Herd Mentality, MBA Saga, Part 1

A year ago people were writing about how they wanted to save the world. Fast forward to 2011. 223 people drop their resumes for XYZ (or other letters I will leave to your imagination) consulting firm, nearly 50% of the class. Changing the world, one consultant and investment banker at a time. Perhaps U.S. News and World Report should our "change the world-ness"...
Humans are such amazing creatures. In the western world, despite our dogged lip service to independence and rugged individualism--the majority are overwhelmingly followers. We want to be a part of the herd. We don't want to stand out. We in fact, hate being the individual. We are so afraid to fail that everyone looks over their shoulder and then gets sucked into the vortex-of-no return of doing what everyone else is doing because you don't want to "not-have-the-option". But by definition, in choosing the option of "having-the-option" you close off the option of finding out what you truly want to do...

Business school is a funny place. We are here to supposively "learn business". And yet, of all the great business thinkers, entrepreneurs, innovators...they largely did not go to business school. They were individuals. They, in fact, stood out. They thought differently.

Individualism. I diagnose myself as suffering from the classic case of societal verbal diaharrea surrounding the concept. And yet, I still pursue it, despite feeling like a fish swimming upstream because I think true individualism is worth it. I already followed the herd. I did the investment banking gig. And honestly, I felt lost. Holding out to do something I'm passionate about, what makes me excited to get out of bed every morning about, is what I signed up for, and what I will continue to hold out for.

How do the leaves know when to change color?

When I was a kid, I always loved the anticipation of a new season. The changing of the season meant the start of things I loved...Fall meant soccer season, birthday presents, and hunting season (Yes, I know...stop looking shocked...I've known how to shoot a 20 gauge since I was 12). Winter meant basketball season, Christmas stockings, and snow tubing. Spring promised tulips and Easter egg hunts. Summer brought fireworks, swimming parties, and concerts in the park.

Now still that kid plus give or take 20 years, a small part of me still loves the excitement of the new season. But more and more, I find myself wishing the current season would last a little longer. I wish the fall leaves in their glorious shades of crimson, orange, and gold wouldn't have to fall. I wish the first snow perfectly white, pure and peaceful, could be saved from the mud-caked boots and slushy car tracks. I wish I could stare at the Christmas tree glistening with its tiny twinkling lights without ever having to figure out how to take it down. I wish the tulip bulbs could somehow freeze right after they bloomed, but still manage to hold that brilliant color and fresh scent that promises new life. I wish I could keep watching summer sunsets with their shades of dusty rose fall into the black sea mirror, dreaming with my eyes open and my feet buried in the beachy sands, with only my old blue hoodie to keep me warm.

But I've lived long enough to know that all the wishing in the world won't take you back to last season, won't fast forward you to the next season...or even make the present season last longer. Sometimes, I imagine my life as a Shakespearian tragedy...I arrive someplace new (set the plot)...I hate it and wish I could go back to where I came from (conflict)...Friends help me overcome conflict and I come to love the new place (climatic build up)...Something inevitably happens to make me move and start all over again (tragic ending).

Change. At times, I think its the only constant thing about life. As a kid, I welcomed it. Later, I wished I could stop it. Now more and more, I just ponder it...is it ever the right time to let go of people who have become the other half of your heart, to leave places that have changed how you see the world, to move on from something you have invested so much of yourself...

Despite everyone's perception of my extreme extrovert personality, nature and its beauty is my retreat...the place I seek in solitude, where in passing moments, the fog lifts and clarity emerges from life's impressionism...

...How do the leaves know when to change color?

...How do the geese know to fly south for the winter?

...How do the tulips know when to pop up in the spring?

I've always loved Solomon's thoughts on the matter...

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men;

yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Change...timing...the journey...seasons of life...so much of it is a sandy mystery that falls through my grasping hands...and yet, somewhere in my heart of hearts, I know that God makes everything beautiful in its time.

I want to live in the reality of today. Not in the mistakes of yesterday or the worries tomorrow. I don't have it figured out by any means, but I wake up each day wanting to cherish the beauty of today.

You sure, Piglet?

Piglet sidled up to Pooh.

"Pooh," he whispered.

"Yes, Piglet?"

"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw, "I just wanted to be sure of you."

What does it mean to be sure anyways?

We all want to sure of our friends; we want to know and be known -- to be accepted for who we are. And yet, isn't it ironic that so many of us spend so much effort trying to hide behind the facade we want people to see. It amazes me the extent people will go to project an image which they have convinced themselves will earn them real friends. And yet, in the very act of acting, we alienate ourselves from real friendship -- in not showing who we are, how will we ever be known? To know and be known requires a level of vulnerability that for many is down right scary. We are anything but sure about exposing ourselves; the nakedness intimidates us. Because, what if when you strip down to the bare bones of who you truly are, you aren't accepted but rather rejected?

The ability to put yourself out there leads me to the second type of 'sure'. The 'sure of yourself'. I don't mean this in the sense of the overconfident jock who mocked your scrawnyness or the biatchy girl from high school who told you were a fashion degenerate or even the mean bully who stole your milk money in grade school. The 'sure of yourself' that I am referring to are those people who have a sense of certainty about them - they will do what they think is right in the face of opposition; they will swim upstream (and I'm not referring to the salmon in bay to breakers); they will help people who can't repay them; they in essence, know who they are and what they believe in.

A hobby of mine is people watching. I like to walk into a room of people and just blend in and listen to people, watch how they act in social situations, see what makes them tick. And I observe that while so many of us want to be sure of ourselves, in reality, so few of us are. But instead of admitting we are not sure of who we are, we fake it, because we are scared of other people knowing that we don't know. Take the time to look around, you'll see them all over. I affectionately call them posers. I should know, on a good day, I'm a recovering poser. They come in all shapes and sizes, colors and hues.

And finally, there's the sure in the sense of decision making. This tune is all to familiar to me...as indecisiveness has haunted me to some extent. I had brunch with a friend awhile back and he commented that while his wife was very decisive, he tended to like to let things stew for awhile. I definitely resonated with that line of thinking. Stew would in fact be an understatement for me. I let decisions marinate for so long that I've been told (quite accurately) that indecisiveness is my fatal flaw.

Given that I tend to see the world in shades of grey and the phrase "I'm not sure" and "It depends" are overly abused parts of my vocabulary, it shouldn't surprise you that any definitive conclusions on the above observations are rather elusive. However, overachiever that I am, I hope that you will at least humor me with an 'E' for effort...

I'm still sorting through what it means to be sure of myself...(so obviously it goes without saying I'm not there yet)...But I think it may have something to do knowing for 'sure' that there is God who loves me more than I know or can imagine. And perhaps if I really knew, it would change how I lived each day. I wouldn't be a poser; I wouldn't live dominated by other people's expectations. I would be free. Free to live and make decisions without fear.

On relationships, well, there are no guarantees in relationships. Loving is risking. Loving is giving. True friends are hard to come by. Cherish them. I think perhaps as you become more 'sure' of yourself, you become more free in your relationships. You don't expect others to fulfill your needs or worry about meeting their expectations. You are free to give of yourself and accept gifts from others.

But that's enough intellectual musings. For today, if I sidled up to Pooh, I'd know only one thing for sure...that life is not without mystery. But that's the adventure.

I don't want to grow up, I'm a toys r us kid...

Have you ever had someone ask you "What do you do?" Hailing from California it always struck me as a rather odd east coast phenomena. When I lived in New York, invariably it was the second question you were asked at cocktails, dinner parties, bars, clubs, first dates, conferences, in a taxi cab...you pretty much name the scene, and the conversation went a little something like this:

"Hi."

"Hello."

"What's your name?"

[1.5 second pause]

Oh, so what do you do?

For those of you who don't understand the question - let me translate, they mean to ask "What's your job...where do you work?" The examiner wants to rank you against everyone else in their fancy Rolodex. Right answer? You passed, congratulations, you get the privilege of a continued conversation, they may even ask you for your business card...perhaps you even qualified for the bonus round game of "Do-you-know-who-I-know". Wrong answer, failure. You get an "Oh, nice" or my ever-favorite "That's interesting" (when they really think its anything but)...both effective conversation killers and then you move on never really knowing or caring to get to know who that person is.

As an aside, out here on the West Coast (aka the best coast), where we are all supermodels, movie stars, surfers, and yoga instructors, we, of course, only care about looks not books. So the conversation "what do you do?" tends to imply something rather different:

LA...What do you do [facial lift, boob job, tanning salon]?

Northern California...What do you do [your favorite hike, what race are you training for]?

Central Valley...where I'm from, they'd be asking quite literally if there is anything of any interest at all to do there besides cow tipping and fruit picking.

But having recently been fired, I've had some new thoughts on jobs. Incidentally, just the concept of getting fired is mildly funny. Its kinda like a death. Everyone tries to find nice ways to say it, but at the end of the day, it is what it is. Yup, my @ss got fired. And yet, everyone uses terms like 'laid off', 'in between jobs', 'downsized'. For all of you out there who have involuntarily joined me in being 'impacted by this economic downturn' and are studying for your GREs or GMAT, as a freebee, Kaplan would likely call this a euphemism.

But back to the topic du jour. The fact of the matter is that people care about they do. They want to like their job. They talk about it, stress about it, want other people to be impressed by it. They even write books about it. In fact, I just finished a book given to me titled, What Should I Do With My Life? Subtitled The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question. Apparently, The Number One New York Times Best Seller.

Newsflash. Book finished and still trying to figure that out. When I was a kid, and those smart adults who had it all together used to ask me "what do you want to be when you grow up?" I used to avoid the question by singing the jingle "I don't want to grow up, I'm a toys r us kid..." Now, I find myself going back to being that kid. That kid who just wants to enjoy the day. The kid who loves people for who they are, not for what they can do for you. The kid who asks herself what she loves. The kid who can dream about the endless sea of opportunities, but can set sail another day. The kid who isn't so concerned about doing that she stops being.