Come to the Brazen Careerist party in DC

Brazen Careerist Party in Washington, DC. Thursday, Nov. 11, 7pm at Lounge 201. You’re invited.

I always had this huge fantasy about how Brazen Careerist would sell for ten million bazillion dollars, and I would use the money to fly everyone I know to a huge party at some fun destination.

This is not that party. But we will be celebrating the company’s recent move to DC, which is one step closer to the company ruling the world. I can say ruling the world now that I am officially not trying to do that myself. But I’m still excited for there just to be a Brazen Careerist party.

Wait, I just noticed that there are very few opportunities for links in this kind of invitation-to-a-party post.

I have this friend who is constantly bugging me to link to her. And I say, “Shut up. My readers are not stupid. They are going to see a random link to you and think, “Penelope’s blog is going to hell.” Also, people sometimes complain to me that I have too many links to random stuff, and mostly I think, “Just don’t click on the links if you don’t like it.” And then someone reminds me about all the research I write about from Barry Schwartz and Dan Ariely about how too many choices drive people crazy, incapacitating them.

So I’m going to link to Melissa now. So she shuts up about how I need to link to her blog. Here. Melissa is a genius. She is God’s gift to whatever she wants to rank high in SEO for. [I will insert that link later. When she finally decides what she wants.] And please, do not send me email requests about doing this for you. This is the last time I’m doing this, ever.

Melissa will not be at the party, because she works in Hong Kong, but in the past I have not been averse to linking to things that have no relation to my post.

Like, also this link is one I’ve been sitting on for a while. The book is The Happiness Advantage, by Shawn Achor. When he taught positive psychology at Harvard, it was the most popular course among the undergrads, which is what, initially, got me thinking about happiness.

The best part of the book, though, is that there’s a big chapter on willpower, which is actually what I think all of happiness hinges on. Achor says that humans do not do well depending on willpower to get something done. We have very limited willpower and using it exhausts us. We’re much better off putting stuff out of reach. So, for example, if you love to eat bagels, you should put them in the garage. You need the difficult thing to be 20 seconds away because that’s the effort that is too much for you to handle. We know that because if you park in front of the gym, you still might not go it. It’s still 20 seconds away. But if you’re standing in front of the machine, you’ll get on.

This is why, at the party, if you want any bread you will have to walk twenty seconds away from the party to get it.

The book is full of interesting facts. Like, here’s another one: If you want to do something for a break, like watch TV or surf the Internet or look at porn, all those things feel good for a half hour. After that, they start making you feel tired. So we should have some automatic timer or something to stop us at the end of a half-hour. Maybe this means sit-coms are good for us, because they’re in half-hour increments.

Any other blogger would have written a ten-line post about how there’s a party and you should come. I just learned this week, though, that I am way more talk-y than a normal person. I know that often, people with Asperger’s don’t know when to shut up. In a profile about me the The Mail, a British journalist wrote that one of the notable things about me is that I repeat myself. How do people know when to shut up? I don’t know. But I got a little insight this week, because I lost my voice. And my house got a lot quieter. In a good way. Now I worry for the kids that they have nightmares of me telling them something over and over again. I mean, I know it happens. The farmer said just the other night, on Halloween, “you’re talking too much.”

I know that’s important to listen to. So I did. I stopped talking even though I thought I was giving essential advice about saying thank you after taking candy. But maybe I had already said it 400 times.

Anyway, I lost my voice and I realized that the farmer was happy. He needed a break from me talking. Everyone was happy that I lost my voice. So it doesn’t surprise me that it’s taking me 1000 words to invite you to the Brazen Careerist party.

But you know what? I am not really sure how I fit in. What will it be like being in DC with my company when I don’t know really how I fit in my company? Do you want to know what career change looks like? Come to the party.

But also, I am happy that it ends up that the research from Achor’s book seems to fit in. Because I think that book is to this post what I will be to the party: Not quite pertinent but interesting enough to make people glad they’re there.

You have to RSVP because I think it’s not that big a space. Or something. I want to tell you please come celebrate with me. Rah Rah. But really, I’d just really like to meet some of the people who read this blog. So stop by the party. Please.