Follow a Cord

There was one concept from Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography that really stuck with me long after I read it.  While I can’t remember the exact words, he said something like, “While I used my time effectively and was indeed very busy, I took every effort to appear so.”  He would read in front of the window, keep his lights on late, and use other strategies to prove that he was, in fact, quite busy.

As unfortunate as it may seem, appearances are just as important as reality … if not more so

I was working with Russell Sklander at a gig in Chattanooga, TN.  (It makes me seem so well traveled to say that … the reality is that I simply happened to be helping out.)  He had a great piece of advice that has struck home.  One of the bands was having technical difficulties, and I didn’t know what to do.  He came up to me and said, “Just go out there and start to follow a cord.  You may very well find what was causing the problem.  But even if you don’t, it makes it look like something is happening while the guy who actually can help has time to show up.”

The audience will never know the difference.

Our perceptions can color our experience.  For that concert, the fact that someone in a staff t-shirt and headset was walking around on stage fulfills the expectation that roadies know what they are doing.  But the concept of presuppositions extends far beyond musical events.  Cultural and personal expectations about college, careers, relationships, attitudes, and activities all can impact, positively or negatively, our experiences in each of those realms.

So being conscious of and in tune with appearances is vital.  The things in our life that are important should be apparently so.  But it’s also important not to mistake appearance for reality.  There is such interplay here.  It’s difficult to be aware of appearances in your own life while also allowing the truth of things to extend beyond appearances in other people’s lives.

I guess another way to put this is simply:  You should give other people the benefit of the doubt, but strive to leave no doubt in regards to your own life.