, I try to combat Negative Nelly’s with humor. I do this by re-spinning negative thoughts into positive ones. This isn’t always effective, but it’s helpful and provides a fun past time.

4. You will never be part of the cool group. You know the one. Somehow, all of the frat guys have congregated to one corner of the room and all get put into the same group. Their group is cracking jokes within a minute of introducing themselves. You are never part of that group mostly because of the “grass is always greener” phenomenon. Believe it or not, the people in the cool group are probably envious of the group that has it all together or the group with the strong, clear leader. There’s no point in trying to be the “cool group.” Just do what you do and do it. If your group is the joke-cracking group, be the joke-cracking group, but don’t force it.

Even though I kind of dislike being assigned a random group, I’m actually kind of excited by the prospect. It’s not very often that you are forced to interact with complete strangers and build a relationship from it. It’s invigorating.

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Grateful for New Clothes

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I got a bunch of new clothes over my break. Over the past year or so, I’ve been trying to adult-ify my wardrobe (do adults make up words?!). Simple colors, no text, adult clothes.

New clothes are pretty awesome. I wore all new clothes today, and I looked pretty spiffy.

Sometimes, though, I feel like a stranger when I wear new clothes. Sometimes,it feels like I’m wearing a costume. And with that comes a bunch of weird implications.

New clothes make me feel like I am living a different life.

New clothes make me embarrassed.

New clothes make me feel naked.

In short, new clothes make me feel like I’m not myself.

I wrote a post a couple of weeks ago about the “Thank You” Game. I got some negative criticism on that one. People said that it was insincere. I think there might be some truth in that. I didn’t do a very good job explaining.

What I was trying to say was that sometimes being grateful for something doesn’t feel right. It feels awkward and strange and the words “thank you” don’t seem to fit in our mouth. And we think that means something important so we don’t verbalize our gratitude.

The point is that you and I aren’t perfect. We aren’t going to be able to identify every opportunity to be grateful so just because showing gratitude feels foreign to us doesn’t mean we should not show gratitude.

Just because new clothes feel awkward at first doesn’t mean we should never wear new clothes.

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Let’s Have Words, Friends

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I have a new theory. I think it might solve all of the world’s problems. I think if everyone in the world played Words with Friends, we would all be a lot better off.

There are two major ways I came to this theory:

1. Sometimes, I have a heated discussion with someone, and then after our discussion, I have to figure out how to get ahead of him/her in our Words with Friends game. This is incredibly therapeutic. The thing about friends, acquaintances, and strangers is that we don’t have a built in mechanism to love them.

In my immediate family, that mechanism is the dinner table. If we are having a disagreement, we typically have to put it aside for an hour or so while we break bread together. When a family member refuses to come to the table, that’s the cue to the rest of the family that something is really wrong and needs to be righted. It’s a system.

In the non-family world, we don’t have to put our differences aside often enough. We get to pick our friends, our romantic partners, the strangers we are hanging out with at the bar. But invariably, differences arise, even among the people we’ve picked. And then, we find a new group. We move on.

That’s not really sustainable. We can’t do that forever. At some point, we have to decide that a friend is worth having, differences and all. And Words with Friends then serves as our dinner table. I might get in a fight with my friend, but several hours, I will check my Words with Friends game, see my game with her, make my move, and smile a little. It’s a reminder we are still friends.

2. Sometimes I kind of feel like all of the world’s arguments are just an exaggerated game of Words with Friends. I mean, if you look at the news, and see what people are actually upset about, what they argue over, what they fight wars over, it’s never really as dramatic as those kinds of actions should imply. I think it’d be cool if all the world leaders played Words with Friends with each other. Would they fight about that? Probably. But no nation or military would support a leader who was going to war over Words with Friends. Just sayin’.