Something really weird happened today.
I’m sitting at my desk this morning when our “bug guy” (every office in Florida has a “bug guy”) walks in and starts talking to me. With a look of incredulity on his face, he says, “What makes you so confident as to sit with your back to your door?”
Caught off guard momentarily, I didn’t quite have a comeback.
“Um, I … it won’t really fit any other way,” I stammer. I have an L-shaped desk, and for the past five or six years at least, it faced the wall, with my back toward the door.
“You should move your desk,” he says. “Why not over here?”
He points to a different area of the office. I stutter something about how it wouldn’t fit there. But in my mind I’m still thinking, “Why would he say that? What does he know that I don’t know? Isn’t he just the bug guy?”
So I do what any normal person would do in that moment: I Google it. Since I’m fairly certain bug guy is of Eastern descent (as in Middle Eastern, Indian or Pakistani), I wondered if it was a cultural thing—i.e., is it poor manners in his culture to face away from the door, meaning you don’t face your guest as they enter a room? Or maybe he was a bug guy by day and a feng shui expert by night, and he could see my office’s “flow” was way off.
Either way, I was a bit surprised by what I found via good ol’ Google.
One article I found, authored by Cheryl Janis, a “healthcare interior designer,” says this: “Research has shown that sitting with your back to a door releases the stress hormone cortisol, whereas sitting with a view of a door releases the feel-good yummy hormone oxytocin. In fact, it’s rare to meet achievers of any kind who sit looking at a wall.”
Huh.
Yet another site, DragonFengShui.blogspot.com, says this: “Facing a wall can make it seem as though you will never get ahead, as your progress is blocked. If this is the case and you must sit with your “back to the door,” a small mirror on the wall in front of you will allow you to see people approaching from behind. It isn’t conducive to good ch’i energy to work with your back to the door or to other people.”
No sh*t?
That was at 11 am this morning. As I write this at 3 pm, I’ve completely re-worked my office. I am now facing my door, and everyone i n the ED office has commented on how much more “inviting” my office seems. (Except ED Publisher Don Waitt. He just thinks it’s weird.)
So what the heck does this have to do with anyone, other than myself? Good question.
The reason why I shared this story today is to make you think: What is happening in your life that is the way it is simply because that’s the way it’s always been. What could you change that would provide you with an entirely different, fresh perspective? Are you stuck in a rut without even realizing you’re in it?
Sometimes, change for change’s sake is a good thing. Try a different route to your typical errands. Switch up your daily routine. Ask yourself why you do things the way you do them. Take a few hours, like I did, to rearrange your work space. Don’t be afraid to question anything—and everything.
I can already feel the positive vibes coming from my new perspective. The universe works in strange and mysterious ways … thanks, bug man!
