Project 35

I posted a video of me dancing, people laughed, I took it down. I rarely will film myself doing anything and since my parents were out of the house at …

I posted a video of me dancing, people laughed, I took it down.

I rarely will film myself doing anything and since my parents were out of the house at a doctor’s appointment, I decided to put dancehall reggae music on the TV and dance in the living room. I love to dance and it has been a long while since I have, probably since February. I set my phone next to the TV and recorded me dancing to the song. I didn’t feel super proud of the dance but I thought it was OK—I was proud of one move that felt super on beat.

I decided to post it on my Snapchat and WhatsApp status—both platforms where people don’t get to save the video and also can only view it for up to 24 hours. Within minutes of posting it to WhatsApp, I received probably 5 messages. I think all of them had laughing emojis in them. And not just one laughing emoji but multiple laughing emojis. After about the third or fourth one, I started to ask people why they were laughing. One said I dance like a mzungu (foreigner/white guy in Swahili), another said I need to take dance lessons, and another said I had a very long way to go.

So I took down the post. I deleted it from WhatsApp and Snapchat and talked with the people a little longer. Even when I posted it, I used the emoji of the little monkey covering its eyes. I think I felt embarrassed to post it, unsure of the dance itself and how confident I felt in myself and my performance. When I received the laughs, it didn’t feel as other times where I thought people were laughing at my creativity, it felt as if people were laughing at me. “This poor mzungu doesn’t know how to dance, awwww.” I felt pity coming my way or condescension in a way. More than anything, I felt vulnerable, raw, and quite frankly, ashamed. I wanted to hide. So I took down the post.

I told some of those people that I won’t post those things anymore. I don’t know if I meant it in the long-term, but in the moment, I was feeling so raw—I didn’t want to hear their feedback. I said how when I dance in a club, I feel mostly confident in my abilities because I know I can dance better than most people in there. However, the internet is like a club with 1 billion plus people and compared to the dancers on the internet, I pale in comparison, in skill and sometimes complexion.

I eventually told some of these people that I removed it because, really, I was feeling too exposed. It wasn’t so much what they said that hurt, I was already feeling vulnerable just by posting it. It reminds me of one of the biggest learnings I’ve had in running Emotional Self-Defense classes: how much we feel attacked depends on how vulnerable we feel before, during, and after the event. If I go into the event already feeling vulnerable, even a kind remark can make me feel rejected, ignored, blamed, accused, etc.

As I said before, I like to learn things and I really love dancing and I think I feel embarrassed at how I dance when I compare it some other people dancing. I want to be “the best” and yet I still have a long way to go.

I also just want to accept that I am who I am and dance how I dance. Maybe soon. Maybe I’ll post again.

I like to learn. When people ask me why I’m writing this book and specifically, why I’m writing it in this format, I tell them that more than anything, I …

I like to learn. When people ask me why I’m writing this book and specifically, why I’m writing it in this format, I tell them that more than anything, I wanted to learn how to get really good at extemporaneous writing—having to write for 10 minutes for 3 times per day for 35 consecutive days will give me 105 chances to practice this skill. I’ll hopefully learn how to structure coherent arguments (and to do so right after waking up), type more quickly and accurately, determine what’s appropriate to say or not, and other unpredicted skills.

So far, so good. I seem to be learning a lot. And yet, this is not all that I want to learn (by the way, I’ve learned that I write “and yet” a lot). I also want to learn how to promote the work that I’m doing—something that I’ve feared to do and maybe it’s because I don’t know how to do it. This reminds me of a time I was with my friend Joe at his house near Lake Michigan. He had a small sailboat sitting there and he told me that he normally teaches people how to sail by putting them in the boat with him and then tipping it over. He said he wants them to know that’s the worst thing that will probably happen and therefore feel more comfortable playing within the extremes.

I also want to learn how to broadcast my work. I also want to learn how to manage other people. I also want to learn so many different things.

Sometimes I think the challenge is that I want to learn too many things. Not just those above, but how to juggle, paint an artwork, sing, dance, etc.

Maybe the other challenge, and more heavy one, is that when I learn something, I often want to learn more of it. I learned how to juggle over the last year or so and now I want to learn how to juggle with four balls or in more complex patterns. I think I can often get caught up so much in wanting to learn more that I forget how much I have learned.

This last point hits me hard. I often feel frustrated because I look at all that I haven’t learned yet, instead of feeling proud looking back at all that I have. I was talking with my Accountability Buddy yesterday and he had reviewed some of this writings. He expressed shock at how I have been able to write these in 10 minutes and have such coherence. For me, I was grateful he said that and also a bit confused, as yes, I think they have been coherent and I also am striving to learn how to do them even better.

On one hand, I love how I strive to learn more and more. On the other, I hate how I don’t pause to recognize how much I have learned and appreciate it.

As I finish, I’m grateful that I’m improving and have learned a lot over my years.

“But it’s not funny,” I say to myself after I laugh at what Trump said on TV. I’m not laughing from joy, I’m laughing from a blend of anger, surprise, …

“But it’s not funny,” I say to myself after I laugh at what Trump said on TV. I’m not laughing from joy, I’m laughing from a blend of anger, surprise, and confusion. I cannot believe that he still says certain things. This particular laugh came as a result of him recently tweeting that Michigan, Wisconsin, and Virginia should “liberate” themselves and strongly saying that the country needs to reopen, to today saying that he strongly disagrees with the decision by the Governor of Georgia to reopen their economy, saying that protecting people is the most important thing.

I laugh probably because I find it ridiculous and laughing feels more comfortable than shouting at the TV. I laugh probably because I don’t know what else to do or so. I laugh probably because I want to pretend that it’s all not real.

But it is very real. Senator Elizabeth Warren just lost her brother to COVID-19. (Senator/Congressperson?) Maxine Waters from California is on the brink of losing her sister. I know at least four people who have already lost loved ones. I know people who are working in ICUs. This virus has not gone away and will not be going away until we find a treatment and vaccine.

I don’t want to laugh, I really want to shout and I want to cry. I want to shout at what seems to be his unwillingness to take a decision, his “the states are in control” but “I believe you should do this” style of advisory/consulting services. I want to shout at his flip-flopping. I want to shout at his seeming hesitance to stand up for every single American.

And I want to cry. I want to cry at how re-opening the economy may cause even more strain on the hospital system, and importantly, the people holding it up. I want to cry at how many more people are going to lose loved ones. I want to cry because I don’t know how many loved ones are being lost right now to the stay-at-home orders.

I laugh because I don’t know what else to do. I remember reading a book in college about anthropology that talked about a tribe in Brazil and how they often dealt with such incessant pain and sadness by laughing. I can’t recall the full message, but I think it were something about not knowing what to do and not thinking they had any control over changing the situation, so there wasn’t much use in shouting or crying.

Maybe that’s why I laugh. I sit at home, watching the TV, hearing things that make me angry and sad, and I feel powerless to change them.

But maybe I’m not.

Maybe I can start sharing my anger and sharing my pain. Maybe I can start to stand up for my humanity and that of others. Maybe I can start to show the world that I want someone who has the courage to make decisions, who has the courage to take responsibility for his actions. Maybe I can start to stand strong.

It just took one line to make me cry. One line for which I have been yearning for politicians to say. I can’t remember exactly how he said it, but …

It just took one line to make me cry. One line for which I have been yearning for politicians to say. I can’t remember exactly how he said it, but Governor Cuomo said something like, “I don’t care if you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or something else, I represent everyone in the state of New York.”

I guess I was starting to lose hope that someone would say it. That someone would recognize that being an elected official is not just about representing the people who voted for you, but about representing all of the people, whether they love you, hate you, or don’t even know you exist. Cuomo, in his coronavirus briefing today, gave me hope.

I think far too often in politics we think that we only represent the people who elected us—perhaps there is some validity to this argument however. Maybe we do only represent those who voted for us and the majority consensus of the population. However, I can’t see how that applies to every decision. I would imagine that there is no majority population that agrees to make the same decision in every scenario—I can’t even find a group of two humans who agree on everything. So maybe it’s not about making the same decisions, but that some people believe it’s about representing “our” team against “their” team, the old us vs. them game. In that scenario, maybe trying to help one group win over the other group is aligning with political desires and beliefs.

I, however, strongly believe that when we elect politicians, we elect them to represent every single human being in that district, and ideally human beings outside of that district, as well as other living beings and non-living things. If I were to run for office, this is one of the thing that actually excites me the most: the challenge of having to make good decisions on behalf of people who love me, hate me, and are indifferent to me. I think in so much of our lives, we are asked to care about only the people on our team, not people who may be working against us. Take business for example, how many companies try to make decisions taking into consideration not only their employees and customers, but people who would never be their customers, and even their competitors? I think the same for nonprofits, families, and unfortunately, even some religious institutions.

What I heard from Cuomo today reinvigorated my hope for politics and my hope for governance. I was in awe watching someone who, day-after-day has been holding these briefings, dealing with so many intricacies of this pandemic, stand up to protect the people in his area—all the people.

I believe one of the biggest challenges of being a leader is to defend our own humanity, the humanity of those who love us, those who hate us, and those who are indifferent to us. Thinking about that challenge makes me feel so alive.

I don’t know what to say. Sometimes I get the feeling that I have to say something, but nothing comes to me. Right now, I know that I’m supposed to …

I don’t know what to say.

Sometimes I get the feeling that I have to say something, but nothing comes to me. Right now, I know that I’m supposed to write something, and not just anything, but I put pressure on myself to write something witty or something profound. And yet my body says, “Dude, you just woke up, it rained all night, it’s cold and dark outside, you know you really just want to sleeeeeeeeeeep.”

But I told myself I would write something.

I think this happens a lot to leaders in groups. Everyone looks at the leader expecting them to say something, especially in times of crisis, and if the leader has nothing to say, often they’ll still say something anyway, forcing it out, saying what they think they’re supposed to say instead of what they want to say.

In a way, I feel grateful that I’m writing this book in the way I am—giving myself the flexibility to say what I want to say, not having to conform to very specific predetermined topics.

At what point do we force ourselves not only to say something that we’re not feeling, but do something we’re not feeling because of the expectations we think people are placing on us. How often do we say yes when we really want to say no, but don’t have the courage to tell everyone that? Vice versa, how often do we say no when we really want to say yes?

As much as I like to believe that I’m an independent human being choosing to do exactly what I want, I’m not—I’m a human, just like everyone else, who succumbs to social pressures. I care about how people are feeling often more than I care about how I’m feeling and will do things to accommodate to their expectations. This aspect came up in a conversation with a friend the other day about whether we all should be forced to be in quarantine. I told him that right now the social pressure (and law) says we should stay at home, and I agree that it may be a little too strict, but I worry that if it were the opposite, where the governor says we can go back to work, that the social pressure will also flip. The person who is afraid to go out into society because of a vulnerability, right now, is socially pressured to stay home, but if companies opened, may be socially pressured to go to work, losing their job if they don’t go out of the house. As someone with a mother going through chemotherapy right now, if I had a full-time job at a company, I may not go just because I don’t want to risk contracting COVID-19 and spreading it to my mom. But how difficult that decision may be, whereas it seems much easier to make now that society has, more or less, agreed that we should stay home.

Again, I think this comes down to the challenge of being a leader—saying what we want or don’t want to say, no matter how much people are pressuring us to do something else. I find it hard to do in just a family setting, can’t imagine what it’s like to do in front of millions or billions of people.