As 2010 approaches, I am attempting to become very clear on my goals and aspirations for the upcoming year. I have learned from several reliable sources that it is crucial to be entirely unambiguous about your desires in order to actually manifest them in your life.
And no, I am not just talking about advice gleaned from the columnists in Oprah’s O Magazine.
For the past few years, several people who I trust and value as experts in the field of self-awareness and self-actualization have imparted to me the following wisdom: it is entirely possible to achieve whatever your mind can conceive and believe, however you must be very specific and consistent on what it is you are seeking to achieve.
That sounds so simple, does it not?
Do not be fooled, though. Of course, so many things in life sound simple. In fact, they often are fairly simple if the result you are seeking is merely satisfactory. When you up the ante and decide on aiming for an exceptional end-product, then those simple things become far more complicated. Scrambling eggs is a good example.
It is hard to make bad scrambled eggs. It is far more difficult to make exquisite and delectable scrambled eggs. Seriously, give it a whirl.
Anyway, as I tackle this concept of being clear on what I want, I have become very aware of how other people seem to go about achieving their version of success. Something I find impressive is when I ask people why they are doing something and they are able to provide an immediate, concise, and reasonably thorough explanation. It just makes such them seem like they have given their life and their life decisions careful thought.
I am not certain I have ever been able to answer questions about myself with succinct little elevator pitches. Not only do I have a tendency towards the verbose (hello-have you read my 1,000+ word blog postings?), but I also follow more of a “do it then reflect on it” pattern of living than I do a “think about it and then act on it” path.
Well there you have it: bingo! Root of problem uncovered.
It is no wonder I am having difficulty manifesting what I want into my life when I have no condensed and consistent idea of what it is that I want.
This problem, for me, is that I seem to want many different things and I change my mind a lot. It often seems that just as I have honed in on one specific goal, something pops up and distracts me, lures me away with a tantalizing window display if you will. And it truly is the proverbial window display that reels me in: I am taken by the surface of things, but when I actually delve deeper, I find my interest wanes. At that point I am a prime candidate to be lured away yet again. And so the pattern continues, and I hardly have enough time to be clear on window display A before I have completely chucked it in favor of window display B.
If you have not gotten the gist from my cryptic analogy-laden vernacular: I am easily distracted. I sort of have ADD in that way.
But before you get all in my grill about your thoughts and feelings on the over-diagnosis of ADD in our culture, please note that this reference is not being utilized as a way for me to shirk responsibility for my distraction-prone mind. It is just something I have noticed about myself and I am working to rectify it.
Without prescription meds, mind you. No offense to Western medicine.
So, as I was pontificating on what it is that I want, I was given the good suggestion that I ought to write out my ideal day and read it often. I have done this before and it works to some degree. I suggest you do it too. It will probably work better for you because I can be very vague. I believe that this exercise would REALLY work if you are very specific. That said, I plan to try it again too. Let’s compare notes later.
In conjunction with the writing of the ideal day exercise, I was also told that the best thing to do is to imagine people who are leading the life that I want to lead and use them as my virtual role models for achieving my ideal life myself.
After ruling out Ellen DeGeneres (I like men, and my husband in particular), one of my dogs (I enjoy being able to talk and to eat at non-mandated intervals), and Sara Gruen (I just LOVED that book Water for Elephants and wish my mind had conjured up such a beautiful story—but that is all I know about her so to emulate her makes little sense), I decided on the perfect role model. One issue, however was that I not only wanted to use this person as a role model, I want to actually BE her.
Here is the thing: I pretty much want to be Julia Child. I realize that sounds pretty darn unoriginal—in part because there already was a Julia Child and also because of the recent success of Julie and Julia and the subsequent resurgence of interest in both Julia’s memoir and her famed cookbook. I know, couldn’t I have come up with someone else, for the sake of not being one big blogging cliché at the very least?
Well no. Why reinvent the wheel, is what I am saying.
But I am not Julia, I am Maggie, and I quite like Maggie. Although I do think I could like Maggie more.
And that is a goal for 2010.
But what I like so much about Julia’s is that she was wonderfully creative, yet without those dark artist moods that often befall creative people. She had the most palpable joie de vivre. Additionally, her life is appealing because she spent almost every day writing and cooking, and that pretty much sums up heaven to me. With both pursuits she channeled her creativity into her passions and she was so clearly energized and inspired just by her own momentum. I find that amazing.
All that AND she lived in Paris for many years, and living in Paris is a big-time dream of this bird.
You also might be interested to know that I actually have a lot on common with Julia Child. For one thing, we are both Leos.
Astrology is one of those things that is extremely important only when you can immediately find direct correlations, otherwise its significance can shrink to the non-existent category. Not to insult people who live by it or anything. That is just my experience.
So now I am on my way to being clear about what it is I want. I want to live in Paris, time to indulge in the creative outlets of cooking and writing, and a perpetually positive attitude. Voila! THIS IS SO EASY!
But seriously, having a list of the qualities I admire in others, the activities from which I derive inspiration, and a bonified role model to emulate are good steps towards formulating a very defined goal.
I am telling you, the way things are going, it looks like I will be scrambling some pretty delectable eggs in 2010.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Shop and Drop
Earlier this week, I spent a day helping my friend Meg, who is a gymnastics coach, with the holiday “Shop and Drop” at her gym. If you are wondering what exactly that is, then you are not alone. After agreeing a few weeks ago to assist, it only occurred to me the night before that I had no idea what precisely was entailed. Of particular concern to me, as someone who has not entered a gymnastics facility in a good fifteen years, was the “and drop” portion of the title. What did that mean exactly?
Well, it turns out it is a day of camp basically. Since schools are on break for the holidays, parents could “drop” their kids off for a full or a half day and then spend these precious purchased child-free hours enjoying a Christmas “shop,” going to work, or doing whatever it is parents do when they manage to pass off their darling little doppelgangers into the capable (gullible?) hands of adults other than them.
Bust out the champagne and dance around the house naked to 80’s tunes is my guess.
But I could be wrong.
So both the “Shop” and the “Drop” components did not actually pertain to me. Unless you count when I accidentally dropped a six year old boy when he hurled himself off the balance beam into my body. Note I did not say, “He hurled himself into my outstretched arms.” I did not say that because my arms were not, in fact outstretched. It is a cruel and unusual thing to be standing innocently enough one minute, and then to be suddenly tackled to the ground by a 50 pound human cannon ball the next.
One word for you people: helmets. Not just for bike-riders or unruly toddlers.
The entire day was interesting not only because I came to the astute conclusion that six year old boys are a frighteningly rambunctious breed of little creatures, but for a whole host of other reasons as well. Perhaps it is unsurprising that a general hullabaloo ensues naturally when you take a large padded room filled with enticing equipment and bouncy apparatus and add a group of four to 11 year-olds. Adding to the fun was that this was not a “typical class,” one where all the kids would roughly be at the same level. Instead there were was a fairly wide range of age and abilities, all working together. Not necessarily a recipe for safety or kindness on all fronts, but it worked out well enough.
Generally speaking, they were great kids, and I had a fun time.
Suffice it to say, the day also acted as fairly potent birth control. It is a possibility that I came home and proclaimed to my dogs (who are, incidentally, decidedly LESS unruly than six year old boys): “Holy blue Jesums, we will never have a child in this house, ever!” And then I turned on Air Supply and danced around in my underwear with a bottle of Moet and Chandon.
But that is neither here nor there.
What I did realize, and this realization is the impetus for this posting, is that there is much to be learned from kids about honesty, about self-awareness, and about living in the moment.
There was one little girl, a five year old named Ruby, who was a very sweet and very chubby little character. Ruby was part of the first group I had on the balance beam. She had particular trepidation about traversing the beam, and it was written all across her chubby little cheeks as she watched in awe as another girl sailed right across. When it came to be Ruby’s turn, I expected some sort of negotiation to take place between us, and I anticipated, based on the look of fear I had seen, that getting her to walk across the beam would be no small feat.
Well, she surprised me. Before I said anything to her, she quietly and determinedly stated, “Miss Maggie, I am scared to go across, but I would like to try.”
There is nothing quite as endearing as a chubby little kid in pigtails who inspires a grown woman by her willingness to confront a fear. No risk, no reward, Miss Ruby. You are now my hero.
So, she went across the first couple of times on the lower beams, holding my hand. Rather than jumping off the end, I would lift her to the ground. Note here, that she did not feel the inexplicable impulse felt by that cannonball/boy to throw herself at me. Not to exercise blatant bias towards my gender or anything, but I suspect the fact that she was female had something to do with her polite awareness regarding the safety of both herself and others.
By the end of the 30 minutes Ruby was boldly traversing the highest of the beams by herself. On her last turn, she jumped off the end without my assistance. She high-fived me with gusto and asked, “What do we try next?”
In sum: she started out terrified, she confronted her fear, she conquered her fear, and she was ready for more. Did I mention that Ruby is my new hero?
It was lovely to see how she was obviously, and deservedly, proud of her accomplishments.
So proud in fact, that when I told her she could go have a drink of water and a rest on the mats for all her hard work, she ran over to her cubby and pulled an enormous sandwich out of her lunch pail. She sat down and started polishing it off in a sort of gleeful celebratory feast. The fact that it was only 10 am did not seem like a deterrent for this feast of accomplishment.
At the end of the day we were doing tumbling with the small number of children who had stayed past lunchtime (by this I mean the regular lunchtime of noon, not the Ruby lunchtime of 10 am). Ruby was one of the remaining, as was her brother. We were working on somersaults, cartwheels and backbends. At one point, her brother, who was two years older than she, was avidly watching another boy contort himself in a backbend. Her brother, who was new to gymnastics, took on a look of fear (seems to run in that family, that look). He announced decisively, though not rudely: “I do not want to do that. I will not do that. I will sit out now.”
Let me insert here that I am amazed by the fact that these two children could state their feelings so simply and truthfully, without allowing emotions or the anticipation of the reactions they will elicit to color what they say, or how they say it. It is so refreshing and simple, and yet I am hard-pressed to think of many adults who can do so on a regular basis.
After her brother’s declaration, Ruby patted him on the shoulder and said emphatically: “No! You have to try.” She added, “Mom told us that we should try everything they ask us to try, even if we have never done it before, and even if it is hard. She said to ask the people for help, and we might like the new stuff.”
I guess by “the people” she meant Meg, me, and the other coaches in the gym, and I found this reference funny. But I also love how she re-phrased or paraphrased their mother’s words. I love how she actually took the advice to heart with the whole balance beam experience and it worked out wonderfully for her.
Where I am going with this point is likely obvious: what if we all took each day and tried all that we were asked to try, even if it was unfamiliar, and even if it looked hard? What if we all recognized that we could always ask “the people” around us for help?
I bet we would find, as Ruby did, that we just might like the new stuff. We just might find we have skills we never realized we had. We just might find ourselves joyously chowing down lunch at a weirdly early hour in celebration.
Or, to take another path demonstrated today, we just might find ourselves hurling ourselves off of gym apparatus’ at unsuspecting bystanders.
And on that note, I have to share that Ruby, ever the sage little cherub, followed up her words to her brother with a disclaimer: “Well try it but if it looks very dangerous, just say no.”
So true. Or at least wear a helmet.
Well, it turns out it is a day of camp basically. Since schools are on break for the holidays, parents could “drop” their kids off for a full or a half day and then spend these precious purchased child-free hours enjoying a Christmas “shop,” going to work, or doing whatever it is parents do when they manage to pass off their darling little doppelgangers into the capable (gullible?) hands of adults other than them.
Bust out the champagne and dance around the house naked to 80’s tunes is my guess.
But I could be wrong.
So both the “Shop” and the “Drop” components did not actually pertain to me. Unless you count when I accidentally dropped a six year old boy when he hurled himself off the balance beam into my body. Note I did not say, “He hurled himself into my outstretched arms.” I did not say that because my arms were not, in fact outstretched. It is a cruel and unusual thing to be standing innocently enough one minute, and then to be suddenly tackled to the ground by a 50 pound human cannon ball the next.
One word for you people: helmets. Not just for bike-riders or unruly toddlers.
The entire day was interesting not only because I came to the astute conclusion that six year old boys are a frighteningly rambunctious breed of little creatures, but for a whole host of other reasons as well. Perhaps it is unsurprising that a general hullabaloo ensues naturally when you take a large padded room filled with enticing equipment and bouncy apparatus and add a group of four to 11 year-olds. Adding to the fun was that this was not a “typical class,” one where all the kids would roughly be at the same level. Instead there were was a fairly wide range of age and abilities, all working together. Not necessarily a recipe for safety or kindness on all fronts, but it worked out well enough.
Generally speaking, they were great kids, and I had a fun time.
Suffice it to say, the day also acted as fairly potent birth control. It is a possibility that I came home and proclaimed to my dogs (who are, incidentally, decidedly LESS unruly than six year old boys): “Holy blue Jesums, we will never have a child in this house, ever!” And then I turned on Air Supply and danced around in my underwear with a bottle of Moet and Chandon.
But that is neither here nor there.
What I did realize, and this realization is the impetus for this posting, is that there is much to be learned from kids about honesty, about self-awareness, and about living in the moment.
There was one little girl, a five year old named Ruby, who was a very sweet and very chubby little character. Ruby was part of the first group I had on the balance beam. She had particular trepidation about traversing the beam, and it was written all across her chubby little cheeks as she watched in awe as another girl sailed right across. When it came to be Ruby’s turn, I expected some sort of negotiation to take place between us, and I anticipated, based on the look of fear I had seen, that getting her to walk across the beam would be no small feat.
Well, she surprised me. Before I said anything to her, she quietly and determinedly stated, “Miss Maggie, I am scared to go across, but I would like to try.”
There is nothing quite as endearing as a chubby little kid in pigtails who inspires a grown woman by her willingness to confront a fear. No risk, no reward, Miss Ruby. You are now my hero.
So, she went across the first couple of times on the lower beams, holding my hand. Rather than jumping off the end, I would lift her to the ground. Note here, that she did not feel the inexplicable impulse felt by that cannonball/boy to throw herself at me. Not to exercise blatant bias towards my gender or anything, but I suspect the fact that she was female had something to do with her polite awareness regarding the safety of both herself and others.
By the end of the 30 minutes Ruby was boldly traversing the highest of the beams by herself. On her last turn, she jumped off the end without my assistance. She high-fived me with gusto and asked, “What do we try next?”
In sum: she started out terrified, she confronted her fear, she conquered her fear, and she was ready for more. Did I mention that Ruby is my new hero?
It was lovely to see how she was obviously, and deservedly, proud of her accomplishments.
So proud in fact, that when I told her she could go have a drink of water and a rest on the mats for all her hard work, she ran over to her cubby and pulled an enormous sandwich out of her lunch pail. She sat down and started polishing it off in a sort of gleeful celebratory feast. The fact that it was only 10 am did not seem like a deterrent for this feast of accomplishment.
At the end of the day we were doing tumbling with the small number of children who had stayed past lunchtime (by this I mean the regular lunchtime of noon, not the Ruby lunchtime of 10 am). Ruby was one of the remaining, as was her brother. We were working on somersaults, cartwheels and backbends. At one point, her brother, who was two years older than she, was avidly watching another boy contort himself in a backbend. Her brother, who was new to gymnastics, took on a look of fear (seems to run in that family, that look). He announced decisively, though not rudely: “I do not want to do that. I will not do that. I will sit out now.”
Let me insert here that I am amazed by the fact that these two children could state their feelings so simply and truthfully, without allowing emotions or the anticipation of the reactions they will elicit to color what they say, or how they say it. It is so refreshing and simple, and yet I am hard-pressed to think of many adults who can do so on a regular basis.
After her brother’s declaration, Ruby patted him on the shoulder and said emphatically: “No! You have to try.” She added, “Mom told us that we should try everything they ask us to try, even if we have never done it before, and even if it is hard. She said to ask the people for help, and we might like the new stuff.”
I guess by “the people” she meant Meg, me, and the other coaches in the gym, and I found this reference funny. But I also love how she re-phrased or paraphrased their mother’s words. I love how she actually took the advice to heart with the whole balance beam experience and it worked out wonderfully for her.
Where I am going with this point is likely obvious: what if we all took each day and tried all that we were asked to try, even if it was unfamiliar, and even if it looked hard? What if we all recognized that we could always ask “the people” around us for help?
I bet we would find, as Ruby did, that we just might like the new stuff. We just might find we have skills we never realized we had. We just might find ourselves joyously chowing down lunch at a weirdly early hour in celebration.
Or, to take another path demonstrated today, we just might find ourselves hurling ourselves off of gym apparatus’ at unsuspecting bystanders.
And on that note, I have to share that Ruby, ever the sage little cherub, followed up her words to her brother with a disclaimer: “Well try it but if it looks very dangerous, just say no.”
So true. Or at least wear a helmet.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Amazing What a Text Message Can Do
My brother lives in California. The three hours earlier time differential, combined with our particular idiosyncrasies that he is a night owl and I am a day mouse, can result in some fairly small communication windows.
Fortunately, we both have unlimited text message capabilities.
That being said, I often wake up to several new messages in the form of advice/spiritual musings and/or general FYI life updates. Most people use text for brief snippets. Not my family. My brother, sister, and I all use them for long drawn out epistles. It is a carry-over from our collective inability to leave brief voicemail messages, but that is an arguably genetic trait and is a tale for another time.
So the other day I woke up to six new messages. One was from my friend Dave who was concerned, at approximately 1 am on a Sunday morning, that I see too many psychics. What was more disturbing to him than my allegedly frequent visitations to seers was that this was an aspect of my life of which he was unawares. In the wee hours of a weekend morning, my dear friend, Lauren, set him straight with this (exaggerated) information.
I suspect he felt a bit gypped because had he known about this fascinating quirk he could have used such information to entertain other people at social gatherings. As in: “My friend Mags is so WEIRD! Do you know what she does? She sees psychics, like EVERYDAY!” And the audience would be hanging on his every word as he describes his bizarre friend the way some people might describe a circus monkey.
False alarm people. The truth is that I do love psychics, but I only actually see a psychic once or twice a year at most. It certainly is not a bi-weekly occurrence as Dave was informed. The bigger mystery is why Lauren was misinformed, as she knows me just about as well as anyone. But I suspect she just wanted to get a rise out of her audience, and who can blame her really? As someone who loves her enthusiasm in general, I applaud her offering exaggerated, yet innocuous, information about me for the sake of a good laugh and some minor outrage. I mean what is the point of talking to anyone at 1 am unless a conversational bomb is going to be dropped? There has to be some compelling reason not to be snuggled in your bed.
This seems like as good a time as any to proclaim my belief that everyone ought to just go to bed at midnight. Nothing happens after midnight that makes much sense, in my opinion. Isn’t that when werewolves come out? See what I am saying?
But back to the texts I woke up to: the OTHER five text messages from that morning were from my brother. The major message imparted was that he felt I needed to speak to our father more. Robert pointed out that I have a lot of judgments surrounding that particular relationship and that it was time for me to let them go and to work on patching things up with Dad.
This counsel is particularly interesting when you consider that my dad has been dead for nearly ten years.
And what really got me was not the fact that my brother was suggesting to me that I open up the lines of communication with our dead father (he is a spiritual life coach, after all, and such advice is par for the course), but that he felt I had judgments about the relationship.
Now let me tell you something about me: I have judgments about a lot of things. Part of why I am writing this blog and writing the book is because I want to hold myself accountable in my attempts at letting go of judgments. After all, if I write lengthy blurbs encouraging others about the importance of being authentic, empathetic, and fair to others, then how can I not listen to my own advice?
It is sort of like when you decide to announce you are on a diet. You better start loading up on the veggies once you have gone public with your new regime. Or, at the very least, consume your ho-hos and whoopie pies when there is no one around on whose face you will register the words "DIET FAILURE," as you wipe the whipped cream from your mouth.
If everyone knows about your goal, it can be good incentive, I think, to actually follow through with them.
So with regards to judgments: this is a habit I have been trying to kick for years. I have had multiple therapists--in addition to what you now know to be my sporadic visits with psychics, reflexologists, and holistic healers. I read so many self-help books, that a friend once challenged me to go a month without reading one.
BTW: It was torture. I know how lame you are likely thinking I am at this moment, but frankly it was like telling me to give up ice cream, and it was not pretty.
When I consider the judgments I have about my father, and about our relationship, it is very true that it is a matrix from which many of my issues with judgments seem to stem. And the truth is that I DO speak to my father, I do believe that our relationship has become better, and I KNOW that if he were alive now, we would be able to make come amount of peace in a relationship that was volatile, unstable, and, most of all, misunderstood by both parties.
Of course, these realizations are fairly easy to assert in theory. In actuality there are no guarantees and there will never be a way to truly test if I am correct in my beliefs/hopes.
And no, even I would not put that much stock in a psychic. To be clear: yes I love psychics. But I have my limits. Plunking down extra dough to have a seer speak to loved ones who are on the "other side" is just bologne to me.
But I had thought that through all of this work on myself and self examination, etc. that I had done a pretty darn good job of letting go of the judgments I had about my dad, about myself, and about my relationship with him.
And then, boom! My brother calls a spade a spade and I wonder: How is it that my own perception of myself is so very different from how those in my life see me? How can my brother believe that I am so full of judgment when he knows, as well as anyone, how hard I have worked to let go of those judgments and repair that relationship?
But he does. And he is right.
How humbling it can be to think that you are so self-aware, so evolved, so “right on” about your path towards emotional freedom and peace, and then you are unceremoniously bumped off your high horse as someone hits you over the head with a baseball bat of truth.
Or, to be a little less violent, they hold up a proverbial mirror and wow-what you see is not what you expected.
In congruence with all of these realizations/thoughts/circumstances, yesterday, my husband and I went to see the movie “Everybody’s fine” with Robert De Niro. In it, he plays a recently widowed father of four who is trying to renegotiate his relationship with his adult children after the loss of his wife/their mother.
Maybe it was the image of the Italian-looking foreboding man with the crinkly eyes and the blue collar job that rang true to me in terms of my image of a father, but I was basically crying throughout the whole movie.
The movie is sad, this is true, but it is not as sad as one would imagine when watching me blubber from the sight of this man doing everything from packing a suitcase to eating a sandwich in McDonalds.
The truth is that I watched how misunderstood this father’s love for his children was, and that is what resonated with me on a visceral level. I watched how the the children carried on, convinced they knew the truth, that they were the ones who really knew what their dad was all about, what he needed and wanted from them and who he was in general.
And they were so blatantly wrong.
He saw through all of their shenanigans. They thought: He loves me if I am this way or that way. But that was not true.
It became so obvious that he loved them no matter what, they just lacked the intersubjectivity to see that reality. How sad, as so much of the turbulence in their lives and their relationship would have been eradicated with that simple realization.
And so it was with my dad. My brother’s text message prompted me to reexamine what I thought was a fairly closed up issue.
The endless tears at the movie obviously prove it was not.
So, ten years after my dad passed away, and I still have a lot of work to do yet on letting go of judgments. I have a lot of work to do on releasing the idea that I know what it was all about and how things went down, when I could have been wrong all along on the most crucial of components.
This epiphany is wonderful in many ways, but also extremely stressful. What if I am never able to really see my relationship with my dad for what it was and is? What if, in another 10 years, I am still hanging onto these judgments?
Oh, geez. Maybe I need to consult a psychic.
Fortunately, we both have unlimited text message capabilities.
That being said, I often wake up to several new messages in the form of advice/spiritual musings and/or general FYI life updates. Most people use text for brief snippets. Not my family. My brother, sister, and I all use them for long drawn out epistles. It is a carry-over from our collective inability to leave brief voicemail messages, but that is an arguably genetic trait and is a tale for another time.
So the other day I woke up to six new messages. One was from my friend Dave who was concerned, at approximately 1 am on a Sunday morning, that I see too many psychics. What was more disturbing to him than my allegedly frequent visitations to seers was that this was an aspect of my life of which he was unawares. In the wee hours of a weekend morning, my dear friend, Lauren, set him straight with this (exaggerated) information.
I suspect he felt a bit gypped because had he known about this fascinating quirk he could have used such information to entertain other people at social gatherings. As in: “My friend Mags is so WEIRD! Do you know what she does? She sees psychics, like EVERYDAY!” And the audience would be hanging on his every word as he describes his bizarre friend the way some people might describe a circus monkey.
False alarm people. The truth is that I do love psychics, but I only actually see a psychic once or twice a year at most. It certainly is not a bi-weekly occurrence as Dave was informed. The bigger mystery is why Lauren was misinformed, as she knows me just about as well as anyone. But I suspect she just wanted to get a rise out of her audience, and who can blame her really? As someone who loves her enthusiasm in general, I applaud her offering exaggerated, yet innocuous, information about me for the sake of a good laugh and some minor outrage. I mean what is the point of talking to anyone at 1 am unless a conversational bomb is going to be dropped? There has to be some compelling reason not to be snuggled in your bed.
This seems like as good a time as any to proclaim my belief that everyone ought to just go to bed at midnight. Nothing happens after midnight that makes much sense, in my opinion. Isn’t that when werewolves come out? See what I am saying?
But back to the texts I woke up to: the OTHER five text messages from that morning were from my brother. The major message imparted was that he felt I needed to speak to our father more. Robert pointed out that I have a lot of judgments surrounding that particular relationship and that it was time for me to let them go and to work on patching things up with Dad.
This counsel is particularly interesting when you consider that my dad has been dead for nearly ten years.
And what really got me was not the fact that my brother was suggesting to me that I open up the lines of communication with our dead father (he is a spiritual life coach, after all, and such advice is par for the course), but that he felt I had judgments about the relationship.
Now let me tell you something about me: I have judgments about a lot of things. Part of why I am writing this blog and writing the book is because I want to hold myself accountable in my attempts at letting go of judgments. After all, if I write lengthy blurbs encouraging others about the importance of being authentic, empathetic, and fair to others, then how can I not listen to my own advice?
It is sort of like when you decide to announce you are on a diet. You better start loading up on the veggies once you have gone public with your new regime. Or, at the very least, consume your ho-hos and whoopie pies when there is no one around on whose face you will register the words "DIET FAILURE," as you wipe the whipped cream from your mouth.
If everyone knows about your goal, it can be good incentive, I think, to actually follow through with them.
So with regards to judgments: this is a habit I have been trying to kick for years. I have had multiple therapists--in addition to what you now know to be my sporadic visits with psychics, reflexologists, and holistic healers. I read so many self-help books, that a friend once challenged me to go a month without reading one.
BTW: It was torture. I know how lame you are likely thinking I am at this moment, but frankly it was like telling me to give up ice cream, and it was not pretty.
When I consider the judgments I have about my father, and about our relationship, it is very true that it is a matrix from which many of my issues with judgments seem to stem. And the truth is that I DO speak to my father, I do believe that our relationship has become better, and I KNOW that if he were alive now, we would be able to make come amount of peace in a relationship that was volatile, unstable, and, most of all, misunderstood by both parties.
Of course, these realizations are fairly easy to assert in theory. In actuality there are no guarantees and there will never be a way to truly test if I am correct in my beliefs/hopes.
And no, even I would not put that much stock in a psychic. To be clear: yes I love psychics. But I have my limits. Plunking down extra dough to have a seer speak to loved ones who are on the "other side" is just bologne to me.
But I had thought that through all of this work on myself and self examination, etc. that I had done a pretty darn good job of letting go of the judgments I had about my dad, about myself, and about my relationship with him.
And then, boom! My brother calls a spade a spade and I wonder: How is it that my own perception of myself is so very different from how those in my life see me? How can my brother believe that I am so full of judgment when he knows, as well as anyone, how hard I have worked to let go of those judgments and repair that relationship?
But he does. And he is right.
How humbling it can be to think that you are so self-aware, so evolved, so “right on” about your path towards emotional freedom and peace, and then you are unceremoniously bumped off your high horse as someone hits you over the head with a baseball bat of truth.
Or, to be a little less violent, they hold up a proverbial mirror and wow-what you see is not what you expected.
In congruence with all of these realizations/thoughts/circumstances, yesterday, my husband and I went to see the movie “Everybody’s fine” with Robert De Niro. In it, he plays a recently widowed father of four who is trying to renegotiate his relationship with his adult children after the loss of his wife/their mother.
Maybe it was the image of the Italian-looking foreboding man with the crinkly eyes and the blue collar job that rang true to me in terms of my image of a father, but I was basically crying throughout the whole movie.
The movie is sad, this is true, but it is not as sad as one would imagine when watching me blubber from the sight of this man doing everything from packing a suitcase to eating a sandwich in McDonalds.
The truth is that I watched how misunderstood this father’s love for his children was, and that is what resonated with me on a visceral level. I watched how the the children carried on, convinced they knew the truth, that they were the ones who really knew what their dad was all about, what he needed and wanted from them and who he was in general.
And they were so blatantly wrong.
He saw through all of their shenanigans. They thought: He loves me if I am this way or that way. But that was not true.
It became so obvious that he loved them no matter what, they just lacked the intersubjectivity to see that reality. How sad, as so much of the turbulence in their lives and their relationship would have been eradicated with that simple realization.
And so it was with my dad. My brother’s text message prompted me to reexamine what I thought was a fairly closed up issue.
The endless tears at the movie obviously prove it was not.
So, ten years after my dad passed away, and I still have a lot of work to do yet on letting go of judgments. I have a lot of work to do on releasing the idea that I know what it was all about and how things went down, when I could have been wrong all along on the most crucial of components.
This epiphany is wonderful in many ways, but also extremely stressful. What if I am never able to really see my relationship with my dad for what it was and is? What if, in another 10 years, I am still hanging onto these judgments?
Oh, geez. Maybe I need to consult a psychic.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
No Risk No Reward
A subject that has been on my mind a lot lately is that of taking risks. As you probably know, more often than not, I am a huge endorser of risk-taking, and will readily adopt the role of cheerleader for anyone in my life who goes out on a limb, leaves their comfort zone, and/or tests new waters.
Along this theme, the best boss I ever had is a wonderfully intelligent person who possesses a real joie de vivre. A few years ago, when I announced my imminent departure from my secure job and comfortable life on Cape Cod to move to South Carolina, Mark proclaimed with enthusiasm: “Great news! No risk, no reward.”
I love this expression and I use it all the time—on both myself and virtually everyone in my life.
But then I was thinking that there are many sides to this Rubik’s cube of a situation, and a valuable lesson emerged as I recalled a personal experience regarding the issue of risk.
My first semester of college was spent abroad. I lived in London with 30 other students, all of whom were also college freshpeople who would begin classes as usual in the states in January. At one point during this period, a group of six girls took a trip to Wales to go on this sort of outdoor adventure trip. We went rock-climbing, cliff jumping, and coasteering (rock climbing where you are in the water for half the time and out for the other half). We were also meant to go surfing, but the weather turned very stormy and awful before that activity came to fruition.
Missing the surfing was quite a bummer because you know of my former hope and dream of being a super cool surfer girl. That might have been my missed opportunity right there. Oh well, spilled milk.
The trip was wonderful in the sense that it was a great bonding experience with a group of women, three of whom would remain some of my closest friends—in college and beyond. Other perks to this adventure included the fact that we drank lots of really delicious hot chocolate (not to discredit the country I live in and love, but it is my experience that Americans are simply incapable of making quality hot chocolate) and saw some of the beautiful Welsh country-side.
But in spite of those advantages, it was actually a truly miserable experience.
The major snafu was that I learned that I am petrified of heights while in Wales.
If you would like to go back and refer to the list of activities included on this trip, you might come to the astute realization that being afraid of heights would render the trip utterly miserable. You might also ask with a mixture of wonder and confusion: “What was this girl thinking when signing up for this trip?”
It makes about as much sense as a diabetic signing up for a weekend of pastry classes.
One might have thought I would have realized this whole “fear of heights” issue earlier in my life, but I actually was not afraid of heights when I was younger. I grew into my fear of heights the way some people grow into their noses. Or how people develop food allergies in adulthood. I am sure you have heard about someone who was eating peanut butter sandwiches with relish and glee for years on end, and then zam! one day they contract cauliflower ear, and their throat closes up because they take a bite of Pad Thai at an Asian Fusion restaurant.
No?
Well it happens. I saw a 20/20 on it once.
And it happened in my life that I developed a fear of heights that was crippling and horrifying, and it only came to the surface when I was dangling from a rope held in place on a precarious embankment during a thunderstorm as I tried, for the first time in my life, to rock climb.
How inconvenient.
To add insult to the injury I was positive I was about to incur, waves were crashing below me on jagged rocks and I had zippo trust in Bev, our instructor, who seemed inappropriately nervous and distracted.
I recall vividly that in that moment I was cold, sad, and paralyzed with fear. Not to sound too self-pitying or anything, but I was hanging over the side of a cliff, so a little self-indulgence seems warranted.
The really unfathomable thing to me was that the five other girls sailed through the activities with gusto and verve. Even my one good friend, who confided that she too was terrified, quickly changed her tune as her fear turned to exhilaration and determination.
When it came time to jump off the cliff—different cliff, mind you, no visible jagged rocks (though I was certain they were there, lurking under the surface). Everyone lined up and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, hopped off with shrieks of delight in varying decibels.
I managed to creep to the edge of the cliff, mentally preparing myself to jump, stopped short, and just about barfed.
I have a stomach of steel, so this was unusual.
Bev, wretched being that she was in my admittedly biased mind, eventually convinced me to jump off with her, holding her hand. In retrospect, this gesture, though presumably kind, makes little sense to me. If I were to hold someone’s hand for comfort, it would have made more sense to hold the hand of one of my friends as opposed to this virtual stranger whose capabilities as an outdoor instructor were suspect at best.
And frankly, I felt in that moment a little too coerced. As if it would make a crucial difference to her if I did not jump (maybe she was nervous I would demand a refund?). I also felt to not jump would be to detract from the enjoyment of my new friends, and I did not want to do that as I had just met these people and was fairly reliant on them at the time for any semblance of a social life.
So I held Bev’s hand and I jumped.
Basically, I was afraid to refuse to go. I jumped because I was more afraid of being the one singled out non-jumper than I was of the turbulent feeling in my stomach and the vision in my mind of my crumpled body pierced in two by an unseen jagged rock below.
After I surfaced, I was physically intact—much to my surprise. Mentally, however, I was more messed up than before. I had hoped that the jump would inspire a feeling of wanting to immediately jump again, to have a newfound addiction for the rush of adrenaline and freedom of hurling myself through the air. Everyone else seemed to feel that way.
What was wrong with me? What was wrong with me that these thrilling activities from which my new friends derived so much pleasure and excitement, made me want to hurl? Why was I so very different?
I am not sure why, but I was, and I am still. But the major problem was not that I was different from the other five members of my peer group, but that I lacked the courage to stand by my truth.
Here is my point: most of the time, I think risks are worth taking. Most of the time, the risk, whatever it may be, will reap huge rewards—mental, physical, emotional rewards. And often they will only be able to be appreciated in retrospect.
And I do talk a lot of about leaping and the net will appear and I tout my “no risk, no reward” philosophy all the time. And I believe in all of it.
But what I believe in above all else is that your own sense of intuition trumps it all. Following your own instincts is the most important thing you can do. Some things you just KNOW are wrong, though that feeling may make little or no sense to anyone else. But if you know it, then have to have the courage of your convictions. It is just as courageous to say no as it is to say yes if what you are doing is following your own truth.
So here is the thing: I wish I had not jumped, and I wish I had not suspended myself down a sheer rocky cliff. True, these were risky moves, and therefore logic may indicate that I deserve a hearty: "Good for you, you stuck your neck out there!"
But it would have been more of a risk to go against the grain of the group, to squelch the desire to fit in, and to merely say: "That is not for me, sorry." The real risk would have been honoring my own internal voice in spite of the external circumstances. The real risk, ironically, would have been to stay on terra firma.
Interesting when you think about it. It is all about perspective, isn't it?
Along this theme, the best boss I ever had is a wonderfully intelligent person who possesses a real joie de vivre. A few years ago, when I announced my imminent departure from my secure job and comfortable life on Cape Cod to move to South Carolina, Mark proclaimed with enthusiasm: “Great news! No risk, no reward.”
I love this expression and I use it all the time—on both myself and virtually everyone in my life.
But then I was thinking that there are many sides to this Rubik’s cube of a situation, and a valuable lesson emerged as I recalled a personal experience regarding the issue of risk.
My first semester of college was spent abroad. I lived in London with 30 other students, all of whom were also college freshpeople who would begin classes as usual in the states in January. At one point during this period, a group of six girls took a trip to Wales to go on this sort of outdoor adventure trip. We went rock-climbing, cliff jumping, and coasteering (rock climbing where you are in the water for half the time and out for the other half). We were also meant to go surfing, but the weather turned very stormy and awful before that activity came to fruition.
Missing the surfing was quite a bummer because you know of my former hope and dream of being a super cool surfer girl. That might have been my missed opportunity right there. Oh well, spilled milk.
The trip was wonderful in the sense that it was a great bonding experience with a group of women, three of whom would remain some of my closest friends—in college and beyond. Other perks to this adventure included the fact that we drank lots of really delicious hot chocolate (not to discredit the country I live in and love, but it is my experience that Americans are simply incapable of making quality hot chocolate) and saw some of the beautiful Welsh country-side.
But in spite of those advantages, it was actually a truly miserable experience.
The major snafu was that I learned that I am petrified of heights while in Wales.
If you would like to go back and refer to the list of activities included on this trip, you might come to the astute realization that being afraid of heights would render the trip utterly miserable. You might also ask with a mixture of wonder and confusion: “What was this girl thinking when signing up for this trip?”
It makes about as much sense as a diabetic signing up for a weekend of pastry classes.
One might have thought I would have realized this whole “fear of heights” issue earlier in my life, but I actually was not afraid of heights when I was younger. I grew into my fear of heights the way some people grow into their noses. Or how people develop food allergies in adulthood. I am sure you have heard about someone who was eating peanut butter sandwiches with relish and glee for years on end, and then zam! one day they contract cauliflower ear, and their throat closes up because they take a bite of Pad Thai at an Asian Fusion restaurant.
No?
Well it happens. I saw a 20/20 on it once.
And it happened in my life that I developed a fear of heights that was crippling and horrifying, and it only came to the surface when I was dangling from a rope held in place on a precarious embankment during a thunderstorm as I tried, for the first time in my life, to rock climb.
How inconvenient.
To add insult to the injury I was positive I was about to incur, waves were crashing below me on jagged rocks and I had zippo trust in Bev, our instructor, who seemed inappropriately nervous and distracted.
I recall vividly that in that moment I was cold, sad, and paralyzed with fear. Not to sound too self-pitying or anything, but I was hanging over the side of a cliff, so a little self-indulgence seems warranted.
The really unfathomable thing to me was that the five other girls sailed through the activities with gusto and verve. Even my one good friend, who confided that she too was terrified, quickly changed her tune as her fear turned to exhilaration and determination.
When it came time to jump off the cliff—different cliff, mind you, no visible jagged rocks (though I was certain they were there, lurking under the surface). Everyone lined up and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, hopped off with shrieks of delight in varying decibels.
I managed to creep to the edge of the cliff, mentally preparing myself to jump, stopped short, and just about barfed.
I have a stomach of steel, so this was unusual.
Bev, wretched being that she was in my admittedly biased mind, eventually convinced me to jump off with her, holding her hand. In retrospect, this gesture, though presumably kind, makes little sense to me. If I were to hold someone’s hand for comfort, it would have made more sense to hold the hand of one of my friends as opposed to this virtual stranger whose capabilities as an outdoor instructor were suspect at best.
And frankly, I felt in that moment a little too coerced. As if it would make a crucial difference to her if I did not jump (maybe she was nervous I would demand a refund?). I also felt to not jump would be to detract from the enjoyment of my new friends, and I did not want to do that as I had just met these people and was fairly reliant on them at the time for any semblance of a social life.
So I held Bev’s hand and I jumped.
Basically, I was afraid to refuse to go. I jumped because I was more afraid of being the one singled out non-jumper than I was of the turbulent feeling in my stomach and the vision in my mind of my crumpled body pierced in two by an unseen jagged rock below.
After I surfaced, I was physically intact—much to my surprise. Mentally, however, I was more messed up than before. I had hoped that the jump would inspire a feeling of wanting to immediately jump again, to have a newfound addiction for the rush of adrenaline and freedom of hurling myself through the air. Everyone else seemed to feel that way.
What was wrong with me? What was wrong with me that these thrilling activities from which my new friends derived so much pleasure and excitement, made me want to hurl? Why was I so very different?
I am not sure why, but I was, and I am still. But the major problem was not that I was different from the other five members of my peer group, but that I lacked the courage to stand by my truth.
Here is my point: most of the time, I think risks are worth taking. Most of the time, the risk, whatever it may be, will reap huge rewards—mental, physical, emotional rewards. And often they will only be able to be appreciated in retrospect.
And I do talk a lot of about leaping and the net will appear and I tout my “no risk, no reward” philosophy all the time. And I believe in all of it.
But what I believe in above all else is that your own sense of intuition trumps it all. Following your own instincts is the most important thing you can do. Some things you just KNOW are wrong, though that feeling may make little or no sense to anyone else. But if you know it, then have to have the courage of your convictions. It is just as courageous to say no as it is to say yes if what you are doing is following your own truth.
So here is the thing: I wish I had not jumped, and I wish I had not suspended myself down a sheer rocky cliff. True, these were risky moves, and therefore logic may indicate that I deserve a hearty: "Good for you, you stuck your neck out there!"
But it would have been more of a risk to go against the grain of the group, to squelch the desire to fit in, and to merely say: "That is not for me, sorry." The real risk would have been honoring my own internal voice in spite of the external circumstances. The real risk, ironically, would have been to stay on terra firma.
Interesting when you think about it. It is all about perspective, isn't it?
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The Monkey Bars
At the end of the yoga class I participated in the other day, the teacher read to us from a book written by a person she very much admired. The excerpt she selected was about monkey bars.
More specifically the person whose words she read had made a rather astute correlation between traversing the monkey bars and navigating life in general.
The author revealed that when he was younger, he possessed no natural aptitude for swinging across the monkey bars. A sort of paralyzing fear would grip him, and he would be unable to let go of one bar in order to reach out for the next. As he allowed his fear to overtake him, his body would just hang, and become like dead weight. When he finally mustered up the courage to attempt to grab the next bar, it would prove too difficult as he had lost any momentum he may have had—momentum that would have inevitably made his passage from one bar to the next smoother, more graceful, perhaps even possible.
His overall point was that, during those moments on the monkey bars, he very much feared the time when he would have to let go of one bar and before he had gripped the new bar. He dreaded this transitional period, this unknown, this “space between.”
What an apt comparison for life! For it can be truly frightening when you know the only way to move forward is to release the grip you have on the past, and yet there is no assurance that you will have any more solid grip on the future; if you even make it that far. After all, you may fall or you may tire.
Or, perhaps worst of all, what if you hurl yourself forward with as much gusto as you can manage only to find that the journey you made was ultimately not worth your while after all?
This analogy may seem a bit trite considering the relative safety of this childhood recess-time activity is being juxtaposed with the very real difficulties inherent in navigating life itself. But I like it for its accessibility. And because if you know me at all, you are well aware that I feel about analogies the way I feel about ice cream treats–that is to say, I look for them absolutely everywhere I go and I very nearly love them all.
Incidentally, I always liked the monkey bars. Yet I also remember those moments of panic as I swung my ten-year-old body from bar to bar, only to discover that the next bar—the one I trusted to be as secure and reliable as the last—was unexpectedly loose, especially slippery, or ungraspable in some way.
When you think about it you wonder: how can you be certain that if you take that leap of faith the net will, in fact, appear?
And the truth is, of course, that you can never be certain.
How terrifying.
And how amazing, liberating, and exciting.
As we all know, to make any progress whatsoever—in life or on those monkey bars—you have to let go of the grip you have on your past in order to move into the future. The more resolutely you white-knuckle that which you are leaving behind, and the more time it will take you to move forward, the more momentum you will lose, and the harder the journey will be.
Our society, being very “future-focused,” does not encourage us to embrace the transitional periods, the liminal space between “here” and “there.” We live in a culture that is very much defined by where we have been and where we are going. We are not taught to be present. We are not encouraged to “stay in the question.” Rather, we are trained to have answers, plans, solutions, and destinations.
Ironically, and as the monkey bar story author pointed out, it is only when in the transitional space that you are the most aware, the most present, the most, well, you. It is in those spaces that true creativity thrives and blossoms. It is those spaces that make growth possible.
Personally, I am someone who has always struggled when the next step in my life is not clearly defined and mapped out for me, or by me. Dichotomous as ever, I am also someone who has regularly launched myself into new situations without giving them the appropriate consideration (umm, anyone remember when I enrolled full-time in woodworking school?). Basically, my modus operendai was to either sit around and wait in my comfortable space of the known until I could clearly see the next stair onto which I would carefully step, or else I would hurl myself forward just to feel I was doing something.
If you are reading between the lines, I historically have done about all I could to avoid having to spend any time in that middle, transitional area.
Right now, I feel a lot of my life is up in the air. Among some of the more pressing issues are the questions: Will I ever feel the urge to have children? Will I ever be truly excited and satisfied with my professional pursuits? And, of course, the answers to those questions would be able to add perspective to the larger, looming, question: What do I want my future to look like?
And the truth is that I do not currently have the answers to those questions. I am flying through the air at the moment, and unaware of exactly where the bar I eventually grab onto will lead me. For the first time in my life, I am actually enjoying the unknown. It has resulted in this blog, in a lot of self-reflection and some degree of self-awareness. I feel that in all of this not knowing what my life will be, I have found out a lot about what my life actually is.
Amazing what you can learn from the monkey bars.
More specifically the person whose words she read had made a rather astute correlation between traversing the monkey bars and navigating life in general.
The author revealed that when he was younger, he possessed no natural aptitude for swinging across the monkey bars. A sort of paralyzing fear would grip him, and he would be unable to let go of one bar in order to reach out for the next. As he allowed his fear to overtake him, his body would just hang, and become like dead weight. When he finally mustered up the courage to attempt to grab the next bar, it would prove too difficult as he had lost any momentum he may have had—momentum that would have inevitably made his passage from one bar to the next smoother, more graceful, perhaps even possible.
His overall point was that, during those moments on the monkey bars, he very much feared the time when he would have to let go of one bar and before he had gripped the new bar. He dreaded this transitional period, this unknown, this “space between.”
What an apt comparison for life! For it can be truly frightening when you know the only way to move forward is to release the grip you have on the past, and yet there is no assurance that you will have any more solid grip on the future; if you even make it that far. After all, you may fall or you may tire.
Or, perhaps worst of all, what if you hurl yourself forward with as much gusto as you can manage only to find that the journey you made was ultimately not worth your while after all?
This analogy may seem a bit trite considering the relative safety of this childhood recess-time activity is being juxtaposed with the very real difficulties inherent in navigating life itself. But I like it for its accessibility. And because if you know me at all, you are well aware that I feel about analogies the way I feel about ice cream treats–that is to say, I look for them absolutely everywhere I go and I very nearly love them all.
Incidentally, I always liked the monkey bars. Yet I also remember those moments of panic as I swung my ten-year-old body from bar to bar, only to discover that the next bar—the one I trusted to be as secure and reliable as the last—was unexpectedly loose, especially slippery, or ungraspable in some way.
When you think about it you wonder: how can you be certain that if you take that leap of faith the net will, in fact, appear?
And the truth is, of course, that you can never be certain.
How terrifying.
And how amazing, liberating, and exciting.
As we all know, to make any progress whatsoever—in life or on those monkey bars—you have to let go of the grip you have on your past in order to move into the future. The more resolutely you white-knuckle that which you are leaving behind, and the more time it will take you to move forward, the more momentum you will lose, and the harder the journey will be.
Our society, being very “future-focused,” does not encourage us to embrace the transitional periods, the liminal space between “here” and “there.” We live in a culture that is very much defined by where we have been and where we are going. We are not taught to be present. We are not encouraged to “stay in the question.” Rather, we are trained to have answers, plans, solutions, and destinations.
Ironically, and as the monkey bar story author pointed out, it is only when in the transitional space that you are the most aware, the most present, the most, well, you. It is in those spaces that true creativity thrives and blossoms. It is those spaces that make growth possible.
Personally, I am someone who has always struggled when the next step in my life is not clearly defined and mapped out for me, or by me. Dichotomous as ever, I am also someone who has regularly launched myself into new situations without giving them the appropriate consideration (umm, anyone remember when I enrolled full-time in woodworking school?). Basically, my modus operendai was to either sit around and wait in my comfortable space of the known until I could clearly see the next stair onto which I would carefully step, or else I would hurl myself forward just to feel I was doing something.
If you are reading between the lines, I historically have done about all I could to avoid having to spend any time in that middle, transitional area.
Right now, I feel a lot of my life is up in the air. Among some of the more pressing issues are the questions: Will I ever feel the urge to have children? Will I ever be truly excited and satisfied with my professional pursuits? And, of course, the answers to those questions would be able to add perspective to the larger, looming, question: What do I want my future to look like?
And the truth is that I do not currently have the answers to those questions. I am flying through the air at the moment, and unaware of exactly where the bar I eventually grab onto will lead me. For the first time in my life, I am actually enjoying the unknown. It has resulted in this blog, in a lot of self-reflection and some degree of self-awareness. I feel that in all of this not knowing what my life will be, I have found out a lot about what my life actually is.
Amazing what you can learn from the monkey bars.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Filling Custom Orders in an Off the Rack World
The other day, as I was chatting with two of my girlfriends, they suggested that I post a blog entry about about the job at which we all met one another. Though we all left this company many months ago, it somehow still provides fodder for our regular get togethers. It was a unique experience and one for which I am grateful because I met these great friends, and also because it was quite eye-opening as to the discordance between who people say they are and who they actually are--an interesting and relevant topic in this day and age of internet-fueled relationships.
So what was the job?
Well, by way of beefing up humanitarian efforts on my resume, last year I worked for a dating service. During that time, I inevitably had the opportunity to describe my most recent vocational pursuit to many people at various social gatherings. Unlike when I had held what I perceived to be less charitable jobs (travel agent, technical writer, hospitality manager), I would actually look forward to sharing stories involving my latest venture with friends, family, and virtual strangers.
Erroneously, I assumed that people would believe, as I did at the time, that my position not only made for fun and interesting conversation, but was also an altruistic job where I essentially provided community service for the world at large. Indeed, I felt I was making the world a better place, one lunch date at a time. Admittedly, and on a more superficial level, it was also fun to have a plethora of social fodder at my fingertips. Despite the general reluctance to admit it, people are fascinated by that sort of thing, which is clearly evidenced by the alarming success of such inane programs as The Bachelor and Beauty and the Geek.
My actual job title was, improbably enough, “matchmaker.” I worked for a company where clients pay a rather hefty fee for a yearly membership in which they are promised a specific number of dates. I took the position—in fact I avidly campaigned to secure the job—because I thought it sounded both personally rewarding and selfless. I would be helping people find true love! How much more of a positive and valuable service could I ever offer this world? My naïve, Pollyanna attitude, had me believing that this matchmaking gig was the equivalent of providing ample rations to entire populations of people in starving nations.
Initially, I loved the idea of meeting with people, hearing them describe their ideal partners, and swiping their Visa cards (my boss actually liked that part, but I justified the membership fee by believing that these people took their love lives seriously—and were therefore happy to make such a worthwhile investment).
I delighted in spending time each morning going over profiles with my colleagues and matching people with their potential soul-mates. How incredible that I could play a role in assisting people to find lasting happiness, to personally orchestrate true love matches.
I will pause a moment to give you a chance to once again absorb the depths of my naivety and also, perhaps, to barf at my general sappiness.
In any case, the whole enterprise was a sad disappointment. And I am not saying this to bash this particular dating service—it is actually a very successful organization in many cities, and the concept is certainly viable. The service eschews computers and only operates via telephone and in person.
So I would spend considerable time telling each respective party why Tom or Susan was someone we identified as a great match. They would then meet one another at a restaurant where a reservation had already been made (under first names only), the restaurant would split the check, and if they wanted to see one another again they could exchange information during this date. The clients would call us with post-date feedback so that we could see if we were on the right track.
It all sounded like a well-oiled machine, where the service does all the work and the daters just show up, eat some food, and enjoy the potential romance sitting two feet across the table. Frankly, it all sounded a little too good to be true.
And so it was.
The major loophole with this service, as might be implicit given the nature of the task at hand, is that human chemistry is unpredictable. This is an obvious fact; I realize that if someone could figure out how to accurately and regularly predict how or why certain people would be attracted to certain others then widely popular services such as Match.com, and perhaps Dr. Phil himself, would be rendered obsolete entities.
Another problem was that when people pay for a service they have certain expectations of their return on investment. Unlike buying, for example a toaster, buying a membership to a dating service comes with no guarantee that the model and serial number that best suits your life will be available—or that it will ever be in stock in our particular warehouse. I had clients that were unable to accept that this purchase was one with unpredictable results. While I cared about helping people find potential partners, I often felt discouraged by my clients who were treating the procedure as if they were ordering a sandwich.
For example, a man in his late forties might come in with an exact idea of his “perfect” woman. After chatting with him, my notes indicate that he identifies himself as someone who is professionally successful, loves to travel, is outgoing, enjoys political debates, and feels his children are his number one priority.
After gleaning this personal information, we would move onto his hopes for his potential partner. I would expect (again note my naivety), that such criteria might be approximately as follows: someone who is independent, open-minded, committed to personal and professional growth, has a sense of adventure, and recognizes the importance of family. Or something that might hint that this man was actually conscious when he told me his own priorities and that he was, indeed, looking for a relationship with a compatible woman.
Instead, more often than not, I would hear something like the following: She must be between 22 and 28 years old, between “5’4” and 5’6” feet tall, curvy, yet slender, blond, blue-eyed, and have beautiful feet.” If you are in need of translation, basically the bozo was looking for a young, thin girl with fake boobs whose utter Barbie doll perfection would extend even to her extremities. Note that he said nothing about her actually character, personality, or interests.
Invariably, after such conversations, I would look at the portly nearing middle-aged man sitting across from me and I would be reminded of George Costanza on Seinfeld when he proclaims that he likes a thick head of hair on the women he dates.
George Costanza, as you may remember, was bald.
Now when I considered this list of non-negotiable criteria for a would-be life-partner, here is what I mentally pictured: The same man is standing at a deli counter at a gourmet sandwich shop. He places his order as follows: “I want roast beef on house-made foccacia with extra mayonnaise, cheese, and all the fixings. Do not forget the hot peppers. Leave out the calories and cholesterol. Make it delicious because I am paying for this sandy after all.” Huh. And would you like a side of fat free fries with that fantasy?
Such a “mail order” type client would be just the sort who would call me to complain after every date: “I TOLD you what I wanted and this girl had ugly feet.” Indeed. “Let me see, Sir, why have you not gone out with anyone that exactly matches your criteria? Oh, well, as it turns out we DO have women who fit the description you so carefully mapped out for me. Oddly, the descriptions given to me by THOSE young women were not for a balding rotund man in his late forties.”
Go figure.
And I do not mean to dig at the men only. Women were just as bad. Women would often order up something like this: “Looks are not important to me. But I only date men over six feet tall, absolutely no facial hair, no one balding, no one overweight, no ex-wives—or any serious exes at all. NO BAGGAGE.”
Honestly, who has no baggage? Not this duck, for one.
People are just not realistic.
Moreover, their priorities are quite wonky. The dilemma came up again and again that people felt they were physically “too good” for the people with whom they were being sent out. I understand pride and dignity, but I do not understand why so many people felt they ought to be going out with Brad and Angelina clones. Is it our celebrity culture? Did they live in mirror-less homes? Did they realize that looks are not, in fact, the most important criteria in building a life with someone?
Of course, physical attraction is certainly an integral component to long-lasting love and of course there are certain “types” to whom people are naturally more attracted to than others. Although I must say it makes me deeply suspicious when 45 year-old men insist that they only ever “click” with women 25 or younger.
So job had me wondering just how skewed were the priorities of the population with which I was dealing, and how did this epidemic come about? Was the problem that people did not actually want love, but rather wanted to feel superficially validated by a partner embodying specific physical, paint-by-number, attributes?
Ultimately, I left the company because the whole situation depressed me. I also felt the moral compass of the higher-ups had been seriously tampered with. True, it was also wearing to be constantly yelled at over the phone because people felt rejected and needed to take it out on someone. I could have lived with that though—of course people felt discouraged because finding love is hard. I absolutely empathize with that actuality. The main problem I saw with the situation was that finding a good book is also hard, but most people understand that making selections based solely on the covers will likely lead to disappointment. This analogy somehow did not register.
Here is the golden nugget of the day: people are not comprised of ingredients available at your local deli. You cannot always mix and match to have what you feel is the perfect combination. Or if you can, you might find out that it is not as “perfect” as you imagined. Or you will get bored. Or one day they are out of avocado and you feel disproportionately gypped.
I loved the idea of my job as a matchmaker, and I naively did not expect the position to be so full of complications, backlash, and irrationality. In retrospect, I may have been suffering from the same mismanagement of expectations as my clients were. Who was I to think that I could conjure up love for people when love is such an elusive and unpredictable gift?
I was excited to share my job with others because it made me feel validated to be orchestrating the impossible—perhaps the same way my clients felt they could earn validation through a made-to-order person on their arms. But the job was not the community service position I had imagined it to be, and while we did have a certain amount of success with a small percentage of our members, I found that the vast majority of the people with whom I was dealing were not buying what I was selling, so to speak.
Ultimately, I could not squash the Pollyanna at my core; I could not allow people to objectify others in the name of temporary and unsatisfying happiness. If I learned anything from this venture it is that we are all flawed, we all have baggage, and, most importantly—no matter how wonderful and amazing it may sound—a sandwich with no fat or calories is ultimately a sandwich with no substance.
So what was the job?
Well, by way of beefing up humanitarian efforts on my resume, last year I worked for a dating service. During that time, I inevitably had the opportunity to describe my most recent vocational pursuit to many people at various social gatherings. Unlike when I had held what I perceived to be less charitable jobs (travel agent, technical writer, hospitality manager), I would actually look forward to sharing stories involving my latest venture with friends, family, and virtual strangers.
Erroneously, I assumed that people would believe, as I did at the time, that my position not only made for fun and interesting conversation, but was also an altruistic job where I essentially provided community service for the world at large. Indeed, I felt I was making the world a better place, one lunch date at a time. Admittedly, and on a more superficial level, it was also fun to have a plethora of social fodder at my fingertips. Despite the general reluctance to admit it, people are fascinated by that sort of thing, which is clearly evidenced by the alarming success of such inane programs as The Bachelor and Beauty and the Geek.
My actual job title was, improbably enough, “matchmaker.” I worked for a company where clients pay a rather hefty fee for a yearly membership in which they are promised a specific number of dates. I took the position—in fact I avidly campaigned to secure the job—because I thought it sounded both personally rewarding and selfless. I would be helping people find true love! How much more of a positive and valuable service could I ever offer this world? My naïve, Pollyanna attitude, had me believing that this matchmaking gig was the equivalent of providing ample rations to entire populations of people in starving nations.
Initially, I loved the idea of meeting with people, hearing them describe their ideal partners, and swiping their Visa cards (my boss actually liked that part, but I justified the membership fee by believing that these people took their love lives seriously—and were therefore happy to make such a worthwhile investment).
I delighted in spending time each morning going over profiles with my colleagues and matching people with their potential soul-mates. How incredible that I could play a role in assisting people to find lasting happiness, to personally orchestrate true love matches.
I will pause a moment to give you a chance to once again absorb the depths of my naivety and also, perhaps, to barf at my general sappiness.
In any case, the whole enterprise was a sad disappointment. And I am not saying this to bash this particular dating service—it is actually a very successful organization in many cities, and the concept is certainly viable. The service eschews computers and only operates via telephone and in person.
So I would spend considerable time telling each respective party why Tom or Susan was someone we identified as a great match. They would then meet one another at a restaurant where a reservation had already been made (under first names only), the restaurant would split the check, and if they wanted to see one another again they could exchange information during this date. The clients would call us with post-date feedback so that we could see if we were on the right track.
It all sounded like a well-oiled machine, where the service does all the work and the daters just show up, eat some food, and enjoy the potential romance sitting two feet across the table. Frankly, it all sounded a little too good to be true.
And so it was.
The major loophole with this service, as might be implicit given the nature of the task at hand, is that human chemistry is unpredictable. This is an obvious fact; I realize that if someone could figure out how to accurately and regularly predict how or why certain people would be attracted to certain others then widely popular services such as Match.com, and perhaps Dr. Phil himself, would be rendered obsolete entities.
Another problem was that when people pay for a service they have certain expectations of their return on investment. Unlike buying, for example a toaster, buying a membership to a dating service comes with no guarantee that the model and serial number that best suits your life will be available—or that it will ever be in stock in our particular warehouse. I had clients that were unable to accept that this purchase was one with unpredictable results. While I cared about helping people find potential partners, I often felt discouraged by my clients who were treating the procedure as if they were ordering a sandwich.
For example, a man in his late forties might come in with an exact idea of his “perfect” woman. After chatting with him, my notes indicate that he identifies himself as someone who is professionally successful, loves to travel, is outgoing, enjoys political debates, and feels his children are his number one priority.
After gleaning this personal information, we would move onto his hopes for his potential partner. I would expect (again note my naivety), that such criteria might be approximately as follows: someone who is independent, open-minded, committed to personal and professional growth, has a sense of adventure, and recognizes the importance of family. Or something that might hint that this man was actually conscious when he told me his own priorities and that he was, indeed, looking for a relationship with a compatible woman.
Instead, more often than not, I would hear something like the following: She must be between 22 and 28 years old, between “5’4” and 5’6” feet tall, curvy, yet slender, blond, blue-eyed, and have beautiful feet.” If you are in need of translation, basically the bozo was looking for a young, thin girl with fake boobs whose utter Barbie doll perfection would extend even to her extremities. Note that he said nothing about her actually character, personality, or interests.
Invariably, after such conversations, I would look at the portly nearing middle-aged man sitting across from me and I would be reminded of George Costanza on Seinfeld when he proclaims that he likes a thick head of hair on the women he dates.
George Costanza, as you may remember, was bald.
Now when I considered this list of non-negotiable criteria for a would-be life-partner, here is what I mentally pictured: The same man is standing at a deli counter at a gourmet sandwich shop. He places his order as follows: “I want roast beef on house-made foccacia with extra mayonnaise, cheese, and all the fixings. Do not forget the hot peppers. Leave out the calories and cholesterol. Make it delicious because I am paying for this sandy after all.” Huh. And would you like a side of fat free fries with that fantasy?
Such a “mail order” type client would be just the sort who would call me to complain after every date: “I TOLD you what I wanted and this girl had ugly feet.” Indeed. “Let me see, Sir, why have you not gone out with anyone that exactly matches your criteria? Oh, well, as it turns out we DO have women who fit the description you so carefully mapped out for me. Oddly, the descriptions given to me by THOSE young women were not for a balding rotund man in his late forties.”
Go figure.
And I do not mean to dig at the men only. Women were just as bad. Women would often order up something like this: “Looks are not important to me. But I only date men over six feet tall, absolutely no facial hair, no one balding, no one overweight, no ex-wives—or any serious exes at all. NO BAGGAGE.”
Honestly, who has no baggage? Not this duck, for one.
People are just not realistic.
Moreover, their priorities are quite wonky. The dilemma came up again and again that people felt they were physically “too good” for the people with whom they were being sent out. I understand pride and dignity, but I do not understand why so many people felt they ought to be going out with Brad and Angelina clones. Is it our celebrity culture? Did they live in mirror-less homes? Did they realize that looks are not, in fact, the most important criteria in building a life with someone?
Of course, physical attraction is certainly an integral component to long-lasting love and of course there are certain “types” to whom people are naturally more attracted to than others. Although I must say it makes me deeply suspicious when 45 year-old men insist that they only ever “click” with women 25 or younger.
So job had me wondering just how skewed were the priorities of the population with which I was dealing, and how did this epidemic come about? Was the problem that people did not actually want love, but rather wanted to feel superficially validated by a partner embodying specific physical, paint-by-number, attributes?
Ultimately, I left the company because the whole situation depressed me. I also felt the moral compass of the higher-ups had been seriously tampered with. True, it was also wearing to be constantly yelled at over the phone because people felt rejected and needed to take it out on someone. I could have lived with that though—of course people felt discouraged because finding love is hard. I absolutely empathize with that actuality. The main problem I saw with the situation was that finding a good book is also hard, but most people understand that making selections based solely on the covers will likely lead to disappointment. This analogy somehow did not register.
Here is the golden nugget of the day: people are not comprised of ingredients available at your local deli. You cannot always mix and match to have what you feel is the perfect combination. Or if you can, you might find out that it is not as “perfect” as you imagined. Or you will get bored. Or one day they are out of avocado and you feel disproportionately gypped.
I loved the idea of my job as a matchmaker, and I naively did not expect the position to be so full of complications, backlash, and irrationality. In retrospect, I may have been suffering from the same mismanagement of expectations as my clients were. Who was I to think that I could conjure up love for people when love is such an elusive and unpredictable gift?
I was excited to share my job with others because it made me feel validated to be orchestrating the impossible—perhaps the same way my clients felt they could earn validation through a made-to-order person on their arms. But the job was not the community service position I had imagined it to be, and while we did have a certain amount of success with a small percentage of our members, I found that the vast majority of the people with whom I was dealing were not buying what I was selling, so to speak.
Ultimately, I could not squash the Pollyanna at my core; I could not allow people to objectify others in the name of temporary and unsatisfying happiness. If I learned anything from this venture it is that we are all flawed, we all have baggage, and, most importantly—no matter how wonderful and amazing it may sound—a sandwich with no fat or calories is ultimately a sandwich with no substance.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Believe It
You may have noticed that I love to include snippets about my brother in my blog postings. This inclination is due, in part, to the fact that the guy has some crazy stories in his arsenal and we therefore engage in some pretty ridiculous dialogue pertaining to his various shenanigans (observed or lived) on a somewhat regular basis.
In fact, I often think that I could write a book called Conversations with My Brother. And it would be, to use one of his favorite adjectives, unbelievable. I am not exaggerating either. It is truly my sentiment that you would be reading the book, flipping the pages like mad of course as your devoured this sanctimonious piece of literary genius, and would be muttering aloud to yourself: “I just don’t believe this. This is truly unbelievable.”
In fact, people in Robert’s life—myself included, feel that the realm of reality television is doing the world at large a disservice by offering up dum-dum shows featuring insipid Housewives of wherever and various people generally being tactless and tyrannical, when we could be watching Big Rob sail through life. It is like eating bologna sandwiches on Wonder bread everyday only to suddenly be introduced to an Italian sub on ciabatta. I mean you would never go back. Are you with me here? Rob is not the bologna in the analogy if I lost you. Cliff’s notes to follow.
But Robert often says that he is a terrible candidate for a reality television show because no one would believe that his life was real. Although we all know that is hardly a criterion for “reality” television as we know it.
What I really think is that it is the whole shedding of general human decency that feels quite repugnant to him. Actually I sort of know that to be the case.
I say that because, being a sometimes model and actor, a few years back he was solicited to appear on a reality show. On this show, he would have had to actually marry someone and then embody every possible characteristic that her family would find disgraceful. The whole purpose of the show was to appall her entire family, only to reveal after months of psychological torment (“Our baby girl married THAT?”), that the whole marriage was a sham designed to keep all of the evil-minded television viewers at home entertained.
Implicitly, he turned down the audition. If you have to ask why, then please log off now and engage in some rigorous self-examination and/or bring your moral compass in for a complete tune-up.
So the other day, we were talking about a poker game he was invited to join. A truly social creature, my brother just loves striking up conversations with strange people, often in strange venues, often at strange times. The whole thing is strange in my opinion, but you probably got that.
Post-poker game, I received a recap of the evenings events. Rob thought it would just be a group of guys hanging out, playing cards, and maybe having some"brew-pops and mellow eats," as my friend Dave likes to say. I guess it was a bit more wild than that.
In fact, it all sounded sort of like Animal House meets Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, with a little Boogie Nights thrown in. But hey, he lives in L.A. so what could we really expect?
In the poker night scenario, Rob played the role, as my communication classes tell me, of participant-as-observer. It was sort of like a humanities research project, this poker night.
At one point an uninvited woman entered the room, talking loudly and acting quite strangely. She was proclaiming to anyone who would listen that she was not a stripper. I find this an odd thing to need to tell a room full of strangers. So did my brother, and thus she was one stranger with whom he did not feel compelled to chat.
The non-stripper proceeded to lock herself in the only bathroom off the common area where the poker game was taking place. Now I know men and women have different levels of “needing” to have a bathroom available, but I think it is safe to say that a room full of guys drinking beers would likely notice the unavailability of a restroom.
A line forms.
She emerges after about a half hour, and proclaims (big on proclamations, this gal): “The toilet is clogged.”
Ew.
But some brave soul (not Robert) goes into inspect the specifics of her announcement. He comes out and evidently encourages other people to go in and have a gander at the situation.
The guys file in for a viewing, and it turns out that dolly has dumped the contents of a trash can into the toilet. There were various papers coming out, a plastic container, I think Robert mentioned there was a paper towel roll stuffed in there.
The real mystery is where the woman was hiding this alarming amount of debris before she entered the rest facility. But perhaps I will have to accept that as a mystery for which I will never have the answer.
Well, yesterday I was in a public restroom in a medical building. As I often do, I marveled at the sign that instructed all visiting parties not to throw anything in the toilet other than toilet tissue. I mean who would throw anything in a toilet other than toilet tissue?
The exception being dramatic scenes in Lifetime movies where someone ceremoniously dumps handles of cheap vodka and/or bottles of pills into the can. But those are usually in private homes. As a rule, no one actually puts things into toilets other than toilet tissue. Right?
Wrong.
I will tell you who does: poker-game crashing, non-stripping, bathroom hogs. Who knew.
And all of this emerged out of a simple conversation with my brother. You see what I am saying? Unbelievable.
In fact, I often think that I could write a book called Conversations with My Brother. And it would be, to use one of his favorite adjectives, unbelievable. I am not exaggerating either. It is truly my sentiment that you would be reading the book, flipping the pages like mad of course as your devoured this sanctimonious piece of literary genius, and would be muttering aloud to yourself: “I just don’t believe this. This is truly unbelievable.”
In fact, people in Robert’s life—myself included, feel that the realm of reality television is doing the world at large a disservice by offering up dum-dum shows featuring insipid Housewives of wherever and various people generally being tactless and tyrannical, when we could be watching Big Rob sail through life. It is like eating bologna sandwiches on Wonder bread everyday only to suddenly be introduced to an Italian sub on ciabatta. I mean you would never go back. Are you with me here? Rob is not the bologna in the analogy if I lost you. Cliff’s notes to follow.
But Robert often says that he is a terrible candidate for a reality television show because no one would believe that his life was real. Although we all know that is hardly a criterion for “reality” television as we know it.
What I really think is that it is the whole shedding of general human decency that feels quite repugnant to him. Actually I sort of know that to be the case.
I say that because, being a sometimes model and actor, a few years back he was solicited to appear on a reality show. On this show, he would have had to actually marry someone and then embody every possible characteristic that her family would find disgraceful. The whole purpose of the show was to appall her entire family, only to reveal after months of psychological torment (“Our baby girl married THAT?”), that the whole marriage was a sham designed to keep all of the evil-minded television viewers at home entertained.
Implicitly, he turned down the audition. If you have to ask why, then please log off now and engage in some rigorous self-examination and/or bring your moral compass in for a complete tune-up.
So the other day, we were talking about a poker game he was invited to join. A truly social creature, my brother just loves striking up conversations with strange people, often in strange venues, often at strange times. The whole thing is strange in my opinion, but you probably got that.
Post-poker game, I received a recap of the evenings events. Rob thought it would just be a group of guys hanging out, playing cards, and maybe having some"brew-pops and mellow eats," as my friend Dave likes to say. I guess it was a bit more wild than that.
In fact, it all sounded sort of like Animal House meets Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, with a little Boogie Nights thrown in. But hey, he lives in L.A. so what could we really expect?
In the poker night scenario, Rob played the role, as my communication classes tell me, of participant-as-observer. It was sort of like a humanities research project, this poker night.
At one point an uninvited woman entered the room, talking loudly and acting quite strangely. She was proclaiming to anyone who would listen that she was not a stripper. I find this an odd thing to need to tell a room full of strangers. So did my brother, and thus she was one stranger with whom he did not feel compelled to chat.
The non-stripper proceeded to lock herself in the only bathroom off the common area where the poker game was taking place. Now I know men and women have different levels of “needing” to have a bathroom available, but I think it is safe to say that a room full of guys drinking beers would likely notice the unavailability of a restroom.
A line forms.
She emerges after about a half hour, and proclaims (big on proclamations, this gal): “The toilet is clogged.”
Ew.
But some brave soul (not Robert) goes into inspect the specifics of her announcement. He comes out and evidently encourages other people to go in and have a gander at the situation.
The guys file in for a viewing, and it turns out that dolly has dumped the contents of a trash can into the toilet. There were various papers coming out, a plastic container, I think Robert mentioned there was a paper towel roll stuffed in there.
The real mystery is where the woman was hiding this alarming amount of debris before she entered the rest facility. But perhaps I will have to accept that as a mystery for which I will never have the answer.
Well, yesterday I was in a public restroom in a medical building. As I often do, I marveled at the sign that instructed all visiting parties not to throw anything in the toilet other than toilet tissue. I mean who would throw anything in a toilet other than toilet tissue?
The exception being dramatic scenes in Lifetime movies where someone ceremoniously dumps handles of cheap vodka and/or bottles of pills into the can. But those are usually in private homes. As a rule, no one actually puts things into toilets other than toilet tissue. Right?
Wrong.
I will tell you who does: poker-game crashing, non-stripping, bathroom hogs. Who knew.
And all of this emerged out of a simple conversation with my brother. You see what I am saying? Unbelievable.
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