To circumnavigate your own neighborhood??

ahem... yes... well...

They say that in the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is king...

And in the land of the directionally challenged I would be flipping burgers at the local GreasyKing (that is if I ever FOUND it)!!

So anyway...

I was feeling rather ambitious today, and with the beautiful sunshine beckoning me (how much more of THAT will we get around HERE you know) I decided to go for a walk.

Now I have been rather lax in terms of working out lately (and when I say lax I mean non-existent and when I say lately I mean oh the last couple of YEARS or so) but I'm trying to get better about that. I have this new cool gadget for my iPod (can you say WHORE?) which will tell me how fast I'm walking and how far I've gone and just how long I've been torturing myself and so lured by technology I set myself a goal of walking for 45 minutes but I would have been impressed with myself if I'd made it 30.

(Que foreshadowing music)

I put on some cool techno and the lovely lady in my ears was being VERY encouraging so I walked through my sub and into the next thinking I would wind around through a few streets and come out on the main street that runs along my sub and then have a nice stretch back home...

Sadly though... the first 5 minutes too WAY longer than I expected and the second 5 minutes didn't come any more quickly... I was starting wonder what I had gotten myself into when I got distracted by something shiny and just stopped thinking about it...

Now let me pause here to say that I walk really fast... I am a fast walker by almost anyone's standards (I once dated a guy who was 6'7" and he almost couldn't keep up) so it started to seem like it wasn't going to be a big deal to make this goal after all...

I reached the 30 minute mark and told myself it was all downhill from here and however long I'd been going once I got back home was JUST FINE... I came to the busy road and started walking back in the direction of home... As I was walking I made a mental note to try to figure out how far I'd come next time I was in my car and was thinking about how different things look when you are moving more slowly...

(Que that damned music again!)

And then I came to the elementary school... the one that's... MILES from my house... the one I could probably find if I was driving my car but is WAY too far to have gotten to by foot... confused but still determined I continued forward when I came to a street sign I recognized and realized that not only was I REALLY far from home, but that I wasn't even sure about what the shortest way to get home from there WAS...

Since I could no longer fool myself into thinking I was headed toward home, I turned around and started back the other way wondering what were the chances that someone I knew would feel sorry for me and give me a ride home!!

Right about that time my gadget girlie announced triumphantly that I had MET my goal (of 45 minutes) and could END my workout by pressing the menu button... I'm sure I didn't say any bad words out loud (or at least I'm sure there were no impressionable children around) and amazingly enough, I didn't pitch the thing into the nearest bush...

Well by this time I had NO clue which streets would take me back home so there I was staring at the sun trying to keep my bearings and resist the urge to hitchhike... All the while being comforted by a cheery voice chirping 'you are 5 minutes past your goal'... 'You are 10 minutes past your goal!' (You are jealous, I can tell!!)

(Que triumphant Rocky music)

I reached the one hour (and 4 mile) mark just as I got to my driveway, and managed to remember the combination to my garage door opener and stumble up the stairs and into the house without bumping my head on anything before I collapsed in a heap in the middle of the floor... (Yeah... that was my cool down... lying in a heap, whimpering... what of it???)



It's a good thing I'm planning to just lie around and eat on my cruise, 'cause I'm SURE I STILL won't be able to move by then!!

When I look at you...

Even my edges are sharp and bright...

What I see reflected back to me is beautiful... intelligent... unstoppable... Even when all I see is darkness you still see light...

You point out all my dark places too, so I know you're not just blind... but instead of being frightened you revel in them... and so I can too...

I can drag you into the deepest chasms and never fear that you will finally see too much..

Some roots go deep... and yours go all the way to the center of the universe...

I'll never be as glorious as you think I am, but I've been able to find my way by following the light in your eyes...

photo: no it's NOT Scarlett Johanssen

There is an interesting phenomenon in the world of business. One that makes traditional methods of communication largely ineffective. This effect if ignored or unacknowledged can wreak havoc on a person's productivity, self-esteem and perceived value. What I'm talking about is something that many people perceive, but few seem to bring to a conscious level. It's the realization that:

If I want to talk to you, chances are you don't want to talk to me.

No, it's not a conspiracy theory, or a new-age 'less is more' type philosophy. The fact of the matter is that in business everyone has a job to do, and objective to accomplish. To make things happen in the business world, you have to get people to do things for you. In order to do this you have to communicate with them, build relationships, communicate your needs.

In the meantime, these same people are looking around for those people who can do things for them. If you are not one of those people, and lets face it not many business relationships are truly two way streets, then it's likely there will be other people on their list of calls to make.

Nowhere is this behavior more obvious than at a company sponsored social event. Everyone is jockeying to get close to their bosses and key clients, who are busily searching the room for the VIPs THEY want to be seen with. So off they go with you trailing after them like a lost puppy, because hey, they might just introduce you to some REALLY important people.

And what if YOU'RE the one everyone wants to see? What if you are surrounded by an attentive crowd? Well most likely what that means is that everone in the room wants something from YOU. Nice for the ego, but potentially not a lot of help in achieving your own objectives.

So is all this a bad thing? Something we can turn around with a management fad-of-the-week? No, it's just reality and being aware of it can help you adjust your communication styles to be more effective. In other words, realize that they can help you more than you can help them. Don't waste a lot of their time. Make your communications quick and concise and then let them get on with the important business of chasing down the people that can help THEM.

There are a LOT of self-help books out there. A quick search on Amazon will return over 5600 different titles to choose from. That's a lot of self-help, and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight. After a quick persual of a few of them you'll see that they all follow the same basic format:

• Introduction of the basic problem (including horrifying examples of how it will eventually ruin your life)
• A never before heard-of and practically foolproof list of steps to take to turn yourself, your problem and your life around
• A closing section, usually brief, on how to apply these steps to your own life

Seems simple doesn't it? Then why is there a continued need? Why do people buy volume after volume? Do they aquire new problems? Do the old ones come back? If these books aren't an effective method for improving one's life, why continue to buy them?

I believe one reason is that people can't help but think that if some improvement is good, then more must be better. If they are able to improve one area of their lives there must be another that could stand to be next. So they go looking for the next area to trim down, shape up or manage away. This works very much in the favor of the selp-help gurus.

Unfortunately it also wastes a lot of time. Time that could be used productively someplace else. Is it any wonder that we are always 'improving' yet not accomlishing as much as we feel we should? After all there is no better way to give the impression that things are moving forward than by implementing a 'new process' or a 'change in management' or an 'action plan'. People are moving, they are getting things done. Things feel different. So it must be better right? Right?

I'm not so sure. I don't think it's enough to make change after change, just because things aren't perfect yet. Like the dreamer searching for the ever-elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you can never quite get there. Now that's not to say that change is never good, or that self-help books aren't sometimes quite useful. I think it's more a matter of optimizing their use; applying your efforts to the areas that need the most improvement, and then actually paying attention to the quantifiable difference between the old you and the new improved you.

photo: Charlie Cortez

Is to believe in yourself...

Not be absorbed in yourself...

Or think only of yourself...

Or sacrifice yourself...

But to be confident as a mom (even when you don't feel it), and to try your best to stay centered in the fact that you are truly trying to do what's best for your child and getting better all the time...

Just as every child is different, so is every mom...  And the one thing I always focused on was the desire to be the best mom I could be... for MY child, not someone else's...

Part of that means becoming the best person you can be, for yourself...

And learning to balance the two...

Every child deserves a mom that's fabulous... 

So be fabulous!

(note - This post was written mother's day morning but just as I was about to preview and post my door opened and my family burst in and I completely forgot about it for the rest of the day.  And isn't that how it should be?)

Whenever I have to work closely with someone new, someone I haven't really worked with before, there is always that awkward 'burning-in' period.  You know, the one where you try to figure out the most optimal way to get your own way play nicely together?  I am in that situation right now, and what makes it even more difficult is that this new person and I don't seem to be quite aligned in our work styles.  Specifically I am a control freak very organized and don't like to waste time and he is a control freak seems to dislike committing to a specific course of action until my head starts spinning around he is sure.

Now I realize that it takes a little time to get used to working with someone new, and that this situation is only exacerbated by the fact that on my last project the team just DID what I SAID was wonderful to work with.  So I am trying to be patient.  Still, work is all about getting things done and it is difficult for me to just let time slide by...

I do know, however, that there will always be all kinds of idiots personalities to deal with in any work or other situation so I am trying to be open-minded.  Specifically, I am trying to be open-minded about the fact that it's all about me I tend to be inwardly focused about these things.  Interestingly, even my attempts at open-mindedness end up being more about how to optimize this situation for ME.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Let's face it, these days we're expected to take care of our own careers.  And fortunately for business, lots of times the first place to start in taking care of yourself is to be valuable to your company.  Still, I find it interesting (and a bit disconcerting) to take a step back and listen to the voices dialogue in my head* even when I'm trying to be less self-absorbed:

• If I don't put a stop to this now, it'll suck at the end of the project
• Dial back your inner bitch babe, you don't want people to hide when they hear your name
• It's because I'm a girl isn't it?
• Oh, get real, don't turn into one of THOSE
• Why is he behaving like this? What is he trying to accomplish?
• And how can I understand his motivations?
• So he will DO what I WANT?

See what I mean? I'd like think that I am open-minded, but when I try to force myself to be, it becomes clear that I am certainly not...

*The voices in my head are real, the names have been changed to protect the innocent...

A question generated by a comment from iMorpheus in a previous post...

My initial thoughs, bolstered by a quick search through the font of all that is good and holy wikipedia, are that the road to heaven must certainly be paved with directives against the prevailing human inclinations of the culture and time...

Clear as mud yes?

What I really mean is that while heaven is generally thought of as a state that provides 'all the things I want but can't get now', the method to GET there is generally touted as being to 'do these things (which are generally better for some group) that you wouldn't do on your own'... because it's WORTH it (you get heaven)...

But really... Is there any reason you can't get to heaven by floating along the river you're already in?  Why should that be the case? Does the Supreme Being (whatever that might be to you) want to limit who gets in?  Is it kinda like the cool kids table?  You know, where exclusivity is the point unto itself and so what you have to do to get there isn't logically connected to anything?

Is it just a method of coercing basically selfish humans into making things better for the group as a whole at some sacrifice to themselves?  Convienient... Optimal... Self-sustaining...

It seems to me that if I were the Ultimate Creator, I would want to create beings that were self-sustaining (hence the drive to survive, reproduce and self-actualize)... I would instill them with an inherant dissatisfaction so they would continually strive for more (rather than sit in a mud puddle and happily rot thus bringing an end to my grand experiment)... And I would place in their consciousness the idea that they could only fulfill this unnamed desire for 'heaven'  by following a path that they will recognize when they see it...

This would cause the path to heaven to evolve as people do... And there would be as many paths and types of pavement as there are eras and cultures...

And my perpetual motion machine would be efficient because the individual components would be convinced that their role is the right one... and they will run at an optimal level of satisfaction and dissatisfaction...

Forever and ever amen...