20Something- Straight Up, On The Rocks, Or With A Twist

Check for Updates i-generation

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 09:45:41 PST

I got a call last week from a friend asking me to do a favor. This type of thing isn’t uncommon, especially when the favor has to do with writing; proof reading a letter, helping with an essay or reading over something. This call was unique though because it wasn’t a 20something friend on the other end of the line coaxing me to help them with an assignment. Instead, it was a woman I take Pilates with, a dear friend, who just so happens to be near 70 years old.

“Hey Lana, It’s MaryAnn, I was just wondering if you could take a moment and look over my resume for me.”

The question didn’t seem too off topic. She was already working 5 days a week in a local elementary school.

“Sure.” I respond. “Are you looking for a new job?”

“No. I just want to keep an updated version on hand, because I want to get something extra for the summer-time when school isn’t in session.”

MaryAnn had already worked a lifetime of “full-time” corporate world work. She already raised 3 children, outlived 1 husband and was currently “The World’s Greatest Grandmother” 7 times over. She worked 5 days a week, went to church everyday, Pilates twice a week, walked 2 miles with a buddy everyday and managed to attend anything and everything for her 7 grandchildren.

She already “paid her dues” and could bask in the luxury of retirement—the ultimate reward for a lifetime of work… But instead she keeps at it. No sitting around in front of the TV all day for her. She doesn’t have time, she’s too busy out living.

That week at Pilates she brought a hard-copy of her resume. Her experience included “Mid Atlantic Regional Director” for a certain subsidiary of Pathmark. “Production Supervisor” for another national company and “Human Resources Director” for a third. She was a corporate woman, armed in a grey suit with matching brief case and high heels. After her kids were grown, she traveled for her job, accruing frequent flyer miles before it was even popular. She had it all. Retirement plans, flexible spending, expense accounts and 401K’s.

I wasn’t too surprised by her credentials. I always knew MaryAnn could run the world if she wanted too. But as my eyes scanned down the resume, I was surprised at something else. In the EDUCATION section, she had one listing; West Catholic High School for Girls. I called her over.

“Mar, where did you go to college, you don’t have it on here?” I asked. She looked at me and smiled. “I didn’t go to college silly, I had children.”

I stared at her puzzled. “And were you a Regional Director for a huge corporation?”

“Yup” she smirked. “It’s this funny thing I did…” her eyes twinkled now and I knew what she was telling me was sprinkled with a hint of harmless sarcasm. “I worked hard and they kept moving me up. You didn’t need all the red tape then, just a true work ethic and a brain.”

“Times were surely different, huh?”

“Yes they were,” she said.

It’s interesting to think of a time when paper certificates boasting a college degree were not indicators of a job candidate’s qualification. People who wanted jobs, worked hard to make money and people who didn’t want to work, didn’t get paid by unemployment to sit around.

The economy, the lifestyle, the mind-set, the country didn’t encourage entitlement. It encouraged hard work. Go to work, give it your all and you’ll move up the ranks because you deserve to, not because your piece of paper says your entitled to.

Yet, it seems as if, something happened in the transference from the “X” and “Y” generation to the emerging “i” generation. That’s right, this new generation of fresh-faced college students, with white ear buds hanging out of their ears, strutting along to their own personal theme songs, faintly heard in the cloud of music engulfing them. They have a Smartphone glued to their hand and they swipe their fingers to reveal any and all apps and information.

The “i” generation with their iPods, iPads, iTunes, iPhone. They have technology at their fingertips (literally with the swipe of touch screen). Hell, they can’t even capitalize the “i”; they are far too hip and trendy to be bothered with capitalization. And this attitude brings the “i” into other realms of life. i want. i deserve. i am entitled…

As I stand in front of my college freshman English class and lecture about the importance of grammar and writing… I see the same entitled attitude in many of my students and their eyes avert to their laps and they sneak a glance at their cell phone (even though I’ve instructed they put them away). There is little respect for authority or the traditional classroom. They don’t need a lecture, they have YouTube. They don’t need radio, they have ipods. They don’t need a worksheet or a lesson, they have ipads.

Many believe that if they stick it out, through all the classes, in the end that piece of paper, (the degree) will be their meal ticket. “Work hard in school, so you don’t’ have to work hard in the work-force.” This idea is polluting the minds of the current college generation and running rampant through the campus’s—I know, I was temporarily infected with this school of thought.

I am only 26, but as an X-law student, under the scrutiny of the world when I chose to leave law school, I had to successful. I had to have something to show for it. I had to prove to all the judging eyes that my decision to do what I love, writing, was the right choice for me. And the only way to do that was to be successful. So that was my drive.

I didn’t expect success handed to me. Maybe I did upon college graduation, but as the harsh realities of life-after-college hit me and I was coined “The girl who dropped out of law school,” the reputation was my motivation. I wanted to be antithesis of that.

So I push, I work hard, I grab opportunities and take what’s mine. I want to be successful and I know that I have to create my own destiny for those successes to grow and flourish.

Maybe that is what lost? The work-ethic? All the apps and technology that are available makes things so accessible, people are no longer accustomed to working hard to get something or waiting for anything. We don’t want to be patient or let things happen in time. We want them now, with the swipe of finger across a smart screen, instant gratification.

But life doesn’t work like technology. Instead of sitting around waiting for opportunity, you have to go out and grab it and you have to keep moving forward you have to work for it.

Last night, I had dinner at a diner and I complimented the waitress on her great service. I used to waitress in college, so I’m very grateful when I get good service at a restaurant. The waitress was 30something and she thanked me for the kind words.

“I just try to do my best in every job I have,” she said. Her words sounded like something MaryAnn would say.

As the meal progressed she reveled that she worked in a corporate department at Comcast and was recently laid off.

“My whole department was cut. It’s a scary thing what’s going on in the economy right now.” Her words left a lingering somber feeling in the air. She filled in the silence. “I was getting unemployment, but I just couldn’t sit around anymore. I’m not going to find a job sitting home being angry at Comcast.”

Her comment made me smile. “Well that’s the truth,” I said.

“I figured waitressing was quick cash and who knows who I’d network with? At least it gets me out of the house and motivated.”

That waitress had the anti “i” generation attitude. Maybe it was her age? Or maybe it was just because the rose colored glasses were off. She was out in the “real-world” and knew that no one was entitled. The layoff’s are a reality check that jobs are expendable. So to be successful you have to keep getting up, dusting yourself off and creating your own success story.

Later that night I called MaryAnn to let her know her resume was done and I’d bring it over. While on the phone she thanked me and revealed a very important lesson to me. She said that she just wanted to look for something extra in the summer, because sitting home made her miss her late husband. “I don’t want to have a pity party or feel sorry for myself, I want to work and do something instead.” And maybe that’s the key. Head up, one foot in front of the other, and just keep on trucking; as I know MaryAnn would say.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG
Success means making things happen, not waiting for something to happen. And in order to make anything happen you have to work at it. Maybe the i-generation, should turn off the technology and work toward something the old fashioned way; instead of screaming “I want” over their newest downloaded playlist?

xoxo
Lana

“I am learning all the time. A tombstone will be my diploma.” ~ Eartha Kitt

“It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly.
Do not mistake activity for achievement.” ~Mabel Newcomer

NYE…New Years Eve aka, Not Your Expectations

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:14:55 PST

New Years Eve…the holiday we love to hate, and hate to love.

It’s interesting though that it gets that much attention, considering it is such a low-maintenance holiday. Like Thanksgiving or Fourth of July it requires no gift-giving or card buying. Most people don’t have a signature New Years Eve dish or cookie. The only effort this holiday requires is showing up and celebrating…yet we still complain?!

Although we don’t have a tangible obligation of something to; buy, bring, make or bake, there is an intangible stress that hovers around NYE.

I remember when I turned 21, I had some innate need to go out every Friday and Saturday night. I had waited my whole life to be “legal” and go to the bar/club, so I made it my duty to get dressed up and hit the town every weekend. I felt that if I staying in I was acting ungrateful for the fact that I now had nothing holding me back. I built up the big 2-1 in my head for so long, that I had to make the most of it.

At first, it wasn’t a problem. But, as that 21st year marched on, I found a sense of guilt come over me when I wanted to stay home and watch a romantic comedy in PJ’s on a Friday night. As my phone would flash and the Sex-In-City ring tone filled the air, I found it incredibly more difficult to tell my friends I wouldn’t be heading out that night. It was “Party-Guilt” and I allowed it to motivate me to get into the shower and get dressed to face another night out.

Thinking back to that year, there were a few nights when I did find myself, drink in hand, surrounded by friends, on the center of a dance floor somewhere, dancing like I’d never danced before—those nights I’m happy the “Party Guilt” got me out there. But that was a rare occasion.

For the most part, when I went against my gut instinct to lay-low and spend the night in, I found myself yawning at bar, stuck talking to some D-list, guy who thought HE was the most interesting person HE’D ever come across. While my friend (whom guilted me to come out) talked to his equally disappointing wingman.

Needless to say, those nights, did NOT make it into a facebook photo album. No great memories to stash away, just a filler-night—One of the many “other” bar nights in between all the great times.

And that is the same risk we run with New Years Eve. It could be a night to remember for all time, or it could be a night where you just wished you were home in PJ’s in front of the TV.

However, New Years Eve, has an extra component of stress. The involute decision of choosing the right way to ring in the New Year; A black-tie fancy party in the city, a low key shin-dig at a friends home, or a night in. Then we have to commit to a certain group of people to surround ourselves with; friends, family, all of New York City in Times Square. There is an endless list of options to commit to.

And that’s what I think the problem is…not the options but the commitment. We don’t stay committed to what we really want to do. We have “Party-Guilt” to do something wild and make this year like no other. Then once we’re half-way into the night, if we find ourselves not having fun, we are stuck. These are the plans we made, so we stick it out until midnight.

I remember a New Years Eve when I was in law school. I went out to dinner with family earlier in the night, a tradition we’ve had for many years. I remember, that year at dinner we had a fabulous time—a couple martinis, great food and laughing with my family. Sometimes it doesn’t get better than that. As the last plate was cleared from the table, I remember thinking that this great dinner was a foreshadowing of what was to come for the rest of the night. That this was just the beginning of a great New Years Eve.

As, I buttoned my jacket, kissed my parents goodbye, and left the restaurant, I had high hopes for the evening. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out that way. The party was a dud. As the ball dropped and I counting backwards from 10, I wished that I was back my family.

But I didn’t leave. I decided on going to that party and I was committed. Mentally, I committed and would have felt bad leaving. Physically, it was New Years Eve and everyone I knew was drunk, so I was out of options for a ride home.

Nevertheless, as I sat trapped in the awful party, I made a promise to myself. I promised that if I ever found myself in a situation where the thought of watching reality TV on DVR, while snuggled in my PJ’s sounded more fun, than I would cut and run—No matter what the date!

So maybe that’s the key to a fabulous New Years Eve. Maybe we need to let go of all cliché “Supposed To’s.” Forget about the “Party-Guilt” and be honest with ourselves about what we think we want to do. But we have to remember that we’re human, and we’re fickle and we change our minds. Therefore, if we find ourselves in a situation, where we thought we’d have fun and it turns out a dud, it’s okay to cut and run. Plans are not set in concrete. Things come up, feelings permutate, and it’s okay to be flexible and change your mind.

You see, despite all the New Years Eve stress and pressure, the day is actually about personal reflection and hope. It’s a time to look back and pat yourself on the back for surviving the past year. To take a moment and appreciate all you endured. To cerebrate and hold strong to the lessons you learned in the past year. To congratulate yourself on how far you’ve come in a years time. To think about the things you want to fix in your life. This is where the hope comes in…

Despite your feelings about the past year, on this night, it is over. There is a hope. Hope for a new year, for better things to come. Hope for the opportunity to be a better person, live a better life. Hope to take new risks and open yourself up. Hope to make changes, take chances, and find adventure in the unknown of the 365 days that lay ahead of you.

No matter what kind of year you’ve had, on New Year’s Eve you can reflect and celebrate the past year, or you can hope and celebrate a new beginning.

The key is to not feed into the “Party Guilt.” Do what you WANT to do and if midstream it’s not what you thought it would be, cut and run to change the scenery. It’s not about where you physically are at midnight; it’s about where you are mentally. So get to a good place, do what will make you happy, and welcome the New Year with open arms.

SHORT AND SWEET…aka…MORAL OF THE BLOG
The point of New Years Eve is to celebrate. Sift through the “Party Guilt” and forget about clichés. Do what you want and when, or if, it’s not fun anymore, do something else. There are no rules and no “supposed to’s.” But don’t lose the real meaning of the night—REFLECT, HOPE and CELEBRATE!

Happy New Year!

xoxo
Lana

“If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.” Katherine Hepburn

Guy Code (1); Lady Code (0)

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:37:25 PST

I set up my boyfriend’s friend with one of my best friends. After their first date, I called my boyfriend to get the scoop.

“So how did Mike’s date go?”

“Oh, I just talked to him, it went good.” He started to smile and I knew Mike dished to him. This was perfect…

“Well…” I said and dragged out the word to indicate I was looking for more. The phone was silent. He didn’t take the bait, so I blurted out, “give me details already!”

“Can’t…” my boyfriend calmly said, “Guy Code.”

It was like those two words carried a universal meaning and placing them adjacent to one another meant the entire world knew the confidentially they represented. As if merely saying “Guy Code” would be enough to shut me down and better understand the power of the male discreetness.

I didn’t. I continued to bore ass my boyfriend.

“Come on I want to know something,” I whined.

He turned his head and looked at me, appearing to exert a genuine feeling of disappointment. I thought I had cracked him. His eyes softened and his words were coated in sincerity, “Sorry, I can’t.”

Guy Code! Men have it, women are ousted. A ridiculous fraternity mantra that carried over into the real world.

It’s funny when you think about the all-male “Guy Code” movies. From the childhood classic “Sandlot,” to the fraternity life “Animal House;” the plot is always about self discovery and male bonding. The story is rarely thrown off- kilter when a female enters the script. The women are there, but the sense of comradery drives the plot.

The female focused movies rarely have that. There is a theme of friendship, but the conflict always comes in when the male enters the story. From “Disney Princesses” movies, to the modern day “Mean Girls”— all these movies circle the idea of friendship, but also have a multifaceted story line about romantic love.

Pop-culture and movies have even encouraged men to value friendships, loyalty and “Guy Code” – while we women are fed romantic comedy.

So maybe its pop-culture to blame for that fact that I was offended that my boyfriend insisted on honoring “Guy Code?” All I wanted was some harmless gossip and he pushed to uphold the brotherhood of male confidentiality.

I thought about why the “Guy Code” bothered me so much. It wasn’t because I needed a bit of gossip, it because we women don’t really have a code like that in which we uphold.

I noticed first hand at a Christmas party I attended just last week.

It was a fancy soiree, a Christmas cocktail party at a friend’s house. Butlered appetizers, full bar in the formal room, band set up in another room. It was a swanky Christmas celebration and all the guests were dressed to impress. My boyfriend honed in on the pool table in the game room and shot pool with my father and cousin. As the house swelled with people, bodies over flowed into the pool room.

I noticed a woman who walked in wearing a red bustier. She seemed to stick out from the posh crowd and had a rougher exterior. I toyed with the thought that I had seen her top hanging on the wall in the Victoria’s Secret lingerie section. I dismissed the thought as petty. She was twice my age, definitely in her late forty’s…it’s couldn’t be. After a brief examination of her outfit, I forgot about the woman.

That was until she attempted to accost my boyfriend. She seemed to be following him around the table. He would take a shot, she would follow. I initially brushed it off with Don’t be silly, I thought to myself. It’s just crowded in here.

As she circled the room, she spoke an octave too loud and introduced herself to the men in the room. “Hi there.! So how do you know…? Then after a minute or so of banter the woman would suggestively look down at the man’s finger and ask, (ring or not) “So, is your wife here?” It was her line. Is your wife here?… it allowed her to gauge who she could move in on.

After being told, “Yes this is my wife,” or “My wife is in the other room.” She finally settled into a bar stool.

A few minutes later my boyfriend approached her end of the table and bent over to take his shot. As he did, this old, haggard, Victoria Secret wannabe reached out to grab his ass! She stopped about a quarter of an inch from his back pocket and squeezed the air. As she did this, she smiled at her equally, old, inappropriately dressed friend and nodded her head, in approval of her tasteless action.

I stood up and my eyes shot daggers to the woman. She immediately caught my glare and dropped her hand and her smug expression. I approached her barstool and before I could say anything she spoke.

“I was just kidding,” she laughed as she said it and her voice sounded scratchy as if she smoked one too many cigarettes in her day. “I’m just drunk…look at me, my boobs are out.” And she gestured to her bustier.

Her sad validation confused me and I’m fairly certain the disgusted look on my face turned to confusion. The woman kept talking.

“Listen, I’m sorry.” She put her head down, like a child who was scolded by her parents.

I leaned into the woman, looked her straight in the eyes and said, “Don’t be sorry for me, you should feel sorry for yourself…have some class, it’s a cocktail party.”

With that I walk walked away, thinking; this is why women don’t have “Lady Code.” There was no unspoken female realm of respect. This woman didn’t care about upholding the natural mantra of Chicks before Dicks… She was just looking to make herself feel better. She was screaming for male attention and it didn’t matter if it was my boyfriend or anyone’s husband…she really didn’t care.

She didn’t know me. She didn’t have to respect me or my relationship with my boyfriend. If it was just an isolated incident, it would be one thing. But she propositioned any male that came her way. She didn’t ask “Are you married?” She didn’t respect that each and every man had a wife, was someone’s husband, instead she just asked, “Is your wife here?” She didn’t care about the value of marriage or the mutual respect each woman should have for another, she only wanted to feel good. She wanted to know, is you wife here, because if not, she wanted a shot.

Not an ounce of “Lady Code” was respected or upheld. She was on the prowl, looking for a single man, or a taken weak man, so she could momentarily feel wanted and paid attention to. She didn’t care about loyalty, values or any kind of respect for a woman code.

It was a woman like this—a “temptress” who shattered my hopes for a “Lady Code.” Pop-culture isn’t providing it and woman didn’t seem to be upholding it. So, I guess if we women want to have an iron-clad Lady Code, it starts with the actions before the words. The girls are supposed to be on the same team. Remember the playground politics of Girls v. Boys… The guys remember…maybe it’s time we women take a lesson and get back to our roots.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

Maybe there is something to the age-old idea that “Men are Dogs.” Dogs are the most loyal creatures out there and in respect to Guy Code, they can be loyal as hell! ;)

xoxo
Lana

Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to. -Alfred A. Montapert

Confidentiality is a virtue of the loyal, as loyalty is the virtue of faithfulness. -Edwin Louis Cole

Screw Occupying...RUN!

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:34:48 PST

I had dinner last night with my 83 year old grandfather and two of his cousins and dear friends, aged 89 and 82. They told me stories about coming to America from Italy on a boat. A trip that lasted 6-9 days depending on the seas! They arrived in a foreign land, without any familiarity of home, as immigrants who did not speak English.

Despite their challenges, they fought to find their way. They worked hard and were thankful to even have the opportunity to start a life in America. Their stories, their work ethic, and mindset all seem so ancient in today’s current day work arena.

It made me really think about my 20something generation and how the feeling of entitlement is running rampant thorough the “igeneration.” We expect instant gratification and are annoyed or even disgruntled when we don’t get it.

It wasn’t that long ago, that our grandparents and great-grandparents were happy to have any job they could find so long as it was on American soil. They weren’t worried about college reputations, superlatives or degrees. They didn’t expect a job with an astronomical salary to come knocking at their door at age 18. They didn’t uphold any stigma about blue collar vs. white collar. A job was a job. They were just grateful that World War II was over and they appreciated the opportunity to start a new life in a peaceful place.

Did you know that they, (my grand pops cousins), couldn’t even think of coming to America unless they could provide an address where they would be living and where they would be working? A little different than today’s immigrant’s stories wouldn’t you say? … But that’s another entire blog! Stay tuned…

In 2011, people stand in the streets complaining about the infamous “1%” as they “Occupy” the major cities. They don’t want to work hard and make something out of nothing; instead, they stand around and complain about not having more. Instead of being the change we want to see in the world, we are bitching about it.

I looked at my grandfather and noticed his calloused hands and weathered face. Signs that’s he worked hard his whole life. Signs that despite whatever challenges he faced, he literally and figuratively worked through them.

In that moment I wondered what my grandchildren would notice about me. Thick glasses from staring at a computer screen, mangled joints and crooked fingers from overuse of small motor skills in texting and typing? Poor posture from years of being slumped over a desk? What would my story be? That I had to stand in line at Best Buy, annoyed that the warranty didn’t fully cover my gadget du jour? Would we be remembered for occupying and complaining or for doing and making something of our situations?

The work ethic, to push oneself seems lost. We no longer strive to complete an honest day’s work, but use our gadgets to exercise every short cut available. We show up and attempt to do the least and still hope to make the most.

I’m not sure what the “Occupiers” actually intend to gain from standing around. In order for anything to change, we have to do something. We have to move. We have to run.

I believe that in life, we are either standing still (accomplishing nothing) or we are running. Sometimes we need to be still and regroup, but eventually we get the gumption to run again.

You see, everyone is running, the trick is to run for the right reason, in the right direction.

When we do get out there to “run,” it’s for one of two reasons:

We are either running FROM something
We are running TO something.

When we run from something, we allow the baggage of our life to control us. All the issues we neatly packed away and diligently stuffed into the depths of our proverbial closet, always find a way to bleed out. Before we know it, we spend our days dodging and weaving to avoid them. But, when we face these issues, this baggage, head on; we are able to deal with the “stuff” and get past it.

When that happens, the path clears and we are able to run to something. We open ourselves up to pursue passions and people that we truly love. We don’t have to duck our past; we can focus our energy on running toward our future.

Maybe the “Occupiers” just need to move; to figure out a real goal and run toward it. I think we could take a lesson from our grandparents. A little hard work never killed anyone, in fact, it only makes us stronger… and hey, it provides an opportunity for us to create a great story to share with our grandchildren.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

Maybe the notion of/to “occupy” needs to be re-evaluated. Instead of literally standing around doing nothing, maybe we should occupy an idea and make it a goal and start running. That way, when we sit around a table with our grandchildren, we have powerful stories to tell; rather than just stories about the gadgets we had to power-up or the space we took up just “occupying.”

xoxo

Lana

"I used to run to get to where I was going, but I never thought it would take me anywhere." -Forrest Gump

"Anything is possible, but you have to believe and you have to fight." -Lance Armstrong

Follow your Heart

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:04:49 PDT

I had just completed my first year of law school and I was clerking for a judge during my “Summer 1” (as the law students call it). I should have been enjoying my time off from class but I didn’t feel happy. At lunchtime, I should have been rubbing elbows with the higher ups, networking and learning the politics of the courthouse. Instead, I sat in the giant window in the Judges Chambers with my salad, scribbling away furiously in a pink legal pad.

I knew at Christmas of that year that I wasn’t happy in law school, but I kept pushing to make it fit. Instead of gloating about the coveted clerkship I was privileged to obtain, I was writing, trying to organize my feelings on returning to law school for a second year.

Whenever I come to a crossroads in my life, I like to make a list of pro’s and con’s. Sounds kind of silly, that a list could help me make decisions, but my gut seemed to be confused and as hard as I looked for Jiminy Cricket, he didn’t appear to be anywhere in sight. It was just me and my pink legal pad. So I restored to the list.

The list was comprised of pro’s and con’s of topics like; time, starting over, staying on a set track and finances. Things that were logical and concrete. Then, in the column marked “Pro,” (the upside for leaving law school) I drew a <3 symbol. I didn’t write anything by it, I didn’t need to explain. As my pencil drew the lines of the heart, I heard my mother’s voice in the back of my head, echoing, “If your hearts not in it, it’s nothing worth pursuing, you have to follow your heart.”

That day, I stopped the incessant list and put down the pencil and pink legal pad. I made my way over to my desk in the corner of the Judges Chamber and started Googling graduate programs. It was like asking a child what they wanted to be when they grew up. I didn’t know, I hadn’t ever considered anything besides law, but this felt like the first day, in a long time, when I asked myself what would really make me happy? I remember not knowing exactly what I was looking for, but I knew it wasn’t law.

You see, the fountain of youth may be a myth but the secret to happiness is said to be found when you “follow your heart.” The problem however, is that your “heart” is merely an organ in your chest that beats and pumps blood. This heart cannot be the one they are talking about.

The heart we should follow must be the theoretical heart. The one that you draw on notebooks in elementary school when referencing your first crush. The heart that accompanies your signature on the bottom of greeting cards at birthdays and holidays. The heart that, as you get into your teenage years, you’re warned NOT to wear on your sleeve! The same heart people are referencing when they advise you to think with your head before your heart.

A thinking heart? Now, this is where things get complicated… You see, the older we get the more we’re cautioned to handle our hearts with care. BUT WAIT... How are we supposed to use caution with our heart and simultaneously be thinking with it and following it?

There are just too may contradictions. Should our hearts be cautioned or should they be followed like a beacon pointing us toward happiness?

No wonder everyone is confused and many of us, including myself, end up a little lost.

You see, there seems to be two options…

1. We use caution with our heart, think first and think of others. Doing what makes others happy because were happy when our loved ones are happy.

2. Forget caution and follow your heart. Doing what makes ourselves happy even though it may disappoint or hurt the people that we so dearly want to make happy?

Neither sounds like a “happily ever after” to me…

The crux is that not everyone is going to be happy, despite the simple formula to “follow your heart.” Some of us get lost and we forget about our heart so we stay lost. Some people look at their lives and prefer to see the negative, dark things. They focus on what needs work rather than what needs credit and appreciation. They actively chose not to be happy with themselves and thus, they struggle to be happy for others.

You see, these people think that happiness will find them, so they fail to look for it. The secret is that happiness is not something that spontaneously comes upon us. Although at times it may pop out of the blue, I think it’s safe to say that happiness falls in line with almost every other aspect of life… in order to have it; you have to work at it.

I know, definitely NOT something we wanted to hear.

We wanted happiness to follow a fairy tale story line… that it just happens. It comes knocking on your door and we embrace it and skip through the day. Like winning the lottery without ever having to buy the ticket. It should just strike our lives and everything falls into place. But that is the stuff Disney movies are made of, not life.

Come on, we’re all adults here. By now we know that fairy tale princesses, leprechauns and constant euphoria is not real. In life we have to work towards what we want and we have to embrace it and take it.

Unfortunately, like most good things, happiness does exist without sadness. In order to let in the good we have to let in the bad. There is no path of least resistance to finding happiness. To obtain happiness it must be earned.

Whether it is a goal, a career, a relationship with family, friends, or yourself… true happiness is only found when we consciously and consistently make the choice to be happy.

The cliché “Follow your heart” reminds us to do what's right for ourselves, because happiness comes from within. It reminds us that trying to please everyone results in jumping through hoops and running in circles ultimately running the risk of ending up back at square one.

To “Follow your heart,” the first step is to find the gumption to ask yourself, what makes you happy? Then you need to find the courage and endurance to go get it.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

Although the age old advice to “Follow your heart” may be an effective expression that reminds us to be our own leader. … It is a guide to advocate for ourselves, follow our own way and our own passion. However, it can be vague, and sometimes despite the simple formula, we would all rather just ask for directions.

When we really think about it, the expression enables us to avoid all of the confusion of leading and following or jumping through life’s hoops, circles, and squares. “Following your heart,” seems to sometimes place us exactly where we need or are supposed to be.

xoxo

Lana

"Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."~Abraham Lincoln

The “Whipping Post”

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 06:59:13 PDT

Historically a “Whipping Post” was a post used in public to which offenders are tied to be whipped. This must have been back in the day when scarlet letter A’s and guillotines were the fad. Back when any woman who admitted she had a peculiar dream was burned at the stake and labeled a witch. But, our society has grown so far past those “dark ages.” We have evolved as a whole and over time became more understanding, tolerant and just.

But just because we’re not gathering the whole town around to publicly humiliate someone doesn’t mean the essence of the “Whipping Post” is completely abolished. You see, metaphorically, the “Whipping Post” still lingers in the most advanced societies and refined people.

Don’t believe me?? I’ll explain….

I had a tough day at work; one of my many editors (whom will remain nameless for professional reasons) was wearing on my nerves; changing the task of the job, providing vague answers to my questions and basically just being a royal pain in the ass. I was at maximum capacity for tolerance and there may, or may not, have been steam coming out of my ears as I ended the work call.

As I put the phone down, it started ringing again and the word “Mom” flashed across my screen. I clicked accept and moved the phone up to my ear just in time to hear my mom’s cheery voice dance it’s way through the speaker on my phone.

“Hi Honey!” she said.

“Hiiii” I flatly said back.

I used that tone because, first and foremost, I was being dramatic. But, more than that, I knew my tone would illicit a “What’s going on sweet heart, everything okay?” response from my mother—which is exactly what happened. She granted me my momentary spotlight.

“I’m just annoyed with ____________ (the annoyance whom will remain nameless).”

My mom kicked into mother-mood and tried to soothe my angst. “Don’t’ worry Lan, you’ll figure it out, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” My mom used an affirmation in hopes of coaching me through a tough situation. Maybe give some perspective.

Instead, the flood gates opened and the “Whipping Post” metaphorically erected itself.

“Mom, do you always have to be such a walking Hallmark Card?” I growled. “Dealing with someone who is trying to screw me over, isn’t going to make me stronger! Don’t you understand anything?”

Okay, okay, in retrospect, I am aware at how uncalled for my comment was. I also know I sounded like a ferocious bitch; but in that moment, I didn’t want to hear some sing song-y phrase. I wanted to be angry and throw myself a well deserved, momentary, pity-party. So I took the opportunity to throw all the BS of the day in my mother’s direction.

You see, this is where the magic happens ladies and gentleman… I magically turned the tables, projected my anger at my mother, validated the shift from annoying-boss to compassionate-mom and used my mother as the infamous “Whipping Post.”

My gripe went on for a solid 15 minutes, where I took whatever anxiety, annoyance and anger out on my mom—a completely innocent bystander.

Like a good mother does, she took it. After I sufficiently flipped out, she scolded me for speaking to her like that. (Yes, that still happens at 20something), but she boldly took the word vomit and verbal abuse. She conceded to be my “Whipping Post”, even though my rage had absolutely nothing to do with her.

She did it because, in relationships, whatever your role (mother, father, daughter, son, sister, brother, friend, girlfriend or boyfriend) you will find that sometimes you’re the asshole attacking and sometimes you’re the bigger person receiving.

What’s ironic is that the only reason I even allowed myself to vent all that steam in the direction of my mom is because she is one of the closest people to me. It sounds confusing; especially when it’s spelled out, in back and white. However, it’s true.

Instead of treating those closest to us with the utmost love and respect, sometimes, when the emotions are bubbling over, they are the ones who are caught in the crossfire. Hit by the shrapnel of our terrible day and sharp tongues.

I think we tend to take out the troubles of life out on the people we hold closest to us because subconsciously we know they love us anyway. If we talked to the people with whom we have “surface relationships” (i.e. co-workers or acquaintances) like that, the “Whipping Post” approach would severer the relationship. We need to have roots and a deeper connection with someone to tolerate the effects of the “Whipping Post.”

Only those truly close to us will take the brunt of the anger, because they decided a long time ago that they loved us at our best and our worst. They take it because they know, despite our best efforts to be kind, gentle, tolerant human beings; they too, will be dumping on us at some point. And they know we will stand to be the “Whipping Post” for them.

That’s the secret deal in relationships. We promise to be there for each other, and sometimes giving an ear to bend is literal. We take the beating and we give the beating.

But we know, no matter how ridiculous, juvenile, or hurtful we may be in that moment, real relationships always rise back to the top.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

The “Whipping Post” lives on in today’s day and age…it is inevitable. But, after apologies are shared, perspective is revealed and the anger has subsided, we accept that the “Whipping Post”, like Murphy’s Law, is some ancient curse still haunting us all… and we love each other anyway.

xoxo

Lana

“There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.” —Bryant H. McGill

Show, Don’t Tell

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 06:00:06 PDT

“A frail grasp on the big picture…”

Now what the hell does that mean?? First time I heard this particular group of words strung together was in song by the band, The Eagles.

The song talks about the local bar…

Good ol' boys down at the bar
Peanuts and politics
They think they know it all

About relationships…

You don't have the slightest notion what long-term love is all about
All your romantic liaisons don't deal with eternal questions like:
"Who left the cap off the” freaking” toothpaste?" "Whose turn to take the garbage out?"

And about morals….

All our troubles will be resolved
We hold faith above all
Unless there's money or sex involved

This song is brutally honest and makes complete sense. I’ll tell you why…

I am currently teaching writing to college students at the local Community College. It’s English 100 and English 112. I found that in the past few weeks I’ve been stressing to my students a very old adage in writing; one, I think, is the secret to good writing. “Show, Don’t Tell.”

I stand in the front of the room, dry erase masker in one hand, gesturing with the other hand saying…

“Don’t just tell me your character is nervous; show me her palms sweating, or her foot tapping, her heart beating out of her chest, or her finger mindlessly twirling her hair.”

I explain that in writing, we have to remember that the reader is intelligent. The reader will draw the correct conclusions if the writer does a good job of leading them there. You don’t have to “spell things out” for the readers. (NO PUN INTENDED.) Telling a reader is much less effective than showing and allowing them to visualize the picture you’ve painted.

As I explain, I can tell my 8:00AM lecture is resonating with some students. I can also tell that in many of the sleepy eyed college students; it’s going in one ear and out the other. They’re just not getting IT!

Which brings me to my next point…

“UGH, why don’t you get it?”

It is one of the standard “fighting words” appropriate to fire off in almost any situation. It blames the other person, “YOU” and the obscure, “IT.” Choosing “IT” allows the blamer to accuse someone while simultaneously dancing around what’s really going on. When the infamous “IT” is launched, it usually is code for, “There’s something bigger going on here; but I just don’t feel comfortable revealing the truth.” So “IT” weasels its way into the equation. And that little word “IT” can morph into an enormous wedge.

So what do song lyrics, writing, and fighting have in common? Well students, (that’s my teacher voice) they are all examples of a “frail grasp on the big picture.” The inability to get the infamous “IT.”

You see in life, unlike in writing, you can’t always assume that dropping a hint or an inference is enough to lead someone to grasp a certain conclusion. In life, friendships and relationships; sometimes we have to let go, stop guiding or showing, and allow someone to sink or swim. Allow them to come to their own conclusions. Allow them to see the bigger picture, or not.

Perspective is a funny thing. It’s something that has to hit someone on its own. It cannot be forced upon them or taught in a 90 minute lesson.

But “Show, Don’t Tell,” isn’t lost completely in the real world. If someone claims to have miraculously obtained a new found “Perspective.” They want to make a change, be a better person, find another job, or embody a new attitude….Well, these are all groundbreaking revelations. But, if the revelation is all talk and no action…then it’s plain and simple Bullshit.

So how can you tell if it’s really a new perspective? Whether it’s a game-changer or just plain games?

“Show, Don’t Tell.” Just like in writing, to make the character believable, you have to show the reader. In life, to prove your own character, you have to show it. You have to live it.

It’s like those people who diligently attend Sunday Mass each and every weekend. Rain or shine, on vacation or not. They find a church and they go. They think this makes them better people just because they showed up. Yet, upon leaving the church they can’t even hold the door for an elderly person walking behind them. As the door flops into grandma’s face—it’s clear they have a frail grasp on the big picture. They claim to be good Christians, but they don’t live it.

Living it, showing it…that’s the hard part.

So, a frail grasp on the big picture means that people tend to get so consumed with the small details; the minutia of life, that they have a weak hold on what’s truly important. What’s really going on; i.e. the big picture.

The sad part is that if you let the little stuff run your life, you miss out on the real lessons. The real perspective. The real things that you should be grateful for. So next time you feel upset, pissed off, annoyed, frustrated, fed up… think about the big picture. Think about how you hold onto it. Think about perspective. Are you showing and not telling? Maybe you need to reel yourself in and slap yourself back into check…

xoxo

Lana

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

It’s easy to lose perspective. It’s easy to talk the talk. But life isn’t supposed to be easy, it’s supposed to be effort and gratification and lessons. So open up your mind and your eyes… look at the bigger picture and if you see it, hold on with both hands.

“You can’t see the Forest through the Trees” –Unknown.

Mad Hatters

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:48:34 PDT

“That’s the dance team table,” the freshman whispered to her friend as they carried their lunch bags past our table."

Lunch room politics were brutal and by sophomore year of high school my group of friends and I were already labeled. A group of 5, thick as thieves, bound by the confines of Catholic High School and the commitment of dance team practice three days a week. We were always together and we all became fast friends. Through the high school years we saw some “floater” friends,” boyfriends and prom dates come and go; but the 5 of us always stayed tight.

We all went to different colleges, near and far, made new friends, roommates and boyfriends, but the 5 of us stayed best friends. We coined Martin Luther King weekend, “Girls Weekend” and have a standing date to wine… to dine… and have a weekend slumber party every year until the end of time.

It’s easy to say we’ll be “Friends Forever” or “Together Forever” because we are all on the same page… In the same spot… Coming from the same place… Moving in the same direction. However, my girlfriends and I, through the past 11 years, stayed best friends because we have made each other a priority and continued to nurture our friendship.

You see, merely exchanging friendship bracelets, engagement rings, heart-felt cards and putting pictures into a photo album, does not ensure that a relationship of any kind will last. “Stuff” doesn’t bind people and neither does history. Commonalities, similar circumstances and interwoven past experiences are not enough of a foundation to hold together a relationship. “REAL friends” and “REAL relationships” do not develop and remain effortlessly, without work.

Now, there are the friends who appear to be in your inner circle because you effortlessly have things in common. For instance, you go to the same school; you work in the same field or at the same location; you take the same exercise class or play on the same team. These are the kind of friends where life makes it easy to get together, because spending time is like “killing two birds with one stone.” I.E. you build a friendship off of eating lunch together everyday because by default you both work at the same job.

I call these kinds of relationships, “Surface” relationships. There is no deep connection. The circumstances of life make it easy to be in one another’s company, so, why the hell not?

Sure, “Surface Relationships” often time turn into something of more substance, in fact, most relationships start off this way…but for the relationship to have sticking power and remain for the long-haul, we have to put more effort in.

Think of it this way… A strong foundation is required to build a sturdy home. But if the rest of the home is not constructed with strong materials or the right skills, the foundation doesn’t mean anything. Conversely, even if the house is built strong, atop an unshakable foundation, without proper maintenance the house can still fall down around that perfectly poured cement.

You see the key is upkeep. Yet, we often forget this piece.

Maybe that’s why it’s rare for relationships to last long. Maybe that’s why 50% of marriages end up in divorce? We fail to maintain.

When things start to change or shift, we allow time and circumstances to act as an obstruction and eat away the relationship. “Life gets in the way,” we say. But that’s a cop-out.

Apathy is what got in the way. We stopped making the relationship a priority. We stopped maintaining it and time eroded it.

So how do we fix this?

I think we need to remove the unrealistic expectation we put on a relationship—to always expect your friend or partner to be growing with you, and going through each stage of life together. It’s impossible and improbable to believe that any two people could remain in the exact same spot in life at the exact same time.

Instead, we have to accept that, at times, things will get in the way. But we fight to hold onto the people that matter. We make the extra effort, drive the extra mile and spend the extra time.

Life is ever changing; endings and beginning are always bittersweet, mixed with some nerves, anticipation and nostalgia for the familiar. We are all facing new hurdles and dilemmas at all different times. In my group of friends alone, some are celebrating graduations and some wedding engagements. Some are purchasing new homes, some are acquiring new pets. We are seeking out new jobs, new relationships and new endeavors.

In our 20’s we’re on the fast-track for change and in order to nurture lasting relationships (friendships and romantic) we have to come outside of ourselves and accept and support the people we love in each and every stage.

I always liked the expression that we wear “different hats.” Each proverbial hat represents a different facet of our person. In each “hat” and situation we act accordingly.

When I am at work I wear a professional hat. When I am with my friends I wear a silly hat. When I am babysitting my nephew I wear the responsible hat. With my parents and grandparents the respectable hat. We don’t change our core person (that would make us chameleons like) but we do alter our demeanor to fit the appropriate setting.

You see, we are all Mad-Hatter’s in our own right.

The secret to acceptance in a relationship is to accept a person in each and every different hat they wear.

This year, one of my best friends got engaged. She and her fiancé decided on a beach wedding and chose a country club near my family’s beach house. So, the 5 of us will all get dressed and ready for the first wedding in our group of 5 at my family’s beach house.

A house where the 5 of us went after proms, on summer breaks in high school, girls weekends when starting in college, outlet shopping trips in the winter and impromptu get-away’s over the past 11 years. If the walls could talk in that house we’d be in trouble! Giggles, secrets, tears, break-ups, make-ups and memories of more than a decade happened in that place. The house watched us grow-up.

In this case, we will support and accept our friend while she wears her proverbial bridal hat, (although I guess just calling it a veil would be more appropriate). Even though she is the only one embarking on this new chapter of life, we will stand on the altar beside her and continue to accept this new change in life and time. Even if we’re not exactly on the same page, we will continue to work to maintain the relationships with one another and accept the different hats we all wear.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

We’re all mad hatters, so roll with the changes, hold onto who you love and support your loved ones in each and every hat they wear.

xoxo

Lana

Loving the people I know, allows me to know the people I love. ~Anne Wilson Schaef

Shameless…It’s Icy Hot

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 09:05:57 PDT

Every time I hear this term, I think of the Billy Joel song about doing anything for love. “Oh baby I’m Shameless…”

His version of course is not about a lack of shame in relation to one’s character. When I mention “Shameless” I mean the literal definition: “A painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.”

I remember one of the first times I felt this painful humiliation. It was the summer after third grade and I was shopping around a drug store with my mom. At the time, my older sister had just graduated elementary school and was set to move up to the middle school in September. I remember thinking how much older she seemed and how far behind her I suddenly felt. My mom was teaching her to shave her legs and she was allowed to wear clear mascara and tinted chapstick to school. Meanwhile I was stuck back in munchkin land with the “little kids.” How I yearned to feel older and be “cool” just like her.

My mother walked over to the register and while she paid for her merchandise, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a bright blue mini bottle that read “Ice Drops.” I remember my sister and her friends talking about the liquid breath mint.

“Older girls carry it, so they are always prepared if a boy wants to kiss them.” I overhear them saying.
“We’ll have to get some now,” they giggled.

I saw that little blue bottle as my opportunity to “one-up” my sister and her friends. To finally attain something “cool” first, instead of always being the one to pull up the rear. I walked over to the display and I plucked one of those little bottles right off the shelf and tucked it into my jacket pocket.

“Come on, Lana,” my mother said as she retrieved her receipt from the sales clerk.

As my mother fumbled to put the bags in the back seat of the car, I rushed to tear the clear wrapping from the “Ice Drops.” I had to see what it tasted like so I could tell me sister all about it when I got home. I twisted off the white cap and squirted the blue liquid into my mouth.

Within second, an intense burning sensation burst through my mouth and down the back of my throat. Everything suddenly felt like it was on fire and I couldn’t feel air moving in or out. I coughed and choked to get a breath in. This stuff really was icy hot! As I struggle for air and hacked away, my mother rushed to my side.

“Lana, are you okay honey? What’s wrong?” My mother was deeply concerned, but I couldn’t respond. Each breath I took intensified the icy hot feeling. I opened up my little hand and showed my mother the bottle.

She gave me some water and when I finally stopped coughing I looked up at her with my big, brown, innocent eyes. “Thanks for helping me,” I weakly said.

She didn’t say, “Your welcome, I’m so glad your okay sweetie,” instead she firmly looked down at me and asked, “Lana… where did you get that?”

I looked down at my feet and twisted a stray piece of hair around my finger. I nervously responded, “I took it from inside” and used my free hand to gesture toward the store.

“You STOLE that?” she asked with her voice rising on the word STOLE. “You should be ashamed of yourself!”

I suddenly felt awful. I didn’t even think about stealing, I was only thinking about being cool. I scrambled for an answer. “I didn’t steal it Mom, I just took it from inside because…” before I could answer my mother grabbed my arm and was dragging me back into the store.

When we got inside she asked to see the manager. We waited for a few minutes, which felt like a lifetime. When the man came out of the back room, my mother informed him I had something I wanted to share.

I stood silent engulfed in embarrassment.

“Go on” she sternly encouraged.

“I took this” I said, as tears welled up in my eyes. “I just wanted to be cooler than my sister for once and now I’m a thief.” I wailed.

Tears streamed down my face and between sobs I said “I’m….Sorry…Mister. You can…take me to jail now.”

I remember the man smirked at me and said he wasn’t going to take me to jail, the liquid mint was only $1 but he did make me promise to never do anything like that again.

I think about my experience with shame and how shame is lacking in current society and pop-culture. The endless amounts of reality TV shows and social networking portals, opens doors to shameless behavior that never existed before.

Don’t believe me? Tune into The Bachelorette, The Jersey Shore, The Real World, Big Brother, even reality cooking shows and it makes you think, “Who in their right mind does that? Don’t these people have any dignity?”

But it’s not dignity they are lacking; when we really look into the issues… it’s the absence of shame. The temptation of money, fame and ego all overshadow the feelings of shame.

We as viewers tune into these shows for the sensationalism. The way that people behave on these shows is so extreme we just can’t look away. It’s similar to the strong desire to “rubber neck” at a car accident while you drive down the turnpike. You don’t necessarily WANT to look at the crushed piles of metal, but you just can’t help yourself to take a quick glance and see what happened. I call this “The Curious George Complex.”

So, we viewers are just curious to look, but why? Why are we tuning in? Why is reality TV taking over television and in recent years become more popular than sitcoms? It’s because the people they find to participate in these shows are so shameless, we curious viewers just have to watch.

The show’s storylines are so bizarre that they have to be real. If a writer made them up, people would think it was just too crazy to be convincing. “I’m not buying that” we’d say. But on reality TV, all bets are off. A storyline doesn’t have to be logical or believable. Anything goes.

I guess that’s why the participants are so wild. Everyone is competing to have the craziest background, story, motive or experience. They act like animals on national TV and numb themselves to the “painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.”

I think this separation of consciousness is made possible by lack of self-esteem, morals, values, self worth…but I also think technology is playing a very important role. The ability to just log onto someone’s facebook page and write whatever you want, then close the laptop and separate yourself from the comment, enables people to be irresponsible with their behavior. The glow of the screen welcomes us to write whatever we think, whenever we think it; without the consequence. We don’t have to wait to run into someone, we don’t have to hear ourselves say something terribly mean out loud; we don’t have to see the hurt wash over someone’s face when we’ve offended them. All of these burdens, which remind us to be responsible for our actions, are pardoned when we settle up behind the computer.

Bullying has intensified because it isn’t just limited to the school yard or work place. Family drama doesn’t end at Sunday dinner. Spats with friends don’t dissipate and die off as quickly as they used to. All because the internet acts as forum to keep the disagreement alive, as well as, shield the offender from facing their own shame.

A couple key strokes to spit venom, but the second you turn away from the screen you don’t have to feel bad about your comment. It allows people to be detached, from real relationships but more importantly from themselves. People no longer have to “own” their comments. We don’t put as much stock into what is said, because before can even read it over, we’ve already hit “ENTER” and clicked open another screen.

It all makes me wonder…would we think more about what we say if we stopped viewing facebook, MySpace, Linked In and other social networking as “Profiles.” If we think about what we type and post as a reflection of our character, instead of it being an online version of ourselves, where we can create whatever we want and say whatever we want.

Instead of separating ourselves and creating a “online reality” we should try and maintain real reality. Maybe if the computer had a pop-up that said “You should be ashamed of yourself” just as mother scolded me…maybe people would think twice about their sensational behavior.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

Like my mother taught me…No matter how desperate you are to be cool, (lifting Ice Drops, typing a nasty comment, or acting like a drunken fool on a reality show) the truth is, compromising your integrity and morals, never made anyone cool. In 2011, if we stopped worrying about “cool” and start worrying about “being ashamed” I think we’d see a much different outcome.

xoxo

Lana

“The only shame is to have none” –Blaise Pascal

Timeless = Ageless = Priceless

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 12:04:20 PDT

“Go along, grab me“Go along now, quick, grab me my lipstick” my grandmother whispered down, her words layered thick below her Brooklyn, New York accent.

I walked to her pocketbook and opened up the small side zip compartment to retrieve the silver Clinique lipstick tube. She was old, in her 70’s and looked small sitting on the couch with a pink blanket draped over her legs. She diligently applied the lipstick over her lips and looked up from the mirror to catch me staring at her.

“I’m not dead yet,” she laughed as she smacked her lips together to even out the color.

I smiled back at her as the door flung open and the ambulance drivers came in to put her on the stretcher and take her to weekly dialysis treatment.

“A lady always needs her lipstick,” she said with a smile and winked at me. As the door closed behind, I could hear her asking the men how their weekend was.

I think about my tenacious grandmother; a tiny Irish woman who looked like a delicate flower, but could zap you with her quick wit. Even up to the end, when her kidneys failed her and her body was deteriorating, her mind stayed sharp. She knew what was important to her and up to her final days she remained a “Lady” who needed her lipstick.

I smile now thinking about her and it amazes me to think that her mind outgrew her body. Even though she was physically slower and impaired from renal disease however, her mind was intact. It bothers me to think that she was still “in there” but her body wasn’t working as well as her mind. But, I guess that’s something we can’t avoid. The aging process—getting old, getting slower. We can’t escape the inevitable.

But what about “Mind over Matter?” What about those tenacious few who keep the youthful, neotenous state of mind despite their bodies growing older. The ones who are able to talk about current events and pop-culture even though they’ve survived cancer or double knee replacements.

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to spend quality time with a woman who reminded me very much of my own grandmother. Her name is Dottie and she is 86 years old—but you’d never know it. When she’s not reading the most current books, hitting the gym three days a week or having dinner dates with her friends, she’s busy playing card tournaments with her husband.

She is exactly how I hope to be when I turn 86. Her age may be “old” but she is the farthest thing from “old.” She took all those years and banked the experience and left everything else behind her. The kind of person who learns from each of life’s encounters and cherishes every moment.

She told me stories about waiting for a solider to come home from World War II… Stories about studying for a typing test and learning shorthand just so she could get a job and support three young children. She told me about the guts it took to stand up for herself and ask for a divorce in a time when the word “divorce” wasn’t uttered from anyone’s mouth, especially women. She told me how hard it was to date again after being divorced and having three young children and she told how happy she was to fall in love again and get married (this time for more than 30 years and still going strong).

I lost my New York grandmother when I was in elementary school and my Pennsylvania grandmother two years ago. I don’t have any grandmother’s left and I cherished the time I spent with Dottie. Through talking with her I learned the importance of what it meant to be a strong woman, a mother, a “working gal”, a wife, a sister, a cousin, a friend and finally a grandmother. At 20something I feel as if I’ve already experienced so much in life. After talking with Dot, I felt as if I’m only at the beginning of the rocky road and she’s at the point where the waves smooth out.

So for this, I had to ask her… through all the ups and downs of life, all the roles she had to fill… how did she do it? How did she not get discouraged? How did she manage it all?

Her response was simple. “You hold onto the good and you let everything else roll off your back.” She explained it like this, “During tough times you can sit down and feel sorry for yourself or you can stand up and move forward… when I was faced with the tough-stuff, I just keep moving forward.”

Her advice was direct and simple. No complex secret. But it’s enough. You must learn to recognize what’s important and what’s not; and remember to hold onto the good with both hands and let everything else slip through your fingers. If this can be accomplished it seems as if you can embrace any stage of life.

We 20somethings are struggling to find our place and prepare for our future. We are finishing up school to get the right job. We are working hard at our job to move up and get the higher position. We are saving our money for whatever the future will hold. All of these precautions are responsible and follow “the plan” or the “road to success.” But sometimes I think we are so worried about the future we are forgetting about the present. We forget that in order to gain wisdom, the kind of wisdom Dottie has… we have to live a little in the “here and now.”

I see so many people in my parents’ generation who never traveled because they saved their money for early retirement or they pushed off travel plans for when they could “do the trip right.” By the time they felt as though they were financially secure or ready to take time off, their bodies are too old to take the trip. They are too tired to walk aimlessly through a European Market or hike up a waterfall on a tropical island. They don’t want to snorkel and explore the open seas, instead, they’re worked themselves so hard for so many years, that they just want or need to relax.

It’s one of the biggest oxymorons in the proverbial rat race of life. Work hard while your young so you can enjoy when you’re older. Theoretically, it sounds like a great plan, but we forget that while our mind may remain the same, our bodies are inevitably aging.

All play and no work, leaves people scattered and lost without a plan or purpose. But all work and no play leaves us tired and unexposed to the gifts life has to offer. There has to be a balance… An opportunity to take a break and hold onto the good with both hands. An opportunity to enjoy the people in our lives and all the different roles we have to fill along our journey.

Truth is, when our bodies do give out, we can’t take the savings account or the resume with us; the only thing that remains is our mind, our experiences and our memories…

xoxo

Lana

SHORT AND SWEET...AKA..MORAL OF THE BLOG

You can’t take it with. Enjoy life when the opportunity presents itself and hold onto it with both hands.

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. ~Samuel Ullman

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. ~Chili Davish

The Law, The Opposite, The Attraction

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 20:34:31 PDT

A few years ago, when I was pulling my hair out studying to take the LSAT, my sister barged into my bedroom and threw a brown package down on my bed.

“Read it!” She said. “I think it will help you.”

Annoyed at her interruption during my pathetic attempt to master logic games, I grabbed the brown bag and tore it open. Inside was a thin, single book with two words plastered in red across the cover. “The Secret.”

I had heard about this book and considered it farfetched, astrological, mumbo-jumbo. It was the exact opposite of logic. No concrete answers but all theory. Not exactly my current thought-process.

“Gee Thanks,” I mumbled under my breath, the comment lined with annoyance. I threw the book aside and got back to studying.

Weeks later I took the LSAT for the first time and bombed it. I remember the day the scores were mailed to my house. I asked my dad to open the letter because I was too afraid to look.

“Dad, if I scored in the 160’s I’m going to be ecstatic. That means I can apply anywhere. If I scored in the 150’s, I’ll be okay and I could still probably get into good schools because I have my GPA to back it up. If I scored in the 140’s I’m jumping out the window.” I was thinking outland and my 140’s comment was dripping in sarcasm. My dad laughed while he opened the stark white envelope.

His eyes scanned the sheet as he searched to make sense of the results page. I watched his eyes settle on the bottom corner. He didn’t look up.

“Well…” I asked in anticipation.

My father, who is one of most sarcastic people I know, looked at me with sincerity in his eyes and said,

“You better close the window.”

At first I thought he was joking. It had to be a joke, I put in the time, I was very conscious about studying. I did everything the prep-books told me to do, even down to eating scrambled eggs and toast with peanut butter for breakfast the morning of the test.

“I’m so sorry Lana, I know how hard you worked.” With that, he passed the paper to me so I could see for myself he wasn’t kidding. There is was, in black and white, the numbers “141”.

I was so worried I wouldn’t do well and my worst nightmare came true. The score was too low to get into any reputable schools and if I wanted to pursue law school, I’d have to take the 7-hour hellish test again. I literally cried myself to sleep that night.

When I woke up, I rubbed my eyes and wiped the remnants of mascara away. As my red eyes focused, I noticed that there on my floor was the mumbo-jumbo book, “The Secret” starring up at me. I picked it up and started reading. At that point, anything was better than logic games, legal studies or frightening low scores.

In about an hour, I read the book from cover to cover. If I wasn’t in a state of despair, I don’t know if I would have taken the contents serious. The ideas were progressive. Luckily, I was looking for anything to hold onto and thought that maybe, if I took the book serious, I could conquer the LSAT.

That night I made what was called a “Vision Board.” A piece of poster board covered with positive affirmations and pictures that would keep my mind thinking in the direction I wanted to go—Law School. I looked at that silly board every day while I studied. I tried to be positive and apply what the book called “The Laws of Attraction.” A metaphysical new school of thought that suggests "like attracts like.” That positive and negative thinking bring about positive and negative physical results.

When I did sit for the LSAT the second time, I brought my score up 10 points to a “151.”

I guess you could argue that I just naturally did better or I was just plain lucky. But I don’t think so. I think that because I focused on the “good” and remained positive, rather than harboring worry and doubt, that I actually performed better on the test.

I think too often we give our minds too little credit. The catch phrase “mind over matter” is a powerful truth, not a silly cliché. If we set our minds to something, we can achieve it. We just have to know how to set it.

We have to realize that working hard isn’t “setting your mind.” Instead we literally have to re-train our brain how to think. We have to re-set the old school of thought and think in a new way. This new thought process can bring about new results.

I’m sharing all of this because a very smart man recently reminded me of Isaac Newton’s Universal Law of Gravity. Although many of us cannot recite the scientific equation, we can vaguely recall the story of Newton sitting under a tree and getting hit in the head with an apple.

So I’ll give you a refresher; Gravity can arguably be defined as this: A force of attraction that exists between any two objects that have mass. In layman’s terms: The pull of gravity is all about the attraction.

So what if we think about attraction in relation to people. No scientific formulas but “everyday” attractions we have come to understand and accept: Yin and Yang. This and That. Hot and Cold. Work and Play. We’ve know that batteries only work when the (+) and (-) are lined up. We know that we can physically feel the force of attraction in the simple magnets that adorn our kitchen refrigerator.

We get it...opposites attract. One extreme, attracted by some unknown force, to another extreme.

But just because opposites attract doesn’t mean they match-up or work. Just because we are drawn to one certain; person, job, task, or place, doesn’t mean that’s where we’re supposed to be.

It’s true…think of that poor bug attracted, by some unknown force, to the glaring, warm yellow light only to find itself shocked by a bug zapper. You see, blindly following an unknown driving force isn’t always the best idea.

So if we want to avoid being theoretically zapped, we need to gain some control on the unknown force. Maybe combine “The Secret” and The Law of Attraction with Newton and The Law of Gravity. We may be pulled in a certain direction, but it is up to us how we deal with the pull.

My interest in law was an unknown attraction. I embraced the attraction and pursued law school. To master the LSAT I controlled my thoughts to make them positive and achieved an acceptable score. But I eventually found that the law school wasn’t the place for me. My attraction to law didn’t fade though; I just worked it in a different direction and now write for a legal magazine.

So the attraction didn’t fade away, I just made it fit.

Thinking and technology have come a long way since Newton and the 1600’s. So, maybe instead of following a blind attraction, we should be looking for a balance and rhythm. A way to make the attraction positive or so it’s the “right fit” for us.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG
To get a handle on the gravity, pull or attraction…we need to start recognizing its presence and steer it in the right direction.

Combine the old school of thought with the new. Why not, think outside the box and be progressive. It’s how Newton made his marvelous discoveries and maybe it will help up with our own personal discovery. ½ Newton and ½ The Secret to produce our own happy medium or middle ground.

xoxo
Lana

“We are like magnets - like attract like. You become AND attract what you think” –The Secret

Pack Wisely in the Baggage of Life

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:12:02 PDT

It was early September and the last place my sister wanted to be was home from the beach and back in a classroom. But she is a teacher and every September it takes some time for her to get back into the “groove.” This year seems especially hard because on the first day, she already had an 8^th grade student sleeping during Social Studies. My sister walked over and gently shook the shoulder of the sleeping girl.

“Come on, wake up” she said in a soft tone. Hoping to just wake the student, not make a scene and talk to her about it after class.

The girl raised her head and opened her sleepy brown eyes. She was 13 but still had the face of a child. She looked right at my sister and said, “Fuck you.” With that she dropped her pretty face right back into her arms and went back to sleep.

Day-one of eighth grade; off to a great start of the new year, my sister thought.

Now mid June, with 8^th grade graduation approaching, my sister had tears in her eyes as she talked about one of her favorite students… the infamous girl who slept in class and mouthed off on the first day. What my sister didn’t know then was that this angel-faced child with the dirty mouth was asleep in class because she couldn’t sleep at home. She had SERIOUS family “issues” and was happy just to drag herself into school. Those first few months she came to school, tired, hungry and unkempt.

“She’s a problem,” the 7^th grade teachers warned my sister.

But that didn’t scare my sister; in fact, it just made her want to get through to her even more. My sister spoke to her about hygiene (deodorant and showering) she talked to her about the importance of nutrition and on many occasions slipped her a granola bar or pop-tart in the morning, until she got her set up for school lunches. By the end of the school year, my sister raised enough money for this child to buy her new clothes (including a graduation and dance dress) and get her nails, hair and make-up done for the school formal.

I went to visit them while the student basked in her day-of-beauty. This little girl sat in the chair with one woman doing her hair and another doing her nails.

“Hi,” I said. “So you’re the one who yelled obscenities at my sister on the first day and now you’re her favorite getting the princess treatment huh?” I winked at her.

“She’s a great student now,” my sister assured me.

“I am” the young girl interrupted. “I was mean in the beginning of the year, because I didn’t know I could be one of the good-kids until I met Miss Morelli.”

In that moment I was overwhelmed. I knew why my sister loved her job and I understood why the students that were lucky enough to cross paths with her, loved her too. As a 20something I knew that this young girl would always remember the day that her teacher made her feel like a princess. She would come to many cross roads in her life and in the back of her mind she would remember that Miss Morelli reminded her she was a one of the good-kids. She would hold onto the time she spent with my sister because it had changed her for the good.

By 13 this child already had more personal-real-life-adult baggage to deal with than most of the 20somethigns I know. I thought about the tough road this girl had been down and noticed that she appreciated this day more, because of where she came from.

My sister wasn’t able to erase all the tough times she had lived though, but she was able to give her something good to hold onto. Maybe this could be the start of her counter-acting her bad baggage?

You see, baggage comes from experience, for it comes from people, events, places and things that have scarred, marred, hurt and haunted us in the past. Baggage is stuff that we can’t let go of and drags into every new chapter of our lives… things that bring us down when we try and rise up above it all.

Even for those of us who haven’t lived the kind of life my sister’s student lived, we still have baggage.

We have all lived through some sort of scary beginnings, confident middles, and bittersweet endings. All peppered with self doubt, over-zealous mistakes and lessons learned imperfectly scattered through our lives. Along with these experiences we neatly fold wisdom, hope, uncertainly and fear into piles, and gingerly packed them into the baggage of our lives.

That’s the key though… we are doing the folding up and packing.

So wouldn’t be nice if all the bad stuff just went away and the only stuff we held onto and drug around was the good memories. The “princess” experiences or the times we were reminded that we could be one of the “good” ones too.

If we looked at baggage from a different perspective—sometimes positive, a vessel to hold all our sacred moments, then maybe it would be easier to pack the baggages to the gills with good stuff. Stuff we want to drag it around.

It makes sense when you think about it. It’s why people get tattoos, make photo albums and hold tight to keepsakes. We are all yearning for a way to keep special moments or people a part of us. But we don’t have to buy a knick-knack, commit to some ink or join a scrap-booking class to do it. Instead we just have to be conscious of what we choose to pack in the bags of life.

We decide what we haul behind us and what we let go of. Gives a whole knew meaning to cleaning out the closet and packing bags, huh?

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

Instead of all the negative, dark troublesome stuff, maybe we should try and hold onto the good stuff. The few magical moments when we’re reminded that this thing called life is worth it. Remember, the only person who can control what goes into the baggage of our life is us!

Xoxo

Lana

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough. ~Author Unknown

Single vs. Attached—Survival of the Fittest

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:23:13 PDT

Survival of the fittest… The first time I heard this phrase I was in my first semester of college sitting in a freshman honors class called “Evolutionary Psychology.” We were learning about Charles Darwin, the Galapagos Islands and his idea that only the strong survived. For an 18 year old who thought sheik and new everything, this class intrigued me. I read Darwin’s book “The Origin of the Species” and devoured his theories and radical viewpoints.

In nature, the “fittest,” were those that were most physically adaptable to their environment. The birds whose feathers were slightly darker to blend in, eventually phased out the birds with lighter feathers who were an easier target. The same went for mammals, insects, fish etc. The ebb and flow of the climate, others in the food chain, influenced what characteristics or nuances were dominant and which would be extinct.

So what about people? I’m not talking about the attached vs. detached earlobe or the reason why we have an appendix and we’re still not sure what purpose it serves. (Although, I am a believer that both of those are products of slow evolution.) Anyhow, I’m talking about situations that don’t involve any physicality. I’m talking about “matters of the heart.”

If we apply Darwin’s evolutionary theory’s to dating… how do we ensure we are among the “fittest?”

I think the struggle is that there is a difference between “fit” and successful single and “fit” and successful in a relationship.

I’ve noticed this, because I come from a group of girlfriends who have defined what it means to be single, driven, independent and successful. We have never looked to relationships to define us, but rather have done the defining and refining on our own—through education, experience, travel, exposure and culture.

Of the five of us, we all have college degrees and have either completed a Master’s degree or are in a program pursuing one. We have all traveled internationally and had some wild experiences that we’ve scrap booked in photo albums for bragging rights in years to come. We have all worked at not-so-fabulous jobs just to get by and are on the way to some potentially fabulous jobs because we’ve busted our butts.

We have seen guys come and go and all the while we have moved forward trying to better ourselves. So when you’re independent and single for a while, it’s hard to transition into a relationship. It’s difficult to really understand the mechanics of a relationship.

You see, in order to be the fittest when you’re single, you have to be able to bring and keep your guard up. You have to be tough enough to get over past failed relationships, to pick yourself up and move forward on your own.

Once you do this (in your own time of course) you remember how nice it is to have alone time—reading a book, playing a video/computer game, and catching up on mindless TV. All of this reminds you that it’s good to have “me time” and that you are okay by yourself.

So, you chug along and spend time with yourself and you get to know—YOU. Eventually you become comfortable with your independence and you realize that having your guard up to the vulnerability of relationships can be empowering. You’ve never been so focused and productive on school or work before.

But as the old cliché goes… "the only constant thing in life is change."

Whether we like it or not, regardless of how comfortable we have become alone… someone comes along and peaks our interest. It may not happen frequently or quickly, but it happens. And when it does, we’re apprehensive to change from our single/independent routine. We struggle to bring our guard down.

So, it seems easier to stay guarded and keep someone at an arms distance, just in case we need to revert back to our independent ways. Just in case we need to protect ourselves.

Sometimes we even keep the guard up so high that we miss out on opportunities of a great guy/girl or we sabotage potential relationships. We’re not doing it on purpose; we’ve just grown accustomed to self-preservation—so keeping our hearts guarded is the only “survival of the fittest” that we know to work.

But we can’t forget that survival doesn’t only hinge on solitude. Sure keeping everyone away will ensure self-preservation and in relationships that means—no heartache, no arguments, no break-ups, never being vulnerable and no hurt. The flip side is that also means—no companionship, no make-ups, no sincerity, no partner and no love.

So forging ahead, alone and guarded, doesn’t necessarily seem like the ideal plan of survival. We have to remember that the key to evolution in nature is to be adaptable. Those that can “roll with the punches in life” and changes of the environment are most likely to survive and be successful.

So, maybe that too is the key for relationships?

Maybe the key to “matters of the heart” is not about giving your heart to someone else… but it’s in listening to your own heart and adapting to the adjustments. Rolling with the changes and knowing when it’s time to put up the guard and forge forward as a party-of-one or knowing when it’s time to slowly bring the guard down and let someone in. Timing plays a bigger role than we initially notice and we have to be willing to adapt when the time is right for us.

It’s the change that we can’t escape.

The minute we get comfortable with our current role it’s changing. But thank goodness… because as comfortable as you may currently be, filling the role of the strong independent single, it will eventually get tiresome. It will grow lonely and isolated.

But fear not, if you listen to yourself, observe the environment around you and open up to something new… then the timing could be in your favor. The second you notice your heart is ready for a change, you have to kick into “survival” mode and open yourself up to the new role of letting someone in.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

Those that are the most “fit” in nature are those that are the most adaptable. So, roll with the changes and open yourself up to taking on new roles… you just might surprise yourself how easy it can be… and how happy you can be.

xoxo
Lana

"When we become wise, our lives are lived from our hearts"

The 4th Dimension

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 27 May 2011 08:23:54 PDT

In 2011 we have no problem at all standing in line to purchase the newest electronics. “It’s amazing what they can do,” we say. We turn on our interactive iPads and touch screen gadgets. We have no problem transitioning from a 2dimenstional TV to a 3 dimensional TV— sure the glasses seemed funny at first, but we quickly became accustomed to the paper product sitting on our face for an entire move. “It’s worth it for the quality.”

It’s amazing when you think about how fast technology is moving and how adaptable we are to the change. A society of people who not too long ago thought the Jetson’s could one-up us. I watch the cartoon now and laugh. I used to think the vending machine that produced meals was so cool. Now I think about a vending machine at a hospital where you can get an entire sandwich or a vending machine where you can purchase gift cards or a Red Box, which rents the latest movies via DVD.

As of now, the only thing the Jetson’s have that we’re lagging behind on is folding your car into a suitcase…but have you seen the SMART car? That may as well be in a suitcase! (Ha ha) So we’re catching up to what we, as a society considered, “space-age” stuff.

But it’s not necessarily the technology that baffles me, as much as it does the ease to embrace it. We as people like our habits. There is a McDonald’s and Starbucks in almost every country in the world because people like to know they can get the same thing no matter where they go. We over-pack on vacation because we need all our “stuff,”— we yearn for the familiar. We are creatures of habit. We like our “things.”

And with those “things” is this amazing acceptance to become acclimated to newer “things.” Once we get used to a new phone—we get an upgrade. Once we buy a computer, it’s outdated and we want the newer version. With technology we roll with the changes. With technology we see a demo of what’s “in the works” and even if we don’t fully understand it; we put our name on the list to receive the newest version it comes out in six months.

What I think is a shame is that we can’t put this blind faith into something of more worth. I say this in late May 2011…just days after the alleged “Judgment Day” came and went. It’s funny now when you talk about it. “What a silly idea,” people say. But on May 21, 2011 there was an uneasiness for even the most grounded of people. “Do you think that maybe…” even the most secure people secretly thought for a split second.

Some people go to church every Sunday, some go sporadically, some go only holidays and some refuse to go at all. Either way—by 20something people are pretty strong in whatever convictions that we hold. Yet, one old wack-a-do (yes that’s a technical term) started this craze that made us question our beliefs. If he told us the iPhone 4 was an evil device, we would have bought it anyway, but because he questioned us about faith, Judgment, heaven, God…We allowed our foundations to be shook—even if it was just for a split second, he made us question what we hold true.

I wonder why this was so easy? We have no problem recognizing and growing accustomed to another dimension in movies and TV. Hell, 3D is the newest craze. So why is it that we struggle to accept another dimension in life. Where maybe you can’t see people, but trust they are still there? Maybe because we like to believe only what we can see? However, seeing is only ONE sense. Contrary to the old cliché…seeing IS NOT believing and I’m going to tell you why…

Two years ago, on May 25th my cousin Michael died in a motorcycle accident. It was tragic and horrible. He was close to my brother Phil’s age and Phil took it pretty hard. He and Michael were close, especially because my brother was only “blessed” with two sisters; so, Michael in essence was like a brother to him.

Michael was a character. He drove a Harley Davidson and he and my brother would meet for lunch at Hooters on occasion for shrimp and wings.

“It’s ½ way” they’d claim as a validation.
“Suuuurrreeee, I bet that choice is all about the convenient location,” we’d tease.

Michael was a big guy who looked like he could do some damage—which he probably could if he had to—but most of the time he was just a big teddy bear, who loved his dogs, practical jokes and loved to cook.

So this year, on May 25th, I noticed that my brother Phil’s Facebook had a tribute to Michael on it. It made my heartache to read the beautiful words my brother wrote about his “brother.” I responded telling him, “I know Michael is smiling down on you today.” I closed my laptop and went about my day.

Two hours later Phil called me…

“Lan?” I could hear the uneasiness in his voice and it scared me, instantly twisting my stomach into a knot.
“Is everything okay?” I needed him to hurry and spit it out.
“You know how today is….” He paused and stumbled over his words.
I interrupted yes, I didn’t want him to have to say it. “Yes I know.”
“Okay, well turn on the radio to 94.1 and listen for the next 5 minutes okay?
But I have to go… I have other people to call.”

With that, my brother hung up. I wasn’t sure what he was getting at or what had him so rattled but I turned on the radio anyway. Within minutes I heard this…

“Lets contact today’s lucky winner” the DJ said. The phone rang and my brother Phil’s voice came through the speakers. “Hello?” his voice sounded heavy—I knew what he was carrying around today.

“Well hello, is the Phil?” the DJ shouted through the phone.
“Yeah, who’s this?” Phil started to sound annoyed and I smiled at his tone.
“This is Spike from 94.1 and you’ve been selected as today’s winner. You just won a $100 gift card to Hooters and a key, which gives you a chance to come on down this Saturday morning to see if your key fits the ignition for a BRAND NEW Harley Davidson… Congratulations Phil!!”

The line was silent as my brother struggled for words. “Is this real?” he said as his voice cracked.

“Yes it is Phil, so stay on the line so we can get some info from you.”

I was so shocked when I heard this that I had to pull my car over. As I eased into PARK tears were streaming down my face. What are the odds? I thought. If there was anyway for Michael to send my brother a message, he figured out to do it.

My brother’s response, “Is this real?” was a perfect line. For all the listeners who didn’t know him, they thought he was just excited about his chance to win a motorcycle and spend $100 at Hooters. But for me, I knew what Phil was asking. He meant, “Can this be possible?” Not that he won, but that his crazy cousin had pulled another silly prank on him. A message… I’m OK bro? How about you?

Just because we can’t see people doesn’t mean they’re gone. Just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Just because we don’t understand something doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

In most cases we have no idea how our phone can instantly send a text, receive an email or download a song into a sound byte…but we use it anyway. With technology we trust. Even if we can’t see it… Even if we don’t understand it.

So stop for a minute and think about all the possibilities in life. Past the gadgets and the things you can see. Be aware for a moment of the endless possibilities and put some stock in those. Notice the small things, the whispers in the wind, or the pranks pulled from the “other side.” Believe that you can hold onto people after they’re “gone”. Believe it…because they are still holding onto you…and maybe, if you stopped to listen, even in the form of a radio DJ, you could recognize the message.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA… MORAL OF THE BLOG

We are flexible with our ever changing gadgets, but not with ideas. In technology, we accept things we don’t understand and can’t see…but not in life. Maybe if we put the same trust in “things” as we do in people, we’d realize they never really went anywhere at all. If we can so effortlessly move from 2D to 3D…. think for a second about the possibility of a 4D and beyond.

xoxo
Lana

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.” ~ Helen Keller

You Deicide… No Pressure

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 13 May 2011 12:11:21 PDT

I was walking my nephew the other afternoon. He was buckled safely in his stroller, when he turned to me and asked.

“Up La-La?” looking at me, like I had to key to his freedom.

He wanted to get out and as I bent down to unbuckle him to put him down, I told him. “You can walk with me, but we have to hold hands.”

The only condition of letting this innocent little person out of the safety of his stroller was to reach down and grab a hold of him. To keep him close to me as we walked down the sidewalk.

I thought about the millions of things that could happen if his little hand slipped out of mine. He could trip and fall. He could walk to close the street. He could get hurt. I wanted to be there, hand in hand, ready to fight the world off.

He however didn’t see it that way. “No.” he said as he attempted to wiggle his hand free.

Like a typical toddler, he had just learned the actual usage of “No” and it seemed to finding itself in almost every conversation.

I stopped and bent down to him. “Listen buddy if you don’t hold hands, you have to go back in the stroller, okay?”

I know he’s just a baby, but he’s smart and I knew he also understood. He accepted defeat. “Okay.” He responded.

He was so small, but still so curious about the world. He wanted to get out of that stroller and run. He wasn’t thinking about consequences or dangers. Instead he was thinking about exploring.

I remember feeling like that as a kid. Feeling frustrated that you couldn’t just get out and do what you wanted. It’s stifling for them, but it’s also safer. Children need to be protected. But while they concede to the rules, the glimmer of excitement lingers in their eye; anxiously waiting for the day they can just take off and do what they want.

They have a burning desire to exercise their freedom. They wait in baited breath for the day when they make their own rules. They can’t wait to be able to: do this by myself, go to the mall, to drive, to go out on a date, to go on vacation, to buy this or that. As little children we have a list of things that we anticipate to accomplish, experience or do.

We just can’t wait…

Then we get there. We wake up and drive to the big-kid jobs, we acquire the big-kid bills, and we struggle with the big-kid responsibilities. Then, only to find ourselves trying to desperately re-live the naiveté of youth on the weekends. To get back to our roots and find the “fun” in life again.

As adults we work hard to play hard.

We save money to go on vacation and to travel to some unknown place just to marvel at something. To see something new for the first time, the same way we saw the world as a child. We save money and buy “toys”: computers, iPads, gaming systems, gadgets, cars, wave runners, and motorcycles. We go out and buy pets; and although they require time, attention, money and work, they remind us of the importance of play. All of this “stuff” makes us feel like a kid again.

It’s ironic when you think about it. We spend years pushing youth away. We can’t wait to grow up. When asked, “How old are you?” As children we calculate age in half’s and quarters. You weren’t just 10, but “10 and ½” or “10 and ¾ ” or “almost 11.”

We wanted to fast forward life to get to what we believed would be the “best part.” As adults it’s actually quite different. There have been times when can’t remember our age. We pause to think about it. “Am I 24 or 25?” In fact, I’ve never met anyone past the age of 20 who calculates age in halves or quarters. After 21, no one wants to be older and we’re surely not claiming to be 23 and ½.

So one day we wake up as adults and realize we’re here. No longer are we pushing things along.

We’re old enough to: do what we want, go where we want, eat what we want, buy what we want and be what we want. But now we just want to slow down and enjoy. Once we get to our twenties we begin to learn the importance of appreciating life. The joy that comes from living exclusively in a moment, exactly as we are.

But, it’s ultimately the freedom that is the scary realization of adulthood. Once we get it, we’re unsure of how to apply it.

What choice is the best? How do you know? When should you make a certain move? Is this job right? Is this person right? All of these questions come flooding into our lives. All the freedom we’ve been anticipating is finally here… and quite frankly, it’s terrifying!

But don’t let it spook you. Break it down. Think of life like a menu. You sit down at a restaurant with the freedom to order whatever you want. But you feel overwhelmed, flooded with options. Your initial reaction may be to revert back to the children’s menu: Six meals, all familiar an easier choice.

But don’t!

When you want to do that, think of all the amazing food you would miss out on if you didn’t take the risk to order something new. To try something different… To explore the pages beyond the children’s menu.

When you get scared about all the “adult” stuff thrown at you, the endless options and countless opportunities to mess up…just slow down. Give yourself a moment to find perspective and think about the wonderment that motivated you as a kid.

The curiosity that made you desire freedom in the first place. The initial yearning for independence that gave you the confidence to push a hand away and say “No,” so you could try it on your own. That same independent force can aid you through adulthood. It’s still there. Trust it and also find comfort in knowing we still have a loved one’s hand to hold if we’re not quite ready to conquer it all.

SHORT AND SWEET… AKA… MORAL OF THE BLOG

We’ve been waiting our entire childhood…so take the risk. Live. Learn. Order weird food, try new things and figure out your likes and dislikes. Life is all about trial and error. Find the brazen curiosity of youth and apply it to adulthood.

Xoxo

Lana

“Remember that beyond the clouds, the sun is still shining. Remember to believe in happy endings, because you are the author of the story of your life. You are in control. You are deciding what’s important and what’s definitely not.” -Unknown

A Little Too Wordy…

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:36:03 PDT

After a long day of driving for work, I plopped on the gray chair in front of my computer to check emails. After some quick sifting and sorting, I signed on to check facebook. As the familiar white and blue background fills the screen I see “That person.” You know the one who is indefinitely on your newsfeed no matter what time of day, updating their status with some play-by-play of their daily routine. Putting (in my opinion) all too much personal information out into the world.

Now, I know some people are more “open” than I am and they feel free to use facebook as a forum to express their EVERY thought and action. OK, that’s fine; in truth, I can feel free to hit the “Hide News Feed” button on my screen too. But instead, I look at their status and I can’t help but wonder… do they realize that they aren’t just sharing some personal feeling but are also engraving it into the world?

The digital age has made off-the-cuff comments that will fade over time, obsolete. Nothing fades now. Instead, it is there, in black and white, for all to see, saved to the memory of some database where it can forever be retrieved. It’s heavy stuff when you think about the sticking power of those words. The true impact your finger will have when it effortlessly swipes the “enter” button on your keyboard.

I think about this with very serious thought, maybe because I’m a writer, maybe because I’m a lover of words or maybe just because I’m sick of reading frivolous updates on my facebook news feed! Either way, it got me thinking that words have power.

We enter the world permanently marked by letters. Our birth certificates commemorate the start of our lives. From that moment forward, we are given a name, a particular set of letters strung together in which to identify and define us. We leave this world with the same letters, but this time they adorn a mass card, a headstone or a death certificate.

It starts and ends with alphabetical letters, which are strung together to form words. It’s what marks our time here and what lives on long after we’re gone. People come and go. People are born and they die… but the letters are what we leave behind. The words live on. The words prove that we were here and we had something to say.

As a writer, it’s the words that I love and am enamored with. The letters arranged in a certain order than can evoke imagery or emotion. Song Lyrics, a verse from a poem or a favorite quote or saying that can conjure up old feelings or instantly bring back distant memories.

I remember being in Kindergarten and receiving my first homework assignment. Each student was assigned a letter of the alphabet. We had to bring in a piece of poster board adorned with our letter, a picture and a word starting with the letter to display at Show & Tell. Somehow I ended up with “Z.” Not much to work with and I’m sure my teacher expected something predictable like, Zipper, Zoo or Zebra. I, however, didn’t think that those words were fancy enough to be on my poster project. So I chose to use the word Zamboni.

Zamboni’s were close to my heart, and here’s why.

All growing up, my older brother Phil, who is eight years older than me, played travel ice hockey. I spent a good portion of my childhood drinking hot cocoa and shivering to the bone watching ice hockey games in the wee-hours of the morning. As the littlest sister of an ice hockey player, I was most concerned with plotting my means of possible escape for when my brother got off the ice. He loved to torture me with his smelly equipment; the odor of rancid fruit, manure and skunk, all mixed into one hockey glove that he threatened to hold over my face on the ride home.

On his game days, the only time I was safe was between periods. The time when he and his team would huddle in the locker room talking strategy or whatever it is they did. Meanwhile, I would watch the Zamboni remove all the scuffs from the skates and glide across the ice. It cleaned the ice and made it look like slippery glass ready for the next period. So when I got “Z” as my letter, I knew that Zamboni would be my word.

After I proudly held up my poster-board displaying my word to the class, my kindergarten teacher doubted its validity. At those times, before computers in classrooms, cell phones with Internet and the ability to Google anything; she did the next best thing and checked the encyclopedia in the library—you know those big old things called books?

The day after my poster presentation, my teacher made a point to tell me that she looked up “Zamboni” and it was a real machine. She thanked me for teaching her a new word. I stood there listening to her, swollen with pride for using a “foo-foo” word, but more excited that I stumped my teacher.

To this day, whenever I stop by my elementary school and pop in to visit former teachers, my kindergarten teacher calls me “The Zamboni Girl.” That letter, that word, stuck with me. It marked my time in her class. I’m sure she’s had hundreds of students, but she only had one “Zamboni Girl.”

If we thought about and understood the lasting impact that our words, text messages and emails had on the world, I wonder if we’d be so quick to shoot an email or hit reply. Words inevitably become a part of who we are and stand the test of time. Long after we’ve graduated from kindergarten, high school, college, graduate school and beyond our words will continue to define us. So choose them with care.

SHORT AN SWEET… AKA… MORAL OF THE BLOG

In 2011, it’s no wonder that our lives are dominated by written texts, resumes, addresses, facebook status and job titles listed on a business card or web page that tells the world who we are. All of this is such a flat representation of a person though… the titles, names, dates, and status… they seem so empty. Whenever the opportunity presents itself for you to give the world a peek into who you really are by using the verbiage of everlasting words… use your words wisely and leave your daily routine updates to yourself.

xoxo

Lana

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” -Unknown

Recycle & Reuse? No… Refuse!

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:20:02 PDT

Here is a new twist on recycling for Earth Day…

The conversation didn’t last long. He and I were doing our regular “dance.” Our version of a conversation, which strongly resembled a combative, flirty, tit-for-tat. As I twisted the tiny straw inside my vodka tonic, I thought about how quickly we ended up right in the same place as we were five years ago. The setting was different; we were both a little older, however, the problem du jour seemed all too familiar. The same round and round. The same one liners. The same issues as before.

When he got up to go outside and smoke a cigarette I was happy to get a break. I needed a time out.

I reached for my cell phone and thought about how the mystique of a “challenge” was so much more appealing in my early twenties and teenage years. Always wanting what you can’t have, didn’t seem to have the same draw as before. I took the last sip of my drink, settled into my bar stool and scrolled through emails and text messages. I was thankful to have the crutch of my cell phone to escape the dead-end conversation.

As I looked through my phone I wondered what the hell people did before cell phones. If they sat at the bar alone, did they just blankly stare at the TV? In my momentary reprieve, before he came back inside to finish our “talk,” I looked around and noticed how many people had a cell phone in hand with a blue light shining on their face.

How far we’ve come in the past decade I thought. Technology is moving fast. We have gadgets, applications and devices for almost everything! GPS, weather, dating, dinner reservations, sports updates, price calculator and calorie counters are at our finger tips. Everything is changing and moving so fast that in the twenty minutes it takes you to get your ass out to the store to buy the new hot item, it’s already outdated.

In 2011 we are the epitome of a true consumer. We validate the thousands of dollars spent on the “newest” and “best” computers, iPad, cell phones, iPod’s, applications and thing-a-ma-bobers. (Yes, that last one is a sophisticated technological term.) We do this because we want what’s “cutting edge.” We yearn to be “ahead of the crowd.” Savvy and sophisticated.

So even though our newest iPad works fine and even though we’ve already dropped way too much money on the purchase, we somehow find a way to convince ourselves that we need to get the iPad2. “It’s so much more advanced than the old one,” we say. “This one hasn’t hit stores yet and the old one is so 60 days ago.”

So, with all this breaking technology, why aren’t we buried in piles of gadgets? Where is all the old, out-dated stuff going? Well that’s easy…we recycle… We don’t feel bad about giving our old cell phones, computers, palm pilots and TI83 calculators the boot, because we know they’re going to be stripped of usable parts and reworked. What is worth anything will be recycled and turned into something newer and better.

We’ve even coined “Going –Green,” a trendy term for the act of ridding our lives of the old and bringing on the new. With STUFF… when we recycle, we feel good about re-using materials.

The problem comes in when we find ourselves sitting at a bar, rehashing old issues in a pathetic attempt to try and recycle past relationships. In relationships the only time we’re “Going-Green” is from the ups and downs of a turbulent ride. When we’ve insisted on plucking something from the past and trying to revive and reuse those old feelings in the future. Sure it works at first. It’s so easy to pick up where you left off. It’s like starting a job without all the rigamarole of the awkward first day or the stigma of the “new person” on the job.

When we recycle relationships, we just ignite the old flame and settle back into the comfort of familiarity. At the start of the relationship recycling process, it seems genius… all the benefits, none of the work. There is no awkward first date. No round and round of courting. No uncomfortable silences or small talk of getting to know someone. You can skip all of that, because you’ve already covered that in the past.

But very quickly we come to remember why the relationship ended up in the trash in the first place. The excuses of “poor timing” and “life getting in the way” don’t seem as whimsical or applicable as the old problems start to rear their ugly heads.

We let enough time go by that we actually started to believe that maybe we were just “busy.” Maybe now we could revive what we had and “get on the same page.” But when we stop and analyze these clichés, we realize that’s all it is. Cliché is defined as “An element which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect.” So when we try and recycle a relationship we see the truths in the clichés of life. We see that we’ve overused the excuses. We’ve overlooked the real reasons for why the relationship ended. Time brushed over the reality and left a fog of doubt; just enough so that we think …

“Maybe this could work again?”

But don’t feed into that.

We don’t feel guilty for moving past Nokia flip phone and onto smart phones. Instead we feel like we’ve “done our part” because we’ve disposed of the old in the proper place. The Recycling Bin! Maybe that’s the step we need to remember in relationships… the proper disposal. If a relationship has died, fizzled out or ended do we need to pull out the paddles and resuscitate it?

If in the past you have either hooked up with/dated/gone out with/been with (whatever terminology you want to use) and it didn’t work out… think about this… Maybe you weren’t too “busy.” Maybe life didn’t get in the way. Maybe it just ended because it was supposed to. Maybe we should start to feel good about leaving old relationships disposed of in their proper place—in the past.

Here’s a saying that hasn’t lost its original meaning… Out with the old and in with the new. To find a new, healthy, happy relationship, you have to leave the past in the past. If you want to recycle then go collect plastic and glass bottles but leave the relationships alone.

Xoxo

Lana

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

If we want new and cutting edge, in gadgets and relationships, we have to let go of what’s old and outdated. Past relationships ended for a good reason, so we should stop trying to resuscitate them bring them back to life. Remember this… the Zack-Morris-Back-Pack-Cell-Phone, can’t hold a candle to the new iPhone, so we’ve left it in the 90’s where it belongs. Maybe we’d have an easier time embracing new opportunities if we applied this logical rational to dating. Just an Earth Day thought. ;)

Sex and Ice Cream

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 12:52:01 PDT

A couple weeks ago, 5 of my younger cousins (middle school/early high school age) spent the weekend at my house for our annual “Cousin’s Weekend.” It’s an unofficial, impromptu holiday that we schedule for the spring of every year. On Saturday morning they flipped the channels looking for something to watch. Cartoons are a thing of the past as they are oh-so mature tweens and teens. They instead stopped on MTV. It was an episode of the Jersey Shore and one of the cast mates was escorting a stranger into the “smush” room to have sex.

“Do people really act like this?” my 12-year-old cousin blurted out. Dating to her was still texting and school dances. She is in middle school, at a formidable age and I quickly responded.

“Absolutely not… these kids are disgusting. It’s not only classless but also unsafe and unhealthy to do what they are doing on this show. Normal people do not act like this.”

She seemed satisfied with my answer and continued to watch the screen the same way people stand in awe of animals at the zoo. You want to look, because they are odd and different, but they are also wild and kind of disgusting so you don’t want to touch.

I remember being her age and watching the sex scene of dirty dancing. My mom wouldn’t let us have the Dirty Dancing Movie, but my grandmother never listened to my mom. She did what she wanted and so I remember watching that pool-house scene, with the 45 records playing in the background, as my first risqué T.V. sex scene.

I remember turning to ask my grandmother “Do people really act like that?” When you’re in middle school you don’t feel weird asking questions. The concept of sex seemed as foreign to me as marriage.

It was the exact same question my cousin asked me. The same wonder about the unknown. The difference in this scenario was that Baby wasn’t sleeping around with every guerilla-juice-head-grenade that was "DTF" at the upscale country club. Instead she was in love with one guy and by the end of the movie we realize he was in love with her too. Maybe that’s why my grandmother’s answer was quite different than what I told my cousin. My grandmother said this…

“What those two are doing is what happens when people are in love.” Pretty textbook, but I fired back…

“But I thought only married people did that?”

This could have been the place where my grandmother shut the conversation down. “You’re right, wait till you’re married, this is just a movie,” but she didn’t. Instead she reached for the remote and hit the pause button.

“I know your only 13 but I’m going to tell you this anyway because I don’t like to lie and I think you should know.”

Now I was intrigued. I shifted my body so I could face her. An adult was about to share some secrets with me about “doing it” and I wanted to pay attention.

“I’m not sure how many people actually wait to do…THAT (she gestured at the TV) until their married. As you can see on this movie, it’s an outdated school of thought and I want you to be informed… you’re going to high school next year.”

I didn’t say a word. I only partially knew what she was talking about anyway, but she was talking to me like an adult and I didn’t want to spoil it.

“Think of doing THAT (she gestured to the T.V again) like tasting ice cream.” I didn’t see the correlation but I sat silent and let her talk.

“If you go to the ice cream shop, you want to make sure you leave with your favorite sundae right?” I nodded. “But to find your favorite flavor, you ask to taste a few. You can’t try them all or you’ll get a stomach ache, but there are so many that look good, so they let you taste 3 or 4 before you make your final decision.”

It was starting to come together. “So that’s why Baby and Johnny are doing that? They want to make sure they are each other’s favorite before they get married?”

“Yes… but the most important thing to remember is that you should only be doing this… (she paused and searched for the right word) TASTING… if you’re old enough and in love. Just like Baby and Johnny. You can’t go around trying every flavor or you will end up all mixed up and sick to your stomach.”

Her whole scenario made perfect sense to me and I didn’t have any more questions. Instead, I asked her if we could turn the movie back on and fast forward to the dancing part. I think she was relieved.

To this day I think about her Ice Cream Theory.

Maybe some people are happy waiting until they are married. Maybe they didn’t have to “taste” the sundae because they knew it was going to be their favorite flavor.

But for the rest of us, who aren’t so sure, it’s scary to think about committing to one flavor, for the rest of our lives… if we haven’t tried anything else. Don’t knock it till you try it… right? So maybe we have to try a few. Make sure we exercised some options. Make sure we are confident in our decision to have this one flavor for the rest of time.

You don’t want to be stuck with mint chocolate chip and wish you tried chocolate chip cookie dough first. Even if mint chocolate chip is your favorite flavor, you don’t want the lingering doubt that maybe you should have just tried…

This doubt, wonder and curiosity are, what I think, drives people to explore other flavors outside of their marriage. I really don’t want to be wondering if I’m “sure” about my flavor 10 years down the road. I want to be confident that I am. So, it makes sense that you try it out first.

The secret though is balance. Like my grandmother said… you can’t just try everything or you’ll end up all mixed up, in flavor overload with one hell of a stomach ache.

Instead we need to slow down, take some time to get know ourselves and figure out what we’re looking for; something sweet, something nutty, something fresh, something with candy, something with chocolate or something with fruit… there are a million options. So we have to know what we’re looking for first. Then we have to be sure we want to taste a certain flavor. Remember, you can’t go tasting everything for free… it’s an unspoken rule of the ice cream shop and should be an unspoken rule of relationships.

If you go into it thinking that you only get a few options… maybe you’ll chose more wisely. Avoiding both a stomach ache and heart ache.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG
The “birds and the bees” is an idiom as out dated as actually believing people are “waiting until they’re married.” We have T.V. and books people…no one’s believing that anymore. So, get with the times, get honest with yourself and remember The Ice Cream Shop Theory.

It’s okay to try a FEW… just not so many that you have a stomach ache. That way, you will be totally happy and confident with your decision as you skip out of the ice cream parlor or down the aisle. ;)

xoxo
Lana

“I scream, you scream, we all scream, for ice cream”

“My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate - that's my philosophy” –Thornton Wilder

Grace and Patience Don’t Exist!

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 13:10:32 PDT

I was 5 years old, my long black hair twisted up into a side pony tail (very stylish at the time) and I tapped my saddle shoe while waiting for my sister to get out of math tutoring. My sister refused to grasp the definitiveness of math.

I remember her sitting at the kitchen table with a math worksheet. Her eyebrows turned in, annoyed that she had to waste her time on homework. My father held a pencil in one hand, his other hand gripping his forehead, as if holding up his head. His posture screamed frustration and I knew my sister was being ornery.

“One plus one… two, three, six… who even cares?” She’d say while simultaneously waving the pencil in the air as if it was a wand. She was in first grade and was far too busy and important to concern herself with math homework.

Truth is, the wand may have been fitting, as she was a royal pain in the ass when it came to math. She didn’t care for it and she stuck her heels into the ground and let everyone know it. Math homework was always a struggle and it only made sense to get her a tutor. Some innocent third party, whom my parents hoped could get through to her.

The downside of this… I had to sit with my mother and wait for her while she was tutored.

“It doesn’t make sense to drive all the way home Lana, she’ll only be 45 minutes.”

My mom would sit and read, however, 45 minutes to a 5 year old is a lifetime! It’s almost 3 episodes of The Mickey Mouse Club (before it was interactive and 3D) or The Elephant Show or David the Nome. (Remember we’re 20somehting now, so it was the 80’s)

In those days we didn’t have the luxury of portable DVD players, iPods, cell phones with games, or even Nintendo Game Boy. (They didn’t surface until middle school or early 90’s). So without the crutch of technology to get me through the 45 minutes, I had nothing left to do but wait.

I, like most children, hated waiting and this was no exception. I sat in the chair, swinging my legs. I paced. I sat again, this time with my feet tucked under me. I was fidgeting which prompted my mother to insert one of her all-time favorite cliché sayings…

“Patience is a virtue, a virtue is a grace, and Grace is a little girl with Jelly on her face.”

I didn’t have any idea what my mother was talking about then. To be honest, I’m still kind of fuzzy who Grace is, why she doesn’t have a napkin, and what purpose she serves in this little saying?

In retrospect, as a 20something, I wondered… maybe Grace wasn’t supposed to make sense? Maybe her purpose was to be “off” and she was inserted into this cliché to act as a distraction. To act as something to keep the symmetry and rhythm of the rhyme, but, also purposefully random. Something to make you go “Huh?” Something to distract you, just for a minute, from the fact that you’re helplessly stuck WAITING!

So, is that it then? Is patience really just the ability to allow oneself to be distracted? For those who can effortlessly shift gears and move their attention onto something else while they wait, they appear to obtain the illusive “patience.” Yet, the more I think about it... I don’t think patience is real.

There I said it!

I’ll say it again… Patience doesn’t exist! It’s a mirage or a façade. I don’t think any person carries more patience than another. Instead I think that some of us are just more easily distracted and those lucky folks are labeled patient.

As an adult, I still struggle with waiting and “patience.” I am a focused, driven person and when I decide I want something, the last thing I want to do is wait!

I think the “waiting” is even worse in 2011, because we are so used to being spoiled by the instant gratification of technology. I don’t want to wait to listen to a voicemail, so I send a text. I can’t wait to get home and check my email, so I get emails sent to my phone. I don’t want to wait in line at the bank, so I play the “Words with Friends” application on my phone. We use phones, computers, iPods, iPads and anything digital to occupy our time and avoid waiting.

But these gadgets are merely a distraction. We can’t escape the waiting. It’s still happening, and we just distract ourselves to pass the time.

So, if we’re so smart and high tech… where’s the application, gadget or mechanism to distract me while I wait for a return phone call from the guy I’m interested in? Or the job offers I’m waiting to get confirmation on? Or the bank statement I’m waiting to clear? The debt I’m waiting to absolve or the hard time I’m waiting to pass? Where’s the little rhyme or application that’s going to help me forget about those “real life” and “serious” things?

The truth is… that side ponytails, saddle shoes, The Elephant Show, and silly little rhymes are a thing of the past. It’s no longer so easy to find a distraction and swiftly divert our attention. Despite our best technology, the serious-real-life things grab our attention and involve our emotions and feelings. We don’t want to feel rejected, overlooked, passed over, or hanging out to dry. These silly games and sayings no longer fill our void while practice the art of waiting.

So how do we do it?

To tell you the truth, I don’t really know. As adults, I think we get to a point that we realize we will inevitably drive ourselves crazy until the “waiting” period is over. We know that any attempt to distract or divert our attention will be lost energy.

We forget about Grace and her jelly virtues and instead remind ourselves, “This too, shall pass.” We’ve substituted one cliché for another… but it works.

It works because despite our attempts to steer, control, manage or plan… sometimes all we can do is just wait. We’re adults now, we’ve come to accept the inevitable.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

All joking aside, patience is something I struggle with every day. I don’t understand it, I simply don’t’ have it and I’m not sure if it’s even anything real that I can acquire or work to obtain. However, if my theory is a crock and patience does exist, I’m almost certain that God forgot to give me any. Anyway, that’s my best excuse. Blame it on the divine… who could argue with that? ;)

xoxo

Lana

“The waiting is the hardest part…” Tom Petty

Roaring Silence

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 11:38:33 PDT

I was in eighth grade and my parents gave me the choice to pick a high school; the local public school or some private, Catholic, All Girls, college-prep school in Delaware. My sister went to the private school and she said it was “okay.” After careful consideration (as much consideration as any 13 year old could muster up, between my other decisions of what boys names I drew on my notebook, what I would wear to school, where to sit at lunch and who’s house I would go to that weekend, I made my decision.)

“Mom, Dad, I’ve decided. Although Padua seems like a great school and all, I choose public school.” I smiled as I said this as if grateful for the choice, but also trying to gingerly break the news to my parents.

“Wrong choice,” my Dad said without the same polite grace that I attempted. “You’re going to Padua.”

“What?” I asked in desperation. This was ridiculous. I stood up, all 4’10 of me and firmly stated, “You said I had a choice though?”

“You did have a choice, but you picked the wrong option, so now, your mother and I are taking your choice back.”

“That’s not fair,” I say as my voice cracks and my eyes begin to well up.

“Life’s not fair Lan.” My dad loved that line almost as much as “because I said so,” both of which infuriated me! He continued on, “Unfortunately for you, your 13, so you’ll do what we say. Like it or not, you’re going to Padua.”

That was how decisions were made in my house growing up. You were offered a choice… just pick the right one. So after a very dramatic scene of “waterworks,” as my father called them, and some desperate claims to my mother that “my life would be over” and “I’ll just die if you send me there,” I took the bus to Delaware anyway. My pleas of sympathy had little effect on my father’s stonewall expression or decision.

Contrary to my belief, my life wasn’t over and I didn’t die… Image that? It was somewhat humiliating to have to stand at the public high school every morning awkwardly waiting for the private school bus in a plaid skirt, navy sweater and knee high socks while the other kids walked by in “regular clothes,” but I lived through it. In fact, I made the best friends of my life, had a damn good time and maintained two social circles; friends from home and friends from school. So it actually worked out really well (although I didn’t admit that to my father at the time).

Padua’s mascot was a panda… not exactly the toughest animal to intimate rival schools with at sporting events, but who am I? The school’s motto was just as warm and fuzzy. It was written on almost everything, in scripted on our class rings and after four years engrained into our heads.

“Suaviter Sed Fortiter” translated from Latin to English as, “Softly, but Strongly.”

As lame as I thought that slogan was while I was in high school, I found that it actually is a very powerful statement. It is something I have leaned on many times since my high school graduation. I now understand that this motto was supposed to stick with us to be our mantra. They were preparing girls to be ladies (softly) who could carry their own and kick some ass (strongly).

The truth is that, “Softly but Strongly” isn’t an original idea. Although the Latin version sounds much fancier, we’ve heard this catch phrase broken down into many common clichés.

“You catch more bees with honey than you can with vinegar.”
“Silence is thundering.”

These catch-phrases all deliver the same message. That you don’t have to “rule with an iron fist” to get things done or be heard. But in 2011 there is a lot of mixed messages flying around. Should the ladies default to “tread lightly” or “I am woman hear me roar?”

We have broken the glass ceiling ladies and infiltrated into the work place. We have equal opportunities for education and jobs. We are on the same playing field. And as much as I appreciate all the bra-burning and protesting that my mother’s generation treaded through, I have to admit that I like a bit of, shall I say, in-equality?

Yes I said it. But don’t alert the feminists just yet… I said “A-BIT.” I don’t mean anything submissive or discriminatory, but I do prefer to act like, and be treated like, a lady. We are not completely “equal” with men or them with us; we still have our gender roles. I like to have the door held, yes, I could get it for myself, but I appreciate the traditional mannerly gesture. In fact, when I go out on a first date with someone, I always think this…

If we were walking down the street, and someone was to jump out and try to mug us, would I have to be the one to protect us?

If I decide that I would have to be the one, I generally won’t go out with this person again. Not because I’m not looking to date someone with anger management issues or some beef-cake who spends 6 hours at the gym. I am just looking for some man to take the initiative and be a man, the protector. Just like holding the door, I know I could do it, but I appreciate the traditional gesture.

Maybe it’s a gender stereo-type, to want to be a treated like a lady and want a guy to be the protective man? But, so is buying trucks for little boys and pink doll houses for little girls. Truth is, it’s almost impossible to escape all gender stereo-typing, because regardless of your sexual orientation, men and women are just different.

But with the women’s liberation, we women have to walk a thin line of “Softly but Strongly.” I want to have the same opportunities as a man, I want to be treated the same, spoke to the same, paid the same and taken just as serious as a man. But I also appreciate the door being held, the chair to be pulled out and some flowers bought for me along the way.

This may seem hypocritical or an oxymoron, but in logic, so is the statement “Softly but Strongly” and “Silence is Thundering.” They are slogans that we “get” but when deconstructed, don’t seem to make much literal sense. Nevertheless they work.

Sometimes we have to just shut up and say nothing in order to get our point across. Sometimes we have to act like a lady even when we want to rule with an iron fist. Sometimes saying something gently will get us much further than saying it too bluntly.

That’s the battle women in 2011 face. We have the equality. We get educated, we voice our opinions and we freely exercise our strengths. But after all this time, we understand that strength isn’t always the best remedy. Sometimes we need to exercise the “softly” side.

So despite our equality, we continue to struggle with the balance of when to use it. The thin line between aggressive and assertive, between submissive and being treating like a lady. Between speaking our minds and sounding like a blabbering bitch. We have to be women who know when to roar and when to deafen with silence.

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

Ladies: We’re doing the best we can to honor our grandmothers struggles to be treated like a proper lady, our mother’s struggles for equality, and our struggles to be ourselves. It’s a balancing act.

Xoxo

Lana

“A woman is like a tea bag - you can't tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

“Just Fine”, Just Ain’t Enough

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 10:39:17 PST

When I was in Law School, I continued to babysit for the same family I cared for while in college. On the weekends I would babysit and during the week I wasted away in the law library for hours on end. (Sounds great huh? And people wonder why everyone hates Law School?… Haha)

During one of my babysitting weekends, I sat at the respective families dining room table, books spread wide open, paper’s littering the surface and the smell of coffee dominating the tiny room. When the parents arrived home, I slowly packed up my travel library into my 2 shoulder bags with full intention to crack the books open again when I got home.

The father of this family is a corporate lawyer in Philadelphia. He never really said much to me. I did all the planning and organizing of the kid’s schedules through the mother. So on this day, to my surprise, the stoic man spoke.

“How’s school going?”

It was a normal question, but I hesitated…

In Law School you’re bred to “never let them see you sweat.” So, I struggled with the option of giving a cool smile, shrugging my shoulders and delivering my politically correct, “Oh you know, it’s tough, but it’s interesting too, so I’m sure this will all pay off.”

People usually liked that answer, it ended the conversation before it could start. It allowed me to keep moving toward an exit, without having to indulge myself in really evaluating my true feelings on, “How’s school?” Suppress and Conquer… That should have been the motto in Law School. It was mine …

For some reason this night, I opted against my cookie-cutter answer. Maybe because he was a lawyer and I thought he could see right through me, or maybe it’s because he had a sympathetic look on his face. Not pity, nothing like that…but genuine concern or worry.

“I’m not loving school…” I said the words and looked up to his face to evaluate his expression and decide whether I should retract my statement. His face didn’t change, the worried expression stayed. I looked down, disappointed to admit what I had said and surprised to hear myself say it. I had to say something else.

“I’m just really tired, that’s all,” I accompanied this statement with a gesture of holding up my coffee cup, indicating that the power of caffeine was ineffective on me. It was another truth that I let slip out and fill the silence of the room.

He reached out and put a hand on my shoulder. “The secret to Law School is to keep your head down, stay to yourself and keep trudging forward… if you can do that, you’ll be just fine.”

As I got into my car that night and drove home, I thought about his words. I couldn’t fathom keeping to myself anymore than I already had been. I was the walking poster-child for independence and keeping to myself—that’s why I hated this whole damn situation.

I didn’t want to just keep my head down and continue moving forward. I didn’t want some secret to get me through. I wanted to like what I do every day. I wanted to talk to people, be social, and make some sort of damn difference. I didn’t want to just get by and most of all; I didn’t want to be, “just fine.”

That night got the wheels turning for me. I think if somewhere inside of me I truly liked Law School, I would have fought for it. I didn’t though. Instead I think of that night as the beginning of the end of Law School and the beginning of me being honest with myself.

Ever since I was a child my mother would tell me this; when picking a sports team, an assignment for school, an activity to do on the weekend, a group of friends… no matter what, she stood by this…

“Find what works for you and stick with it. If it doesn’t work for you… continue your search.”

It seems easy enough. But it becomes complex in practice, because many times in school, career, life, and relationships we find ourselves sticking with something that doesn’t work.

Then we do this for so long, it becomes habit and comfortable so we keep going. Even when something doesn’t work, we keep our heads down and trudge forward ensuring that we’ll get through it and be, “just fine.”

But I refuse to do that… in school, life and relationships. I’m shooting for much better than “just fine” in all aspects. Keeping your head down and trudging through your day is just as terrible as “settling,” in a relationship.

Most 20somethings wants the companionship of a relationship; the go-to person, the regular intimacy, the compassion; the passion (in and out of the bedroom). Some of us have found a partner, a match, the one, and the love of our lives. Others of us are still looking.

The 20something is a funny era; some of my closest friends and I, may seem to be “on the same page” about many things in life, but in relationships, we’re actually in very different places.

I have quite a few friends who got married right out of school—both high school and college. Upon their respective graduation, they immediately started building their lives with someone. They laid the foundation for their future one brick at a time with someone else. Someone that they trusted, depended on, and loved; right beside them to share the load. That plan worked for them and their doing a damn good job of implementing it.

I also know quite a few people, myself included, who are mixing the cement for the foundation of our future alone. Some of us have already started laying those bricks and achieved certain milestones, (finishing up school, buying a home, landing that coveted job), but all is accomplished while keeping pace to the beating of our own heart.

I’ve been in relationships, (I’m sure we all have) when you are faced with the choice to string someone along while you wait to see if anything better comes around. If it doesn’t you’ll be “just fine” settling, or you can decide that you’re strong enough to “wait it out,” without the crutch of fruitless relationships and start building your foundation alone.

When you think about, we are lucky enough to be faced with the alone-option. The choice to wait, look up, look around, and figure ourselves out before we commit to anything—schooling, a career or a long term relationship.

I was lucky to have that option with Law School. To look up and realize it really wasn’t the place for me. I remember feeling a freedom to be out of Law School, but I also was feeling a loss. I had no job, no direction, no prospects for a job, and the only thing that kept me going was attending Graduate School. Dropping out of Law School and then having to retell every person I ran into the story of “why,” and answer the awkward… “So…what are you doing now?” speech was not my proudest moments. But each time I braved a new face it got easier and I became stronger in my decision.

That’s the risk, when you give up “just fine” you give up the security, the plan, the routine. You face the unknown. So instead of dealing with this, you can opt to keep your head down and move forward in order to be just fine. Or you can chose to look up and look relationships, career, and life… in the face and strive for much more than “just fine.”

Doing something that doesn’t work is like stringing ourselves along to end up “just fine.” It’s equally as bad (maybe even worse) as stringing someone else along to end up in a relationship that’s “just fine.”

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

Shooting for “just fine”…. Sucks! Bring your standards up, continue the search, and shoot for more. Do what works and stick with it and don’t drag along what doesn’t.

xoxo

Lana

"Yesterday's failures are today's seeds, that must be diligently planted to be able to abundantly harvest tomorrow's successes."

Hallmark Has A Point?

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 11:30:44 PST

“I’m sorry for your loss…”

It’s what you’re supposed to say. But even as the words left my lips and resonated in my brain, I thought about how empty, generic and half hearted they seemed. As I listened to his voice on the voicemail I rehearsed saying it, but each time it sounded wrong. I wanted a Hallmark zinger; something short, sweet and powerful.

At this point even if it rhymed and skimmed the surface of cheesy, I thought that it would have been better than “I’m sorry for your loss.”

This was a person I spent my childhood summers beside. He was someone I’ve known for almost two decades and I felt like the words “I’m sorry for your loss” were desensitizing
his situation.

This is when I really needed Hallmark, but instead was left to my own devices. Suddenly the voicemail beeped indicating for me to speak...

“Hey… it’s me.” I sounded too chipper; I tried to adjust my tone. “I heard about your dad…” Shit, now I sounded too depressing, I need to fix that {Long Pause}

“I know you don’t have a sister, so I guess that makes me the closest thing… so, I had to call you. I’m so sorry.” {Another Long Pause}

“If you need to talk or you need a drink or you need a ride because you’ve already had too many drinks… just call me. Love you.”

I hung up.

It didn’t rhyme, it didn’t flow, there was no unearthing the meaning of life… but it did the job. Hallmark however, would have had an elegant way for me to state that, so I didn’t have to stumble over myself. Like I feel I just did.

It’s moments like this that remind me why, even writers like myself, pay $6.99 for pre-packaged words beautiful organized into a harmonious greeting card.

It’s not because I couldn’t do it myself. I’m a writer; of course I could have put something to together… for someone else. But this situation was different, he’s my friend and I knew his dad and...

It’s just when emotions cloud the logical and productive side of our brain, it’s difficult to pull the feelings out and stick them onto a page.

Maybe this is why the cards seem to stick for me?

You see, Valentine’s Day is over, the flowers have wilted, the stuffed animals settled into their home a top of a bookshelf. The chocolates have been picked through and eaten; what are left are the undesired flavors marred by tiny nibbles, taken from the corner, to differentiate caramels from peanuts. The champagne has been popped, the surprises over and most of the red and pink mayhem has been marked yellow with a “Clearance” sign. Things have swiftly gone back to normal.

In the aftermath of Valentine’s Day, I’m going to admit, it’s a whole lot of fluff for what I call, one silly “Hallmark Holiday.” I’m down on Valentines, not because I’m bitter and single (that’s only half true ha-ha) mostly though because if you love someone, don’t save your money to buy overpriced roses on February 14^th.

Instead buy a single rose from the drug store on a random Tuesday. To me, little private reminders, casually scattered throughout the year mean more than some showy gesture on V-day that is motivated sometimes just to “keep up with the Jones.”

With that being said, there is one aspect to the debacle that does have sticking power. For me, what stands the test of time is ironically enough, the cards. The cards, which are the foundation of Hallmark. The words strung together on some half-folded piece of overpriced laminated paper.

I mean who the hell decided we should pay $6.99 for a greeting card? But we do. And it’s usually
includes some cheesy catch phrase or rhyming idiom that are supposed to explain the meaning of life, but really just act as a cryptogram.

So, yeah, these cards are obnoxiously “Hallmark,” but we buy them anyway.

In fact we feel out of place giving a gift for any occasion without them. With each passing Holiday we continue to perform the ritual of card shopping. The ritual of dumping money to buy words written by someone else, in hopes that it can accurately express how we feel about the recipient. We buy the cards to personalize the day, gift, occasion.

Whether it’s a need to express sorrow and a condolence, or a chance to express elation and love… we look to greeting cards.

The words, the message, the feelings they evoke come alive with each and every read.

Since I was a child I always saved my cards. The wrapping paper, boxes, ribbons, bows were all quickly cleaned up into the garbage. Eventually the gift became outdated, broken, old… Somehow touched by time. But the cards remain.

I used to put them in the top drawer of my dresser after every Birthday, Christmas, Communion, etc. But by the time I was a tween, the drawer became full and now they sit in an egg crate in the back of my closet.

I’ve considered throwing them all out and making room for more shoe racks, but as much as I love Shoes…I can’t do it.

I’m not really sure what I’m saving them for. I mean, what the hell, am I going to do with a huge stack of old cards? But I can’t bring myself to get rid of them. As I continued to get older, I’ve added graduation cards; welcome home cards, good luck cards, and romantic cards to the bin.

They are like a timeline of my life. Some were encouraging for scary beginnings, some were congratulatory for confident middles, and some were sympathetic for bittersweet endings.

The cards tend to hold more clout than the “stuff.” The flowers, candy, even an embrace… all have a shelf life. The cards, however, memorialize our feelings. They don’t expire, they don’t wilt away, and they don’t just live in the moment. So next time you buy a card, think about the power it has and choose carefully…

xoxo
Lana

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

QUIZ:

Is Valentine’s Day an overpriced marketing ploy?

Is it ridiculous that we pay over $6.99 for a disposable card that may only be read once?

Do we need that sappy “Hallmark” shit every now and then?

The answer to all of these is “YES.”

"Life is a special occasion so celebrate” –Hallmark

Forget “It” & The Ground Hog & Try To Balance

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 13:45:14 PST

“I want it all!”

Those four words are engrained in the foundation of the American Dream. Anyone can have it (whatever “it” is) as long as their willing to work for it. So, we 20somethings, trudge through school in hopes of finding “it”. We secure a job in able to work at achieving “it.” We focus on “it” and we make it our goal, our passion, our dream.

The irony is, that those people who seem most “together,” the ones that are certain they’re going to find “it”, can end up the most lost. Those people who appear to know the program, the ones that are “on the right track” from the start… they are the ones who risk being farthest from “it.”

I can make this general statement with confidence because I was one of those people.

Smart, driven, confident and determined—all of which sounds good on paper, but can actually be a lethal combination.

When you have these qualities and you chose to focus on the wrong thing; or if you find yourself pursuing the wrong “it”, well then you end up making quite a mess for yourself.

In our (my) defense, the trouble is that you never really know your pursuing the wrong “it,” until you’ve lost all perspective. All that damn determination, confidence and wit has you convincing yourself that you’re doing the right thing. Heading you in the right direction and surrounding yourself with the right people. I mean come on… you’re so smart, how could you not know exactly what you’re doing?

(Note the sarcasm)

Once you convince yourself that “it” is the one and only; goal, school, career, car, person, place—whatever it is… once you hone in on “it” and drive full speed toward it, you put on blinders. Not just any blinders, either, it’s the big dark leather blinders, the kind they put on horses, the kind that blocks out everything in your peripheral.

Which would be fine if you’re going in the right direction… but what if you’re not? What if you need a moment to look away or a chance to see the bigger picture? What if you need a second to assess your whole picture... you can’t do it. You can’t do it because you’ve put so much pressure on yourself to keep chasing this one “it,” that you can’t give up now. You’re so close…

In fact, you’re so savvy that you’ve even convinced the people around you that this is your “thing,” your “it,” and you find them cheering you on from the sidelines. You’ve tricked the bystanders and worse, you’ve tricked yourself.

So you get deeper into the commitment, the schooling, the contract, the job or the relationship. So deep that before you know it… that thing is your “it.” That schooling is your degree, that job your career, that relationship your life, and now you suddenly feel pigeon holed by life.

It’s the “This is it?” feeling. It’s disheartening, like finding out Santa isn’t real, or letting the air out of a balloon painfully slow, until it lays limp on the floor, an unrecognized shriveled version of its former self.

You spent all of that time and effort pursuing this? You put blinders on for this? But, by the time you realize “this isn’t for me,” you’re so far in; it feels as if you’ll never be able to get out.

But don’t worry… it only feels that way.

The truth is that, the second you start to look outside of the blinders you’re able to get a good grasp on the real picture.

And the real picture is that finding fulfillment from “it” (job, place, goal, relationship, accomplishment) doesn’t actually exist. Pursuing one thing head-on is a fruitless battle because that one thing won’t ever be truly enough. We’re programmed to want it all, remember?

That’s the frustration because we can’t ever really have it all.

No matter how good you are at one thing, whatever “it” is… the bottom line is that it’s only ONE thing. Just because you have the job, now you want the promotion, the career, the relationship, the real estate, the bank account… you just keep adding things to your “Want” list.

Maybe this is why people have always been so fond of that Groundhog Day movie. Where the same day that plays over and over again. People like this movie because they identify with it. The silly comedy hits a heartstring because it portrays the real fear that life will be end up being one mundane routine that plays over and over again. Day in and day out. We fear we will never feel fulfilled and we will continually chase one goal after another in a tired cyclical fashion.

I think the solution to that movie… to the conundrum that is Ground Hogs Day, is to remember that life is about ebb and flow. It’s not about ONE thing. It’s about TONS of things and the hush-hush secret to a contented life is - balance. You have to have a little focus on success, mixed with a hint of competition, peppered with a desire to find love and acceptance, and finished with a dash of whatever “it” is that you love. The real key is to know when we have enough…

xoxo

Lana

SHORT AND SWEET…AKA…MORAL OF THE BLOG

The best recipes are made with tons of ingredients; the best movies (with the exception of Ground Hogs Day) are created with a variety of scenes and vignettes… so why should life be any different? Forget ONE thing… Forget “it”. Life shouldn’t be singular; it’s supposed to be a complex plural, so strive for a hearty plethora of spice and pizzazz and leave the Ground Hog out of it… what does he know anyway?

"That's the key to having it all: stop expecting it to look like what you thought it was going to look like" ~Quote from Sex and the City

Snowmen: Friend or Foe?

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 10:25:47 PST

Snowmen… there are not a lot to them. They are made out of one component—snow. What makes them unique is that depending on how you manipulate, mold and construct that powdery white stuff, you have the power to form a lasting shape. The construction … that’s what I want us to pay attention to…

It’s been snowing a lot here in the Northeast, actually, it’s been snowing a lot everywhere; but it seems as if the Philadelphia area has been getting hit extra hard lately. Snow doesn’t really affect my work though, I’m a writer, so all I have to do is adapt to the environment. Instead of a “Cup-of-Joe” on the back porch, I curled up on the couch under our front bay window with my laptop and a snuggly blanket.

Even sitting close to the window, I could feel the cold permeating through any crack or crevice it could find it’s way through. It had just snowed that morning forcing me to shrug further down under the blanket. The cold wasn’t the only thing permeating in from outside though. I could hear the happy screams of the neighborhood kids as they slugged each other with snowballs and put their finishing touches on their snowmen.

I’m not a huge fan of snowmen and I winced to see one directly across the street. Now, please, before everyone goes all “Bah-Hum-Bug” on me, let me explain.

It’s not that I don’t like making snowmen. That was always fun and being the perfectionist I am, as a kid we didn’t just make one snowman we made a snow family: Snowman, Snowwoman, Snowkids, (once we even tried for a Snowdog, but the ears and tails wouldn’t stay put, so it just looked like a stump!). Anyway the act of making the snowman is a blast… it’s the lingering effects the snowman has that I don’t care for.

In that moment, on that snowy wonderland day, the snowman was great… it’s the melting part that I always thought was so depressing. The snow in the yard would slowly melt away under the shining sun with each passing day, but that damn snowman just seemed to linger. Lasting longer than he should of and looked more and more distorted as the melting process progressed.

That happy snowman, which brought so much joy to create, just wasted away in front of you at an even slower rate than the rest of the snow covered yard. His height would digress, his shape looking smaller, one side melting in more than the other; causing one stick-arm to droop down and his top hat to sit crooked.

Eventually, you had to concede to removing the hat and scarf and other goodies you originally adorned him with, courtesy of the box in the attic that you’re mother allowed you to sift through. Until it was like this brownish/yellow lump in the corner of the yard that remained long after the rest of the snow melted away.

When this happened, I always thought the snowman looked displaced. Like he just should have left while the party was still good and instead he lingered too long. It was sad really.

As an adult, it’s still sad, but for other reasons. As an adult that lingering snowman made me think about some of “The X Factor’s” in my life. Not the casual relationships that didn’t last longer than a month, but the real “X’s”. Relationships that I invested hefty amounts of time and energy into; the relationships I really worked at. The one’s I desperately tried to shape and mold.

If you really think about it, building a relationship can mirror the mundane ritual of building a snowman. The same way we maneuver that fluffy snow to stick together and form a shape, is similar to the way we mold our lives or ourselves to fit in with someone we’re dating.

Despite the fact that the snow is so fine it can melt instantly from the heat of your tongue or fall gingerly through your fingertips; you know that with the right amount of elbow grease you can make something.

So you take the first handful of snow and jam it together in your gloves. You roll it around and form something new. Just like at the start of the relationship; it’s small, but eventually the snowball effect takes place (no pun intend) and that little something grows into something significant…

Like to Lust… Lust to Love… Like snowmen, some of those X factors really seemed to glimmer in the beginning and we believed that they highlighted our yard.

So, just as we managed to create a valid shape out of white powdery snow, we have the capacity to do this with relationships. However, just because we can… doesn’t mean we should.

This skill comes in really handy when constructing a snowman, but it’s not so great when constructing the beginning of a relationship.

In a relationship, if you find yourself working to create something significant out of nothing, we should probably put the brakes on. Although relationships are going to involve work, they shouldn’t involve work that manipulates the original into something unrecognizable.

Yes, one of the perks of a relationship is to bring out the best in each other, however, if we spend too much time crafting someone into the person we want them to be, which may not be bringing out the best… that’s what I call “The Snowman Effect”.

And when you’re in this situation, you know that it’s inevitable, that your snowman will morph into a brownish putrid former version of itself. Like the real snowman the neighborhood kids were building, it’s not constructed to last the test of time. With time it will fade.

The truth is, it only lasted so long because we invested so much time into trying to make it something it really wasn’t… Had we just left it alone, it would have melted away when it was supposed to.

xoxo
Lana

SHORT AND SWEET...AKA...MORAL OF THE BLOG

Spending time and effort trying to change someone or make something out of nothing, isn’t a creative or noble trait. Sticking it out, trying to make it work, or just trying too damn hard all the time to make something or someone significant… means you’re not in a relationship, instead your just building a snowman.

"Before you try to change others, remember how hard it is to change yourself" - Bill Bluestein

The Art Class Eeyore

noreply@blogger.com (Lana) — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:56:38 PST

Remember being a kid in elementary school and sitting in Art class? I do. And aside from the paint, broken pastel crayons, a pottery stained kiln, rolls of paper and the smell of Elmer’s glue mixed with rubber cement; I also remember Art class being a forum that created a lot of pressure.

I say this because; Art class was one of the first places I can remember where there was a distinct line between the “good” and the “bad.”

You would think that by 5^th grade this line would have been drawn from gym class. When you play sports, there is always a winner and a loser. One team succeeds and one team fails. At least that’s how it worked then.

But for kids sports are different. Many times, especially in today’s society, at kids sporting events “EVERYONES A WINNER,” because it’s always a tie. Even when there’s not a tie. Even when one team spanks the pants off another team. Even when you’re old enough to know that you sucked in the game and you don’t really deserve the team “victory,” ice cream afterwards.

But despite this brush with reality, you’re just a kid, and it’s just a game, so you dig your spoon into the creamy ice cream and celebrate your “victory”. What’s the big deal, according to the adults, even if you just tried, well then that makes you a winner.

Maybe it’s good the adults cushioned the blow. They wanted to encourage not discourage. They wanted to shield us from the harsh realities that sometimes no matter how much heart we play with we can still lose.

Nevertheless, the parental shield couldn’t help us one bit in Art class.

In that class, it was every kid for themselves as we sat down at those long tables. In almost every other class you were afforded the privacy of your own desk, but in Art class it was a free-for all. Everyone’s eyes could sneak a peek at what you were working it. It was supposed to be open and free, but it created this extra air of competition.

I distinctly remember being in 5^th grade, old enough to rule the school (being that it was only K-5) and feeling the air of confidence drip off my persona as I entered the threshold of the Art room.

Now, for all intent and purposes, I would like to say I am a fairly good artist. I’m not Picasso, but I am entirely too sophisticated for plain old “stick-people.” I was above average… Yet, I still felt the intimidation of Art class. While we worked on out project du jour, I still felt as if all eyes were on your project and through each phase of its creation it was being judged.

I’m telling all of you this, not because I want to instill fear of the arts, because I think the arts should be embraced. Rather I am stirring up these memories, because as an adult…as I look back to Art class, I think it was a good experience. It forces kids to be creative, vulnerable and open. Unless of course you were “THAT” kid.

You know the one I’m talking about. The kid who fed off of their classmates vulnerability; the one who could sketch like Degas and sculpt like Michelangelo. Raw talent creating real art, while the poor soul next to them struggled to draw a circle and still wasn’t sure if they were right or left handed! Meanwhile, “That Kid’s” little hands had created something that looked like it was plucked off the walls of a museum.

These are the kids who had the natural, innate talent, but who continued to hold up their project to the teacher and ask,

“Is this any good?”

Only to get the smile and overt reassurance from the teacher cooing,

“Of course, it’s magnificent!” “A work of Art!”

Then as the teacher walks away, they lean in and ask their classmates,

“I don’t think it’s so great… what do you think?”

As if the open words of praise weren’t enough they needed to feed off their classmates. Those kids always annoyed me. Their little act was a backwards way to get attention and praise. They were what I call attention seekers, or as I affectionately called them in past blogs “Attention Whores.” Even as an elementary school child, with pigtails in my long dark hair, secured with innocent pink rubber bands; I was too damn stubborn to appease these people.

“It’s okay I guess,” I would respond and then dutifully redirect my focus to my own paper or project. I didn’t want to give into their game and inflate their egos. Besides I had my own issues around confidence and Art, no time to take on theirs too.

Those attention seeking, gloating kids, who pretended to be as intimidated by Art class as the rest of us, were really basking in their glory and faking insecurity to parade around their natural talents!

Wow…so that was a nice release of pent-up youthful aggression. However, it’s really so much more than that. I think this issue resurfaced because I’ve recently been reminded that “That Kid” grows up, holds onto their insecure/gloating trait and becomes “That Guy/Girl.” As an adult, they are the person who fakes being upset, acts lost and insecure in a backwards attempt to get attention and praise.

The truth is, even though these people are gifted and talented, they act insecure because they need their egos stroked. Underneath that pompous exterior, that allows them to hold up the art and ask “Is this good?” with a perfectly rehearsed doe eyed expression… they are the truly insecure ones. Not about their artwork, but about themselves.

They have raw talent, but they are so busy pushing it in everyone’s face, that they never left a moment for someone to sincerely praise them.

As a kid, I didn’t understand this. As a little girl with pigtails, I had my own insecurities about Art class and couldn’t really understand that, “That Kid,” had bigger issues. That, “That Kid” was using their painted picture of a dog as a prop to outwardly reassure them and boost their confidence. Now I get that, “That Kid,” despite being a whiney little brat, needed the Art class attention to validate themselves… to themselves.

I guess it’s just easier to be tolerant of a cute little kid, holding up an Art project, versus some adult Eeyore (Winnie the Pooh’s friend) look-a- like that whines and complains just so others can assure them of how wonderful they are.

These adults are much harder to swallow.

Maybe it’s because as adults, especially young adults—we 20somethings, should be basking in the glory of our youth. We have just started down the road of our lives. We have the freedom (generally) to make changes and make our lives something enjoyable, rather than something to bitch about.

For us, it’s not too late, we don’t have to “grin and bear it.” We can make changes so that we don’t have to seek approval from others or create a life so that we always have something to complain about! It’s liberating to think that right now we are setting the stage for the rest of our lives. But those adult Eeyore’s are imposter’s and don’t want to hear that.

They want to mope and be miserable because since they were kids in Art class, they knew that if they complained and acted insecure, everyone else would support and encourage them. This quality worked in the classroom, but it doesn’t work in life.

In life you need to create your own happiness and find your own confidence in knowing that. Everyone else’s opinion (the teachers—higher ups at work and classmates—friends and neighbors) shouldn’t hold as much weight anymore. Start with being your own biggest fan and go from there.

SHORT AND SWEET...AKA...MORAL OF THE BLOG

If you want to be confident, secure and happy as a 20something (or an adult at any age) you have to make changes to seize your own happiness… carpe diem! Haven’t you realized that forced compliments from peers just don’t cut it anymore? Find a way to seize your own day… get creative about your own happiness… it shouldn’t be too difficult, you were the god-gifted creative Art star right?

If you know an Eeyore-egotistical-whiner, who makes things about themselves and likes to complain to seek out reassurance, pat yourself on the back for putting up with them and pass the blog along! J

xoxo

Lana

“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.” - Groucho Marx