Great article. I always enjoy your columns. You say what I’m thinking! So go the kind and generous Facebook comments from friends after I posted a recent column to my homepage. They are the type of comments that make you hope you are half as good as your friends think you are. I’m appreciating the encouragement until I follow a link where someone reposted my article and there it is- a critical comment.
Let me just say, I do this for fun. I do it for the enjoyment of the written word. And I do it to get all of these thoughts out of my head so I have room for more. I’m hardly a professional, so I’m not hardened to being judged about the quality of my work. Worse, this comment from a total stranger wasn’t about the quality of my work at all – it was about me, personally. Suffice to say it stung enough to erase every positive word that had come before or would ever come after. I call it the mysterious power of the “One Bad”.
You all know what I mean by the One Bad. It can apply to any instance where we are flooded with flowing affirmations, until we hit the brick wall that is the One Bad, making us second guess everything. Leading me to wonder why one critical voice, even if spoken in a whisper, is heard so much louder than hundreds of encouraging words.
I’m running the Boston marathon! Again? When are you going to stop? I lost 5 pounds! You are way too skinny. I got a promotion! I thought your company was going out of business. I’m going to write a book! Everyone thinks they can write a book.
Even when we know we can’t possibly please everyone we still try. Especially at work, where we are forced into a caustic camaraderie with people we would never normally spend the bulk of our lives with. While we can sometimes make lifelong friends in the process, there’s always at least One Bad. My One Bad came in the form of an anonymous note left on my desk a few years back that went something like this “Everyone thinks you play favorites”. Even knowing immediately whom the note was from and why he left it (it had to do with my displeasure at his taping dead flies to his computer terminal), it still bugged me. Why did he have to use the word EVERYONE? The friendly interrogations that followed brought disbelief and confirmation that the source was as suspected and speaking only for him, but it still stung.
While you expect to not have happy customers in the business world, even the volunteer world is not immune. As I basked in the glow of the finest event I had ever had the pleasure of volunteering on, raising nearly a quarter of a million dollars for a beloved charity, the comment I remember is “So-and-so (name withheld to protect the mean) said they heard it was a disaster and no one came”, making me 2nd guess the success that seemed so obvious, and causing me to wonder if this was Two Bad - as in ‘so-and-so’ plus the person who made sure I heard the hurtful comment- or a thinly disguised One Bad, where the person implying that others are saying bad things is the true source of discontent.
Lately it seems the One Bad is a daily occurrence. In my excitement about an upcoming trip, I ask everyone about my intended destination, even though the odds are that the more I ask, the closer I’ll get to the One Bad, which sounded something like this: “Watch out for the dog filth everywhere”. Great, thanks!
And as I go online to look up the address of a local restaurant that got great reviews, someone had attached a photo of cockroaches to the posting board that unfortunately did what it was intended to do. It made me second guess the pages of rave reviews and eat once again at my tried and true spot.
The worst thing about the One Bad, is that it is so darn effective. One person’s negativity can drop our spirits like an elevator on the way to the penthouse that suddenly plunges to the basement. And if you look closely, you’ll see the One Bad is overjoyed to watch your pride and happiness drain to pain, happy to see you as miserable as they are- at least for that moment.
The truth is, we probably aren’t as great as our friends think we are, but we are not as bad as the One Bad would have us believe either. And if following my lifetime dream to write makes me vulnerable to criticism from others, in the long run its all good- even the One Bad.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Life in Perspective
We’ve all been there at one time or another, listening sympathetically as someone complains about his or her ‘day from hell’. And at the same time that we feel compassion, we can’t silence the little voice in the back of our head that whispers ‘I’ve had a lot worse days than that’. We don’t do it to be insensitive, or to belittle their misery. We do it because we are human, and our memory bank is the essence of who we are. Forming a personal perspective is a lifetime process that begins at birth and continuously evolves as we add new experiences to our repertoire.
There is nothing more genuine than a young child’s pure perspective of life - joyous and full of wonder, as everything is experienced for the first time. But as we age we interact differently with the world around us, and our perspective of the same things can change, often tarnishing those shiny silver memories.
Back when I was a kid and Revere Beach still had rides, I was awestruck by the Boston skyline as seen from the top of the Mickey Mouse roller coaster. It beckoned like the Emerald City, sparking and bright, full of opportunity and unknown riches. But after commuting to Boston for over 20 years, I’ve peeked behind the curtain and realize it’s not as glorious when you are one of the hard working munchkins trying to keep the gears in motion.
Several years ago I begged a friend to visit the Polar Caves in New Hampshire with me. My recollection was of cavernous hollows big enough to go spelunking in if you were so inclined. But 30 years later, as I struggled to fit through the tight chasms- even taking the ‘old fart’ walkway around one particularly tight fit- I almost wished I hadn’t tarnished my magical childhood memory by trying to relive the experience as my super-sized senior self.
In the perspective of a young life, school and friendships are such a huge part of our daily existence that any type of social rejection can be crushing. It’s a pain parents feel helpless to relieve, even if we lived through similar struggles. Thinking back to the years I was teased and harassed, no one could convince me that things would ever get better. In perspective, those struggles made me more determined to succeed in life, but could have easily broken me as well.
That's the thing with perspective- you have to earn it yourself, usually the hard way. You have to live long enough to be able to turn around and compare where you've been with where you are today to fully realize what it took to get here. Often, decisions made when we are too young to understand their full implications can change the direction of our lives forever.
Perspective is not a clear-cut proposition, as shared experiences can change us in different ways. For some, the life changing news of death or illness shakes us to the core, causing us to find a renewed purpose and appreciation of life. But for others, bad news begins a spiral of negativity where only the sadness and tragedy of life is highlighted, like Pooh’s chronically depressed friend, Eeyore. Which leads me to wonder if it is our experiences in life, or how we respond to them, that truly shape who we become.
I’m pondering that thought while waiting in line to buy a coffee on yet another stormy morning, when an exasperated child, covered in snow and wearing boots that appear to be two sizes too large, bursts through the door with his mother and exclaims to everyone “This is the best winter ever!” which of course brings the house down with laughter. “That depends on your perspective” I said, with a hint of sadness at the memory of myself as that same child, my wonder now turned to weariness at the thought of the long road that lies ahead.
There is nothing more genuine than a young child’s pure perspective of life - joyous and full of wonder, as everything is experienced for the first time. But as we age we interact differently with the world around us, and our perspective of the same things can change, often tarnishing those shiny silver memories.
Back when I was a kid and Revere Beach still had rides, I was awestruck by the Boston skyline as seen from the top of the Mickey Mouse roller coaster. It beckoned like the Emerald City, sparking and bright, full of opportunity and unknown riches. But after commuting to Boston for over 20 years, I’ve peeked behind the curtain and realize it’s not as glorious when you are one of the hard working munchkins trying to keep the gears in motion.
Several years ago I begged a friend to visit the Polar Caves in New Hampshire with me. My recollection was of cavernous hollows big enough to go spelunking in if you were so inclined. But 30 years later, as I struggled to fit through the tight chasms- even taking the ‘old fart’ walkway around one particularly tight fit- I almost wished I hadn’t tarnished my magical childhood memory by trying to relive the experience as my super-sized senior self.
In the perspective of a young life, school and friendships are such a huge part of our daily existence that any type of social rejection can be crushing. It’s a pain parents feel helpless to relieve, even if we lived through similar struggles. Thinking back to the years I was teased and harassed, no one could convince me that things would ever get better. In perspective, those struggles made me more determined to succeed in life, but could have easily broken me as well.
That's the thing with perspective- you have to earn it yourself, usually the hard way. You have to live long enough to be able to turn around and compare where you've been with where you are today to fully realize what it took to get here. Often, decisions made when we are too young to understand their full implications can change the direction of our lives forever.
Perspective is not a clear-cut proposition, as shared experiences can change us in different ways. For some, the life changing news of death or illness shakes us to the core, causing us to find a renewed purpose and appreciation of life. But for others, bad news begins a spiral of negativity where only the sadness and tragedy of life is highlighted, like Pooh’s chronically depressed friend, Eeyore. Which leads me to wonder if it is our experiences in life, or how we respond to them, that truly shape who we become.
I’m pondering that thought while waiting in line to buy a coffee on yet another stormy morning, when an exasperated child, covered in snow and wearing boots that appear to be two sizes too large, bursts through the door with his mother and exclaims to everyone “This is the best winter ever!” which of course brings the house down with laughter. “That depends on your perspective” I said, with a hint of sadness at the memory of myself as that same child, my wonder now turned to weariness at the thought of the long road that lies ahead.
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