Bill C. Castengera's Blog, page 5

How To Be Good With The Ladies…

So I know this guy. He’s really good with the ladies. I’m not sure what he does or says, but they just flock to him. He’s like Pinterest. What I’m saying is that the ladies like him, is all I’m saying. So we got to be good friends, me and him. And so then one day I get up some nerve, and honestly, it wasn’t so much as trying to get up the nerve more than just swallowing my pride, but so one day I finally asked him the question. And believe me, asking the question was sort of, like, admitting that he has this thing, but also sort of admitting that I don’t, and more than that, that I wish I had this thing that he has. That’s why it was hard, I guess. That’s why it was, like, this feat, to swallow my pride and reveal that he’s got a thing that I don’t.

So I asked him how he does it, you know, with the ladies. Because, if there’s some sort of, like, secret, then I want to be privy to that information, to use it like he uses it and be as good as he is. So after I ask him, I couldn’t believe how open he was with it. He said, “Yeah, there’s a secret. I’ll tell you it.”

So I was almost like giddy with excitement, because all this time I watched him and I couldn’t figure out the secret, but when I ask him, he’s just, like, willing to tell me. I caught myself leaning in, like I might miss it and if maybe after he said it and I didn’t hear it, possibly he wouldn’t want to tell it to me again, like decide against telling it to me since I missed it the first time. So I’m leaning in, like, all attentive and then I start thinking I’m leaning in too close because he’s starting to lean away from me a little and I start thinking, oh shit, I’m going to screw up this unbelievable chance to learn this secret by acting too interested in what he’s about to say. So I correct my posture and try to play it cool, like, all nonchalant, like, I’m trying to give off the vibe like whatever, buddy, tell me or don’t, I really don’t care, but actually I do care, like, a ton. So I’m sort of freaking out that he might not tell me but then he tells me the secret. You know, how to be good with the ladies.

He says he has a technique. First, he tells me he just listens. He says that women like to hear themselves talk about stuff that doesn’t matter. That they, like, feed off telling you some fucked up shit they learned about the other women they know, their friends. They like to talk about the stuff those women would want to desperately keep hidden. So he says he listens, and every now and then he asks a question to keep her on track and to prove that he has been attentive and he acts interested in what she has to say.

Then he says after a while, you can tell by how she’s telling the story, how she feels about what she’s talking about and to be on her side of it before she thinks she reveals her side of it. So they feel really connected to you because, you are on her side of the fucked up story she’s telling. But then he said that occasionally, you have to ask a question that might relate to the viewpoint of how the other party might see it, like in a super non-combative way so she knows you aren’t just agreeing to agree, that you actually have your own mind and that you are an intellectual who can maybe see many different viewpoints. This way she will respect you more for ultimately siding with her, because now she knows that you can look at things from an unbiased position. But he says to always end up siding with the woman telling the fucked up story about her friend.

Then after he disarms her like that he tells a heartfelt and emotional story of his own about how he is sort of, like, damaged by love, and that talking to her like this has really put him at ease and how it has restored his faith that maybe one day he actually might be able to get over the fucked up shit his ex put him through, but he is still not sure, but he would like to know if maybe she could, sort of, like hang out sometime, but only as friends due to the fact that he is still emotionally damaged and despite how he was wronged by his ex, he still hopes she is doing okay and that he’s not sure he’s quite ready to fully let it go. Of course she says yes, because she feels a subconscious attachment to him and also wants to help try to fix him. She invites him over and ultimately he rails her.

That’s the secret, he says to me. It’s perfect, he says, because afterwards, he waits, like, a day or two, and then he calls her up on the phone and says he wasn’t ready for what happened and that he still has feelings for his ex that put him through the fucked up shit, and that he hopes they can still be friends, but that he just wasn’t ready for things to progress so quickly the other night and that he hopes she can understand that he needs some time to sort through all of his emotions. Of course she agrees, even though she might not want to but it’s the right thing to do so she says, yes that’s fine. And then, he says, you then need to use the fucked up shit she told you about her friend to manipulate the friend into getting railed as well. He says that the friends will always, without fail, tell you some fucked up shit about their other friends, and it seems to keep the momentum going. He says the best part is that you can use your same, emotional and heartfelt story again, just in case the women talk to each other, then your story will check out.

After he told me, I sort of stopped talking to him, because I realized how much of a sleaze bag he was, but also, because I was keeping busy railing women with the techniques he taught me.

Understanding The Sign

There is a sign on an old road just off of a nearby interstate. It is rusty and damaged, like time and the elements took an unhealthy interest in it. Don’t be fooled. Nature, in all her beauty and glory, can also be a selfish bully sometimes, in her attempt to break down man-made structures and forfeit them back to the earth. It was on this road, in front of this sign, that I had an epiphany. And while mental clarity doesn’t come to me often, I paid attention this time, since I was already in stop-to-smell-the-roses mode.

I often think that the answers to everything are right in front of us, there for us to see them, if we just open our eyes…the key to life, or happiness, or spirituality–all of it. We are blinded by life, by the everyday mundanity of the grind. But as I stood in front of this sign, with weeds and grass crawling up it’s oxidized pole which supported the grotesque, dented, and bulbous piece of metal on which the message had been printed, I read the message with absolute clarity, with pinpoint accuracy as to what it was telling me. My eyes were open when I read it, open in a way that is fleeting, open to the depth of what it means to be human. For a split-second I was one with the universe, one with nature and life. I beheld all of what this whole thing was about. It rushed into me so quickly, I got dizzy from the idea. The emotion and clearness of it rippled through my entire body, and I ached with the knowledge, drained with the effort of comprehension. I literally stumbled back and lost my balance.

Simple, eloquent and rich was the understanding, it had rocked me to my absolute core. I sat there in the sand and rocks, under the sign, and snapped back out of the knowledge, lost the ability to understand the message I had so clearly understood only seconds before. I had been on the precipice of understanding. On the brink of solidifying the reason of our existence. I imagine the insight, or at least the glimpse of what I experienced, was akin to what a Buddhist monk toils for. That one-ness with the universe is a humbling experience, the understanding of it far too much for mere humans, with our imperfect minds, to grasp. And I grasped it, if only for seconds, I grasped it. I almost cried when I realized it left me. The feeling was like déjà vu. It was there and gone in an instant, and it was so abstract, I can’t even begin to explain it or accurately recount the details of what it was to understand the volumes of knowledge and peace and profundity it evoked in me. And just like that, it was lost, slipping through my outstretched fingers, like trying to catch water with a net, grasping at answers with an imperfect tool and momentarily holding it, raw and powerful, but only long enough to feel it slip through.

I wanted to curse, lamenting my inability to retain the awesome beauty of understanding I just beheld. When I looked back up at the sign, the doorway had closed, the tattered and rusty sign now a simple marker for instruction. It read, in big, white letters “STOP.”

Bill C. Castengera

Author of Shift!

Purchase Shift! on Amazon!

Why Do Editors Hate Adverbs?

Adverbs are the middle child, the step-child, the weird aunt in love with her eighteen cats, and cannot function on a normal, sociological level. Editors, especially, it seems, do not get along well with adverbs. It’s the first thing they want to cut, in an attempt to streamline the interaction with the uncouth, to dismiss having to deal with clunky and often misused–or over-used–unwarranted verbal clutter.

While I’m a realist, and understand the streamlining, I still think that adverbs have a place in the written word, so today I’ve decided to crack the case, like a literary detective sneakily stalking and cautiously meandering while meticulously navigating the secret literary hatred of grotesquely bad adverb usage. See what I did there?

The editors’ reasons for putting adverbs on the chopping block are not altogether a bad thing. Many writers use an adverb to elevate a weak verb when a better verb could have been used in the first place. While I’m not an editor, I can see and understand that using an adverb to elevate a weak verb looks almost haphazard or careless on the part of the writer. In many cases, the adverb can be left out while also maintaining the integrity of the sentence or idea. But we writers love adverbs! Changing “he ran quickly” to “he sprinted” uses words economically and creates a stronger visual image. A stronger, more descriptive verb eliminates the use for many adverbs and adds depth and vocabulary to your writing.

Adverbs, however, are not the devil. They are not the forbidden fruit of the written word, and hopefully if you’re doing it right, they won’t end up killing anyone. Using adverbs in writing has become so tainted by the writing industry that writers have become extremely terrified to brazenly use them to artistically construct a horrifically interesting story…

Sometimes there is no stronger verb that conveys the same tone that the weak verb creates. There are times when adverbs can and should be used. I always feel that dealing in absolutes is a dangerous game. Simply put, telling someone to avoid adverbs is wrong advice and way too brief to inject into someone’s writing instructions. Maybe the rule should be to avoid adverbs unless a better verb can be used that doesn’t change the overall understanding of the idea you’re trying to convey in your sentence. Nope. Too long and clunky. See what I mean? Editors and teachers go for the brief instruction, but in doing so, they create an absolute, and then it terrifies writers and students out of adverbs completely.

If I am to offer my humble opinion, which I’m going to anyway since the fact that you’ve read this far means you’re too invested now to just stop reading before I state it…I have always been of the mind to write your story without rules, without a consideration for grammar or spelling, without constraint or fear of those absolutes inflicted upon us by the established experts. Write your story. Write. It. The story, despite all of the technical aspects that you must comply with, is the meat of your message. Don’t get lost in technicalities, it will hurt your story.

The editing process is where adverb cuts, if there should be adverb cuts, will happen. I have been on the wrong side of that fence, trying to find that perfect word, spending thirty minutes on one word in one sentence to get it just right. It is frustrating because in that time while I was working on the technical grammatical issue, I was losing the momentum of getting the story out. I feel that the story suffered for it.

One last thing. “He shouted loudly” is redundantly superfluous.

Written by

Bill C. Castengera

Author of Shift!

Purchase Shift! on Amazon!

My Sick Obsession

I admit it. I have an unhealthy fascination with the first sentences of books. To me, it’s sort of like stepping into a dream. It’s that brief moment where one foot is on either side of a wicked threshold. On one side you are well grounded in life and reality, on the other, fantastic things can happen. That first sentence is the doorway, the exit from the mundane, normal existence, and the entrance into the amplified world of someone else’s twisted mind…

When someone tells me they’re reading such and such book, my immediate response is, “What’s the first line?” Those that know me are ready for the question, because they already know that I have a sick addiction and they have memorized it for recitation. Those that don’t, aren’t really ready for the question, and don’t remember the first sentence so invariably my follow up question becomes, “Do you have the book with you now?” If they don’t, I end up trying to play it cool, like it’s not a big deal. I often hurriedly excuse myself so that I can go into some nearby dark corner to enter the title of the book into my phone.

So this week, I had a slew of books of which I absolutely had to know the first sentences. Here are some of them in no discernible order:

“The time traveler (for so it will be convenient to speak of him) was expounding a reconcite matter to us.” The Time Machine – H.G. Wells

“One day Karen DiCillia put a few observations together and realized her husband Frank was sleeping with a real estate woman in Boca.” Gold Coast – Elmore Leonard

“The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would deny what had happened.” The Eye of the World – Robert Jordan

“There was one mirror in my house.” Divergent – Veronica Roth

“I haven’t laid eyes on the island in several years.” Shutter Island – Dennis Leahane

“In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul.” Dune – Frank Herbert

“He began his new life standing up, surrounded by cold darkness and stale, dusty air.” The Maze Runner – James Dashner

“When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.” The Hunger Games – Suzanne Collins

“Where’s Papa going with that ax?” Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.” The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

The first sentence of a novel is so intriguing to me. There’s mystery. There’s suspense. It really is one of my guilty pleasures, to know the first sentence of a book. It is the beginning of the adventure, the first step out into the world where the rules are never what you thought them to be.

Written by

Bill C. Castengera

Author of Shift!

Purchase Shift! on Amazon!

Understanding Creative People

The deep, monotonous grind of daily life can sap the creative urge out of the best of us. We have a lot to do. And creating art can be viewed as wasting time, especially if you aren’t in it for monetary gain. And ultimately, none if us are. Sure, making money from the thing we create would be great, and some of us succeed at that, but we are in it for the enjoyment. We are in it for the art itself.

As a novelist, I can spend 6-8 hours a day writing. At the end of it, I’m closer to a finished product, but I didn’t finish anything. Nothing was completed. Novel writing is an endurance race, not a sprint, and I’m never really going for the finish line anyway. People–most people–can’t seem to wrap their minds around that. I’m in it for the run itself. I’m in it for the exhilaration and journey the run gives me, and truthfully, when the finish line appears around that last bend, there is a sting of disappointment. That last chapter, that last paragraph…I begin to lament the loss of an old friend.

Just like a marathon, I will then dissect my performance, identify where I could improve and make changes, some subtle, some major, all in an effort to make myself the best I can be. After all, if you’re going to do something,why not try it to the best of your ability? But monetary gain, while fantastic, is not what I’m after. I’m after the feeling. I’m after the journey and the satisfaction it gives me. A non-creative person will never understand it. It seems like a waste of time to them. Someone that doesn’t like to read, and doesn’t like to write can’t fathom why I do this to myself. And for me, there is nothing else I can imagine doing. I write. I am a writer.

We artists, appear to have our heads in the clouds, and maybe that description is accurate. We dream, we fantasize, we imagine. But also consider this: we make this world worth living in. We are responsible for creating things–from mere thought. We create tangible products from our consciousness alone. We toil ceaselessly because we must. We can’t stay sane without that creative release, and it’s a good thing too, since the world is a better place for it.

All I’m saying is whether or not the artist is perceived as wasting time, or spending time out of society’s clutch, we are doing noble work. Monetary gain, while pleasant, is not what drives us. It is the marathon, the journey to the finish line. It is the wind in our hair, the air in our lungs, the blood in our veins. We can not imagine a life without a creative outlet.

Written by

Bill C. Castengera

Author of Shift!

Purchase Shift! on Amazon!

Dynamic Plot Design

The reason people read boils down to the story.  I have read numerous articles about how every story is about people, and therefore character is the basis of plot.  This may be partially true, but there is a big part of me that rejects the notion.  Characterization is an extremely important part of a good story, but characters don’t make the story.  What happens to those characters is what makes the story.  This week, I’m focusing on plot design.  It is certainly not a backhand to the importance of characterization within the plot, so for those of you that have that affronted look on your faces, please temporarily stow it for now, and change you facial expression, because its creeping me out.

Plot is the driving factor of what your story is about.  The plot of a novel temporarily suspends belief and injects us into a fantasy world–an escape.  A poorly constructed plot takes us out of the story and doesn’t grip us enough to pull us out of reality long enough to feel we have escaped for a while.  After all, what is reading, but temporarily escaping the turmoil of our own lives for just a little while, and experiencing the fictional turmoil in our characters’ lives?  We need drama.  It’s not an escape from drama.  In fact, it is diving into a deeper drama than we might experience ourselves in our everyday life.  But,–and here’s the beautiful part–it is not our drama.  It is the drama that the characters experience.  So what are the keys to a great plot?  What is the magic formula we must employ to create a timeless masterpiece of fiction?  I’m not sure there is a standardized formula, because if there were, everyone could replicate it.  Despite the absence of a formulaic guarantee, there are several “must-haves” that will manifest a dynamic plot line.

1.  Conflict.  A plot needs conflict.  This may seem a simple idea.  You’re right, it is.  Unfortunately, it is overlooked way too often.  Without going too deeply into the nuts and bolts of the different types of conflicts, (i.e. inner conflict, environmental conflict, exterior conflict, antogonistic conflict–I could go on for days…) I am just simply saying that a great plot needs some sort of conflict for your protagonist to negotiate through or around.  Decide the conflict before putting the first word on the page.  The story arc should go something like this:  Everything is great, it is a perfect world.  A conflict arises, destroying that utopia.  The character fights through the conflict in an attempt to restore the balance we saw at the begining.  Through a series of events your character either prevails against the conflict, or doesnt.

2.  Things happen for a reason.  In real life, maybe this is not so true.  If something happens just because it happens, your readers will feel cheated.  In real life, maybe an anvil falls on the antagonist’s head.  I know, you’re asking when did this turn into a roadrunner cartoon?  It was a happy coincidence and you never have a worry in your life again.  In your novel, at the end, if your antagonist just happens to have a heart attack and die, ending the story, you will lose your reader.  Things should not just happen as a coincidence.  That’s not to say that an antagonist can’t have a heart attack.  But there must be more to it that allows the reader to feel that there is some sort of closure.  An unexpected heart attack, while constantly occurring in real life, should not happen in the novel unless there is a reason for it.  Bottom line:  Things happen for a reason.

3.  Don’t focus on things that don’t push the plot forward.  I don’t really care that your main character put their french fry into a glob of ketchup.  Let’s get on with the action!  So now here comes my disclaimer…you can and should talk about that french fry and ketchup if it develops your character.  But it is not a plot device.  Don’t confuse character development with plot.  They are not the same.  Push your plot forward.  Constantly.  People want action.  Character development, setting, and style are all important aspects of a great story, but push your plot forward.  Use those elements to do that.  A lot can be said about a character by how they react to circumstances.  Rather than spend time telling the reader that your character is a coward, show it by having your character react to a mugging.  The plot unveils character.

4.  Pace your story evenly.  Too many things happening all at once can be confusing.  Things can happen at the same time, but not in written word.  You will always reveal one thing before the other.  In other words, if your character is getting choked while reaching for a bottle to smash on his enemy’s head, your reader first read, as you did, that your character was getting choked. Having too many things happening at the same time, while totally plausible in real life, is cumbersome in writing and reading.

5.  There are no rules to a good plot.  What?  Be creative.  These are guidelines, not rules.  It is possible to do anything here I’ve just said not to do.  It’s possible to do it well, too.  We all know that there are always outliers, exceptions to everything.  It is what makes the creative process magical.  Something that may not click with one reader might speak to another.

Every writer that has revealed to someone that they’ve written a book gets asked the question:  “What’s it about?”  We tend to answer that question one of two ways.  We tell them the plot, or we tell them the theme.  I have always felt that revealing the theme of my book was a spoiler.  I’d like the reader to draw their own conclusions.  And truth be told, I’ve always garnered more interest when I explain the plot.

–Bill C. Castengera is an award winning author of the book “Shift!

Buy the book “Shift!” here

Hijack Your Reader

Authors have one chance to hook a reader before the reader puts their book down to peruse another. Let’s face it. We live in a world that is constantly jockeying for consumer attention, and as writers, if we can’t grab a reader’s attention in the first few pages, not only have we lost a precious sale, we have failed at the one thing we imagine ourselves to be–masters of our craft.

Many novelists make the mistake of the wind-up, the expositional equivalent of sitting in the waiting room of a doctor’s office. While we, as writers, set up the plot with absolute, need-to-know, won’t-understand-the rest-of-the-story-without-it, details, our readers are bored to tears. They haven’t had a chance to become invested in our characters, our setting, or our plot. We expect them to stay with us through it. We need them to. But they won’t. Not until we can learn how to capture our readers’ fleeting interest in that brief moment that they decide to pick up our book.

There are so many tips lined up around this topic, so many suggestions, so many ideas and workshops. Countless articles, blogs, books, and theories aim to educate us poor, misguided dabblers of the written word. Here I am, now, doing the same thing. My advice, however, is more of a holistic approach–guerrilla tactics, if you will.

1. Maybe it’s a cheap shot, but if done well, an attention grabbing first sentence will buy you a little more time with your reader. Your goal here, no matter the genre, must be intentionally to build mystery. The first line must incite intrigue. It must literally force your reader to read on. It must be so strong, that choice is not even a part of the equation.

The goal of newspaper and magazine article headlines are to do just that. They grab the reader’s attention. They make us want to know more, and we are victims to it. We have all read a headline on Facebook or Twitter that captured our attention so exclusively that there simply was not an option to not click on it. I’m not suggesting writing headlines, though. I’m simply suggesting that a powerfully intriguing first line will grab just a little more of the reader’s precious reading time and allow us to enact phase two of our attention hijack.

2. Write your story as you normally would, introduction, exposition, everything. Describe the weather, the particular shade of red lipstick your character is wearing, her hair color, eyes, profession, mental disposition, all of it. Write. Tell your story. Then, when you have completed your manuscript, trash the first three chapters. Or move them. The idea here is to get into the middle of the action from the onset. Studies have shown that most books are well into the “rising action” arc of their story by the fourth chapter.

Our readers don’t want description. Not yet at least. They need to be invested in the characters before they care how the character looks or what color cardigan he’s wearing. Drop the reader in the middle of the action from the first word. I am reminded of the movie, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. The movie starts with Doctor Jones negotiating a booby trapped cave to steal a golden statue. We have no background, no reason why, no idea who he is or where in the world he is. But it grabs us. The first ten minutes of the movie forces our investment in him and though we have no idea who he is yet, we find ourselves rooting for him, knowing that there’s an unwritten promise that we will undoubtedly be filled in on all of the background stuff at a later time.

3. Now we have a first sentence grabber, we have immediate action, and finally, the first chapter must, absolutely must, have a cliffhanger leading into the next chapter. Ideally, this is the desire at the end of every chapter in the book. It makes the reader refuse to stop at a natural breaking point. They must read on. They simply can’t help themselves. This facet of a book is what makes people call it a “page-turner.” It is why people stay up to finish a book well past their bed time. It is also the point at which a prospective buyer closes the book and purchases it.

I’m not downplaying the importance of the content of the later chapters, but it is abso-freaking-lutely (so much so, that I had to use an infix!) imperative that the first chapter have these elements. If you are good enough to employ these three points in every one of your chapters, you just might have a best-seller on your hands, and some very fulfilled readers.

Written by

Bill C. Castengera

Author of Shift!

Purchase Shift! on Amazon!

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Get Off The Fence.

There is no place for emotions in a civilized society.  Even keeled, good tempered and the ability to outwardly project minimal fluctuations in emotions is a trait that at least makes it look like you have it together.  Civilized?  Maybe, maybe not.
Have you ever just seen someone totally lose control of their emotional disposition?  Wether it is anger, or depression, or sobbing, or whatever, the lack of emotional grip makes the person look out of control.  Mostly because they are.  The line between conviction in something and emotional control is blurred, but it's there.  Can one be passionate about something and have complete control over their emotional state?  I think so.  This week, I've decided to write about the dynamic relationship among emotions, how they influence public opinion, and what it means to be civilized.
Vanilla.  People have used this expression to describe a state of being of just sort of going with the flow. There is no conviction on either side of the fence.  There is no strong opinion about anything, really, at all.  The terminology is a metaphor.  Chocolate being an extreme on one side, and strawberry being the opposite extreme.  Those that choose vanilla, really don't lean one way or the other.  Vanilla is that center option, it is the "I can't get off the fence and choose a stronger option," option.  What might people think of me if I go strongly in the chocolate direction?  It will certainly alienate the strawberry people. And the converse is also true.  If I go in the strawberry direction, it will most certainly offend the chocolate people.  So this person is vanilla, ever so careful not to offend, ever so careful to try to identify with all groups, everywhere.  
So, then, I wonder, if being vanilla means not having your own opinions, or if it simply means you choose not to express those opinions since much of society can't seem to get a grip on their emotional state.  If I expressed a strong opinion one way, the unstable nature of society's emotional state could have consequences I simply don't want to deal with.  In fact, it could incite consequences that I feel that I'm above dealing with.  This whole freedom of speech stuff, while protection of it legally seems great, peer pressure is another matter all together.  The question then becomes how fast my government can save me from an angry mob of the general public?  Not fast enough.  Vanilla it is!  
Tolerance of opinion differences is a civilized idea, and can only occur with education.  That may be wrong.  Maybe it can only occur with intelligence.  And since intelligence can not be taught, we are evolutionary steps away from tolerance.  No amount of teaching can make a person tolerant of opinion differences.  It can only happen with a logical mind.  Emotions cripple the ability of the average person to achieve this.  And we are all emotional beings.  But we are also on the precipice.  Some people are intelligent enough to handle chocolate or strawberry.  Some people can look at things from different angles, get their pride out of the way and say, "When you explain it like that, I can see your position."  Some people can do it, but most cannot get outside of themselves to have this ability.
Our emotional depth is what makes us humans.  A robot can see things logically, but conviction, anger, sadness and art, all come from the heart and not from the brain.  When we lose our ability to stay vanilla despite how we feel, when we don't care about public reactions because there won't BE a public reaction, when logic rules and emotion doesn't exist, will there be anything worthy of conviction?  Without opponents to arguments, there is no argument.  Stay vanilla, but be against something.  Or stand for a strongly held belief.  Fight the fight if it is something you believe in, but listen to alternative opinions.  Be emotional, but be rational.  Be loud, then be quiet.  Be heard, but listen.  We enter debates too often with a closed mind, a mind that will not be swayed.  
We are changing, though.  A world without controversy--world peace--has always been an abstract idea.  And a highly-touted goal of Miss America contestants and politicians for lifetimes.  Evolution is the answer, and it is coming.  Make no mistake, we are emotional beings and we need that.  But we also need that one switch, that switch that we can turn on to allow us to consider alternative opinions.  We can never know all angles, and we need to realize that it might be possible that someone can explain an angle we haven't thought of.  So be chocolate, be strawberry, and be vanilla.  But don't select your position based on your emotional state.  It's possible to be neopolitan...
Check out my satirical fiction:
"Delightfully offensive!"  Slighted by humanity, God must put down the bottle long enough to save the world...
Buy "Shift!" on amazon

Prioritize Your Reliability

 Reliability is an important attribute to have, from every vantage point.  Of course employers want a reliable employee, but also from a personal standpoint, friends want reliable friends.  That's why, in this week's blog, I'm going to unravel the root reasons that people want other people to have that quality.
1.  Trust.  If you never do what you say you're going to do, you lose people's trust.  When no one trusts you, they know they can't count on you.  I almost called this point 'predictability.'  But if you never do what you say you'll do, well, then you do become predictable insofar as people will be able to predict what you're not going to do.  But ultimately, it boils down to how much trust you can garner from people.  People will only trust you when you have a proven track record of doing what you say you'll do.  In many cases, we humans often allow ourselves to trust people before they have given us a reason to trust them.  This is most likely due to the misplaced belief that other people have the same moral code that we ourselves hold.  Call me an optimist, but I honestly do still believe that people want to do the right thing in most situations, but ultimately it will come down to their ability to prioritize in a way that matches your priorities.  Let's be realistic here, though, everyone' priorities are skewed to lean toward what's important to them, individually.  When they make your priorities their priorities, they will build your trust.
2.  Good intentions.  "I planned on coming to work when I was scheduled, but I had a flat tire."  Unfortunately, the world doesn't function on good intentions.  Not when it comes to reliability.  Obviously, the example is a situation that couldn't be predicted.  But consider this:  you leave in enough time for work that any unexpected detour would still get you there on time.  Often, as a manager of staff, I have had people call out because their car wouldn't start, or their ride didn't show up, or some other excuse that rode soley on the back of a lack of transportation.  A reliable person would find a way.  Call a taxi.  Take the bus.  Ride a bike.  Their priority was not a match with mine.  My priority was to have employees that can help my customers.  Their priorities were not in line with mine.  They didn't find a way to make it work.  Unreliable.
3.  Do what you say you're going to do.  If you don't plan on doing it, don't promise it.  Politicians could take a lesson in this.  How frustrating is it when someone promises they'll do something and then they don't do it?  Pretty annoying.  Often, they fully plan on doing whatever it was they said they'd do.  Again--good intentions.  But their priority level of the task is not in line with yours and they forget, or something comes up, and point one is blown.  Trust is out the window.
4.  Be the person you would want someone else to be.  Blah blah blah....treat others as you would want to be treated...yada yada yada....gimme a break!  How much more cliche can it be, really?  It's true though.  Wouldn't you want someone else's priorities to match your own?  Would you want the things that are important to you to be important to everyone else?  Of course you would!  I often think about how everyone has their own agenda, their own self important mental view of the way things need to be.  It's a selfish view.  It has to be.  But at least in most of what we do, we are driving towards that self important agenda.  Can we, some of the time, not all, focus on what's important to others?  If we can do that, we will find that most people will pay it back by matching their priorities just a little closer to ours.  And that is where the magic happens.
5.  You have to pay it forward before it will get paid back.  A good deed, a nice gesture, the simple act of consistent reliability will get a return on investment.  People will trust you.  Good intentions will materialize into good actions.  People will do what they say they will do, and treat you as you would want them to treat you.  When you are a reliable person, people will reciprocate that back to you.
It's interesting to me that a good employee can be viewed that way based simply on reliability.  A good friend can be a good friend based simply on reliability.  A good parent, the same.  All positive interactions build on the foundation of reliability, because reliability is the root of trust.  People want to trust other people.  We want to trust others so desperately that we trust without proof that we should trust.  Why not be that breath of fresh air?  Make people confident that they can trust you because you are reliable.  Simple reliability will give you meaningful friendships.  It will get you promoted at work.  In a day and age where everyone is so focused on trying to selfishly gain the advantage, it is easy to let the selfish nature of others propel you by being reliable.  In other words, when people can count on you, in a world where that quality is rare, they will want you on their team.
Check out my satirical fiction:
"Delightfully offensive!"  Slighted by humanity, God must put down the bottle long enough to save the world...
Buy "Shift!" on amazon

Comfort Zone Expansion

     Routine is the definition of comfort.  When we know what to expect, how to react, and there are no surprises, we feel comfortable.  I think most of us do, anyways.  When we know how to handle ourselves in any given situation, there is a calm that comes over us.  The routine might be work.  It might be your Sunday foray to church, or your Wednesday tee time.  We fill our lives with routine.  We have a desire to be comfortably tucked inside our shell of protection.

     I've been increasingly interested in others' motivation to leave that comfort zone and try something new and unknown.  Or, alternatively, I'm curious about how routines begin in the first place and then how they stick.  Nothing starts out as a routine.  It builds to that, but at some point, the newness of it wears off and the comfort zone expands.
     I have often been of the opinion that I hate anything new.  New people, new ideas, doing new things, all of it makes me uncomfortable.  And while I openly admit that I hate anything new, that is not necessarily the case.  Hate may be too much.  It's more of a lack of comfort.  Sort of like someone stabbing me with a knife in an area that is not life threatening.  I don't like it, it is not comfortable, but then once the knife is removed, I will heal and have a small scar from it.  Then I will call the police since I just got stabbed.  What is this world coming to, anyway?  You can't just stab someone and it's okay.  It's not.  It's not okay.
     But anyway, I really don't have a problem meeting new people.  I have a problem with unimportant surface conversations.  I guess when you first meet someone, you don't know them enough to have deeper conversations.  To me, that first bit is uncomfortable.  That digging in and trying to get to know someone is cumbersome and flawed.  I take a true comfort in routine.
     I like knowing the scope of most likely possibilities, and I like knowing that my knee-jerk reaction to an on-the-fly situation will have already been tried and true.  There is no fumbling around for some insight on the correct way to proceed.  I've been through a situation very similar before and already know how to handle it. Purposefully putting yourself in uncomfortable situations is a foreign concept to me.  I don't get why anyone would purposefully do that.
     Obviously I'm an inward thinker.  Perhaps those social butterflies are not inward thinkers, or maybe their confidence level is way higher than mine.  I certainly can't pretend to know the answer.  So, as per my usual philosophical, inward thinking brain slowly ticks...I try to imagine any and all reasons that someone would not hold the same beliefs about comfort zone expansion as I.
     Maybe people that purposefully seek a change in routine(I call it comfort) is because they are adrenaline junkies.  They must like that rush of uncertainty.  They must revel in that crazy chaos of change!  Okay.  So that's one reason.  Maybe another reason is despite the fact that it's not comfortable, they force themselves to do it because they know, consciously or subconsciously, that after the initial discomfort, they will now have a broadened idea of comfort.  
     I like the simple routine of things and I very much dislike monotony.  These things work in counterpoint to one another.  I guess when the scale of monotony gets heavier than the scale of routine and comfort, I stick a big toe just outside my routine; never too far, though, because I may need to pull in back in quickly.  So it really is, for me, that nefarious quote of my former mentor; "Change occurs when the pain of staying the same is more than the pain caused by making a change."
     The pain of monontony, for me and as of late, has increased to a level that requires me to make a change.  My routine has been broadening, little by little.  It will continue to broaden, too, until a time when I look back on my former routine and find that I am so far off the reservation, the view is scary, and looks to be too far outside of my comfort zone to ever make that journey back.  A broadened comfort zone is biased, then, based on how good our memory serves us, and mine's not so great.

   
     Check out my satirical fiction:
"Delightfully offensive!"  Slighted by humanity, God must put down the bottle long enough to save the world...
Buy "Shift!" on amazon