worlds collide! (or, would liking Office 2010 more make me a better person?)

I may or may not have mentioned that, once upon a time, I was a technology trainer at a law firm, teaching  lawyers how to use their computers.  So I'm something of a Microsoft Office expert, though it's not a quality I whip out at a first meeting because, really, it's not my sexiest feature.

Recently I was upgraded at work to Office 2010.  For those of you who don't know (or don't care), it's pretty radically different from the version I had before:  instead of menus, which drop down, there are ribbons, which spread across (and aren't nearly as easter-baskety as I was hoping).  I could go into greater detail, but all you really need to know is that things changed, and I was not happy.

But here's the funny thing -- I work with change a lot.  I teach a class on resiliency and the importance of being able to flow with change.  I know that I should be focusing on the things I can control (e.g., my learning) instead of the things I can't (e.g., the fact that Ctrl+Shift+M no longer creates a new message but instead tells me that a feature in my voicemail isn't working).  I know that I'm in the "ending" phase, or possibly the "confusion" phase, and that, soon, I'll be onboard with all these great new features.  I know a lot about change, and yet... none of it actually makes it easier to use Outlook!

This is where the big question comes in -- am I more reluctant to changes in Outlook because I think I'm an expert in it?  And does identifying myself with the idea of "experthood" make it, in fact, harder to change?

I remind myself to have a beginner's mind with Outlook, to seek out other experts, and find work-arounds for the things that used to come "expertly."  But I won't deny that it's challenging and frustrating.  And it makes me worried -- am I more of an Office expert than I am a change expert?

And should I really be worried about being an expert at all?

on newness and seeing clearly

Six years ago I bought a rug off Craigslist. It was a perfect fit for my new apartment, square, wool, from IKEA, and only $150 -- and not hellaciously ugly or cheap-looking. I hopped on the bus, picked up the carpet, hopped back on the bus (garnering strange looks from the bus driver) and then plopped it down in my living room. I was never in love with the rug, but it fit perfectly and, like most furniture, would be harder to get rid of than to just keep forever.

So I kept it forever.

Last year I bought a couch from IKEA and they didn't have the grey slipcovers to match the rug and the room, so I bought the pink slipcovers that were on sale (only $9!), figuring I would come back to IKEA when the grey ones were back in stock.

So, yeah, my couch is still pink.

Long story short, over time I've come to see that I like the pink couch better than the black-and-white rug, so just last week I got a cute new carpet that matches better and is much more me. In the process, I've gotten rid of some furniture, moved some other pieces around, and more or less come to see my living room again for the first time. I see the floor differently. I see the sofa differently. I see so many things that I wasn't seeing because I had gotten so used to the room.

I know it's just stuff, but tweaking your stuff can have a profound impact on the way you see the world. I've been really conscious lately of trying to make my external space a reflection of who I am at my best (not at my laziest).

Another example:

The highlight of my living room is not, in fact, the pink sofa, but instead is a mirror that you can see from every room in my house. I love the mirror and consult it regularly to see if my outfit matches or if my eyebrows are too bushy. In the process of moving in my new carpet, I realized just how dirty my mirrors were, so I cleaned them. All of the mirrors in my house. And I was SHOCKED to see how different I looked after simply cleaning the mirrors. Angles were sharpened. Details appeared finer, more crisp. I saw more of everything, good and bad.

While this is a true story, it's also a metaphor. (And you don't have to pay extra for that, folks!) Fiona Apple says it well in her excellent song, Window:

"... the fact being that
Whatever's in front of me
Is covering my view
So I can't see what I'm seeing in fact
I only see what I'm looking through"

So I ask you, what are you taking for granted (like I took my living room)? What are you allowing to blur your vision (like the dust on my mirrors)? What do you need to do to shake things up just enough to be able to see your filters and realign them?

on getting off auto-pilot

Most mornings I wake up at 6:45 and I get out of bed and do things in a pattern: I check my email, I meditate, I shower, I dress, I pack my lunch, and I leave by 7:30. I'm able to do this because, for the most part, I'm on auto-pilot. I know how much time each step takes, and like an unconscious little soldier, I make sure to get them done in their allotted minutes.

This works well to get me out of the door efficiently, but on weekends, when I have the morning to myself, I do things completely differently. I wake up and putz around, check my email, make some coffee, maybe shower, maybe meditate, it doesn't matter, there's really no pattern to it. Auto-pilot doesn't kick in, and the days are all very different.

Weekdays are efficient, and weekends are fun. Not news to just about every non-self-employed person out there, but I'm trying to find a way to split more of the difference.

Two years ago, I challenged myself to do things differently. (Read more about it here.) Part of the experiment was to get myself unstuck from some negative self-chatter habits that were making me miserable, and part of it was to wake myself up out of auto-pilot. While this was important for my relationship with myself, I'm finding it important in my relationships with others, too.

December is all about "newness" and one of the practices I'm bringing to the month is one I learned in my class at the School of Practical Philosophy (new semester starts in January): meeting others as if for the first time. The idea is to drop all our preconceived notions about others, to drop our expectations about how they will react, and to just meet them as if we knew nothing about them. I like this practice because expectations are really just a set up for disappointment, and when I meet people with an idea of how they'll treat me, they either prove me right or disappoint me. When I don't have that expectation, who knows what'll happen?

In the past I've found it easier to be more forgiving of strangers and people I'm meeting for the first time than it has been for people I've known my whole life. It was always comforting to believe that my sister would tell me what I wanted to hear when I called her, but I find it easier now just to not have that expectation and instead make myself as clear as possible. If I didn't know her, I wouldn't have the expectation, so it's only fair to treat her as well as I would treat a stranger, right?

One of my favorite songs is by a Brooklyn band named Hem, and the lyrics are:

There's a lazy eye that looks at you

And sees you the same as before

Where are your eyes lazy? Where are you on auto-pilot? And what can you do differently to wake up and meet people as if for the first time?