today I love, jumptoast edition

When sitting in a toasting circle around a campfire, there's a phenomenon known as the 'jumptoast.'  That's what happens when it's not really your turn with the bottle, but you claim it anyway, for Very Important and time-sensitive reasons.

This warrants a 'today I love' jumptoast, despite today not being a Wednesday.

Today I love the internet.

Most of the time it's hideously offensive and thoughtless and cruel, but occasionally something really awesome turns up.

This summer, BIC came out with silly 'for her' pens (annoyingly implying that we girly-types are completely incapable of using Normal Manly Pens), and Amazon reviewers responded in a marvelously snarky fashion.

Now they've gone and done it again.

Even the notorious cesspool Reddit can occasionally be decent.

The internet is an amazing tool, and it's truly up to us how we use it.  I'm all for making it a safe space to actually talk about important stuff when needed, and to enjoy humor when that's needed.  To find like-minded folks to remind you to appreciate what you have.  To celebrate the people and things in this world that aren't shitty instead of just complaining about the things that are.  To embrace the fabulous.

Claiming a little corner of it is the first step, and I'm very happy that I have the opportunity to that.  I'm learning more every day about what I want to create, what I feel like the world needs, and how to make that happen.  Thank you for coming on this journey with me.

finding passion, part 6: obsession

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #6: When was the last time you massively over-delivered on something?  What was it and why did you work so damn hard?

For work, I think this would have to be a recent powerpoint presentation I had the opportunity to put together for a long-term project.  I spent days obsessing over very specific animations and tweaking everything to deliver the information in the best possible way.  I got completely absorbed in the design of the thing, and even spent a lot of my own time at home and on my commute working on it, and I was inordinately proud of it. 

Why did I work so damn hard?  Because it was fun.  Because for whatever reason I intensely enjoy reformatting data into digestible forms and designing visuals to succinctly convey information.

The last personal project that I remember becoming completely obsessed with was when I was rewriting and reformatting my résumé.  I'm a huge fan of LaTeX, an incredibly powerful typesetting system, and wrote my own style file for my household's résumés.  Again, I spent tons of time at home and on commutes working on it and tweaking all the fiddly bits.  I'd spend hours researching online about effective résumé presentation guidelines and principles.  I'd look up and hours would have passed while I was absorbed in the project.  

Why did I put so much work into that?  It wasn't really because of how important a résumé is in one's professional life, though that's a perk.  Fundamentally, it was because of how passionate I felt about presenting the requisite information in the most effective way possible.

Hmm.  There seems to be a trend here.  


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude, part 4: skills, part 5: heroes.

finding passion, part 5: heroes

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #5: Who do you look up to?  Who are your mentors?  Who inspires you?  Why?

Aaaaaand we're back.  I've been a bad blogger about updating for a while now, and it's time to pick up this thread again.  

In no particular order, these are the people who I feel admiration for today.  The list might change tomorrow.  These are the people who make my heart catch in my throat if I imagine that I have the opportunity to sit down to lunch with them.  

• Robert, the best tango instructor in the universe.  Maybe in other universes, too. 
• Don, my kick-ass math tutor and friend from my undergrad years.  He was in the military, and then decided to study math.  'Cuz it's fun.  He helped me to truly grok a lot of the higher-level coursework, and we had so many great discussions.

• Melissa, my feminist blogger hero.  She has so much strength, the ability to beautifully articulate so many important sentiments that can be so darn hard to express, and has put so much work into making her blog into a safe space for everyone.  I admire her from the very depths of my being.  

• Leo, of course.  All bloggers everywhere admire Leo, as far as I can tell.  For his success, for his eloquently simple and peaceful perspective on life, and for his ability to cut out all the noise and focus on what's really important. 
• My grandfather.  He's incredibly strong, kind, and perseverant.  With a snide sense of humor so subtle that it can take days to even realize he'd made a joke.  But it was a damn good one.

• Gala, for being unabashedly fabulous, glittery, and in love with herself. 
• And of course, Nikola Tesla.  For being an amazingly radical scientist whom history seems to have largely overlooked.  Also Barbara McClintock.  Same reason.

Who inspires you?


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude, part 4: skills.

finding passion, part 4: skills

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #4: What are you ridiculously good at?  What are your precious gifts?

Hoo boy.  These certainly are getting to be trickier.  I don't know that there's anything I'd describe myself as being ridiculously good at.  So let's drop the modifier for now.

What am I just good at?  No matter how silly or seemingly irrelevant it is?

• dancing, in various forms
• working with some animals (mostly horses)
• cooking
• writing
• proofreading/editing/typesetting
• presenting
• throwing parties
• planning events
• grasping abstract mathematical concepts
• seeing patterns
• listening to people
• DDR (yes, really.  Silly but true)
• touch-typing
• giving massages
• being a student
• making lists
• memorizing things

It seems that I'm good at physical expression, learning, planning, and working with words.  Hmm.  This... will have to do for now.  Next!

What are you good at?


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility, part 3: gratitude.

small space fetish

I have an odd fixation on the notion of living in a small space in a city.  I romanticize the notion of being close to everything, having real public transit options, and being forced to seriously edit my mountains of crap.  To have everything I own be something I absolutely love.  To be absolutely ruthless about what is in my home.  To spend less time cleaning and organizing, and more time living.  To abolish clutter.

Granted, in reality city living is cramped, dirty, loud, and has all sorts of downsides.  My fantasy doesn't necessarily take those into account, hence the romanticization.  But fundamentally, I find myself desperate for change of some sort.  I want... different.  

Part of why I'm so obsessed with decluttering is that it feels like a step toward that goal.  The less stuff that has to be lugged around, the more freedom we'll have to jump when the next life change opportunity comes to call, whatever form it might take.  

All my life, whatever household I've been a part of has required a fairly sizeable house.  Not necessarily for the people, but for the stuff.  For some reason, saying 'this one won't work; it isn't big enough to hold all our stuff' seems perfectly reasonable in this country.  When did we start adjusting the houses to fit the accumulated junk, instead of simply living in a reasonable amount of space?

Though the average American family size has decreased about 30% since 1950 (from 3.8 to 2.6), average house size has increased more than 2.5-fold!  This is ridiculous!  That average 1950's family was living in under 1,000 square feet of space, but we still seem to be always upsizing and expanding.

Always needing more, more more... how about opting out and downsizing instead?  Living with less doesn't signify failure, and renting isn't a sign of having given up.  These things only indicates breaking free of the outdated American Dream.  What worked in the fifties due to some rather unique circumstances (the GI bill, a time of major economic prosperity, plenty of jobs, etc.) is a silly standard to still hold ourselves to.  In the current economic climate, maybe owning a house with a white picket fence no longer makes sense!  Make your own future.  Figure out what works for you.  The real you, not your fantasy self that throws perfect dinner parties and has 2.5 children.  Or maybe the fantasy self tours around the country playing the washboard in a zydeco band, but you're happier staying in one place, hopefully in a smaller (and cheaper) house than you can afford.  The point is to move beyond mindless plodding toward an outdated goal that may or may not be applicable to your unique circumstances.  

For me, I want out of the upsizing cycle.  I want the freedom that comes from focusing more on people and experiences rather than stuff.  To have more time, energy, and money not spent on maintaining/acquiring/storing stuff.  To prioritize the aspects of life that are actually important.  

Maybe this is a silly romantic notion, and maybe I'll never make it to my fantasy city.  Maybe I'll always live in three-bedroom houses.  But in the meantime, I'll keep 

But hey, a girl's got to dream, right?

finding passion, part 3: gratitude

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #3: What do people thank you for?

This one was exceedingly difficult.  I am generally rather unobservant when it comes to myself, and so at first blush I couldn't think of a darn thing in answer to this question.  I'm sure it's happened, but I don't seem to have remembered any instances of it.

After chatting with a few people and doing some deep introspection, I came up with this marginally satisfactory assortment of items:

• listening/discussing life issues
• emotional support
• cooking
• hospitality (throwing parties, having people over, etc.)
• helping work through problems
• being a sounding board/devil's advocate

Most of these items seem to pertain to conversations.  There is likely to be some serious sample bias base simply on what I was thinking about today and the interactions I've had in the past short while.  However, it's still an interesting result, and hopefully will yield further insights down the line. 

What are you thanked for?


Previous questions: part 1:happiness , part 2: invincibility.

finding passion, part 2: invincibility

I'm working through the '27 Questions to Find Your Passion' worksheet from Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  Join me!

Question #2: What do you do that makes you feel invincible?

Invincible, in this context, I take to mean guaranteed of success, unable to fail.  Feeling so good that nothing could possibly go wrong.  This isn't a feeling that I'm especially familiar with, outside of the bliss of losing oneself in a dance with a great partner and a great shared dynamic.  But let's see what I can come up with.  As with all of these questions, I'm doing my best to not over-think the answers, and just write down whatever comes to mind.

• dancing
• climbing to the top of a mountain on horseback
• massive decluttering
• editing
• writing, to a lesser extent

...I'm not entirely sure what conclusions to draw from this particular list.  Hopefully it will all come together further along in the process.

What makes you feel invincible, dear reader?


Previous question: part 1:happiness.

finding passion, part 1: happiness

The other day, I stumbled upon Live Your Legend, a fabulous site devoted to encouraging people to discover their passions and pursue them.  To stop being mediocre.  To release other people's dreams and find their own.  Good stuff.

If you sign up for their email list, you get a bunch of nifty pdf resources.  Normally I resent content being held hostage for my email address, but I feel like this one may actually have relevant and useful emails.  We'll see.

Regardless, the free-but-with-a-catch documents are remarkable, and I'll be working my way through some of them in the coming months.  Today I want to embark upon a beauty called 27 Questions to Find Your Passion.  As you know, my sense of dissatisfaction and ennui is the driving force behind this blog, and I need to get serious about figuring out what I am actually here to do.  Passion-finding resources seem like a good place to start.

So, we have question #1: What makes you happiest in your life?  What excites you?

Without thinking too much, I made a list.  Much on it is silly, some is obvious, and some seems strange.  It's in no particular order, unless you count the order in which items occurred to me as I was writing.  It's incomplete and changing and comprised of the things that I happened to write down one afternoon.  Here goes.

Things that make me happy:

• dancing
• cooking
• good food
• cloudy, gloomy skies
• good company
• hot baths
• stretching
• sweet-smelling flowers
• acceptance
• fuzzy socks
• cuddles
• reading a good book
• music
• creating
• making a positive impact
• wearing fabulous hats
• feeling exhausted
• the smell of horses
• spontaneity
• fresh air
• cold drinks on a hot day
• planning
• going new places

I find it interesting that most things on the list have nothing to do with material possessions.   Presumably as long as I have enough socks, hats, and a kitchen to cook in, I'll be perfectly happy with my stuff.  Interesting.  My happy list is mostly about doing things, getting outside, traveling, and being with people.  

Presumably, the questions will get progressively more challenging to answer.  I'm endeavoring to not read ahead too much, and to just address each question.  

What makes you happy?  

complacency

Today I discovered a remarkable project that's going on.  A group of people traveled around the country, interviewing people who had become dissatisfied with the 'American Dream' and embarked on their own path.  They're making it into a documentary, and it's about the tragic complacency that infects those who go through their lives on autopilot and forget to actually live. 

They're looking for funding through kickstarter to edit and produce the thing.  I'll be tossing something into the kitty for such an inspiring project.  I want this documentary to exist, because I believe it's an important issue, and it's more than a little bit personal to boot.  For a $5 donation you get a digital download of it once it's finished, too.  Perks are nice.

The kickstarter page and remarkably inspiring preview are here, this is a beautiful article about the project, and here we find an interview with one of the founders of the initiative.

To be clear, they (and I) are well aware that prerequisites to this complacency are living in a developed nation, having a job, and generally having decent lodging and plenty of food.  Most of the world is not that lucky, and that's a critical issue of any time.  Dealing with world poverty and hunger is incredibly important.  Fundamentally, we're unbelievably fortunate to be in the position of disliking our 9-to-5 wage-slave job and not living up to our potential.

But that's no reason to accept it as inevitable.  

I've struggled with this myself, over the past few years.  When I was in school, my direction was clear.  Take more classes, learn more things, eventually graduate.  Now what?  Now I've got a full-time job in my field with a good salary, a gorgeous (rental) house, a husband, dog, cat, and practically an iconic white picket fence.  I'm paying off debt, and we have an emergency fund.  Eventually we'll probably be able to afford a house.  That's great!  It's the American Dream, right?

...really?  Being chained to one place, ear-deep in a mortgage, and owning stuff is the point of everything?  When did we start buying this story?  Surely there's more to life than consumerism and mowing the lawn on Sundays.  Why are we so willing, as a culture, to sacrifice so very much time, energy, health, relationship quality, sense of purpose, and potential usefulness at the alter of... what?  Money?  Having a bigger house than your neighbor?  2.5 kids and a car payment?

Surely there must be something better. 

I'm battling the exact sense of complacency that's examined in this movie.  I resent it, and I'm fighting it.  Perhaps the ennui hasn't thoroughly set in yet due to my being relatively new to the workforce, or perhaps it's my tendency toward spontaneity and whimsey that's keeping me fighting.  But I can feel the pull, and know that if I stay on my current path I will lose eventually.  But I've felt guilty for whining about it, for the reasons stated above.  Who am I to complain?  There are lots of people in worse situations; those without enough to eat, a roof over their heads, or the ability to find work.

Very true.  But I don't think that justifies a slow death of the soul, just because no one wants to hear about it.

So what's the solution?  To stop whining and to do something about it.  I don't know what that will look like, exactly, but thinking about the possibility of escaping this pre-set script fills me with anticipation and joy.  And anything that does that deserves a second look.