Charles Bridge in Prague, Czech Republic

I don’t know how I didn’t walk into more people or buildings as I wandered around the streets of Prague with my eyes toward the sky, oblivious to my surroundings.

The old city and nearby metro areas are like a throw-back to another time. Huge stone buildings overwhelm narrow cobblestone streets and people bustle by you speaking any number of random languages to their companions or into a Bluetooth earpiece. A perfect collision of years past with modern realities.

Especially for me. It was my first time in Europe.

As I walked with my group of friends, hustling to dinner, we turned a corner and stumbled onto what appeared to be a castle in the Old Town Square lit up in the dark Prague sky. I stopped cold and took in the scene around me.

Beauty like that should give you pause.

Eager to get to food and more budget-priced Czech beer after a long day of travel, the group was on and walking before I could pick my chin up off the ground and close my mouth. Scampering after them I babbled on like a four-year old at a Pixar movie. “Guys, did you see that? It was a castle. Like an actual castle. It was so beautiful. We moved so fast…honestly…you must not have seen it. How did you miss an actual castle? Seriously. IT’S A CASTLE! Europe is so fucking awesome.”

One of my good friends smiled kindly at me and mused “I think I have been traveling too long. Things like that just don’t affect me anymore.”

How sad, to have been traveling so long that you no longer can stop to drink up a moment of beauty. To grin for a second at a scene that touches you. To abandon yourself to the sense of wonder that courses throughout the world.

In that moment, for someone I care about to not still have this in their life, my heart crumbled.

Granted, I am still rather new at this whole nomadic expatriated existence. When I arrived in Bali and wrote about my first ever international flight, people reflected on the enjoyment they had reliving their own first international flight through my naive sense of wonder.

Yesterday I had a flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok, booked on an airline I don’t normally fly at a time I don’t usually leave. As I drove to the airport and pulled up the electronic confirmation on my iPod I realized my error. I had confused the check-in and departure times because I fly out of Chiang Mai so often that the deviation in time did not register as something I should be aware of.

It had happened to me. I had become desensitized about flight and travel. I had lost my sense of wonder.

Sense of wonder in a place like this – sure thing (Angkor Wat, Cambodia)

It’s easy to have heart-stopping moments of wonder when you are seeing something for the first time or overwhelmed by the awesome impact of a place or event. If you ever question this truth, follow a kid around for an afternoon.

I don’t know if it because we get older and wiser or if bit-by-bit life stacks up onto us and we lose this sense. It’s a terrible consequence of a life filled with adventures.

I remembered the Louis CK monologue I had referenced in that original post:

Everybody on every plane should just constantly be going “Oh my God! Wow!” You’re flying! You’re sitting in a chair, in the sky!

I said the last sentence again and again in my head. You’re sitting in a chair, in the sky. You’re sitting in a chair, in the sky. I’m sitting in a chair, in the sky. I’M SITTING IN A CHAIR IN THE SKY!

The plane dipped slightly to the right and turned an invisible corner. I looked out my window and took in a gorgeous white mass of puffy clouds. A blanket along the the base closing us off from the ground below. Little clusters popping up from the base like cotton candy cones, wisping into the wind. From the center of the base was a swirl of clouds, forming into a funnel. I tilted my head to see all the different angles, to try to imagine what the clouds reminded me of. Nearest I could tell, it was like a scene I saw when I was a kid from the movie Superman when Christopher Reeve is blasting through a similar backdrop on his way to the Fortress of Solitude.

In other words, I was now seeing something that has previously only been available in the imaginations of Hollywood and to Superman himself.

Leaning back in my seat, I felt the smile tug at the corners of my lips.

It had taken some effort, but for a moment in the clouds somewhere above Thailand, I felt that sense of wonder.

Chillin’ with the girls (and a naughty photobombing boy) at Badladz Resort in the Philippines

After 48 hours of planes, trains, and automobiles back to Thailand from my idyllic trip to Europe for our DCBER meetup event, I boarded my final plane nearly 45 minutes late from the departure gate. Unimpressed does not even begin to encompass the emotions I was feeling as I settled into the window seat of the plane that they must have pulled from the back of the hangar in the 1970’s relic section.

I plugged in my headphones and leaned my head back. Almost home to Chiang Mai, to my apartment. Where I was planning on curling up for at least the next 15-18 hours in my apartment to shake off nearly 48 hours of travel. After, of course, taking a seven hour hot shower.

I felt the shift in the airplane seats indicating someone had claimed the seat beside mine. I opened my eyes and smiled wearily at them, keeping my headphones in to indicate I was not a great conversationalist at this point.

Finally, nearly ninety minutes later (pretty much unheard of in my SE Asian travel experiences) the ancient bird was up in the air and I was free to pass out for the next hour and five minutes.

Shockingly, the severely-delayed airplane that I’m sure originally had shag carpeting was not the smoothest flight and I was jostled awake every ten minutes by turbulence. Forty-five minutes later the stewardess came around to request seatbacks up, tray-tables stowed, and against my will I opened my eyes.

The first thing I saw was an assortment of lights dancing across the tray-table of the Thai woman next to me. I tried to glance over to figure out what was going on and found her playing with (I’m guessing) a new crystal-studded watch, creating reflective prisms from the setting sunlight. She giggled and grabbed the Australian gentleman’s arm, obviously beside herself with this physics discovery. I chuckled and she immediately whipped her head around, horrified I might be laughing at her and not the adorableness of the scene (saving face is an important part of the Thai culture.) Smiling as warmly as I could I picked up my iPod and started making my own dancing reflections on the tray table in front of me. Then I chased her sparking tiny lights around with my big block of reflection. She laughed and played for twenty seconds or so.

“My name is Peanuts. Like the food they serve while you sleep. Do you live in Chiang Mai? Are you a teacher?”

I told her a bit about myself, what I did, and my neighborhood in Chiang Mai. Then I asked her where she was from and what she did in Chiang Mai. A native Northern Thai, she ran a guesthouse with her boyfriend, the Australian, near where I stayed last summer when I lived in Chiang Mai for a month. I smiled again and asked how they met and fell in love (my favorite question to ask a couple, sometimes a bit dicey in Asia where a number of relationships (both Asian and Western) start after a few too many drinks at a bar that was probably a bit too seedy to be meeting people you want to have a relationship with in the first place) and she grinned and spilled the story. He was friends with someone in her family, came to a family gathering, they met, been together since.

“Do you have ride home from the airport Elisa?”

“No, I’ll just grab a taxi when we land.”

Peanuts shushed me. “No, they are all thieves, take advantage of pretty farang girls like you. My friend is coming in his tuk-tuk. He’ll bring you home, charge a good price.”

Like that I was off the final leg of my travel adventure from hell and in a tuk-tuk with Andy and Peanuts. First to their guesthouse and bar so I knew where it was and could come visit her, then to my apartment. Great conversation, fun tuk-tuk ride, a third of the price of the airport taxi. Plus a business card and SMS number for the next time I need a ride to the airport or anywhere else. I love people.

* * *

“You always do that.”

The next day I was sitting with my friends Rob and Lau at their apartment munching on questionable cheese imported from Prague during my 50 hour travel trip (happy to report no one got sick OR died) and Lau was chuckling at this tuk-tuk tale.

“Do what?”

“Make these connections. This, your apartment, the Songkran family…you’re always connecting with people.”

She was referring to my discounted Chiang Mai apartment (also the result of chatting up my seatmate on a flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai) and my local Thai New Year random day of celebration with the family that runs the store I buy two 1.5 litre bottles of water from every night.

Connections, they’re my thing. They somehow always end up even more awesome than I could have imagined. I nurtured one of my closest friendships in life with a person I had never met before but had a Skype slumber party with every weekend for nearly six months straight. When I sold life insurance I had clients that invited me to weddings and birthdays and housewarming parties. After chatting with the call center rep at my credit card company for twenty minutes or so about my career and traveling while he reset my secure code, he subscribed to my site and newsletters. I’ve spent two hours in a street-side bar cuddling a random woman’s pug dog at 2 AM (cause honestly, you know you would cuddle a pug for two hours if you could as well!)

Most people see this and ask with some sort of awed wonder How Do You Do It?

I stare back at them with an equally awed confusion and reply How Do I Do What?

I’ve thought a lot about this apparently brilliant skill recently. Cause really, a lot of people ask me to tell them how to do it. Like a lot. Enough to make me take note of how many people are asking: What is your secret method for making such endearing connections?

Here’s what I came up with:

• Make An Effort – People assume I must be outgoing and bubbly and extroverted. That this must all be so easy for me. Actually, I am painfully shy and quietly intellectual and very introverted. My sister recently sent me an email saying “Tim and I were watching an Anime show this weekend and there was part of the story line where these people were being controlled by this crystal thing and their minds just went into a library town where there were books everywhere and you just read all day. I thought, ‘Elisa would love that place! No one to bother her and she can read all day all she wants.’” It is an exhausting exercise that goes against every inherent trait of my personality to meet new people and interact, and I still do it every single day.
• Smile - Smiles are important. Paul Childs said that his wife Julia’s smile could disarm the crankiest of French market sellers. A smile opens the opportunity for any conversation. What is the trick to a sincere smile? It’s all in the eyes. Not sure if your eyes smile? Go stand in front of a mirror, think of the happiest moment you have experienced in the past 48 hours, and grin at your reflection. See how your eyes open up and shine even though the corners are crinkling? That’s a sincere smile. Practice this. Try to smile without moving a single muscle below your cheekbones.
• Exist In The Moment - When I am talking to someone I’ve just met, I’m there. Present. Captivated by their stories and not letting my mind wander or thinking of what we might be able to do for each other in the future. Eager and attentive to learn more.
• Give A Shit About People – Not the superficial sales letter antics of writing or speaking so it seems like you give a shit about people…GENUINELY give a shit about them. Ask about their background, their life, their relationships or family, their travels, their hobbies, their interests. Aim to make their lives a little happier and better because you were fortunate enough to be a part of it for a little bit.
• Be Honest With Folks - Yes, with honesty and niceness and sincerity you leave yourself exposed and vulnerable. Vulnerability is not an emotion many people (myself included) do well with. People may judge you, people may steamroll you, people may disagree with you. But it is necessary to building relationships with people, because it makes you real. Real people want to talk to other real people. Positioning, posturing, peacocking, and other p-ing things are easily debunked and often easily recognized.

And…ummm…that’s pretty much it. Not really rocket science.

Which is good, because I’m totally not a rocket scientist.

Yet so many people seem to struggle with it.

They feel like they are always fighting with or negotiating against the local folks where we live. They don’t know how to make friends online (or off for that matter.) They feel like they can’t close a sale. They don’t know how to flirt someone up in a bar. They feel like they are never “the lucky ones.”

Am I missing something here?

Is this all really that difficult?

Are you able to easily endearingly connect with people as well?

Or have I stumbled onto some secret handshake that I’ve been unknowingly hiding from the rest of the world?

Not saluting but plowing in Chiang Mai, Thailand

It’s a pain carrying around bullshit day to day.

Remember the story of that guy Atlas? He had to carry the weight of the world (universe) on his shoulders?

Legit.

I mean, he’s a mythological figure and all…but you get the idea.

For the first time in years, I’ve struggled settling into goals and plans for 2013. I spoke with a number of peers and friends who were all diligently reviewing their 2012 year-to-date progress, dreaming big for the upcoming year, and calculating their projections for 2013 goals.

I couldn’t even come up with a word to base my year around (Love was 2010, Intention was 2011, Fun was 2012.) Well, that’s untrue. For a bit I toyed with the idea of making Commitment my word for 2013, but in the end I couldn’t bring myself to commit to it. Oh Universe, you’re just a tricky little minx, aren’t you? Getting Atlas to tow your ass all over and still screwing with us in these little ways every chance you get.

When I got invited to a special New Year’s Eve yoga class, I shrugged my shoulders without reading the entire description and thought “Sure, why not?” I should note here – Never, ever, for the love of all things holy, skim a yoga class description and shrug your shoulders to say “Sure, why not?” (I should also note this story is only KIND OF about yoga, so no worries, I will not be recruiting for the Hare Krishna at the end.)

I walked into class and after some mat rearranging and introductions our teacher stood to the side and explained what he intended for us to do in the next three hours. Basically, we would bookend our yoga practice with two deep meditations, the first to reflect on 2012 and the second to set our intentions for 2013.

I sat cross-legged on my mat, my arms rested on my knees and fingers making little circles to harness energy or something like that. I closed my eyes and listened to our teacher’s prompts for the meditation. Instead of reviewing the progress we had made in our resolutions and the goals we could cross of our lists for 2012, he urged us to stop and think about the things we were still carrying with us from the past year that we needed to let go of.

I adjusted my posture uncomfortably.

I like action, I like implementables, I like results.

I do not like sitting in a room with twenty-five strangers and opening up the recesses of my mind and emotions. I rarely do that in the private comforts of my own home.

Yet here I was, trapped in the middle of a room of meditating yogis.

The first thing, as I sat uncomfortably cross-legged, was the toxic thoughts and emotions still lingering from my motorbike accident and surgery in February. The sadness at my scars, my throat-choking fear at getting on the back of another motorbike, the sounds of metal and plastic smashing together and the feeling of getting thrown off the back of a bike that I sometimes hear and feel when I’m surrounded by silence.

I bit my lip to try to stop the rush of emotions that was threatening to surface. Got. To. Keep. Going.

I opened up that rarely touched raw place of vulnerability and anger. That place where I go through all of the 300+ choices and decisions I made that led me to be in that exact moment on Jalan Nakula in Bali. The place where I mentally lash myself for not treating my wounds properly and letting my knee get infected. The place where at times I actually feel a deep sort-of hatred for myself and my stupid stubbornness that did not seek medical attention before the infection ruptured. The place where I hallucinated on a bed in the emergency room admitting that I was not independent enough to take care of myself and the situation any longer. The place where I laid alone in a hospital room in Indonesia scared and broken, after a team of nurses sedated me with an on-demand morphine drip that I told friends was necessary from the pain of the most recent surgery.

Oh yeah, the emotions were out now. Others around me sniffled as well.

I tumbled helplessly down the rabbithole of release that the teacher’s prompts were exploring. I reflected on projects I wanted to launch but never finalized. I winced at the memory of an unrequited feelings that had led me to start breaking down the walls I had built around relationships. The horribly bad decisions I had made under the influence of a few too many San Miguel Lights and vodka sodas. I thought of the student loan and vehicle payments that still pulled at my checking account on a monthly basis. The friendships I had lost when I moved across the planet.

I considered the more frivolous things I was still grasping at. The blogs that stood silent and neglected. The fact that I still couldn’t hold a good chair pose and that my core muscles were shit so I have really bad form in plow position. The ten pounds I gained when I was home in the US for three-months. The stupid 30L carry-on backpack I still travel with that takes me an hour to pack and contains no cute shoes.

We finished the meditation with a few aums and some breathing stuff. “Now we’ll move on to the vinyasas. As you progress through these sun salutations, I want you to think about everything you just meditated on. And focus on releasing every single one of those thoughts. To come full circle back to this place, we’ll do 108. Ready?”

Now, those of you who don’t practice yoga often may not realize the limb-numbing terror I experienced as he said this. So, I included a little YouTube video so you can see what 1 Sun Salutation series looks like:

We did 108 of these.

In fairness, I only did about 100 or so. I rested a couple times. Oh come on. You know you would, too.

My muscle memory is STILL fighting against my impulses when I want to pick up any of those things I released, a month later. Not only for the spiritual/karmic/yogic reasons, but for the mere fact that my brain went through this whole process and isn’t eager to do it again anytime soon.

We can’t carry these things around on our backs like Atlas. He was a Titan and we’re merely human.

Instead we must find ways to let them go.

This isn’t easy. It involves a lot of work and time and effort. There will probably be some tears or investigating emotions we’re uncomfortable with. You will have to stop along the way because your body is ready to give out – and then you will have to keep going.

Yet once you come around full circle to the place where you began when you were first holding onto these things, it is much easier to get started.

Oh, and in case you were wondering (we all know you were), my word for 2013 is: Surrender.

Photo Credit: Weena Yoga

Thinking deep thoughts…

“Why would you ever use that as your profile picture?”

There wasn’t even a trace of sarcasm or concern in her question. It was pure horror. I might as well have been climbing up her chair trying to eat her brain.

“What do you mean? It isn’t a bad picture. I like it.”

We were discussing my choice to use the picture to the left out of all of the beautiful photos from the shoot Melissa Mullen did during my last visit home as my avatar on multiple social profiles.

“You have so many other pictures that look so much better. You aren’t making some weird stupid face.”

“It’s not a weird stupid face. It’s my face. I make that face all the time. In fact, to get that picture the photographer said to me ‘Make the Elisa face.’ I didn’t know what she meant, and she was like ‘Look up in the air and do funny things with your mouth.’” I chuckled at the memory.

“How do you expect anyone to take you seriously when that is your picture? That is the first impression you make, and you look like a joke.”

I stared at the Skype image staring back at me, barely listening  as my friend railed on through my headset about the picture.

“I dunno. It’s just me. The other pictures are great, I use them on some of my more professional stuff. But I don’t look like that without a team of highly skilled makeup and hair people and a professional photographer telling me exactly how to position my shoulders and where to point my chin. This is the real me. The person I want people to know.”

“Like I said. No one is going to take you seriously.”

“Well…maybe I’m just not serious. Did you ever think of that?” I launched a verbal assault that was the equivalent of a three-year old hurling their body on the floor to flail and scream until they “won” the argument.

My friend, obviously much more serious and mature than I am, tactfully re-directed the conversation to another subject. I’m fairly certain I saw her avatar roll it’s eyes at me over the audio chat, but I may have been a bit blind with rage.

I zoned out for the last 20 minutes of our conversation, offering Mmmm-hmmms and occasional 7-word replies. We hung up amicably and I was left to sit in the wake of her accusations and their implications.

Was it possible that because I had a rather cheeky profile picture on my Facebook page that people would not take me seriously? Or, more importantly, that they would not think I was serious?

That’s a big problem when your business is built on what people think of you and message. As a writer and editor, clients hire me because they relate to and connect with my writing and voice. If my friend felt like she couldn’t take me seriously, then how would my clients?

As I plan directions and plans for 2013 in business and life, I’ve been replaying this conversation with my friend again and again in my head. Then today, I was listening to the latest Tropical Talk Radio episode on Tropical MBA, I focused on Rob Hanly explaining some of his theories on 5 Sociopathic Tactics.

One of the tactics he reviews is the ‘One-Peg Theory’ – You should always dress one peg above the people you want to influence.

It is important to note I value Rob’s opinion on lots of stuff from my interactions with him on our online forums and on Twitter. I say it is important because you need to know that whenever Rob has something to say about a process or a business practice I take note.

Rob Hanly and Chris Ducker at DC > BKK

It is also important to note that the first time I met Rob in person, he was wearing a Spiderman costume in a bar.

No, you didn’t read that wrong. He was wearing a Spiderman costume in a bar.

Is that one-peg above the brown cocktail dress I was wearing? In theory, no. But no one remembers my brown cocktail dress, even though it was super cute. People remember Rob’s Spiderman costume. And few of us think less of his opinion because he chose to stand out in a costume in a bar.

The Spiderman costume did NOTHING to diminish how seriously I take him. It did go a long way to confirming that he is not always a serious person.

I am not a serious person.

Sorry if that just hit you like an Acme anvil.

The difference is that I know that I am not a serious person. I write creative pieces about robots and travel sex and unicorns (only occasionally do these overlap in one particular piece) and I would rather perform a personal appendectomy with a used salad spork than write canned corporate copy for a website.

I use exclamation marks and smiley faces and I will not be ashamed!!  :)

(Ok, maybe I’m a little ashamed sometimes)

Yet after two years of working with people I have come to an important conclusion: I don’t want to work with people who are looking for a serious person.

I get what my friend is saying. That in her experience, working in the grown up world of business, she is worried that I will alienate “important business connections” and people won’t take me seriously. That will affect my business and bottom line. And I will end up as a hobo on a street in India with roaming dogs and scraggly ex-yogis scrapping for naan.

That isn’t the case though. There are millions (billions) of people out there in the world. Not everyone is looking for someone to make them sound perfect. Some people understand that perfect is just not a reality to their brand and voice.

Why change myself because of the people who won’t take me seriously cause I have a kind of sassy profile pic?

I’m sure they are lovely people, who volunteer to help kittens and help old women cross the street.

But they are just not the client I am looking for. In fact, they might not be as important a part of my life as I once considered.

I promise, we will hate each other at the end. And hating people takes a LOT of time and energy.

Do you really want to waste time and energy having to hate someone?

There’s a vast difference between being serious and being taken seriously. The latter is far more important when it comes to establishing your trust and reputation. The former is only important if you want to work with people who need you to be serious.

There is a time and place for those people. Just not on my watch.

Photo Credit: Melissa Mullen Photography

Please note a few of these gems that are etched into my mind and taking up permanent grey space real estate that I’m fairly certain could be used for bigger and better things.

1. How To Drop An Egg From The Top Of A Fire Truck So It Doesn’t Break - I made it to the final round, and to this day I cannot tell you how the hell I built that thing
2. How To Later Care For Said Egg Like It Is A Baby - Accidentally dropping a juice box on a baby, in my experience, does not cause their outsides to shatter and their insides to goo out
3. The Periodic Table – There has gotta be less than 1% of the population actively using that information. Those who are have a huge chart hanging on the wall for reference anyways.
4. Only Color Inside The Lines – There is a drawing on the page for a reason. Who are you to go outside the drawing someone made for you?
5. Move On To Your Next Task Only When The Bell Rings - WTF?! Where are the bells now? I have to figure out when to do stuff ON MY OWN?
6. The Dewey Decimal System - Quick, someone tell me which section Dewey Decimal For Dummies would be in
7. Only Read Books You Are Told To Read – Then only retain the things I tell you are important to learn from them – like what time the alarm clock went off each morning before Ponyboy woke up
8. Eating A Meal In Under 18 Minutes While Talking To Friends – Completely contradictory to my Nana’s teachings of “Don’t Talk With Your Mouth Full.” Also – Hello? Digestion?
9. America Is A Fair and Balanced Democracy - Ha. Haha. BAHAHAHHAAHHAAHAHAHAHHAAHAHHA. I mean, yeah. My vote matters and my voice as a citizen is always heard. Money and politics have corrupted nothing.
10. Prime Numbers - What? I mean…what the actual honest to god what? I will pay someone a bright shiny 10baht piece if they can tell me ONE time they have had to implement the knowledge and ideation of prime numbers in their adult life
11. Dissecting A Frog  - Fairly certain I will never have to dissect one of my friends. If that situation ever comes up, and I’m unable to perform, I am deeply sorry for my ignorance
12. Fall In Line – I can line up silently, using only pantomime and charades variations, based on height/birth month/lunchbox contents
13. The Name On A Piece Of Paper On The Wall Is Worth More Than The Things I Learned There – There are people majoring in basket weaving at Harvard that are getting better gigs than those who majored in engine repair at a Tech School. I don’t need more baskets in my life but fuck if I know how to change my own spark plugs.
14. Standardized Tests - Hack the system and you too can be just like everyone else
15. The 16 Counties Song - I will sing it on demand for anyone who asks, only way I am getting any mileage out of that bastard
16. What Is The Best Instrument To Use To Give The Impression A Duck Is Walking – In fairness, if I worked at Disney and was creating the next incarnation of Fantasia, this might be relatively useful
17. Don’t Speak Unless You Raise Your Hand – You must be given permission to offer opinion, discussion, or dissonance
18. Don’t Be Dissonant – People who challenge authority get sent to the principal’s office
19. My Social Security Number – Might as well put a bar code on me and sell me on a shelf. The 4 times I’ve been asked for that since I turned 25, I’m able to pull it out like Rainman
20. You Can’t Be Left Alone, You Must Be Accounted For – In the hallway without a pass? Busted.
21. How To Put A Condom On A Banana - I can assure you, it is nothing like putting a condom on a banana

In your defense, school system, there were some gems I am retaining and putting to good use:

1. Fall In Love With Reading – A book can be your best friend, your escape, your knowledge center, your inspiration, your motivation…shall I go on?
2. The Fine Art Of Bullshit – Thank you long form essays
3. Jumping Out Of The Back Of A Moving Bus - I haven’t had to use this one yet, but let’s be real. In my life, the tuck and roll is gonna be a valuable mental asset one of these days
4. Foreign Languages – Best thing I ever did was take 7 years of Latin. Can’t speak it for shit and can barely translate it on reading, but learning the structures and nuances of another language makes it easier to communicate w/someone who doesn’t speak your language at all. Linguistic concepts are universal
5. Don’t Eat Paste - Or babi guling that has been sitting out in the sun for 8 hours
6. Choose Courses For Your Life That Matter And Are Interesting To You – No, that doesn’t mean major in basket weaving at Harvard and expect to become a rocket scientist. But if you want to learn to weave baskets, learn to weave baskets. Own that. But don’t be surprised when no one gives a rats ass that you know how to weave baskets.
7. How To Get My Wagon Party Across America On The Oregon Trail - Those are life skills baby. At the age of 27 I won a live version of the Oregon Trail, complete with gold panning and bison shooting. Though to be fair, that was probably due in large part to my ability to chug whiskey

If I could write a longer ditty about all the things I was taught in school that turned out to be useless, leave me completely ill-prepared for adult life, or set me up with a false expectation of what will create happiness … let’s just say it would be longer than the Middle Earth trilogy and just as fantastical.

Which is ALL to say, when you deny someone love and happiness from their lives you are practicing hate. Pure and simple.

Nothing good, in the history of all time and humanity, has ever come from practicing hate.

I learned that in school.

Over the course of my 10+ years as a freelance writer, I’ve heard all these questions and a dozen variations on them. As soon as someone finds out that I spend my time sitting in cafes, sipping cappuccino, tortoise-rimmed glasses on, pouring myself into articles and stories, laughing aloud at the brilliant and witty prose I just created, they immediately want to know how they too can live such an illustrious life.

Usually when people ask me how to replicate this romantic vision for a writer, I blink blankly at them. Not to be dismissive, but instead to try to cycle their request for information through my brain. There’s two important things to understand about this scenario:

1. I can count on less than one hand the number of times I have managed to pull that off.
2. I do, in fact, own tortoise-rimmed glasses. A necessity for the sexy traveling writer look I’ve got going on.

So my blank blinky stupor has to do less with you and more with me.

How did I become a writer? How did I get to be a better writer than when I started? How the hell is this my life?

Most writers I know (and damn, do I know a lot of writers) face the same confused introspection when asked about their writing skills. That’s because they are usually jerks who are insecure about their talent and don’t want to share their secrets.

I jest.

Kinda.

Most writers get all blank and blinky because the secret they don’t want to share is: They don’t know how they became a writer…let alone one that is good enough to be paid for writing.

They start doling out random pieces of advice, cause who wants to actively pursue being a jerk?

The most common and irritatingly condescending advice?

If you want to be a writer … then just write

Immediate reaction? You are totally a jerk who is insecure about their talent and doesn’t want to share your secret. Whatever. Lame. Go get hit by a bus. Jerk.

Writers aren’t doling out that advice because they are trying to be jerks, though.

They are doling out that advice because they don’t have anything more constructive offer.

Of course talented writers have secrets that have gotten them where they are. BUT THEY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THOSE TIPS AND TRICKS ARE.

Writers get to be talented writers cause they write. Most talented writers write a lot. Stories don’t get written magically at night by Neil Gaiman’s elves. (How freaking great would that be though?!)

How did Stephen King get to be the most prolific writer in history? He writes 2,000 word per day.

But here’s the thing.

Stephen King does a LOT more than just sit and write 2,000 words per day.

You’re right.

Just write writing advice is bullshit if you want to actually help them.

It’s like telling someone that they can become a brain surgeon if they just start surgeoning. I think we can all agree that no one wants an untrained and unskilled person running around practicing surgery. Pretty sure that will end like every single Saw movie.

I said it before: Writers have no real idea how they became a writer cause there wasn’t really a process. There wasn’t a way for them to refine their skills. They got to be better writers cause they wrote. And they figured out the rest along the way.

What if they took the time to stop and think about what they were doing? What they had done? What they do every day.

No one is just going to tell you their secret and make you a better writer. You’ve got to get the secrets then work on implementing them yourself.

Photo Credit – Debbie Ridpath Ohi (InkyGirl.com)

The view from our rooftop meetup – thanks Hunter!

I’m getting really irritated with the amount of crying I do on various transportation vehicles.

After a fun night out with a bunch of the guys from Dynamite Circle in New York City, I managed to drag myself to catch the 12:10 PM bus out of NYC bound for Boston. And by drag I mean I wore my sunglasses on the subway to keep the fluorescent lights dim.

Standing in line in the beating city sun at noon, I chatted with a couple behind me from Austria who was backpacking in the Northeast for the fall. We waited. And waited. I contemplated sitting on the sidewalk to wait, but though tired I was not quite ready to sit on a New York City sidewalk without a vat of sanitizer to curl up in afterwards.

Finally our bus arrived, 45 minutes late. Which was fine, cause I had built in a 2 hour buffer to connect to my next bus, and 45 minutes would just mean less time to work email in South Station.

Then it took us another 45 minutes to get out of the city. Then we sat in traffic on I84 for about 15 minutes. Then our bus driver stopped to stretch his legs and grab something to eat for the last hour and a half of the drive (I’m guessing he was having a long painful day as well!)

I kept glancing at my computer screen, watching the minutes click closer and closer to my 6:10 PM departure time. Not even curling up with my Kindle could keep the sinking feeling that was developing in my stomach.

There was no way I was gonna make this connection.

Sure enough, I arrived at South Station and ran across the concourse to the gate my bus was gonna leave from at 6:24 PM. Maybe, by the magic of the travel gods, my bus would be delayed from Boston to Maine.

No such luck. Bastards were right on time.

Sighing I hefted my daypack up on my shoulder and trudged to the ticket counter, to find out what the policy was on standby. After a 20 minute wait in line I got to the ticket counter and explained my already too long travel day. “How do I get on the 7:10 PM to Portland? Just wait in standby?”

“No, there’s no standby for your ticket.”

I blinked twice, as if I could somehow go back in time to replay the conversation. “No standby for a 2 hour delay that was caused by YOUR bus company?”

“There’s standby, but you booked through us and we chartered your ticket to a different carrier. We don’t pay for standby with their service, so you are going to have to pay for a new ticket with them. Sorry. Next please.”

Like that, I was dismissed. I looked at the next ticket counter I was going to have to visit, and the line snaked out of the terminal and into the walkway. Shaking with frustration at once again having to hurry up and wait, I took my place dutifully in line and waiting another 10 minutes. At 6:55 PM I made it to the ticket window.

Again, I explained my situation, and asked if there was any way for them to honor the ticket I had bought as I was unaware that my ticket granted me no rights under the new bus service. Alas, no such luck. “Is there room on the 7:10 PM then? I just want to get home.” With that I slapped down my handy dandy credit card and proceeded to the pay phones (yes, they do still exist in some places!!) as my cell phone had died texting with someone all morning. I attempted to collect call every member of my immediate family as I had .37 in change in my wallet.

No one answered. Which meant that they would be waiting at the station for an hour before I got there.

I got on the new bus with about 3 minutes to spare. Of course, there were no seats available as I made my way to the back. About 5 rows from the end was a woman sitting in the aisle seat eating a salad. “Is someone sitting there?”

“No, not at all. Here, let me slide over.” She moved all her stuff to the window seat and let me in to our little shared travel space for the next two hours. “Everything ok? You look like you’ve had a long day.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just on my 7th hour of travel out of New York City and 3rd delay with a bus after I had to buy a new ticket to replace the one the bus company made me late for. And my cell phone is dead so I can’t even let anyone know I’m arriving late.”

The woman took a bite of salad.”That sounds terrible. I hope the worst is behind you now. Do you live in Portland?”

Over the next two hours I talked non-stop with this woman. We laughed, we shared stories of travel and ambitions, we bonded over careers in writing and English (she is a professor of English Literature at one of the universities in Maine) – she even let me use her “for emergencies only” cell phone to call my parents and sister and leave them both voicemails that I was on the 7:10 PM bus and to meet me at the station an hour later than originally planned.

When we pulled into the Portland Transportation Teminal, she smiled and said “Now you’re home. Congratulations!”

I grinned at her and suppressed my overwhelming urge to hug her. (What can I say? I’m a hugger)

“Thank you SO much. You managed to turn around this very long and frustrating day and make it end on the perfect note. Really. Thank you.”

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

As much badness as there is in the world…as much hatred and riots and violence and crime and pain and suffering…there is this more important universal fact.

The majority of people are good.

I love that I am reminded of that in the most random of ways every time I encounter new people in the world.

Photo Credit: Dan Andrews

I Got Claws Too

“I don’t think he was appropriate” I explained during a recent conversation. “But I need to realize that I’m part of the reason it happened.”

Flipping back and forth between righteous anger at his tastelessness and genuine hurt at his callousness, I plotted at least five ways to reply and make him squirm. That is what we do when we are wronged. Show people how they wronged us. Prove how right we are.

Rarely does that work out how we plan. Somehow the reward feels a little shallow, if it is ever even earned.

Judgement Happens

 
That is reality. You are going to do things and say things that incur speculation and invite commentary, unless you live in a vacuum or a fairy tale bubble. If you lead such an uneventful life that no one has anything to say about it, then you aren’t living life the right way.

Most of the time the opinions and reactions are unwarranted and unnecessary. While reality dictates that we have to contend with other people, it incorrectly builds the perception that this gives people the right to nose in on your life and tell you all about it. As we get more aggressive and voyeuristic as a society, we don’t even have to be nice about it anymore.

However, no one is obligated to know more about you than what you choose to share. They are going to judge you based on that. They will react because of  how you choose to share it. The boundaries you create for interpersonal relationships, allowing for what is appropriate and inappropriate conversation.

If I announce publicly that I am writing a book (even if it is fiction) based on the dating escapades of a young woman traveling in Southeast Asia upon my return from six-months traveling through Southeast Asia as a young woman, how can I not expect that people are going to want to offer judgement and commentary on my personal dating life whenever the opportunity presents itself?

You would have thought I’d learned my lesson writing a dating and relationship column for a year, which I ended after one reader decided to inform me in 18 back-to-back short messages everything that was wrong with me and why I was going to be alone forever if I didn’t change some very fundamental things about myself and learn to serve and submit to a relationship.

I was furious at his need to cruelly impose his beliefs on me. I was hurt by his accusations that I was somehow unworthy of love because of the person I was. I was scared to admit to myself how accurate his claims were. If some of those claims had truth, does that mean the rest of it did too?

Sometimes the things that cause the greatest reaction in us are the things that we worry about ourselves when we are left alone in our own thoughts. It is important to reflect on those outside opinions and yourself, to decide if there’s something that you want to change.

That’s what we do as people. We change. We grow. If you aren’t growing as a person, you might as well be dead.

You become a better version of yourself when you carefully choose the type of person you want to be.

You become the best version of yourself when strive to make sure you are. 

* Some people are just vitriolic jerks who spew acid. I assume this to be because they are not hugged enough in their own lives. These people are exceptions and probably best ignored in these situations. Except for a fleeting wish that someone will reach out and hug them, so maybe they have just a little less acid to unleash on the world tomorrow.

Rather listen to the post than read it? Click above for the audio version of It Starts In My Toes – The Single Slice

Once upon a time I was torn with what to do in my life.

I called my SPIRL on New Year’s Day of 2010 after it became apparent that once again I had come crashing in to the friend zone with such an entrance that I silenced the villagers. I committed that week to making 2010 a year of love. Learning about love, looking for love, discovering love, making love, celebrating love…love love love. It was also the week I committed to myself and my writing career, which was something that I loved but didn’t believe in.

It was an exercise in making a go of just about everything I’d avoided in 2009.

While I didn’t find love in 2010 (at least not romantic) I did email a content producer at Maine’s largest news organization and pitch a dating & relationship column for singles. That I would write and report on, because with my stellar track record I should be the obvious choice.

So young and no idea how to fake smile

Crazy enough, that content producer met with her editor, shared some of my writing samples and my research, and low and behold they gave me an online column. We named the column The Single Slice (per my friend Shorn’s suggestion) as I was more the type of girl who would sit down to chat about love and grab a slice of pizza and a pint of beer, rather than cosmos and stilettos.

I just moved the entire collection of my articles to its own site as the column is a couple years old and chasing dust bunnies in an online archive. For fun, I pulled the most popular post to share. It’s funny to read through stuff you wrote over two years ago. How much changes – and how much stays the same.

It Starts In My Toes

 
And then it creeps up my entire body to my chest and neck and out onto my arms while trying to gasp for air and babbling hysterically to my best friends on the phone.

It’s the feeling before a second date.

The date where suddenly it isn’t fun and games anymore, it’s real.

The date when it suddenly becomes so much MORE.

More than that initial contact – a glance across the coffee shop, a handshake at a friend’s party, a Twittermance or when that cutie whose profile you’ve been lurking at on OkCupid finally reaches out and sends you a message.

More than the playful flirting that happens over the phone or via email before your first date.  The smile that spreads across your face when you get a text or Facebook post and realize that maybe they ARE that into you.  The ride home after a conversation that lasts til 4 in the morning about everything and nothing all at once.  The uneasy yet exhilarating feeling when you are wondering “Will they ask me out? Should I ask them out? When will we have our first “sleepover?!” (Oh don’t judge, you know you have that thought when you are beginning to date someone!)

More than the deep breath you take as you open the restaurant door and step in for your first date.  More than the natural conversation that flows so easily as you wander through a toy store searching for kites and tiny rubber chickens.  More than the awkward yet palpable moment when you sit in the car at the end of the date wondering “Are they going to kiss me?  Should I kiss them?  Do we hug?  How do I reach around the seatbelt?  Oh god WHY did I order Garlic Chicken for dinner tonight?!”

It’s the moment I desperately wish that Proctor & Gamble made some sort of Boy Benadryl to get through it.

Cause I actually (on multiple occasions) have broken out in hives the hours before a second date is scheduled to happen.  I know, all you psychiatrists and therapists reading this desperately want to send me a menu of your fees and schedule some quality time on the couch.  And not the good quality time on the couch.

My  Bucket List on myspace (yes, WAY back when it was cool to have myspace…like 2 years ago…) involved the bullet point of getting to a third date without having an allergic reaction to the idea of liking someone enough to hang out with them, in that “Aw, cute” way, past the butterflies and initial chase and sweet fun of the dating game.

I can’t explain exactly the thoughts that go through my mind during the pre-date freak out.  Generally a conflict of trying to figure out whether I like someone enough to go on a second date with them and convincing myself that I need to give people a chance and not discount them after one date.  And then wondering if I’m going to be single forever, since someone recently told a mutual friend “You might as well just give up if you turn 30 and are still single.”  And then remembering that my Dad once told me he’d be ok with whomever I dated, even if it was a Jewish boy (we’re a very WASP-y family and religion is important to my parents and he really just wants me to be happy.)  And then wondering if what I’m wearing is going to be ok for a second date.  And looking in the mirror for the 18th time in a three minute period to determine if I’m having a bad hair day.  And then…and then…and then…

Anyone else I would calmly explain that they are showing their seven shades of crazy all in one 60-second period and that they needed to calm the hell down.  Advice is always easier to give than it is to take.  And I know that I’m definitely conducting the over-reaction train on it’s way to Crazy Town.  But it doesn’t stop that small part of me from wanting to gnaw off my right arm so that I can’t drive to meet up with someone for what could be the beginning of something real.

Deep breaths…deep breaths…who knows, maybe one day I’ll actually make it through.  Til then, seriously…anyone know if Claritin works for this?

If you wanna check out more of my crazy dating and relationship ramblings, you can check out The Single Slice online

My New Tattoo! Translation: Live, Laugh, Love

As anyone who has seen me on the dance floor in any club anywhere in the world, I am a girl who never says No.

This week I logged into my personal inbox and almost threw up. 77 new messages in just 48 hours. My TMBA email inbox was even better, with 169 new messages, including DC notifications. Facebook offered no further solace. 56 new notifications, 2 friend requests, and 14 new messages.

I wanted to curl up in a ball and shut my eyes tight as possible in some vain attempt to make it all go away. Unfortunately, that trick didn’t work when I was 4 years old and certainly wasn’t going to magically manifest 28 years later. I grabbed some caffeine and a bag of M&M’s and did what any reasonable person would do.

I dove into my online prisons like a guerilla fighter mud-running barbed ground wire. I would take no prisoners and pillage through my work like a hun.

Three days later I have advanced approximately 50 yards in battle. If this were a war zone I’d need a medic. There’s still something worth saving, but I’ve got some serious internal bleeding going on here.

I am declaring Personal Favor Bankruptcy.

What the hell does that mean? Well, I don’t really know how to declare personal bankruptcy, so it might not even be vaguely similar. In fact, I’m kinda forming this by the seat of my pants. Basically, I’m choosing to be downright arrogant with my energy and resources.

Why don’t I just “Select All” and archive?

First off there’s stuff in there that actually needs to be done. Secondly, there’s stuff in there I actually want to do.

Third, and the largest crux of the issue, I have a massive problem with the word NO. I used to think maybe I wanted everyone to like me (classic people-pleasing mentality) but then I realized that there are lots of people who don’t like me and I’m rather ok with that. Instead, I realized that I say YES all the time because I don’t want to miss out on something amazing. I love being a part of great stuff.

Plus, confrontation is such a suck of life. I avoid it because I don’t like wasting my time on it.

If you can’t get to something for three days people will harass you over email, Twitter, Facebook, and anywhere else that they can find you (#protip – this isn’t an effective strategy.) Or if you say No you then have to go back and forth multiple times while they attempt to talk you into it. Maybe I just need to start being a flat out jerk? Nah, that’s not me.

So how does one figure out what to work on and what to respectfully decline or delegate?

1. How Much Do I Want To Be A Part Of It? In the brilliant words of Derek Sivers, if the immediate reaction to a request for your resources (time, money, knowledge, etc) is not emphatically “Fuck Yeah” then why are you wasting your energy on it?
2. Have We Talked/Written/Communicated More Than 3 Times This Year? – No, that doesn’t mean a retweet. Do I have a vested personal and/or professional relationship with you? Or are you just hitting me up because I’m famously a nice-girl-doormat and you are sending notes to everyone in your address book anyways? Unsure? See # 1.
3. Do I Owe You A Favor? - I’m not a fan of keeping track of “who owes me.” Keeping track of who owes you favors is playing small ball. But if I owe you…I owe you. And if you want to collect I’m in. But on my priority level.
4. Can Someone Else Do This Faster Or Better? - I can enter data and mix spreadsheets with the best of them. But my VA is like a ninja on Google Docs. Sure, it takes some time investment to explain exactly what needs to be done, but delgating the work to her frees me up to work on higher level shit that I enjoy. Trying to figure out the time spend paradox? See # 1.
5. Are You Making This Easy For Both Of Us? - I know some people who won’t reply to an email if it is over X lines or doesn’t have specifically worded questions. That’s not my style. But are you sending me a life manifesto and asking for analysis? An obviously blanket press pitch? A meeting request that is open-ended? If you want my time or help, make it easy. Otherwise, please see #1.

I really enjoyed the past week. Spending time with people I love. Doing things that mattered to me. Living new experiences. Laughing til my stomach ached and tears streamed down my cheeks. Getting ice cream cones with a cute boy and sitting on the pier comparing scars and stories from our travels. Watching friends stand together, staring into each others’ eyes with such happiness that I was reminded that extraordinary love DOES exist in this world and that I am fortunate enough to know people who have found it.

I also enjoy my work. I love helping people create businesses and lives that gives them the freedom and opportunities I have come to crave and want for everyone I encounter. I love writing and analyzing relationships and creating epic shit. I love collaborating with people and editing their writing and proposals to take their awesome products and make them even awesomer.

There comes a time, though, when I have to step back and realize that I’m so hopped up on stay-awake pills and caffeinated iced tea that I have moments where I just sit quietly to stop shaking or finally crash and nap for 4 hours at 11:30 AM. I’m *this close* to a Jessie Spano breakdown.

Sometimes, your own life and sanity are worth the price of pissing a few people off and not getting to do everything you want to do. It also begins to set a precedent for you and your interactions. You want to help others and work with others and be part of amazing things.

Your personal resources are limited and valuable. The moment you start realizing and enforcing that, others will follow.

Declaring a personal favor bankruptcy to focus on your own shit is not only a selfishly beautiful thing to do, it is the only way you can be any good for others in the future.

Zombies, while great fodder for pop culture and social media, do not make for great workers or companions.