Archive for Life Unfolds
Daftest Excuses Ever
Posted by: | CommentsBack in 2003 I used to write a newsletter called the ‘Irreverent Leader’. This weekend I was reminded of a piece I wrote for it called – Announcing the ‘Daftest Excuse Competition’ – because I think I surpassed even this daft excuse. The piece went like this:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shakespeare most definitely had a point when he wrote “To be, or not to be, that is the question”. And I’m a great supporter of the philosophy of shifting from a life of ‘doing’ to a life of ‘being’ but sometimes there are simply more pressing issues.
Take my experience last night for instance. I attended the Christmas concert at my daughter’s school and found myself leaning towards rekindling my younger days’ passion for music.
I considered various options from the grand – signing up for a full-time music degree course, to the more modest – rejoining a local choir. The simplest option, however, seemed to be to start playing the piano again. And this is an example of where old William sometimes simply misses the point. What he really should have said is: “To cut or not to cut, THAT is the question”.
Let me explain . . .
I have the most beautiful, long nails on my left hand. Alas, it was not always so. Before having children my nails were always short because they split easily.
After my daughter’s birth they improved slightly and since my son’s birth they’ve been fantastic. Fantastic to look at that is because other than that they are totally impractical – even annoying. My son gets scratched by them. I make hundreds of typos because of them and, as I admitted earlier, I can’t play the piano with them. All I get is a lot of clicking on the keys.
In a nutshell, I’m willing to give up the pleasure generated by an activity that would feed my soul for the satisfaction of an occasional glance at my left hand which results in the sighed exclamation, “my goodness, you’re lovely!”
So, there it is. I admit it. The daftest excuse I currently subscribe to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So that was then, but this weekend I surpassed even that.
For a few days I’d been toying with the idea of signing up to Steven Chandler’s Club Fearless. But, although I didn’t realise it at the time, I hadn’t really committed to making changes so signing up to something that actually might make a real difference to my life was not likely to happen. (See my post intention versus commitment for more about this). Therefore, my subconscious needed to create some excuses to stop me signing up.
So I went through the whole sign-up process but couldn’t quite click the final button because . . . wait for it . . . it would muck up my accounting! Yep. I decided against taking a life affirming action today because my Paypal account has a credit balance that is in Pounds Sterling and the Club Fearless payment is in American Dollars which would make it more complicated when I came to do my accounts in January 2011! I kid you not. That seemed perfectly legitimate at the time.
Thank goodness I saw through my fear the next day and signed up. It gave me a good life though, which is always welcome.
If you have any amusing excuses you’ve used and you’re willing to share. Please feel free to add them to the comments below. And remember . . .
“There is nothing to fear except fear itself.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt
Artists of Being Alive
Posted by: | Comments“The most invisible creators I know are those artists whose medium is life itself. The ones who express the inexpressible—without brush, hammer, clay or guitar. They neither paint nor sculpt—their medium is their being. Whatever their presence touches has increased life. They see and don’t have to draw. They are the artists of being alive.”
J. Stone
Came across this quote and it made me tingle. I have a deep yearning to be such a person.
It’s Hard To Let Go
Posted by: | CommentsMaybe, sometimes you just have to do unsatisfying things enough times to make you truly sick of them. At least, that’s how it seems to me this morning.
At the beginning of 2008 I started to develop an ecommerce site to sell home improvement products. I signed up to a coaching program which was going to be my last “go” at making this internet business stuff work. (I’ve had many such last “goes” always hoping that this time it will work). The coaching program didn’t work, in terms of my making money, but here I am, 18 months later still plugging away at it. The stupid thing is that most of the work that has to be done bores me senseless and, as a result, I often end up feeling low when I do it.
At the moment, I’m trying to get ahead of myself and add enough content to my network blogs to keep them ticking over until the end of August. But when I think myself forward to that time I can’t imagine that I’ll want to go through this process again which I will need to if I want to keep traffic coming to my sites. So why do I keep doing it?
Partly it’s because I’ve already put so much effort into it it’s hard to walk away. Partly it’s because I don’t have something to replace it with. I like the mental challenge of the SEO stuff and look forward to coming up with a strategy for promoting this site, when I’m ready to go public but I seem to be stuck in relation to the home improvement stuff which has no interest or meaning for me. Keeping on plodding on.
Doing the boring bits is better than feeling like crap though so I suppose I’ll just keep doing it until I get SO sick of it I just can’t face it anymore. (Although that does happen from time to time already). Or, I’ll be clearer about where I’m going next so I can really get into that and, hopefully, developing this site .
Do What You Love
Posted by: | Comments“Business is all about doing what you love and finding a way to make money doing it versus studying lame business tactics which usually results in some money and a lot of unhappiness” – Tellman Knudson
I like the philosophy behind this quote but, as seems to be the pattern for the moment, I’m back to the question – what do I love to do?
I’ve asked myself this on numerous occasions over the years and never really found one satisfactory answer. At times there are many things I want to do but they are usually replaced with other things. (The price you pay for being a Scannner I suppose). And, other times, like now, I struggle for any ideas.
Thinking about this yesterday I realised that, in the past, most of the changes in my life or new ventures have started as a result of 2 things – I’ve either been so bored with what I was doing I was compelled to make a change (usually moving to a different country!) or, someone I’ve met or been introduced to made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I’m just not the type of person who cares passionately, about any one thing, for long enough to make it happen. More of a “let it unfold” type of girl, me.
So . . . instead of trying to work out what I want to do next I’m going to put myself in front of as many opportunities as possible, spend more time around people and less time on my own with the computer, and see what unfolds.
I’ve been listening to “I hope you dance” in the background. Brings tears to my eyes. That’s the legacy I’d like to leave my children, well, the world really. It’s hard to believe I can feel like this today after feeling so rubbish at the weekend.
And going back to my strategy to avoid the downward spiral of mood I’m making a coffee date with someone I’ve been meaning to meet up with for yonks. Good reason to get out of bed – spend more time around interesting people.
Can Introverts Be Successful at Internet Marketing?
Posted by: | CommentsThe more I watch the internet marketing “gurus” the more my I wonder whether there’s any chance for success if you’re not a raving extrovert, young and male – all things I am not, incidentally. You’d think from all the videos out there that 3 these characteristics are essential. Mind you, I suppose if you are hugely successful at internet marketing and also an introvert, you’re not likely to be splashing yourself all over web. Not much chance of being a “guru” if you’re hiding away though.
The age thing’s another interesting phenomenon too. There are numerous references to have brilliant these young people (usually male again) are who’ve made a fortune from the web by the time they’re 30, or even 30. Actually I’m much more impressed by people post 60 who’ve been able to grasp the technology and concepts and make a success of the whole thing. Many’s the time I’ve wished this stuff was around when I was in my 20s. My poor, slower brain would have “got it” much faster in those days.
So the next question is “do I care?” Well I suppose I must do to some extent since I’m writing this post. However, I have no desire to be a “guru”, I don’t plan on turning into a raving extrovert any time soon but I would like to meet the challenge of being very successful at internet marketing. So where does that leave me? What are my chances?
Well, I think I’ve prove to myself that trying to achieve success by following the conventional routes isn’t going to work for me. However, if I don’t create a bit more of a plan this website won’t get very far since already I’m feeling that it’s a bit all over the place. Not easy to create a plan though when I’m not clear what exactly it is that I want to achieve. So, maybe it’s a time to do some brainstorming around that and also around what I don’t want. I’ll let you know how it goes . . .
