Day 171 - Daisy

Thought of the day: Our neighborhood has an annual progressive dinner event which we have joined for a few times.  Tonight we just had this year's progressive dinner.  The appetizer course was hosted in our home, just like last year, where everybody met for the appetizer before heading off to different homes for the next courses.  After having soup, salad and main entree in three different homes, everybody met again for dessert in another neighbor's home and concluded the evening.  It is a fun tradition which we always enjoy when we are able to participate.  It's a good opportunity to meet people, some of whom we will otherwise not have a chance to meet even though we all live in the same neighborhood.  One thing I observed tonight was that I was the only non-white person in the party - a situation that I had grown so used to in Boulder that I only realized it after the party was over.  There were a few other immigrant families present but they were all from Europe.  Come to think of it, I have only met a single non-white person in the past years of progressive dinners.  It was an Asian woman who became a friend of mine but she moved away two years ago.  Boulder is not a very diverse city, to say the least.  It was so ten years ago and, according to the latest census, it was still so today, despite of the national and state-wide trend of getting more diverse.  Another thing I observed tonight was that there were quite a few overachievers in the neighborhood, and some were more pleasant to talk to than others.  I think what makes a difference is the degree of humility.  A humble overachiever can be really interesting to talk to as you can have a two-way conversation where you get to hear some interesting stories and you get to share some of your own lowly thoughts too.  A not-so-humble overachiever can be self-centered, overbearing and difficult to communicate with.  I suppose this can happen no matter you overachieve or not, but it does demonstrate that being successful doesn't make you a wise person.  It takes a wise person to remain humble and it takes a humble person to be compassionate.  I wonder if this contributes to the curious statistics that while average Boulder residents make more money than average Colorado residents, we are less generous in giving.  I suspect this phenomenon will get worse before it gets better because the housing is Boulder is not getting more affordable comparing to the rest of the state and we may end up attracting even more overachievers to the city in the foreseeable future.

Photo of the day:

One of the daisies we used to decorate the tables for the progressive dinner.