But dude, take some care to reflect on your life and how you live it.
If you’ve become complacent in any part in your life, it means that you have decided that you don’t want to get better at that part in your life anymore. Whether that decision is conscious or unconscious is extremely context-and-person-sensitive.
For some things, that’s okay. For example, I’m totally fine with bowling an average of 45.
For other things, it’s not okay at all. Like the way you look down at people or are completely oblivious to how they’re reacting to you. And if this becomes enough of a problem that someone brings it up to you, it is not okay. If more than one person brings it up to you, it is definitely not okay. Do something about it. Fix yourself. Forget that “I’m independent and nobody can tell me how to live my life” idealism. There’s something called basic human decency.
And if you can’t tell which areas of your life have devolved into complacency, then think about it instead of filling your life with inane garbage. Or just ask your close friends. If your friends don’t have an answer for you, then they’re having the same problem you are. Get new ones.
This is as much a reminder to myself as it is a message to you.
I’m probably going to regret everything I said in my previous post, and I’m probably going to wish I had published it privately or somewhere else, but whatever. I need it to be here forever, so I can come back to it one day and think about how wrong (or right) I was.
However, please allow me to make some amends to what I said. By “the elderly,” I mean the elderly. I don’t just mean people who are older than I am, or my parents or my friends’ parents (unless they’re considered “elderly”). My words very well may apply to this audience but they are not my target.
I need to teach myself to practice forgiving people for the choices they make that I think are bad. Another person’s choice may seem like a very good one to him, or maybe he won’t be able to see its lingering effects in the way I do, but I’m just going to have to let him do what he wants. Sometimes people just make choices that affect others and they don’t even realize it. There’s nothing you can do about it but react and adapt.
↑ I had all those thoughts while on the road. But I should probably learn to apply it to other aspects of my life.
If getting hit by a car has taught me anything, it’s that I should be more careful when I go about my everyday life. Even if I’m following all the rules, all the laws, thinking about and paying attention to everything that I’m doing…doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone else is, too. Therefore, the best I can do is simply to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. That they’re not paying attention or thinking about exactly what they’re doing.
If there’s ever any group of people whom I’ve found will purposely ignore the rules, it’s the elderly. They go through their day like the rules don’t apply to them. And I’m pretty sure they know the rules are, they just don’t care that they’re breaking them. “I’m older than you, so I’m wiser than you. Leave me alone,” is what I imagine is going through their heads.
I don’t know where this mentality comes from–that since you’re older than someone and they disagree with you, you’re automatically correct because you’ve been alive for longer and therefore must be wiser. This seems to go hand-in-hand with the idea that once you get older, you don’t need to spend time learning about things anymore. I’m not there yet, so I have no possible insight on why this happens.
It’s the end of the month already, and I’ve got this blog post idea that I’ve been sitting on but haven’t written out.
Y’know, the usual.
I’ll be completely honest: I don’t have much respect for journalism and what it’s become. There’s something disgusting to me about strategically bending the truth in order to get people interested in what you have to say.
The incident that happened close to my home is still very fresh to me. It happened earlier this month but people have already stopped talking about it. Life has moved on as if it never happened. But the pain is still there and the damage is still very much evident.
These incidents shouldn’t be just a fad. They should be affecting us deeply, causing us to change our way of thinking, of attempting to change the world lives in, with, and around itself. We should be petitioning to make changes in our governments, in our culture. But the truth is: it’s too hard for us to become affected by these happenings unless they impact us directly, and it’s too hard for us to make wise decisions with our time and our money. How many more people have to die before we start to make the necessary changes in our society? Tell you what: if some tragedy has impacted you directly, then it’s already too late.
The other unfortunate truth is that fads make money. Fads keep the news “interesting.” It gives the media something to write about, to report. Just take a look at Korean pop culture. No artist, movie, actor, whatever has been in the limelight for more than a few years, and it seems as if the popularity of said subject is entirely at the behest of the media who are reporting on them.
If anything, I’d argue that the media are a huge reason these tragedies continue to happen, and I’m not going to blame just the entertainment industry here. News stations are at fault and industry professionals agree with that fact.
Here is Roger Ebert’s movie review of Elephant, in which he discusses an interview he had with a reporter a day after the Columbine shootings in 90s. The excerpt in question begins in the third paragraph, starting with “Let me tell you a story.”
Here’s an excerpt from a BBC show hosted by Charlie Brooker:
The shooting that happened in Mukilteo was kept pretty quiet, but I really think that happened because there weren’t as many victims as some of the other incidents we’ve had lately. Still, media outlets plastered the faces of the victims all over the internet, specifically the female victim, most likely in hopes of getting more traffic to their websites.
It’s disgusting. It’s vile. It’s putrid. It has no place in this world. Unfortunately, it’s also simple psychology.
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I wonder if journalists feel any remorse when they literally turn tragedies into their own money.
This is coming from a person with real-life experience on the subject. I’ll be writing more posts on individual scenarios, including, but not limited to: public restrooms, shopping, and older folks. Those will come in later months, or if you’re lucky, in a few weeks!
Most of these tips pertain to speaking and presence, but there are a few other things we can talk about, like online. I’ll be following it up in another blog post as well. Here we go!
First, acknowledge that you’re awkward. Everybody’s awkward, and that’s totally fine! It’s much easier to hide your awkwardness if you’re aware of it. There’s no use to trying to say that you’re not awkward–that’ll just make you sound awkward. Let’s move on.
Don’t laugh after everything you say. There’s little more awkward than somebody who laughs after every sentence, even if what he said wasn’t particularly funny. It leave the listeners with the question, “was he joking?” Then they will default to not laughing with you. Laughing in a group of people who aren’t also laughing is…well, awkward. You can break this rule if you’re already in the middle of making people laugh.
Limit the self-deprecating jokes unless you are absolutely sure you know the people around you know you’re that joking. If you’re constantly putting yourself down, you’ll eventually get pitied–people will stop thinking you’re joking and take your self-deprecation seriously. Pity is not what you want, especially if you’re trying not to be awkward. Pity will make people avoid you. That’s awkward.
Be aware of the atmosphere. You won’t do very well, making jokes at funerals or bawling my yourself in a restaurant or something like that. There’s an appropriate time and place for everything; when in doubt, watch and see what other people are doing, and try to emulate them.
Next, importantly, speak loudly and clearly. This will do two things: it will make people hear you very well. This, in turn, will make you commit to what you say, and then, this will make you carefully consider what you say before you say it. This brings me to my next point.
Rehearse internally. It’s easy to just blurt whatever comes to mind, but in many cases (if you’re awkward like me), it won’t make any sense. If you’re not sure of what you’re going to say or how you’re going to say it, take a step back and figure it out before going back in. Try to predict how people will respond to what you say, and see if you can plan a response to the most likely scenarios. Be willing to improvise, as well.
Practice. Constantly put yourself in positions where you feel awkward, but then use these easy steps to convince them that you’re not awkward! It’s rare that you get better at something by just studying it; you’ll have to put it into practice. Math problems require exercises for mastery; awkwardness requires social immersion for reduction.
Last, and perhaps the most fun, embrace the awkward. If you think you can do well by enhancing the awkwardness and putting it on other people, do it! I know a surprising number of people who strive on awkward humor. Awkward people come together in unity to make these huge groups of awkwardness. If you want to try to use this humor to your advantage, give it a shot! It’s super fun.
There you have it: my first “guide” on how to convince people you aren’t awkward. Leave a comment if you’ve got suggestions, specifics on execution, or if you think you’ve got a better list of requirements. I’m curious to know how you guys deal with awkwardness!