I’m going to assume you don’t have a Narcissistic or Schizoid Personality Disorder nor that you lie somewhere on the Autistic spectrum of disorders (I may be assuming too much). If you do, in fact, suffer from one of these disorders, seek psychiatric help (look up DSM IV codes online to check yourself out).
For those of you with ordinary (but annoying) self-centeredness, read on.
I received an email from a loyal reader complaining about her geek friends and acquaintances who have dating problems. Her assessment? “No matter how much they think they are thinking about the girl, 99% of the time, they are still just obsessing about themselves. Is she going to give me her phone number… what does she think about my look… why won‘t she call me… I deserve a post-mortem of why I was rejected.” And further she writes “they never talk about whether the girl had any fun [on a date].”
I’ve written a bit about this before--jestingly (but, actually, seriously) suggesting that you be yourself only less narcissistic. But this bears repeating.
Let’s pause and make everything you do this weekend not about you--your self-esteem, your comfort, your conversation, your impression on others, your impression of others, your faults, your fabulousness. How do you do that? How do you become less narcissistic, and more empathetic, caring and compassionate?
Fundamentally you start seeing other people actually as people--not as answers to your needs.
If you want to start at the beginning, start with your parents. Do you see them in terms of what they can do for you--give you gifts, money, emotional support, a place to go on holidays? And if they can’t do anything for you, do you not talk to them? You need to see them as individual persons with fears, anxieties, dreams. This is a long term goal but you need to relate to your parents as people and not as providers for you. This will help you to see everyone else in your life as individual people as well.
Okay, but what practically do I mean? What can you do this weekend to start being less of an ass?
Stop judging others. When you start to make a negative judgment (“she’s rude,” “she’s too fat”), stop yourself. Use the old rubber band around your wrist and snap yourself. Making judgments is about you, not her. So cut it out.
Engage in active listening: listen well enough that you can summarize back to her what she said; focus on the feelings of the story not the facts; mirror the other’s body language, gestures and turns of phrase. If you don’t know about active listening, look it up on the Web--it’s pretty basic stuff. Active listening also means that you will remember what others say so that next time you see them you can follow-up: “How’s your mom doing after her accident?” “How’s the job search going?” “Did you have fun in Borneo?” Right now you should be able to think of a follow-up question that you could ask every one of your friends and acquaintances. If you can’t think of a question, you haven’t been listening. Make it a goal this weekend to listen well enough so you will have follow-up questions for next time.
Identify your annoying habits and quit doing them. What are your annoying habits? Anything that would be considered rude--performing grooming tasks in public (combing your hair, picking your nose/ears/face/teeth, flossing), interrupting, answering your cell/checking your cell, being late (I don’t care what your excuses are, don’t do it!), being tedious (telling stories about you traffic woes, parking woes, household chores, third hand anecdotes or stories about friends/family that we don’t know--and further do not care about), talking too loud or too soft or mumbling, being too blunt/offensive/insulting.
Engage in basic etiquette. At someone else’s house:
pick up after yourself (bring your dishes to the kitchen, help do the dishes)
Leave the toilet seat the way it was
Fill the Brita pitcher if you drink the last of the water
Take off your shoes in a shoeless house
Bring a hostess/host gift. And it should be something s/he will actually like. Don’t bring a bottle of red wine because it’s your favorite or because it shows up your extensive wine knowledge. Bring a pinot grigio because you remember her saying she likes it. Or bring yellow flowers because they match his cheerily painted front door. Right now you should be able to think of a personal host(ess) gift you could bring to each of your friends and acquaintances. Can you? If you can’t, you haven’t been listening.
Pay attention to the cues of others to figure out what they are feeling. Practice this weekend by attending to others and trying to guess what they are feeling even if not directly expressed--does she have a headache? Is he tired/stressed out? Is she annoyed/angry?
Quit focusing on your own discomfort, social awkwardness, etc. If you go to a party this weekend, look around the room. Find the person who seems most uncomfortable or is alone. Make it your job to make him comfortable and help him have a good time.
Do favors for others--asked or unasked. If you hear someone at a party mention he has to take the bus home, offer to give him a ride. Don’t wait to be asked. Offer. And, just for this weekend, don’t you ask others for favors.
Do what other people want--you don’t always have to get your way about what movie to see, what restaurant to go to, etc. For this weekend, only do what the other person wants.
Give compliments. And don’t make the compliment circle around back to you and your great taste or the print you have by the same artist, etc. And make the compliment about the other person and not just a thing--for example, don’t say “I like your earrings,” say “Those earrings look really good on you.”
Notice who/what’s around you: litter on the street, a lost or injured animal, a driver who needs to change lanes, a pedestrian trying to cross the street in pouring down rain, the homeless guy panhandling on the corner. Notice and do something to help.
Volunteer doing something for the less fortunate. There are all sorts of “fun” volunteer opportunities (the symphony, public radio, etc.) and that’s great but you need to help out at a soup kitchen or an animal shelter or Habitat for Humanity.
Okay, your weekend of selflessness has begun!
Friday, April 16, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Moi? Boring? Wrapup
When I encourage you to set out to be more interesting, am I asking you not to be yourself? Well, how has being you worked out for your dating life?
Actually, I’m not asking you to do things you don’t have any interest in. I’m saying don’t stop growing as an individual, keep being curious about new things. Don’t get in a rut. Being in a rut is not the same thing as being satisfied with your life. A rut is fear of the unknown. A rut is over-commitment to a self you were last year or ten years ago. You might have hated olives when you were eight. That doesn’t mean you’ll hate them now. Give them a try. Just because you’ve been reading sci-fi since you were eleven doesn’t mean that as an adult you like it to the exclusion of all other kinds of literature. Quit making assumptions about yourself! Stretch yourself!
The Least You Can Do
Start a new hobby. List the professions you wanted to grow up to do. List the professions you find interesting now. Use these lists as a springboard to choose new hobbies.
Select an item from your list of Things to Do Before You Die and check it off.
Honor Student
Take psychotropic drugs (as prescribed).
Do everything on your list of Things to Do Before You Die.
Say yes to everything new anyone asks you to do/be involved in for the next year. (Except for Thanksgiving dinner with the annoying extended family. You don’t have to do that.)
Actually, I’m not asking you to do things you don’t have any interest in. I’m saying don’t stop growing as an individual, keep being curious about new things. Don’t get in a rut. Being in a rut is not the same thing as being satisfied with your life. A rut is fear of the unknown. A rut is over-commitment to a self you were last year or ten years ago. You might have hated olives when you were eight. That doesn’t mean you’ll hate them now. Give them a try. Just because you’ve been reading sci-fi since you were eleven doesn’t mean that as an adult you like it to the exclusion of all other kinds of literature. Quit making assumptions about yourself! Stretch yourself!
The Least You Can Do
Start a new hobby. List the professions you wanted to grow up to do. List the professions you find interesting now. Use these lists as a springboard to choose new hobbies.
Select an item from your list of Things to Do Before You Die and check it off.
Honor Student
Take psychotropic drugs (as prescribed).
Do everything on your list of Things to Do Before You Die.
Say yes to everything new anyone asks you to do/be involved in for the next year. (Except for Thanksgiving dinner with the annoying extended family. You don’t have to do that.)
Friday, April 9, 2010
Moi? Boring? Part Five
Wherein I continue writing about how to tell an interesting life story.
The two interesting components of a life story are feelings and interpretation--not the literal facts.
Feelings. Leave out your feelings and reactions to a situation and the listener can not relate. Tell the listener you had stage fright and suddenly she can empathize. She’s never played chess in front of hundreds of people, but she has sung in a choir. Talk more about your feelings and less about the particular facts.
Your interpretation of the facts. What did you take it to mean when you won the game and everyone was cheering and you did not feel excited about it? How did you interpret your sister’s refusal to go to the competition? How is chess a metaphor for other things in life, or for life itself? Interpretations are speculations and even a listener who doesn’t know you at all can offer her own interpretation. This helps engage the listener. She has a way to enter the conversation. The flat relating of facts does not make room for a listener to contribute. After all, she wasn’t there, so what can she say about the facts of the situation? Nothing. She does, however, know something about life and has an opinion about whether a strategy game is a good metaphor for it or not. And she’ll probably have alternative ideas about why your sister didn’t show up.
If you think your life is boring, other people will too. If you tell your life story as a mere list of sequential facts, no one will listen. Not even your mom.
Exercise: Imagine running into a friend you haven’t seen in five years. Thinking purely in facts, write down what you would tell this friend to catch him up. Look back over what you just wrote and focus on one of the facts. Retell this one incident, but now include your feelings, reactions and interpretations of the event.
The two interesting components of a life story are feelings and interpretation--not the literal facts.
Feelings. Leave out your feelings and reactions to a situation and the listener can not relate. Tell the listener you had stage fright and suddenly she can empathize. She’s never played chess in front of hundreds of people, but she has sung in a choir. Talk more about your feelings and less about the particular facts.
Your interpretation of the facts. What did you take it to mean when you won the game and everyone was cheering and you did not feel excited about it? How did you interpret your sister’s refusal to go to the competition? How is chess a metaphor for other things in life, or for life itself? Interpretations are speculations and even a listener who doesn’t know you at all can offer her own interpretation. This helps engage the listener. She has a way to enter the conversation. The flat relating of facts does not make room for a listener to contribute. After all, she wasn’t there, so what can she say about the facts of the situation? Nothing. She does, however, know something about life and has an opinion about whether a strategy game is a good metaphor for it or not. And she’ll probably have alternative ideas about why your sister didn’t show up.
If you think your life is boring, other people will too. If you tell your life story as a mere list of sequential facts, no one will listen. Not even your mom.
Exercise: Imagine running into a friend you haven’t seen in five years. Thinking purely in facts, write down what you would tell this friend to catch him up. Look back over what you just wrote and focus on one of the facts. Retell this one incident, but now include your feelings, reactions and interpretations of the event.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Moi? Boring?, Part Four
Wherein I begin the discussion of how to tell an interesting life story.
Take your life as it is right now. You haven’t done anything on your list of things to do before you die. You had a comfortable (read: boring) childhood--dad worked in a white collar job, mom stayed home, you had a dog and a sister, you went to college, you graduated, you got the job you’re in now, never been married, no kids, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so your life seems a little (a lot) boring. And maybe after you follow some of the advice from previous posts, your life won’t be so boring. Which is all to the good. It’s good to have an interesting life. But this section is not called ‘have an interesting life.’ It’s called ‘tell an interesting life story.’
I’m not (necessarily) suggesting you fictionalize your own life (read: lie). Although greater people than you have tried it before and succeeded. Take the story of Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver. (For those of you who refuse to read fiction, they are great writers of the twentieth century.) The two of them were friends and would often while away hours together telling each other secrets from their lives. Carver’s life, however, was much more interesting than Wolff’s, so one night he decided to tell his friend that he had been a heroin addict. Completely untrue but Carver bought it. Over the next few weeks, for some reason, heroin kept coming up in conversations Wolff had with mutual friends and, finally, one night, Carver admitted to Wolff that he had revealed Wolff’s secret addiction to other people. Now Wolff had to decide whether he wanted to keep up the lie that he felt made him a more interesting character or reveal the truth. Wolff admitted to Carver that he’d made the whole thing up.
Making stuff up is quite tempting. Maybe less to you than it is to me, a thwarted short story writer. But the truth is you don’t have to make stuff up to make the telling of your life interesting. We all know the person who can tell about their weekend trip to the dump and make it interesting. And we all know the person who can tell the story of how they came to be junior chess champion and bore you to tears. What’s going on there?
Stories are made up of several components. One is the facts. This is the component of storytelling that most geeks cling to, often in excruciating detail, and it is the part of a story that is the least interesting and, surprisingly (to you anyway), the least informative. Yes, I said the least informative. That you were the chess champion tells me less about who you are as a person than how you felt about doing well at a game you had come to hate and that you haven’t played since eighth grade. Now that’s interesting.
In the next post I’ll write about feelings and interpretation--the two components of telling an interesting life story.
Take your life as it is right now. You haven’t done anything on your list of things to do before you die. You had a comfortable (read: boring) childhood--dad worked in a white collar job, mom stayed home, you had a dog and a sister, you went to college, you graduated, you got the job you’re in now, never been married, no kids, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so your life seems a little (a lot) boring. And maybe after you follow some of the advice from previous posts, your life won’t be so boring. Which is all to the good. It’s good to have an interesting life. But this section is not called ‘have an interesting life.’ It’s called ‘tell an interesting life story.’
I’m not (necessarily) suggesting you fictionalize your own life (read: lie). Although greater people than you have tried it before and succeeded. Take the story of Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver. (For those of you who refuse to read fiction, they are great writers of the twentieth century.) The two of them were friends and would often while away hours together telling each other secrets from their lives. Carver’s life, however, was much more interesting than Wolff’s, so one night he decided to tell his friend that he had been a heroin addict. Completely untrue but Carver bought it. Over the next few weeks, for some reason, heroin kept coming up in conversations Wolff had with mutual friends and, finally, one night, Carver admitted to Wolff that he had revealed Wolff’s secret addiction to other people. Now Wolff had to decide whether he wanted to keep up the lie that he felt made him a more interesting character or reveal the truth. Wolff admitted to Carver that he’d made the whole thing up.
Making stuff up is quite tempting. Maybe less to you than it is to me, a thwarted short story writer. But the truth is you don’t have to make stuff up to make the telling of your life interesting. We all know the person who can tell about their weekend trip to the dump and make it interesting. And we all know the person who can tell the story of how they came to be junior chess champion and bore you to tears. What’s going on there?
Stories are made up of several components. One is the facts. This is the component of storytelling that most geeks cling to, often in excruciating detail, and it is the part of a story that is the least interesting and, surprisingly (to you anyway), the least informative. Yes, I said the least informative. That you were the chess champion tells me less about who you are as a person than how you felt about doing well at a game you had come to hate and that you haven’t played since eighth grade. Now that’s interesting.
In the next post I’ll write about feelings and interpretation--the two components of telling an interesting life story.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Moi? Boring? Part Three
Do Interesting Things. I’m not talking about hobbies here but one-time adventures like taking a road trip or a vacation to an exotic locale, going to see an avant-garde play, or trying new foods. If you have a new adventure to share each time you see someone at a party, she will love talking to you to find out what cool thing you’ve been up to.
Exercise: For the next year, say yes to everything new that you are invited to do or see (that isn’t illegal or immoral). If you see an ad for a performance artist who needs volunteers at his next exhibition, say yes. If a friend wants to see a band you’ve never heard of, say yes. If your mom wants to fix you up with an ugly, fat girl you went to church with as a kid, say yes.
Exercise: Make a list of all the things you want to do before you die. Don’t stop until you have at least twenty-five--or fifty--items on your list. Make a commitment to do something from your list by the end of the month, and then keep picking an item each month to accomplish. Figuring out how to do each item could be an adventure in itself. Want to ride fast on a motorcycle, but you don’t know how to drive one and don’t know anyone who owns one? Put the word out there to your friends and you’ll soon find someone to help you out.
Exercise: For the next year, say yes to everything new that you are invited to do or see (that isn’t illegal or immoral). If you see an ad for a performance artist who needs volunteers at his next exhibition, say yes. If a friend wants to see a band you’ve never heard of, say yes. If your mom wants to fix you up with an ugly, fat girl you went to church with as a kid, say yes.
Exercise: Make a list of all the things you want to do before you die. Don’t stop until you have at least twenty-five--or fifty--items on your list. Make a commitment to do something from your list by the end of the month, and then keep picking an item each month to accomplish. Figuring out how to do each item could be an adventure in itself. Want to ride fast on a motorcycle, but you don’t know how to drive one and don’t know anyone who owns one? Put the word out there to your friends and you’ll soon find someone to help you out.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Moi? Boring? Part Two
A continuation from last week on being interested and interesting…
Be Interested in the World at Large. So you’ve got your own hobbies and they’re pretty fantastic. Why care about anything else? Welcome to the world of a ten year old. At least that’s what a therapist once told me when I suggested I could care less about the world. I still can’t believe a therapist would so blatantly suggest I was regressed to the age of ten. So I’m sharing the insult with you. Or rather passing it on. Does the insult motivate you? It did me, but I always want to be the golden child and maybe you don’t care that much. (I bet you do, though.)
Being curious about modern culture, politics, cage fighting, “Lost,” the Korean War, and most types of people engages you in the world and makes the world return your interest. Apathy and boredom are despair in disguise. Take some antidepressants and join the world. That’s what I did.
Now I move on from Being Interested to Being Interesting
Don’t Be Readable at a Glance. No one is truly a stereotype. Some people seem that way when you first meet them. Oh, you’re from Seattle? I guess you’re a liberal, coffee-drinking, hybrid-driving weekend hiker, right? And those things may be true of a person, but then you notice her right-to-life button and suddenly she’s a little harder to pigeonhole.
There is, however, a difference between not being predictable and being just plain strange. The weirdo geek is weird but he’s also predictable. You may heavily identify as a geek and may have found like-minded people that you feel at home with. This does not mean you have to be the stereotype. I’ve known many a geek who has felt compelled to engage in role playing games even though he never liked them because to quit meant losing his identity as a “true” geek (by whose standards I don’t know). You don’t need to feel compelled to defend all geek ways of life. You aren’t a stereotype. Let people see your depth, and notice the ways you are different from their preconceived notions of geekitude. They know you’re a geek. Let them see what makes you different from every other geek out there.
Exercise: Make a list right now of all the interests and personality traits you have that are not geek-like. Include the stuff that you would never want your physics buddies to know about. You’re a geek who loves 19th-century romances? Prefers “CSI: Miami” over “Battlestar Galactica”? Never won a math prize in high school but did get a poem published?
Now ask yourself: does your physical presentation of yourself reflect your depth of character? Or are you a stereotype? Are you a fat, ponytail-wearing, black-trench coat-sporting nerd? Can’t you be a little more original than that? Even just wearing a short trench in chocolate brown would be an improvement. (You probably don’t look good in black anyway.)
Be Interested in the World at Large. So you’ve got your own hobbies and they’re pretty fantastic. Why care about anything else? Welcome to the world of a ten year old. At least that’s what a therapist once told me when I suggested I could care less about the world. I still can’t believe a therapist would so blatantly suggest I was regressed to the age of ten. So I’m sharing the insult with you. Or rather passing it on. Does the insult motivate you? It did me, but I always want to be the golden child and maybe you don’t care that much. (I bet you do, though.)
Being curious about modern culture, politics, cage fighting, “Lost,” the Korean War, and most types of people engages you in the world and makes the world return your interest. Apathy and boredom are despair in disguise. Take some antidepressants and join the world. That’s what I did.
Now I move on from Being Interested to Being Interesting
Don’t Be Readable at a Glance. No one is truly a stereotype. Some people seem that way when you first meet them. Oh, you’re from Seattle? I guess you’re a liberal, coffee-drinking, hybrid-driving weekend hiker, right? And those things may be true of a person, but then you notice her right-to-life button and suddenly she’s a little harder to pigeonhole.
There is, however, a difference between not being predictable and being just plain strange. The weirdo geek is weird but he’s also predictable. You may heavily identify as a geek and may have found like-minded people that you feel at home with. This does not mean you have to be the stereotype. I’ve known many a geek who has felt compelled to engage in role playing games even though he never liked them because to quit meant losing his identity as a “true” geek (by whose standards I don’t know). You don’t need to feel compelled to defend all geek ways of life. You aren’t a stereotype. Let people see your depth, and notice the ways you are different from their preconceived notions of geekitude. They know you’re a geek. Let them see what makes you different from every other geek out there.
Exercise: Make a list right now of all the interests and personality traits you have that are not geek-like. Include the stuff that you would never want your physics buddies to know about. You’re a geek who loves 19th-century romances? Prefers “CSI: Miami” over “Battlestar Galactica”? Never won a math prize in high school but did get a poem published?
Now ask yourself: does your physical presentation of yourself reflect your depth of character? Or are you a stereotype? Are you a fat, ponytail-wearing, black-trench coat-sporting nerd? Can’t you be a little more original than that? Even just wearing a short trench in chocolate brown would be an improvement. (You probably don’t look good in black anyway.)
Friday, March 26, 2010
Moi? Boring?
You are already an interesting person. You have deep, dark secrets--which may not include having killed a man in Vegas just to watch him die--but not having learned to drive until last year (when you were thirty) is interesting. (Was it because of some hideous accident you were in as a child? Did you have a horror of a father who berated you when you were trying to learn?). And you have strange hobbies and off-beat beliefs (or off-beat reasons for those rather mainstream beliefs). And at thirty (or however old you are), you’ve done some things in your life that could at least make a good anecdote or two if not a whole book. After all, there have been whole movies made just about larping.
Of course, you could be more interesting than you are. (Or, at any rate, you could seem more interesting than you seem.)
What makes people interesting? I don’t mean being an interesting conversationalist, which I wrote about earlier. What makes you want to find out more about a person? First and foremost: to be interesting, you must be interested. Interested in other people. Interested in the world. Interested in learning new things.
Being Interested
Have Hobbies. Having hobbies gives you something upon which you can find common ground with others. And people are interested in talking with someone who has passion about activities--any activities--passion is infectious. So get out there and find some hobbies!
And, no, sitting around surfing the Web and making contributions to forums to correct people’s factual misstatements is not a hobby. Neither is watching episodes of Babylon 5 for the tenth time. Hobbies are not passive endeavors. This does not rule out watching a TV show as a hobby. If Babylon 5 is merely a passive activity, then all you can share about it will be rehashing plot details from episodes. A passive activity like watching TV becomes a hobby when you have something to say about it that goes beyond the literal retelling of a plot line. For example, can you express why you like it? Can you analyze the series’ plot arc that took multiple seasons to pay off, and how that relates to other (more popular and well-known) shows?
Being able to self-reflect as do the subjects in the documentary “Darcon” makes your hobby accessible and interesting to other people. Others can relate to your enjoyment of larping when you explain it as, for example, a place where your individual efforts make a difference in a way they do not in your day job.
In addition to making you more interesting, pursuing hobbies is a good way to meet new people and gives you fodder for conversation. If you’ve just learned how to snowboard, you won’t be stuck when someone asks you that paralyzing question “What’s new?”
Exercise: If you don’t have any hobbies or want to find a new one, try these exercises. Think back to elementary school. What did you want to be when you grew up? Write down all the careers you thought about having when you were in grade school. Now bring yourself up to the present. If you could pursue five other professions, which would you want to try? Forget whether you have the talent to be a cellist or the drive to be a Wall Street stock broker, write it down. Look at your lists. Did you want to be a senator in fourth grade? That’s a good place to start for finding a new hobby. Maybe there’s a political campaign you could work on. Or maybe there’s some social issue you are opinionated about. Find the group that works on that issue and volunteer.
Which is a nice segue into the topic for next Tuesday: Be Interested in the World at Large.
Of course, you could be more interesting than you are. (Or, at any rate, you could seem more interesting than you seem.)
What makes people interesting? I don’t mean being an interesting conversationalist, which I wrote about earlier. What makes you want to find out more about a person? First and foremost: to be interesting, you must be interested. Interested in other people. Interested in the world. Interested in learning new things.
Being Interested
Have Hobbies. Having hobbies gives you something upon which you can find common ground with others. And people are interested in talking with someone who has passion about activities--any activities--passion is infectious. So get out there and find some hobbies!
And, no, sitting around surfing the Web and making contributions to forums to correct people’s factual misstatements is not a hobby. Neither is watching episodes of Babylon 5 for the tenth time. Hobbies are not passive endeavors. This does not rule out watching a TV show as a hobby. If Babylon 5 is merely a passive activity, then all you can share about it will be rehashing plot details from episodes. A passive activity like watching TV becomes a hobby when you have something to say about it that goes beyond the literal retelling of a plot line. For example, can you express why you like it? Can you analyze the series’ plot arc that took multiple seasons to pay off, and how that relates to other (more popular and well-known) shows?
Being able to self-reflect as do the subjects in the documentary “Darcon” makes your hobby accessible and interesting to other people. Others can relate to your enjoyment of larping when you explain it as, for example, a place where your individual efforts make a difference in a way they do not in your day job.
In addition to making you more interesting, pursuing hobbies is a good way to meet new people and gives you fodder for conversation. If you’ve just learned how to snowboard, you won’t be stuck when someone asks you that paralyzing question “What’s new?”
Exercise: If you don’t have any hobbies or want to find a new one, try these exercises. Think back to elementary school. What did you want to be when you grew up? Write down all the careers you thought about having when you were in grade school. Now bring yourself up to the present. If you could pursue five other professions, which would you want to try? Forget whether you have the talent to be a cellist or the drive to be a Wall Street stock broker, write it down. Look at your lists. Did you want to be a senator in fourth grade? That’s a good place to start for finding a new hobby. Maybe there’s a political campaign you could work on. Or maybe there’s some social issue you are opinionated about. Find the group that works on that issue and volunteer.
Which is a nice segue into the topic for next Tuesday: Be Interested in the World at Large.
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