Hoehn’s Musings

This is an important lesson I learned the hard way.  It’s common sense advice that you don’t really think about until you’ve screwed things up, so hopefully this post will save someone from an awkward/painful situation in the future.

Last year, when I was still in school, I was dating a girl who wanted to go into advertising after graduation.  In spite of my warnings that traditional advertising was in decline and wasn’t a good long-term choice, she insisted that she still wanted to pursue it.  Because I was good friends with a bunch of people in that industry from the internship I did, I said I’d put in a good word for her.

Now, this girl was not dumb (in the academic sense).  She had a really high GPA, flawless record, and was a genuinely sweet person.  But I knew from the time I’d spent with her that she wasn’t all that sharp.  She didn’t grasp basic concepts easily, she actually had to bust her ass to get that high GPA, and worst of all, she was shy and afraid to ask questions.  Even though I was aware of all this, I told my old boss that she was legit and passed her resume on.

She got the internship, of course.  And when I talked to my boss a few months later, she suggested that I either not recommend people in the future or develop a stronger filter.

It was stupid on my part, because I really valued the relationship I had with my boss.  The recommendation I gave reflected poorly on me, and her trust in me was shaken.  It just wasn’t worth it.  Favors are overrated.

I’ve learned my lesson since then.  I don’t say anyone is legit anymore unless I’m 100% confident and have witnessed their work ethic/talent/creativity/passion firsthand.

If your recommendation has the potential to really screw somebody over (in time and/or money wasted), you can’t take the situation lightly.  You need to carefully balance the person’s track record with your gut feeling.  I knew this girl had a good track record, but my gut was telling me the situation was going to be a disaster.

If you really want to maintain a person’s trust and respect, do them a favor and be coompletely transparent.  Don’t do anyone a favor just because they’re your friend.  If you absolutely have to make a recommendation, give that person a few options.  Say, “I recommend Person A, B, and C.  They’re all good, but I think you should pick whoever suits your needs best.”  It’s an easy way to do damage control.  When they have options, it’s their fault if they make the wrong choice, not yours.

I always thought the “be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed” posts were kinda pointless.  Who doesn’t know this stuff by now, right?  Well, apparently a lot of people either don’t know or they just don’t do it.  I swear, I had someone write to me recently saying he preferred dropping in on my site periodically instead of subscribing because he liked looking at the cows picture.  I really need to change that, by the way.  It’s not drawing in the ladies the way I thought it would.

So if you aren’t already, you can subscribe to me and receive my posts in your email inbox (click here) or RSS reader (click here).

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Our society does not value critical thinking and skepticism highly, but rather steadfast faith and decisions based on emotion.

I think I was about 15 years old when I first realized that most adults, generally speaking, don’t really know what they’re talking about.  This is not to imply that I know and they don’t — far from it.  If anything, I’m on the same page knowledge-wise.  Where many of them go wrong, however, is when they preach on important topics with the posture of a seasoned expert.  They spout superficial knowledge, heavily influencing impressionable young people who don’t know any better.  That “knowledge” is sealed into these young people’s minds, and it lingers there, unquestioned.  Then the cycle repeats itself because no one had the energy to doubt.

We have all been guilty of both preaching and not questioning, I think.  We preach because it’s difficult to be humble or we want to be accepted and admired for our knowledge.  We don’t question because it’s mentally challenging or emotionally exhausting to even confront the flaws in our conventional wisdom to begin with.  But really, how many false truths have been discreetly pounded into our brain through family or friends or school or media or society?  How many of our assumptions would we realize are completely backwards if we could just step out of our egocentric comfort zones?  And I’m not talking conspiracy theories here — I’m talking about our complete disregard for a healthy amount of skepticism before accepting something as fact.

These assumptions we’re questioning don’t even have to be big things.  It could be something as small as suspecting that shaving cream could be the culprit for your face’s vulnerability to getting cut.  Or that the shoes your doctor recommended to heal your back pain might actually be making things worse.   [And I'm not linking to these articles because they contain irrefutable facts; I'm linking to them because they make good arguments against conventional wisdom.]

Of course, certain assumptions can be life-altering when questioned.  You could find out that your trusty, rational brain takes a backseat to both your genes and your hormones more often than you ever thought possible.  Or you might discover that many religions are intricate metaphors that are heavily rooted in sun worship.

My perception of truth has been shattered so many times over the years that I’ve been able to build up a fairly thick skin when I encounter a big worldview shift.  One of these shifts happened within the last year, when I slowly came to realize that almost all conventional wisdom about finding a career path is largely flawed (if you couldn’t tell by the nature of many of my posts).

What I constantly wonder about, though, are my personal assumptions that have still been left unquestioned.  What am I missing?  And what truths have I only scratched the surface on?

What truths have you questioned, and consequently uprooted?