Welcome to the New Blog!

Hello, my friends!

My name is Randal Schaffer and this is my new blog. Here i'll be writing about whatever it is that i want to write about, hopefully you'll find it interesting and amusing. May be random thoughts on language, like this one, or movie or book reviews, or political stuff or whatever's on my mind.

For me, i am a married Christian man who holds bits and pieces of just about all political philosophies. I am a believer in small government like the republicans, a believer in personal freedoms like the libertarians, and a believer in the rights and safety of the people like the liberals. I find myself typically voting democrat (i voted for Obama) but find myself as isolated from the modern democrats like i do all of the other parties.

Also, as soon as i figure out how to post the darned code to get ads working on this thing, do me a favor and click on one of the ads when you read a post. You don't have to BUY anything if you don't want, just click on an ad. I'm trying to make money from my writing, and that's one way to do it.

Okay, on to my first post.

There are two words in the English language that i truly do not understand. One is "modest", the other is "arrogant".

At my old job riding a cash register, i was doing my usual multi-tasking thing to try to move the line as fast as possible when one of my customers said "How do you do all of that at once?" I replied "I'm really good at my job." She looked a little taken aback and said "You're not very modest, are you?"

So what, exactly, is modesty? Is it pretending that you don't know that you're good at something, hoping that someone else will notice it and recognize you for it? That seems somewhat dishonest to me. It's not like i greeted this lady with "I'm really good at my job, aren't i?" She asked me a question and i did my best to answer it honestly. Maybe that's part of the problem... many people simply can't deal with honesty. I know what i'm good at and what i'm not and am honest about these things. For instance, i'm really pretty good at getting people to smile and laugh, sometimes even without meaning to. On the other hand, i seem completely incapable at learning how to knit, no matter how hard i try. And i HAVE tried. I'd love to learn to knit.

The other side of this coin is "arrogance". I can't tell you how often i've heard "You're very arrogant." What's the difference between arrogance and confidence? I had a job interview once where i didn't get the job, but the manager of the company asked me in to tell me in person. He said "You were in the top three, and i've got to tell you that i almost gave you the job simply because you walked in here and acted as if it were already yours for the taking." That was, i'm sure, part of the reason that i got the job that i have now. There was no doubt in my mind that i could do this job, and i was right. I've been at the job for less than a month and i keep hearing from the more experienced reps that i seem like i've been doing the job for years. Is it simply a matter of "it's confidence in you but arrogance in others"? I hope not, but i fear that may be it.

Feel free to post a comment on this or any other blog posting. I love lively discussion, and also love to just stir stuff up sometimes.

Peace.

Randal