Someday Syndrome

I Should be a Travel Agent

I'm so excited. I have something new to look forward to. Yes, I know I'm supposed to live in the moment, but it's not a big thing I'm anticipating. It's a tour around some of eastern Europe with Cate this July and August.

After an hour of searching discount airline flights, coordinating two people arriving from different places (and time zones) and trying to figure out which rail passes work best for the countries we want, I'm beat.

Actually my eyes are beat. I'm feeling major eyestrain right now.

But I'm hugely excited! Yay for traveling!

Someday Lessons:

• Even when you live in the moment, it's good to have events to look forward to.
• For someone who likes planning, searching the Internet for deals produces an incredible rush.

Punch a Hole in Your Life

Fellow organizer and blogger, Monica Ricci, recently broke a board with her hand in front of 25,000 people. She was at a seminar and threw herself forward as a volunteer (Monica's not the shy type). Then guided by the speaker, she smashed that piece of wood.

She did it because she believed she could.

I couldn't, especially not in front of 25,000 people. I could do many things in front of that crowd: talk, entertain, do a silly dance, but break a board with my hand? Not on your life.

I'm not a physical person, never have been. I was the one who went over to Grandma's to bake cookies instead of helping Grandpa or Dad with all the physical things around the property.

I'm also the born pacifist. I've never been able to throw a punch that didn't have all the energy absorbed back into my body before it connected. Even in my dreams if I hit someone, my punches only tap the person.

I'm not weak. After three years of rock climbing, I'm actually quite strong. I'm just conditioned to always choose the non-physical option.

This is one of the reasons why I'm working on organic farms. I'm going to have to be very physical and I'm not going to be able to say "I don't feel like it today."

Why am I doing this? Because I have the opportunity to change my conceptions of who I am. I've never been physical, so I choose a very physical job to pursue. I'm going to love it (plus get a kick ass body!).

Maybe you've never been single and facing a break up – choose to be alone and love it.

Maybe you've never traveled – book a trip to Australia.

Or maybe you've never admitted to yourself that you have a dream you're not following. Tell someone then fulfill it.

As I've said before, find your biggest fear and pursue the crap out of it.

Someday Lessons:

• We are who we decide we are.
• Go do something no one in a million years would think you would ever do.

Let's Get Connectin'

In September, I talked about how single childless people have it easy organizationally. A commentor added that she actually was more organized because she was dating. Her girlfriend's visits meant she kept the house more organized.

On Sunday before my cousins came over, I purged the dis from disorder and ended up with an organized home only because I had visitors.

The same goes for my writing, and my blogging. When I tell stories just for myself, I don't write them down. They evolve in my head giving me hours of reviewing pleasure. But if I want to share a story with others, I have to organize my thoughts and write down the story, committing it to a certain order.

And blogging. If I was blogging just for myself, I wouldn't. A blog for one is a diary and I've never been good at keeping a diary. I blog because I want to share and to interact.

I've been very good at the sharing part, but not so hot with the interacting. As I said a few days ago, I don't comment on others' blogs much. So today I started up again, reading blogs and commenting on them. I enjoyed myself and I plan on doing it again tomorrow.

One thing I noticed about the blogs I really enjoyed commenting on. They were ones where the blogger acknowledged comments and engaged in a conversation with people.

So guess what? From now on I'm going to respond to every comment, because I want us to interact. I want to know who reads this. I want you to tell me about your challenges and your successes.

Tell me things! Share your stories! Ask me questions!

Together let's create a Someday Syndrome community.

Someday Lessons:

• We all need community and community comes from making connections.
• What communities do you belong to and how are you connected to them?

Is It Sustainable?

It's one thing to create optimism, to find something to be excited about and be inspired. It's something else altogether to maintain it.

Like being organized (which is 95% maintenance) sustaining a sense of optimism and energy is difficult. Things get in your way. You get distracted, you get bored.

In writing my novel, I've been quite optimistic about it. I written almost every day and when I'm not writing I'm thinking about the characters and where the story is going. I've already written more than I've ever written before on a single piece of fiction.

It's also helping me understand this blog more. It's giving me perspective on how to write these Lessons. When I write fiction I submerge myself in the story and the characters. When I write this blog I focus on the theme and the possible lessons that I can pull out of it.

This blog, as much as I enjoy it, in comparison (I know: "Don't compare!") to my fiction lacks a spark. My optimism towards this blog has diminished as a result. You can tell because I have not been as diligent about my daily postings as I was in the beginning.

It's normal to be excited about something at the beginning and for that excitement to wane as time passes. It's easy to not pay attention to that waning excitement and to continue plodding along losing more and more optimism until whatever you were originally excited about grinds to a halt.

What you do affects others, and likely at some point you will meet resistance, which will hugely zap your optimism levels. Try to understand why the resistance has come up. Is it something in you or is it something in the other person? Can you do something about it without sacrificing your goals or ideals? Or do you just have to acknowledge that the other person will continue to resist? You cannot change how other people feel or act. That is up to them. If you are clear, honest and have integrity, hopefully that person will see it and if not come to support you, at least not actively resist you.

Someday Lessons:

• Not everyone will be happy with what you do. If you believe in yourself, you'll be fine.
• Optimism isn't created once and stays with you forever. It needs periodic energy boosts.

Lunch Today:
(Actually yesterday because this is yesterday's post). Ate at a café because I spent too much time in the morning writing.

Why I Love France

I love it here because I see things that just fill me with passion and happiness. For example, here's someone who intrigued me when I was out at a café writing today. If I was a visual artist, I would have sketched him. Instead I did a word painting.

He stands by the lotto counter, watching the latest numbers come up on the television screen above us. He's typical old-school French. A beret perches on his head and a stub of a small cigar angles up out of his underbite jaw and chipmunk jowls. He has crisp white hair and a neat full beard. His skin is sun worn. His clothes are formal despite the slightly downtrodden look of the bar. He wears a tan blazer, black pants, patent leather shoes with leather and wood soles and a white shirt. His only concession to modernity is the lack of an ascot.

I see people like this and all other types (except non-Caucasians, southwest France isn't very multicultural) every day. I itch to draw them, so instead I describe them in my mind. Today it ended up on paper. People like him are why I love France.

Nine other reasons why I love France:

• The mountains that surprise me with their size when the clouds clear off the peaks.
• The winding roads that show me hidden pockets of beauty.
• The people who invite me places having spoken to me just once.
• The Basque culinary delights: Gateau, Sauce & Wine.
• The old mill house alone at the bottom of a valley I walk through.
• The casualness with which medieval buildings mix ancient stone, IKEA furniture and 1950s kitsch.
• The clouds that boil like grey lava above me or dash across the sky in fluffy games of tag.
• The rain that comes and goes with or without sun ten times a day.
• The freshness of the food. Meats that have real flavor. The full-fat cheeses. And the that-day picked vegetables.

Someday Lesson (only one today):
Find passion for life in the little things around you.

Lunch Today:
Sausage Ragout

Lower Your Expectations

My siblings and I have a lot to live up to. Our parents are super-smart, artistic, socially aware and adept (most of the time), and more physically active than a toddler after too much sugar. They see the best in every situation and the good in everyone.

My dad (in no particular order) is a scientist, activist, pen & watercolor artist, and a renovator extraordinaire. At 73, he is on the go from 8:30am to 5:30pm every day.

My mom (also in no particular order) is an entrepreneur, activist, textile & fabric artist, and a gracious hostess with the mostest. She's 70 and has never let anyone tell her she can't do something.

For a costume party I had this summer, my mom came as a biker chick (including fishnets and tattoos) and my dad as a Willie Nelson elf (that would be an elf that looked like Willie Nelson).

Sometimes, it's exhausting and frustrating being their children. Over the years I've learned something: I'm not them and they don't expect me to be. But I expect me to be. I compare myself to them.

Comparisons, however, just invite doubt in myself and conjure negativity.

To live successfully, I need to figure out what I like, what I want, and what are my limits.

Living for ten years in pain with fibromyalgia, I learned how to do nothing. I gave up expectations that I couldn't reach. When I started my own business, I also started heaping the expectations back on. I should build my business quickly. I should not rely on debt so much. I should work harder, longer, smarter.

After three years of these shoulds, I had reduced organizing to numbers. Clients that I loved helping became income generators and I hated searching out new clients. I was expecting too much from myself.

One colleague told me after I made my decision to move to France that she was relieved. When she had heard me talking about numbers rather than people, she prayed that I'd realize I was sucking the soul out of something I loved doing.

When deciding what I wanted to do, I didn't come up with a list of ten things, or create an impossibly high wall I needed to climb. I came up with one thing: I wanted to move to France to write.

For most people, however, life is full of necessities that block that kind of grand gesture (especially if you include a spouse and/or children in the decision). Instead, many of us try to squeeze a whole bunch of little things into our limited calendars then become disappointed, disillusioned and despairing.

Choosing what you want to do and doing that should be about creating positive energy and optimism, no despair. So garbage the comparisons and the extreme expectations.

So, go on, start with the garbaging already.

Someday Lessons:

1. Don't compare yourself to others; each of us is incomparable.
2. Despite all the superhero myths, we are human; don't overdo the personal expectations.

Lunch Today:
Was helping friends move, so a bakery-bought Croque Monsieur. Dinner, however, was Parmesan Guacamole spread on pieces of bread.