http://blog.pickcrew.com/grow-slower/
http://blog.pickcrew.com/habits-and-systems-not-goals/
Just wanted to take a note of these so I could come back later and find them if needed.
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Category: Julia
posts by Julia
A mentor of mine from when I was young used to tell me that the grief people felt for their loved ones would never go away. Even as a young child this was more comforting to me than anything to fear.
What she said about grief that I loved/love is:
Grief is like a stone you carry around with you. At first it may seem huge and heavy – more like a boulder you’re trying to get out from under – but that eventually, with time and story-telling about the person, sharing their memory with others (even people who didn’t know them) the boulder is worn down and smoothed into a rock and then a stone, small enough to fit in your pocket. It’s slight weight is always with you – sometimes surprising you as you feel it while reaching for keys or a dollar bill.
How true this seemed to me then and how true it has turned out to be. I find myself at both the most poignant and most random times in my life, thinking about someone who has been gone almost as long as I have been alive. I will always miss my mom but there is some comfort in that. I will always miss her, and so I will carry her with me wherever I go.
A very good friend that has known me since I was five years old recently sent me a book in the mail that she said I would love. It’s entire premise was to fly in the face of common lore, that your twenties are a mess and fun and to be taken on with the spirit of adventure and little planning. It said your twenties are your “Defining Decade” and they really do matter. That kind of drew me in. Maybe all my freaking out and feeling like my lack of ambition at a job I don’t love and my mess of a personal/dating life would be validated in this book…that it is a process and it’s right to panic and soul search.
Mostly, though, this book just pissed me off. **Note to self – if a friend is having a little bit of a quarter-life reflection and isn’t sure about some crucial next steps; don’t give her a book that describes how at 27, she’s only got 2 more years to make a life before it’s over**. I sat in the airport reading this book and laughed out loud at some of the absurd undertones I was picking up on – dating casually is horrible, settling is worse, getting married young is not only needed it’s the better route to take, etc. the author has a PhD so she wasn’t overtly stating such nonsense but it was in there somehow, in between the lines and behind the research.
Maybe this book pissed me off so much because it was taking my worst fears and throwing them in my face. That I was seeing myself in the composite of clients this author (also therapist) presented – that I was lazy and underachieving and settling when I want more, but feel frozen by indecision. The point the author was trying to make- I think -is that we need to make decisions now and not wait until tomorrow. However her delivery was all kinds of wrong.
The therapist side of me got all worked up about what she claims she said to clients in session. Statements were apparently made to men and women in their mid-twenties, who were confused and sometimes/often crying, like, “I can’t sit here and talk about your past when I can see your future is in trouble.” If my therapist said that to me I would walk out. Hello?!?! I am obviously here because I have some shit to work on and I am not happy in my current situation. It’s your job as the therapist to listen, to WHATEVER the client wants to talk about and use your skills to get them to come to conclusions about their own life and the next steps they need to take. FYI, telling a client something like that is just a no go in ordinary therapy – unless the clients have asked you to be harsh and judgmental.
To complete my book review/rant I will say that I do appreciate the author’s desire to light a fire under people. I just wish though she would have appeased the masses and masses who may, say pick this book up at 27 and think “Cool, what can this tell me about making the last few years in my 20’s great”. She should have written her point of view perhaps with less pressure on the deadline of 30 (!!!) and more pressure on the call to action. Inspire the people instead of freak them the fuck out.
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Morning Ritual
One thing that is a constant struggle for me is “getting going” in the morning. I’m definitely not a morning person. Top that off with I don’t have a boss, or a set time I need to be up doing anything and you have a recipe for disaster. I’ve recently improved this a great deal by following this morning ritual as close as I can every day:
Morning Ritual
25 min:
-Drink protein shake w/warm water or milk (or juice)
-Make Tea & Eat Vitamin + Bring laptop upstairs
-Eat Breakfast + clean skillet if needed
Choose at least 2 of these, 30 mins:
-15 min kempo practice
-15 min reading non work related book
-15 min or exercise (abs) or (yoga/stretch)
-15 min meditation
Straight into 2 hrs. of focused work w/timer (no delays).
Then Straight into Workout for the day (ideally).
-If this can’t be done due to schedule conflict try to work out @ 4:45 p.m.
I was having a conversation with someone today about confidence, and they were asking me essentially what allows me to be confident in most situations. Now like most people I don’t enjoy appearing over confident, or conceited in any way. However unlike most people, I’m extremely confident in almost everything I do. In general, I feel like I can do just about anything I want to at any time (an incredibly conceited sounding sentence)…. but when you break it down, is feeling like you can do anything bad? If you stop to think about it for a few minutes, its really not bad at all. I’m not sure where this confidence comes from (surely growing up as a white male I’ve naturally absorbed this view through all the subtle and not so subtle advantages society has given me). But still, there are plenty of other white males I know that don’t feel confident in doing many activities (most) activities…..
Now one big thing I should mention is that if I don’t understand something or don’t feel like I know enough about something I want to do then I have no problem admitting that or asking for help, even in a very public way like in a meeting or in a group of people (having the confidence to admit you don’t know is such an important part of life, it really frees you up to be yourself). I really am not 100% sure why I’m confident with most activities though, I’ve been that way as long as I can remember. I’d love to figure it out though (preferably before I have kids so I can help try to instill good confidence in them). If I were to guess right now in this moment I’d say:
-playing sports/competing against other people. This has contributed a great deal to my confidence over the years (I’ve touched on benefits of contacts sports before)
-great/confident parents. Both of my parents are very assertive and handle themselves very confidently
-being born a male (this has to be on there unfortunately, I think in so many ways being born a male makes it easier to be confident, although hopefully this can continue to change/evolve in a positive direction)
-taking self defense/karate classes + sparring/fighting people regularly. This is a huge one, possible the biggest one in my mind right now. Having a game plan to defend yourself and your loved ones is a very comforting feeling. Never feeling “afraid”, simply thinking “oh yea I would do xyz” is a very re-assuring feeling.
-supportive friends. This is a real wild card, I’ve had excellent friends growing up though. Some of this was due to my good choices, dropping friends who were questionable and keeping good people around me. But there has also been some great luck in this department….
-good role models (my hockey coach growing up, my kempo instructor now, some of my dads’s close friends + my parents, my sisters ect…)
I’m sure there are many more reasons (probably thousands) but someday I’d like to hopefully come up with what I feel are the biggest/most influential reasons so I can hopefully pass that onto younger people in my family (aka Harv and any other little ones that we may have)
Categories
Excuses
There will always, always. always be an opportunity for you to make up an excuse. For any/every situation.
I placed a call today, on behalf of my dad. It was a call my body physically cringed at making when he asked – but I did it because I am trying to support him as he works to make some positive changes in his life. I had to stop making excuses for myself to get out of calling. So what if I felt like I was being thrust once again into playing the adult with adults who are much more my senior? Underneath all that I felt like I should just pick up the phone – so I did.
It didn’t change anything. On the other end of the phone, the transactional relationship that I remember was still the same. I talk super awkwardly, they say as little as possible and then a couple minutes after we hang up my dad calls me to say they are mad about what I said/how I said it/how he involved me. But you know – I feel pretty good. I did my dad a solid, and he can’t say I didn’t try.
Hopefully excuses that are being used by that person will stop one day – but its pretty scary to just admit how you feel without placing blame. So I won’t hold my breath.