Up until reading Riggle’s book, I viewed each day of a series of choices. I choose whether to go for a run or snooze my alarm, I choose whether to have toast or cereal for breakfast, I choose my (hopefully tasteful) office-attire and whether to wear the impractical pumps or the comfy crocs. That’s a universal experience.
But as soon as I interact with another human being, I have not thought about the choices that follow those interactions. I, like most capital-city dwelling sheeple, know how to line up, how to efficiently order a coffee, how to politely greet a bus driver. But Riggle’s book opened up a whole world of possibilities that I hadn’t considered: social openings or, in his lingo, opportunities for awesomeness.
Riggle’s example of a social opening is simple – ordering a coffee. You could:
- Place your order
- Hear the price
- Hand over the cash
End scene
That doesn’t ‘suck’, but it’s not an awesome interaction either.
To be awesome, you could
- Place your order
- Hear the price
- Respond ‘Well that’s a small price to be human again!’
- Hand over the cash
End scene
By just adding one line of dialogue to your interaction, you’ve created a social opening. A moment for the barista to quip in response, or simply smile. It’s a small opening, but it’s important. The worst case scenario is that the barista rolls their eyes in response. But that just makes them suck. It doesn’t distract from your awesomeness. And it could lead to so much more.
Here’s the thing about being a born-and-bred Australian, whose genetic makeup is 50% American: life is confusing. Australian’s keep their heads down and their thoughts to themselves. Maybe it’s the British ancestry, or maybe it’s just the vast distances we have to traverse in our lives, but we’re not one to waste words. We value efficiency and privacy and quiet. Those of us with balanced brain chemicals would sooner die that strike up a conversation with a stranger at the bus stop. But my inner-America is a loud mouth. I WANT to compliment the person with the funky earrings that I pass on the street. I want to joke with my barista about my hangover. I would relish the opportunity to get into a thought-provoking conversation with the person reading the latest Stephen King novel next to me on the bus. But, as a mild-mannered Australian who understands the unspoken social rules, I quash these urges and keep my lip buttoned. It’s not until you get me in front of an audience at an event that I feel I can let my American out of the bag and put on a show.
I imagine most people reading this review feel a similar way – you just… get on with it. You cautiously choose your moments to speak up mindfully, and otherwise, you make as few waves as possible.
But now, I’m on the hunt for social openings. And when I see one, I’m consciously noticing it and trying to dive it and take it up.The trick will be to keep this in the forefront of my mind after the shine of Riggle’s work has faded in my memory…
What Riggle emphasises most in his book is to not only to respond enthusiastically to social openings created by others, but to be truly awesome we should be creating them ourselves. He provides case studies of awesome individuals who have changed society or simply made others laugh. Like Mark Myzenbeek, the man who tragically lost his wife in a car accident and responded by donning a home-made Superman costume nearly every day. He did this to break down social norms and create opportunities for simple joy. Or Ron Finley’s guerrilla gardening movement in central Los Angeles, where he started in motion a project to turn neglected city land into community gardens, to make spaces more beautiful and people healthier.
But don’t be fooled, this book is not merely a collection of awesome anecdotes. Riggle goes to great pains to create a detailed taxonomy of ‘Suckiness’ and ‘Awesomeness’, which he takes the reader through on a sort of self-diagnosis journey. Through this, I found that I have the ‘suckiness’ traits of ‘Preference Dictator’ and ‘Cheapskate’ (yay me!). But through this diagnosis, I also could examine the cure to these behaviours. On the ‘awesome’ side, I’m frequently ‘Game’ and sometimes even ‘Rock’ (yay again!).
I’ve emerged from Riggle’s book with a better understanding of how to recognise and respond to suckiness, and how to maximise opportunities for awesomeness.
And what’s not to love about that?
There is only one downside, and that is when Riggle gets a bit too clever and leans into this lingo a little too heavily. Take this passage for example:
“So if you’re up, you’re down. But if you’re down then you aren’t necessarily up, or at least not merely so, because you might be game – that is, enthusiastically down. Or you might be chill: You might be down for whatever but not especially game and not merely up.”
Did you follow that? Yeh, me neither.
But, when Riggle sticks to the sourced facts, the detailed case studies, and the meaningful pop-culture references, he’s in fine form. If everyone read his book and took away even a fleeting desire to be more awesome, then the world would certainly be a better place.
4 enthusiastic High Fives out of 5.
