My Style

WHAT A RELIEF !!!!!

I was so-o-o happy to find out what I am. Solomon said, "when ignorance is bliss, it is folly to be wise." Bliss was my state until it came to my attention that there are different kinds of bloggers, chatty and newsy. You wonder how anything good can be assigned to a word that ends in -y. If those are the only choices available, even without knowing exactly what they are, I might be best served by getting out while the getting is good. I just started a blog and now I'm being stuffed into a category that has a label that is either chatty or newsy.

My sister and brother-in-law were visiting and we were catching up on what's going on. I advised them that I have joined the world of blogging. Their kids have blogs and they were excited to tell me about them. I read one . . . pretty funny stuff. Then came the question . . . . what are you - chatty or newsy?

Gulp - how do you choose between those two? It's like someone asking if you would prefer to have all the hairs of you head and face plucked out one-by-one, or perhaps have your fingernails pulled out with pliers? (Neither one very attractive, if you ask me . . . . ) So, before I had the courage to get clarification, my mind went off on a gymnastic episode that provided no pleasant visual images. Then I got the labels: Chatty is apparently one who goes on about nothing in particular; newsy is a person who provides information about friends and family. Much like the Christmas letter that catches you up on who did what (only in smaller bites).

Yikes - what if I'm neither? I certainly am not "newsy". I haven't written the first thing about what's going on (except my job). And I would like to think that my rambling musings carry more weight than anything that could be labeled "chatty". But then the ray of hope burst through - the defining shot of relief that would be like being called to the principal's office, thinking you MUST have committed some infraction, sweating-up the fake leather furniture in the waiting area (not like I KNOW what that would be like) but finding out you are not going to jail, but getting some kind of award.

All that time I never knew there was a 3rd option for my writing style. Yes - the 90 seconds of terror that grabbed my heart was obliterated with one word - "cross-over". THAT MUST BE ME !!! Just the right combination of both horrible-sounding words that creates a beautiful tapestry of mind-expanding verbiage to capture the interest of all who dare gaze upon it. This discovery gave me hope to go on (go on blogging, that is). So be warned. Since I now can define myself as a "cross-over", this opens wide a world of blogging possibilities. To quote Forest Gump: "Life is like a box of chocolates . . . . you just never know what you are gonna get." . . . . . and so it goes.

PS - I would have considered myself a writing Andy Rooney. Finding a weird twist in common things and making observations about them. I'm sorry I can't replicate his verbal parallel with written text. Oh well . . .

Ask for help

Hey there . . . .
Yesterday I accepted a new job. It really isn't all that new. I've been trying to GET this job for the last 2-1/2 years. There's an old saying, "Be careful what you ask for . . . . you may get it." So now it is time to step up to the plate. My big chance.

I'm realizing now that since I will have other people reporting to me, there's a likelihood that they won't like some of my decisions. They don't even have to be poor decisions, just that if it isn't what THEY would have done, I will hear about it. I guess I don't have to win any popularity contest, and since I know that up front, I think it will somehow go better.

I know I will have supportive people I can go to if things get difficult. I've been teaching people for years that it's OK to ask for help. But we all know the classroom answer. Anyone can ask you: "so, what do you do when you don't know what to do?" And your answer: "Ask for help." Sure - but how many of us DO that? Check with just about anyone who gets their tail in a wringer, and you will find that they probably didn't ask anyone for help. Or they asked the wrong sources.

I once had a group of kids climbing a rock wall. One of the girls got stuck near the top and was finding it difficult to proceed. The "supportive" crew of friends on the ground was giving her all kinds of advice - none of which was working. They sounded like a bunch of baby birds who begin chirping wildly when the parent arrives with food. If you have ever rock-climbed and would have heard some of the suggestions she was getting you would have been rolling on the ground. But she tried them all. I was (as her belayer) observing quietly while she struggled. When she wore herself out and just sat in her harness dangling I asked her if maybe she was getting some bad advice from her friends. And it wasn't that they didn't mean well. They really wanted her to make it. Some of them had even just been there. Still, the things they were saying to be helpful weren't so helpful. After she got a hint or two from someone who had seen HUNDREDS climb the wall and work through that spot, she scampered onto the top. Never mind that after she spent all her energy she was forced to rest.

Yes - a new job provides new opportunities for success and/or failure. "Six days you shall labor, but on the seventh day you shall rest; even during the plowing season and harvest you must rest." Exodus 34:21 NIV
Maybe asking for help is a little like resting. It is taking a departure from the idea that you can and should do it all. But it also matters WHO you ask.

It's a Start

I take my first baby-steps into the world of on-line, in touch, face-to-face, electronic wizardry that is so common today that most would say, "ITS ABOUT TIME!!! WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!?!?!" I was reminiscing a short while back about my introduction to computers. Indiana Wesleyan (then Marion College) had entered the age of high-tech with a stand-alone computer that had - get this- a floppy drive. And mind you, this was a whopping 800k of blazing removable memory. My computer class had us programming in BASIC language on this wonder of wonders. And why wouldn't it be? If you wanted to use the previous year's method, you could. Punch cards.

Oh how far we've come. And it brings me to my point. Who isn't plugged in to FaceBook or LinkedIn or something of that ilk? (I hope I can mention their names without ending up in the electronic hoosegow.) I have been resistant to partake of the fruits of the "connectivity", partly because you never know who's looking and who might sneak in the back door. (Computers have back doors too, you know. I don't really know where the back door is, and if I found it, I'm not sure I'd know how to lock it.) Maybe that's why the fear to get "in" with everyone else.

There are some funny play on words, like "safe fax" and "safe text" that have made their way across the the electronic mass-media. That's because someone got themselves in trouble using the new technology indiscriminately. Trying really hard not to do that. I have slid into the world of texting (unlimited texting is the plan required for serious business - thanks, Verizon). But I resist the landslide of FaceBook. Maybe with time, and after the world doesn't collapse as a result of this blog-thing, I'll look into it.

I'm sure I'll have more serious and life-changing thoughts later. But here's a quote you can make yourself feel better with right now:

"We are all stupid - just in different areas." (Mark Twain) You could infer from that, that we are also all SMART, just in different areas. I wish it were true . . . . . .