You know the feeling. You haven’t felt like doing anything – fun, professional, or otherwise – in a long while. When you have a stretch of free time, you end up surfing the web or watching bad TV, then feel guilty about it later. You have higher ambitions, but can’t commit yourself. If you had to sum up your attitude in one word, it would be “blah.”
Welcome to Slump World.
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I’m not always as diligent in the spring cleaning department, but I do make it a point every once in a while of cleaning out my closet of stuff that have accumulated over the years. It’s always interesting what I find. I’m always reminded of different points in my life, when I was into this or that fashion. Or household trinkets of one or other design style. It speaks to who I am and where I was. It also reminds me to be grateful for all that I have because I have so much.
So it was quite a surprise when I found myself not rummaging through my vintage fashion but through the vintage stages of my life when my childhood babysitter Mary called me out of the blue to let me know that she was visiting the area. I hadn’t seen her since I was thirteen or fourteen, but little did I know that spending time with her would be equivalent to my rummaging through the hallmarks of my closet. Only instead of pulling out long-forgotten personal treasures, I was nudged into re-evaluating where I was in life and where I wanted to be.
Rummaging Through the Vintage: How Lessons from Yesterday Can Transform Today Read More »
In the study of philosophy, it is imperative to define terms at the outset. I always think of a passion or calling as being that thing that we must do in life, that thing without which we will be miserable most of the time.
That is a very big expectation, indeed.
I cannot count the number of days, weeks, and even years I have spent researching what my true passion may be. Name the assessment and I’m sure I’ve taken it. Meyers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator? Yup, many times. ISTJ anyone?
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What is our obsession with badges? Girl Scouts. Letterman’s jackets. Credentials. Resumes.
I can admit, I’ve been one of those people. My life has been lived as a collection of what I’ve done and achieved…The proverbial trophy room. I grew up in a small town, raised goats and showed them at fairs. My parent’s home displays a shrine of sorts boasting all the ribbons and trophies I won over the years. Back then, it was my pride. Whenever I return to visit, I often reminisce at the colorful, shiny representation of my childhood.
For me, it meant something. It meant that I was worth something, that somehow the “win” meant I was good and that gave me value. A blue ribbon or bronzed plaque was validation. But now…What do I remember? I remember friends I made and bonding time I spent with my dad. It was how I learned responsibility, competitive spirit, follow-through, and putting my best face forward. I only realize this now in reflection.
Ripping Off My Badges Read More »
Are you impatient for change? I’m not surprised. We live in a society that first tells us we are not enough and then teaches us that change is easy, quick and available right now.
We’re bombarded by quick-fixes, and we reach for them: medicine that’ll get us back on our feet again; the shiny car that’ll solve all our problems; the must-read book that will reveal a new us and the higher paying job that’ll turn the world from black to gold. Society tells us it knows how to fix us. And we want to believe it – it’s easier to absolve responsibility for ourselves and our lives, than have to deal with the fact that we hurt, we long and that’s messy and might take time and trouble to sort out.
Are You Impatient For Change? Read More »
In the back of my old barn in Northern Italy, there’s a field.
During the summer, it fills up with bristly weeds of a seemingly infinite variety and color, with flowers and thistles and thorns. I have to beg my husband not to grab the weed-whacker and take the whole thing down. An ancient rosemary plant has attached itself to the 200 year old stone wall of the barn; next to it a sage bush has grown to the size of a small car.
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I reached up and rubbed my eyes. The glare from the screen stung them fiercely and I was developing an epic crick in my neck. I had redesigned this poster maybe 10 – 15 times. I put the final touches on it, printed it out, and took it to be approved. “It looks too sad,” she said to me with the calm demeanor of a Zen master.
“But the event is about medical professionals that need relief from stress and grief. I used this picture because I thought they would identify with a picture of a doctor who looks worn out.” I replied. “I understand that, but it still looks too sad.” That was all she had to say. I knew there was no point in arguing with her further. Once she made up her mind it wasn’t worth arguing about. So, I went back to my desk and started to work on a new revision.
This Story Doesn’t End the Way You Think It Will Read More »
When I was born, something strange happened. I didn’t cry. The doctors thought I was dead.
Alarmed, they picked and prodded at me to see what was going on. After a few moments of their panicking, I started to cry. I was not dead. I was born asleep.
In some ways, I stayed asleep for the first twenty-four years of my life.
Follow Your Ideal: 3 Steps to Creating Your Dream Life Read More »
Twice in my life I’ve had unwanted, seismic change forced on me. The first was when I had a breakdown aged 30; a breakdown that left me without a clue who I was or where I was, and that unravelled my patterns of thought so fundamentally that I was unable to understand the simplest conversations.
The second was when I was diagnosed with M.E./CFS in 2008, a chronic, incurable illness that’s with me right now. They were changes of the worst kind; unwanted, unwelcome and, at first glance, unacceptable.
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Fathers can show their children how to change by pursuing their own emergence. But my dad did not know that we are emergent beings in an emergent universe. He didn’t know that our assignment in life is to grow and develop. To emerge. To change.
Dad never spoke about wanting to change anything about himself. He almost never spoke to me about wanting me to change. Dad never changed, so he didn’t give me a model for addressing my weaknesses, for turning personal difficulties into opportunities to learn, or for examining one’s life.
Dad, Show Us How to Change Read More »
The call to my wife’s cell phone came on Christmas Eve, 2010. ‘Hi Merryn,’ the voice said, ‘it’s Emily, from the clinic.’
That Christmas was shaping up to be a Christmas like no other. Just a few days prior we had been given some news that we never thought we would receive. After ten years spent trying almost every means possible to start a family—including special diets and courses of fertility-boosting supplements, prayers for healing and chiropractic sessions (you’ll try anything), numerous rounds of costly IVF treatment, an agonizing two-year wait on an adoption list, followed by even more rounds of IVF—we had been told that she was pregnant. Pregnant! After a decade of raised and dashed hopes, we were finally going to have a baby. We could hardly believe it.
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