Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Spare Time
Monday, January 25, 2010
Seeing the Forest Through the Trees
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Caution: No One Owes You Anything
But like I said, there seems to be a revolt against this idea. Some examples include the following:
McDonald’s freak out
I can see how it can be “easier” to blame someone else for what’s wrong in your life or for why something happened/didn’t happen. But if you blame someone else and forget the next step of “what could be done to make this better” or “how can I prevent this from happening again” or “is this really that big of a deal that I need to get upset” then you give all the power and control in your life to others.
And, you become just some random pinball bouncing around at others’ whims.
You allow yourself to have no say in whether or not you have a good day, whether or not you reach a goal, whether or not parts of your life come together as you wish. Why would you constantly put the ball in someone else’s court?
Not to advocate control freaks, but on a limited scale, they have something going for them. They have personal responsibility. If they want something, they make it happen by hook or by crook.
But if over-exercised, control freaks can end up in the same boat as those with no personal responsibility in two ways:
1. If something doesn’t go according to plan, then a consummate control freak may believe that it must not have been their fault. Everything they control goes perfectly, so if something is bad then someone else must be at the root of that problem.
2. By extending their controlling nature onto others, they create those who do not know how to control anything. See: micromanagers in the workplace and helicopter parents (lengthy, but great article: Nation of Wimps)
If there were a guidebook to life, I’m pretty sure there would be a warning printed in red, bold letters on the opening page stating: CAUTION – NO ONE OWES YOU ANYTHING AND THERE IS NO GUARANTEE YOU WILL YOU WILL FIND PEACE, HAPPINESS, LOVE, MONEY, OR ANYTHING ELSE YOU THINK YOU “NEED”. DEAL WITH IT.
From there, we would read the pages about guarding our hearts, taking risks, avoiding mob-mentality or group-think, giving our minds and bodies something to do each day, and probably something about remembering to stop and smell the roses. (Perhaps this sounds like the Bible to some of you … perhaps not to others.)
I just think that at the end of the day, if we do not take responsibility for our own actions, regardless of the circumstances around us, then why are we each here at all? We aren’t puppets in others peoples’ shows. We are the leading ladies and men of our own lives. We are not the wingmen or the best friends. It takes some gumption but why is that a bad thing?
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Callings
1. Being a dancer. This was a non-negotiable point for me when I was younger. Dancing wasn't what I did, it was a part of who I was.
2. Learning French. There is absolutely no reason I should have been tapped to learn French vs learning Spanish (practical), Chinese (very desirable in business), or Russian (the hardest). But for whatever reason, French was it for me. It was it way before it became one of my college majors, and even before I took my first class at Nicollet Jr High. I just remember knowing somewhere in the back of my mind that I already knew the language, it was just a matter of retrieving the information from somewhere inside my brain.
3. Writing. I like to think of myself as a jack of many trades but an expert at none. Except maybe writing. And here's why I think that's possible - in writing, at least the writing I've done - I've written about people. I've been allowed inside the minds and daily activities of many types of individuals, so I've gotten to experience the life of a rock musician, a judge, an engineer, a surgeon, an opera singer, a businessman, a retiree, a student, a traveler, a parent, the list is endless. I've become an expert at writing about people who experience things as experts. I don't have to know as much as they do to take a peek inside their world and report it back to the masses. And, to boot, I've always loved words - their sounds, the way they look, the way they pair with their fellow words on a piece of paper or on the computer screen. The way a person is able to say the exact same thing in two different ways and inevitably give off many different meanings. Words give weight to the things we think and see and feel.
4. And finally, back to traveling. I've done my fair share throughout the U.S. (25 states + DC), and a little bit in Europe (England, Scotland, France, Ireland), but I can't say that's satisfied me. Maybe it has to do with growing up as an airline kid, but I have always this urge to go. Go become absorbed somewhere and get caught up in an entirely different way of living. I don't know exactly what that means - if I traveled for a summer would that do it? Do I need to put down roots somewhere else for a while or just travel there frequently for work or pleasure? I can't say as I can see the whole picture yet but it will hang over me until I take action.
And that is probably the most annoying and fantastic things about callings: They won't let go of you. No matter how inconvenient, poorly timed, expensive, demanding, or offbeat they may be, it's what you're meant to do. Continuing to swim upstream against it will only wear out your arms.
Yet, the older I get the easier it is to find road blocks. Money, time, careers, family, other life goals, or even age. The older you get, aren't things supposed to be clearer - you know, "you'll understand when you're older"? So why then do we resist things like our callings the older we get?
Lately, I've been reading some words by Don Miller, who wonders if God wrote us all like a story. Well, if we are all the leading men or ladies in our own stories, then we need goals and we need to overcome conflict to achieve those goals in order to be compelling. If our story is going to be the type of story that gets made into a movie.
So maybe these callings are like God's way of showing us what our story could be; and that even though throughout our lives we build safe cocoons that can be enticing to stay within, once we overcome our fears and struggle a little to break free, we will all be butterflies. Beautiful and mobile and certainly something of wonder.
Maybe.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Bananas and other metaphors
And I lied in the title. There are no other metaphors today. Maybe tomorrow.