Dearest Mama,
It’s ‘fall-er’ outside; hot as hades, burnt brown grass, craggy looking flowers, and shriveled up leaves. No rain for weeks and football season just started.
A new school year has all the kiddos excited and looking spiffy in their new clothes. At work, we began a new sprint. You’d be proud. I didn’t rush to the office in my fancy new outfit. I stuck to the work from home plan, stayed in my jammies, camera off, all day for the entire week. Girl math says I saved at least $400.00 – one pair of jammies versus five new outfits with fancy shoes and sparkly jewelry.
Every night after I return from the gym, I water the dried sticks sitting in pretty pots on the porch and next to the pergola. While I might have missed a few days of hydration, I want you to know I’m following your sage advice: Never give up and finish what you started. I think the flower sticks are appreciative.
The other day at work, at the end of a serious topic, I blurted out something about ‘not pissing in everyone’s cheerios.’ After a moment of silence, people laughed. I felt your pride swell as you witnessed your overly serious daughter fearlessly turn into a jackass without hesitation.
We bought an Army green Class B van this past spring. His name is Moose. Now, on a whim, we load Moose with food, pick a destination never seen before, and drive there. We spend the night in the van with the doors open, bug screen zippered tight, on land owned by random strangers.
I know you are proud. It’s such an improvement over drinking bad wine from a box on a hot summer’s night, swarmed by mosquitoes, in a corn field.
One last brag. My culinary game is ridiculously improved. I make the most edible cottage cheese and egg flatbread known to man. Fresh rosemary, which somehow escaped the stick craze, black pepper piled a mile high and crushed red pepper for that pop of color and extra burning sensation. While I don’t drink, these little buggers chased down by a spritz of jalepeno white wine stops time. Moonshine without the moonshine drama and a tasty protein-packed bread roll that is not bread. Much more sophisticated than the green colored chocolate flavoring I used to bury my egg whites in when I was in competition prep.
So, excuse me a sec while I pin that “I’m proud of my daughter” button to my shirt. That big ole button clearly wards off evil spirits and reinforces invincibility.
And, it enables the best super powers: Never follow the crowd, never conform, and always, always own your thoughts, words and deeds.
Welcome to this wonderful group where you will have the opportunity to “protect yourself from conformism”.
I find the quote you make about conformism intriguing.
Conformism, like groupthink, or the desire to reach unanimity in the group so as not to ruin its cohesion, are ways of operating that can have a negative impact, especially in cases where there is a strong need to receive input, ideas, opinions from members to choose what concretely turns out to be the best proposal (teamworking; planning; emergency plans).
So if protecting yourself from conformism by working on self-esteem and the assertiveness of your attitude is important for the individual, it becomes a primary responsibility for team leaders, managers and coordinators in order to avoid that among their collaborators there is an impoverishment of ideas to the detriment of the result, poor communication, dissatisfaction and/or marginalization of the most reserved subjects, increased risks due to incomplete and/or incorrect diagnoses, etc.