Wrestling for Contentment

Have you ever wrestled a thought in your mind, trying to tamp it down, unsuccessfully?  I get like this when I am confronted with something that drives me outside of my comfort zone– way outside.  Not in a good way.

Since my breast cancer diagnosis, I’ve been mindful not to get stressed out. So much so, that now when I get stress out, I actually stress out about getting stressed out.  Sounds crazy, eh?

I’m in the midst of a worry moment, consumed with thoughts that are antagonistic, pressing on me like a strong downpour of cold rain.  I really am trying to see through the rainy moment to view the clear skies ahead, but it’s hard this time to pull out of it.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff, kid.”

That’s what my Uncle John told me when he was lying in his bed, dying from aggressive brain cancer.  I was 27 years old, full of verve and at the top of my game working at a rising software company.  He asked me how I was doing, and I rattled off stories of job stress, boyfriend despair, and overall self-absorbed drivel, when he suddenly fixed his gaze on me and told me that I had nothing to worry about.

That was a show stopping moment.  I stopped my prattling tales of selfish focus, suddenly feeling the weight of his burden.  Knowing that he was facing the end soon, and that it was giving him a whole lot of perspective on life.  Perspective he was suddenly sharing with me.

I’ve thought a lot about that conversation in the past few weeks, while I attempt to “center” my thoughts and focus on the positive.  Things can get worse, things have been worse, and things will always change in one direction or another.  That’s something good about life– the changeability, the shifting seams that hold us all together– we can always take solace in the fact that things will change.

In the meantime, I wrestle with my thoughts, tamping down the urge to focus on the bad.

It is all good, from the worst to the bad, to the ugly.

 

Being Optimistic is an Intellectual Choice

I read this quote today on the web, and it really struck a chord with me. I struggle with pessimism at times, and the idea that we can actually choose optimism as our outlook intrigues me.

What are your thoughts on optimism?

Popular psychology tells us that we can completely change our destiny based on our outlook on life. The optimist is destined to live longer, live better, and achieve more. The older I get, the more I buy into this.

Take a career crisis for example. You can wallow in it, or use it to change your path in ways formerly unknown to you. Our soul changes as we learn more about the world, and it takes a certain amount of trust and optimism to actually see this great world for what it is.

I always remember optimism

Remember those times that someone believed in you, told you that your idea wasn’t crazy, or that validated your thoughts? It doesn’t necessarily mean seeking validation is weakness, as some might perceive, but it’s actually a human need. Call it what you will— validation, support, cheerleading, friendship. It’s all in the spirit of being optimistic about ourselves and to those  who share and delight in this point of view.

Change your viewpoint

One of my mentors once told me that the best way to solve a problem is to step into the other person’s shoes for a moment. Eye opener it is…. you start seeing the world in a completely different way.  When I struggle to relate to people, I try this little trick…. and it usually helps me in some regard.   There is also a literal sense of “changing your view” that I find refreshing, and that is getting out of your “norm”, your routine. Change it up, leave town, go to a new coffee shop, and take in another view.  It’s sure to change your perception somehow.

Share your point of view

The last and final thing I have to say about optimism is that it’s best shared. Share it with your friends, but better yet, share it with your enemies.  It will possibly affect their pessimism, and you can consider that you’ve done your good deed by showing someone a …. different way of viewing the world!!!

So, about that ride we were talking about.

Yes, I finished the ride.

All 204 miles of it.

Yes, folks, all done.  Now I sit here, wondering what I need to be training for next.  But before I wax on about that conundrum, I would like to recap a few highlights from our wonderful ride.

Starting line in Seattle

We had the Gods of Time Change with us, as we are Central Standard Ladies, and this event took place in Pacific Time. Yes! That was win for us, because as I explained earlier, we were feeling a bit daft and undertrained. So when we lined up in Seattle at the University of Washington, we were very awake, and feeling good.  The start of the ride was beautiful, with a morning sunshine and views of the harbor and city. Seattle’s a gorgeous place.  We made our way out of the city, and breezed past the first couple of rest stops to gain a bit of time.  We finally stopped at the REI stop about 25 miles into the day, as I really needed a Honey Pot break. They have these nifty porta-potties that are absolutely, the cleanest I have ever encountered. And yes, they are called Honey Pots. Hmmmm.

Here’s a pic of me at the REI stop with my pal from Texas:

We come bringing sunshine, peace, and spare tires.

From this point, we flew through the next 50 miles, stopping for almond butter and Udi’s sandwiches, Clif Bars (blech!), bananas, and lots of water.

We arrived at Centralia around 1:10 in the afternoon, and I very quickly found the nearest accupressurist.

No more Plantar Fascitis?

We stayed overnight at the Church of the Nazarene, which was the bomb. Those ladies there really know how to treat their cyclists, and they spent their time making sure we had our baggage, showers, a great room (the nursery) and a breakfast. We appreciated everything they did for us, even if we were sleeping on pool floaties.

Day 2

Knees hurt. Back aches. Saddle sore.

There is nothing like getting back in the saddle after 100 miles, followed by sleeping on a pool floatie. Nothing compares, really.

We ended up stopping about 10 miles in for a food break, and to shake off the painful knees with a good dose of Advil. We started an Advil regime that was noteworthy; I don’t even want to know what my liver looks like at this point from all the doses we took.

Mile 52 included a rather large bridge that seperates Oregon from Washington state. We were gathered into a group and the motorcade stopped traffic in our direction to get a group of about 200 of us across the bridge. They didn’t stop the oncoming traffic, so what should have been an easy bridge crossing for me (I am terrified of heights) turned into a hair raising, I’m=Fking-riding-the-brakes-over-the-hill experience. I was absolutely frozen into place, as we reached approximate speeds of 25 MPH with oncoming traffic, metal girders like railroad tracks (think spinning a bike out of control at that speed because that’s all I could envision), and a dizzying height over the Columbia River.  Followed by exiting us out onto a freeway?  Yes, the freeway umm, has a bike lane. Joy! Traffic!

We started out with 2 lanes of traffic, then the lanes converged into 4 lanes about 20 miles into the “Highway” section of the ride.

We stopped at about mile 84 at what we called the “Deliverance” stop. Tacks were found outside this stretch of the highway, and many cyclists were on the side of the road changing flats.  Thankfully, we escaped the flats and kept pedaling as hard as we could to reach Portland.

The trip into Portland was spectactular. We crossed over the St. John’s Bridge with a view of the entire city. We had stop and go traffic until the end, when we crossed the finish line around 5pm.

It was a great ride, and I’d recommend it to anyone. And now, I am left to wonder what else I’m going to train for……..

Bicycle

200 miles.

Does that sound daunting?

Well, we’ve cycled more than this, but perhaps not in a 2 day period. In 2011.

Literally, hot

 By all respects, I should be logging back to back 100 mile days this week. Am I doing that? NO.

I’m lucky to get in 20 miles in the morning before the day begins, with a 40 mile jaunt on Saturday and Sunday. We are obviously behind on our training schedule.

What’s the event?

It’s the Group Health Seattle to Portland Classic, being held on July 11-12.  We have 2 lovely days of riding in a balmy 80 degrees, tops. I’ve been told that one can even get hypothermia, so feeling pretty excited about the prospect of getting out my cold weather gear again. When you consider that we’ve battled Sahara-like conditions and hot, hot wind for months, I am imagining we’ll gain a little speed or advantage from that. Right?

We are readying ourselves for fun times, lots of sweat, hopefully not a lot of tears.   We are the group from TEJAS, and we expect to make this a great ride.

We meet tonight to pack our bikes, have a few glasses of wine, and have enlisted the help of an expert bike mechanic to help us to pack up the bikes.  We depart next Thursday for the event, and will be ready to get rolling at 5:15 am on Saturday. We have a 2 hour time differential that will hopefully give us an advantage over the Pac NWer cyclists, since we haven’t met our training goals.

Why haven’t we met our training goals?

We have asked ourselves this question many times as we ride the lake. My assumption is that we couldn’t get in early morning rides with lots of mileage due to the sunrise / school /work obligations that we have, along with the weather that delayed our outside cycling until March. We rode on indoor spin bikes all winter long, doing HIT training (a real ass-kicker, let me tell you), weight lifting, and, oh, I almost forgot to mention the 2 triathlons we trained for and finished successfully.  So why aren’t we ready???

Smiles for Miles

The goal, as always, is to have fun.

 Really.

 That 200 miles will imbue us with more memories than I can begin to tell you about now.  We will undoubtedly have flat tires, car chase scenes, obscenity laced rants, and some friendships forged along the roadside based on things such as a love of Specialized bikes, or perhaps a special propensity for Shimano component repair. So, as I prepare myself mentally for this ride, I keep telling myself that 200 miles just isn’t so far.

Resilience

Last weekend, my oldest son got his first shiner.  Apart from having to field questions from every store clerk, camp counselor, and sports coach in our lives, I have learned a very valuable lesson from this shiner.  It’s all about resilience, you see.

The story goes a bit like this:  My son and his father were out practicing baseball catching.  They quickly moved on to hitting the ball with a bat, and neglected to get out the requisite batting helmet.  My husband pitched the ball at my son, and BAM! A black eye was born.  Not to mention the guilt that ensued for my husband.  He won’t be forgetting the batting helmet again, I can say that with certainty.

After the brouhaha was over, life quickly settled back into our normal weekend routine, and we basically moved on.

But I have to say, we took one thing for granted.  Here was my son, black eye and all, doing everything he normally does on any given weekend.  He swam, laughed, played ball (he will even tell you proudly that he finished practicing with Dad), and everything was back to normal.  It made me think about resiliency and the human spirit.  You see, he was not ready to let the black eye make him stop. He kept on going, and it wasn’t until he pointed this out did I realize that this is what adults sometimes lack.  Resiliency.  We get so overwrought with our personal crises, our problems, our lives that we often don’t realize that sometimes it’s just healthier to let it go.  I am not talking about throwing cares to the wind, but rather, throwing useless cares to the wind and allowing ourselves to act as we did when we were children.  Not letting the little things trip us up, or even get in our way for a moment.

So it’s with this attitude I will try to approach my days.   So what if I left my favorite Burt’s Bees lip balm in the car and my lips are a bit dry?  Should I let that stop me from enjoying lunch with my daughter?  No!  Just yesterday, I returned to my house after I left on a bike ride, obsessed with my sunglasses and where they might be.  Not a good use of my time, really. I lost 10 minutes of precious cycling time on the lake from that. For what? I ended up finding my sunglasses later that day, intact and about 5 feet away from where they were supposed to be.  So today, I am going to just take a deep breath, relax, and  let it go. Try it with me and tell me if it makes you feel more free.

Tips for Job Searching in the “New Economy”, i.e. the doldrums

I’ve been looking for a job for 4 months now. In the past, I considered myself to be a “closer,” able to seal the deal with a few interviews.  Well, the market is a bit more competitive now, and if you don’t fit employers’ specifications precisely, you are booted out the door in a jiffy.

I have a few tips on how to stay relevant, how to position yourself, and how to rise above the rest when it comes to searching for a position.

Tailor Made Resumes

Make sure you’ve got at least 3 versions of your resume. I work in marketing, specifically marketing for high tech companies, so I have a “High Tech Marketing” version of my resume.  However, I’ve also worked for a magazine, a few advertising agencies, and I’ve got a writing portfolio, so I have another version that is geared toward writing.  My 3rd is more of a skills resume, with a large summary of experience that utilizes key search words that might be in my next dream  job.

Remember when we used to write each other letters?

Polish off your letter writing skills. Now’s the time to talk about yourself in a good way to potential employers. And the best way to do it is in a letter format. Remember, the resume just lists out your skills and achievements. You really have an opportunity to WOW with your cover letter. I’ve been known to spend a few hours tweaking a cover letter so it’s precisely geared at the job I’m applying for….. providing it’s a job I really, really want.

Practice Interviewing

Remember the job you really, really want? Well, you’re going to have to interview for a few jobs that you might not want before you get The Interview With the Dream Job and Company.  The “practice interviews” are a great way to get your story smooth, your delivery perfected, and your “self-presentation” skills down pat.  I’ve noticed that the first few interviews I’ve had were really, really rough. I’m pitching a new product– myself– and it’s been awhile since I’ve talked about my assets.  Now that I’ve been at it for awhile, I’m able to articulate fairly well what skills I bring to a job, where I’ve had success, and why the employer should be interested in me. Remember, it’s like dating. You’re trying the company out, just as much as they are evaluating you.  I’ve had interviews that have practically made me want to run for the door, believe me.  I’ve actually had an interview (this was years ago) where the would-be boss told me he didn’t hire “mouth breathers.”   Huh? I suddenly worried that he knew I had a deviated septum, but realized later that he meant that he didn’t hire “dull people.”  You will meet all kinds, so it’s best to have these practice sessions, so you can react quickly when faced with an unusual situation.

Write Your Elevator Pitch

In marketing, we deem the “elevator pitch” the story you give the CEO as you ride down 20 flights together in the elevator.  You need to be able to articulate, quickly, what you offer and how you can add value as an employee. Come up with your pitch, and it should go something along the lines of this:

Hi, my name is Ineedajob, and I’m a professional kitchen cleaner, with over 10 years of experience in wiping butts, cleaning up the playroom, and mitigating the risks for a group of 3-6  year olds. I excel at creating intense learning situations for misbehaved children, and I relish the opportunity to see how I can help your employees keep their kitchens clean and figure out what solutions fit for your bed linen closet problem.

With an introduction like that resonating in your mind, you’ll be able to give any interviewers a quick view into your skills and attributes.

Network, Network, Network

I’ve met people who worked for my dream company through book club moms, and I keep up with my previous colleagues regularly.  Since one never knows when they’ll be thrust into the job market, you need to keep your network going at all times….. even when you’re gainfully employed.  I’ve helped out numerous people in my career, and I’ve found that when I “pay it forward”, I will get the same treatment when I’m searching for something, be it a contact, a position, or research on a company.  ”Paying it forward” is a good general rule in life– not as a means to getting what you want, but as a means of just doing “good things”, creating good energy in your life, and helping others.  You will get a lot of satisfaction out of this in many ways.

Rest and Relax

The race that starts out as a sprint could become a marathon, so pace yourself accordingly.  Relish the good times with your family, and use the moments you have to really be “present” in your family’s life.  I’ve started a few new routines with my children, and we’re closer than ever due to this layoff, and these are moments that I am happy to have.   It’s easy to get burned out, and to start feeling rejected, but just know that the right opportunity will present itself at the right time.

Happy hunting, and stay tuned for more job search insights!

Internet Addiction

Well, I’ve learned the hard way what it’s like to not have an internet connection. I’ve spent the greater part of a week dealing with no service. Seems that a certain, large conglomerate phone company in the USA doesn’t have a lot of capacity to allow users to drop their land line while maintaining their internet service.

We’ve made the leap to being a completely internet-based household. In terms of communications, that is.  I have to say that I felt a twinge of sadness, maybe even nostalgia when we got rid of the landline.  I remembered the hours I spent attached to a wall when I was a teenager, toying with the phone cord while I decided upon my future with my friends. Usually at 4 a.m.  And the times when, in my 20s, I actually waited for the phone to ring. Really!  Naw, I didn’t do that much, but I do remember checking voicemail religiously to see if a certain someone was calling. Turns out most of those certain someones were actually no ones in my life, but at the time it was important.

So, you see, I was fraught with some conflict when my husband announced he was getting rid of the line. “What if there’s a tornado?” “Ummmm, what if the internet and the wireless go down?”  You can tell that I like to be emergency-prepared.

Alas, we are now dependent on the internet for our voip, email, music, et al.  I’ve decided it’s okay for now, but I still feel a twinge when I think of toying with the phone cord, thinking about the future……

p.s. I promise to post now, honestly.