Can I just talk for a brief minute about how much I love my laptop? I’ve started covering it with stickers. It’s been with me for about 4 years now, which is longer than all but one of my relationships, and it’s basically the perfect companion. (OK, I’m done.)
Oh, and R.I.P. USMNT. Please tell me again about how people in the US don't love soccer. I stopped in Port Orford, OR today, and the bar was full of folks watching the game. This gruff old Oregon guy saw me coming on the door and told the bartender "quick, switch it to Three's Company reruns." Har har, Oregon guy.
Coos Bay! Home of….nothing? I asked somebody local what made Coos Bay special and they said “Well, it’s a depressed logging town.” Awkward silence.
On a positive note, keeping up with my job is going well. Actually, everything is going surprisingly, amazingly well. All of my technology is working, my clothing choices have been successful. I haven’t even had a goddamn flat tire. WHAT IS GOING ON???
So, continuing on the trend of “how to make my life better”, two things have become clear to me on this trip: first, no matter what the Buddhists might say, some people are just awesome, and some people are just not awesome. Some people are kind, gentle, nice, compassionate, and patient, and other people are just not any of those things. And more than anything else, my happiness and my mood seem to track with the people I meet and the interactions I have with those people (I mean, I think that’s true for everybody, but I seem particularly sensitive to it). Over the last few days, I stopped at 3 different bike shops. One was OK, one was really lousy, and one was amazingly good. And, although I’m sure there are at time exceptions to this rule, the better the shop, the nicer the people working there. The bike tech in North Bend at Moe’s Bike Shop - Alan - was friendly, kind, generous. He showed me his GoPro shots from the beach, introduced me to his son. I had an expensive repair recommended to me by the crappy shop and fortunately chose not to do it, and he told me I didn’t need that at all and in fact it would have been counterproductive. But the best part is that he just radiated a gentle kindness and patience. Contrast that with Escape Hatch in Brookings, OR, where the kid working the front desk was so incredibly rude I wanted to just punch him right in the mouth. He told me (the customer!) I was disrespectful and dared me to write a Yelp review (his literal words were, “Go ahead and write a review. I don’t care”. Well, congratulations, kid, you got your wish).
But here’s the interesting thing: I don’t know how I could have predicted this. There was nothing about either shop, or person, to make me think, before I met them, that one would be nice, and helpful, and the other would be crap.
So, a couple of polls. Please post your answer(s) below in the comments, or leave them on Facebook. I’m really genuinely curious what people think.
Question: What’s the best approach to filling your life with quality people?
Answers:
A.) You can’t control the way people will act or treat you, so the key is to just cultivate an equanimous attitude so that the bad eggs don’t bother you. Let that kid at the shop be nasty; it’s his problem.
B.) It’s appropriate to put in a reasonable quantity of time trying to arrange your life so that you only meet quality people, and then, if the good outnumber the bad, you just have to remember that life isn’t perfect. So you batted 2 for 3; that isn’t so bad.
C.) Mean people suck. Avoid at all costs. If people are going to be like that, the less time you waste on them, the better. Walk out of that shop immediately and get your bike fixed someplace else.
On a related note, I have noticed that people - with some exceptions - have been generally super awesome to me on this trip. Because I’m considering whether San Francisco is really the right spot for me long-term, I’m curious what people think about that phenomenon. So question two: Why does it seem like people are nicer to me on the road than they are in San Francisco?
Answers:
A.) This is more about you; you have a more positive attitude on this trip, and people are just responding to that. This has nothing to do with San Francisco.
B.) People in San Francisco are just as “nice”, you just have to redefine “nice” a little bit. It’s more about setting appropriate expectations.
C.) There is something genuinely more “pleasant” about people in rural settings. They tend to just be a bit more patient, especially at first. It’s probably the lack of stress.
D.) Man, you are so right. San Francisco people are uptight, self-centered, and full of themselves.
E.) None of the above. (Post below)
Happy day before day before Fourth of July!
