Friendly Space

Today wasn’t a great day. The high point was breakfast soup with spinach.

However, this episode (playable applet below) from the Freakonomics podcast made me realize how good I have it, truly. One of their ideas is compelling: we don’t appreciate it when we have a tailwind, but we do get irked by a headwind.

So, truly? That breakfast soup with spinach was pretty outstanding and my life is really great.

Evidence of a friendly universe: breakfast soup with spinach.

Q

 

I had a difference of opinion with a colleague last Friday. I believe strongly in my position which holds firmly to a traditional, formal approach. He had a different, more relaxed idea about the subject* in question (*which I won’t mention, but which was crucial to the project we are working on).

Today, Monday, he had clearly come around to my way of thinking. Maybe my argument swayed him, maybe he spoke to some friends, I don’t know. But I was very pleased that he was willing to follow my approach.

Without team mates — or community members — willing to change their minds and argue through differences of opinion, we’d be left with very few good options for moving forward. We’d have to either leave our communities or get the others to leave, or cow one another into submission. Instead, in this case, the team is sticking together and it will allow us to move forward.

The other, personal, note in this is that it’s also important when one (me, I, hi) is confident of the “rightness” of one’s opinion, that one is willing to stick to one’s guns and argue for others to drop their objections. If I’m not willing to do that, then I too am left with few choices other than to leave.

Evidence of a friendly universe: people willing to change their minds and stick together.

Q

 

I have this customer who keeps coming back, doesn’t give me a hard time, pays his bills, acts like basically a normal guy just going about trying to live life as well as possible.

Glad to know him.  In truth, I have several customers like this.  Helps ground and remind me that the crazy ones aren’t typical.

Evidence of friendly universe: uncomplicated people.

Q

A friend sent me a friendly and high-spirited text message today. It was much appreciated. I’m rather tired and a bit in the dumps. It’s nice that when I’m down, not everyone else is too.

Evidence of a friendly universe: high-spirited friends.

Q

Evidence that the universe is a friendly place: empathy.  That people should have the abilities both to observe and understand how others feel and also to experience the same feelings in response is quite a remarkable socialization trait.

Glad it’s here. Glad I have it.

Q