Feb 5, 2014 - Reason #3 I Love New York

I was born and raised in Oregon.  I spent 33 of my first 38 years there, and I never thought I would love anywhere as much as I love Oregon.

At 19, I moved to Japan to serve as a missionary for my church.  I love Japan, and found that many of my personality traits fit well into the culture there.  And I love Japan.  It's not a place I could live forever, but I could certainly spend 5 years there.  Despite my personal affinity for the culture and people and food, my 6'3" frame and other non-Japanese physical features make me an anomaly there.  While it's sometimes nice to overhear someone talking about you in a positive way, the fact they they are talking about you out loud and assuming you can't speak their language makes you feel like an outsider.  Even an admired outsider feels out of place.

Just after Aria was born, we spent 2 and a half years in Silicon Valley.  I did find some friends who got me into bicycle riding, which was great, but made few deep connections and found the culture around me to be uninteresting.  So much of the social intercourse there is based on sports, wine, coffee, cigars, and golf, that I was simply unable to participate.  I don't drink alcohol or coffee at all, do not use tobacco products, never liked baseball, and found I was so bad at golf that I couldn't enjoy it.

In NY, I find I fit in really well.  I was once working on a project in Oregon, and the customer I was working with was disingenuous with me.  He took me for a ride and I didn't have a clue.  My boss told me, "You have a transparent communication style.  You mean what you say and say what you mean.  You assume others do the same, and that's often not the case."  I suppose I'm gullible in that way, always expecting the best out of others.

So, why do I love NY?  Because I can be transparent in communication, and other people also tend to say what they mean.  They don't hide feelings, give hints, or otherwise obfuscate their true intentions.  If you are honestly trying to convey something, I will catch it and understand it.  I have a gift for that.  On the other side, if you are trying to hide something from me, or hint at something, I will likely miss it.  I have little gift for that.

What I had found in my last decade in Oregon is that people are so intent on being 'polite' to one's face that they don't honestly address problems they see.  There are people here with whom I strongly disagree from time to time.  And I can say my opinions, and they say theirs, and we understand that we have different opinions.  We're not pretending to have the same opinions to preserve a facade of nicety.  This lets us deal with our differences, compensate for them, and overall be more successful.

I think this difference also allows people to focus differently.  I'll call it the West Coast Focus (WCF) vs the ECF.  The WCF is on personal relationship harmony.  It is intent on maintaining the fiction that "I am excellent, and so are you, and thus we agree."  But inside that fiction is the truth that the individual wants other people to see him or her as superior in some way.  The WCF is about your personal worth.  The ECF is diametrically opposite - it is project and team focused.  The logic behind it is, "Let's get this project complete.  When we've done a good job, we can celebrate together."  This is where I am.  I don't care how great you think you are, and when I question what you've done or what you plan to do, I am simply interested in helping to arrive at the best possible outcome for everyone.  I'm all about the business and the process, and that meshes much better here than in the West.

The previous paragraph is full of generalizations, and they of course reflect my own narrow professional career.  But that's how I see things.  I am much more comfortable here in a professional sense, and that's my reason for loving NY today.

And we got a foot of snow today.  And other stuff, too.