Monday, November 02, 2009
On What "More Awesome" Means
The stated goal of this blog is to assist me in making my life more awesome. "More awesome," however, is a rather subjective qualifier. Parachuting from a zeppelin onto a 50-foot-tall Christopher Walken while wearing an outrageously flattering cocktail dress and armed only with spike heels and a katana would certainly be more awesome than my life is now, but that's not the sort of result I demand from daily blogging. (Although I'll take it if I can get it.) I thought it might be useful to define exactly the sort of changes I need to make in my life.
My first issue is one of confidence. When I put my mind to it, I have a knack for finding a way to do whatever I damn well please, ignoring most obstacles and all naysayers. Trouble is, I've been afraid to put my mind to it of late. I've had some setbacks that took me down a peg or two too far, and now I need to reclaim the self-assured fearlessness that led me onstage and to France and to narrowly escape trespassing charges and so on.
Here's what I want to do with all that confidence: I want to write nonfiction and short fiction. I want to be published. I want to go to graduate school to research medieval French and English, and I want to earn my doctorate in Linguistics. I want to travel all over the world. I want to teach at a college somewhere I actually want to live. I want to sing in a good choir, and I also want to start a band or a jazz combo to do some gigs for fun. I eventually want to get married and raise children. I want to be closer to the people I love and build better relationships with my friends. I want to get good at aikido and keep up swing dancing. And I want to do it all without compromising my principles or abandoning the weirdness and adventurousness that are my favorite things about me.
I expect this exercise to assist me in several ways. First off, it will help me prove to myself that I can follow through on projects. I have a fairly short attention span and a bad habit of becoming passionately interested in things that I later drop for my next passionate interest. It's time I made that passion productive. Second, it's an opportunity to write for an audience, even an audience of illusory internet people. I want to keep the personal content secondary to essays and commentary and eventually to create something that someone who didn't know me would still want to read. Third, it's a way to create accountability, both to myself and to all you illusory internet people.
In that vein, I have a challenge for you. I'm sure all of you have some aspect of your life with which you are not satisfied, just like I want (among scads of other things) to write more. Share that in the comments (it's okay, it's not like the internet is real life or anything.) This month, let's all get off our asses and do something about it finally. That, my illusory internet friends, would be more awesome.
Labels: challenge
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I want a huge team working with me at a business that's good for them, their families, and our clients, and I want to be able to share the benefits and the success of that with my Cap'n and my adopted family. Also, I want to get to be able to teach Aikido and earn black belts (or equivalent) in that and at least one other martial art. Also, I want to get married and go on an extravagant honeymoon to some wierd-ass or intriguing foreign place. Also, I want to be able to facilitate the goals of future spouse and have what will be generally accepted as a grand old time.
Love this, Susan; it's very inspiring! I want to get back up to the Chicago-Madison area and properly start my post-college life. I want to continue honing my craft in theatre, primarily theatre direction. I want to get some serious world travel in, and get the inspiration to finish the many original plays and screenplays I still have stuck in my head. I want to get a Masters in film direction, and expand my work into that genre. Eventually, I want to become enough of a success that I can bring my friends in on the action. I also want to found a minority-focused theatre company, preferably in a place I'd want to live in for some time, and at some point work for Playboy Enterprises, in some capacity. All while keeping fit, learning new and various dance techniques to riff off of, and learning at least one martial art.
Whew--it feels good just writing all that down. We should encourage and help each other!
With love,
Chris
I want to teach high school history and make a difference in the lives of kids. I want to get back into costuming and theater. I want to get married, buy a house, and have children, and I want to have economic stability. I want to spend time experimenting with sustainable living - gardening, cooking, 'natural' cleaning, farming, making my own home products. I want to travel to amazing, far-off places.
Wow, this really is inspiring.
Samantha
I want write works of fiction that will have lasting power. I want to create a place for myself in literary and theater circles. I want to break from the bad habits, lazy tendencies, and self-destructive behaviors I used to indulge in. I want to learn a language or three. I want to move to Europe to write plays and gain experiences from which I can draw inspiration for the next great American novel. I want to keep singing, no matter how much better other people are than I am. I want to keep my standards and general expectations for life and not compromise them based on the input of others.
I like this, Sooz. You're a neat role model.