The Truth, Nothing But The Truth

Today to escape the very warmish weather that has made our top floor flat unbearable, we went to the air-conditioned cinema. This was very New York of us and very un-British -- we should have gone to a park, but I felt too hot and needed some serious AC.

But I'm glad we did as we stumbled upon an interesting movie previewing, called The Imposter, which I'm sure will create a lot of buzz (read the Guardian article here). It's a documentary about real life events involving a missing boy from Texas who gets found in Spain but appears to be quite different than the blond haired, blue eyed boy who disappeared. I'm not giving anything away by saying it doesn't turn out to be him. The story unfolds in a narrative style through interviews with the imposter himself as well as the family who accepted him as the missing son.

It's a good film and plays with the idea of truth and perception. But the Hub and I decided that it pales in comparison with a film we saw ages ago, called Capturing the Friedmans. Also a documentary, it's filled with interviews of all the people involved in serious crime allegations against a Long Island father and son. And it makes you second guess everything you know about truth.

If you're interested in psychology and documentaries, The Imposter is very good. But if you missed Capturing the Friedmans when it came out in 2003, it's worth a watch, as in my opinion it's an even better one.

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The Olympics, Working From Home, And The Extrovert Personality

During the London Olympics over the past two weeks, people at my office have been encouraged to take vacation or work from home when possible, especially since our office is so close to the Olympic Park that you can see it out the window. And it's worked beautifully for London's transportation system.

But this post isn't about the Olympics, no, it's much more exciting – it's about working from home.

I think most people love the idea of working from home. Just like a lot of people like the idea of being in a book club (until they realize that they have to actually read a book every month and commit to a meeting).

But working from home is not as fun as it seems in theory. I'm sure it's fun if you enjoy working in your pyjamas or being able to cook a three-course lunch. For me, the occasional day of working from home is fine, but when experiencing it over a few days in the past weeks, it was not thoroughly successful – it was more about trying to work from home, feeling very low energy and then berating myself for being, simply put, the most slothful and unproductive person on the face of the earth.

But I have a theory about what was going on. I've often wondered what the true difference is between an introvert and an extrovert. There are lots of theories, one of them being that we all display characteristics of both at different times. However, in the general sense, the idea is that extroverts tend to get energy from being around or interacting with other people, whereas introverts tend to find more energy in isolation.

I am pretty sure most people who know me personally would describe me as an extrovert. I speak in public (of my own accord), love parties and generally like to talk. However, as a partly only child (nine years between me and my brother) I also like time alone, mostly after many days of socializing.

But here's the thing. After deciding to throw in the towel and come into the office, my mood immediately lifted. And even though the office was pretty empty and my interactions with people remained more limited than usual, I just felt like I had more energy to do stuff – it was like what I really needed was to be around people.

I know people can get used to almost anything and I'm sure if I had a working-from-home routine I would be heaps more productive. However, would I like it? I'm just not as interested to find out anymore.

Related Posts:

• Success Is Fun, But Work Should Be Too
• Know Thyself, Know Thy Work 
• Book Review: The Now Habit

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