A long time ago in a faraway place, I was an overachiever.
Or, quite possibly, I was an underachiever.
It's never really clear whether you're doing more than you should or doing less than you could. Are you great? Or are you just falling short of being better....
All I know is that I did a ton of stuff.
Maybe I could have done more. And I'm sure I could have done more things better. But there definitely wasn't a lack of "doing stuff" in my life.
I was quite enterprising. I probably would have made a good salesperson if I wasn't so anti-salespersons. Even at a young age, I could smell and despise BS.
I definitely didn't mind the idea of influencing people to understand or acknowledge the truth. But influencing just for the sake of influencing - or for money - didn't sit well with me.
One of my overachievements was winning a scholarship to the Dale Carnegie Course. I won the course through sheer selfish manipulation of the system. I registered for a youth leadership program and volunteered immediately to lead. I knew the leader of the program would get the scholarship. Man, I was good. I should have been a lawyer.
The course, generally offered to individuals in administration and management, was a primer in communications and public relations. "How to Win Friends and Influence People" in action.
I excelled in the course since all it required was getting up in front of other people and talking. That, to me, was a no-brainer. Actually, it was total fun. My favorite exercise was one where you got up at the front of a room, picked a topic out of a hat and had two minutes to spontaneously share wisdom on that topic.
Since that time, I've tried to get my friends to play that fun game at parties. So far, nobody's cooperating.
At the end of the course, I was invited to come back and help with other classes...the typical route for becoming an instructor.
I was only 17 at the time. And my life was silly putty. I had all the makings of becoming a quality person. But I was quite unmolded. And completely mushable. I must have also been the color of silly putty. My mother was always complaining about how pale I looked.
In the first class I assisted with, there was a diverse mix of adults. Most came because their company was supporting their efforts to become better leaders and more effective managers. Some came independently...seeking to overcome shyness or nervousness in social situations.
The nicest person in the class was a guy - maybe 50 or 55 - who showed up every Tuesday night in worn jeans, a button-down shirt and old loafers.
This guy was so damn nice. Just really regular and kind and polite and friendly. He seemed to have no particular hang-ups or inhibitions. He was just there. And willing to participate. And he was really truly nice. And he knew everyone's name.
And the guy was president of a really large bank in Baltimore.
But nobody was supposed to know that. And nobody ever did. The guy, when asked, said he worked at a bank. But he never let on that he was a tad more important than your average teller.
And that was one of the most inspiring images I've ever experienced.
As I've gone through my life to date, I've had occasion to meet all sorts of people. I've met rich people, poor people, smart people, extraordinarily smart people and, of course, not so bright campers.
And the ones I like best are the quiet ones.
I like the folks who don't tell you what they've achieved. Or what they've accomplished. Or who they know. I like the folks who know that what you do or where you've been is ultimately not the most important thing.
Here in DC, lots of folks do lots of things that mean something in the real world.
I have friends who are responsible for legislation passing on Capitol Hill. I have friends who wrote the legislation.
I have friends who save other people's lives. I have friends who enable other people to live better lives. I have friends who help our country kill citizens of other countries and friends who help out country feed citizens of other countries.
Some of my friends do the most incredibly difficult races you can imagine.
And some of my friends win those races.
And when my friends get together, nobody talks about what they do or what they've done. And nobody seems to care.
My friends - and acquaintances - tend to be folks who do their best to be their best. Some of them were probably overachievers. Maybe most of them.
But it's a private endeavor. Their successes - and failures and near misses - are their own personal journey.
Some of my friends are hashers. As in Hash House Harriers. As in "drinkers with a running problem"....
My ex-soulmate and I met while hashing.
Even though neither of us fit in terribly well to the hashing dynamic, we both agreed that hashers represented some of the best.
Hashers, of course, would argue that they're the best of the worst. Part of the hasher gig is being bad. As in b-a-a-a-a-d. Or being good at being bad.
But the truth is that hashers tend to be just a really regular bunch of good people.
And hashing turned out to be exactly what it's supposed to be. It was wild and crazy and loud. The hasher games and activites and traditions were immature and stupid and offensive and disrespectful.
And hashing was one of the most fun things I had ever done.
In hashing, you rarely know the name of folks you see all the time. Since everyone's assigned a hash name, you tend to know others only by that nomer.
I loved "Holy Tit" and "Bite Me Elmo" and "Jesus' Bitch" and "Does It For Free"....
And I, Tits Ahoy, was - I'm sure - loved by others as well.
As hashers, we were banned from wearing any clothes that looked nice...the trails were too muddy and dirty and wet. If you wore nice clothes, you got ragged on pretty bad. If you wore nice clothes, you were definitely going to be the first to get pushed into mud.
And race t-shirts, good running shoes or any other signs of endeavoring to be successful or accomplished in the real world were strictly forbidden.
You basically had to look like a pathetic mess.
And, living in DC, where everyone has a top secret security clearance, two graduate degrees and a boss whose name they can't divulge, the uniformity of anonymity was a welcome relief.
There was just one hitch.
The parking lot was always filled with really nice cars.
You can drive, but you can't hide.
And that, my friends, is why I'll always love hashers.
You knew they had it going on. And they knew they had it going on. But it wasn't the point and nobody cared.
Just like the banker.
Dale Carnegie was a pretty smart guy. He recognized basic principles that enabled people to be with people in a more productive, positive way.
And he's responsible for a lifetime of wisdom that motivates leaders to this day...even fifty five years after his death.
But Dale Carnegie didn't get so smart from education, riches or material success. He learned it from the smartest "people" of all....
Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see a bird that has the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.