avoiding the ordinary: canned goods

What do you bring to the table? Be it a job interview, a brainstorming session or 
interaction with a loved one, are your responses built on expected words, conventional notions, ingrained thought processes?

Almost every sphere of human activity can benefit from original ideas, and they hardly need be limited to symphony or skyscraper, to palate or painting, to e-this or i-that. Cause a few sparks—by going above and beyond, by living without fear of others’ responses, by acting from true conviction.

While breaking out of restrictive routines, let your actions speak for themselves. Leave the blown horns for the orchestra, let advertisements remain within the realm of television and radio, keep the ego in check. As one of innumerable examples, photographer Mark Abramson's project, "Neither Here Nor There," quietly looks beyond his own immigrant background to chronicle the ever-poignant struggles and contradictions of an immigrant family, whose aspirations make a necessity of the unconventional.

In most situations, canned responses are harder to swallow than a hunger strike. Tie into your personal enthusiasms. Play to your strengths. Avoid obsessively ordinary behaviors and responses that represent little more than purblind apathy.

None of the above contradicts behaving in a dependable way. To be relied upon day after week, month after year, decade after generation, is to accept the kind of personal responsibility—from children and parents to work and relationships—that allows us to function beyond the alarm clock.

But break out of the typical. Drop the commonplace. Whether for a colleague, friend, boss, spouse, relative or neighbor, let your unexpected, productive actions take hold. Document the results. Provoke from-the-gut responses.

Let those within and beyond your circle know that you’ve got the goods.

to graze or cut deeply: knives & forks

Someone cuts you off on the turnpike, the expressway, the highway or the byway.

Someone promises you something but doesn’t deliver.

Someone leaves integrity at the door.

Someone d, e or f.

These realities can either graze or cut deeply, the knife entering with various levels of pain. The reaction may be to turn that around, to fight, to never let it rest. If it’s a matter of personal #integrity, then there is really no choice. Go knife to knife if need be.

But none of us can control the actions of other people, nor should we. If that’s the way they drive, so be it; get out of the way and drive defensively. If they make their way in the world with broken promises, so be it; get out of the way and discontinue contact. If they conduct themselves in underhanded ways, so be it; get out of the way and don’t do business with them.

We are not beholden to other people; we have #choices. The daily decisions we make are our own. Everyone confronts forks in the road. If we allow ourselves to be dragged down by unsupportive people, by less-than-favorable circumstances, by personal disappointments, we alone are to blame. That Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Wall Street Journal and Fox News Channel, actively dislikes Mitt Romney and wants no part in the latter’s possible presidential run in 2016 should be taken for what it is; whether for a decision to run for president or to apply for a particular job or a thousand other decision-based ‘or’s, any commitment made with integrity, discipline and conviction should be pursued regardless of the (inevitable) obstacles. (For the record, this writer does not support a Mitt Romney presidential run.)

It’s how we react that reveals the key: Treat each setback as a choice, as road A or B, either to remain positive whatever the short-term consequences or to slosh through the mud, no better than those who wronged us at the outset.

Make the positive turn, the proactive choice. Doing so represents true empowerment.