Words of wisdom can be found in the unlikeliest of places.

Prior to getting poked with holes number 2 (Tetanus) and 3 (H1N1 Vaccine), I sat on top of the exam room table wearing a blue paper gown.

If you’re not sick, waiting in an exam room is pretty boring. If you’re wearing a paper gown, it goes from boring to tedious.

A magazine lay nearby so I reached over to pick it up.  I ignored the wandering thought of how many other near-naked and possible sick people touched it before me.

It was a magazine by WebMD and what caught my eye was the tagline, “The magazine designed specifically for the waiting room.”

Talk about a target audience!

A starlet was on the cover. So far, nothing different than most waiting room fare.

I flip through the table of contents and come across an article about happiness.

I read about how people seem to have a “happiness set point.”  I’d come across the concept before.  The theory is that each person is born with a built in level of happiness.  For any given event, a person will return to their happiness point.

Let’s say the event is winning millions of dollars.

For a person who tends to be upbeat and happy – they’ll experience a spike in happiness or happy feelings but after a while, return to their baseline.

For a person who tends to be morose, they too will experience a happy spike but after some time, the usual dark thoughts will bring them down.

Now let’s take those same two people and have them experience something awful like becoming paralyzed. The tend-to-be-happy person will go through a very low period in their life but at some point, they will rebound. If the glass-is-always empty person became paralyzed, they would also  sink to an emotional low point but at some point, they would recover.

How many of you know someone who you suspect will never be happy? I’ve met a few – something great happens and they feel great.  Some time goes by and back they are complaining. I’ve also known people who have a talent for happiness.

So here I am wearing a paper gown sitting atop an exam table reading the words, “Happiness is not a destination.”

It’s true. I’ve thought I’d be happier if I made more money, lost weight, went to the prom, and had a boyfriend. Was I any happier after I had or did any of those things? Momentarily.

It wasn’t until I realized that most of what made me happy was how I thought about things. That’s when I decided that I’d rather focus on what was good in my life than what was bad; I’d rather be happy with what I had in my life than be unhappy with what I lacked.

I realized that if I continued to believe that happiness was a destination, I wasn’t going to get “there.”

Lately I’ve been feeling like I have so much to do and so little time to do it in. I’ve started to fall into the trap that happiness was later, that my happiness was deferred.

I needed to be reminded that happiness is not a destination, it’s a decision.

If we decide to, we can find happiness right here and even while wearing a blue paper gown.

Especially while wearing a blue paper gown!

If you’re interested in reading the article, I found the online version here.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Writing takes time.

The key point is that I have to keep myself from writing. Once I get started somehow several hours have gone by.

However, I just had to share this latest visit to my doctor for my annual physical.  He’s been my doctor for years, is just little older than I with pale hair, faded freckles and the slightly startled look of a newborn.

I’m sitting on the examination table in my fetching paper gown.

Door opens, in walks my doctor. He asks me the usual questions about how I’m feeling and my overall health.

Then he surprises me.

Doctor: Want a flu shot?
Ms. Q: What?! No. Not really
Doctor: Why not?
Ms. Q: I don’t like shots.
Doctor: But this is a flu shot – you don’t want to get the flu, do you?
Ms. Q: No. But I heard there might be side effects.
Doctor: Do you watch Fox News?
Ms. Q: [What? Huh?] No. I don’t watch TV. Why?
Doctor: Fox News thinks that flu shots are part of some conspiracy. You know, black helicopters, that type of thing.
Ms. Q: Uh…huh.
Doctor: It’s all a plot to scare everyone from a non-existent danger.
Ms. Q: Oh. Well, I don’t watch TV.
Doctor: So let me give you a flu shot.
Ms. Q: I just gave blood. I don’t want any more needles!
Doctor: I think you should. I have a bad feeling about this year’s flu season.
Ms. Q: Ugh. But I heard there are side effects.
Doctor: Yes. The SIDE EFFECT is that you DON’T GET THE FLU.

Score one for my doctor! Humor wins! And he really does have my best interest at heart.

I got the H1N1 vaccination.  A quick jab in the right shoulder.

I also recalled that I was due for a tetanus booster so he jabbed me in my left shoulder.

So that was my Friday morning.

My plans for tonight?

Pizza!

Cholesterol test is done…it’s time for some melted fat!

……………………………………..

I do.

Well, I do if it doesn’t look icky. Based on how many pennies I’ve picked up off the ground over the years, not many people pick up pennies. Pennies aren’t worth the effort.

Pennies must not be worth the effort of pocketing as I’ve seen as many as seven scattered together.

I feel a bit self-conscious picking up the pennies but invariably that extra penny allows me to even out my change when I pay in cash. I like being able to give $10.02 for something that costs $9.77 and get a quarter back instead of 2 dimes and 3 pennies.

This brings me to the topic of dimes.

If you saw a dime on the street, would you pick it up?

I certainly would.  Unless it were covered in goo.

This past Sunday I was buying bread at the Farmers Market. The bread stand usually has a line snaking around it.

As I reached over to pay for the bread, I noticed a dime on the white cloth covered display. The dime wasn’t hidden amongst the folds; it shone in bright new dimeness. Since it wasn’t covered in goo, I took it.

I ended up using the dime soon after to pay for something that involved 35 cents. I only had 27 cents so the dime was perfect.

The next day I spotted a dime as I was leaving the train station on the way to work. People were streaming along with me.

It was not far from the little coffee shack where people paused to buy a cup. You’d think they’d have picked it up then.

It’s not like it was covered in goo.

As I stooped to pick it up, I wondered if people thought a dime wasn’t worth anything. If a penny is thought to be worth nothing, were dimes valued at next to nothing?

Are dimes the new penny?

I was also struck by the fact that I found a dime 2 days in a row. A penny I can understand, they are uh, a dime a dozen on the street. I wondered if this was merely coincidence.

I found out that I’m not the only one finding dimes.

I also found a site that wasn’t about coins but about change.

You may not want to pick up those pennies and dimes lying on the ground but small (positive) change is a good thing.

Keep Your Coins I Want Change

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Within the tech industry, the team interview is the norm: Various people from a team or perhaps several teams, participate in the interview process.

I’ve always been the job candidate – I was the one who had to be all bright and shiny and personable and prove to people that I’m someone they want to hire.

Recently, I’ve had to participate in interviewing several contractors. It may not seem like it, but companies want to find reasons to hire someone, not look for things they don’t like about a candidate.

It’s a lot like online dating – you are hoping against hope that the first date will be the start of a wonderful relationship and not just lead back to the painful search process.

I read the resumes and made some notes. Then my team and me had a conference call with the candidates. If we liked their phone interview, we had them come on site.

Since I was part of a group and not interviewing the candidate one-on-one, I was able to observe more.

One candidate was a perfect fit with respect to skills. However, he had this habit of interrupting people when they spoke and in one case, repeatedly did not let a co-worker complete his thought.

I really liked the candidate’s experience. We all did. What I didn’t like was watching my teammate struggle to ask a question. To add to our frustration was the fact that when we finally managed to ask our question, the candidate would not quite answer our question then expound.

Think about that first date:

Who wants to go out on a date and have the other person regale you with all his greatness?
Who wants to be with someone who isn’t interested in finding out what is important to you?

After the candidate left we all compared notes. We felt like the candidate could do the job but we weren’t too sure if he’d do the job we wanted. Especially if he wasn’t listening to what we had to say.

We interviewed another candidate a week later. The resume was chock-full o’ typos and grammatical errors. The person was not a perfect fit but he listened and he succinctly answered our questions. He only expounded when asked.

This confirmed what I had always suspected: A great resume doesn’t mean a great candidate.

And I learned yet again how valuable the art of listening is.

I’ve heard that a for a job applicant, one sign an interview is going well is if the interviewer is doing most of the talking.

Based on my experience, there may be some truth to this.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Is it February already?!

You may have noticed I haven’t been writing as much.

Well..life has been a bit busy for me. Just a lot of stuff going on in all areas of my life.

Life had been busy in a good way.

I hope to be writing more soon. I’ve just had to put writing on a lower priority.

Sleep is higher on the list.

Speaking of sleep…I better get me some!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .