I finally got around to taking down my Christmas decorations today. I have to admit, this year I was quite the minimalist; I only hung up a wreath and my Christmas cards, so needless to say the “take-down” took all of five minutes.
I like to read my Christmas cards as I take them down and remind myself of who sent them and how nice it was of the person to think of me during the holiday season in the first place. (And yes, there’s always that twinge of guilt for the person who sent me a card and I forgot to reciprocate—oops, maybe next year, well, that’s what I keep telling myself anyway.)
So I’m flipping through my Christmas cards and there he was: A Black Santa.
Yup, a black jolly old Saint Nick smiling up at me and wishing me a “Very Merry Christmas!”
I stopped and shook my head. Why hadn’t I noticed that I had a black Santa hanging up in my living room for the past month?
I was trying to think back to when I opened the card. Did I, in fact, notice that the traditional image of Santa got … umm… much, much … darker?
I usually have a lot of people over and I know many of them read my Christmas cards. Did they notice? No one said anything to me about the black Santa hanging up in my living room.
Then I thought to myself: Is that a good … or a bad thing?
If I didn’t notice, does that make me a racist? Or am I just color blind?
It’s a hard question to answer. All I know is that “life” or the “universe” (or whatever you want to call it) has a not-so-subtle way of making you take a moment to stop and reflect. Maybe it’s not so ironic that I stopped to stare at my little black Santa on this Martin Luther King Day and be forced to reflect on my own racial awareness.
Today, let’s all take a moment to remember how far this country has come in the historic fight for racial equality and acknowledge all the work that still needs to be done.
I also want to thank the couple who sent me my little black Saint Nick...I’m going to keep him up all year long!
Monday, January 18, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Where Do You Go When There's Nothing Left?
It’s hard to wrap my head around the devastation in Haiti. The gruesome videos … the heart breaking images … the overwhelming personal loss.
I simply can’t wrap my head around it and I know I’m not alone. A good friend of mine today posted that one of her patients is missing not 1… not 2… not 3 … but 11 family members in the rubble. Imagine wondering what’s its like not to know if 11 of your family members are alive… or not.
How do you even start to survive something like this? There are no roads, no running water, no electricity, no shelter.
Where do you go when there’s simply nothing left?
The numbers are just absolutely staggering to me. Seven point zero on the Richter scale. Rising death toll climbing upwards of 100,000 people. Think about that: More than 100,000 people. To put this in perspective: The deadliest earthquake in the United States was in San Francisco in 1906. The death toll at that time was close to 3,000 people. My hometown of Rockville, MD (a relatively large suburb outside of Washington, D.C.) has an approximate 67,000 people. In a little more than 4 seconds, Haiti lost more than 100,000 of its country men and women. In a little more than 4 seconds, my entire town (and then some) would no longer exist.
I then thought to myself, “What would happen in this country if we were hit by an earthquake or other natural disaster of this magnitude?”
So I started looking up some stats. The largest natural disaster in the United States was Hurricane Katrina in back in August, 2005. Preliminary damage estimates were well in excess of $100 billion. Reported death toll: 1,863 (not to belittle the loss of 1,863 people… but that’s a little more than 1% of the total death toll in Haiti). It took us years to recover from the devastation of Katrina. Honestly, I think that some of the worst hit parts of New Orleans and rural parts of Mississippi will never be rebuilt. You can easily find reports of empty lots and empty FEMA trailers doting the landscape close to 5 years later.
If an earthquake of this magnitude were to hit LA, New York or DC and we lost more than 100,000 Americans, would we ever be able to recover? Could you go days, weeks or even months without electricity, running water or not knowing if 11 of your relatives survived?
It’s hard to wrap my mind around it. I suppose all we can do is hope, pray and donate whatever we can. Please visit the American Red Cross today--because one day, it could us and I won't have to try to wrap my head around the devastation from the comfort of my living room...that is, if I survived.
I simply can’t wrap my head around it and I know I’m not alone. A good friend of mine today posted that one of her patients is missing not 1… not 2… not 3 … but 11 family members in the rubble. Imagine wondering what’s its like not to know if 11 of your family members are alive… or not.
How do you even start to survive something like this? There are no roads, no running water, no electricity, no shelter.
Where do you go when there’s simply nothing left?
The numbers are just absolutely staggering to me. Seven point zero on the Richter scale. Rising death toll climbing upwards of 100,000 people. Think about that: More than 100,000 people. To put this in perspective: The deadliest earthquake in the United States was in San Francisco in 1906. The death toll at that time was close to 3,000 people. My hometown of Rockville, MD (a relatively large suburb outside of Washington, D.C.) has an approximate 67,000 people. In a little more than 4 seconds, Haiti lost more than 100,000 of its country men and women. In a little more than 4 seconds, my entire town (and then some) would no longer exist.
I then thought to myself, “What would happen in this country if we were hit by an earthquake or other natural disaster of this magnitude?”
So I started looking up some stats. The largest natural disaster in the United States was Hurricane Katrina in back in August, 2005. Preliminary damage estimates were well in excess of $100 billion. Reported death toll: 1,863 (not to belittle the loss of 1,863 people… but that’s a little more than 1% of the total death toll in Haiti). It took us years to recover from the devastation of Katrina. Honestly, I think that some of the worst hit parts of New Orleans and rural parts of Mississippi will never be rebuilt. You can easily find reports of empty lots and empty FEMA trailers doting the landscape close to 5 years later.
If an earthquake of this magnitude were to hit LA, New York or DC and we lost more than 100,000 Americans, would we ever be able to recover? Could you go days, weeks or even months without electricity, running water or not knowing if 11 of your relatives survived?
It’s hard to wrap my mind around it. I suppose all we can do is hope, pray and donate whatever we can. Please visit the American Red Cross today--because one day, it could us and I won't have to try to wrap my head around the devastation from the comfort of my living room...that is, if I survived.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Could I Delete My "So-Called" Online Life?
NPR posted an article this weekend entitled: “Web 2.0 Suicide Machine: Erase Your Virtual Life” which caught my eye.
The article talks to the founders of suicidemachine.org—a group of artists, designers and programmers based out of the Netherlands (of course…) who want to help people destroy their social networking accounts. The organization claims that social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Linkedin exist primarily to make users think that they are missing out on something (like a life for instance).
And I quote, “[Sites like these] make you more stupid.”
Hmmm. More stupid?
The article goes on to state: “Bye-bye former friends and followers. So long profile pictures and passwords. Hello real life 2.0.”As I read the article I thought to myself, could I do it? Could I erase my online footprint and happily enter a life of social network solitude?”
No FaceBook... no Twitter... no Digg?
And what was I supposed to do all day long?
I’d be forced to revert back to the same person I was more than a year and a half ago when I had to be shamed into creating a Facebook account.
Yes, I was “shamed” into it.
The story goes like this: I was having lunch with a good friend one afternoon when I rolled my eyes at her as she talked about an old college friend she had reconnected with on Facebook. She caught the unintended eye roll and proceeded to tell me that even her 85-year old grandmother has a profile on Facebook.
And there it was.
Even her 85-year old grandmother had a profile. The woman apparently had more online street cred than I did! I started to feel left out, left behind, and dare I say, embarrassed that I didn’t have a Facebook profile.
The shame became palpable. That afternoon I went straight home and here I am. I’ll admit it, I like Facebook. I like to see what everyone is doing, thinking, and talking about. I partake in my fair share of quizzes to make sure that my parents named me correctly, or to prove that my hunch was right: I was Cleopatra in a former life! Half the time, I get my news from Facebook. Remember Balloon Boy? I had no idea what was going on until everyone started posting about it!
Needless to say, Facebook has become an integral part of my “so-called” online life. But the question still remains: Has it improved my life? Or do I actually need to get one?
To read more, visit “Web 2.0 Suicide Machine: Erase Your Virtual Life” on NPR's website.
The article talks to the founders of suicidemachine.org—a group of artists, designers and programmers based out of the Netherlands (of course…) who want to help people destroy their social networking accounts. The organization claims that social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Linkedin exist primarily to make users think that they are missing out on something (like a life for instance).
And I quote, “[Sites like these] make you more stupid.”
Hmmm. More stupid?
The article goes on to state: “Bye-bye former friends and followers. So long profile pictures and passwords. Hello real life 2.0.”As I read the article I thought to myself, could I do it? Could I erase my online footprint and happily enter a life of social network solitude?”
No FaceBook... no Twitter... no Digg?
And what was I supposed to do all day long?
I’d be forced to revert back to the same person I was more than a year and a half ago when I had to be shamed into creating a Facebook account.
Yes, I was “shamed” into it.
The story goes like this: I was having lunch with a good friend one afternoon when I rolled my eyes at her as she talked about an old college friend she had reconnected with on Facebook. She caught the unintended eye roll and proceeded to tell me that even her 85-year old grandmother has a profile on Facebook.
And there it was.
Even her 85-year old grandmother had a profile. The woman apparently had more online street cred than I did! I started to feel left out, left behind, and dare I say, embarrassed that I didn’t have a Facebook profile.
The shame became palpable. That afternoon I went straight home and here I am. I’ll admit it, I like Facebook. I like to see what everyone is doing, thinking, and talking about. I partake in my fair share of quizzes to make sure that my parents named me correctly, or to prove that my hunch was right: I was Cleopatra in a former life! Half the time, I get my news from Facebook. Remember Balloon Boy? I had no idea what was going on until everyone started posting about it!
Needless to say, Facebook has become an integral part of my “so-called” online life. But the question still remains: Has it improved my life? Or do I actually need to get one?
To read more, visit “Web 2.0 Suicide Machine: Erase Your Virtual Life” on NPR's website.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Embracing the Stone Age
Last night I went out with a friend and we started talking about how our parents are completely technologically inept.
Seriously inept.
Like won’t even attempt to turn on a computer.
Doesn’t even want to touch one.
For all of these years, I thought it was just me and my parents who, stood firmly in what I like to call the stone age: They read the paper. In fact, every morning my father would drive to the store in town for his morning coffee, buy half a dozen doughnuts and the local paper.
Every single morning.
Me, on the other hand, I haven’t read a newspaper since 1996—when I lived at home and would swipe Parade on my way out the door on a Sunday morning—and was only allowed to—after my father had read it. So when my Father retired and started to get hard of hearing (that’s being nice…the man became completely deaf) his dutiful children wanted to bring him up to speed by buying them a small laptop.
You know, for basic communication. To let us know he’s um, still alive??
Now, I don’t claim to be all that technologically savvy—I have my moments where I can’t even figure out how to post something, save something, or in most cases, delete something I’ve written. But technology today has gotten to the point where it is so easy, there comes a time where you just have to bite the bullet and embrace it to make your life easier.
Sounds logical, right? So we thought...
We took my Father to Best Buy to show him laptops with basic, basic, basic email functions so that he could stay in contact with his children living all across the country. Seriously, the computer had one application: email. You click, write in the “white space” (as I have described to him many times) and hit “send.”
That’s all we asked the man to do!
As it turned out, my Father never touched “that thing” by the phone (he dusted it once in awhile, but that was about it).
Now, at this point, my father became really hard of hearing and being his dutiful children, we bought him one of those hearing impaired phones—one that literally shook the house when someone called. In fact, the ring was so obnoxious the dog would get up and bark at it. Unfortunately, on many occasions, my Dad couldn’t get to the phone in time to answer it and we’d have to call back (multiple times) making the dog—and my Father—CRAZED. It was so loud—the neighbors started to complain about the phone and the traumatized dog.
Basic communication with my Father became null and void until one day, he decided he wanted a fax machine.
You heard me right. A fax machine.
He went out and bought himself a fax machine, not realizing that in order to actually communicate with someone, that person also needed to have a fax machine. Take a wild guess what his dutiful children got for Christmas that year? He was so proud of himself that he had solved this "little communication problem" as he called it.
So there we all were…faxing my Dad and trying to stay in contact with him daily up until the day he died.
Seriously, when you talk to your sister on the phone and ask, “Have you faxed Dad today? What’s up with him?” you have officially embraced the stone age.
Needless to say, my Father welcomed us with open arms.
Seriously inept.
Like won’t even attempt to turn on a computer.
Doesn’t even want to touch one.
For all of these years, I thought it was just me and my parents who, stood firmly in what I like to call the stone age: They read the paper. In fact, every morning my father would drive to the store in town for his morning coffee, buy half a dozen doughnuts and the local paper.
Every single morning.
Me, on the other hand, I haven’t read a newspaper since 1996—when I lived at home and would swipe Parade on my way out the door on a Sunday morning—and was only allowed to—after my father had read it. So when my Father retired and started to get hard of hearing (that’s being nice…the man became completely deaf) his dutiful children wanted to bring him up to speed by buying them a small laptop.
You know, for basic communication. To let us know he’s um, still alive??
Now, I don’t claim to be all that technologically savvy—I have my moments where I can’t even figure out how to post something, save something, or in most cases, delete something I’ve written. But technology today has gotten to the point where it is so easy, there comes a time where you just have to bite the bullet and embrace it to make your life easier.
Sounds logical, right? So we thought...
We took my Father to Best Buy to show him laptops with basic, basic, basic email functions so that he could stay in contact with his children living all across the country. Seriously, the computer had one application: email. You click, write in the “white space” (as I have described to him many times) and hit “send.”
That’s all we asked the man to do!
As it turned out, my Father never touched “that thing” by the phone (he dusted it once in awhile, but that was about it).
Now, at this point, my father became really hard of hearing and being his dutiful children, we bought him one of those hearing impaired phones—one that literally shook the house when someone called. In fact, the ring was so obnoxious the dog would get up and bark at it. Unfortunately, on many occasions, my Dad couldn’t get to the phone in time to answer it and we’d have to call back (multiple times) making the dog—and my Father—CRAZED. It was so loud—the neighbors started to complain about the phone and the traumatized dog.
Basic communication with my Father became null and void until one day, he decided he wanted a fax machine.
You heard me right. A fax machine.
He went out and bought himself a fax machine, not realizing that in order to actually communicate with someone, that person also needed to have a fax machine. Take a wild guess what his dutiful children got for Christmas that year? He was so proud of himself that he had solved this "little communication problem" as he called it.
So there we all were…faxing my Dad and trying to stay in contact with him daily up until the day he died.
Seriously, when you talk to your sister on the phone and ask, “Have you faxed Dad today? What’s up with him?” you have officially embraced the stone age.
Needless to say, my Father welcomed us with open arms.
Monday, January 4, 2010
My Sermon from the Mount of Clothes Piled High at Old Navy
One of my resolutions is to go to church more this year. As a lapsed Catholic who thinks she’s as close to sainthood as she’s ever going to get, I figure it’s time to show up to “class” more (so to speak). Needless to say, I usually hate the whole experience. Not the mass—but definitely the people.
Every week, it usually goes like this: I walk in, spirits high, expecting holy redemption for my sins, only to be shoved over in the pew, coughed on my a kid who should’ve stayed home and then forced to endure a rambling sermon by an octogenarian who can passionately recount life in 6 A.D. down to the smallest detail…. because I’m pretty sure he was there.
At this point in the mass, I’m usually more than annoyed than when I first got there and start to gripe all about it to God (the poor guy).
This week it was a little different.
Have you ever sat in an auditorium and felt like the person was speaking directly at you causing you to slide down in your pew (ahem…seat) more? That was me yesterday. We had a new priest who gave a simple sermon all the while staring right at me shoved in the middle of the last pew in the church.
He spoke to three simple points (or maybe I just didn’t remember the rest of the sermon, who knows) but it went more or less like this:
1) Be patient (like I have the time…)
2) Don’t gossip (apparently it dims the light in your soul…oops…didn’t know that.)
3) Don’t buy what you don’t need (ouch!)
At this point, I really wanted to sneak out of the back of the church but was encased in the middle of the pew with no way out. Damn it!
So what do I do after the final “Peace Be with You” is shared? Embrace my ADD and hit up Target and Old Navy on my way home.
And this is where it got interesting.
As I walked into Old Navy, I was awe struck by the copious amounts of colorful hoodies, sweat shop t-shirts, and mismatched sweats thrown in heaps on the floor which were now overflowing into the aisles. The store looked like a consumer tornado had just ripped it apart. It was so bad, I had to take a picture:
I think God was giving me a not-so-subtle hint, don’t you think?
I’m not one to preach, but really, do we all need another $5.00 hoodie? At a time when unemployment is in the double digits and people are losing their homes, is another cheap T-shirt going to make all of us feel better about our lives?
(To be completely honest, the little ADD voice inside my head says “yes!” until the rational side of my brain recognizes that I’ll only shove it in my overflowing closet only to forget about it until I find it months later after never even wearing it.)
As I left the store and ran to my car in the -5 degree weather, it occurred to me that maybe if we all bought a hoodie for the homeless (or more appropriately a coat) we would help clear the clutter in the stores, in our closets and in our own hearts.
So I’m going to put this out there: Next time you see a great sale and can’t wait to buy, buy, buy… remember to buy for those who would actually wear the item every day—not your niece or nephew, son or daughter—but the stranger on the street who could use a brand new hoodie.
Every week, it usually goes like this: I walk in, spirits high, expecting holy redemption for my sins, only to be shoved over in the pew, coughed on my a kid who should’ve stayed home and then forced to endure a rambling sermon by an octogenarian who can passionately recount life in 6 A.D. down to the smallest detail…. because I’m pretty sure he was there.
At this point in the mass, I’m usually more than annoyed than when I first got there and start to gripe all about it to God (the poor guy).
This week it was a little different.
Have you ever sat in an auditorium and felt like the person was speaking directly at you causing you to slide down in your pew (ahem…seat) more? That was me yesterday. We had a new priest who gave a simple sermon all the while staring right at me shoved in the middle of the last pew in the church.
He spoke to three simple points (or maybe I just didn’t remember the rest of the sermon, who knows) but it went more or less like this:
1) Be patient (like I have the time…)
2) Don’t gossip (apparently it dims the light in your soul…oops…didn’t know that.)
3) Don’t buy what you don’t need (ouch!)
At this point, I really wanted to sneak out of the back of the church but was encased in the middle of the pew with no way out. Damn it!
So what do I do after the final “Peace Be with You” is shared? Embrace my ADD and hit up Target and Old Navy on my way home.
And this is where it got interesting.
As I walked into Old Navy, I was awe struck by the copious amounts of colorful hoodies, sweat shop t-shirts, and mismatched sweats thrown in heaps on the floor which were now overflowing into the aisles. The store looked like a consumer tornado had just ripped it apart. It was so bad, I had to take a picture:
I think God was giving me a not-so-subtle hint, don’t you think?
I’m not one to preach, but really, do we all need another $5.00 hoodie? At a time when unemployment is in the double digits and people are losing their homes, is another cheap T-shirt going to make all of us feel better about our lives?
(To be completely honest, the little ADD voice inside my head says “yes!” until the rational side of my brain recognizes that I’ll only shove it in my overflowing closet only to forget about it until I find it months later after never even wearing it.)
As I left the store and ran to my car in the -5 degree weather, it occurred to me that maybe if we all bought a hoodie for the homeless (or more appropriately a coat) we would help clear the clutter in the stores, in our closets and in our own hearts.
So I’m going to put this out there: Next time you see a great sale and can’t wait to buy, buy, buy… remember to buy for those who would actually wear the item every day—not your niece or nephew, son or daughter—but the stranger on the street who could use a brand new hoodie.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Ringing in the New Year Flat on My Back
Happy New Year everyone (not than anyone is really following this blog; to be honest, I haven't really invited anyone to join...yet). I have to say, I couldn't wait to make 2009 a faded, distant memory--my mother's death, my father's death, the economy, my own personal loss of focus, quitting my job...yeah, in my view, 2009 was quite the "bitch."
In fact, I couldn't wait for it to be over. And needless to say, the forces that be (God, Jesus, Mother Nature whatever you want to think of them as...) have a funny--albeit painful--way of making a mere mortal slow down and take a moment to reflect. And that's what I was forced to do as I was returning home to get ready to go out... I just happened to do it flat on my back as I skidded out on ice and found myseld doing a unintentional back flip which landed my head on the cold, hard cement curb.
Yup, I lied there for awhile, counting the stars and thinking that my Karma must really need to be cleansed. As I peeled myself off of the pavement and tried to remember how to skate across ice, I made it to my condo, collapsed on the couch and sat there for more than a moment and counted my blessings:
1) I didn't break my back.
2) The stars (finally) went away.
3) I'm alive--and healthy (wipe out not withstanding).
4) I have wonderful friends.
5) My family is finally starting to heal.
6) (I hate ending lists on odd numbers...so let me tack on another one here...ummm...my dog is awesome.)
I still went out that night (the pain wouldn't set in until today) and while I still think NYE is compleetly over-rated, I realized that I was out with good friends and family that helped me make it through one of the worst years of my life.
So this first post of the 2010 is dedicated to all the people that helped me survive 2009... hopefully when life lands them on their back I'll be there to help them up.
Happy New Year.
In fact, I couldn't wait for it to be over. And needless to say, the forces that be (God, Jesus, Mother Nature whatever you want to think of them as...) have a funny--albeit painful--way of making a mere mortal slow down and take a moment to reflect. And that's what I was forced to do as I was returning home to get ready to go out... I just happened to do it flat on my back as I skidded out on ice and found myseld doing a unintentional back flip which landed my head on the cold, hard cement curb.
Yup, I lied there for awhile, counting the stars and thinking that my Karma must really need to be cleansed. As I peeled myself off of the pavement and tried to remember how to skate across ice, I made it to my condo, collapsed on the couch and sat there for more than a moment and counted my blessings:
1) I didn't break my back.
2) The stars (finally) went away.
3) I'm alive--and healthy (wipe out not withstanding).
4) I have wonderful friends.
5) My family is finally starting to heal.
6) (I hate ending lists on odd numbers...so let me tack on another one here...ummm...my dog is awesome.)
I still went out that night (the pain wouldn't set in until today) and while I still think NYE is compleetly over-rated, I realized that I was out with good friends and family that helped me make it through one of the worst years of my life.
So this first post of the 2010 is dedicated to all the people that helped me survive 2009... hopefully when life lands them on their back I'll be there to help them up.
Happy New Year.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
First and Last Impressions
I've been thinking a lot about first impressions lately. Chalk it up to my personal hiatus. If I hadn't decided to go on a "personal hiatus," I wouldn't have started to interview and subsequently, I would not have given much thought to first impressions.
Today, I went on a job interview. I prepped and I primped, all the while wondering what they would think? Of my personality? Of my resume? Of my ... outfit? The interview went well (I think) but while I was sitting in traffic on my way home, I started to think about first impressions. After all, an interview is all sized up on a first impression and a resume, isn't it?
It started me thinking--in today's media-based, retail infused society, first impressions can make or break an interview, a friendship and even a potential relationship (speed dating for example--you barely get enough time to learn his or her name before the next "date" sits down! But in that moment, you can already tell if you want to see that person again...which is the whole premise of the speed dating circuit...)
But what is the "right" first impression?
Is the goal to fit in? To always look your best? To say and think and do exactly what main stream society dictates at that precise moment in time?
And what happens if, by chance, you don't say the right thing at the right time? Or are maybe shy? Or in my case, tongue tied? What then? Do you only have one chance for a first impression or do you get a re-do?
One of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell, wrote an entire book on first impressions entitled Blink. In fact, he wrote 200-plus pages on the data we humans can gather in just two seconds of meeting someone:
"It's a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions. Well, "Blink" is a book about those two seconds, because I think those instant conclusions that we reach are really powerful and really important and, occasionally, really good."
I read Blink more than two years ago and enjoyed the read. Gladwell's discussion of what he calls "rapid fire cognition" rings true with me. I've always prided myself on my judgements and my first impression of others, call it "intuition" (Gladwell doesn't...in the book he desribes intuition as too overly "emotional" which in my case, maybe true...). Being Malcolm Gladwell, he delves into the psychology of rapid fire cognition and starts by contradicting everything we've been taught in society:
"We live in a society dedicated to the idea that we're always better off gathering as much information and spending as much time as possible in deliberation. As children, this lesson is drummed into us again and again: haste makes waste, look before you leap, stop and think. But I don't think this is true. There are lots of situations--particularly at times of high pressure and stress--when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions offer a much better means of making sense of the world."
Yes, rapid fire cognition can go horribly wrong, which actually is what prompted Gladwell to write the book in the first place:
A few years ago, to grow my hair long. If you look at the author photo on my last book, "The Tipping Point," you'll see that it used to be cut very short and conservatively. But, on a whim, I let it grow wild, as it had been when I was teenager. Immediately, in very small but significant ways, my life changed. I started getting speeding tickets all the time--and I had never gotten any before. I started getting pulled out of airport security lines for special attention. And one day, while walking along 14th Street in downtown Manhattan, a police van pulled up on the sidewalk, and three officers jumped out. They were looking, it turned out, for a rapist, and the rapist, they said, looked a lot like me. They pulled out the sketch and the description. I looked at it, and pointed out to them as nicely as I could that in fact the rapist looked nothing at all like me. He was much taller, and much heavier, and about fifteen years younger (and, I added, in a largely futile attempt at humor, not nearly as good-looking.) All we had in common was a large head of curly hair. After twenty minutes or so, the officers finally agreed with me, and let me go. On a scale of things, I realize this was a trivial misunderstanding. African-Americans in the United State suffer indignities far worse than this all the time. But what struck me was how even more subtle and absurd the stereotyping was in my case: this wasn't about something really obvious like skin color, or age, or height, or weight. It was just about hair. Something about the first impression created by my hair derailed every other consideration in the hunt for the rapist, and the impression formed in those first two seconds exerted a powerful hold over the officers' thinking over the next twenty minutes. That episode on the street got me thinking about the weird power of first impressions.
...I love how he can boil the whole incident down to the...hair! (Which from my perspective, is very true! Hair is the first thing I notice on people). Hopefully I had a good hair day today--and will get a call back for a second interview!
Today, I went on a job interview. I prepped and I primped, all the while wondering what they would think? Of my personality? Of my resume? Of my ... outfit? The interview went well (I think) but while I was sitting in traffic on my way home, I started to think about first impressions. After all, an interview is all sized up on a first impression and a resume, isn't it?
It started me thinking--in today's media-based, retail infused society, first impressions can make or break an interview, a friendship and even a potential relationship (speed dating for example--you barely get enough time to learn his or her name before the next "date" sits down! But in that moment, you can already tell if you want to see that person again...which is the whole premise of the speed dating circuit...)
But what is the "right" first impression?
Is the goal to fit in? To always look your best? To say and think and do exactly what main stream society dictates at that precise moment in time?
And what happens if, by chance, you don't say the right thing at the right time? Or are maybe shy? Or in my case, tongue tied? What then? Do you only have one chance for a first impression or do you get a re-do?
One of my favorite authors, Malcolm Gladwell, wrote an entire book on first impressions entitled Blink. In fact, he wrote 200-plus pages on the data we humans can gather in just two seconds of meeting someone:
"It's a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions. Well, "Blink" is a book about those two seconds, because I think those instant conclusions that we reach are really powerful and really important and, occasionally, really good."
I read Blink more than two years ago and enjoyed the read. Gladwell's discussion of what he calls "rapid fire cognition" rings true with me. I've always prided myself on my judgements and my first impression of others, call it "intuition" (Gladwell doesn't...in the book he desribes intuition as too overly "emotional" which in my case, maybe true...). Being Malcolm Gladwell, he delves into the psychology of rapid fire cognition and starts by contradicting everything we've been taught in society:
"We live in a society dedicated to the idea that we're always better off gathering as much information and spending as much time as possible in deliberation. As children, this lesson is drummed into us again and again: haste makes waste, look before you leap, stop and think. But I don't think this is true. There are lots of situations--particularly at times of high pressure and stress--when haste does not make waste, when our snap judgments and first impressions offer a much better means of making sense of the world."
Yes, rapid fire cognition can go horribly wrong, which actually is what prompted Gladwell to write the book in the first place:
A few years ago, to grow my hair long. If you look at the author photo on my last book, "The Tipping Point," you'll see that it used to be cut very short and conservatively. But, on a whim, I let it grow wild, as it had been when I was teenager. Immediately, in very small but significant ways, my life changed. I started getting speeding tickets all the time--and I had never gotten any before. I started getting pulled out of airport security lines for special attention. And one day, while walking along 14th Street in downtown Manhattan, a police van pulled up on the sidewalk, and three officers jumped out. They were looking, it turned out, for a rapist, and the rapist, they said, looked a lot like me. They pulled out the sketch and the description. I looked at it, and pointed out to them as nicely as I could that in fact the rapist looked nothing at all like me. He was much taller, and much heavier, and about fifteen years younger (and, I added, in a largely futile attempt at humor, not nearly as good-looking.) All we had in common was a large head of curly hair. After twenty minutes or so, the officers finally agreed with me, and let me go. On a scale of things, I realize this was a trivial misunderstanding. African-Americans in the United State suffer indignities far worse than this all the time. But what struck me was how even more subtle and absurd the stereotyping was in my case: this wasn't about something really obvious like skin color, or age, or height, or weight. It was just about hair. Something about the first impression created by my hair derailed every other consideration in the hunt for the rapist, and the impression formed in those first two seconds exerted a powerful hold over the officers' thinking over the next twenty minutes. That episode on the street got me thinking about the weird power of first impressions.
...I love how he can boil the whole incident down to the...hair! (Which from my perspective, is very true! Hair is the first thing I notice on people). Hopefully I had a good hair day today--and will get a call back for a second interview!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)