(no subject)
Weellllp, this is it. It is time for me to pack up my stuff in the smallest (and coolest) steamer trunk, throw it into the car, because I'm moving back to California. I got my old job at Knowledge Networks back, so that lets me afford to pay rent here in memphis for the rest of the year and try and work with professors in the Bay Area for an extra half-year. On almost a whim, I asked my old boss for my old job back and he gave it to me a few hours later. The plan was originally to keep working and scraping by for the rest of the year and move back in December somehow. But there was my old (now new) boss asking me if I could start September 1st.
This was all very unexpected, so I had to work fast. I called my current boss at home and gave him my notice. I was so afraid that he would be pissed that I was quitting so soon and with not that much notice. But, I knew what I had to do, so I called him up and he was actually excited for me and grateful I told him when I found out. I was in disbelief. That really hammered home something I had touched before: the idea that all you have to do is ask.
Sometimes, for me, the world seems really small. Any opportunity that I see seems like the only thing I can get or seems like my only salvation, so I focus on it as if it is that. I get all nervous, worried, and put effort in trying to get my approach just perfect. These instincts lead me to coming off as awkward, self-conscious, and procrastinating. I put these things off, always thinking that I will get it just right instead of jumping into them, powered by the things that led me there. From there, literally all you have to do is ask. If you have a reason to ask (and even if you don't, most of the time), people won't demand that you justify yourself. They'll take you for what you are. I never noticed the elegance of that concept. I often try to take people at their face value, believing them when they tell me what they are looking for (sometimes to the border of naivete). Why not expect the same.
The same thing was hammered home to me yesterday when I knocked on a friends' neighbor's door to ask for help. They didn't know me and possibly didn't know my friend. And there I was, at their home, looking for something. But, all I had was why I was there, so I put those thoughts out of my mind and asked honestly for help and I got it. Greg was a nice guy who spent some of his Friday night looking for the water-shut-off-valve in his neighbor's house with a stranger. All you gotta do is ask.
Sometimes people will say no, though. That's the fear in asking. That's what keeps us back. But so what? Ask for something and get a "No". Getting an honest "No" isn't bad. It's just someone being honest back. I would want someone to take my honest "No", so I respect theirs. Worst case, someone is Shitty to you. That can hurt. It can. But after the hurt, comes the understanding that shittyness is really usually directed at themselves. Collateral damage.
Now, if I could take this epiphany to my dealings with women, I'd be in business.
This was all very unexpected, so I had to work fast. I called my current boss at home and gave him my notice. I was so afraid that he would be pissed that I was quitting so soon and with not that much notice. But, I knew what I had to do, so I called him up and he was actually excited for me and grateful I told him when I found out. I was in disbelief. That really hammered home something I had touched before: the idea that all you have to do is ask.
Sometimes, for me, the world seems really small. Any opportunity that I see seems like the only thing I can get or seems like my only salvation, so I focus on it as if it is that. I get all nervous, worried, and put effort in trying to get my approach just perfect. These instincts lead me to coming off as awkward, self-conscious, and procrastinating. I put these things off, always thinking that I will get it just right instead of jumping into them, powered by the things that led me there. From there, literally all you have to do is ask. If you have a reason to ask (and even if you don't, most of the time), people won't demand that you justify yourself. They'll take you for what you are. I never noticed the elegance of that concept. I often try to take people at their face value, believing them when they tell me what they are looking for (sometimes to the border of naivete). Why not expect the same.
The same thing was hammered home to me yesterday when I knocked on a friends' neighbor's door to ask for help. They didn't know me and possibly didn't know my friend. And there I was, at their home, looking for something. But, all I had was why I was there, so I put those thoughts out of my mind and asked honestly for help and I got it. Greg was a nice guy who spent some of his Friday night looking for the water-shut-off-valve in his neighbor's house with a stranger. All you gotta do is ask.
Sometimes people will say no, though. That's the fear in asking. That's what keeps us back. But so what? Ask for something and get a "No". Getting an honest "No" isn't bad. It's just someone being honest back. I would want someone to take my honest "No", so I respect theirs. Worst case, someone is Shitty to you. That can hurt. It can. But after the hurt, comes the understanding that shittyness is really usually directed at themselves. Collateral damage.
Now, if I could take this epiphany to my dealings with women, I'd be in business.