Dropping Bad Habits: Living by Comparison

Making the decision to actively pursue life is one that brings to light a lot of bad habits I have picked up in the short time I have been alive. One majorly bad habit (or activity, or way of thinking, or however you'd like to put it) is the tendency to compare my life to those around me.

Common thoughts that occur:

• "Oh look at [person my age], they already know what they are doing with their life. They have a career, a great place to live, and an awesome social life. What's wrong with me, in that I don't have any of those things figured out?" 
• "Holy crap, those lists of top actors/CEOs/entrepreneurs under 25 is really depressing. Why haven’t I accomplished anything close to that yet?”
• “Oh look at [successful 40-something person]; they started their career by my age. Why haven’t I started on my own amazing career path… will I ever knowsuccess?”
• “I am alone in my career concerns. Everyone around me has their sh*t together, and I am messily stumbling through adulthood.”

In conversation with the wise adults and perceptive peers that fill my life, I have found that I am not the first (nor last) person to have thoughts like these. I am not alone in any of my confusion. I am not alone in this tendency to compare myself to others.

 

This pattern of thought can be quite damaging to anyone. In comparing myself to others, I am just setting myself up for disappointment and frustration within my own situation. Measuring my own success through the way others have made their path in life belittles me and all the great things I have accomplished in recent years.

 

So this is a new commitment: when I am tempted to compare my personal or professional life to another person, the only thing I will look at is the lessons they have learned that I may be able to apply to my own life-voyage.

 

Of course I will falter. There will always be that internal inclination to look outward to figure out where I should be in life. It is hard to avoid. But I will try. I don’t want anyone else to tell me how to live, not even my demanding inner-self. Right now I am exactly where I need to be – I’m ready and rarin’ to grow.

 

Reading: "What Should I Do With My Life?"

This morning I stumbled onto this article from back in January (2009).

I really appreciate this writer's honesty and great perspective on finding meaningful work. He tells us to stop deluding ourselves.

I especially loved this:

"It's not what you do, it's what you're working towards."

I highly recommend this article. It's nice to have someone shatter the old idea that part of me is holding onto - that there is one perfect career out there for me and that I just need to figure out how to find it. In all honesty, there are many possible career paths I could take and be totally satisfied. Given, there will always be features that I don't like. There will be people I don't agree with. There will be procedures I'd rather not follow (but have to anyway). There will be some bad days where I'm wearing my "cranky pants." With that, however, if I believe in what I am working towards (be it some sort of artistic production, some interesting business solution, some other sort of amazing end), every ounce of strife, sweat, and tears will be a badge of honor on my path to accomplishment and selt satisfaction.

I look forward to receiving metaphorical slaps in the face... often. I am still young by many comparisons, and just a toddler in the working world. There is a lot to learn: about life, about work, and about other people in the working world. I'm just happy that I am lucky enough to have a good start - I feel I am being polished for a bright future.

Commit meant what?

One major principle that is coming to light through my reading is the idea of commitment. Unattached and unfocused, I have spent the past year telling myself that I can't really commit to anything. The reasoning was varied and without logic or sound mind; and at the end of the long line of excuses there was one part of me that thought a life without commitment equaled freedom. (More on that later.)

What a funny thing: commitment. The word holds many more connotations than actual meaning. Without acknowledging it, my life has been full of many commitments- constant ones, which until now have held other titles. For example: every morning, I am committed to listening to my “Morning Pump-Up” playlist on my computer. I commit to applying eyeliner before I get dressed. I commit to wearing Vans or Converse as often as I can. I commit to discovering a new band every week. I commit to my friends, but in a way that allows them to flow in and out of my life as circumstances change. I commit to never becoming a blonde. I commit to never shopping at Walmart.
Commitments are wants put into action. Or more precisely, they are pledges to put wants into action. They can be as simple as brushing my teeth every day, or as complex as loan payments or long term relationships. In regards to my own personal development (in my social and work worlds), I can take a new approach and commit to actually making a plan and following through.
Wants, wishes, and dreams are wonderful; but those and $5 will get me a latte. It is in the action, the commitment, to my own plan and my own aspirations where I will find my way.
The days of claiming fear of commitment are over. I have always had the power to change my own path, my own destiny. Now it is just time to take action.

Hmm… this might get overwhelming. I guess I should also look into my whole fear of failure thing too. One step at a time, I'll get there.

“Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Looking Under the Surface of "Want"

So in this little journey of mine I have decided to look for a help in various forms. I'm a shy one at first, so I am starting with a book for young adults looking to find/choose the perfect career. No harm, right? Since I started this blog to document the steps I am taking towards my own wildest dreams, I will share the highlights from the various insights I gain from this book and the exercises it contains.
Below I have copied in one part of an exercise I worked on tonight. I think the questions this book is asking are very well put and are pulling some interesting ideas out of that dormant side of me. This inquiry exercise started by asking for a list of motivations and wants. Then the author flipped his approach and said to look at the motivations for the wants, and to see beyond wanting into what is possible. I found my personal reflection slightly surprising, actually - and enjoyed what I wrote below the most. (A singing Martha?!?! hahahaha. I love when I get into free flowing ideas.)


What’s Possible?

"Take a moment and imagine you are walking down the street one day and – blam – you get run over by a truck. You wake up in heaven with a concerned looking angel wringing his hands and apologizing. He tells you that you were run over by mistakes, and you will be sent back to earth. As compensation for the error, you get to choose the kind of life you will have, the kind of work you will do, where you will live and so forth. The only limitation is that you will be the same you who got run over, so if you can’t sing, you can’t pick “rock star” as a career. What would you choose? What sort of work? What sort of life? Would it be different from what you said you wanted earlier? In other words, are you selling yourself short, looking at what is only probable? If you could have exactly what you wanted, what would that be? " *

My personal reflective response (off the cuff):
In this scenario, I would be sent back to work in the arts community. I would work to discover and produce new bands, keeping my fingers on the pulse of the music community, and finding the next new sound before it hits it big in the main stream.
I would also work in theatre, finding talented song writers and playwrights, and work with them to develop new books for theatre – being a face in the forefront of what is new in theatre. I would find new audiences and bring them into the theatre world.
I would meet and connect talent together – I would inspire those more skilled and talented than myself to make great things. I would be the voice of reason in creative meetings – but I would always have my hand in everything, guiding and working with others to develop new forms of art for the 21st century.
There would also be a part where I am able to feature my own talents in creativity: I would be something like the next Martha Stewart, in a way. Maybe something like a singing Martha. There would be music, crafts, performance, art, culinary art, and I would be surrounded by other talented people.
I would have an apartment in Seattle, and an apartment in Manhattan. I would be able to afford a trainer. There would be music around me, always music.

*From the book: Now What? by Nicholas Lore (c) 2008

Time to start building my dreams... beyond the stars.

"Too low they build who build beneath the stars." - Edward Young

Getting Over... ME

Once again, as is the trend every few years in one's life, I am entering into a new phase. This is all very exciting, but I must admit, however, that I am a bit more scared than I have really ever been about anything. Ever. I am in uncharted territory. I will have to dance the fine line that balances work and life, passion and risk, fear and hope, youth and maturity. I am beyond the "quarter life crisis" that many members of my generation of millenials go through in attempting to navigate the waters of early adulthood (meaning: I'm no longer in crisis mode, but am accepting that this journey is going to be a long one).


I consciously admit that I do not know a thing about life or what it is all about. All I have are lessons learned from 26 years of observation, trial, and error.


The goal of this new blog is to share my experience as I stumble into finding out where my place on this tiny planet may be, and what it even means to "grow up." My personal goal: to take great leaps. There may be great falls, but all the bruises make great stories.
Here goes!