An early family Christmas in my hometown, and something suddenly hits me with blinding clarity - I’ve been running away from my upbringing all my life. I’m now in my forties, so that’s nearly 30 years of flight. Soon it'll be two years of running for every one year of upbringing. Perhaps it’s time to stop and work out why I’ve spent all this time running away, as well as what I’m actually running towards.
Yet I’m hardly alone. Many of the most ambitious people I meet are also the most discontented, with many also defined more by what they are running away from, than by what they seek. Yet it's only when we work out where we are running to, rather than where we're running from, that we can be truly effective in our pursuits. At least that’s my view – as articulated in What’s Stopping You?
With my own story, I need to add two immediate caveats. This isn’t a rejection of my family, although in many cases it clearly challenges their values. My family had its problems (few don’t), and my position in it was also somewhat strained. But I am perfectly content to return home regularly – including at Christmas – and have spent many happy hours as an adult drinking late into the night with my dad, putting the world to rights over malt whiskies and sweeping statements, and have swapped much gossip and many problems with my mum over tea and cake.
And this isn’t a rejection of where I come from. Essex (American readers should think of New Jersey) has its detractors – me one of them on occasion. It can sometimes revel too much in its trashiness, although it also has some values that I think worthwhile. It’s home to more self-made millionaires than any other county and the whole place reeks of endeavour and bootstrapped achievement. There are few silver spoons in Essex, which is massively to its advantage. And in terms of effort – in everything (personal appearance as much as work) – Essex men and women would top any league table in the country.
Yet, still, I ran away. I was utterly convinced I was missing out on something. Ssomething big and exciting. And I was right. From the age of 19 I’ve lived in three cities – London, Manchester and New York – all big and bad metropolises. In some ways my three chosen cities have defined urban living since the industrial revolution and I’ve basked in the vibrancy, tension and shabbiness of all three. I’ve read their histories, explored their nooks and crannies, and learnt their secrets.
There’s a psychological side to this, however. We emerge from our childhood with hard-wired feelings of confidence – being a winner within the system we’ve encountered – or with insecurities. Of being one of the system’s losers. Quite naturally the winners are inclined to stay and enjoy the mastery of their surroundings, while the losers are keen to move on. Most definitely I was one of the system’s losers. Even at the time, I thought the education I encountered lacking: not just quality of teaching or facilities – it lacked compassion, individualism, methodology, reasoning and purpose. It was a Darwinian education – survival was all that mattered, with the closest approximation to Fred Flintstone declared the winner. What’s there not to run away from?
And the brutality of the education system spilled over into the social life of the town. Schoolmates became gangs with silly names, battling with other gangs with equally silly names: in pub car parks, behind the kebab shop, occasionally on the dance floor. Excited and appalled in equal measure, it was only after I saw a “Prize Guy” being carried to an ambulance – unconscious and hooked up to a blood-transfusion unit after an unprovoked attack from a “Baddow Surfer” – that I really saw the utter pointlessness of it all. Although prosperous, our town was culturally dead – with casual violence filling the void.
Yet it wasn’t the gang violence that alienated me from my hometown. It was my insecurities. Short, skinny and under-confident, I detested the town’s nightlife because it projected the same brutal values as the playground of my failing comprehensive school. The successful men were all large and brash, as were the nightclubs. As were the women come to that. To them all – Dave, Tracy, Steve the bouncer – I was the angst-ridden weedy guy: a pseudo-intellectual gobshite. Losing myself in the madding crowds of major cities was by far my best option.
Whether on Oxford Street, Deansgate or Fifth Avenue, being a nobody in the crowd is certainly comforting for insecure people. As Holden Caulfield discovered as far back as the 1940s, there’s something wonderfully poetic about alienation in a big city. It feels like one of those pop videos in which the singer stands motionless watching the accelerated masses whizz by.
The scale of the buildings, the bustle of the streets, the thousands upon thousands of anonymous people – wow! The loneliness – intellectual or otherwise – is more than offset by the potential of such as place. Big cities are sociable yet furtive, democratic yet cool, frenetic yet tolerant. They are everything small town exurbia isn’t – and I’ve wallowed in them all my adult life.
Yet that’s not good enough. Running away is pointless without a pursuit. Being the fox results, at best, in escape. Far better to be the hound that seeks its prey. I encounter runaways all the time when interviewing candidates for a job. Fantastically able to explain the shortcomings of their existing path (as I am at articulating the failings of my hometown), they seize up or manage only platitudes when asked where they want to go. Partly, this is because they suspect a trick question – they perhaps think the answer I seek is one of loyalty and dedication. Yet it isn’t – it would be ridiculous to expect such apostolicism from a stranger. I want the people I employ to have direction. Only then can I calculate whether our paths will coincide long enough for me to offer them a job.
Knowing where we want to end up is difficult – especially for the young. But choose a destination and the route becomes a lot clearer, and a lot more enjoyable. And most goal-setting books (including mine in WSY?) will tell you that determining an objective is enormously helped by calculating our values. Which, of course, can be informed by what we reject.
For instance, Richard Reynolds set up the Guerrilla Gardening movement because he detested the neglect of urban public spaces, especially around his home in South London’s Elephant & Castle. Meanwhile, I became involved with the City Fringe Partnership, which helps enterprise on the edges of London’s financial district, due to a similar concern for the gaps in urban life (unfortunately the CFP has now closed).
In both cases, the interloper could be accused of becoming the zealot. Yet that’s no less harsh than viewing me as a weedy pseudo-intellectual gobshite. Being the new fish keen to contribute is better than being the fish out of water, for sure. More properly, it’s our expression of love for the place we’ve found – the haven that’s not where we’ve run away from. And if we want to make it a better place, then it’s also given us direction. This makes a hound of the fox – turning our flight into our pursuit. And, suddenly, all that running away looks like it means something after all.
Happy Christmas!
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Showing posts with label London. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
“You’re welcome” – not in London you’re not
Small things matter when it comes to well-being and self-worth. Tiny interactions can make an enormous difference to our outlook – with good days turned to bad or normal days ruined by a momentary negative exchange with a stranger. Of course this also works the other way. A kind word or joke can cheer us – even make us emotional if we are feeling vulnerable.
And as we receive, so we broadcast. Look angry or depressed and we trigger negative interactions (in shops, on the tube, in a queue). Smile, and the world (mostly) smiles back – reinforcing our self-esteem.
This is an important point because it says we are responsible for how the impersonal world treats us. We are not passive recipients of hostility. When it comes to positivity, we can go on the offensive. Sure, smiling in public is difficult and can be misinterpreted – especially in cities that tend to frown such as London (New York too, though for real frowning there’s nowhere like Moscow). But we can and should project ourselves positively and hope for better results.
Though a bit cheesy, Anthony Robbins is good at this stuff – as is Richard Carlson (he of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff). A strong tip from Robbins, which has broader application, is to tip the shoeshine boy “a quarter [25c] not a dime [10c]”. Of course this goes well beyond the “shoeshine boy” (or US-dollar denominated interactions). It means that we should be generous, not just with tipping but with how we communicate with the people who deliver us basic goods and services.
Meanwhile, one of Carlson’s tips is to “be nice to receptionists”. Again, this has wider application – basically stating that scowling at everybody until we meet somebody important or somebody we need something from is appalling behaviour. We should treat well and with courtesy everybody we meet along our personal-interaction supply-chain. Sure, this works because the receptionist may have the boss’s ear. And it’s good grace to treat others with respect. But mainly we should offer positivity because, if we do, it is likely to flow back towards us. Tipping well is self-reinforcing, as is a pleasant exchange with those at the foot of the skyscraper (as well as those on the 40th floor).
We are all guilty of transgressions in this respect – certainly I am. But we should at least recognise the principles extolled by Robbins and Carlson: that projecting ourselves well at all levels helps support our feelings of self-worth, as well as those we come across. And it may just mean we are treated well in return.
So what’s brought on this plea for communal niceties? In fact it was a debate in the office, triggered by me offering a “bless you” to a sneezing colleague. He had sneezed several times, with no response, before I remembered that – as an American new-enough to the UK for him not to be immune to our ways – he may think our silence rude.
I’m not claiming a level of civility here beyond my compatriots. As stated, it was my awareness of my American colleague’s expectations following his sneeze that forged my own “bless you” response. Like most Brits, offering quaint pseudo-religious absolutions is no longer my automatic response to a sneeze. More often my thoughts are along the lines of “urghh germs” and the hope that the sneezer will make efforts to restrict the airborne assassins he’s just released into the atmosphere.
Yet my “bless you” response brought about an office debate on “the coarsening of UK society” – and society's losses thereof – versus the “insincerity of American politeness”. Many Brits are firmly in the camp that American platitudes such as “have a nice day” are irritating because they are – especially when delivered by shop assistants or hotel receptionists – hollow and therefore meaningless.
In fact the “have a nice day” banality is a major aspect of British stereo-typing of Americans. Yet I’ve heard it no more than a handful of times during my long stay and many visits to the US, and never in New York. That said, I’m firmly of the opinion that American insincerity with respect to human exchanges is infinitely preferable to the self-esteem-sapping rudeness often on offer in London.
And if I’m really honest my view goes a little deeper. Sorry, but I’m actually quite annoyed with the attitude of some Brits on this one: mostly because, having witnessed the communally-supportive and self-reinforcing way of American human exchange, I have noticed how exchanges on this side of The Pond tend to be geared the other way. So many times in London, people come away from those small exchanges a little damaged, or with their day made worse, when it would have been so easy to have created the opposite response.
Of course, I accept my own insecurities here: maybe I’m just too sensitive. But the difference between the US and the UK on this one (or at least the gap between the US, including New York, and London) is so stark that I cannot help thinking there is something damaging about the way many Brits interact at street level. While Americans seem to be expressing – however insincerely (though it is less insincere than most Brits assume) – their commonality, those street-hardened exchanges in London seem to be either reinforcing or resisting the imposition of hierarchy. There is a "chippiness" to many London interactions (from both corners) that is anything but communal.
This is not as daft as it sounds. Take the “thank you” exchange in any shop. Most receivers say “thank you” when handed something, even in London. But most American givers respond with an automatic “you’re welcome”. Indeed, our silence at this point is something else American visitors have to mentally navigate. Yet look deeper at the exchange and it might just be that Britain’s more divided society interprets the words “thank you” as an assertion of ascendency over someone lower down. It can be given, and is sometimes received, as a patronising put-down.
This may seem crazy but hang around Knightsbridge or Kensington long enough – or even the “C” suites in most major offices – and that’s exactly how it’s sometimes used. Old-fashioned master and servant relationships are, indeed, being reinforced by the simple use of the acknowledgement “thank you” – often over-used or exaggerated to underline the reinforcement (and I speak from experience here of both US and UK management styles).
So while “you’re welcome” in the States is the simple acknowledgement that we are equals in an exchange (usually money for goods or services, or courtesies for favours or considerations) – therefore reinforcing each other’s self-worth – “thank you” in the UK feels to many like a classist leftover based on the over-stated reinforcement of imposed hierarchical realities. Given this, little wonder the “you’re welcome” response is less than welcome in London.
And as we receive, so we broadcast. Look angry or depressed and we trigger negative interactions (in shops, on the tube, in a queue). Smile, and the world (mostly) smiles back – reinforcing our self-esteem.
This is an important point because it says we are responsible for how the impersonal world treats us. We are not passive recipients of hostility. When it comes to positivity, we can go on the offensive. Sure, smiling in public is difficult and can be misinterpreted – especially in cities that tend to frown such as London (New York too, though for real frowning there’s nowhere like Moscow). But we can and should project ourselves positively and hope for better results.
Though a bit cheesy, Anthony Robbins is good at this stuff – as is Richard Carlson (he of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff). A strong tip from Robbins, which has broader application, is to tip the shoeshine boy “a quarter [25c] not a dime [10c]”. Of course this goes well beyond the “shoeshine boy” (or US-dollar denominated interactions). It means that we should be generous, not just with tipping but with how we communicate with the people who deliver us basic goods and services.
Meanwhile, one of Carlson’s tips is to “be nice to receptionists”. Again, this has wider application – basically stating that scowling at everybody until we meet somebody important or somebody we need something from is appalling behaviour. We should treat well and with courtesy everybody we meet along our personal-interaction supply-chain. Sure, this works because the receptionist may have the boss’s ear. And it’s good grace to treat others with respect. But mainly we should offer positivity because, if we do, it is likely to flow back towards us. Tipping well is self-reinforcing, as is a pleasant exchange with those at the foot of the skyscraper (as well as those on the 40th floor).
We are all guilty of transgressions in this respect – certainly I am. But we should at least recognise the principles extolled by Robbins and Carlson: that projecting ourselves well at all levels helps support our feelings of self-worth, as well as those we come across. And it may just mean we are treated well in return.
So what’s brought on this plea for communal niceties? In fact it was a debate in the office, triggered by me offering a “bless you” to a sneezing colleague. He had sneezed several times, with no response, before I remembered that – as an American new-enough to the UK for him not to be immune to our ways – he may think our silence rude.
I’m not claiming a level of civility here beyond my compatriots. As stated, it was my awareness of my American colleague’s expectations following his sneeze that forged my own “bless you” response. Like most Brits, offering quaint pseudo-religious absolutions is no longer my automatic response to a sneeze. More often my thoughts are along the lines of “urghh germs” and the hope that the sneezer will make efforts to restrict the airborne assassins he’s just released into the atmosphere.
Yet my “bless you” response brought about an office debate on “the coarsening of UK society” – and society's losses thereof – versus the “insincerity of American politeness”. Many Brits are firmly in the camp that American platitudes such as “have a nice day” are irritating because they are – especially when delivered by shop assistants or hotel receptionists – hollow and therefore meaningless.
In fact the “have a nice day” banality is a major aspect of British stereo-typing of Americans. Yet I’ve heard it no more than a handful of times during my long stay and many visits to the US, and never in New York. That said, I’m firmly of the opinion that American insincerity with respect to human exchanges is infinitely preferable to the self-esteem-sapping rudeness often on offer in London.
And if I’m really honest my view goes a little deeper. Sorry, but I’m actually quite annoyed with the attitude of some Brits on this one: mostly because, having witnessed the communally-supportive and self-reinforcing way of American human exchange, I have noticed how exchanges on this side of The Pond tend to be geared the other way. So many times in London, people come away from those small exchanges a little damaged, or with their day made worse, when it would have been so easy to have created the opposite response.
Of course, I accept my own insecurities here: maybe I’m just too sensitive. But the difference between the US and the UK on this one (or at least the gap between the US, including New York, and London) is so stark that I cannot help thinking there is something damaging about the way many Brits interact at street level. While Americans seem to be expressing – however insincerely (though it is less insincere than most Brits assume) – their commonality, those street-hardened exchanges in London seem to be either reinforcing or resisting the imposition of hierarchy. There is a "chippiness" to many London interactions (from both corners) that is anything but communal.
This is not as daft as it sounds. Take the “thank you” exchange in any shop. Most receivers say “thank you” when handed something, even in London. But most American givers respond with an automatic “you’re welcome”. Indeed, our silence at this point is something else American visitors have to mentally navigate. Yet look deeper at the exchange and it might just be that Britain’s more divided society interprets the words “thank you” as an assertion of ascendency over someone lower down. It can be given, and is sometimes received, as a patronising put-down.
This may seem crazy but hang around Knightsbridge or Kensington long enough – or even the “C” suites in most major offices – and that’s exactly how it’s sometimes used. Old-fashioned master and servant relationships are, indeed, being reinforced by the simple use of the acknowledgement “thank you” – often over-used or exaggerated to underline the reinforcement (and I speak from experience here of both US and UK management styles).
So while “you’re welcome” in the States is the simple acknowledgement that we are equals in an exchange (usually money for goods or services, or courtesies for favours or considerations) – therefore reinforcing each other’s self-worth – “thank you” in the UK feels to many like a classist leftover based on the over-stated reinforcement of imposed hierarchical realities. Given this, little wonder the “you’re welcome” response is less than welcome in London.
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