Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    I can sympathize with you, Jim.  I didn't have any social experience
    dealing with humans through high school, college and perhaps for
    the first several years of work.  It showed in that I was very abrasive
    and obnoxious, and had a tendency to get people upset with me when
    I THOUGHT I was being kind and helpful.
    
    One thing that helped me somewhat was to be enrolled in a "Positive
    Power and Influence" course, which really dealt with how to deal
    with other humans in a more effective manner.  It showed me a lot
    of different things I was doing wrong, and gave me some powerful
    tools to improve my relating skills.  (Active Listening was my
    favorite.)
    
    After taking the course, my ability to deal with people at work
    improved a great deal, but I was still a novice at interaction on
    the emotional level.  I never really dated - I married the first
    girl who showed an interest in me.  Not that that was bad, it wasn't,
    but I never learned how to interact with women in social situations,
    and missed out on a lot of emotional experiences that might have
    done me good later on.
    
    Anyway, after my marriage broke up, I went through counseling, and
    began to realize just how much of a problem I had dealing with
    emotions.  I was one of these people who never let you know if I
    was happy with something.  So, I sort of gave myself a "crash course"
    in human relations, forcing myself to be open, and developing my
    "sensitive" side while letting my own emotions show.
    
    I think it's helped me a lot.  I get on very well with a wide variety
    of people nowadays, and I'm enjoying it.  To be honest, volunteering
    to be moderator of this conference was a deliberate move to keep
    myself involved in the emotions of others, as well as my own.
    
    So what I guess I am saying is that you have to start somewhere,
    and push yourself to get close to people.  Once you do it the first
    time, it suddenly becomes quite natural.
    					Steve

    
    Hmmmm.  I can relate.
    
    I was very close to the top of my class of 500+ in high school,
    and I took a lot of the flack one usually hears about in that
    situation.  That really didn't bother me -- I was used to it.  I
    had three very close friends in high school, but I knew everyone
    else, and could move from clique to clique with relative ease because
    I was never really a part of any of them.  This had its advantages.
    I got to be known as a sort of information broker -- I knew who
    was going out with who, who was dealing what, etcetera...
    
    As I look back on it now, I realize that I was closely allied with
    those three other people because we were all very much against the
    typical high-school social structure because we weren't really a
    part of it.  I found a niche and stayed in it, while the others
    spent a lot of time trying to fit in.  I haven't spoken to those
    people in quite some time.  Not because we parted on bad terms --
    there just wasn't a real friendship there.
    
    I'm still socially inept, although I fit in a lot better with the
    friends I made at college.  There, I have a place among them --
    not just a niche, and it's a lot more comfortable.  I'm continually
    tripping over my own feet when I move outside that circle.
    
    The only way to acquire that experience is to live life and take
    what you can get.
    
    Dave W. 

    
    	Sometimes, it's very draining to "stick it out" with someone
    who has to "go thru it". Yeah, its easier for them, but at the same
    time taking a few years off your hide, and thickening the mental
    calluses in your brain a bit. Some people never quite make it thru
    but go round and round - what then? Have you ever heard the old
    addage "You become what you behold" How 'bout "you reap what you
    sow" ?
    
    	...Just practicing *not* being a "giver" for today.
    
    	Joe Jas
    

    
    	Oh Yeah,
    
    	"Wish I didnt know now what I didnt know then"
    
    	- Bob Seger and his Silver Bullet Band
    
    	JJ

    I think there are at least two dimensions to getting human experience,
    i.e.  breath and depth.  I can experience a lot of similar experiences,
    a lot of different experiences, or fewer experiences more intensely.
    At either end of this continuum, I would be either shallow or intense.
    Both my circumstances and my choices determine where I am operating.
    The amount of human experience you see in me is effected by how
    close we are on this continuum, and vice versa.  I believe that
    I need to seek moderation and move from wherever I am toward the
    middle, and would give this same advice to others, if asked.  
    However, I have the feeling that I am overlooking an important
    dimension.

    
    	Re -.8
    
    	The most important dimension of human experience is the Quality
    dimension. Of course *you* define what quality is...
    
    	Joe Jas
    

    OK - I will try to define it for me ( and me only)
    
    Quality of human experience measures how much more of what I can
    be I am after the experience.
    
    Given that definition and the theme of this note, I get quality
    human experiences by exploring those things that maximize my self
    realization.  I wonder if that would imply different behavior than
    seeking moderation in the middle, as described in .8.  I wonder
    if this definition has adequate quality
    

    Good thoughts Bob.  After all, if there's any reason for being alive,
    it must involve the opportunity to explore yourself by interacting
    with the physical (in this sense, physical includes mental).  
    
    But what happens when you get stopped?  Have you tried something,
    for instance, a difficult mountain (assuming that your hiking
    adventures include such things), say one level beyond your previous
    level -- ever gone for a 7 reach when your experience includes a
    6?  Whatever the reach, what did you do when you realized that all
    you would ever accomplish is a 6?  How do you handle that?
    
    I've said that there are two things in life that I've attempted
    that have defeated me absolutely.  One was learning to fly an airplane,
    and the other was classical guitar.  In both, I quit because the
    enormity of the task was far larger than my ablility to perform,
    and I was not ready to quit.  Other things have beaten me too, like
    mathmetics, but I persistently go back to them; with those two I
    cannot even try (well, the flying was because of a sacred promise
    I made, but that's another story).   I've not handled such defeat
    well, it boils in my soul.  Of course, what I'm saying here is only
    the surface issues, there are much more important things to me than
    flying and playing guitar; but the principle's the same.
    
    As I've said here before, it never fails to amaze me when I see
    the power of some people to get up after a failure, turn around,
    and go back again; of course, that's the only way to win.  But I
    wonder, what's in the mind that does this...

    RE: 68.12  How do some folks handle failure so well?
    
    Most of us get taught that failure is to be avoided.  Consider the
    psychological impact of having "failed" the 3rd grade and being
    "held back".  On a job interview, I was asked about my successes
    and failures, and responded with a glowing report on my accomplishments
    and assurance that I had never failed.  The interviewer replied
    that having never failed indicated that I didn't take enough risk
    to ever achieve my potential, and risk avoidance was not an OK way
    to operate in their company.  I think the key to productive failure
    is imbedded somewhere in that conversation, but I can't quite tease
    it out.  
    
    Bob

    
    Bob, I must agree with you on the "I Try", thats the hole point.
    How will you know if can or cannot make it if you don't "TRY".
    Its like the "Juice"  O.J. Simsons or any sport, in Football the
    running backs get hit the fall, they get up and try again until
    they reach there Goal. Your a failure if you don't try it, and 
    you have to believe in yourself and "GO FOR IT".  Think of it
    like this, Winners don't have positive attitudes because they win
    They Win because they have a positive attitude.  Man surrondes
    himself with the Image of himself.  When you think Failure you
    will Fail.  Its like the waitress, she walks over to the table
    and says; More coffee, and the reply comes; "No thanks, and then
    she goes to another and another until she ask maybe 15 or 20 people
    and they all say "Mo thanks".  She not gonna run to her boss and
    say I quit, nobudy wants coffee, nope she says Next.  I like my
    outside activities like Bob and it to is dangerous.  I have seen
    at Daytona Speedway a drive Not long ago Flip his car end for end
    over its side, real bad at 200 MPH.  Now thats failure and yet
    he was back the following day to try again to qualify for The Big
    Race.  Presure he has plenty of because you see the Big Buck sponcer
    is in the stands watching that and hoping his car will make the
    field.  Failure, I think Bob_the_hiker will agree, is all in how
    you let it effect you.  
    
    	In closing, confidence in yourself gives you a clear vision
    of your Goals and creates desire that is strong enough to sweep
    away all obstacles!  The only honest measure of your success is
    what you are doing compared to your true potential.  Attitudes
    are nothing more than Habits of thought... and Habits can be acquired.
    
    	Hope this will help with how you deal with failure.....
    
    		-Gerry   

I don't remember where I originally saw this, but every so often something
happens that reminds me of it:

Experience is what you get when you don't get what you wanted.

    My first week at DEC was almost my last. IN the company I came from
    it was common to use abrasive language. I was up to my elbows in
    alligators diring my first week, meeting some deadline when a woman
    from another product line kept bugging me to help her with some-
    thing, I finally blew my cool and told her to get the F*** off my
    case. A 15 member panel decided my fate, "Give'm another chance.
    I learned from that episode that DECies are a team and we'de bet-
    ter all pitch in or lose. That incident took the edge off my
    abrasiveness. File it away to experience.
    
    The story of my life has been winning, losing, fighting, hurting,
    dealing with racial, ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, and
    every other issue one can name.....but never (yet) throwing in 
    the towel and quitting. Yeah life is hard, then  you die, there
    are a lot of people out there that enjoy being real shits toward
    others, egotistic power brokers that'de slip it to their own
    grandmothers if they'de gain something. These are the only type
    people I have a problem with now.
    
    Not only by just rubbing shoulders with the unwashed masses can
    you gain human experience, but there are various social/support
    groups where you can get a lot of feedback on how to inferface
    effectively with fellow human beans. I took the Advocate training
    (a tamed down version of EST) and gained some priceless people
    skills. One place that has given me more skills than anywhere
    else has been working at DEC. It has given me a chance to deal
    with/meet an incredibly broad range of folks and I've been given
    a lot of feedback both +/- and adjusted my behavior accordingly.
    Each time I fail, I brush myself off, takes down notes and try
    not to make the same mistake again. Oh well, nuff said!
    
                                        Ray 

    I was thinking about failure and one of the previous replies about
    an interview that failed cause there were no failures. I started
    thinking back what I would have said in that experience - I could
    have said I had a failed job interview, or I failed to learn to
    play the flute, or my marriage has failed. But I also noticed that
    in looking back, I'm glad that that job interview failed cause I
    did better getting the job I eventually got. I can go back and learn
    to play the flute again someday if I feel like it. And I had some
    really great times and am a far greater person from having the
    relationship with my wife and she will always be a very special
    person to me even though it's time to move on for both of us in
    order that we can both continue to grow. Seems to me that to call
    something a failure in most cases is an arrogant judgement on our
    part - at least from most of my experiences. I'm much happier when
    I am able to regard something as an experience and can be glad about
    the wisdom I've gained (can't manage to do this all the time but
    I try) from whatever it was even if it was painful. Maybe this doesn't
    quite relate, but wasn't it Mae West who said, "Given two evils,
    I always chose the one I haven't tried before?

Yes, Mae West said that, among other pithy remarks.

Tom Edison said, "no experiment is ever a failure, it's one less thing
you have to try to find the one that works."

It's also a matter of statistics.  I am told (having had one "failed"
business/entrepreneurial experience) that the typical successful
entrepreneur fails twice before succeeding.

I know of a profession where you can fail 7 out of 10 times at your
clear objective and still be a highly paid, successful performer.  It's
called professional baseball player -- hit 300 in the majors, and you'll
be well paid.

Strike out?  There'll be another turn at bat, if we're not afraid to
take it.  "The only thing to fear is fear itself", or in the words of
a song:

   "It's the heart afraid of breaking
      That never learns to dance;
    It's the dream afraid of waking
      That never takes a chance.
    It's the one who won't be taken
      That cannot learn to give.
    And the soul afraid of dying
      That never learns to live."

              -- The Rose

    A good friend of mine said this to me a little while ago and
    I know in my heart it's true:
    
    Anything that is worthwhile in life is either a risk or hard work.
    And if something is *really* worthwhile, then it is both.
    
    	-Ellen

    	Let's face it, the only way to really get human experience is
    to go out there in the real world and just LIVE it.  Everything
    we do is governed in part by our past...what has happened to us,
    who has affected our outlooks & decisions, and the people that
    shaped our lives at such an early age...our parents.  I've lived
    with or around my parents for 26 of my 27 years of life on this
    here planet, and only now (this last year) have I begun to see 
    the "real" world as opposed to a semi-sheltered world.  I make my
    own decisions, and I have to live with my mistakes.  Some mistakes
    also cost more than others, but that's all part of "the human ad-
    venture".  I know that I missed listing a great part of our
    early/current influences, but you can fill in that blank.  Just
    go out there and go for it...and see what happens.  You may be 
    surprised!!!
    
    					Phil