Life: April 2008 Archives
Now it's all or nothing. - Simple Minds, Alive and Kicking
I've been reading a lot. It's a 'Yes!' to A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers. Words and how they express how you feel and how you never have enough, regardless of the language you try to express yourself in. Words and what they mean, how to interpret them, how they feel when you say them, how they make other people feel when you say them.
Regardless. The other book I've been reading is Zoe Heller's Everything You Know. Meh. Not so much. This one is hard work - I can't identify with the main character, whereas it was simple to identify with Z in the other book. I find the protagonist annoying and his manner irritating. Unlike Jack Nicholson, who I just watched in the Bucket List, Heller's lead character has no charisma to carry him through.
One concept from the book sticks though and that's at the end when he's contemplating life and how it plays out and he considers how people precis their lives, how they assign crib notes to sections of life and then use those crib notes until they believe what they've written about themselves.
I got to thinking, as you do, about life and what my crib notes have been. The things I say to people when I meet them and they want a recap of my life, or like recently at work, when I needed a magazine introduction - how I condense myself into one short paragraph. It was a really interesting exercise. The one for work came up with something like :
'Ashleigh has worked in the educational and governmental sectors in Southern Africa and Europe and brings a wide background of experience to her position as xx at xxx'
Obviously nothing like the truth which is:
'Random jobs until bored speechless at university position after which she had an 8 year break before getting really lucky and re-entering corporate life.'
Which one is the real version? When I'm 60 am I going to believe the magazine version? Hope so.
And the rest of it? This is how I could condense my life so far:
0 - 10 : Grew up in a warzone in a sanctioned country.
10 - 20 : Boarding school. Teen pregnancy. Failed marriage.
20 - 25 : New marriage. New baby. New country. New house.
25 - 30 : Another new country. Another new baby. Another new house.
30 - 35 : Kids go to school. Lose lots of weight. Find out what I want is not what I wanted before.
So where are the details? Filtered into static.
What are your crib notes?
'but it's ok, I'm a supergirl and supergirls just fly.' - Reamon, Supergirl
One month down in the working 40 - 50 hours a week. How am I doing?
I have no time no time no time....no time to tell you anything...
Happy though, so there's that.
What makes you a supergirl?
'Will you still recall my name, and the month it all began?' - Liquido, Narcotic
A rush from the 80's, (remember this song?) and a quote for you.
If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.What do you think?
Tony Robbins
I think it's a bit simplistic. Of course you do have to change what you've always done so that you can get something different to what you've always gotten, but it's the keeping it changed. The trick of not slipping into patterns and rhythms that you've always been in because they are there and you can and it's easy and simple just to do what you've always done.
I talked the other day to someone about the motivation for change. They thought that the motivation for why we do things was important, and that having a poor motivation (like fear) would affect the outcome of the change. Again, not convinced here. What does it matter what the reason is that we release ourselves from the couch/stop drinking/stop overeating/leave unhappy relationships?
What really matters is taking that first step. After that it's just one moment at a time and I believe that by the end of the 'change journey' the initial motivation is often completely irrelevant. When I think back to my own motivation to lose weight I can't even remember what the spark was that got me off the couch, but I know damn well what my motivation is now. I've had people ask me what the 'click' was that made me do it and I can't remember. I don't think there was even one. It was more a case of plodding along, one tiny step at a time.
What do you think about change? Is there some big change you've made in your life that you are trying to keep afloat? Or did you change something and then slip back to how it was before? More importantly, if you slip, do you think you've failed, or is it just a slip and you'll carry on tomorrow?
