People

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Talking is Hard

Talking is hard.

And I feel like the rules are changing everyday.

I thought it was a good thing to compliment a person if it appears they have lost weight. But I have learned that may be implying the person didn’t already look good before. Or maybe they have a medical condition that is causing them to lose weight but their overall health is being negatively effected.

As for acknowledging a woman who appears to be pregnant? Nope. That baby has to be in her arms before I will even retroactively acknowledge she was ever pregnant.

I’ve learned to never assume two people are already married just because they have a kid together, or that they plan to get married just because they have been together a long time, or that they are still married just because they were married the last time I saw them a few years ago.

The thing is… I don’t care. I have no desire to pass judgment on anyone. I’m just trying to show that I am a caring and curious human being who is making an effort to connect with and validate another human being’s sense of reality.

Talking is hard.

I lived in Nashville for nearly 20 years. There was only one time when someone I knew passed away and I went to their funeral.

However, since moving back to my hometown here in Alabama last May, there has hardly been a month when I haven’t been at the funeral home for a visitation: Growing up in a town of 14,000 people, I pretty much indirectly know everyone. I want to show up for the people in my life who are going through the grieving process.

But I make a point to not really say anything at the visitation. I just hug the person who lost a loved one. The way I see it, there’s nothing I really can say that is going to make the situation better, other than making the effort to show up for them in that moment.

I hear other people give them classic funeral lines like, “Just imagine, they’re dancing on streets of gold with Jesus right now!” or “If you need anything, you just let me know.”

That’s totally fine that they say that. It’s just that as for me, I feel much more comfortable with a “less is more” approach in general, when trying to figure out what to say.

What I am learning as a default template is this: Let the other person talk, then ask a general question based on the specific information they give me.

From there, like a clever detective, I can determine the safest follow-up questions to ask, while still showing genuine interest in their life.

If they choose to share with me that they lost 30 pounds, I will immediately congratulate them on the discipline it took them to reach that amazing accomplishment.

If they choose to tell me they and their spouse are trying, yet struggling, to have a child, I will sincerely match the emotion of sadness, mixed with hope, that they are feeling.

I get it now: I know not to dismiss whatever emotion the person is experiencing; but instead, to embrace and validate it.

Like it says in the Bible, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.”

Perhaps for people with a personality like mine, it’s naturally easy to “choose joy”. But it’s not necessarily “positive vibes” that the other person needs that day. Maybe they need me to grieve with them in that moment or to acknowledge that it makes sense they would feel angry and confused.

We just want to help people feel better. And sometimes we can.

But sometimes what they need most is for us to symbolically hold up a mirror to the emotion they are feeling as to say, “Yes, you do feel this way right now. You need to experience this emotion to cope. I am here as a witness to what you are going through. I am a human being too, so based on my own personal life experiences, I can relate to you on some level in regards to this emotional state you are in.”

Ultimately, we are all on a journey of emotional intelligence and self-awareness. At some point, we have all been on the receiving end of a well-meaning person saying the wrong thing. And yes, we ourselves have also been the well-meaning person who told someone else the wrong thing.

Talking is hard.

I make an assumption that the other person is doing the best they can. Maybe their compliment of “you look great for your age” is just where they are in their limited understanding of how a successful compliment actually works.

It’s okay. We’re all trying.

For all I know, the way I attempted to tackle this challenging, complicated and confusing topic today was actually “too much”… or tone deaf… or politically incorrect.

That’s okay. Just like you, I’m figuring this all out as I go along, too.

 

 

 

 

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Dear Jack: How You Spent Your Christmas Gift Card

14 years, 3 months.

Dear Jack,

After your sister spent Cousin Matt’s Christmas gift card on a Lego set, you were inspired to spend yours as well.

You came back home with a random medley of items that a 14 year-old, in theory, would not be likely to spend free money on.

You used your gift card to buy a small shovel to attach onto the front of one of your remote control cars, so that you could run it into some ceramic garden mushroom decorations.

Also from the garden section, you bought a solar-powered pig to use as target practice with your BB gun.

And that’s how my 14 year-old son spent the last of his Christmas money.

Seems like something you would do.

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Holly: We Bought Wicked

8 years, 9 months.

Dear Holly,

Mommy and I were considering taking you and your cousin Darla to go see Wicked, but there just wasn’t really a weekend we could work it into the schedule.

But for $30, we were able to just download it so we can watch it as many times as we want.

So this past weekend, you and Darla started out by making a “candy salad”; which apparently was a collection of various types of gummy candies.

With the movie being nearly 3 hours long, and the weather being sunny and in the 70s, about an hour into the movie, you both asked, “Can we go play outside?”

And you did.

Love,

Daddy

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I Give You Permission to Not Leave a Tip When Prompted at a Self-Service Restaurant

We’ve got to draw the line somewhere. It’s common knowledge that the modern expectations on tipping have gotten way out of hand in post-Covid culture.

So I’m going to call it. I am going to not only let you off the hook, but I am going to empower you to not leave a tip when prompted at a self-service restaurant- and to do so with confidence.

It will not make you a bad person. Instead, it will make you a person with strong boundaries and common sense; both of which are currently uncommon traits in American society right now.

I refuse to live in fear of being virtue signaled or someone telling me to “do better”. I am a good person. I can’t make everybody happy. If I could, then I would certainly be doing something wrong. Instead, I have a backbone.

The fundamental issue with tipflation is that customers are conflating the obvious obligation to tip a server whose hourly wage before tips is less than minimum wage versus a glorified cashier who is being paid at least minimum wage and apparently splits the tips with their coworkers.

Paying the person a tip up front is the equivalent of justifying giving out participation trophies.

The phrase has now become a cringy cliche: “It’s just going to ask you a few questions on the screen…”

I was a nice guy for the first several years of it. But now…

Now I am done buying into the concept of paying the “let me prove I am a good person” tax.

Now I officially and intentionally hit “no tip”. I actually get a thrill out of specifically being one of the people who goes to through the trouble to not tip a cashier at a self-service restaurant.

My son has found a burrito place that he likes to be taken to. It’s the exact same concept as Subway, but with burritos instead. It actually takes the workers less time and effort than if they were making a sub at Subway.

When it’s time to pay, there is not an option to leave no tip. But I figured it out this past week!

You have to choose “custom tip” and then not enter an amount- and then hit “next” or “enter”. Then it takes you to the total amount with no tip and lets you pay.

I proclaim that I am not being sneaky or shady for figuring this out nor for acting on it. It’s quite the opposite: The restaurant has designed it so that customers feel forced to leave a tip to give their workers “a raise”.

And when these businesses promote their job openings and recruit new workers, I assume there is mention of the possibly of sharing tips, on top of the wage.

To be clear, I always tip actual servers at restaurants, as well as my barber, at least 20 percent. And not only “if they provide exceptional service”.

It’s a pretentious concept that I should tip before the service, as if to imply that service will somehow be better if I pay more up front.

I can tell you for a fact: I have never been thanked the many times I have tipped someone before the service, as prompted by the computer screen. However, I have often been thanked when I tipped after the service was provided.

The converse checks out too: I have never been confronted by a cashier, acknowledging I hit “no tip” on the screen. Accordingly, the service I received was never worse because I left no tip up front.

In the summer of 1999, I worked as the cashier at Hardee’s. I made minimum wage. No one ever tipped me, nor should they have.

In the summer of 2005, I worked as a server at a steakhouse called Western Sizzlin’. My hourly wage was a little over $2. I depended on tips to at least be paid minimum wage.

There is clearly a difference. We can stop being too nice now. The Covid Epidemic was half a decade ago.

If people want to think I am a “bad person” and need to “do better” due to not tipping a computer screen…

Let them.

 

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Who is an Example of a “Healthy” Enneagram 8? Me, Actually.

Continued from yesterday’s cliffhanger here…

As I explained earlier, I discovered I live with an interesting condition where I subconsciously avoid feeling any of the “vulnerable emotions”, like sadness, fear, and embarrassment.

Something in particular that I don’t fear? I don’t fear being wrong. Because if I did… boy, would I feel silly right now. Or would I? Since I don’t seem to ever “feel” embarrassed… even if I should.

It is no secret I am certified in Enneagram. It is no secret I have published a book about men understanding themselves better through Enneagram, which anyone can easily purchase on Amazon.

And it is also no secret that I have publicly identified as an Enneagram 9 Wing 8.

But after my (joke of a) New Year’s Resolution to “be more vulnerable and more in touch with my emotions”, only to discover I am largely driven by the emotions of joy and anger and that it is my instinct to resist any association of being vulnerable…

It’s all there, black and white, clear as crystal… on the website for The Enneagram Institute:

“Eights typically have problems with their tempers and with allowing themselves to be vulnerable.”

If you’re familiar with the 9 different Enneagram personalities, then you know that Enneagram 8 has a certain reputation of being… well, an “eight-hole”.

Or if you’re looking for a more church-friendly term, we could say “bull headed”, “bossy”, or “control freak”.

Enneagram 8 is the Challenger, the Boss, and the Protector.

The plot twist: I subconsciously attempted to be any Enneagram number except the one that I actually was, because I fundamentally didn’t want to be associated with having a “challenging” personality.

I am not Enneagram 9 Wing 8. I am the inverse: Enneagram 8 Wing 9.

(Nine was such a likeable number, though. The Peacemaker? Oh well, I tried.)

I have been asked several times about how a person’s Enneagram number might be affected by the environment they are raised in: nature vs. nurture. I would say I am an interesting example of how nurture can heavily influence nature, as it relates to Enneagram.

If you have ever been around my parents, you know that they are mild-mannered. They identify as introverts. I was the first born child in the family. I carried with me this idea from childhood- even now I can still hear my mom’s voice from the early 1980’s: “You’re Mommy’s good little boy.”

I maintained this simple idea as part of my identity throughout my teenage years, college years, and adulthood: to be a good boy… and eventually a good man.

While I certainly consider myself to be “good”, as well as friendly and personable, I would never want to be known as a “nice guy”. Because the way my brain works, nice equals weak.

On the inside, I have always been driven by this strong sense of recognizing when something was wrong and being motivated to get involved to correct it and make it right.

This means, at times, being uncomfortably direct or confrontational; in other words, initiating conflict instead of avoiding it.

I think the “nurture” side of me has always been strong enough to redirect my energy, causing me to be a more tamed version of a typical Enneagram 8.

(As a reference, on the “not so tame” end of the Enneagram 8 spectrum, we find Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, and Benito Mussolini.)

The “nurture side” of my upbringing led to my dominant wing being a 9 (seeking harmony and peace) and my subtype being “social”; which is the countertype of an Enneagram 8. I am the specific variation of an Enneagram that can resemble an Enneagram 9, or even an Enneagram 2.

Another clue to me actually being an Enneagram 8 is when I go into “stress mode”. What tends to trigger this is when I am in a room where I feel I have no control-  or when I feel I have taken too much control of the room and I realize it:

I shut down. I go silent. I leave the room. I disappear.

In this way, I resemble an Enneagram 5, the most socially reserved.

But since rebooting my life with my family here in Alabama where the culture is much calmer and “chaos as the norm” is now a distant memory, and considering how far along I am in life at age 43, I would consider myself a “healthy 8” at this point.

That implies that while I am definitely always at least “low key intense”, I become the best version of myself when I empower others; which is how I am finding I am choosing to spend a decent amount of free time these days.

I wanted to be the token Paul Rudd; the easy-going guy who gets eventually annoyed but still goes along with what the group wants to keep the peace. And sometimes, I could easily pass as that Enneagram 9.

But the reality is, the actual me has a stage presence much more similar to Robert DeNiro, Joe Rogan, Tom Hardy, Sean Penn, or Johnny Cash:

Enneagram 8 Wing 9, also known as “The Bear”, or “The Mob Boss”.

Back in high school, my senior year in 1999 I was voted “One and Only”. My entire life I have known I am different compared to the average person. How could I not be? Enneagram 8s are the official challengers of all the numbers.

Also my senior year, I casually auditioned for the senior play and was immediately cast as the comic relief/minor villain, “The Wolf”. It’s undeniably the energy of an Enneagram 8 on display. But was I really even acting?

Like Frank Sinatra, one of the most famous Enneagram 8 Wing 9s famously sang, “I did it my way.”

I guess it all goes back to my need for control. Here’s a perfect example: Years ago, I worked in an office where “Casual Fridays” were allowed.

To mock the arbitrary concept of only being allowed to wear jeans on Friday, but not Monday through Thursday, I started “Hawaiian Shirt Thursdays”. I even hung up flyers in the bathrooms to promote the perfect transition to Casual Friday.

A Hawaiian shirt is a button down shirt with a collar, so it didn’t violate the dress code for Thursdays. About a month into it, I had at least a dozen coworkers joining me each Wednesday for the event.

I “challenged” the dress code. Regardless of an official title, I acted like a boss- and people followed me; even if it was all in the name of fun.

So if only “eight-holes” come to mind when you think of Enneagram 8s, hopefully I have now “challenged” you to see us 8s in a new light.

Who knows? Maybe you’re an 8. Or maybe you’re married to an 8.

My wife is married to an 8. I almost feel bad for her. But as I was unpacking my true number, she was “helping” me realize hers:

She’s a 2, the Helper. Makes sense I would need her help.

So what about you? Do you think you might know an Enneagram 8 in your life?

I am curious. Tell me more!