While decompressing from tres semanas locas de español, I found an interesting article/podcast about how to battle the incessant feeling of failure that many creative types endure. In the episode titled Feeling Successful, Dr. Eric Maisel “examine[s] the idea that purpose wanes if we do not experience success—or at least the feeling of success.” Check it out. Here’s the link for the article, and the podcast.
Giving it a read just might delay cutting off your ear or walking into the lake with pockets full of rocks—until tomorrow, at least.
Every thirty-something I know has heard their grandpa tell them, “the more you learn, the less you know.” Yeah, sure gramps, we’d say–our stock response to anything we believed didn’t or wouldn’t pertain to us. Then we went about our merry, careless way to become masters of all things our friends knew, or pretended to know. Of course, then, there was a naivety that buffered us from seeming hopelessly arrogant–except for Johny Lipton, what an ass. He claimed to know more about the personal details of your period than you. But he didn’t. According to where he told us to insert the tampon, he could have worn one too. We didn’t bother correcting him.
I know this has been the site’s longest hiatus (a week, egad!) since 2011 rolled in, but I promise we haven’t abandoned you. Moving, apparently, once you’ve acquired a U-Haul worth of stuff, takes time. Several times this past week I found myself reminiscing about my youth, when I could fit everything I owned in a 1980 Toyota truck, including my motorcycle. Changing scenery, jobs, habits, boyfriends, whatever, was easier then. But regardless the size of the moving truck we can’t let it intimidate us into staying parked.
We know when it’s time to make a change, yet often ignore that wisdom, denying that something once so superb could be anything less. We may resist admitting that Café Sintra is no longer our favorite after telling the staff three visits in a row that our crepes were cold. We may buy flower pots and place them on the deck to detract from the tarp covering the building defects below. Deception is often easier to swallow, initially, than truth–even if it is coated in Polyethylene.
But at some point we either have to decide to park ourselves in the driveway of disappointment or do something different. Sadly, many opt for the cracked asphalt of disappointment. So what’s it take to get your giddy-up? A driving force, of course.
Think of it this way … the U-Haul will sit in your driveway all day, every day, no matter the cost. But when driven by [click to continue…]
Some of us learned from the best (thanks mom) on how to devalue ourselves and dive into the pit of “I’m not good enough,” or cute enough, or rich enough, or whatever enough. The reasons why, or the frequency in which we end up here, are irrelevant. What is relevant is the solution. “Yes!” you may say. [...]
