Category: Life

So on Sunday, when I came back from LA, I gave up. I turned off my phone alarm, I refused to get out of bed until 10AM, I refused to make a to-do list, and I refused to pick up after myself. I shoved my work bag in the closet and I let go of the anxiety associated with a huge pile of magazines that I *ought to* be reading.

I drank coffee.

And I sat.

The art of sitting is a lost art, it seems. Leo Babauta talks about white space and how we need it in both graphic arts as well as in our lives.  Space to live, breathe, and be.

Why don’t I have enough time? What am I doing that’s preventing my time from being mine? Where am I being aimless, unproductive, or focusing my energies on things I should be letting go of?

I sat some more.

And then, starting from scratch, from a small space of quiet and more regular rhythm of breathing, I picked up a book. A book I wanted to read, not one that I felt obligated to read. The difference seems subtle, but felt huge. And when I got tired, I set the book down and stared around the apartment for a while, choosing to do nothing but listen to my thoughts as they tumbled down out of the organized, stacked spaces I was trying to keep them in for the sake of efficiency and productivity. Productivity, it seems, is useless is you’re productively creating crap.

I made soup.

Long soup, the kind that takes hours.

I didn’t berate the soup for taking a long time to cook, because I know the value of letting the flavors seep together in a wonderful stew.

I didn’t rush it; it just was.

I ignored absolutely everything on my mental to-do list and I canceled dinner with friends.

***

I would much rather have one goal than many, if the goal were one I loved and cherished and could spend my focused time on. Working hard doesn’t have to leave you exhausted. In fact, if you’re exhausted, perhaps you’re working too hard – or not working the right type of hard. Perhaps your work should leave you both exhausted but also exhilarated.

I found, too, that the shield of “busy” is an armor I put up against the fact that I’m still unsure of where I’ll be in two, four, or seven years. Sometimes I feel as though I have no idea what I’m doing. When in doubt, or insecure about what I’m accomplishing and who I am becoming, I grab onto tasks and busy-ness and jump into the whirlwind lifestyle of a productive workaholic. Except even when I’m that busy, my heart still knows that it’s just an armor. It’s a front, it’s an idea I put up in the place of patiently listening to the small inklings of ideas that I’m truly passionate about. It’s as though I still believe that if I stamp my feet louder and try harder, maybe I’ll end up liking what I do more.

It doesn’t work like that, unfortunately.

So this blog, this post, is an ambling, wandering post, a message that it’s okay not to know where you’re going and that I, like you, am learning as I go.  I am learning about writing, about blogging, about life design and personal development and courage and wisdom and all the space in between.

I wish I could neatly and succinctly summarize how to make a busy life less stressful and more relaxed, but I didn’t master those ideas in my single day of rebellion. I know that anything worth doing takes time, slow time, and it’s a process that builds momentum over a series of repeated steps – not an instantaneous change that happens all at once.  It’s hard for me to post this, in fact, because I wish I did have the answers and could tell you exactly how to make it all better. But that would be delusional, because for me, and for you, it’s a process. Today, what I know right now is that busy-ness is not fun for the sake of busy-ness.  This is a process, a long process, and it turns out in the art of quiet and stillness, I’m a slow learner.

It’s life. I’m here for the ride.

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“If,” by Rudyard Kipling, is a poem that speaks to keeping your head during the difficult times, in staying true to your work efforts when sh*t hits the fan, and about maintaining integrity even when the world starts getting dicey. It’s about persevering through the tough times.  For some reason, it really hit home this month. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I ran across this poem through a friend’s link to an article about Chrissie Wellington, an English triathlete (and personal hero of mine) who describes some of her key strategies for preparing and training for some of her biggest races.  The top ten tips, published in Shape magazine and Active.com, are applicable to both race preparation as well as life. I was inspired – not just by her dedication to the sport and her passion for doing what she does – but also by the poem that she writes on her water bottle when she races. It’s not during mile 1 or mile 5 that you need motivation. It’s during mile 30, when your blisters are oozing, your mind is wondering why you’re even doing what you’re doing, you’re not seeing clearly, and you’re outside, alone. For anyone in the trenches of hard work – here’s a poem for perseverance.

A friend of mine recently told me she eats salad for breakfast. I was puzzled – eating cereal, oatmeal, or eggs for breakfast is pretty ingrained in my being. Then I thought it over and tried it. Turns out, I love this. Sometimes I get to the end of the day and I debate between cooking up something fast (and with a high probability of being terrible for me) or stopping by the store to buy fresh ingredients for a salad.  I admit: sometimes I fail to eat my greens.

I’m a big fan of healthy living, eating well and being active. (During graduate school I was the director of a healthy living program for residential dormitories). But who am I kidding? I also LOVE brownies, the occasional pan of bacon, creating delicious desserts, and (I hate to admit this) even heading to In-and-Out once in a while to splurge on terribly wonderful greasy french fries (Mmmmm!)

Then I started eating salad for breakfast. By eating my salad for breakfast – and noshing on yummy spinach, artichokes, asparagus, brocolli, and other fantastic crispy and crunchy vegetables (who knew that cucumbers tasted so good in the morning, especially cold?), I am able to jump-start my day feeling as thought I’m already ahead. I’ve gotten my quote of fresh ingredients – well before getting tied up in the long work day and my extensive to-do lists. Better yet? I actually feel pretty good afterwards, too.

This isn’t a healthy living blog, though (although I’m a fan of them- such as my friend Steph’s San Francisco project, Eat Life Whole, and some Seattle folks I know who run Full Circle Farm). But what does eating salad have to do with work, career, or life?

At work, I sometimes find myself procrastinating on the biggest tasks – the ones that are the most important to me. Sometimes it seems that the more important the project, the more likely I am to delay working on it. Why do I do this?

The more value a project holds, the more important it’s outcome is – for our egos, careers, and for our reputations. By procrastinating, we can later explain away the relative failure or success by saying “we could have” done this or that to make it better. By being less invested in the project, we can give ourselves an excuse for why the project or performance didn’t live up to our dreams and expectations. This is a common psychological fallback – in fitness and in life. We can explain away our excess weight or under-fitness by saying, well, I could have eaten more salads. Or, next time, I’ll eat more green vegetables. If I do that, then I’ll be healthier.

At work, do you put off the hard work and the long tasks? The ones most important to your career? In work, eat salad for breakfast. Tackle the hardest task first. By addressing the thing most critical to your success, you can avoid the later psychological arguments that crop up throughout the day. Better yet, you’ve primed yourself for success by initiating the actions and sequences needed for success. At work, starting off with the hardest task first is one of the best habits we can get into. Because what we do each day at work becomes our habits, whether we like it or not.

And at the end of the day? Well, you can probably have a cookie, whatever your work cookie is. If you’ve eaten salad for breakfast – it’s all about balance.

Eat your greens.

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Images in this post from Success-Elixir and Full Circle Farms.

Well folks, tomorrow’s the first day of October.  I AM SO EXCITED! What’s not to love about Fall? From back-to-school shopping specials and pumpkin spice lattes; tail-gaiting at football games (or watching baseball, hockey and soccer); to apple-picking and pumpkin carving; recipes for delicious warm soups, pumpkin pies and breads; mulling spices and ciders; and several brilliant holidays (World Food Day on October 16th,  Apple Day on October 21st, Halloween on the 31st,and of course, my birthday, the most important of them all.*)

I’m headed back East to Columbus, Ohio, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for a few days, where the color changes in the leaves and the beautiful campuses make me homesick for my alma mater.  In the spirit of one of the most beautiful seasons – I thought I’d express my thoughts and love of the Fall season in a photo-essay. Among other things, these are the best things about Fall. Welcome to October.