Almostgotit.com

Should you take rejection personally?  Good Lord, of course you should. You are a person, after all.

What else are you going to do, take it like a llama?

(1) Resiliance is not a moral virtue.

The amount of resilience you have is more like a hair color: It’s something you’re born with, unless you change it with chemicals.

Don’t listen when people tell you to get over it, move on, and let go. What the hell do they know? Feel what you feel. Discontent and anger are not defects, they are human. They are also very powerful tools for change, if you use them right.

(2) Success is not a moral virtue either

Success often is more like the lottery. Some people win the first time they buy a ticket, and try to convince the rest of us that winning only happens to people who believe in themselves with their whole entire hearts; other people win the lottery after buying 100 tickets, and then spend their lives urging the rest of us to keep on buying lottery tickets until it works for us, too.

The only logical conclusion to this line of thought is that people are starving in Africa  because they deserve it.  We need to stop equating vocational (and economical) success with personal virtue.

(3) … Nor does success  inevitably follow upon hard work or persistence

We also need to stop telling people that hard work and persistence will inevitably lead to vocational success. Hard work may increase the mathematical odds of success, sure, but there are no guarantees.

How unfortunate it is that we keep insisting that success comes from good character and hard work.  The American mobility myth is astonishingly persistent, despite many recent (and bipartisan) studies that debunk it.

The good news? You can stop beating yourself up, now. Being unsuccessful is not a character flaw, and there is nothing wrong with you.  Nor is there anything wrong with embracing your own experience for what it is, and moving through and past it your own way, too.   I’m sorry I can’t tell you how to succeed, nor even guarantee that you will. But on behalf of the rest of the world, please let me say: we need you just the way you are.

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Update:  Yesterday our local paper posted excerpts of my entry about the Knoxville shooting in several places on their website.  For a few hours it was Google City around here.  Therefore, I’d already written today’s entry when I was pinged by this article about anger, written by a licensed therapist, who took my point and ran with it quite beautifully.  So now you have it from a real expert!

Blogging may have to take a back seat again this week.

A friend of ours (I’ll call her “Joy”) died very suddenly yesterday morning. The married mother of 9-year-old “Phillip,” she was the parent with the steady income and the health insurance plan.

The family had many plans for the future, but this scenario wasn’t one of them. There was no will, few financial reserves, and though Joy’s husband “Andy” is a shrewd businessman in his own right, this hit him as an absolute broadside.

All he can do right now is weep or look stunned. And whatever he has left, his son needs it all.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are stunned too, and trying to put together the beginnings of what to do next for someone whose spouse suddenly dies.

Yesterday, amidst the busiest weekend of the church year, finding an available priest for the family was my first emergency. Today, between holiday celebrations, we’ve been arranging a funeral.

Everybody dies. And there are basic “death checklists” that virtually everyone will deal with at some point, given our universal mortality.

Most of these checklists assume a person is older, however, and without quite so many entanglements.

Where are all the other answers? (oh, help!)

And where’s the universal genius who’s supposed to be in charge of all of this, anyway?

Someone needs to reassure and manage Andy’s clients until he can do so again himself. Since Andy taught me much of what I know about webpage management, some of this may fall on me.

Andy and Phillip also need financial advice, legal advice, and health insurance. They need money and childcare and household management plans and community support. They need everything.

Nor are these homeless people, or hermits. They have friends, relatives and co-workers. They are “plugged in.” And we, the family’s network, are doing what we can.

What strikes me is how stupid, and helpless, we all still are.

Most of all, though, I vacillate between wanting to weep and wanting to yell, because God Damn it, Easter or no, this is all wrong, and Phillip needs his mother!

Photo by Goldring (Creative Commons)

A friend of mine lives in the country, and her old farmhouse is surrounded by acres of trees, which on summer nights are  full of  twinkling fireflies.  Before she built a deck off her 2nd floor bedroom, we used to climb out her bedroom window to sit on the porch roof with a bottle of wine just to watch them.

We went there on Friday.   Some of us picked blackberries while others made pies, barbequed, and laid out dozens of salads.  The house was full of people, as were both porches and the yard.  The people were mostly writers, lawyers for special causes, and other passionate folk who seem to love what they do. 

It was marvelous, like drinking limoncello straight from the bottle. 

I especially enjoyed joining the upstairs-porch crew of wonderfully-eccentric, uncensored, pissed-off women.   I came in just as a woman wearing a pink cowboy hat with sequins was half-way through an animated story about dog-poop, jerks who steal parking spaces, and other perils of downtown living. 

I didn’t catch half their names,  but it was a total trip listening to women who get even more irate about things than I do, have no interest in being reasonable, and would frankly make very alarming neighbors.

And who Just. Don’t. Care.

All of these wonderful, firefly people have something I want, and these women in particular were living something like my own suppressed female “id”,  with no apologies whatsoever. 

To be honest, it was very refreshing. 

I suspect that I too would love to tell someone that if their dog craps in my yard just ONE MORE TIME, I’m going to get out my gun and blow their fucking heads off. 

In my universe, though,  I’d just get sent to jail!!

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Don’t miss the cool firefly links, at right!

Bloggers.  Can’t live with them, can’t shoot them.  (Warning: grumpy post)

If a blog isn’t about the latest browser plug-in, it’s about Paris Hilton (did you know they just let her out of jail?  Something medical, apparently.)  If a blog’s not about either of these things, it’s about someone’s damn book tour.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to be going on a book tour.  But if that time ever comes in my life, would someone please remind me not to be so breezily “as-if” about it, e.g.,  as if everyone else reading my blog is either a fellow book-tour-er or else a no-life, craven fan?  How about a little humility and gratitude?  I mean, allowing for the fact that blogging is already such an exhibitionist and self-indulgent exercise.

Here’s what we need:

New Medications for Women, Bloggers, Women Bloggers, and Paris Hilton

The Food and Drug Administration has just announced the following drugs have been released for trial in the US. These new medications are available only by prescription.

• D A M I T O L
  Take 2 and the rest of the world can go to hell for up to 8 hours.
• ST. M O M ‘ S W O R T
  Plant extract that treats mom’s depression by rendering preschoolers unconscious for up to six hours.
• E M P T Y N E S T R O G E N
  Highly effective suppository that eliminates melancholy by enhancing the memory of how awful they were as teenagers and how you couldn’t wait till they moved out.
• P E P T O B I M B O
  Liquid silicone for single women. Two full cups swallowed before an evening out increases breast size, decreases intelligence, and improves flirting.
• D U M E R O L
  When taken with Peptobimbo, can cause dangerously low I.Q. causing enjoyment of country western music.
• F L I P I T O R
  Increases life expectancy of commuters by controlling road rage and the urge to flip off other drivers.
• M E N I C I L L I N
  Potent antiboyotic for older women. Increases resistance to such lines as, “You make me want to be a better person … can we get naked now?”
• B U Y A G R A
  Injectable stimulant taken prior to shopping. Increases potency and duration of spending spree.
• Extra Strength B U Y-O N E-A L
  When combined with Buyagra, can cause an indiscriminate buying frenzy so severe the victim may even come home with a Donnie Osmond CD or a book by Dr. Laura.
• J A C K A S S P I R I N
  Relieves headache caused by a man who can’t remember your birthday, anniversary or phone number.
• A N T I-T A L K S I D E N T A
  spray carried in a purse or wallet to be used on anyone too eager to share their life stories with total strangers.
• S E X C E D R I N
  More effective than Excedrin in treating the, “Not now, dear, I have a headache,” syndrome.
• R A G A M E T
  When administered to a husband, provides the same irritation as ragging on him all weekend, saving the wife the time and trouble of doing it herself.

– Derived from something I saw posted on a coffee shop bulletin board this morning.  With my newfound determination to respect  copyrights, here’s a source but very much doubt it’s the original one — see also here and here)

These are just so exactly perfect.

• As I let go of my feelings of guilt, I am in touch with my inner sociopath.
• I have the power to channel my imagination into ever-soaring levels of suspicion and paranoia.
• I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else’s fault.
• I no longer need to punish, deceive, or compromise myself, unless I want to stay employed.
• In some cultures what I do would be considered normal.
• Having control over myself is almost as good as having control over others.
• My intuition nearly makes up for my lack of self-judgment.
• I honor my personality flaws for without them I would have no personality at all. Joan of Arc heard voices, too.
• I am grateful that I am not as judgmental as all those censorious, self-righteous people around me.
• I need not suffer in silence while I can still moan, whimper and complain.
• As I learn the innermost secrets of people around me, they reward me in many ways to keep me quiet.
• When someone hurts me, I know that forgiveness is cheaper than a lawsuit, but not nearly as gratifying.
• The first step is to say nice things about myself. The second,to do nice things for myself. The third, to find someone to buy me nice things.
• As I learn to trust the universe, I no longer need to carry a gun.
• All of me is beautiful, even the ugly, stupid and disgusting parts.
• I am at one with my duality.
• Blessed are the flexible, for they can tie themselves into knots.
• Only a lack of imagination saves me from immobilizing myself with imaginary fears.
• I will strive to live each day as if it were my 50th birthday.
• I honor and express all facets of my being, regardless of state and local laws.
• Today I will gladly share my experience and advice, for there are no sweeter words than “I told you so!”
• False hope is better than no hope at all.
• A good scapegoat is almost as good as a solution.
• Just for today, I will not sit in my living room all day in my underwear. Instead, I will move my computer into the bedroom.
• Who can I blame for my problems? Just give me a minute…. I’ll find someone.
• Why should I waste my time reliving the past when I can spend it worrying about the future?
• The complete lack of evidence is the surest sign that the conspiracy is working.
• I am learning that criticism is not nearly as effective as sabotage.
• Becoming aware of my character defects leads me naturally to the next step of blaming my parents.
• To have a successful relationship, I must learn to make it look like I’m giving as much as I’m getting.
• I am willing to make the mistakes if someone else is willing to learn from them.
• Before I criticize a man, I walk a mile in his shoes. That way, if he gets angry, he’s a mile away and barefoot.

Posted several places online, including here.  No attribution given.  Please let me know if you know the original source!

“Don’t burn bridges” is good advice.  So is “getting it off your chest.”  I wonder how one manages this balance in a no-longer-anonymous blog without getting in trouble?  (the applicable blogging term is “dooced”..)

That said, my own personal favorite interview “worsts”:

(1) Members of the interview committee arguing with each other, during my interview, about what they need and want, obviously never having agreed on what they want in the new hire.  It was like watching a really horrible ping-pong game…

(2) Having the computer crash during a timed writing test, with no one else around.  After wasting a few minutes trying to fix it, I wasted several more minutes wandering around the offices looking for someone else who could.  I then asked if having the computer crash was part of the test.  It wasn’t… but for making them laugh, I not only got more time, but was called back for another round of interviews. 

Amounting, alas, to naught…

(3) Being promised a job and then finding it had gone to someone else.  After two sets of interviews, for two separate jobs at The Institution That Shall Not be Named, each of two over-enthusiastic unit directors virtually offered me the job, though later (quite a bit later!) I found out the formal offer had gone to someone else.

Nor does this include

(4) The broken verbal promise of a full-time, salaried position  in yet another part of the same Institution, this time made to me by the Institute’s absolute top guy – which was rescinded 7 months later as “never having been,” but only after they’d also got 7 more months of virtually free labor out of me. (Moral:  ALWAYS get it in writing!!!!!!)