Living in the Age of Preoccupation

I might only be 27, but I have already been lectured about eye creams and asked a million times what I will do with my life as though time is running out.  Your twenties are supposed to be your young and vital years and I feel them slipping through my fingers like a leaking faucet.  Not only that, but my hair is already turning gray, which everyone keeps telling me comes from stress.  Don't they realize that telling me that just gives me one more thing to stress out about? 

Last weekend we experienced the wrath of hurricane Irene.  Leading up to the storm I was a little concerned, but also somewhat excited.  I was collecting candles from all different corners of my apartment and filtering water into bottles just in case we couldn’t drink the tap water.  I wasn’t worried enough to fill the bathtub with water, which was fine because the storm didn’t even take out the power to my little apartment in New York.  To be honest, I was a tiny bit disappointed that I didn’t get an excuse to light all the candles and read by candlelight and prepare different foods and snuggle up to my boyfriend as though we were camping.  But I did enjoy falling asleep on the futon listening to the swooshing of the wind and the rain rapping on my windowpane.  I also appreciate that my family and loved ones were all safe and that the storm didn’t do as much damage as some people thought it might.  Anyway, to get to the point, since I had power and nothing better to do (or anything to stress about since I was just enjoying listening to the storm), I watched a documentary about stress.  Did you know that your stress level could be directly correlated to your position in your social hierarchy?  For many of us this relates to our job.  Scientists studied baboons first, measuring stress hormones in blood samples from baboons at different levels of their social hierarchy.  Then, a study was done with government workers in England and the results were that the lower your place on the pecking order, the higher your stress levels would be.  It has something to do with the level of control you have and the level of fulfillment that you experience.  Which means that you can compensate for a lower place in the work hierarchy if your true priority in life is being involved in some activity outside of work where you excel or take a higher position.  It got me thinking that the stresses that I attribute to specific daily life afflictions in reality have a deeper root, which is the lack of direction that I have been experiencing and ultimately the stress that I am going to miss the deadline to figure out what I want to do in life and fail. 

 

Finally, I realized that I am in control of this viewpoint.  I am the one who at some naïve point in my life thought that I could, would, and wanted to have my career settled, a husband, and a child by the time I am thirty.  Maybe some people succeed in doing that.  I have a friend that found out what she wants to do with her life and went back to school, planned a wedding, and bought a condo all in the last year, and she’s a few months younger than I am.  I am tremendously happy for her (and maybe feeling a tinge of jealousy that I do not possess the superpowers that she must have to balance all of those things and still be one of the happiest and most relaxed people that I know) but I now recognize that each person’s path is unique.  Well, I knew that, but what I did finally learn is that just because you are not ahead of everyone else in doing something doesn’t mean that you’re falling behind or failing.  My path has zigzagged its way through life.  Maybe it will continue to zigzag.  But now, I am taking control of my life again and I will be the one to evaluate and decide and reevaluate and change my mind if I need to about what I want to do when. 

So, I have now decided that my thirties are going to be great.  They might be the best years of my life.  My twenties have helped me grow and realize that I need to know myself before I can see where I am going in life.  I am doing that, so I feel like I am succeeding on my own time.  My thirties, well, those will be ten years that allow me to go after what I want, and I am now looking forward to them.  I always had this

A Tired Moment in Madrid on a Tuesday

Firefox is currently taunting me with 44 tabs that I opened with sudden vigor yesterday in the hope of making a giant step towards figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.  “Know thyself.”  Sounds easy, or at least straightforward, but in my experience, that project takes on a life of its own, progressing with fits and starts, especially for those of us whose idea of writing a final paper was pulling an all-nighter and finishing hours, or sometimes minutes before it was due.  I guess getting to know yourself is much like getting to know anyone else: it takes time.  Then again, you get to know others through conversation, but if I start having conversations with myself I might end up with more serious problems than not knowing where my life is going…

So, here I am, wriggling around in my seat in a way that would make my mother yell at me to sit still.  Fortunately for me, no one is here and I can jitter and wiggle and squirm to my heart’s content without causing anyone the desire to gouge her eyes out with a dull spoon.  I look around and my gaze is met by a multitude of sights: a cup of chamomile tea that I just steeped in the hopes of helping me to relax (or perhaps making tea was another way to procrastinate –I’m not entirely sure), my work manual that silently reminds me of a revision that I need to add into it by the end of the month (yup, that would be tomorrow), a short stack of magazines that I’ve been meaning to read and haven’t (the one on top is Writer’s Digest from February), the book “On Becoming Fearless” reminding me of a blog entry that I have yet to finish writing, a to-do list composed of twelve items (eight of which have stars next to them but won’t all get done), a perfectly ripe peach that I am saving for breakfast tomorrow, and a chocolate pudding cup that keeps tempting me to put off writing for just a few more minutes. 

And then I stop to think.  If, even in a hotel room that I will only occupy for 22 hours, I have a paragraph’s worth of distractions, how do I have any hope of actually getting anything done anywhere?  And then I think of Stephen King’s book “On Writing,” in which he talks about how you have this vision of being a writer with an office and a big desk that you sit at for hours, but the truth is that you have to live to have anything to write about and where you write can even be a corner of the laundry room.  The living part I’m working on, but the corner of the laundry room?  Well, let’s just say that I have issues concentrating regardless of where I sit down.  Then again, I haven’t actually tried the laundry room yet.  Of course I don’t have a laundry room, so I’d have to settle for the Laundromat and I’m not sure how the owner would feel about that… And see?  There goes my brain, metaphorically wriggling in its own right. 

The point of this, you wonder?  There is no point, except for the fact that I think everyone goes through this restlessness at some point or another and, as long as you keep working towards your goal, you’re still doing something right. 

So, keep at it, my friends.  I promise I won’t be giving up just yet.  

Wedding Bells Bring Change

Remember the bridal shower I was planning?  Well, the wedding is this Friday.  I can't believe that it's really the day after tomorrow.  Everything happened so fast.  I'm not sure that I'm ready for all the months of preparations (mostly Laura's, but I was lucky enough to be cheering from the sidelines through it all) to be over.  I know for the bride and the groom the wedding will just be the beginning, but it's strange to think that they are beginning something that I am not a part of.  Don't get me wrong, I don't hope or expect to be a part of their marriage, nor do I delude myself thinking that I was a part of their relationship when they were dating, but there is no doubt in my mind that things will change.

And that led me to think.  Everything changes in life: the seasons and the weather, the kind of plants that grow or go dormant, the birds that come to the backyard to eat, the fashions that people wear and the TV shows that they watch.  And that reminded me that people's careers are always in a state of change, too.  Very few people go to work every day and do the same exact thing for their whole lives without a single thing changing.  Most people change jobs and even careers several times during their life. 

So, where is my career going?  I think that a planned career change can be a little like planning a wedding.  There is a period of reflection and then a decision to move forward (check).  Then there is a period of planning what you want to do and how you'll get there and taking care of anything that you might need to do in preparation for the hiring process or for the job itself (definitely no check yet).  There are resumes and cover letters and interviews and callbacks (aka the daunting future).  Then, finally, the day comes when you take the plunge and take on a brand new job (cue wedding bells).  The difference is that with a wedding you know exactly what that day will be, whereas with a job search, you don't know how or when it will come about.  My question to myself is whether that day will come when it's due whether or not I am ready.  Or is it possible that I will miss that opportunity?  Maybe it will not come or perhaps I just won't recognize it if I do not prepare.

I've been slacking off a little in the personal discovery department since I've been sick and trying to balance work with wedding preparation stuff.  Even for the maid of honor, a wedding can be a big task.  I think that once Saturday arrives I'll be ok.  I know that things will change in my friend's relationship with the people that she is friends with, but I know that there will still be room for me in her life.  And while she goes off on her honeymoon and then comes back to make her new condo into a home with her new husband, I will get back to my self discovery project and really work on finding out who I am and where I am going.

Hopefully the next post will be about what I learned from reading On Becoming Fearless.  Until then, it's all wedding stuff because enjoying the moment you are in is just as important as preparing for the next one.

JMJ