In the spirit of the Christmas shopping season, I present to you 3 ways dating is like Black Friday:

1. Waking up at 3am seems adventurous again. Seriously, unless it’s Black Friday or dating… why would you ever do this?

2. You think this sale is way better than the last one. Yes, in the moment, this sale does seem pretty good.

3. You go expecting to find the advertised deals, later to realize the store only carried one or two in stock. You know the saying… “Guys are like parking spaces.  You can look around forever, but all the good ones are taken.”

Got any others?  Leave them in the comments!

As I pass the one-month anniversary of my personal blog, I’m starting to wonder what ya’ll think.  Do you like the stuff I’ve written so far?  What would you like to see more of?

I’ve created a short two-question survey to find out.  If you have 30 seconds, please visit http://bit.ly/6KRXrB to take it.

I’ll be sure to share the results with ya.  Thanks again!

When I was a teenager, I often struggled to be unique.  I wanted to stand out above the crowd and be noticed by someone.  Anyone.

I recognize this now that I’m four years removed from my teenage years.  Yet in the middle of those turbulent times I would never have guessed that I was being controlled, like every other teenager, by an insidious craving for attention.  Everything seemed normal at the time.

Which brings me to the present day.  What forces are controlling me?  Do I still have that subtle lust for attention?  Or am I controlled by a more wily beast, like greed or dishonesty? How can I find out, especially when everything seems normal?

A while ago I wrote a post about doing nice things just for the sake of doing nice things.  While that would be an ideal world, us human beings don’t usually work that way.

Unless it’s Thanksgiving.  Today, it’s okay to be thankful just for the sake of being thankful.  And I love it.

What a great way to kick off the holiday season — by appreciating those you love.  Now go hug your wife and kids.  Call someone you’ve been meaning to call.  Be kind to a random stranger.  And for heaven’s sake, don’t think twice about it!!

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who shop at Wal-Mart, and those who shop at Wal-Mart but are too scared to admit it.

I used to believe that if something is truly important in life, you should NOT need to write it down.  You’ll just naturally remember.

Yet I’m only 23 and already forgetting things.  Siblings’ birthdays, people’s names, and meal recipes just don’t stick as well as they used to.  It’s not early onset Alzheimer’s, but rather a consequence of being what some refer to as human.

I’m coping with my humanness by beginning to write things down — especially the important stuff.  I keep a small daily journal to remember details about people’s lives.  That way when I meet them on the street, I can hope for at least a spark from my wet social skill matches.

When was the last time you learned something new about someone you love?  Write it down.  It’s a shame that we, as human beings, need to rely on a pencil from time-to-time.  But trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

When eating dinner with a bunch of fancy people, don’t choke on a piece of roast beef.

That was me last Thursday.  I was at the National Advisory Council‘s annual meet-and-greet for all Master’s students in the Marriott School.  About ten minutes into the dinner I bit off more tri-tip “fancy beef” than I could handle.  Moments later I was stumbling out of the room gurgling, coughing, and vomiting everywhere.

I’m actually glad for the excuse to leave early, even if it meant swallowing the great Rock of Gibraltar.  I’m so quiet and introverted that the thought of socializing and making chit-chat with people at events like this is positively repulsive.

But even though I’m a Quasimodo in disguise (I don’t have a bulging eye quite yet…), my future career depends on networking.  And socializing.  Eek.

That’s why I love Penelope Trunk’s blog post about Networking Tips for Introverts.  It makes me feel like there’s hope in the world for us shy guys.

I work with a lot of people who, on the outside, seem very successful.  They hold positions of responsibility, manage large projects, and always seem to have a jam-packed schedule.  Everything seems to go perfectly for them.

It really is a privilege to work with these people, because they teach me so much.  Here’s an example of an e-mail that came in today (paraphrased for brevity/privacy):

Hey, I just heard that the magazines are being mailed out this week.  Will we be able to have the website done by then?

The e-mail is, of course, implying that the magazine will be used to drive traffic to the website.  I checked the soon-to-be-mailed magazine, however, and couldn’t find a single URL or reference to the website in consideration.  Someone forgot to put it in.

You can do a lot of things in your life.  You can obtain positions of power, responsibility and admiration.  Yet there exists a definite line between being successful and just being busy.

Successful people:

• Pay attention to details, even insignificant ones.
• See the end from the beginning.
• Master the basics of communication (writing, speaking, etc).
• Work not just for the sake of work.
• Empower themselves with technical and non-technical knowledge.
• Depend on others when their personal skills fall short.

In contrast, busy people:

• Make up deadlines to feel accomplished.
• Work on projects just for the sake of projects.
• Do things right, but not the right things.
• Have a myopic perspective on life.
• Believe that putting in more hours will bring better results.

Busy people make my blood pressure skyrocket.  And that’s bad for business.

Someone at work called me “Cory” by mistake.  I didn’t correct him, because I figured he wouldn’t be addressing me by name very often (and would forget me anyway).  After all, it would be nicer to let him save face.  Wouldn’t it?

Well, he ended up addressing me five or six more times that day.  And I couldn’t correct him, because he’d done it so much already.  I was trapped.  And everyone around me knew he was calling me by the wrong name, and yet I did nothing.

Nothing.

Awkward experiences like this can be avoided by correcting mistakes when they happen.  If we’re worried about “saving face” for someone, we should focus on our people skills and learn to correct without reproof.

Time is my enemy.  I either have too much or not enough, and it’s frustrating.

In the midst of this semester, moments of downtime have become precious to me.  I want to savor them, letting them slowly dissolve like the mists of an autumn morning.  When I’m free, it’s like heaven.

Yet it doesn’t stay like that for long.  I begin to push away school and postpone work to have more misty autumn mornings.  Downtime suddenly becomes more abundant, and consequentially less precious.

Happiness is keeping downtime precious by avoiding it appropriately.