A couple of years ago I worked for a famous economist (yes I did go with the funniest picture I could find of him). His big thing was education and labor market returns, e.g. making money and having a good job. His work focused on what you learn in nursery school, soft skills like perseverance and self-motivation, and how they doom you forever if you don’t have them.
So of course, whenever I procrastinate or have problems keeping the locomotive of my life chugging along, I immediately think of my soft skills. Would things be better in my life if I had wiggled less in kindergarten or stuck with the song flute? Did I somehow fuck up my life when I was four? No pressure there.
There are psych studies showing that your soft skill bank can be spent out – make you wait patiently in a room for 20 minutes and you’ll have less ability to resist the cookies afterwards.
This is a long way of saying that I’ve been feeling a little lacking in the umph-skills category right now. I’m so excited about a few new opportunities (and sad about some bad news) that I can’t seem to focus on the day-to-day, even the fun stuff like blogging.
Ironically, I have always craved being that person who had the little minutia all tied up, never behind on anything with a clean in-box and clear conscious. And I am so not that person as much as I refuse to accept it. Today, though, I’m going to blame it on my nursery school teacher and try to move on.
Aesthetic Snafu 