Tag Archives: reading

Adventurous Weekend Waiting

01 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

I bet I’m not the only one who sometimes gets a little anxious or jumpy – impatient even – while waiting for something.  Or someone.  I’m a mostly good-natured person, but I find my patience continues to wane the older I get.  Hmmm, I wonder how I’m going to behave when I’m elderly…Lord willing I live that long.

On Saturday I forced myself out of bed a little earlier than usual.  I’m heading out of town for a few days later this week (woohoo…road trip!) and I knew my car was overdue for an oil change.  I also had a spa appointment later that afternoon – hmmm, maintenance time for both my car and me, too funny!  I knew I needed to get the oil change out of the way first thing, otherwise there was a slight danger I’d procrastinate getting it done yet again.  I know very little about cars but I DO know ya gotta change the oil regularly.   Thankfully I use synthetic oil so I only need to change the oil twice a year.

Now, if there ever was an evil vortex where time slows to a painful crawl, it’s at Jiffy Lube.  And no offense to the nice people who work there, for they are very friendly and personable and do their best to get customers taken care of quickly, but for me I’d rather scrub my bathroom floor 10 times with a toothbrush.  I just DREAD waiting for my car to be serviced.  I feel like a complete sitting duck stuck in a frozen moment of time.  And for a while now they have had these windshield repair guys who “piggy back” and inspect each car’s windshield while it’s getting serviced.  I think they are sub-leasers or something like that.  So not only do I have to sit and wait for my car to be serviced, but I now have some other dude trying to sell me on getting the tiny rock dings and chips in my windshield replaced.  It just feels creepy and weird to me.

Typically I bring a magazine from home to pass the time, as the reading material provided is usually not very appealing to me.  This time I’d forgotten, even though I put the latest Marie Claire right smack on my dining room table near my purse so I wouldn’t forget.  Oh well…thank goodness we have phones, right?  I checked out stuff on Facebook, texted a few friends and even immersed myself in some email newsletter reading.  For the last couple of years I’ve been reading and dabbling a little in learning about Arctic/circumpolar issues – climate change, the indigenous peoples, environmental issues…just a tiny taste to intrigue me and dream of a future trip to Svalbard.  I read through the latest University of the Arctic newsletter and mentally escaped from the dreary orange and brown Jiffy Lube waiting room.

Before I knew it, my car was ready to roll!  I’m so glad I saved those newsletters in my email – I’d considered canceling my subscription as I never seem to have time to read them but I definitely won’t now!  I got the car radiator flushed and filled too – they said it was overdue per my car’s guidelines and I figured OK what the hell, couldn’t hurt.  My car is a champ at 13 years old and I know it’s going to continue to need a lot of care to get the most out of it for as long as it’s worth spending the money to do so.  And I remember one of my brothers (the one I bought this car from) telling me, “Take good care of your equipment and it will take good care of you.”  Makes sense!

I called L out of the blue yesterday, probably while out on the road running errands.  I have a new Bluetooth headset so I’ve been calling people a lot from the road to get feedback on the audio quality and volume as I get used to it.  So far I’m very impressed.  And it even announces when I have a new text message and will read it to me!  How cool is this?  I hadn’t heard from L in a while and I figured he was probably super busy with work – which is great!  Turns out he was on business in Chicago and was planning to fly back the next day (today) and asked if I would pick him up at the airport.  We planned on grabbing lunch somewhere and just getting caught up.

Evil time-slows-to-a-painful-crawl-vortex Exhibit B:  The Sea-Tac airport cell phone parking lot.   My God, if there ever was a sign of how times have changed with air travel, this is one of them.  I’m old enough to remember my folks driving me to the airport just to go watch airplanes take off and land – no kidding!  So fun!  And when air travel meant dressing up.  Even my youngest brother at around age 5 was in a suit and adorable little clip-on tie when we’d go visit relatives on the east coast or on family vacations.  This was the late 1970s, by the way!

The last time I was in the cell phone parking lot was…oh man…over a year ago when I was picking up the guy I was dating at the time after he’d been in Australia for two weeks.  What a difference a year and some makes!!  Now here I was – with that issue of Marie Claire I’d forgotten to bring along for the oil change – waiting for my guy BFF’s flight to arrive.  If you have not yet read my post about L and me and how we got reconnected after a gap of several years you really do need to check it out here.

Every woman needs a wonderful, straight male friend in her life.  L is gold to me.  He opens up and shares the most mind-blowing and amazing things about who he is and what’s going on with his life and his passions, dreams and goals.  I feel so honored to be a safe place for him to be able to open up like that.  I know how different men and women are…as women, we thrive on deep, emotional connections and revealing a lot with each other right away.  With men it’s very different…the warrior is wired to instinctively conceal, not reveal.  ‘Tis true!

One of the things I love about L is how so spontaneous he is.  He helps me lighten up (I tend to be a planner and envy those who just fly by the seat of their pants).  When he asked if I was hungry I said YES and we talked about where to grab a late lunch as I sped us back up the freeway toward Seattle.  As I was parking my car he noticed my extremely dusty dashboard and playfully wrote “dust me, bitch” and his name.  Hilarious!  OK, OK, I get the point…the car dashboard is dusty!

We ended up at the Hale’s Ales Pub in Seattle.  It’s right in between the Fremont and Ballard neighborhoods.  And WOW, the memories here run deep.  I’d not been to this place since probably the late 1990s.  I was living in the Magnolia neighborhood and working downtown, commuting by bus.  Oh how I miss those days sometimes.  Anyway, a lot of my co-workers became pretty tight friends back then, and we were always hungry for a new spot to go out to eat and drink.  We pretty much LIVED at Hale’s once we discovered it.  And now fast forward 15+ years, here I was with L.  It was just how I remembered it!

And I must have been hungrier than I thought…L chose a Reuben sandwich with Jo Jo’s, and I had a small cup of smoked salmon clam chowder (LOVE this stuff – L grabbed an extra spoon and tried some too), a burger and a small Caesar salad.  Polished off with a damn good Bloody Mary for me and a Holsch beer for L.  I sure won’t need a full dinner tonight!

L told me all about his Chicago trip – seeing his parents, client visits, potential new business, etc.  He also wants to get back to work scraping the popcorn ceiling in my townhouse – a hellacious, messy, laborious project if there ever was.  He’s a saint for helping me.  He wants to get back in the gym regularly and even asked me, “so when are you going to get back in shape, fivenineteen?  You’re a beautiful woman.”  I blushed and said thank you. Just to put this in context, L and I first met about 8 years ago when I was, well, 8 years younger and about 35 lbs slimmer, after a 6-month journey of lots of walking to drop weight.  Long story, but life goes on and the pounds creep up.  Playing hockey once a week does not do the trick for me.

Maybe I’ll make a vow to myself to start hitting the gym again this summer while it’s their slower season.  Oh wait…it IS summer…it’s July 1!  No more excuses.

Finding Strengths

08 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

I thought STRENGTH would be a great topic to blog about this weekend, given we have both Passover AND Easter right smack on the same weekend.  How often does that happen?  I bet an online search could figure that out in a few minutes.

…but OK, back on track here.  Let’s try not to do a wackadoodle tangent too soon shall we?

I gotta hand it to my friend D for recommending not one but TWO great books to me.  She’s a bold, joyous and wonderful soul, not really caring that I tell her quite often that I’m not an avid book reader.  I’m just not.  After being on a computer all day I like to escape with some silly TV or maybe some magazine reading or catalogue browsing.  I know, not the best brain cell exercising.  Maybe D just knows deep down I’m going be curious and want to read what she recommends anyway.  She’s right!

So here we go.  What are YOUR strengths?  Pick up StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath and get ready to find out.  Buckle up, because this is not your typical book.

Why not?  Well, the first 30 of the 175 pages are the required reading.  The rest of the book reviews themes – 34 talents most common in human behavior that are indicative of success.  When you are done with the questionnaire within this book you’ll know your top 5 of these 34 that are uniquely YOU. 

The idea is to focus on what’s RIGHT with people, rather than fixing our weaknesses.  “People have several times more potential for growth when they invest energy in developing their strengths instead of correcting their deficiencies,” writes Rath.  He calls doing otherwise “The path of MOST resistance.” 

Rath goes on to explain how most learning programs focus on helping us become what we are NOT.  Do you suck at numbers?  Spend time in that area and get a degree already.  Are you not very empathetic?  You’ll get sent to a course designed to make you more of an empathetic type.  He goes on to explain how we even make icons of people who struggle to overcome a lack of natural talent.  Anyone remember the early 1990s film Rudy?  I never saw it myself, but Rath uses it as a glorious Exhibit A.  Rudy Ruetigger was a groundskeeper at Notre Dame.  At 5′ 6″ and 165 lbs he wasn’t the type physically to play college football, but he had big ‘heart.’  He worked tirelessly to gain admission to Notre Dame.  Rejected three times in the process.  He joined the practice football team.  Took a beating daily in practices for years but never got to join his team on the sidelines.  

Finally he is allowed to suit up for the last game of his senior year. In the last moments of the game, with a Notre Dame win comfortably guaranteed, his teammates lobby the coach to put him in.  Rudy goes in for a single play…and tackles the opposing team’s quarterback.

Of course Rudy becomes an instant hero – the fans cheer his name and carry him off the field.  He’s invited to meet President Clinton, Colin Powell and the legendary Joe Montana.  Says Rath:  “While Rudy’s perseverance is admirable, in the end, he played a few seconds of college football and made a single tackle…after thousands of hours of practicing.” 

Hope no one is upset about the spoiler here.  After all, this movie’s been out nearly 20 years!  And it’s a true story too.

“You can be anything you want to be.”  Can we?  Rath suggests on the contrary that…

You cannot be anything you want to be, but you CAN be a lot more of who you already are.

Are you intrigued?  So was I.  And, a tad relieved I didn’t have to read the entire book – true confession.  What also was different about this book is that there’s an important, sealed insert which has a unique access key to the StrengthsFinder website.  You’ll create an account on that website and then start the questionnaire.

What the questionnaire does is capture your instinctual, first in your head responses.  You only have 20 seconds to respond to each item.  Now, there are no questions about your education or degree or anything you would typically put on a resume.  You won’t be asked about your skills, like writing software code, driving a truck or selling a product.  Your questionnaire results will identify your innate talents, which are less likely to change over time.  These talents (themes) each come with a few examples of what they “sound like,” ideas for action to further capitalize upon them, and recommendations on working more effectively with those with that particular theme or talent (where it’s not necessarily one of yours).  This is a highly recommended exercise for work teams to gain a deeper understanding of one another, hence the “working with” suggestions too.

And, allow me to share my top 5!  I smiled as I read through these, as I really do think they are ME.

Woo:  People who are especially talented in the Woo theme love the challenge of meeting new people and winning them over.  They derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection with another person.

Communication:  People who are especially talented in the Communication theme generally find it easy to put their thoughts into words.  They are good conversationalists and presenters.

Positivity:  People who are especially talented in the Positivity theme have an enthusiasm that is contagious.  They are upbeat and can get others excited about what they are going to do.

Arranger:  People who are especially talented in the Arranger theme can organize, but they also have a flexibility that compliments this ability.  They like to figure out how all of the pieces and resources can be arranged for maximum productivity.

Achiever:  People who are especially talented in the Achiever theme have a great deal of stamina and work hard.  They take great satisfaction from being busy and productive.

Oh, and what was that black object doing on the cover of this book at the top of this post?  That’s a rock I found on a window sill in my guest bedroom…part of a collection I purchased as part of a hearth candle display.  I found it yesterday as I wandered into that bedroom and smiled looking down at my neighbor and his brother who have been wonderful getting my back deck power washed and re-stained in anticipation of spring and summer.  I clenched the rock in my hands and smiled.  And then, I opened my hand and look at the word etched on it.

STRENGTH.

Don’t Make Assumptions

18 Sunday Dec 2011

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

OK, last week’s mental vacay was exactly what I needed.  Time to re-focus on this mini 4-week blogging project…where are we now?  Oh yeah, Week #3.  Andddd, only a couple weeks behind given Tangent Time and my vacay.  This is part of what I love about blogging – no worries on things being behind because it’s just my words and the small handful of you who even read this or stumble in here accidentally.  Welcome…and welcome back, by the way!

So, cyber throat clearing, we’re on the 3rd of the Four Agreements book by Don Miguel Ruiz.

Don’t Make Assumptions.  Ruiz opens this chapter with a great summary:  “Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want.  Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama.  With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.”

So simple, and yet so profound.  That’s what I’ve really enjoyed about this book…it’s easy to read but mind blowing too.  Definitely one to keep on the nightstand, for I always discover new gems when I read chapters I’ve already read before.

All the sadness and drama in our lives stems from us making assumptions and taking things personally.  (Don’t take things personally is the Second Agreement, by the way.  That was a great one to ramble on about a few weeks back in here.)  See how these Agreements tend to build one upon the other?  Pretty cool. 

The poison that is called gossip – this is how we communicate in the dream of Hell, as Ruiz explains.  Because we are afraid to ask for clarification, we make assumptions, and we believe we are right about our assumptions; then we defend our assumptions and try to make someone else wrong. 

How often have we all made an assumption about something or someone, only to have been totally wrong later?  Our bubble bursts and we get mad, sad and the drama starts.  But let’s back up a minute…why do we even make assumptions in the first place?

Ruiz explains:  “It is very interesting how the human mind works.  We have the need to justify everything, to explain and understand everything, in order to feel safe.  We have millions of questions that need answers because there are so many things that the reasoning mind cannot explain.  It is not important if the answer is correct; just the answer itself will make us feel safe.” 

So if someone doesn’t tell us something (and we don’t ask) we make assumptions and believe our own assumptions.  We also make assumptions about things we hear but don’t understand.  What a big, ticking time bomb this can be in relationships!!  Damn, haven’t we all been guilty of assuming our partner knows want we want, whatever it is?  “You should have known.”  Lovely way to start an argument.  We blame our partner but in reality we have no one to blame but ourselves.  We didn’t ask!

We don’t always ask partly because we assume that people see the world the same way we do…think the way we think, feel the way we feel, judge the way we judge and even abuse the way we abuse.  Ruiz says this is the biggest assumptions we humans make about one another.

Anyone else out there guilty of getting into a romantic relationship with someone, thinking your love will change them, change the things you don’t like about that person (and even deny there are maybe huge things out there that you don’t like about him/her?).  Raises hand…yep I sure have.  The truth is my love will not change anyone.  Neither will your love either, by the way.  Ruiz even quips that “real love is accepting other people the way we are without trying to change them.  If we try to change them, this means we don’t really like them.” I’m not sure I am 100% on board with that last sentence…need more thinking time here I guess.  Sure if there are huge things we don’t like then we have to wonder why we’re even involved in a relationship with that person.  But if it’s something silly like I don’t like the way he squeezes the tube of toothpaste?  Annoying maybe, but not a deal breaker.  Honey, can’t you squeeze the tube from the bottom, not the middle?  You won’t?  OK, I’m outta here.  Ridiculous, right?  I’m pretty sure that’s not what Ruiz meant…it’s just my mind conjuring up a funny scenario like that.  

Ask questions!  This is Ruiz’s wise advice to us all. Once we hear the answer we will not have to make assumptions because we will know the truth. 

But we need the courage to ask for what we want.  Sure, it one’s right to tell us yes or no, but that’s also true for what others ask of us.  The Right to Ask is everyone’s Right.  I’ve chickened out of asking sometimes throughout my life, I admit, and a lot of times when I’m dating someone.  Why?  Was I afraid of what the answer might be (as in NO)?  Was I afraid of being rejected, and even at risk of ‘losing’ that person out of my life?  Didn’t want to rock the boat?  Wasn’t sure how to articulate what I wanted and didn’t want to risk being seen as stupid, needy, high maintenace, whatever?  Yep, probably.  Aha, I assumed how the person would react and therefore did nothing and probably got resentful later.  BINGO. 

So once again, Ruiz nails it with another great chapter in his book.  I’m going to continue working on this – it’s a lifelong process for sure – and find the inner courage to ask, ask, ask!