Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Everyone is interesting, right?

At work, in an effort to personalize our service a bit more, I'm asking people to send me their "fun fact" that will go on our website next to their name. You'd think this would be easy...

I sent out the email to 14 people. 5 responded. Two weeks later, I sent it again, and 3 more people responded. You would not believe how much of a fight people put up about this. At first, I thought it was because they didn't want to be bothered, or because they didn't want to "brag" about themselves. Believe it or not though, 3 of them (so far) have actively complained to me that they have "nothing interesting" to say about their lives.

Of course, I refused to believe them. Two eventually caved (after giving them shit about it many, many times over the course of the two weeks) and gave me fairly interesting responses: one had been to 25 Aerosmith concerts in 7 states, and the other had skied 5 different states in a 10 day trip. After pressing the third holdout, I wished I hadn't.

I honestly believe that she thinks there is nothing interesting to say about her life past or present. I said to her, "So, when someone asks you about your life you tell them 'I go to work, go home and eat dinner, then go to bed' and she replied "Yes, and deal with my miserable children" (who are all highschool and older). I still don't believe her, but to me, the fact that this is how she views her life is very, very sad. Can you imagine someone being unable to tell you anything interesting about their life?

What must this person think of themself? What do they dream about? What fond memories do they look back upon? How could they possibly be happy?

Everyone should have at least a few interesting things to say about their life, right? Isn't that what makes life worth living?

What's your fun fact?

1 comment:

LAWRENCE CLAYTON said...

Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.