How to talk to Strangers

Today a little boy (maybe age 11 at most) said hello to me on the subway. I said hello and continued my reading but it seemed like he wanted to chat and when I looked up again he said "New York is a beautiful city". Turns out he was visiting from Guadalajara, Mexico and his parents were comfortable with him and his younger brother chatting up people on the subway. I learned that he was in town for 4 days and then headed to Boston. It was not his first time in NYC, he attends an American school in Mexico, and he liked talking to strangers cause he "always learned something new". In fact, he was able to hold a very good conversation--better than some adults I've met.

I also enjoy talking to strangers. Although we are taught as children to avoid talking to strangers, I think we should actually only be taught to not talk to "scary" strangers. "Scary" encompasses any strange vibe or discomfort you feel from a stranger.

Before I give these tips for talking to strangers I know some of you are wondering why you should even bother talking to strangers. It is really up to the individual but approaching someone you don't know may be interesting, can help pass boredom, and might lead to something positive.

Tips for talking to strangers

1. Start with a broad statement that features a shared experience.

Maybe the boy I met today will have a future in diplomacy. He knew how to start a conversation with a positive and broad comment about New York. This works because I live here and he was visiting. Other topics like the weather are boring but they are safe and if you want to talk to a stranger, stick to a safe opening.

2. Ask a question.

Waiting in lines is a good opportunity to talk to strangers and it helps pass the time. The last time I was in a really long line to get into the Picasso Museum in Barcelona, I talked to the American family standing in front of me by asking them where they were from. Asking about someone's reading material is also a good opening. I've found myself curious about whether someone else enjoyed the same book I see them reading and strangers have asked me about my reading material too.

3. Make sure you have an out.

If you decide to talk to a stranger, it is best to not talk to them without an "out" in mind. Knowing how to end the conversation is as valuable as knowing how to start one. If you are in line, your out will be when you are both inside a venue. If you need an earlier out, you can look off into the distance and hope the stranger gets the hint, or you will need to pretend to make a phone call or have work that you need to get done in line. If you are on the train, your stop or their stop is your "out" but you should be prepared to get off earlier and jump onto another car if you have to.

Let me know if you use any of these tips already or have some to contribute!

Perfectly boiled eggs

Thank you to Serious Eats and their article here about how to make the perfect boiled egg. I am pretty sure I have overcooked them for years and this is the first time I had the perfect yellowish orange cooked but not chalky yolks!

Delicious breakfast with some tomato sauce :)

Give it a try!

All I did was put 4 eggs into a pot and wait for the water to start bubbling/boiling/simmering.

Then I turned off the heat but I left the eggs in the water for another 10 minutes just as Serious Eats suggests.

Link again is here!

Find the Future!

A big thank you to my college roommate (and new fan of my blog) for reminding me of the NYPL deadline! I almost missed it!

Here it goes guys

By the year 2021, I will become the first person to have ...

have launched the Positive PR Pact! Friends, students, and colleagues will spread positive news about each other to combat negative gossip.

I will keep you posted on whether I make it into the group of 500 who get to play the game on
May 20th! Read some other really entertaining, witty, and creative entries here.

And I will be writing more about the inspiration behind the Positive PR Pact, case study where I've seen it work, and my plan to introduce it to a high school classroom.

Project We Believe

In honor of Women Wednesdays, I'm featuring Project We Believe which is founded by two young women. Mahnoor Yawar (also a Smithie) , one of the co-founders, first told me about the project a few months ago.

I've been impressed by both the idea and the execution of Project We Believe. Participating is easy-- you send in a photo and a quote that inspires you and promotes tolerance. They have also recently started their "Celebrating Women Everyday" video series which features women and the various reasons they like being themselves.

I find their mission statement interesting because they say that they are more than just a movement. Since many organizations aren't even close to becoming a movement I was very intrigued by what else they aspire to be. They write that participants are also taking a "pledge of defiance against the extremists, the dictators, the fear-mongers, the assassins".

I love the simplicity and the scope of Project We Believe and hope you check it out too!

Fear is the mind-killer

"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."

Anyone else recognize this quote? I read some sci-fi classics during my youth and the quote comes from Frank Herbert's Dune series. I can go into the themes of the plot some other time but even years later the "litany against fear" is one of the really striking features of the series.

I wanted to write about fear because I'm subscribed on an online magazine called Fear.less (latest issue is here) that features stories of a wide range of people who have overcome fear. I've read only the first article of the April issue but it is about a guy who started an org called Wine to Water which raises money for clean water through fundraising at different bar or wine related events.

I aspire to contribute an article to Fear.less someday!

The Praise of the Praiseworthy

"The praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards."

I actually heard the phrase "praise of the praiseworthy" from one of Tim Keller's sermons (he leads the church I attend www.redeemer.com) but after my Google search I think he might have been quoting that from Lord of the Rings.

I thought of this particular quote because I had written a corollary to it a few months ago.

"Do not seek approval and recognition from the wrong people, for the wrong reasons, in the wrong way."

(yes, I did bold my own quote. Blog author privilege :) )

As an additional reminder to myself, I even wrote it on fancy stationary and put it in my bag as a reminder. I found myself needing this reminder as an anchor for my actions and my thoughts as I unconsciously and consciously tried to impress people who I had found out said unflattering things about me. I think the more rational response would have been to sever ties with them or adjust the relationship accordingly but like guys who are drawn to girls who play "hard to get" I found myself wanting to prove their statements wrong. What a losing battle of time and energy and self-respect that was!

I did regain my sense of perspective and I wrote down my quote one morning so that I wouldn't forget it. I was inspired to write my Monday Musing on this topic because I realized I wasn't alone in trying to find the best way to deal with negative PR that others can spread about you.

The first step was to recognize that I didn't want to live any more moments of my life trying to impress people who were frankly not worthy of being impressed. The second epiphany is the Positive PR Pact(PPRP) that I created to combat the negative PR. I have proof that he PPRP works and I look forward to sharing more about it with you all next week and launching it on a larger scale in the future!

Seitan= kaofu

Back to a more lighthearted post!

I never knew that vegans relied not just on tofu but also on seitan. I actually had no idea what seitan was (it is some sort of wheat gluten) and what it would resemble but after going on wikipedia.org I realized I had been eating a version of it my whole life!

Kaofu is this dish. Very frequently eaten as a cold appetizer in Shanghainese cooking.

It is a savory dish with some sweetness.

My colleague loves seitan so I had to try these seitan skewers today at a vegan restaurant I was persuaded to try.

These seitan skewers in chimmichurri sauce smelled and tasted good! Kaofu is marinated throughout so I would have preferred that that whole skewer be better marinated but I enjoyed the texture and the sauce a lot. It does have a texture that is reminiscent of meat.

My friend and I also decided to share a platter of 4 sides and 2 sauces. The standouts were the spicy peanut sauce (which I vow to replicate) and their version of cornbread was good too. I think its odd to eat tofu that is unmarinated (I think you can see a theme in my food preferences) but grilled tofu tasted good and the spicy peanut sauce was a great addition.

I'm going to be happy to report to my colleague on Monday that I was pleasantly surprised vegan food could be very filling and tasty.

Life Strategy?

So the last few posts were about being engaged in each day and this post is about examining your life as a whole.

The speech by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen reposted here, titled "How Will you Measure your Life?" encourages you to apply some business principles to your personal life. I know it sounds dehumanizing to consider yourself a company but he isn't talking about how much revenue growth you have year to year in terms of salary, he is talking about how you allocate your resources and your strategy/mission for your life.

I first came across this article when I peeked over at the woman I was sitting next to on the subway to see what she was reading. Harvard Business Review...interesting. Anyway, I did chat with her and I later looked up the article online.

The first time I read "How Will you Measure your Life?" I had two immediate reactions

1. I think this guy "gets" it.

2. How do I find an hour a day to reflect and pray about the purpose for my own life?

What do I mean by he "gets" it? I mean that I think it is uncommon for most people to dedicate time to thinking about the purpose of their lives. It is one of those big questions that either gets neglected in the frenzy of a busy life or one that gets ignored because there are a million easier things to do than think about the purpose of your life. I think that having a life purpose/vision/mission statement helps anchor you when life gets crazy. I think its pretty remarkable he allocated an hour a day during his Rhodes scholar life. I also generally agree with his conclusion

"Donʼt worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about

the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation: Think about the metric by which your

life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success."

I guess since I'm advocating living consciously every day, I also need to add that it goes hand in hand with living consciously towards a purpose. I haven't followed through on my desire to spend an hour or even half an hour each day dedicated to quiet time and reflection but since I have a blog audience I am issuing a public challenge to myself to allocate a half hour each day towards thinking about how I'm going to measure my life and I'm sure it will turn into more blog posts :)

Let me know if any of you want to try this with me!

No more living for the weekend

So this post is about getting stuck in a rut and then trying to stay out of one.

There was a period early in my career where the novelty of work had worn off and I found myself unhappy and dissatisfied but instead of working towards pinpointing the source of the problems and finding a solution, I found various ways to forget about them. This actually made things worse. I found myself catching up on tv shows and finding new ones in an effort to forget about the current day and avoid thinking about the upcoming workday. I can't remember when I snapped out of the "waiting for the weekend" mode of thinking but I do believe I gradually convinced myself that the problem couldn't be that bad and that a solution was possible.

There are a lot of good themes to focus on in David Foster Wallace's commencement speech (link is here) but I found his ideas about choosing to be present and his acknowledgement of how hard that can be to be

Take his description of visiting the grocery store (14th St Union Sq. Trader Joes anyone?)

The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default-setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way, and who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem here in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line, and look at how deeply unfair this is: I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid g-d-people.

When stuck on a crowded, slow-moving train, or in a long grocery line, you have no control over anything but your own thoughts (if that). How we think and react to the mundane and irritating aspects of our lives can be as important as the "big" moments because most of us will inevitably have more days that are considered mundane than exciting. I don't allow myself to mentally check out anymore (at least not for more than a day) but I think the next excerpt captures what I'm trying to say :

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race" -- the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

I think he is right...and it isn't easy but it is worth it to "stay conscious".

Quarterlife crisis readings

Having a quarterlife crisis is definitely something that would be hashtagged on twitter as #firstworldproblems but it is a relatively common topic amongst my peers.

Part of the difficulty of graduating from college is realizing that

1. There is no longer a clear road map to "success". You got into college and graduated. Maybe you have a job now too. Now what?

2. There are no longer grades, tests, papers, and other external sources of measurement and praise for your self worth. Hopefully, your self worth was never dependent on these external measurements to begin with.

3. You and your friends are no longer on "equal" footing. Different working hours, salaries, and professions can create subtle changes in relationships where in the past we were all students.

4. Life was never fair but once you leave academia there is no pretense of trying to make life appear fair.

5. You realize that the process of getting a job at your firm was more challenging than your day to day work.

I think each of the 5 issues above can contribute to some reassessment of our life, time, and relationships.

There have been two influential articles/essays for me during my period of reassessment.

I want to explore David Foster Wallace's commencement speech (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122178211966454607.html) further on Wednesday

and the essay about How to Measure a Life from Harvard Business School (http://alexcusack.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/how-will-you-measure-your-life.pdf) on Thursday.

The commencement speech focuses on how to live and think in the present while the HBS essay applies some principles used in assessing companies on your own life.