Life Is About Being A Warm Person

In The Post Office

In a young city like Raleigh, I barely see an old post office like this. The one storey building with a parking lot barely big enough for 7 cars, sits right next to the railway. Unlike other post offices, there is a striking sign on the door, saying the services they can not provide here. I walk in with the box of protein powder my friend ordered on the internet. It was too expensive to order them from Australia, he said. The inner decoration and furniture match perfectly with the facade: an air-conditioner hanging on the window helps block a big proportion of the sunshine, the rest is blocked with the blinds; the partition wall is replaced by a big cabinet about 6 foot tall, with many small drawers; the drawers have paper labels, most of which are half outside the label slot, and have curling edges. The entire storage room is at most as big as my living room. Things piled up everywhere. There are three people working there. Two African American ladies are taking care of the customers, while an African American guy seems taking charge of the packages. The line was not very long, and the lady helped me almost immediately. The white root of her hair and the senile plaques tells me that she is not young. The environment and the nature of the job makes me believe that she might not be super happy. I might not want such a job when I am at this age, I tell myself. It takes me quite some effort to lift the 23 pound box onto the tall counter, which is kinda tall for a 5 foot 2 girl.

‘Where is this going?’ She asked. ‘Australia. Here is the customs form and the address sticker.’ I handed her the form I prepared.
‘All right. Let’s see how much it costs.’

She started to move the box to the scale. It seems take more on her as I’m not exactly sure she has a good right elbow. I for sure do not want such a job when I am at this age, I told myself again. She started to type on the computer, quite proficiently.

‘Ok. One thirty-nine would be your total. That includes the insurance up to around 200 dollars. Is that ok?’ ‘Sure.’ The truth is I’ve been to three post offices before this one, and each of them give me different prices, and ask me to pack them in different ways. As long as her price is reasonable, and send it away from me, I am ok with anything. Actually, the price she gave me is cheaper. She start to wrap it again with the tape. My wrapping is great, if judging from an aesthetic point of view.

‘We need to do a better job wrapping it up as it’s going on a long way.’ says she, ‘Here. Much better.’

As we were about to be done. The customer, a lady in her mid-30’s, trying to send out a full shoe box of letters, or invitations based on the nice hand writing on the envelop, turned around to the lady who helped me.

‘By the way, thank you so much for telling me about …. ‘ I switched my attention to my reciept.

I walk out of the post office happily, so is the lady mailing tens of invitations, and everyone else being carefully helped by her.

The Famous Guy

I am a little mentioning his name, since he is famous. He is a beloved star in the R community. He is the author of a very, if not the most, popular plotting R package that helped many many researchers and companies make nice, insightful plots. His contributions to the R community is not less than any R core team member, in my opinion. One day, it occurred to me, almost all of a sudden, the reason for that is he is a warm person.

R, the language I’ve been using for 4 years, from an absolutely beginner, to a proficient user. Learning a computing language with no computer science background is not easy, especially learning an open source software like R which does not have documentation for many details. Based on the questions I can find on stackoverFlow.com, I know I am not the only one struggling. From some time on, people start to quote him when answering questions with blog post links. It turns out he took the time and effort to write detailed explanation with numerical example to answer people’s questions! He must be very passionate in educating the vast majority about R, and creating tools for people to better use R as a computing language. More importantly, he is a warm person ready to help. That is what makes him a beloved person. Now, the materials and topics in the blog are rich enough that I can almost use it as a reference book.

Intrisic Reassurance

I am waiting for a friend in Saks Fifth Avenue. This is my very first trip to this famous store, the wonderland for many girls. My friend is shopping skin care products and makeups for her mom and herself. The place is like a zoo. The sales agents are watching me and I am watching them. Sometimes they approach me with products with nice scent. I do not mind having a nice looking sales agent talking to me, but I have no intention buying anything anyways. Not that I can not afford them, but I sincerely dislike what they are selling, the packaging, the notion that you look better, and, most importantly, the vanity of telling other people about it. After about two hours, I told her I need to wait for her in a coffee shop, and ask her to call me when she is done.

I know that materials can not bring happiness, although I used to occasionally admire girls with nice handbags. I came to the store with her, thinking that even though I am not buying anything, I can enjoy looking at them. However, it shocked me that this remindes me how far materials are from truly happiness. They are like two opposite ends of two parallel lines. The book ‘Reality is Broken’ says,

The attainment of extrinsic, or ‘American Dream,’ goals — money, fame, and being considered physically attractive by others — does not contribute to happiness at all. In fact, they reported, far from creating well-being, achieving extrinsic rewards actually does contribute to some ill-being.

The more we consume, acquire, and elevate our status, the harder it is to stay happy. Whether it is money, grades, promotions, popularity, attention, or just plain material things we want, scientists agree: seeking out external rewards is a sure path to sabotaging our own happiness.

The warm person I met, regardless of external life circumstances like salary or social status, are happy, as a consequence of personal effort. We have to make our own happiness—by working hard at activities that provide reward, and intertwined with other people: family, friends, and even strangers that need us.

you have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.