Perspective Changes Everything

Perspective culminates from life experience, our situations, and the lives of those around us, resulting in a very personal vantage point to the world and society.  What I am continually learning as I make my way through life is that my perspective is always changing, like every day, even.  Every time my opinion of a situation is challenged by a new experience, or I’m enlightened by someone’s own perspective or story, I am again reminded how my perspective is always on the brink of transition.  This is one of the greatest treasures in life: the notion that we are always ourselves, but that we are always constantly in the midst of change and growth through our various life experiences. 

These experiences change us, hopefully more for the better than for the worse, and regardless they are unique to each of us.   Given the same experience, our perceptions and reactions to them are all so different.  I remember taking a trip to New York City shortly after graduating from college.  At the time, I was on a tight budget because I had so much student-loan debt, and while I wanted to go to the city my only option was to do it on the cheap.  And that, friends, included stuffing canned food and Balance bars in my duffel to save money on sky-high, New York food prices and traveling the seven-plus hours each way by Greyhound bus, which happened to break down en route to the city. 

While recalling how damn heavy my luggage was from all cans of food I had packed now makes me laugh/roll my eyes, I also look upon that memory with fondness.  It was a hustle-and-flow kind of attitude where I was going to make the best of a situation with what little I had.  I may not have been able to have it all, but I realized that I could still have some of it, which consisted of a no-frills trip to New York (because at the time there was no city beyond New York) that still included the essentials for me at the time:  a visit to the Museum of Natural History, strolling around Central Park, hanging out in The Village, and getting a makeup session at Henri Bendel, complete with Chef Boyardee in the evening at the Hotel Belvedere (which sounds fancier than it actually was, but heck it had an en-suite kitchenette and was in the heart of the Theatre District).   

Having since paid off student-loan debt and spent a few years in the workforce, things no longer need to always be so budget-friendly.  I've also learned that there are other cities to have love affairs with.  And while life is a little more comfortable, I haven’t forgotten those days of buying 69-cent bread at Walmart and stuffing my luggage with canned food.  I've also realized that while my perspective has shifted, life may be more comfortable when it’s a little more cushy, but it isn’t necessarily any more fun.  Some of my best memories were when I had the least, because it’s not what you have that matters, it’s your disposition on life. 

Just like I haven’t forgotten the days well before graduating from college thinking that it was realistic for every little girl to grow up and become a stay-at-home mom (I admit that was a secret fantasy of mine) simply because that’s what my mom did, so too did I eventually learn that most moms have to work and still other moms choose to work.  My perspective was again challenged when I since came to the realization that becoming a parent is not necessarily your only option in life, even if you have a spouse and a house.

Perspective changes everything, constantly challenging what you think you know and believe, and so too does it make you realize how many options and possibilities there are in life.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring and how it will make you view life? 

Change in Season = Change in Tune(s)

Do you begin to crave different music with the change in seasons?   I do. 

All summer I have been listening to carefree, upbeat, sexy music:  lots of '70s and '80s soul (i.e., Maze, The Jacksons, Buddy Miles), a bit of disco (such as the Boogie Nights soundtrack), some current and classic pop-rock (including John Mayer's new album, Robbie Dupree, Christopher Cross), and a bit of Jay-Z, in particular, The Blueprint 2. 

Music is often the backdrop of our lives, and with the transition from summer to fall resulting in a change in activity, temperment, and, to some extent, lifestyle, so too (at least for me) music is affected by this transition. 

Come fall, when the days begin to shorten and the air turns brisk, my desire for new music (at least this season) happens to consist of a more moody, mid-tempo, rock-based soundtrack than my sexy, soul-heavy summer soundtrack.  Herewith is my first playlist for fall:

• “Girl Can’t Help It” Journey
• “Still Can’t...” The Cranberries
• “Carnival” Natalie Merchant
• "Is This Love” Whitesnake
• “I’ll Be Alright Without You” Journey
• “Tin Man” America
• “Tempted” Squeeze
• “I Can’t Tell You Why” The Eagles
• “Who’s Crying Now” Journey
• “Lightening Crashes” Live
• “Rhymes of an Hour” Mazzy Star
• “Free” The Martinis
• “Beautiful Calm Driving” Sia
• “Last Goodbye” Jeff Buckley
• “I Go To Sleep” Sia
• “Levon” Elton John
• “Bad Sneakers” Steely Dan
• “What Goes Around Comes Around” Lenny Kravitz
• “Knocks Me Off My Feet” Stevie Wonder
• “Crystal Blue Persuasion” Tommy James & The Shondells

What are you listening to this fall?

The Fine Line Between Monotony and Routine

There is a fine line between monotony and routine, I believe.  On the one hand, to be successful at whatever it is you want to accomplish in life, some element of routine is necessary -- be it achieving success in your career, maintaining your physique, or being a good partner or parent.  But when routine starts to cross over into monotony, it's time to take reflect on whether the routine for this or that is still working. 

This happens to me every so often with my various routines, whether it be with my workout regimen, my post-work routine, or other rituals and habits.  Recently, I thought about whether I wanted to continue waking up at 5:30 a.m. to workout.  Getting up so early was beginning to feel restrictive, monotonous, and just plain annoying.  There were things I wanted to do, places I wanted to be, and having to be in bed by 9 p.m. so I could wake up so early to work out felt like it was getting in the way.  So I did what I do when things are dragging me down and took a couple days off so I could step back from my routine, something I've done pretty consistently since college.  When I thought about other alternatives, such as working out after work, when I generally have plans with friends, appointments, or just want to relax, I soon realized that trying to squeeze in an evening workout simply wouldn't happen because something would always be in the way, and then I'd be a miserable, out-of-shape little bitch.

My friend Carrie posted this on my Facebook wall a little while ago, knowing me all too well. 

 
But of course I had to give myself the chance to think about other possibilities, to have the freedom to choose (because I like my freedom!), at which point I realized that getting up early to workout -- something which provides me a lot of mental and physical satisfaction -- simply works for me.  The good of all this is that my pondering led me to make one little tweak: I reset my alarm clock from 5:30 to 5:45 a.m., a simple change in routine that added 15 minutes to my sleepy time.

I have said before that something I've been learning along the way is that my perspective is always evolving, resulting in sometimes changed opinions about things, which is why I think it's important to always be reflecting on what we want (and need) out of life at every given moment.  Is my routine actually leading me to a more rewarding, happy life, or has it become just an obligation that's leading me to no man's land? 

Sometimes our self-imposed schedules can get in the way of our goals, and ultimately our success in life.  For me, I believe the ultimate success is being in the present and living each day to the fullest.  Since the ultimate intent of a routine is to ideally help us attain our goals, they should not dictate the way we lead our lives, or more importantly, be the crux of a monotonous, boring life.  Instead, they should be the ingredient to a really great, full-bodied life.  Don't you agree?

In Sarah style, I'll end with a quote from Rilke which I read the other day in Letters on Life, a quote quite apropos for this subject: "You have to live life to the limit, not according to each day but according to its depth."  Perhaps easier said than done, but an enlightening perspective on achieving the good life.

So I tried golf (and I actually like it!)

I’ve had pretty much the same hobbies since I was a teenager: reading, writing, cooking, working out, and the occasional design or arts-and-craft project.  These things have become so much of a fabric of my life that they don’t even feel like hobbies anymore; they are just what I do.  I had reached a point in life when I had met many personal goals and realized that as a result of that, I was beginning to feel listless and a little bored.  This is a time when some may decide to have a baby; I decided to take up a new hobby.  

But I didn’t want to pick up just any kind of hobby just to pass the time, to numb the everyday challenges and/or monotony of life.  I wanted something I could really sink my teeth into, to be challenged by both physically and mentally; I wanted a project that I could never quite master yet still be fulfilled by, which would stimulate me for a long time and add to my already pretty fantastic life. 

As much as I like a challenge, I had to be honest with myself about one thing:  I am a creature of comfort.  I knew that whatever new hobby I picked up had to mesh well with my need for that comfort, convenience, and physical and mental stimulation.  I also didn’t want to pick up a new hobby only to give it up. 

Golf was something I never even considered until I moved within two minutes of a golf course, and then I realized that whenever I drove by and gazed at the course the people there seemed like they were having a great time, walking the course and hitting balls in a beautiful setting either at dawn or at dusk when I happened to be driving by either to or from work.  Truth be told, I actually used to think that golf seemed like a rather boring, passive, corporate-y kind of activity.  [Sidebar: It’s funny how perspective changes everything.  This is something I am learning time and time again in life:  you have an opinion about something and then the minute your perspective changes, boom! that opinion is immediately subject to change.  It makes me think that someday I may actually like the taste of wine!  We’ll see.]

But hanging out in a beautiful setting isn’t all there is to golf, so I knew that I was going to have to swing a club once or twice before I made the decision to give the sport a shot.  (Bear in mind I had never even held a golf club before, and playing mini golf a few times in my life doesn’t count.)  Thanks to a coworker who was willing to lend me an old set he had, I was able to give it a trial run, so out I went to the driving range to hit a couple baskets of balls. 

The first time at the driving range, the majority of times (that I even hit the ball) barely exceeded a distance of 25 yards and had no lift whatsoever.  And guess what?  It was still fun!  I liked it, even though I was horrible at it.  (A good sign for me.)  The next time I practiced in my backyard and got more lift, though not much more distance.  The third time I had a lesson, and wacked it higher and straighter and in the range of 75 yards.  It felt great.  But then a week later I had another lesson with a different coach who taught me an entirely different grip, showed me that I needed to straighten one arm and bend the other, and had me doing drills that didn’t even involve hitting a golf ball, and I was back to square one.  

I'm learning that golf is not only physical, but an extremely technical and mental game, and I knew if I had any expectations from myself I would easily get frustrated.  So going into it, I gave myself one rule:  "Thou not having any expectations of thyself."  I told myself that having no expectations  would be a good experiment for me and that “being bad” at something for an undeterminable time would teach me to let go of unreasonable self-expectations, because success comes not from simply being naturally gifted at something, but from putting lots and lots of time into it.  

So, that’s my new baby:  learning golf.  A few weeks in and I’m outfitted with new clubs, a couple lessons, a cute skirt, and absolutely no skill or talent, and you know what?  I am pretty mother effing excited about it.    

Finding completeness amidst constant imperfection.

This wall hanging is a quilt my mother made for me, a design I handpicked for my favorite room in my house: a sunroom with a peaked ceiling and exposed beams, and lots of natural light seeping in from windows on the three exterior walls.  This wall is a focal point when you enter the house from the front door. Initially, there was a TV here, and for months, it made me cringe every time I walked into my house and saw it there. Something about a TV as a focal point to a house just didn’t feel right to me. It had to go.

A feeling of completeness rushed over me when I hung the quilt on the wall.  And even though the room still has more to be done to it to make it perfect in my eyes, it somehow now feels complete and settled, even with its "leftover" furniture and lack of lemon trees that are begging to be placed in the far corners of the room. 

As I reflected on the sudden completion of the room by the mere hanging of a quilt, and therefore the entire house, it occurred to me that there is something to be said for feeling complete, satisfied, and whole, even in a state of imperfection.  Perhaps it's strange to be drawing a personal parallel from one’s house, but I think our surroundings, that is, our environment, generally are a reflection of who we are as people.   

As a searcher, a perfector, a constant striver, I am always trying to take something and make it better, shinier, prettier, more perfect.  In some ways this is perhaps a good thing, but constantly pursuing perfection creates continual feelings of discontent, dissatisfaction, and lack of appreciation in ourselves, situations, and things that are always going to inherently be flawed and imperfect in some way.  But, it's a process as is everything else, and I am learning that feeling complete and attaining perfection are not mutually exclusive -- completeness is not necessarily achieved by attaining perfection.

This wall quilt, a beautiful piece of art which singlehandedly transformed my favorite room of the house, is a beautiful symbol of achieving completion amidst a state of imperfection: a reminder that satisfaction and acceptance can and should be found in our constantly flawed selves, too.

But on another note, my cat is pretty damned perfect. 

Tigers Above, Tigers Below

Lately I’ve been reflecting on mortality -- about death and getting old -- you know, your basic mixed bag of depressing thoughts.  It’s a heavy subject, not something I particularly enjoy thinking about, but for whatever reason it’s been a major theme in my mind for the past several weeks. 

What makes mortality seem particularly close is when life begins to feel monotonous – as if every day is the same. When that happens, I feel like I’m not living life to the fullest, and that makes me a little sad.  Though stability is a basic need in my life (I relish in some amount of consistency and routine), I am a big proponent in continually seeking stimulation and growth.  And while such growth can be achieved by having new experiences, I sometimes wonder, which are the right ones to go after?

But every day is not an adventure, and it can’t be an adventure. Too much chaos, commitments, obligations, etc. wear me out anyway.  I'm an introvert -- I need my quiet time.  While reflecting on appreciating the simple pleasures in life and making small changes to mix up your routine, focusing on being in the present is vital. This is what Buddhist philosophy is teaching me.  We do not live in the past or in the future. As a perpetual worrier, living in the present is not instinctual, though. I am always worrying about the future; any possible scenario of something that can go wrong, I have probably already thought about it, and schemed up a solution for it. And this can be a stressful way to live.

While it’s important and necessary to plan for the future, beyond saving for retirement and taking care of yourself physically and mentally, there is no actual benefit to worrying about the future when you cannot map it out by the nanosecond anyway. There’s a saying that goes something like, you plan and then life happens. I agree with this adage, especially as I like to plan and then I also like to rebel.

I suppose the good that's come out of all this worry about mortality is that it’s forced me to take a long hard look at what makes me happy as well as what makes me unhappy -- things that we don't generally evaluate very often. So often we’re in autopilot mode, such that we don’t really stop to think about whether this is what we want to be doing, what we should be doing, and whether these things provide us satisfaction or dissatisfaction.  (A few months ago I gave up my weekly personal to-do list for this very reason and I was amazed to see that I was actually more productive without it.) 

What I've realized is that when you cut out something that doesn’t give you happiness or satisfaction, you have much more time and energy to do other things that are relaxing and enjoyable and provide long-term gratification versus short-term gratification.  They also force you to be in the present.  For me, these things are doing yoga and meditating, listening to and cataloguing music, reading and writing. They are relaxing activities that make me feel like I'm, on even a very small level, growing, evolving, and not watching life passing me by.  But it's only since I've reflected on what it is that both relaxes me and gives me happiness, I've learned that these are the kinds of activities I enjoy doing when I’m simply too tired to do anything else.  When I'm not so tired, well, that's a different story.  I do like a little adventure in my life!

But satisfaction and happiness and living life to the fullest is about finding appreciation in the simple things too -- having dinner with a good friend, enjoying a crisp evening breeze after a hot summer day, listening to your favorite song on the radio, or smelling the peonies in your front yard. 

The other evening I read a parable from The Pocket Pema Chodron about there always being "tigers above, tigers below", which happened to be the perfect prescription for my current angst.  I'll end this post with an excerpt from the passage:

              Tigers above, tigers below.  This is actually the predicament that we are always in,

              in terms of our birth and death.  Each moment is what it is.  It might be the only

              moment of our life, it might be the only strawberry we'll ever eat.  We could get

              depressed about it, or we could finally appreciate it and delight in the preciousness

              of every single moment of our life. 

Image Credit: Pinterest

On Honesty

"Your best work is your expression of yourself. Now, you may not be the greatest at it, but when you do it, you're the only expert." - Frank Gehry

The one place where I’ve always felt completely open and uninhibited, with the exception of those who know me well, has been with my writing.  When I write I have no worries about feelings of inhibition, concerns about being misunderstood, or fear over the potential for rejection.  Writing is just my words and me.  I’ve kept some blog or another for the past few years as a space for my thoughts and opinions, and consequently to share with a few readers, be it friends, family, or the occasional foreign visitor, and all the while it has been a great exercise in the ultimate practice of honesty.

My mom happens to be a regular reader of my blog, which I think is great, even if the subject matter doesn't always appeal to her.  She readily expresses her opinion (whether positive or negative) about my chosen topics -- from spray tanning (negative), pink Legoes (positive), or the new HBO show, Girls (negative).  “You know I think you’re a great writer, Sarah,” she says cautiously, adding, "but sometimes I don’t always like your subject matter.” 

“That’s okay,” I tell her.  “You don’t have to.”  I am not offended by this, nor am I surprised.  Knowing that she even takes the time to read my blog is a compliment -- it would be overkill and unexpected, even, to think that she would agree with everything I say.  “Just be careful,” she continues, as if writing a blog that very seldom people read is going to set me up for being kidnapped or raped, but I take her expressed concern as a term of endearment anyway. 

“I appreciate your honesty,” I say.  And I do.  My mom’s perspective is, well, that of a 50-something-year-old Mom – much different than mine, but nonetheless I appreciate her point of view, even if it's slightly old fashioned, the focus of which is on the following issues: my keeping up appearances, being a “lady”, and maintaining a sense of morality.  These are not bad things, and while her opinions make me reflect more about them, they sometimes have the unfortunate side effect of inhibiting me a little bit -- not the best thing when you're trying to attain the ultimate sense of freedom through your creative pursuits -- though it's usually temporary. 

“You are not trash,” she says, referring to my various posts, some of which sometimes contain inappropriately explicit content, according to her. 

I pause, and smile, “Well, maybe I am trashy,” I say. 

“You are not trashy.” 

“Maybe I’m a little trashy,” I respond, testing her. 

I give my mom props for raising the woman I’ve become – she instilled in me the ability to become a pretty strong and dynamic person; she showed me the value of good manners and of being a lady (to which I sometimes succeed at); she taught me all the housewife basics (I am no housewife, but if I were I think I'd be a damned good one); and, she reinforced the importance of gumption and follow-through.  By way of leading by example, and perhaps most important, she also taught me to have a voice, an opinion, a perspective.  I cannot remember ever not having an opinion about something, whether I shared it or kept it to myself.

The truth of the matter – which I tried to explain to my mom in this conversation and which she understood being the reflective person she is – is the importance of having a little place in the world where we can feel free to be ourselves, away from what society expects from us, from what our parents expect from us, from what even we expect from ourselves, because often, when we let down our guard, when we give way to inhibitions, we surprise ourselves, giving way to greater depth than we ever thought possible, and that is a pretty special thing -- inappropriate or not. 

For me, that space happens to be my blog, which is mostly anonymous, except for friends and family who know I keep one.  For others who happen to stumble upon it, well, they only know me as Sarah, that “wallflower with a lot of opinions and a bit of sass.”

I believe that practicing honesty by shedding inhibitions is a big step to sharing yourself with the world, even if that “world” happens to be only a few handfuls of people.  It’s a short life to live if we’re always consumed with appearances and how people are perceiving us  -- something we all struggle with in one way or another because we’re all just trying to be understood.   Ultimately, the gratification we get from a life fully lived is achieved by being as honest with ourselves as we can be and then attaining the self-acceptance that we're all striving for.   And you know what?  Life is too short to be ladylike all the time.  Right, Mom?

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