Dear PiePie,
I recently had appendicitis in far-flung Los Angeles. It’s never easy to be in pain and be in the hospital, much less in unfamiliar surroundings and without family around. But, in spite of the labyrinthic system, in spite of the fact that not a single person can tell me what the final bill will amount to – “this is the US, you just focus on getting well, luv” – the nursing and doctor teams were wonderfully upbeat.
In particular, there was a nursing staff named Arturo with an infectious joy who wheeled me to the operating theater and, while it may not seem like much, his positivity really did lifted up my day. And it reminded me of Kevin Kelly’s “Excellent Advice for Living”, where he wrote that ‘Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points’.
Whether in workplaces or group projects, in sports teams or book clubs, genuine enthusiasm and the effort and positivity that accompanies it will almost certainly make you stand out. The operative word here being…genuine. It is hard to fake enthusiasm, and I have no good advice for how to be enthusiastic when you’re just … not.
But I have found that if you are able to see the bigger picture or purpose behind what might appear to be a mundane, boring and repetitive task, you can often be more genuinely enthusiastic than the next person made to do the same task. And sometimes, that is enough.
Hoping that you’ll find things that spark your enthusiasm!
Love, Dad