Dessert Before Dinner

During the workweek, whenever I come home after work, I promptly remove my shoes, hang my purse on the closet handle and drop down my work bag, and then scurry around my apartment with my jacket on  (an important little detail) in a rush to relax.  The relaxing part often doesn’t come until two to three hours later, after I’ve worked out, darted back out to run to the grocery store, or triaged my vitamins for the next day, in other words, after I've checked a series of to-dos off my list. 

I know I’m not the only one, with obligations, responsibilities, chores and things that get in the way of that sweet spot at the end of the day when we bask in the glow of full-bellied peace and quiet.  The culmination of our days – when we finally get to that point – is not only the dessert but our sustenance too, though, so why don’t we grant ourselves a taste of that – a prelude or a snippet of this well-fed, happy-place feeling – during the day?  Why do we feel only deserve a dose of it right before drifting off to sleep or during that small sliver of time on a Sunday morning (one of my favorite sweet spots) when all the obligations of the world fall away for a quick minute? 

Rushing to relax is counter-intuitive, but it's something I do on the regular.  Why?  Because though life gets busy sometimes, I live for those moments of pure, unadulterated bliss, that cozy feeling, like a hot cup of tea in your hands but all over your body, and I want to get there as soon as I can.

Last Sunday, after a fun but bustling weekend, I found myself sprawled on my couch at noon, in my “loungewear” (who am I kidding? They’re PJs), book in hand, hot tea on coaster.  My apartment was quiet, my feet were reclined, and all of a sudden I felt my heartbeat soften to that slow thump when you’re about to drift off to sleep.  I could’ve eaten it up, that moment was so freaking delicious.  And I just sat there, fully aware, and basking in the calm emanating throughout my body and mind.  It felt incredible.

Afterward, I felt more recharged than I had been in what felt like weeks, at which point I realized how essential these isolated moments of relaxation are to our happiness and productivity too.  Why do we only grant ourselves these moments at the end of the day or end of the week?  By putting it off until every single obligation is met, all our to-dos are checked off our lists, how can we feel balanced and focused and accept and appreciate life's nuances?

Further, how can we be prepared for life's natural ebbs and flows if we're rushing through it, never taking the time to stop and take short time-outs midway through it?  And really, why must we cleanse our palates only at dusk when we’re often too tired to really taste it?

From here on, I am going to try and taste my dessert during the day, even if it’s just a bite or a nibble.  Because let’s be honest - life is too short not to eat dessert before dinner sometimes.

Week-end Lessons Learned

At my job, “Lessons Learned” are what we assess, discuss, and analyze at the end of a project. By looking at a completed project as something that can be learned from, rather than something that simply goes away when the project is complete, the team is forced to look at a completed project as a series of potential lessons that can be applied to future projects or tasks.

I like to think of life this way, too. As we navigate through life, we know only what we know at the time, but if we’re continually open to learning from our experiences (which consist of a combination of both mistakes and successes) we become better, more evolved people.

My personal Lessons Learned from this week are as follows:

1. When in doubt always carry flats in your bag. Heels are necessary with certain outfits – dresses, skirts, slacks – but they are inappropriate and uncomfortable for walking around a city. With heels on your feet and flats in your bag, you can have the best of both worlds.

 2. Strip clubs are really just bars with naked chicks in them. The dancers do not necessarily have better bodies than you do and some even have small tatas. Also, they carry shiny pink wristlets to collect their dollar bills, which they’re not afraid to count in public.

3. When you’re traveling, the only thing you can count on is a healthy breakfast. So pay for that $7 oatmeal. It may be the only chance you get for a healthy meal and it’s likely not much more expensive than the cardboard-tasting cereal bar at the hotel store.

 4. The “Little Burger” at Five Guys might possibly be better than sex and is completely worth breaking your predominantly plant-based diet for.  The fries are great too -- don't get me wrong -- but the Little Burger is truly something special.

 5. When a man at a bar says to you,“You’re gorgeous/Can I get your number?/Are you married?/What do you do? I’m a lawyer” and then sticks out his limp-like-spaghetti hand, go ahead and believe it when he says you’re gorgeous (because - why the heck not?), but don’t believe that he’s a lawyer.  Also, when someone of the opposite sex comes up to you and asks you if you are a particular nationality, such as Scandinavian or Norwegian, apparently that’s a come-on. Take it as a compliment and tell him/her you’re American.

 6. The music at W Hotels is always sexy and intoxicating and is the inspiration for my obsession with iTunes playlists.  Why I like music that makes me feel sexy and intoxicating is no matter, but you can score the soundtrack here.

7. Jazz-soul artist Alice Smith is back with a vengeance, and her new album, She, includes Cee-Lo Green's cover of "Fool For You," which is just sick. The entire album is raw, soulful, and classy, just the way I like it.

8. There are these Asian noodles called "Pasta Zero Plus" that have only 20 calories per serving. But don't get too excited. They're actually kind of disgusting, contain no nutritional value, don't fill you up (duh, right?), and are just not worth the $3.

Learning how to "do what you love."

When I was little I was obsessed with swimming, and every opportunity I got I wanted to be in the water.  Because of this, every body of water that I saw – be it a stream, pond, lake, or someone else’s pool – I did whatever I could to find a way to swim in it.  One time, when I was barely six years old, my parents rented a cabin on a lake, and I swam as far out as I could and almost drowned.  Despite this, I still wanted to swim every chance I got.  Swimming was the thing that I loved to do as a kid, no matter how inconvenient it was, or no matter how yucky it made my hair.

As an adult, as I’m sure you can probably agree, the things I SHOULD do often overshadows the things I LOVE to do.  This is in part because there is often guilt associated with partaking in what's indulgently pleasurable because “time is money” and there is always money to be made.  And the reality is that at the end of a long day we are often too tired to devote to the things, these pursuits, that we love. 

 

 

But why do we save our most cherished hobbies and pursuits – those things that give us the ultimate enjoyment and happiness – as something that can be partaken only AFTER we’ve accomplished everything that needs to be done, when we are often so depleted that we no longer have the energy to truly enjoy them?  Why do we always feel we need to earn it, to “save the best for last”? 

Instead, we seek instant gratification by distracting ourselves from what we should be doing, by scanning through our Facebook newsfeeds, clicking for inspiration in Google Reader, getting excited for 10 a.m. because that means we can have a snack!   It is not to say that these distractions are bad.  In some ways these little distractions force us to find the simple pleasures in a day consumed with obligations, complex business matters, serious adult stuff.  It’s our way of seeking mini escapes through it all, even if the escapes we’re seeking wind up not being that gratifying, because what we’d rather be doing, or looking forward to doing, are the things we truly love – the grown-up version of finding a swimming hole to jump into.  And the sad thing is that so often do we forget to realize that the things we truly love are actually GOOD for us in the end.

This past week I spontaneously booked a massage, something I so enjoy but do so infrequently (like once or twice a year infrequently).  It felt indulgent and special and oddly naughty to be getting something that I hadn’t planned out in advance, but the payoff was great – I felt more relaxed than I had felt in months and the almost daily headaches I had been getting for the previous few weeks suddenly disappeared. 

 

We’re always telling ourselves that life is short, because it is, no doubt, and therefore understandably consumed with necessary obligations to achieve the life we want, but why don’t we adjust to life’s brevity by placing equal importance on carving out time to do what we love as we do with those practical obligations?  I can't say I have the answer to that, but I do know I'm going to work on learning to include more of what I love in my daily life.

I Love Girls!

I am a pretty big fan of the new show Girls.  About twenty-something recent college graduates trying to make it in New York, the show is no Sex and the City (SATC).  In fact, Girls is in many ways the antithesis of SATC: there’s no jazzy soundtrack, no sheen illuminating the sexiness of New York, no particular ambition whatsoever as showcased by the ladies of SATC.  Instead, the Girls of Girls are barely employed, can hardly pay their rent without the help of their parents, and are ill-matched by beta males who suffer from a similar lack of ambition.

The show represents a time when an expensive degree from Oberlin College does not a success make, when your parents pay for your Blackberry, and when boys treat you like shit even though they’re pretty shitty themselves.  In that sense, the show is both unrelatable and relatable.  When I graduated from college with my state degree, there was no question that I wasn’t going to get a full-time job with benefits.  With nearly $50,000 in loan debt, I had to get a full-time job with benefits.  And even though the job I got gave me anxiety and cold sweats every day, I stuck it out for three and a half years, while going to grad school and being miserable pretty much every day.  (That’s my walking-20-miles-to-school-in-4-feet-of-snow-story for you.)

So while I don’t understand the lack of hard work and motivation exhibited by these Girls, I do understand being in my early 20s, with so much promise ahead of me and yet being overwhelmed by it all – by the supposed promise that “the world is your oyster” -- because life is pretty hard when you’re young and no one wants to give you your big break.  It’s only when you learn that getting any kind of big break comes with hard work and sacrifice, both of which are things these Girls haven’t yet learned and which I didn’t know myself at that age.  You work that shitty job, you pay your dues, you get a little experience, and life gets easier and better. 

Where the Girls are particularly relatable, though, is in their need for love, attention, and ultimately, for their need to be understood, for better or worse.  Hannah spends her time fulfilling these needs by sleeping with Adam, an unemployed dirtbag of a guy, whose sexual demands range from asking that she pretend like she’s a prepubescent girl with a lunchbox, to smacking her around a bit, and to telling her to humiliate him while he masturbates in front of her (when she tries to take off her dress, he tells her it will ruin the fantasy and she obeys).  They have no relationship outside his apartment, aside from the occasional phone call or text, and have never set foot outside his apartment together.  We have all experienced a relationship like this in our lifetime, right? If you haven’t, well, good for you.  In your late teens and early 20s (for women in particular), it is not about being sexually satisfied on a personal level – it is about seeking sexual gratification by pleasing the other.  Once you hit your mid-20s, you hopefully learn that this is not the way any kind of romantic or sexual relationship should be.     

While I ultimately became a fan of SATC, I didn’t like it the first time I watched it.  I thought it was tacky and trashy and poked fun at the institution of romantic love.  Do you remember the pearl necklace episode?  Well, I was only 17 the first time I saw it, and the show’s target audience was clearly not 17-year-old virgins.  When I watched it a few years later, I had reached the point that sex and love are not always mutually exclusive.  Having developed that understanding, the show endeared to me the way it hadn’t the first time I had watched it.  To this day, I maintain that it’s one of the best series ever.

But what I like about Girls even more than SATC is that it does not sugarcoat the dim realities of love and sex, to want and to be wanted, and to find your way in a world that doesn’t give a shiznit about you.  When you're in your early 20s, the promise of hope and possibility looms over you like a dark cloud.  Hope and possibility are not necessarily tangible even if they exist in theory.  Moreover, wanting is much different than getting, and always requires some sort of painful sacrifice, something that this culture of young women may only be beginning to understand.  Girls is revealing these struggles in a very real, and at times, maddening, way, resulting in one of the best series out right now.  What can I say?  I'm in love with Girls.

The Dichotomy Between Work Self and Non-Work Self

I think it’s true that many of us have two sides to us.  In my professional work life, I know that my colleagues perceive me as a super serious goodie goodie who colors in the lines and plays well with others, and well, yes, that’s mostly true.  I kid you not when a few months ago, while trying to figure out a glitch in a Word document that was causing frustration for an administrative assistant and me, I said the word, “Shit.”  Yes, a cuss word, at work.  She looked at me, grinning with raised eyebrows and marveled, “You just said shit!”  I nodded and laughed, “Yeah, I swear sometimes.”  She loved it.  Of course she loved it!  Everyone loves someone who’s fun and a little crazy and free.  Though I sometimes wish it were, that’s just not the persona I am comfortable projecting at work. 

For the most part, I don’t mix business with pleasure.  For example, when I’m traveling for business, I seldom drink with the client, I wake up early so I can work out at the hotel gym, and I take vicious notes at meetings only to transcribe them later in my hotel room.  It’s not that I want to be so serious – I just figure if I’m getting paid to work, I should be working, not having fun, even if I want to be. 

While outside of work I am not a completely different person – don’t get it twisted – I’m still the girl at the grocery store at 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday armed with coupons, I am vehemently opposed to drugs, and I am not a weekly drinker (although I do enjoy a vodka and seltzer on occasion), a much less straight-laced persona shines through.  I enjoy listening to music at a high decibel, including hip hop laced with expletives or soul music with nasty lyrics.  I’ve been known to have a bit of a lead foot; I can do dangerous things at intersections.  And, believe it or not, I am kind of the ham in my family.

My best friend jokingly called me “Saucy Bear” the other day when I suggested she take a shortcut by taking an entrance into a posted exit.  I retorted, calling her “Cautious Bear."  Let’s also not forget that I have a degree in English – with a concentration in Creative Writing – one of the most impractical and joked about college majors in NPR history.  My favorite three movies are pretty bad ass: Eyes Wide Shut, Scarface, and American Psycho.  And well, there are other things, but they’re not really appropriate for this blog.  Yes, this shy girl does have a bit of a wild streak. 

So while I even find myself to be a bit of a bore at work, what I find really boring is someone who is flat, predictable, black and white, and has the same depth no matter where you prick them.  While many people aren’t that way once you peel back the layers, I think it’s the quiet, serious, or seemingly conservative ones who get an especially bad rap, because their spiciness is undoubtedly there, you just have to dig a little deeper to find it. 

Photo Credit: Pinterest

The Art of Good Decision Making

It's in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.  Choose now.  Choose well. 

-- Anthony "Tony" Robbins

Not even knowing who Tony Robbins was, I came upon this quote in an article I was reading in Vanity Fair last week, and was so inspired by it, I hung it on my fridge where it's been ever since.  Not only is it beautifully written, but it's a poignant message -- honest and illuminating and true.  Destiny comes not from karma, but from the decisions we make, whether good or bad.  Life is summed up by a series of decisions.  Every day we're faced with the decision of getting up early to workout or to sleep in, to read the newspaper or to not read it, to stop for the pedestrian at the crosswalk or to speed right past.  Other days, we're faced with bigger decisions -- to get married or to remain single, to have children or to have lots of cats, to buy a bigger house or to stay put.  And still, we're faced with smaller decisions that can alter the way our lives are forever -- to smoke that first cigarette, to take a different route home, or to strike up a conversation with the stranger in the fishermen's sweater. 

In some ways, the realization that we can shape our destiny may seem more frightening than if we think we have no control over it.  Personally, I find it rather empowering to know that our destiny can be molded with our very own hands.  Think about it.  You could have your dream job/partner/house/etc. if you're willing to make the right decisions (and in some cases, sacrifices) to get it.  The caveat to that, of course, is that you must know what your dream job/partner/house really is first.  Many of us don't take the time to reflect on our dreams, on what we really desire, without succombing to the assumption that the mainstream standard must be what we want, because that's what everyone seems to want.  Wrong.  (Sorry, but big weddings and expensive college tuitions weren't what I wanted, so I chose neither, and things turned out alright for me.)  The second caveat is that you must be willing to work for it, but seriously, what good things don't require a little hard work anyway?

My best friend Carrie often says that her biggest pet peeve is when someone says in contempt to another person's success, "It must be nice." (She actually just got her dream teaching job, and I am so flipping proud of her, but I digress.)  I agree with her.  No, it isn't "nice."  One's achievements in life are not simply plucked like an apple from a tree; they are not handed to us.  Such achievements take focus, work, dedication, and good decision making.  But decisions do not always have to be right to be good ones, of course.  Sometimes a few bad decisions along the way are the best opportunities for learning and for realizing that, "Oops, I guess I don't want that after all," or, "Oh, damn -- guess I better not make that mistake again because that could've really fucked it up." 

But if the life that we've been granted consists of a series of decisions, don't you owe it to yourself to think hard and make the right choice, for you?  Remember:  to be, you must do.

In Defense of The Sandwich

Something I’ve learned about adulthood is that life gets crazy sometimes.  Not in that voluntary add-everything-you-can-think-of-to-your to-do list, such as cleaning the closets or sweeping the garage, mind you, but crazy with things that actually need to get done.  Things with deadlines.  Or, really, multiple things with multiple deadlines.  You know, important work stuff. Things that get your head spinning in multiple different directions, when you feel like you don’t even have enough time to take a sip of tea or eat your lunch, or remember to eat lunch, for that matter.  I am not the only one with a crazy busy life.  Those with careers and kids and houses – it’s all the spice of life that not only makes us crazy, but brings us a certain amount of contentment, too.  Being busy makes us feel necessary, validated, and purposeful, in a sense. 

But, when things get so busy it’s easy to to take care of ourselves a little less, such as not eating enough vegetables, exercising, or flossing.  There are certain things that I make sure to keep up with even when I’m stressed out and overworked, such as working out everyday, eating healthy, and taking my vitamins. There are other things that I tend to let slide when I've got too much going on, such as sleep.  I do my best to get enough of it, I really do, but sometimes my Type A mentality  just doesn’t let that happen, and I’m left lying wide awake in my bed worrying if I sent the correct version of a document to a client.  While maintaining a sense of normalcy in a state of chaos takes a lot of work and conscious effort, I’m learning that life is always going to be chaotic and busy.  The days of half-days at kindergarten are long since gone.  Because of that, life is too short to save the simple things for tomorrow. 

Lately I’ve been scarfing down my lunch while staring at a computer screen because I’ve just been too busy to take a lunch break.  You know the feeling, right?  But today, after countless days of working straight through, I shut my door and forced myself to take 20 minutes step away my computer while I ate my lunch and stared into space.  What a vacation that was.  I felt like such a rebel to myself!  Amazingly, the yawns that I had had all morning were cured, and I was able to get through the day with clarity and efficiency.  More importantly, the day did not wiz by in that all-work no-play blur, because I took a few minutes for Sarah.  This reminded me that taking time to step away and relax even just for a few minutes is necessary for productivity.   While rituals are important, especially in attaining a higher level of creativity and spiritual attainment, the essence of taking time to recharge is perhaps a more fundamentally base need to the functioning of the human mind, because it serves the purpose of allowing us to maintain efficiency and productivity.  To be the best versions of ourselves, sometimes we have to take a little quiet time.  Kind of like nap time for adults.   

I am fortunate for a lot of things, one of them being my job.  That is clear, as I would not take it so seriously if it didn’t fulfill me or stimulate me the way that it does.  Just the same, though, it is not my end-all be-all.  There are a lot of things I value in life; however, when things are crazy, it’s easy to forget that there is life beyond that chaos or that it is necessary to take time in the midst of  that chaos for the sheer pursuit of efficiency.   Equally as important, if not more important, though, is taking time to take care of yourself.  This takes effort and time when we feel we don't have enough of it, but which transcends into more time because life feels fuller, more complete, less rushed.  I will say, that sandwich never tasted so good.  I might try it more often.