A poem from a friend...

For Rachel Wing
10/19/2009

There is no future,
In the past.
What seemed stable,
Could not last.
So once again,
I begin again.
Not knowing where
This Journey will end.
But what if on this trip?
Into a Dream I slip?
I pick a flower,
From Golden Sand.
And when I awake
It's in my Hand.

NFW 09

Life’s too long during this “Life’s too short”

I’ve got that archived list of things I have to do before I die filed away somewhere in my noggin, and I know that with each passing day, month and year, my day-to-days seem to just soak up my time. I wonder when I’m going to get to drive cross-country, see Alaska, Rail Europe, write a novel, run in a marathon, zigzag around the Canary Islands on a sailboat, oh yea and find world peace.
But doesn’t it seem like you are just watching the clock tick sometimes? There are so many days that just seem to drag on, they are like the longest days ever, sometimes because there was so much going on and so much to do, and sometimes because there simply wasn’t enough to do. Whichever the reason, our days really are long, life really is long, but what’s so short about it are the moments that arise when we have the chance to make a decision, make a choice, move a muscle, act on impulse, listen to your heart and not your head, and take the plunge! Get out of your routine and do the things you have waiting on your life’s to-do list, and stop watching the clock tick away.
I recently took one of those ridiculous self-evaluation quizzes, that I swore I would never waste my time on, at the back of the Oprah magazine… stop what you’re thinking, no I am not that domesticated… it was the only thing to read and I was stuck in the backseat of a car en route to Sedona for 2.5 hours. Anyway, I took this personality quiz based upon the things you do on impulse, the things you say and a bunch of other variables. I got this tight and neat summary that is supposed to explain why I am the way I am. It’s like believing in your horoscope, sure if you read it, you somehow find a way to live it, or at least pick out all the parts that remotely relate to you and then say “ah-ha” this is totally true! BS! Anyway, my Oprah diagnostics came back that I was to lead a life of impulsive and adventurous events and decisions, and if I stay in one place too long, or with one thing or person too long, it will stifle who I really am. Ok…I started mulling over it for a portion of my 2.5 hour drive to Sedona and wondered if any of it was true. According to what decisions I’ve made so far in my past 25 years-yep it’s pretty accurate. I’ve college-jumped, major-jumped, city-jumped, job-jumped, and everything else in between. I can’t figure out what makes me happy, or what can keep me in one place for too long.

You ready to drop your drawers? Put it in ink!

I never thought I would really put something out there personal, you know expose yourself and become vulnerable on paper. It’s what people want to read you know. It is in between the lines of words and stories we’ve all read a million times, when the writer can become a risk-taker, strips down naked and lets their reader see every inch of them. Now that’s a good read. I realize there is no salvation and there can not be perfection found in this disrobing. That writer will obviously get positive and negative reception, just like anything else, but I think its what the writer feels after he or she has put it in words and let their pen ink up a plain piece of paper into a lasting impression… whether that impression takes hold of one, two, three or a thousand lives, it really doesn’t matter because what has been written is the most concentrated impression of one human life, and frankly all that really matters is how it made the writer feel, how it was almost definitely: liberating.

So becoming that writer, providing not only a worth-reading text for my reader, but a self-satisfying current for my honest thoughts, this obviously takes complete self-confidence and almost a lack of care for what anyone else thinks and what they may assume or judge of you. This quality, this seriously strong ability to be so self-assured and be as you are, think as you feel, act as you believe and do as you wish…that’s taking a risk. You just dropped your shield and passed “go.” These people are the ones we all look up to, we look to them for advice, they are the trend setters, we wait for them to make their move, we follow, and we shake and nod our heads and reinvent their wheel as our own. We then push along our game pieces carefully watching their every move. So how do you break away from this and drop your drawers, and be that stripped down writer, businessman, young woman, student, man, woman, child, or adult? Heck, you take a chance and be the person you are, and write the truth about yourself that you keep guarded by the other chances you’re dishonestly taking. This chance could hurt someone else, offend someone else, and moreover it is definitely going to shock yourself…but its going to be truth and in due time you’ll be commended for it.

Well, becoming that trendsetter so to speak, ain’t gunna happen with things like Facebook, I’ll tell you that much. I know how I treat my FB Newsfeed like MSNBC or the New York Times; I’m keeping an eye out for all that is going on. As soon as something “taboo” surfaces, we’re all talking about it… more like commenting on photos, updating our status’ about it, liking and disliking it, and dare I even say we are blocking and deleting friends because of it! I know, Facebook is so like what everyone talks about and totally isn’t all we do… but OMG wake up and admit it to yourself… we’re all checking each other out, and then deciding who we’re going to be and what we’re going to do based upon it…WTF! So how can we honestly be ourselves, you know go against the grain and put it out there, when everything is so connected and everyone and anyone can find out about it… moreover being judged for how we do feel and what we do say happens not only quicker, but with a much larger reception… a reception that could cause any courageous spirit to run back under the rock they came from.

Do we want to be who we really are because we are all so exhausted of trying to be like everyone else, or are we trying to be who were are, and be different because we don’t really want to be totally connected to everyone else?

Being comfortable in our own skin to the point we can show it to all those around us, is that what a “connection” is all about? Is this surrendering of inhibitions how we classify a trusting and close relationship? To me its like feeling your jeans rest loosely on your hips, taking a stroll through your favorite park in an outfit that doesn’t match, feeling the cool air hit your makeup-free face, rolling all your windows down and driving nowhere on a cool night, plopping down on a well-worn sofa with a good friend, or a good book, nothing frivolous needed… just a feeling of comfort because you feel good, you feel unrestricted, you feel understood and clear minded- you feel easy (easy like the iconic ‘free and easy,’ but actually inserting that phrase into anything I write is like nails on a chalkboard…and it didn’t seem quite right to let that word cap off my sentence so as to be interpreted as, well…you know).

So I want to put it all out there. Part of me wonders how to put it all out there, and the other part wonders if I can still “put it all out there” by only getting my baby toe wet. Lately I take so much more comfort and find so much more clarity in being who I really am, regardless of what I think someone else is going to think… and sometimes you can weed through all the others and find someone who is doing just what you are doing and just being them. We all have things we keep tied up in perfect little boxes; failures, mistakes, times of pain and times of happiness… love found and love lost… but the chances I am talking about are the chances you take when you open those boxes and let them all bleed onto your own blank piece of paper. I know I’m getting there.

I’m Going Green with all this “Green”

You see it everywhere. It’s practically the standard marketing ploy of just about everyone and anyone out there nowadays. It could be a corner deli sandwich shop, and they claim they’re “going green” now that they have implemented paper bags and moved away from plastic…oh and don’t forget the recycling bins next to the door…they’re “going green.”

Come on. So I am not going to shake a finger at the whole concept, because I have to give credit where credit is deserved. There are MANY people, companies, organizations, non-profits and environmental groups out there making a significant difference, organizing campaigns, movements and all sorts of other public activating concepts to illuminate our carbon footprint….but when it really comes down to it…How are you daily “going green?”

First off let’s get the facts. There are a number of ways that our country and world are making progressive steps to save on power used, natural resources used, and of course teach the general public how they can contribute to the larger picture/cause. There has been legislation passed to allow for tax breaks for those individuals and businesses that are using less power and/or restoring their homes/businesses with sustainable energy resources (i.e. lights, recycled building materials), there have been huge organization launched to support the education and urgency of such sustainable living- such as LEED and USGBC. We have researchers scratching their heads over and over to try and produce off-shore wind farms, and of course we have just about every social media outlet out there discussing…tweeting, facebooking, blogging and whatevering about how we need to become more green. We have all watched and seen as many of our local communities have encouraged us to change our simple daily routines of carpooling to work, enforcing our children ride to school on busses, encouraging us to fuel up in the evenings, use battery-powered machinery opposed to fuel powered. To keep up with the Jones’ you’d better buy that hybrid and start walking to Whole Foods with your clothe shopping bags…or your life on Wisteria Lane is donezo.

Stepping back…its freckin’ expensive to go green in this economy. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to change all your light bulbs (just in a residential home) from standard bulbs to LED lights? A simple LED bulb, for say your bedside lamp will set you back anywhere from $30-$40, and an LED Tube light (used in most offices) will run you between $80 and $100. Sure you will help the environment and even save some cash on your yearly electric bill… but who sees it that way? If we all saw it that way and had no problem forking over the extra cash now… there wouldn’t even be “regular” light bulbs for sale (poor Edison). So my question is: When it is so costly to “go green,” how the heck is every company out there going green, yet laying off employees by the hundreds, cutting hours, salaries and bonuses, yet proclaiming they’re going green? What does it really mean to go green and what is the difference between all this sudden going green and what we used to call just plain old recycling?

I think it’s like anything else. It’s a fresh look, a fresh face, a new marketing ploy we role out in hopes of reinventing ourselves, and driving in more business. Wrong. We/You still sell the same product, still offer the same service and most likely still do it the same old way, and your employees probably still throw their green tea glass bottles in the regular old waste bin. Until we are straight out forced to change our ways and change our light bulbs, most of us are still going to stick to our comfortable patterns.

I think there really needs to be something Earth-shattering impressive about why we each need to give a darn. Is there a statistic we all need to know? Is there a $ amount out there that each of us will get to put back into our pockets if we go green? When will it become law that we not just go green, but BE green?

It’s definitely a thing of the now and the to be. If you scroll through University Colleges/Course Studies, you will see some variable “go green” studies in their academic offerings. I think that the kids that get in on it now may just be the most hirable candidates in 4 years. Maybe they won’t be getting plowed by Sallie Mae and other private college lenders, and actually be able to pay off their student loans (Ha! That’s a whole other topic---- Barack you better pass that legislation).

But really, all in all, there is so much buzz on green, it can make a person sick… in fact GREEN! With all this talking, is there really all that much doing? A movement, a “change” (the change we just elected for the next 4 years, I quietly remind you), has to start with the people, and right now its only with the white-collared upper class business men… and we all know what has happened by entrusting them. Foreclosure, unemployment and marred credit.

-RW

Commit already!

Why is it that everything and everyone around us “Roaring Twenty-somethings” is screaming commitment? Yet when it comes to relationships and settling on that one and only, our parents shake their finger and tell us, “don’t commit?”

So we’re the generation who has no clue how to balance a check book in the way that our parents do/did. You know, get out the pen and your registrar and sit there balancing your dollars and cents? That takes way too long. We need results now. We don’t have time to line up the tenths column, carry over numbers, add, subtract, sigh, erase, and do it all over again. We just pull out our iPhones, Blackberry’s, and other shiny, sparkly gadgets, feverishly punching away usernames and passwords, hit submit… and POW we have our balanced check-book in the form of a quick online balance. This beat goes on.

We’re also the generation that has been cast with a giant “I” on our Dolce and Gabana $347 ripped-to-shreds, but totally fashionable t-shirt- proclaiming “irresponsible.” You know, the ones that max out credit cards, take out gigantic loans, study abroad all over the world, often have no clue how our grandparents got here, how they worked their tales off to have our parents grow up to be successful, and consequently allow us to live without a single care, or what it may seem.

So in this scattered mess of being given so much freedom, being told since a youngster, “little Suzie/Johnny, you can be whatever you want to be” how the heck were we to believe that we were not unique and therefore the world revolves around us?! (Come on, you know I am kidding here). It was there, planted in that very sentence where our twinkling little eyes began to forecast who and where we are today. We are that group of “roaring twenties,” figuring out who we are. Some of us getting a stroke of luck and landing it big with companies we’ve been recruited into post-internships/college graduations, others being handed the keys to our parents’ business, and some of us, yes the ones with the twinkling flecks in our eyes still thinking that we can be anything… well we are the ones thinking we can live the fast life… spending on credit and living with a beer income and champagne taste.

So where does commitment come into all this you may ask? Our parents seem to be retracting on those whimsical and fantastical words… Oh no no, there is no way that we can just take off and decide to research in Southern France for a couple years, or dig through ancient remains in Egypt, scrutinize poetry and prose at Oxford… or much less “bee-bop” from city to city trying to cultivate ourselves and search for whatever it is the world is missing, that we believe we hold like a golden ticket in our back pocket!

Suddenly we’re being forced to commit… commit to that cubicle, commit to those bills piling up on our little kitchen counters, commit to those student loans, and car payments, commit to corporate hierarchy, wear that stiff white collar and skirt that falls approximately one inch below the knee (as mother told us), commit to the notion that we will be “committing” to this life of six am alarm clocks, clock-ins, clock-outs, half hour lunch breaks (that are spent sitting like a drone in front of our computer), and commit to the fact that we’ll be doing this (assuming we don’t get laid off in this economy) for the next fifteen plus years just to get to the place where we think we can actually be taken seriously and put our thumbprint on something!

We get it, we know we need to respect our elders, put in our dues, learn from those who have walked the same path we are about to go down… but is all this repeating of the same steps really a step in the right direction? Wasn’t it all those people who took a chance on borrowed dimes and credit, bee-bopped from city to city, following their curious mind into the ruins of ancient history, pouring through tethered dog-eared pages to find something that wasn’t previously found or read with the modern mind, wasn’t it those people, those “irresponsible” young adults who went against the grain and found something new, something worth finding and more over something where they could say “ah-ha!”

We are spinning fast now a day. We are trying our darndest (I really can’t believe I just said ‘darndest’) to keep up; keep our finger on the pulse of what will be and what we need to jump in on now. All the while, we’re trying to figure out who it is WE are, what we are good at, what our contribution will be, where it will be and WHO it will be with and for. We are trying to please our parents, please society, commit to those jobs that will pay those bills, that will push us out a little further into the direction that we hope will make us just one step closer to finding out what that golden ticket in our back pocket is. During this mass scramble, where we are being scorned for not committing, and not being more responsible the way our elders did (you know, when they were walking up-hill six miles in the snow, both ways, and when they were taking notes on slates of stone like the Flintstones?) we are trying to stake a claim, and perhaps even trying to hold onto something that we can grow with. Here enters the relationship part. I promise I have a means to this soon-to-be end!

We think we’ve found it… like we think we’ve found the perfect job! We come running home as though we have an A+ and a pretty sticker on our spelling test. We hold on tight to this find, put all our eggs into this basket and think we are in love, have found that soul-mate, and after all we are in our twenties, and isn’t that when our parents got married? So why is it that with all this committing to society, to paying bills, to finding one job and putting your life into it, that when we think we’ve found a person to commit to… our parents tell us something along the lines of ‘the world is your oyster,’ now get out there and don’t settle, you’re too young to be thinking of those things. WHAT?!

I guess it must be the one thing that really is and can be in flux. It is your heart; the one and only thing that can’t really be controlled by the ominous Big Brother. Maybe our parents really are onto something. Maybe they wish they could get back into their irresponsible twenties and just bee-bop from city to city. Could it be that we can commit to the workforce and commit to being a good citizen, and let our hearts run irresponsibly? Is that where we find balance? It doesn’t seem possible to separate the two. Could it be then that they shake their finger at us when we want to proclaim love from a mountaintop because they want more for us, see the potential of where we can go… perhaps believe in the twinkling flecks they placed in our eyes when they said “You can be whatever you want to be.”

So don’t stop at your first chance for love, don’t take time to even slap a Band-Aid on when you fall flat in the face of love, just keep going, run that course, and when its time, when things line up…when you discover that golden ticket, then will the planets align? What comes first is all I can seem to come up with…commit to your heart or commit to your profession…and can the two be synonymous?

-RW