Conner's Blog

A little over a month ago, I turned 27 and I established a set of goals for myself.  If you want to read the full posts, here are links to goals one, two, three, four, and five.

For those who do not want to read my mindless jabbering in more than one post today, my goals were as follows.  Volunteer more, date more, financial management, maintain my relationships, and eat right.  Here is a quick update on my progress.  I’m going to try and do these monthly so I can shame myself into working harder at accomplishing them.

Volunteering

So far, this goal hasn’t picked up more steam.  I did pick up my involvement in the Orchestra and put in quite a bit of work over the past few weeks for that organization, but I haven’t done anything besides that.  I hope that this month, maybe over Thanksgiving, I will find an organization and work a few hours for them.

Date More

Ummm, we will leave this as unaccomplished and very little progression.

Financial Management

This is a mixed bag.  I haven’t made any big purchases this month, even though B&H sent me an email that the prime lens I’d been looking at was in stock.  I do need to stop eating out as much, though I didn’t go out for lunch all last week.  I think if I can limit myself to only eating dinner out and only doing that two times a week I’ll be happy with my progress.  This isn’t going to be easy though.

Maintaining Relationships

I ordered and received Moo cards with my contact information on them.  This was great and now I just need to work on making sure I have some with me all the time and also work on getting other’s information from them.  This is going to be a challenge but if I just remember to work on it, I know I can succeed.  On a positive note I ran into an old co-worker from college last night and remembered to get a card to him so hopefully I can reconnect with him and his wife(who I also worked with) sometime.

I haven’t made a conscious effort to send thank you cards, but I do have some sitting on my desk now, so I can’t use the excuse that going to the store and buying them is too much effort.

Eating Right

This was going great up until the last week or so.  Too much eating out, and not enough portion control.  On the plus side, I’ve been eating whole grain cereal almost every morning which not only helps with the calorie consumption but also is just overall good for you.  I’m only allowing myself to eat out on Tuesday this week, until Friday when I head to Grand Forks.  This weekend will be a challenge but I’m going to work hard at not gorging at every meal.

I am giving myself a C grade for this month.  Though I’ve made progress in some of these goals I’ve also not made much more than a mildly conscious effort to push them forward.  So, for those of you who know me, yell at me if you see me slacking.  For those of you that don’t, please also join in the yelling.

I’m starting to understand why those who don’t get social media don’t get social media.  Just check out all these reasons to avoid it.

• Why would you want to connect with a ton of people from all over the country and world?
• Why would you want to engage with people in your industry who might one day be a connection to a job or a potential positive addition to your company?
• It’s an awful thing to walk into a restaurant alone at lunch time and find out that someone you’ve been talking to for weeks about politics, sports, your interests, or current events is sitting in the corner table without a lunch partner.
• That first real life meetings is always awkward, sometimes these people are actually just as smart/funny/interesting in real life as they are online.
• Getting tickets to a show through a new friend who happens to know you love the band because you won’t shut up about it the weeks leading up to the sold out show feels almost like cheating.
• Getting a chance to meet an old media rock star who happens to also be a new media rock star in person and then have that person get the bar to sing you happy birthday because the mayor of Minneapolis declared your birthday the rock star’s day, well that’s embarrassing. (but really freaking cool)
• It’s always better to watch sports without forty other fans to provide commentary, the television announcers are always more intelligent.
• Raising money for charities was so much easier when you only had to cold call or knock on doors.
• Restaurant critics who work for a paper always know what they are talking about, a hundred people just like you providing instant feedback is completely unnecessary.
• Without social media you can still go see the new comedy that came out on Thursday on Saturday without knowing it is in fact, awful.
• Journalists are the best fact checkers, and having numerous trustworthy sources to tell you someone is full of crap is unnecessary.
• I’m too busy watching reality television to talk to real people online.
• Email isn’t social, it’s communication, and totally different.
• Social media is clogging the tubes and I won’t be able to watch my funny cat videos on Youtube.
• It’s easy to find the best restaurants in new cities, why ask your friends?
• This Internet thing is a fad and once it goes away you’ll lose all those friends anyway.

See there are countless reasons to stay away from social media, stop trying to convince everyone it’s cool.

I turned 27 Monday, and though I know it’s not really old, for some reason it kind of freaks me out. I think it’s the realization that I’m so close to 30, again these things are not important and it’s all in my head, but still.

In honor of my irrationality, I’ve decided to post one goal a day for the next five days.  These goals are things I want to accomplish by my 28th birthday. I hope that by putting these out into the public eye, I’ll be able to accomplish them. The first post in the series can be found here.

The goal I’m publishing today is to work on maintaining more relationships.  For the first 26 years of my life, I have not done a good job keeping connections established with people outside of my close circle of friends.  I have never had a problem making friends or having conversations with people.  My problem is that once I find myself no longer in a situation where I had to interact with people, whether due to changing jobs, finishing a project, or a semester ending, I failed to maintain the relationship.

I’ve decide I have to remedy this, not only because I’ve lost the connection to a lot of great people, but because of the opportunities that may filter my way due to these relationships.  Whether it’s a new job, volunteer opportunity, or something else, knowing a large group of people can lead to great things both for me and hopefully to those around me.
I’m not quite sure how to go about this, it’s not in my nature to just reach out to people just to reach out.  Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin are helpful, but technology isn’t the solution to this problem.  I need to get better at just sending out quick notes to people, providing feedback, and thanking those who help me.

To this end, I’m going to try and do the following:  One, I am going to purchase personal business cards for myself so I can exchange cards with more people.  Getting peoples name and contact information is an important step.  Second, I am going to make a point of sending thank you cards for more things than just receiving a gift.  Things such as sending a card to those who host events I go to, to people who introduce me to someone new, or for taking the time to provide feedback on something I’m working on.  This isn’t something I’ve done in the past so it will require a commitment. Third, I need to get better at just picking up the phone, sending email, in essence just interacting with others.  Even just an email to an article I think someone may find interesting would be a positive step.

This goal may be the most difficult goal I am setting for myself, mainly because it’s something I’ve never tried before.  I would love suggestions on different ways you maintain your relationships.

I tried online dating about a year ago and had no success.  I’m not sure what I was doing wrong, but after sending out numerous messages and not netting a single response I decided to stop.  I tried a bunch of strategies, sending questions, being clever and funny, and especially being myself with no success.  It was an interesting experience but I didn’t really feel it was right for me.

Since I just stopped visiting dating sites but never  canceled my memberships (well at the free sites at least) I still get occasional emails trying to lure me back.  Here is what the profile of the person I was matched with today said,

“I love to watch and play sports. I enjoy being in the outdoors. I like to camp, fish and hunt and am not afraid to get dirty.”

First, I want to be clear that I like a girl who enjoys sports and don’t want a girl who screams whenever a little dirt ends up on her shoes.  But I don’t really wants to date a girl who fishes and hunts.   I’m not that into the outdoors, granted I enjoy hiking, and occasionally will jump on a four wheeler and get covered in mud, but most of the time I would prefer going to a museum, checking out a show, or enjoying a nice dinner.  My idea of enjoying the outdoors involves a camera not a fishing pole.

I’m not saying that this girl wouldn’t interest me, but if the site wants to show me how great it is, especially after I know I filled out questionairs and a profile, it might want to consider tweaking some algorithms.  Then again, maybe I really do want a girl who can skin a deer and gut a fish.  At least I would get to learn how to cook the wildlife.