ORDINARY

As much as I love books, I am a voracious reader of nearly anything and everything within reach. I sometimes cannot help myself, though I have gotten better about avoiding the germ riddled magazines in doctors' offices. And, I still believe in newspapers. I grew up in a house that received a daily newspaper and, though I know it is a relatively small detail in the larger scheme of things, I think it made a difference. In part, it was the subtlety of it. No one told me I should read the newspaper; it was just there. So, I read it. My current local newspaper leaves much to be desired, but I cling to my subscription for both the news of local government and in hopes that our daughter will also take the same unspoken suggestion. I am finding more and more, however, that she defiantly refuses nearly everything I suggest she read, so I have resulted to simply hoping that the books and other readable materials lying around our house will someday, somehow strike her fancy. I will feign indifference, of course, while secretly sending out hopeful telepathic urgings of "Read it. Read it. You'll be better for it. Please."

My newspaper of choice is the New York Times. Forget, if you can for just a moment, what you think that says about me. The bottom line is there is simply no better newspaper for depth and breadth of coverage and for features that drill deeply into issues that would remain otherwise unconsidered. This week I read an article in the Times that stirred my mind and happens to strike me at a time when I am dealing with major decisions of a professional nature. The piece speaks both to issues I must confront with that decision and to issues that any parent should consider. By Alice Tugend, it is called Redefining Success and Celebrating the Ordinary and yes, I am telepathically sending you encouragement to read it.

What a concept, the idea that ordinary is completely acceptable and interesting, that every child does not have to be told that they are fantastically exceptional at every endeavor or that it is a waste of their time and effort if they are not. It is admittedly a difficult concept for Americans to wrap their minds around. Our culture is fixated on achieving and on besting everyone else. Do not get me wrong. I suffer from the same mindset, but I find a bit of common sense in Tugend's reminders to us that ordinary does not mean meaningless and that there is something to be said for a simple life of integrity. All this makes me think of the recent ballyhoo about the idea of "American exceptionalism." It is an idea I understand and appreciate completely. There is much to celebrate and to take pride in about America and the strive for exceptionalism is what has led our country to this place of global significance, political, economic, and otherwise. But, we are deceiving ourselves if we think we are or even should be masters of all that we survey, either as a country or as individuals.

We Americans are also deceived by a notion that ultimate success is reserved for the extroverted among us, those who are energized by constant engagement with the world and with other people. This is solidly refuted by Susan Cain in her book that I am currently reading, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking. Cain actually asserts that the words introvert and extrovert are misnomers in some sense, having taken upon connotations of negative and positive attributes. She gives compelling and physiological evidence for instead thinking of an introvert as someone who is highly sensitive to all manner of stimulation, light or sound, for instance. It is not that they are anti-social or reclusive; they simply appreciate a certain amount of time for solitude, and they also tend to function best and most creatively when given concentrated and focused time to work alone. The whole concept of working in teams or groups has changed the way schools organize classrooms and how corporations approach their own structure, workspaces and  project management. By citing numerous high level thinkers and innovators who have functioned this way, Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak, for instance, Cain makes the case that we are missing out on important contributions to our world by thinking of introversion only as a personality flaw that will hinder success. She asks us to rethink our reactions to introversion, realizing that it is a trait that is as powerful and as positive an attribute as we tend to think extroversion is.

Ordinary and introverted. Two things I am reconsidering myself of late.