# 9 on my, 99 Life Tips – A List is: Be kind to waiters, waitresses, and service personnel. By kind, I mean, tip well. They are human beings doing a tough job. If you’re comfortable with it, ask for a first name, I do.
You can tell a lot about a person by how well he treats those he’s not obligated or necessarily expected to treat with courtesy, respect, and dignity. I cringe and get angry when I see weak, insecure people act demeaning and degrading towards servers and other persons they consider beneath them. People who are compensating for their own powerlessness should just stay home. Others, aren’t so cringeworthy, they’re just cheap. They may treat others decently, but forget that they survive on tips.
And courtesy, respect, and dignity – as valuable as those are – won’t buy groceries, or pay bills.
So, when a tip is called for; in a restaurant, in a hotel, with other service personnel, enlarge your perspective to imagine yourself in their position and treat them the way you’d want to be treated. The pay is well below minimum wage in many of these industries with the expectation that tips will make up the difference. So, if someone does even an average job, pay them for it. They served you directly. Pay them directly. Easy. Think of how different your experience would be if that service worker wasn’t there. In many ways, they make the experience possible. In that light, reward their efforts.
If you feel the need to teach them a lesson about the virtue and character that accrues from doing low-paying hard work, include a lesson about human kindness and generosity…yours.
Hey look! Everybody has an opinion. Gee, does that mean I should want the good opinion of everybody? (Adobe Stock image: licensed by author)
# 54 on my, 99 Life Tips – A List is: The good opinion of some people is not worth having.
If you followed the advice in Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think About You, and stopped caring what other people think about you, shouldn’t you still want everyone’s good opinion? What’s the harm in that? On the surface this seems desirable. Whence then, the assertion, since this is not so much a tip, that some good opinions are not worth having?
A Matter Of Respect
This is primarily a matter of respect. The degree of respect you have for the boss or the customer, the friend or the stranger, the critic or the fan, is what gives value to their opinion, or else devalues it.
And there are at least two things that affect the level of your respect. They are character, and expertise. It is appropriate to give higher weight to the opinions of those with high character or proven expertise in any combination. Likewise, the inverse is true. It is safe and even advisable to discount the opinions of those with low or poor character, and/or zero or limited experience and expertise.
I’m sure you can think of someone whose opinion of you is less than meaningless. Not only do you not care what they think, you’d be embarrassed if they had a good opinion of you. Their regard would serve as an indictment of your character.
Is the person you have in mind a scoundrel or criminal? If so, they are probably at the extreme end of your personal scale. As you slide the scale upwards, you’ll reach a point at which opinions begin to have some meaning and value, at least as benchmarks.
Desiring Good Opinions Is Natural
Even if you don’t struggle with receiving your sense of worth from the opinions of others, and even if your sense of who you are is self-determined, and not foisted upon you, none of us are completely immune to feelings that naturally arise when we hear the opinions of others expressed about us or our work. This happens in the workplace. It’s true with the views expressed by those closest to us. And is especially true when you’re a creator. The desire for positive feedback is natural.
Putting your work out for public consumption is one of the most vulnerable, and therefore terrifying, things you can do. It leaves many potential creatives paralyzed. Self-doubt erodes confidence. And it leaves many sheltering in place for years, preferring to feel the regret over not trying, rather than face the potential shame and horror of rejection and failure. Believe me, I know. Oscar Wilde shows the possibility of being an author and eventually arriving at a different state of mind. One in which the opposite becomes true. One in which good opinions may even alarm you. He clearly believed the good opinion of some people is not worth having.
This is an artist comfortable in his own skin and comfortable with his own views (Image from BrainyQuotes)
All Opinions Are Not Created Equal
I’m not there. Perhaps few are. Sometimes the only feedback you have is the opinions of others. But all opinions are not created equal. The opinion of readers has value. Although, for a writer, the opinion of readers who are also writers is more valuable than that of non-writers, because familiarity with the difficulties of the craft makes the perspective and opinions of fellow writers more credible.
I’ve found thus far on my short journey as a daily writer, that the criticisms and edits suggested in love by my girlfriend, are of more worth to me than any number of accolades by strangers commenting online. It’s not that those good opinions aren’t worth having at all, it’s that they are worth far less than the honest, if pointed, opinion of someone who has seen me at my worst yet still believes in me at my best.
I’ll leave you with this final thought. While I believe the good opinion of some people is not worth having, I do think it’s worthwhile to have someone in your life who will push you to be your best, even if they’ve seen you at your worst. I’m aiming to be that kind of writer. Even though I don’t know you, I’m of a mind that there is far too much unrealized good in most people.
Therefore, the good opinion of anyone, who, by their assurances and affirmations, causes you to be complacent and contented with either subpar character, or shoddy work, whose approval and acceptance induces you to a lesser version of yourself, is also not worth having. At least that’s my opinion, for what it’s worth.
The scoreboard shows a running count of goals scored. The team with the most goals at the end of the game wins. In life, scoring is not so simple. Photo: Kevin Kiester, Raleigh News and Observer, May, 2019
As a hockey fan, I’ve often reflected on a phrase I once heard from the coach of my favorite team.
”Play the game the right way and the results will take care of themselves.”
Rod Brind’Amour, Head Coach, Carolina Hurricanes
Coach Brind’Amour wasn’t saying that his team would win every game. He was saying that by playing the right way, they would give themselves the opportunity to win every game. Playing the right way; being a good hockey team, is the consistent, incessant determination to apply effort to details that matter. This is why he expressed his confidence that if this focus remained fixed, positive results would follow.
Determining a win in an athletic event is much easier than determining a win in life. A team simply needs to outscore the other team. You can tally hockey goals or touchdowns. In life, who are you competing against? Your co-worker? Your family member? The neighbors? The ”others”? And how do you keep score? What do you measure?
Hey “Winner,” who is the competition?
Unless you are an athlete, the only person to compete against in life is yourself. (And even if you’re an athlete, you still need to compete against yourself).
The self you’re competing against is any iteration that is less than the best possible version. Any version you cannot unequivocally respect in every area, you should mercilessly thrash into oblivion. (Of course, this assumes the knowledge of what to respect. Character is a detail that matters. It counts higher than a bank account.)
And this is why the only winners in life are the ones who consistently, strategically apply their efforts to details that matter. They know what matters, and what is worth their finite time and energy.
People thinking themselves ”winners” solely because they’ve acquired some money, possessions, or any other thing that can be counted up and put on a spreadsheet, who are morally bankrupt, and mentally shallow, aren’t winners. Rather, they are jackasses.
Focusing on the wrong details, they spend their energy accumulating and fretting over countable things, when true wealth doesn’t fit on a balance sheet. In the end, the results will take care of themselves.
