better...

When I was younger, my family owned a few sporting goods stores, it started as my Grandfathers (paternal) and then my Dad and Uncle after Pop-Pop passed. When I was a kid, I used to spend time at the store, in Pop-Pop's office (or my Dads...the memory is fuzzy) coloring. There are things I remember about my Pop-Pop, who died when I was 8, that I take with me as lessons still today.

Always carry a pen - you never know when you're going to need it. It's true - you don't know when you might and to this day, there is always a pen in my bag at all times. My notebook at work has a pen loop - and one always rests there so I can grab and go.

If you look busy, people will assume that you are - aka carry a clipboard and walk with a purpose. Well...I have given up carrying the clipboard (does anyone outside of a school use those anymore?) but I do walk with a purpose, which definitely tends to give the appearance of being busy and confident.

The last lesson is one that my Dad and Uncle also stressed as I got older and really started working at the store...we have to be better than everyone else. Not in the snobby, noses up kind of way. But in the sense that everyone assumed that I had a job there because of the family connection, so I had to be better at my job than the rest of the staff, just to prove I was supposed to be there.

That last lesson, about being better has really stuck with me. I know that it has rung true in other areas of my life too. When you are a minority (let's face it...I might be white...but there's no way I'm passing as anything close to straight...the boys in high school were right...I just didn't have it figured out) you have to be better than others just to prove your worth. You have to participate and vote - most of the time for self preservation and so your rights aren't taken away by a landslide majority. You have to be better when you get married and your marriages are held up to so much more scrutiny. You have to be better parents...where again you are held to more scrutiny than the average parents...

you have to be better...something I try and live up to every day...sometimes I succeed...and sometimes it comes off as snobby...but never my intent. I'm just trying to be better...so that someday, hopefully, there will be far less scrutiny and need to feel like you have to be...just to be the same as everyone else.