Category Archives: The Ones Where I Try To Give Advice

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The “Thank You” Game

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I made up a game the other day.

It’s a fun game because you get to play it in secret all the time. It’s like a more discreet version of Words with Friends.

Here’s some background:

Sometimes you do something where you are the obvious person who should be thanked – you volunteer, you give a gift, you listen to someone, you donate to a charity. Personally, I do this thing, when I do something like that, where I wait in expectation of the “thank you.” I get bummed out when it doesn’t come, and then I get all frustrated with the whole business and assume I’m not appreciated.

So.

To stop myself from doing this, I invented a game. I haven’t had a lot of opportunities to use it, yet. But basically it goes like this. When I do something that most people would thank me for, I rush to thank them. If I volunteer, I thank the organization or people in question for letting me volunteer and spend time with them. When someone spills their guts to me and needs advice, I’m going to thank them for sharing. And so on and so on.

I started thinking about what the consequences to the “thank you” game would be – if everyone was trying to rush to thank everyone else. And it just seemed like a really really cool world to live in. Feel free to play yourselves!

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Power Places

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Everyone has a power place. A power place is a place where you get stuff done, where you are supremely productive, where the world seems safe, and it feels like you can’t fail.

My power place is bookstores. Any bookstore, really, as long as they have wifi and a coffee shop. Here are some qualities of good power places:

1) Memories. I don’t drink coffee, but I love the smell. My parents don’t drink coffee so my first associations with the smell were having important conversations with dates or friends and finishing that eight-page paper. I think that’s partly what goes into making a successful power place: it has memories that are productive. All of my substantial memories of books/coffee are of me being responsible, friendly, hard-working; in short, all of the things that I want to be.

2) Things you love. When I am in a place with books, I feel an immediate commune with the world. I love books. I love the written word. I love other people who love books. It’s easy for me to be in a good mood when I am around so many things that I love.

3) It’s yours. When I came to college for the first time, one of the first pieces of advice anyone gave me was that I needed to find my own special place to study. I didn’t understand at the time. There are plenty of places to study: study rooms, libraries, your room, etc. But that’s not what that advice is about. It’s about owning a place, feeling at home there, and having it feel special. It’s kind of like choosing a church. A lot of times, there really isn’t a correct answer. It’s about finding a place that speaks to you.

Where’s your power place?

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When Getting Better Isn’t About Competition

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It makes me really mad when people are better at things at which I consider myself skilled. There is a myth out there (or, you know, a lie the world tells us. I get tired of saying it this way.) that says that everything everywhere at all times is a competition.

In this line of thinking, anyone who succeeds in something more than me is succeeding to my disadvantage. They are doing awesome things, and thus, I cannot. I don’t tend to care in things I don’t like. It doesn’t bother me that Kanye West is nominated for a bunch of Grammys. I don’t make music. He can step on me to get ahead in music all he wants. But if Kanye was my peer in school (which, by the way, would be pretty cool), you better believe that every time he got a better grade or a higher position in an organization, I would grow more annoyed and angry at him.

I don’t like that I am this way. There are a lot of people who aren’t. I was hanging out with a man while he did his job today. And he was so excited. A lot of his excitement came from the fact that his coworkers were some of the best in his field. That didn’t discourage him or make him jealous; it made him hungry for knowledge. Instead of being disappointed with his own achievements, he was trying to figure out how to use his peers’ deeper knowledge to better himself.

I liked that.