Tag Archives: reflections

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact

“Making eye contact with adults while dressed as a clown is risky.” Doug Coupland

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact  - Dress like a clown

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact – Dress like a clown

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact - Want a Cat's love

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact – Want a Cat’s love

someecards.com - I hope you understand that staring at you makes me anxious, mad and sad. I shoot the arrows and you get the girl.
When You’re feeling anxious, mad or sad.

How/When to Avoid Making Eye Contact: ♥When dressed as a clown – wear dark glasses or look down. Some people are deathly scared of clowns.
♥Apparently, Cats don’t like being looked at – Sneer instead or wink at them. Let them do the staring and save you the hassle. My cat has it down.
♥If you’re feeling anxious, mad or sad – stay away from the source of pain

It’s common knowledge that eye contact is an important part of communication. We make eye contact to establish trust, familiarity, confidence and even friendship with others. Some use eye contact to intimidate or stare down an opponent. For a shy person, making eye contact can be a challenge because it’s uncomfortable for some of us to look directly into the eyes of other people; especially the eyes of strangers. With some effort, we can learn to look without feeling terrified.

“If you go flying back through time, and you see somebody else flying forward into the future, it’s probably best to avoid eye contact” Jack Handy

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact  - Wear Google glass

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact – Wear Google glass

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact - Public stalls and urinals

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact – Public stalls and urinals

someecards.com - Listen, I had a dream and a guy on something called a TV was saying, Google me, tweet me, facebook me. Maybe I'm drunk.

How/When to Avoid Making Eye Contact: ♥While wearing Google Glass… Just say “okay glass,” and it takes care of everything – no eye contact needed. ♥When Sitting in a stall or using a urinal at a public bathroom, it is definitely not a time to stare – feel free to close your eyes.
♥Watching your favorite TV character in a drunken moment demands averted eyes – feel his pain with eyes cast asunder.

When I researched the topic online, there were lots of articles on how to make  effective eye contact, articles on cultures that don’t encourage direct eye contact out of respect, and on the benefits of looking directly at others when we speak. For this post on “How To do something,” I decided to take the path of humor which is always a great way to break the ice. Some of the suggestions are true and others are tongue in cheek.

“I’m hopeless at small talk and have a problem making eye contact.” Gary Numan

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact  - Be Pinocchio and tell a lie

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact – Be Pinocchio and tell a lie

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact - Eat a banana

Humor: How & When To Avoid Making Eye Contact – Eat a banana

someecards.com - When I'm feeling inferior, I go for a drive. My car makes all the eye contacts I usually avoid.
When you’re feeling inferior/insecure

How/When to Avoid Making Eye Contact: ♥When telling a lie, the eyes will give you away unless you’re a seasoned pathological liar – best to avert the gaze of another when fibbing.
♥When eating a banana or a lollipop, keep your eyes to yourself – don’t ask me why, do the math.
♥If you’re feeling insecure or down on yourself, avoid eye contact especially with manipulative types – they know the look and feed off it. Take a De-stress ride.

I found it quite interesting reading some of the articles on making eye contact. There is an impressive body of work with great insights on the subject. A Google search gave me about 539,000,000 results and I’ve added some links in the post. More below!

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” Douglas Adams

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime. Salmon Bento Box

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime. Salmon Bento Box

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime. Taiko performers

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime. Japanese Taiko drummers in motion

Lately, with kids away in college and my recent enrollment in a challenging certification program, lunch is the least reliable meal in my household. If I’m out and about, I eat where I am. If I’m home, I might have some leftovers or a simple fruit and yoghurt dish. However, when the kids come home for spring break, we eat out or at home. They are home now; one for the week and the other for the weekend.

Yesterday, we had lunch at the Palisades Mall in Rockland County and the Bento Box above was one of the meals we shared at a Japanese restaurant. The contents include: teriyaki salmon, pickled seaweed, avocado crab roll, batter covered veggies and shrimp, potato salad and a delicious mixed greens salad. Why the mall? Well, both kids love Uniqlo (a Japanese clothing store) and it had a grand opening at the mall yesterday. The store had some entertainment, we saw a group of female performers on Japanese drums known as Taiko. Also, if you spent a certain dollar amount, you received a gift with purchase. It was a fun outing that was topped off with a meal.

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime Brown rice with sautéed veggies

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime Brown rice with sauteed veggies

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime. Avocado roll

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lunchtime. Avocado roll

The picture above, the rice and vegetable dish, is what I had for dinner on Thursday night and I added it to show what I might’ve had for lunch on Friday. It’s a quick and easy dish to make and ideal for times when we have hectic schedules. The avocado roll was an appetizer we had as we waited for our meal to be prepared and served. I wish I had a chance to read the full assignment for this challenge, I would’ve taken some photos of the sushi chefs… Next time. More below

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Inspiration: Celebrate Good Deeds Day

“I believe that if people will think good, speak good and do good, the circles of good will grow and our world will be a better one.” Shari Arison

Inspiration: Celebrate Good Deeds Day... pledge page

Inspiration: Celebrate Good Deeds Day… pledge page

Goodnet – A Gateway to Doing Good, is a media platform that aims to help you activate your goodness. Connecting between people, organizations and initiatives, Goodnet offers everyone a direct path to finding the opportunity that best suits them for doing good.

In 2007, Businesswoman and philanthropist Shari Arison, owner of the Arison Group, initiated Good Deeds Day; the main idea behind the initiative was that each of us can do something good to help/benefit others. Shari’s wish was to inspire people to make a commitment to do good.  The first gathering in 2007 was organized by Ruach Tova (NGO), the philanthropic arm of the Arison Group, and part of The Ted Arison Family Foundation. Since that first gathering of 7,000 committed souls, it has become a huge success as people around the world (50 nations in 2012) continue to sign up to perform acts of kindness towards others in their communities. To encourage greater participation, Shari and her team also created the website Goodnet, to provide participants with a portal to help them gather and connect with others interested in activities that exemplify doing good.

Good Deeds Day Shari Arison via wikipedia

Inspiration: Celebrate Good Deeds Day… Shari Arison via wikipedia

Recently, I came across Shari Arison’s organization on Facebook and when I found out that March 10 was the designated date for International Good Deeds Day, I signed on. When you join in, you are guided to a page to fill out a form with data and make a pledge to perform specific actions. Your created profile with your name and location is then added to a huge Participant board or pledge page showcasing many others active members. They even offer a toolkit to help you create an activity/event for the day. For this assignment, I pledged to send out daily virtual hugs: Here’s one {{{HUGS}}}  for you! However, you can pledge anything that tickles your fancy and it’s never too late to join. More below!

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