In Which I Rant

I have been in the position now for almost three years of working at a job that I've chosen for reasons that do not reflect my ultimate ambitions. 

I want to write full time--I think we know this.  I also am very suspicious that I want to teach full time--that one maybe we didn't know. 

I do NOT ultimately want to work in a hospitality industry.  This job does not reflect my training, my experience, my earning potential or my skill set.  It does, however, have many things that I wholeheartedly appreciate and that find me choosing to stay here--an awesome boss, great coworkers, flexible schedule, enough money, and usually amenable hours. 

So I understand that many of the people I interact with on a daily basis feel justified in thinking that they're smarter than I am.  And hell, I'm not getting into a pissing contest here--maybe they are smarter than I am.  But they go one step further, and treat me like the idea of my intelligence is worthy of sarcasm (I had one person laughingly refer to me talking to my coworker as a "meeting of the minds"), like I am beneath them (another person referred to me as "the help") or that I simply don't deserve a say or the right to speak at all (a third person spoke to me for TWO HOURS without once asking a question or inviting response.  It was a two hour monologue in a room I couldn't leave). 

Fine.  I get it.  But I am not ok with it. 

More so because I've been delivering workshops to teen girls again as part of Boston GLOW and our IGNITE Change contest.  I listen to them talk, every single time, about the people in their lives who, in various ways, teach them to think less of themselves.  One girl even heartbreakingly brought up the famous passage from Marianne Williamson's work:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.' We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

And tonight, as another person spoke down to me, discounted me, discarded me, these thoughts collided. 

Something is wrong with us.  Something is wrong with our society.  Where has our empathy gone?  Where the hell is our curiousity?  Because it's not just the assumption that a person is beneath your notice, or somehow belittled in your eyes.  It is the assumption that they cannot teach you anything.  That you cannot discover something of value in their experience, in their heart.  That their life, however small or great, would not somehow change your understanding of what it's like to be human. 

You don't know.  I don't know--as often as I accuse others of it, I know I'm not above reproach.  I know there have been times when I've made assumptions about people--whether its habit, an issue of time and focus, or just lack of empathy I don't know.  I've done it. 

But let me just say, as a young woman who considers herself to be smart, accomplished, intelligent, curious, and sensitive, so many people know nothing about me.  So many of the people I encounter on a daily basis at my job know nothing about me. 

Don't be that guy.  Maybe you're too busy to have an indepth conversation with someone about their life and experiences (though, to be honest, that kind of one of the best joys of life), but don't make that assumption.

Don't think that my job defines me. 

That includes being a writer, maybe being a teacher, or working in hospitality or non profits.  None of that defines me. 

Don't think my background, my address, my age defines me. 

Don't think my gender defines me. 

These are absolutely all pieces of who I am--how could they not be?  How could I not be effected by my jobs, my living situation, my lack of a Y chromosome?  They are part of me.  But they aren't everything. 

You don't know until you know the person--until you set aside your busy life and make the connection.  And it's not your fault if you can't do that, can't connect with everyone you cross paths with.  No one can. 

But don't judge until you do.  Because trust me, it sucks.  And when it comes to our young people, you aren't just dismissing them.  You're teaching them to do it to themselves, to believe the judgements and the idea that they are somehow less. 

So, like my mother's fridge magnet says, just be a little kinder than is necessary.  Personally, I'd appreciate it. 

/Rant.