Tag Archives: relationships

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Important Timelines

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Excuse the absence the past couple of days. I have been recovering from the culture shock that is that introduction of Facebook Timeline. I have been waiting for Timeline since some time in October when Zuckerburg and the team first announced it. I have always been team Facebook. Even when I opened a google+ account, I did it begrudgingly. But over the past couple of months I have been happy to see Facebook keep its mass public appeal while making additions that seem to be mostly cluttering and superfluous.

But then, several days ago, Timeline went live to all users. And I have never been more excited to log on. I switched immediately and made my new profile public without even thinking of the consequences.

You see, the whole shtick behind Timeline is that it is meant to show your entire life through pictures, interactions with friends, and events. Sounds cool. Isn’t cool.

As I started scrolling through my 2007 and my 2008, I realized that I really didn’t want all 700 something of my closest friends to be able to see all of my triumphs and failures and friend interactions from almost half a decade ago. Now, in winter of 2011, I treat all of my online interaction as if I were on a street corner shouting. I never say anything that I wouldn’t want everyone to know. But back then, I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking that Facebook was a gateway that would help me better communicate with my friends. Of course, that was entirely misguided.

The joke on my Facebook news feed as people began to change to Timeline was that we were all about to get a lot closer. But I don’t think my friends will get a better idea of who I am by understanding the person I displayed myself as sophomore year of high school.

From time to time, I talk about sincerity and making meaningful connections with people. I stand by all of that. But I also think that we decide what about ourselves is going to be meaningful. The reason it’s okay that I hid all my Facebook posts from January 2007 to August 2011 is that those posts aren’t necessary information about me. You don’t have to know those things to know me.

I think we often get caught up in our “important” narratives. I have a nasty habit of telling new romantic interests my dating history within the first couple of weeks of dating. I do it because somewhere down the road I decided that my romantic history was an important narrative – that it defined me. But, you know, it really doesn’t. And neither does my Facebook news feed.

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The Goal is Sustainable

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I was chatting with a friend about goals and their helpfulness. Mostly because of a post from ZenHabits this week. The post basically said that life without goals can lead to a life full of content. It was a good post, but I have a major complaint with it: I don’t think it is sustainable.

Being happy and stress-free is great! I like truly lazy Sundays as much as the next person – you know, the ones where you actually have nothing to do. But there is also a way that being under stress excites me and meeting goals energizes me that is even better than feeling laid-back.

And the thing is that stress helps us survive. Not, of course, the stress that puts rocks in your stomach and makes you yell at people like you are like Alec Baldwin being told to turn off your Words with Friends game, but the stress that motivates you to get out of bed each day to find something to eat and then go to the bathroom and then find a sexual partner. Goals help us manage that stress.

And goals might be something you can get rid of if your one dream is to write a book. After all, who really cares when your book gets finished? But how many of us would want President Obama to give up goals? I want my leaders to have articulated initiatives. It is true that not all of us will be president, but many of us will be parents, leaders, CEOs, teachers, or managers. How can you lead others when they don’t know what you expect of them? I don’t think you can. And goals are the way we communicate expectations and hopes and dreams to others.

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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!