A Domino Effect

When my boyfriend and I were in Eastern Europe in December, we caught an overnight sleeper train from Krakow to Prague.  The train ride was as train rides often are – halting and bumpy, and absolutely not conducive to getting a good night’s sleep.  We also underestimated the length of time we would have to disembark when we arrived in Prague, which left us rushing around as the cabins rapidly emptied, throwing on clothes and cramming our toothbrushes into our bags.

As I stepped off the train, weary from constantly interrupted sleep and irritated at having had to flap around so much, I found myself next to a group of five or six young North American* travellers.  They had formed a pack-like circle around one of the Polish train guards, and one of them was busy pointing into the man’s face, shouting and swearing and accusing him of having unlocked the door to the group’s cabin during the night and stolen a camera.  The guard spoke hardly any English, and it was clear to me looking on that he didn’t fully understand what he had done to deserve such a torrent of abuse.  The sight nearly broke my heart.

I’ll admit it: I did stand there for a moment, wondering whether I should just scuttle away and leave them to it.  But there was something so ugly and disparaging about the tone of voice of the person doing the accusing, and something so helpless and uncomprehending about the person being accused, that before I knew it I had stumbled into the middle of the group and told them all that I didn’t think it was acceptable to speak in that tone, using those words, to another person – stolen camera or not.  While I probably didn’t do much to diffuse the situation (aside from deflecting some of the bile from the guard onto myself), I did gather from the grateful smile the man flashed me as the group finally moved away, the ringleader still yelling at the top of his voice about how this had been none of my business, that he had appreciated someone coming down on his side.

Rudeness is king among my pet hates.  When I was a student, I worked a variety of service industry jobs, mainly in shops.  And one of the things that blew me away – aside from the terrible hours and the laughable pay – was just how nasty people can be, without good reason.  It’s not in my nature to be unkind in the first place, but ever since I experienced the wrath of the angry customer during my student days I’ve gone out of my way to be nice to people working in shops, bars and restaurants.  I don’t care if I’m the customer and I’m supposed to carry some aura of indignant righteousness around with me.  I don’t.  We’re both human beings, we’re both equals.  Surely that’s all that matters?

But what has the capacity to irk me more than people being unduly rude is other people standing idly by and letting it happen.  Few things have humiliated me more in life than being yelled at in front of a packed shop in the middle of a busy Saturday afternoon.  But looking back on my various encounters with horrible customers over the years, I can’t quite decide what’s worse: being yelled at when you don’t deserve it, or having twenty other people standing there listening but trying to avert their eyes because they think it’s not their problem.

You know, I think it actually might be the latter.  Which is why (another) one of my continuing goals in life is to intervene when I see people being unnecessarily rude.  Not because I’m an interfering busybody, but simply because I don’t want to be the person who lets her own cowardice win out over what I see as being the right thing to do.  This is not something that comes naturally to a confrontation hater like myself.  But I’m starting to think that just because something is scary doesn’t also mean it’s not worth doing, or in my case, not worth getting over.  We’re all human beings, we’re all equals and we all (I think) carry a duty to look out for one other where we can, even if we’d sometimes rather take the easy route out, and even where the thought of abiding by that duty fills us with dread.

So tell me!  Encourage me!  Do you intervene when you see people behaving badly towards others?

Image above from here.

*As one commenter to this post has pointed out, the group might not necessarily have been from the States – that was my impression, but it could have been wrong.

People seem to write about “lifestyle design” a lot these days.  The internet is clogged with “how to” articles and blog posts, and our bookshops are teeming with materials aimed at making us think about the way we actually live in relation to the way we might like to live.

I’m all for writing that encourages me to think about the choices I make in life, and anything that feeds my curiosity, or helps me to further rationalise and find meaning in my decisions I generally regard as positive.  While I do think that the line between interesting writing and empty narcissism disguised as “advice” can often be a thin one, my opinion is that if one person somewhere in the world takes inspiration from a blog post or an article then it’s done a good job.  If only one person stuck in a rut somewhere feels able to take control of their situation having read a book about lifestyle design (fyi: fan as I am of the concept, I really hate that term) then surely that can only really be a force for good in the world.

Of course if one person reads and feels inspired but three hundred read and feel depressed or angry, my argument doesn’t seem very compelling…

Anyway.  I can’t trace the beginnings of modern day lifestyle literature, but I’m pretty sure Timothy Ferris and The 4-Hour Workweek were in there somewhere.  Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past couple of years you’ll have heard of this book.  It’s now a bestseller, and its explosion into the writing world catapulted the author from a successful blogger with an enviable following into a hype-tastic “four hour” superbrand with global recognition.  I remain sceptical about the proposition that this took him only four hours per week, but it’s a highly impressive achievement nonetheless.

So fan as I am of self-helpy-smart-thinking writing, I fully expected to enjoy reading what Ferris has to say.  I didn’t.  In fact, I disliked this book so much that I couldn’t even bear to read the whole thing.  I found the tone patronising, the constant self-promotion draining and many of the ideas amazingly empty.  I was also irritated by the underlying premise.  While of course for some people working is a means to an end and nothing more, for plenty of others that’s simply not true.  Many people enjoy what they do for a living, regardless of whether they complain about it from time to time, and regardless of whether they wouldn’t mind the occasional unexpected holiday.

While I appreciate that the idea of the 4-Hour Workweek probably isn’t aimed at people who are sublimely happy in their professional lives, I do think that some of the ideas Ferris explores might be of interest to those who, while not harbouring a burning desire to cut and run, might nevertheless stand to benefit from being more efficient at managing their inboxes, or a little less hung up about saying no to others.  There really could have been something in this book for everyone.  As it was, and as someone who happens to think that work is not the seventh circle of hell, reading it made me feel a combination of teacher’s pet and the kid who never gets picked for sports teams.

But more than any of this, I disliked the way Ferris depicts “the dream lifestyle”.  While he does make a cursory effort to point out that the fundamental goal is achieving enough freedom to pursue the things you really love, there’s no mistaking his bias towards a life based around endless plane journeys, collecting trophies and drinking mysterious cocktails.  While of course this kind of thing would appeal to some people, for others the dream involves no more than a quiet cottage by the sea, well-stocked bookshelves and a vegetable plot.  Reading the 4-Hour Workweek, however, I consistently felt that I didn’t qualify for the freedom school unless I was planning on spending my days of liberation on a plane or cheating my way to winning a kickboxing tournament (seriously, what was that bit all about?).  For a person so clearly enthusiastic about unconventional strategies for living, I found Ferris to be rather closed-minded when it came to the crunch.  He also has absolutely no beef with borderline exploiting other people to realise his own ambitions (let’s not even talk about the environment).  But that’s true of the entire book really: there’s a not-so-subtle Darwinian undercurrent running throughout that I found truly unbearable.

I guess the way I see it, life choices are about deciding what’s important to me, pointing my compass in that direction and working towards those things in a compassionate, considered way that doesn’t harm other people and is not excessively damaging to the environment.  It’s also about being open-minded enough to let others do the same.  For me, the 4-Hour Workweek could have been a really interesting, thought-provoking read.  As it was, I couldn’t even finish it.

Have you read the 4-Hour Workweek?  What did you think of it?

Image above from here.

So tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.  Red envelopes will be torn open, restaurants will be teeming with starry-eyed couples and late night garages will be doing a roaring trade in wilting red roses.

Ah, romance.

My boyfriend and I don’t do Valentine’s Day.  Not in a smug, “look at us we’re making a statement”, way but more just because we’re content not to bother.  Tomorrow evening will likely find us eating pasta and cackling over 30 Rock.  Not because it’s February 14th, but simply because that’s how we roll on a Tuesday evening.

But although I don’t take part in Valentine’s Day, I am intrigued by it.  And what I think is most amusing, more than the price of a bunch of roses (seriously, that kind of cash could feed me for a week!), are the views of its detractors.  When asked their opinion on Valentine’s Day, some people react as though they’ve just been hit in the face with a wet fish.  As though the idea of February 14th was conceived for no reason other than to offend them personally.

And what’s even weirder is that these aren’t normally people who have recently broken up with someone, or are unhappily single and searching for love.  I could understand their being slightly miffed at Valentine’s Day: being dumped only to spend three weeks having the relationship joys of delirious others played out at full volume could, I imagine, become a trifle tiresome after a while.

No, in my experience and from what I’ve read, the people who dislike Valentine’s Day the most are actually in happy, loving relationships themselves.  Go figure.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate that any half-decent relationship should be able to stay afloat without an annual dose of heart-shaped tat and saccharine sentiment.  I also completely understand that loving someone requires something of a year-round effort: it’s not (or at least it shouldn’t be) a vapid 24-hour diversion that can be abandoned, Cinderella-like, as soon as the clock strikes 12.  Relationships can be difficult.  They are complicated.  They are flawed.  And above all, most of them aren’t liable to lasting on a diet of schmaltz and embarrassing poems.

But when it comes down to it, surely Valentine’s Day is just a bunch of people expressing their love for one another, albeit sometimes through the medium of stuffed animals?  You might not take part in it yourself, but is there really anything wildly objectionable about others doing so?  I’m of the school of thought that one of the biggest hurdles in life is learning when to pick your battles.  If I’m going to spend time getting mad about something I at least like to try and make it something that matters.  Like social inequality, or people who don’t recycle.  Yes February 14th and all that comes with it is hilariously naff.  But let’s face it: the way things are right now, the world needs all the love it can get.  And if the reality is that for some people that means exchanging sickly sweet cards and Katie Melua albums then really, who are the rest of us to get angry about that?

What are you thoughts on Valentine’s Day?  Love it?  Hate it?  Utterly indifferent?

Image above from here.

This morning, while I was standing in the cold, waiting on the bus to take me back to work after nearly two weeks of doing little other than eating cheese and playing board games, I found myself wondering how many people woke up this morning, thought briefly about how much it can sometimes suck to work to someone else’s schedule and resolved to become self-employed by the time 2012 is out.

I happen to really enjoy my job, and I’ve also only been there for four months.  Plus I’m in training, so I get to move around twice a year, which means that I’m only in my ‘current’ post for six months at a time.  Nevertheless, after two weeks of lounging around followed by four hours of frequently interrupted sleep (not intentional – I aimed for 8), at 6.30 this morning I have to admit to finding myself daydreaming about how nice it might just be to work from home/for myself/not at all.

But here’s the thing: some stuff about working for the man is really great.  I never take my work home, for one thing.  I know that doesn’t apply to everyone who isn’t their own boss, but for me, one of the major plus points of working for someone else is that I rarely go home thinking or worrying about work – quite simply, it isn’t my responsibility.  When I shut my computer down at the end of the day I immediately revert from serious and studious to frivolous and ready to bake cakes.  I get my latest crochet project out on the bus and I forget all about what happened in the office that day.  I also don’t spend my weekends fretting over tax returns or attempting to balance accounts (which is a good job really, as my maths sucks).

Another thing I love about going out to work is that I have colleagues.  Colleagues are a brilliant invention.  People from different generations, with different backgrounds and all sorts of weird and wonderful stories to share with you at coffee time.  I once liked a colleague of mine so much that I got into a relationship with him.  And we’re still together, although we no longer work in the same place (so kissing in the stationery cupboard, not that we ever did, is no longer really an option).  Nevertheless, we would never have met had we not worked in the same office.  How many friends/significant others are you likely to meet at home?

I’m by no means saying that self-employment is a bad thing.  I’ve never done it, but I imagine that working for yourself would provide the kind of “I made this happen” satisfaction that is hard to come by in lots of jobs.  That said, I do think that being self-employed or starting your own business are given a weird kind of holy grail status, especially among lifestyle bloggers (if I had a pound for every blog post I’ve read titled ‘How to quit your job and start your own business’ I’d never need to work again!).  Which is something I find strange, because running an enterprise on which your livelihood depends looks like bloody hard work, especially in the early years when just breaking even is an uphill, all-consuming struggle.

Working in an office (or anywhere that’s not “yours” for that matter) may not be ultra glamorous, and it may not make for the most interesting dinner party conversations or the most spontaneous kind of lifestyle, but it does have its benefits, even if they are slightly difficult to focus on when the alarm is blaring and there’s no milk in the fridge.  And really – you could never have a water cooler moment in your own living room, could you?

Image above from here.  Admittedly I’d work anywhere if it meant I could have a desk as cute as this one.

…Whoever you are, wherever you are, however you choose to celebrate it.  Come midnight, I will be sipping home-made mulled wine while watching the fireworks dance over Edinburgh Castle.  Come say hello if you’re near the Meadows – I’ll be wearing a purple beret and wielding a giant Thermos…

And might I take this opportunity to thank everyone who has visited Thrifty Chick/A Domino Effect in 2011, and for sticking with me while I try to adjust to lawyering by day and writing by night – not an easy combination as it turns out! Nevertheless, whether we’re talking books, simple pleasures or the joys of a lazy Saturday morning, I have to say I thoroughly enjoy doing it with you lot, whether you comment or not.  Here’s to a 2012 that’s full of good things for all of us!

Wishing you sparkles at midnight and all of next year through,

Image above from here.