Resourcing the Revolution

Writing

On Writing and Darkness (or: an external look into an internal world)

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writing-darkness_640We all have a face that we put on for the external world – a face that hides, to some degree or other, our innermost workings, our fears and our insecurities.

For some people, you can’t see the real person for the facade, where others are mostly transparent, letting their inner self shine through.

I like to think of myself as being of the latter category; I try to be true to myself in everything I do, and to just be me. That being said, I think even the most transparent of people have a side of themselves, an unconscious that lurks behind the scenes, watching and processing. In most people, that unconscious probably doesn’t come out to play very often – perhaps in dreams, or other moments where lucidity slips momentarily away.

What I have come to realize of late is that being a writer allows us to lure out that unconscious, to bring it into the light and to feed it. We live dangerously through our words, our writing conjuring up entire other planes of existence, places where we can bend the rules and play with reality. It allows us to stretch our beings and live through the characters we bring to life on the page.

And, my recent experience has shown that it can unearth an entire side of our selves that we might otherwise not realize existed. My author self is dark, and even when I write with a lighter hand, there is a snark to the humor. I don’t think it’s a negative thing – maybe the darkness that gets expressed in writing allows me to live my real life without that tinge of the unconscious hanging on. Perhaps it allows me to purge the unconscious onto the page, where it lives without clouding my day to day self.

There’s not much more of a point to today’s post, just an airing of a recent musing. That being said, I would love to hear from others who dabble putting pen to paper – do you find that your imagination takes you places that your “everyday self” wouldn’t dare? Do you find that your creative self is entirely different, or is there a blend of the two within?

As always, I would love to hear thoughts and continue this dialogue. (If you dare…)

Bookworm! (or: recapturing a lost love)

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bookworm_640Confession: I used to be a huge bookworm.

I taught myself to read when I was young. (Before you give me too much credit, my parents read to me every night from the time I was a baby, and I know that I picked up a lot of my reading comprehension from that activity.) If my memory serves, it was when I was around the age of 6 that I had a reading primer that I carried around with me, sounding out letters and picking out the familiar pieces. It didn’t take long to start piecing together words out of letters, and soon sentences out of words.

And then? I was hooked.

You couldn’t take me anywhere without a book. My parents severely limited the amount of television I watched (one show during the week, and one on the weekend – thanks, mom!), so I had lots of time to be a kid – I ran around outside and played with my dogs, kept myself entertained for hours in some part of my imagination or other, and read voraciously.

This carried on through elementary school and into middle school. Even when I entered high school, I kept my face in one book or another – AP English classes, stuff I read on my own, books my parents kept on the bookshelves at our house – it was all fair game. When I was in high school, I worked at an art gallery during semester breaks, and I read behind the counter when no customers were around; those summers, I would tear through a novel every day.

Then, college hit. I was in the Honors program at JMU my freshman year, as well as being in the marching band and the countless hours of required classes and ensembles for my major. I stopped reading for pleasure, because I simply had too much other work to do. My hours were precious, and usually spent in the basement of the music building.

Cue graduation from college, starting a teaching career, and the years that passed afterwards…

Somewhere along the way, I lost my love of reading. It got delegated to the “things that take time I don’t have” list, and started to gather dust. There have been several attempts to pick back up where I left off over the past decade, but none have stuck.

Now? It’s time for a change. A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about why it’s important to spend your life learning, and reading is a huge part of that for me. To be a great writer, one must consume vast quantities of great literature, and success points to those who take time to read. I read a blog article recently that indicated that the most successful writers and bloggers usually read a book a week.

Just this morning, I read a Matt Madeiro post titled “How to Start Reading” – a timely reminder that building a habit has less to do with forcing yourself to get back into something, and more to do with taking small, consistent, achievable steps in the right direction. If you’re having a hard time finding your way back into your reading habit, I highly recommend that you pop over and read that article.

I’m taking bigger steps right now. I’m reading a Paul Theroux book at the moment, in preparation for my cross country Amtrak trip to Portland, OR. I leave in a couple of weeks, and I want to write about the trip – the Theroux is providing amazing motivation.

And, in the name of continuing education, I have a stack of yet unread books awaiting my hungry eyes. This is one restart that I intend to keep rolling – even if I have to go so far as scheduling in time for reading, it’s important enough that I’ll do it.

How about you, dear reader? What have you been reading recently, or are you like me and in need of a restart?

If so – small steps. Or big steps. Whatever works for you – just start!

Labels (and why I’m cutting mine out)

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labels_640Labels.

They’re the reason clothing companies created “tagless tees” – because tags chafe and itch, and otherwise drive you batty. (My grandmother used to cut all the tags out of her clothes; as soon as it came in her house, out went the tag. Not so helpful when trying to identify an article of clothing by size, or looking for laundering instructions…) Of course, you probably realize that I’m not talking about -those- kind of labels, but you know what I mean.

As I have wandered along the path that is my life, I have subconsciously put labels on myself:

Environmentalist (hippie) (organizer) (ruckus-raiser) (activist) (tree hugger)
(semi) vegetarian (vegan) (localvore)
Musician (teacher) (artist)
Designer (web) (social) (digital)

We as a society tend to label ourselves and others according to the things we do.

Can I tell you how crazy it makes me that the first question folks ask when they meet someone new is “what do you do for a living?” – not “what kinds of things are you super-passionate about” or some other (deeper) question. We get caught up in these superficial interactions, as though knowing that someone you just met is an accountant, and you’re a dentist, and… where do we go from there? Zzzzz.

(No offense to dentists or accountants, it’s just the first two standard-type jobs that popped into my head!)

That being said, if what you do for a living really sets you on fire, absolutely consumes you, and you love it enough for it to define WHO you really are, how you want other people to see you? That’s freaking awesome. Kudos to you.

For me? I have recently come to the conclusion that while labels can be helpful in some cases (if fitting us into neat little boxes is actually helpful), they’re awfully constraining.

I’ve talked a lot about finding your “hell yes” – some of those labels above were at one point or other (or currently) a passion of mine. However, they are not all a hell yes right now. By identifying as any of the things above, I often find myself less willing to be open to something else. Like I talked about earlier in the year in my post about saying yes more, many times it would behoove us to let go of preconceived notions and try something new.

Tried something new and it’s not a “hell yes”? Don’t do it again.

Something that you used to identify with no longer a “hell yes”? No reason to hold yourself to it, if it no longer resonates.

This path we’re all on is different for each of us. Chances are, it’s going to meander quite a bit: curving here and there, occasionally taking a sharp turn, sometimes uphill and other times down. The important thing is to enjoy it while you travel it.

You may get tired of hearing me say it, but life is short. Enjoy your path.

And don’t worry if you have to rip the labels out along the way.

Continuing Education (or: always be learning)

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education_640Two points, one post:

1. As a former teacher, I lament the loss of school systems that actually teach children how to think; with the advent of No Child Left Behind and a strict adherence to the SOLs (Standards of Learning), we are slowly building generations of young people who have learned how to memorize and regurgitate specific information – nothing more, nothing less. If it’s not on the SOLs, it’s not important. I know that there are still teachers in the field who are fighting the good fight, attempting to teach their students how to think independently and how to learn on their own, and I am incredibly grateful to know that such teachers still exist.

2. Recent news from the education front seems to indicate a trend: traditional higher level education is worth less than it used to be. This might not be the case with more specialized fields, but it holds true in many progressive (read: constantly advancing) job fields. Especially in technical fields like software development (with a never-ending cascade of new programming languages and ever-evolving technology coming down the pipeline), a traditional four year degree may see students graduating from college who have spent obscene amounts of money on a piece of paper that proudly declares that they have a degree in now-outdated languages, technologies and methods.

Those two points being raised, it makes me wonder how well we are equipping future generations to forge a path for themselves. Being of the college-graduate-who-no-longer-utilizes-her-degree category (hello, music education major who changed career paths less than 5 years after graduation), I can say that my college experience was highly beneficial, but more for the experience of learning how to learn, and widening my horizons. It’s still a good idea to go through college if you want to be a teacher, being that it’s one of those more traditional, specialized fields that requires licensure after degree completion.

That being said, when I decided to switch directions, I chose to go a more vocational route. I looked at grad school as an option, but realized that as an aspiring digital designer, by the time I completed the program I would not only be broke (and very much in debt), but I would have invested my time and money into learning that was cutting edge a decade ago. Not so great as investments go!

So, what’s the answer? Good question.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” ~ Gandhi

Many of my amazing colleagues in the design and development fields are self-taught. These folks have made the decision to invest in themselves in a less traditional manner, by jumping in and learning as they go as opposed to spending years chained to one institution or one course of study. Many of them have made a name for themselves along the way, carving new paths as they moved forward – not being molded by any one brand of teacher or academy, they are less stifled by other people’s methods and thereby more likely to be unique.

Personally, I have made it one of my goals to invest in myself and my business this year. I spent the first year-plus concentrating so hard on finishing up my last two semesters, focusing on clients and exterior projects that I never left time for myself. Reason number one I had a less than stellar website during that period of time? You guessed it!

Starting this past spring with my site redesign, and continuing into the foreseeable future, I’m changing that pattern. It took a while, but I finally came to the realization that it’s a win-win situation; I’m learning more and becoming better at everything I do, which benefits not only me, but my clients as well.

Coming full circle to my point about our youngest generations never being taught how to learn, I really want there to be a vector change in that situation. Without early education, it makes it incredibly difficult for these students to make the investment in themselves later in life.

But… maybe I’m wrong, and maybe these kids will be the first generation to really teach themselves starting from a younger age. With the wealth of information readily available at our fingertips, it’s possible to learn without a teacher, outside the establishment. Let’s hope that as education undergoes a massive transformation, we don’t lose our students in the wake.

As for me, I’ll be here in my little corner of the world, drinking in the world around me; always learning.

Willpower (or: what to do when you don’t wanna)

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willpower_640Last week, I wrote about one tip that I use for keeping on top of procrastination. This week, I’ll admit that I am having a bit of a hard time keeping to my own tactics.

Here’s why. Sometimes, even when you have set a standard for yourself, bypassing the usual workarounds that would allow you to procrastinate your way out of doing what you are supposed to, you just can’t muster the desire to take the first step. Or the middle ones. Or even do anything remotely related to the task at hand.

You can hear your inner self in the background… “but I don’t WANNA!”

Sometimes all the tricks in the world won’t help you avoid the procrastination trap, and you end up facing down your impending deadline with the feeling that you just don’t care. No one else is paying attention, so why should you give a crap? It would be much easier to just give up and move on.

(Side note: if you feel like this most of the time, it’s probably a sign that you should probably re-evaluate what you’re doing – find your “hell yes” and be passionate about what you’re doing.)

That note aside, sometimes you just gotta suck it up and do it anyway. Push through, power on despite the perceived agony. (Second side note: it’s usually never as bad as it seems at the time.)

It’s like when your mom used to force you to eat your broccoli at the dinner table, because it was good for you. Or when Calvin’s dad (of Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes) used to tell Calvin that the things he hated doing built character. It’s kinda like that, only now it’s just you – no parental type telling you what to do “for your own good”. Now it’s just you, your amazing procrastination abilities, and your willpower.

Nike says: Just do it.

Once you manage to swear, complain and whinge your way through the task at hand, it will all be over and you can move on. Heck, maybe it will even help you get some momentum back.

Recap?

Quit whining and just do it.

The Power of Procrastination (or: schedule it!)

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procrastination_640One of the things that I learned from Chris Guillebeau a long time ago was the power of deciding on and sticking to a schedule. For someone who is a skilled procrastinator like myself, this has proven to be invaluable. One of the keys to success is consistency – for example, picking Tuesday evening as your scheduled time to put up a blog post (oh hi there!) – and sticking with it, no matter what.

If you fail to stick to your schedule, you then have to publicly admit defeat. For example, if you miss writing a blog post, you are then required to post something – even if it’s as simple as a note that says “this week I failed.” (Ouch.)

The reasoning for giving yourself this level of consistency is that you create a standard to which you hold yourself (even if no one else is reading this, I know that if I miss a scheduled post, I have failed); if you allow yourself to slip, it then becomes easier and easier the next time, on and on in a downward spiral. “Oh, I had a lot going on today, I’ll just write tomorrow… oh, this week was just no good, I’ll write next week…” All of a sudden, it’s next month, and your blog is lying awake at night, lonely and abandoned… you get the picture!

I hold myself to this standard, knowing that my personality type is such that I could earn a gold medal at the Procrastination Olympics – next year. By creating consistency for myself, I hold myself accountable. I allow myself to sidestep the messy procrastination track, and I keep myself on task.

I know that this system doesn’t work for everyone, but if you’re anything like me, give it a shot. Be your own accountability partner and schedule yourself for success. And, let me know how it goes (or if you have tips and tricks for your specific personality- or work-type)!