Your heroes are fallible

Your heroes are fallible. Be they mythical, fiction or human they are flawed. Despite their flaws you saw something in them worth admiring. Herein lies the lesson. You too are flawed and you too are worth admiring.

One of the greatest influences in my life is just under 4 feet tall. Yet more than once she stared down (up) fully grown men, and won. She buried more boyfriends in the war (WW2) than I care to recall. She dared to date a black man when it was an excommunicable taboo. She raised 4 children and miscarried 2. She buried her husband after watching lung cancer steal his very breath. She did ‘men’s work’ during the week while the men were fighting WW2 and was chastised for wearing pants to church on Sunday.

I love her humility.

Her utter fearlessness.

Her bottomless compassion.

Her selflessness.

Her ability to be stronger than iron in the face of adversity and gentle as a lamb when some needs a soft place to fall.

Only she was diagnosed with advanced Alzheimer Dementia yesterday. Her humility and selflessness have evaporated she is always anxious and even curt. She barely registers the emotions of those around her and is oblivious to the needs of anybody but herself.

The tears streaming down my face now feel like a burning betrayal to the woman she used to be. Who would have told me not to waste my tears over something I can’t change. I am struggling to find the lesson in all of this:

Am I to understand what who we are and what we do is to some extent out of our control?

Am I to understand that there is inherent balance in the universe and we must all be selfless and selfish?

Am I to learn to love this new incarnation of her personality despite it all?

The best I can come up with is that our heros are fallible.

12 ways to know you’re doing ok

1. You breathe deeply when you realise you are so tense you forgot to breathe.
2. You get so frustrated that you laugh.
3. You get the urge to move when you are stressed. Walking, running, even punching (a punching bag or pillow) are good ways to move you from a stressful state to a better one.
4. You want to walk away when you feel like you are going in circles.
5. You have shown super-human patience at least once in your life.
6. When you’re seething you know just who to call to calm you down. And you have them on speed dial.
7. You find time to help a mate out, even when you’re so busy you forget to go to the bathroom.
8. You have the self control to be pleasant to the checkout-chick even when you are having the worst day ever.
9. You immediately apologise when you snap at friends and colleagues because you are stressed.
10. You can keep your cool long enough not to call your boss/parents/friend an asshole to their face.
11. You have the presence of mind not to shop, get married or make any big decisions when you’re angry or frustrated.
12. When you are in your darkest moment… you walk on because you recognise that it will pass.

The perfect storm…

I have been described as kaleidoscopic before. And I tend to agree with the description. I have many facets and in isolation it would be easy to see nothing but a bag of contradictions. For example:

• I am good at setting and enforcing boundaries but I will move mountains for the benefit of my family (even if means I encroach my boundaries a little, or a lot.)
• I have no problem pissing people off and upsetting them standing up for myself but more and more I can justify less and less occasions where I pissing others off
• I give no weight to convention, just because others have done it before me doesn’t make it right, necessary or better but I am getting married, at least in part, for conventions sake
• I am a super calm person who handles stress well yet I break down into borderline panic attacks when I go to plan my wedding
• I am not materialistic and competitive but I fear I may have a bridezilla lurking inside of me that is

Can you see a pattern emerging? Let me spell it out for you. I am a normal, healthy, happy, reasonable, capable, compassionate, down to earth, confident woman except when it comes to all things wedding planning.

Just writing this post has me biting my nails. Is it any wonder that I have been engaged for 4 years without so much as throwing an engagement party or setting a wedding date?

What crazy thing is your Achilles heel?

Fuel

I have long suspected that I am at my most effective when I am emotional. It is a phenomena that works in my favour because I am far more emotional than analytical. In fact in a job I had a few years ago the whole team was personality tested. I got 25 out of 25 for ‘makes decisions emotionally’ the next highest score in that category was a 3. When I say ‘emotional’ I don’t mean throwing vases at the wall, sobbing breathlessly or rocking in the foetal position I mean fueled by deep feeling.

If a task, person or goal doesn’t have meaning for me I struggle to even pretend to care. Something either makes me feel something or it is purely a fact that may, or may not be, useful to the analytical side of my brain. My friends and my poor partner know when I have deemed something merely an analytical fact because I (rather rudely) interject with a comment along the lines of “The point. Can we get to the point?” On the collorary, if I have attached meaning and emotion to something, even something as mundane as stuffing envelopes, I will give myself fully to the task and attack it with zeal.

So imagine how validated I felt when I read that a study by Dr Gary Macpherson concluded that it is emotional reaction not innate skill that makes a person learn faster.

Fantastic, now I have scientific studies illustrating that learning Portuguese now that I have a baby really is easier than when I was childless, because now I am emotionally invested in talking to him in his Daddy’s native tongue. Pity the study also proves that the reason I haven’t made any headway in learning about rock climbing is because I couldn’t give a toss about it, not just because I have no skill in it.

*image credit Ottoman42

When no labels fit…

It is at once liberating and disconcerting to realise that I don’t have to work. Mind you, I am a full time carer to my son and run the household in much the same way as an office manager runs a business, but I don’t need to go back to work outside the home for around another 5 years or so.

I can be pretty slow on the up-take and despite this being the state of affairs since my maternity leave began 15 months ago, the realisation only hit me this week. Until now I have been busying myself with finding roles and labels for myself and what I do. You see I know I have value, but I have always known it through the filter of external labels. It was what I did and what the world saw me as that was valuable. Now the world sees me as a ‘Stay at home mother’ and while it is a role I relish it is (I’m being honest here) such a reductive label.

Before I go offending other mothers, let me explain. If you meet someone new and reply to ‘what do you do?’ that you are a mother people don’t ask what else you do, your opinion on current events, about your hobbies or after your current goals. Instead the assumption is made that all you are capable of discussing is your children and that the most interesting thing you do is make sandwiches and wrestle a toddler. This is NOT a whine about motherhood, but to simply point out the elephant in the room.

I love being a mum and I don’t take for granted the luxury I enjoy of staying at home with my young son. But by the same token I was a well rounded individual before I took time off to have children and that part of me still exists. I am driven and passionate, capable and adaptable and for the first time I have realised that areas of my life other than my career can benefit from these parts of me. My dreams can be the focus of my ambition.

I have a chance to live my passions -just because.

Goodbye feelings of inadequacy at not having an active career. Hello excitement at the reality of chasing the fun side of my life – now – while I am still young.

So without further ado the following is a list of goals that I will work on over the next 5 years with the same zeal that I used to apply to achieving promotions at work:

• Become fluent in Portuguese & Spanish
• Take up Trekking (New Zealand and Nepal first and Peru when my youngest is over 8 years old)
• Have a second baby
• Get married
• Learn to use food as medicine
• Live overseas
• Learn web design

My hope, and the true goal of this exercise, is that along the journey to achieving each of these goals I will have mastered the skill of deriving my worth from internal means only. How I feel, how I react, what I love, what I accept, the personal challenges I overcome and how much passion I can pour into each and every day.

Our parents’ mistakes

I am really struggling at the moment with this notion that productivity equals worth. As a society we are lengthening our work days and taking side projects like consulting, blogging and even second jobs. What I find most astounding is that it is Gen-Y who is leading the charge. What the? Yes we are in our twenties and building the foundations of our careers and indeed our lives but wasn’t it us that vowed never to repeat our parents’ mistake of putting work before fulfillment and happiness?

I feel like we are being duped. We say we are chasing our dreams and living life on our own terms – really? Hands up who dreamed as a child of working 80 hour weeks? Hands up who dreamed of feeling the need to schedule time in order to feel comfortable relaxing? It sounds a whole lot like we are chasing the job, so we feel good about our title on Linkedin and the money to buy the stuff that we see in ads and on recommendations from Twitter and Facebook.

I don’t mean to sound judgemental really I don’t. My biggest struggle when I took time off to have a baby was that I didn’t feel productive enough. But I have since detoxed from the addiction that is feeling constantly rushed and busy.

By all means chase your dreams, create your empire, but have perspective. The art of going with the flow, the skill of remaining calm in a chaotic world, the mastery of the ego’s need to feel constantly important will bode you just as well as a side project or kudos for working overtime – but they won’t break you in the process.

Secret desires

We don’t often admit (to ourselves) what we really want. If knowing what you want doesn’t terrify you and exhilarate you at the same time, then you don’t really want it.

We tell ourselves lies about what we want and justify them to others. We settle for lesser goals. We try to satisfy our appetite with more palatable pursuits. We compromise. We play it safe.

There is a popular, and flawed, theory about why we avoid our true desires. The theory suggests that we avoid what we really want because we are afraid of failure. Yes, failure sucks. I am yet to meet anybody who enjoys it. But I do know, and know of, plenty of people who relish in the memory of failure experienced and overcome. Failure is a situation, an event, an opinion, a belief. We aren’t deeply afraid of failure.

We are utterly petrified of anguish. We fear the heartbreak & the pain of watching our dreams perish before our eyes.

So often we don’t surrender to what we really wanted until we are on the brink of losing it. The aversion to the agony is stronger than the desire for the sublime reward of realising your deepest secret dream.

Don’t bite your tongue. Don’t doubt your gut. Don’t be afraid of knowing and chasing what you really want. Listen to the quiet voice within or else you might find that you started to fight way too late and only ended up with a front row seat to watch it slip away.

There will never be a right time. There will never be a perfect situation. It will never get easier, safer. Surrendering to your deepest wants will always be fraught with risk, the risk of being hurt in the deepest possible way.

Truth: I want another baby*. I realised this when the doctor told me the test was negative.

*Note – It is now a goal of mine for the next 5 years to have another baby. I won’t be trying for a baby in the immediate future though. Mum and Dad please don’t freak out.

When ‘almost’ is good enough

• The house is almost tidy
• My speech was almost perfect
• I almost aced the test
• I ate almost all of my vegetables
• The glass is almost full
• I almost got lost
• I pre-vetted almost all of the candidates
• I possess almost all of the desired qualification and experience for the role
• I read almost all of the new posts in my Google reader
• I almost got 8 hours sleep last night
• I know almost all the lyrics to this song
• I have almost finished (insert any work of Charles Dickens)
• I can almost dance the tango
• I am almost fluent in a second language
• I am almost up to date with my filing
• I almost finished the cryptic crossword
• I almost made a complete fool of myself
• I almost didn’t see the stop sign
• I went almost 6 hours without checking my e-mails

Gender

I said in my very first post that ‘I am not saying all women are the same, but that more often than not we are alike.’ I honestly believe that. There are a few universal female experiences that can bond strange women together in an instant. I have listed a few of them below. *Male readers may wish to think of something decidedly ‘blokey’ for the next few lines. I’ll let you know when its safe to read again.*

• An early period and the embarrassment of asking a friend (or stranger) for some feminine hygiene products.
• All mothers are bonded through the experience of pregnancy and labour. Trust me it not something you ever forget.
• Wardrobe malfunctions. Namely breasts popping out where they shouldn’t be seen. We have all been there.
• Inappropriate tears. Most women have cried despite silently threatening their body with grievous harm should it betray her.
• Complete and utter confusion with the males of the species. I am yet to meet a woman who hasn’t been left scratching her head at how he could have missed the toilet bowl and not seen it.
• Speaking of toilets every woman has been stuck in a line 10 miles long for the ladies room while there isn’t anybody in the men’s toilets because they are busy pissing on a tree at a music festival. That line is like an express bonding session and if you are brave enough to march into the men’s room the women who you meet there are like your soul sisters for life.

*Male readers can tune in now. No more talk about periods, breasts or toilets. I promise*

On a less superficial level than periods and bathroom queues women have a lot in common. We are all daughters, most of us are loving partners, some are mothers, many are sisters and aunties too. We all experience heartbreak, we birth the new (for some the new generation for other new companies and new ideas) & we work damn hard (in fact it is estimated that women are responsible for 70% of the hours worked globally – much of that unpaid). We think differently to men, we lead differently to men, we experience the world differently and we have a different, not better or worse, contributions to make to the world than men.

So why is so so frowned upon to bond with other women? Why is it such a social crime to refer to ones gender? I seems totally insane to me for it to be ok for us to talk about our womanhood in context of lip gloss and tampons (Sorry guys. I promised didn’t I?) but not in context of the number of women who are abused by their spouses, of our rights around how and where we birth our children and the consistent statistics that women earn less than men in the industrialised workplace to the tune of around 80c in the dollar.

I am tired of hiding from the term ‘Feminist’. I am tired of being told the glass ceiling no longer exists. I am tired of study after study identifying new prejudices against women in the workforce. It is time to discuss gender again, not so we can use it as a weapon to beat men up with or beat women down with, but to understand and encourage the complementary contribution of both genders.

Are you woman enough to put your gender on the agenda? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

When change is synonymous with challenge

….

• you don’t notice that you’re growing
• you doubt yourself less
• you rise to meet the occasion as opposed to clinging to the status quo
• you don’t mourn the inherent losses
• you don’t see the baby-steps, except in hindsight
• you catastrophise less
• you are more realistic with your expectations
• you see obstacles as a part of the process
• you are less self critical
• you put up or shut up

Running on empty

We all have the capacity to contain energy & vitality. We are also apt at losing vitality and energy. Healthy, happy, productive people have found the right balance between activities that boost their energy levels and ones that tax their energy levels.

There are a number of reasons for keeping your energy levels high:

• It feels better
• You are healthier when your energy levels are high
• You have the reserves available to do the things you want to do

…but there is another reason for keeping on top of things and ensuring you have bountiful energy. Murphy’s Law.

Murphy’s Law states not only that if it can go wrong it will. But also that it will go wrong in the worst possible sequence.

The scenario goes like this – You are running on empty. You no sooner finish the thought “the last thing I need right now is…”  and you will get the call. If you’re anything like me then you will swear like a trooper. Then you will whine about the timing. Then you will remark about how you “just knew it would happen now”. And you did.

You knew it would happen and you knew when it would happen because you have been busy ignoring and denying the warning signs for a while now. You have put everything else higher on the priority list while your energy levels have been steadily declining. You knew it had to be dealt with, addressed, but the business of your life was put first. The dry cleaning, the errand, the overtime, the social engagement, the project, the favour, the deadline all taxed your energy and time, so energy boosting activities fell by the wayside and the domino’s began to fall.

Lesson: Know what fills your reservoir and make time for it. Guard those activities with all your might. You never know when the perfect opportunity might pass you by because you were too busy running on empty.

Life

It’s not always fair. In fact it rarely is. It favours the brave, the ambitious, the unencumbered, the blinkered and the tunnel visioned. So if you have loved ones, hobbies, are compassionate, have children, see the bigger picture beyond your wants – you have some tough decisions to make.

The ghastly thing about tough decisions (a.k.a big scary adult decisions) is that the pay off for bravely facing the hard truth and making a considered decision is… well, not much. These are the decisions you make behind closed doors, alone or with your partner. They aren’t broadcast on Twitter, they don’t become blog fodder and its not something you chit-chat about over drinks. Nobody pats you on the back for putting your family first, you don’t get a medal for walking away from a dodgy offer, no one gives you kudos for considering the consequences, being compassionate and doing the right thing.

The pay of we get for smiling through the tears, working our fingers to the bone, fitting yet more into an already overstretched work week or family budget, for passing up an opportunity in order to spend time with your kids, for taking a career break to work for Legal Aid, for supporting your partner in their dreams, for overseeing the care of ailing loved ones, for working 2 part time jobs to afford medical school? Your sense of self.

For those whose life will not be dedicated to setting the world on fire, founding charities or fortune 500 companies, for whom the sweetness of life will not be accolades, positive press, awards and making history, the pay off is something almost spiritual. To know your heart was big enough to love despite the sacrifices, to know you were humble enough to celebrate the small successes, graceful enough to smile through the tears and wise enough to see the meaning in it all.