freudian garter belt

In my little post on being well-read and well-traveled, and the overabundance of value we’ve put on it (I’ve known people who’ve gotten better marks ’cause they taught English in Japan, and better jobs cause they’ve spent a year in Europe) I mistakenly typed contentious, when I MEANT conscientious. Quite the typo.

Really though, I think if you want to be an interesting person, both are pretty important.

You should have an open mind, yes, you should be a nice person, yes.

But you should also be willing and able to stand your ground, and question others grounds.

There’s nothing wrong with being critical. We (in North America especially) need to get over the fear of being “mean” when we decide to examine something’s merits - and losses.

More than the value of just being honest (which I have gained more loyal friends from being, than lost - at this point, people actually hunt me down because they know I’m going to tell them the truth) none of us will go anywhere, and none of us will succeed if we don’t look our own successes and failures square in the jaw and examine them thoroughly.

After all, if you don’t know how you’ve failed, how are you supposed to understand where those failures came from in the first place? How are you supposed to fix the problem? How are you supposed to make things right?

It should be noted, however, that a careful warts-and-all examination of something, is VERY different from just launching into something’s (or especially someone’s) perceived flaws completely unprovoked.

That actually is just being mean. And it’s usually only done in order to boost one’s own very low self esteem. Try to avoid that.