What A Difference A Couple of Days and A Couple of Friends Makes

 If you noticed (and if you read my blog at all, noticed), I wasn't having the best of times a couple of days ago.  Indeed, a couple of days ago I found myself wildly ranting to my co-worker about how I did not have a back-up plan for not being accepted to schools and how it was absolutely not acceptable that I had not planned for all eventualities that could occur in this phase of my life.  It was a rant, when boiled down to its heart, about the lack of control that I had over my life and how I needed to know what to do.  (In fact, it involved me practically bellowing, at least three discrete times, "I don't know what to do, but I need to know what to do."

Most people who know me, in any context, know I'm not the sort of person who feels lost.  I'm the sort of person who usually has a plan--any kind of plan--that she feels secure about.  And a couple of contingency plans in case the original one goes wrong.  (And as secure as I may be about some of my plans, they do periodically have a tendency to go wrong.)  I'm a fan of a certain amount of self-structure.  

But there are some things even the greatest architects build and there are some lives that refuse to be structured because people are building them the wrong way.  And what I've been freaking out about is the equivalent of builders worrying about a complete house before the foundation has even finished drying.  I recognized that when I read Katya's comment.  Lately, I've been allowing myself to fall prey to one of my most prominent flaws: a distinct lack of impatience and a stubborn adherence to the plan I want to happen.  Thank you for putting that into perspective.

My parents reassured me about things yesterday, but I have to admit that when it comes to matters like these, they sometimes don't count as much as they should.  Because they're my parents and they have to reassure me, right?  But there are a number of other people who have reassured me I'll be fine that had no stake in the matter.

And the best helps have been those friends who have chatted with me, letting me know they think I'm brilliant.  And not allowing me to make any of my usual cracks about my intelligence levels, because they know such self-deprecation won't help me right now.  My future is still uncertain, but I realize now I don't have to face that uncertainty completely alone.  I have a support system.  A darn good one.

Because sometimes I feel such a need to be a solitary creature, I forget that Heavenly Father sent us to this earth to associate with other people.  So they could lift us and we could lift them, each in our own turn.  I've discovered this weekend that I'd much rather be doing than lifting than be the lifted, but I also think I've been learning an eternal lesson here: we can't always be on the giving end.

We also need to learn to be graciously grateful in the receiving.  

Removing My [Metaphorical] Glasses (Because If I Removed the Real Ones, I'd Have Some Sight Problems)

I do not have particular patience with people who are overly eager to please.  When people seem to be trying that hard, I tend to get a little suspicious.  If they want to please me that badly, they obviously have something to hide, right?

 

Consider this entry your blog to the cynical Katie.  The one who occasionally wins out over the more dominant facet of the personality that wants to believe that all people are good, that the world is full of warm fuzzies waiting to happen, that you don't need to view life through rose-colored glasses because the world is naturally rose-colored.

 

The Cynic is poking her head out more often these days as I become more disillusioned with a number of things.  The current disillusionment with workforce brown-nosers stems from my job. 

 

When I graduated, I figured I wanted to find an equivalent of the last job I'd held during college.  A job that was equal parts people and project.  Human Resources seemed so ideal.  Until it became less people and more project.  And until the people became project.  (Interpretation: "At her current position, Katie feels the human part of human resources is slowly falling by the wayside while she tries to pretend that statistics about human are an adequate stand-in for the real thing.  But she truly knows they aren't.")

 

I need to find ways of re-establishing a human connection, but I'm fresh out of ideas and my prevailing mood of disillusionment and cynicism is not being helped by people I help, only to find them sniping behind my back later.  Or worse yet, exerting a valiant effort so that they later don't have to exert that effort.  All of the corporate brown-nosers have inevitably assumed positions as backbiters.  And gossips.

 

It all seemed so temporary before, but now that half of my graduate schools have rejected me, a life spent in the corporate environment is becoming more and more real.  Dreadfully real. 

 

I didn't think I would need a contingency plan.  But now I'm beginning to wish I'd planned for contingencies.  But I still have two as-yet-unreceived letters.  Two papery potentials.

 

And I'm afraid they'll explode in my face, and I will then have no ideas what to do with myself.  Indeed, I'm expecting them to explode in my face.  And then I'm expecting to feel lost.  Because that's how life works lately.

 

Ideas, anyone?

The Edge to the Impatience is Slowly Rubbing Down

Are you tired of hearing intermittent updates about my graduate school status? If so, you have two choices: 1) stop reading or 2) keep reading. Be forewarned, though, that option 2 will make you roll your eyes and feel even more tired of these updates.

Portland State finally wrote back. They said, "Thanks, but no thanks." But they were much more validating than that, something I appreciated. My mom called me a few minutes ago to tell me the letter had arrived, and I asked her to open and read it because I didn't have any particular desire to wait another two days to see what it said.

I applied to a writing program there, and the letter basically said that after careful review, the faculty felt my style and work weren't compatible with their work, but that they encouraged me in all of my future endeavors and wanted me to know that some of the writing classes were open to not-enrolled students--that is, if the professors liked their writing. (And I'm guessing at least a couple of professors approved, since I got a much more personal rejection from them than I received from Chicago) But I don't think I'm going to relocate to Portland just to take sporadic classes.

But as I said, the up side of that letter is that I received a good deal of validation--something everyone dearly needs, but really hates to admit to needing.

So two down. And two to go.

And if neither of them accept me, I really need to figure out my contingency plan.

Pan Ecstasy, or Sharing What Little I Have

When I first moved into my current apartment in February, I brought a boatload of books with me. (Actually, probably more than a boatload, but that's not the point of this blog entry.) I brought a bed, a desk, two bookshelves to house the books (and I still need the shelf space the desk affords, even with my two shelves), and a dresser. In addition, I had some towels. A few odds and ends. And I had one contribution for the kitchen: a Paul Revere 12" (at least, I'm pretty sure that's what size it is, but I've never actually measured it) skillet.

I felt bad that I didn't have more kitchenware to contribute, but everything in my last apartment had belonged to my roommate. Everything except that skillet. As I unpacked, I cringed every time I unpacked another box that didn't have anything I could share.

And then I unpacked the skillet and brought it out to the kitchen. I apologized to my roommate that it was the only thing I had to share, and I waited for a request to "go buy some dishes or something." It didn't come.

(I had the nerve to think it was just a pan. I should have known better, especially considering my accord with the writers of Finding Neverland that "just" is "a horrible, candle-snuffing word.")

Instead, I witnessed no small amount of glee. In fact, I have never--and I mean NEVER--seen someone grow so excited over any type of kitchen implement. She glowed as she talked about all of the things she could make with that pan, because they just didn't fit in the small pans they already owned.

This, my friends, was pan ecstasy.

And all of a sudden, I felt very good. Because I had caused it. Merely by bringing one kitchen pan.

I've been thinking about this recently whenever I find myself in a setting where I feel I have little to contribute. Where my offering, such as it is, seems relatively small when compared with the offering of others.

At times like these, I think of that pan. And I remember the delight my other roommate felt when she came home from visiting her family and saw it for the first time.

Sometimes, all we have to offer is a 12" skillet. And more often than we realize, our skillet is enough.

Genuine Individuals

Humble, it is not, but I have to say: I'm rather proud of myself for only missing one talk of all four of Saturday and Sunday's General Conference sessions.  It was no mean feat for a girl who has been suffering from a nasty cold.  (Although I won't complain too much as I'm pretty sure my cold is just a cold, whereas my roommate has recently been diagnosed with walking pneumonia.  Don't worry.  She's not contagious anymore.  And it's not like you can catch anything from either of us just by reading my blog.)

Anyway, I enjoyed General Conference, and something that stuck out to me was a particular emphasis on the individual.  Heavenly Father values individuals.  The Church values individuals.  It is important to pay attention to the one; many gospel stories are about the actions of individuals contrary to crowds.  

In a student ward, it is easy to fill lost and unknown.  But I received a reminder these last two days that Heavenly Father is always aware of individuals and, by extension, most of his servants are too.

Today, one of my roommate's former roommates came over and watched Conference with us.  We ate lunch together between sessions, and I said something my roommate perceived as being stereotypically me.  "Katie," she said, "You're a genuine individual."  I smiled, because I knew that was her way of telling me nobody else thought or talked quite like I do.  But then I got to thinking.  (Yes, yes, dangerous pastime, I know)

Aren't we all genuine individuals?

No two people on this whole planet are exactly alike.  Not even identical twins.  All of us have different personalities, different tastes, different passions.  All of us have unique ways of expressing ourselves.  All of us are, in short, genuine individuals.

And ironically enough, though the world encourages individuality with its voices, it tends to pay much more heed to the crowd.  In the process, I'm afraid genuine individuals try to shed their genuine individuality in favor of something that will act as crowd camouflage.  And if Heavenly Father had intended us to all be the same, He would have created a bunch of clones--don't you think?

That's why I liked the emphasis on the one during this General Conference.  The scriptures advise us to be "in the world, but not of the world."  Part of what I glean from this admonishment is that we are to stay true to our values and ourselves, despite what the crowd thinks.  Even sometimes when we thought the crowd had the same standards we did.  Was is "that Polonius dude" who said "To thine own self be true?"

If we've been receiving the counsel and advice from this many sources for this long, how long will it actually take us to be ourselves and ignore all of the other voices?

Again I say: we are all genuine individuals.

And that fact makes someone we know smile every day.

(Trust me.  Just ask my roommates.)

Fun with Books

Th. told me to, so here goes.

I intended to do this while at work, but realized none of the HR books lurking around my office are more than 120 pages long.  (Which is probably a good thing, or I'd spend all of my time at work reading, maintaining that it was "research" and I was improving my value to the company.)

Anyway, the nearest book turned out be Jasper Fforde's Something Rotten, and the magic sentence is:

"Can't wait.  Hubba-hubba!  Who's the moppet in the tight blouse?"

All right, so that's three.  But they're all short and on the same line.

And all of a sudden, this book seems a lot more risque than it actually is . . .

Thoughts on Happiness

I have been thinking quite a lot about happiness recently. This is, I suppose, an inevitable result of feeling unhappy with a couple of life situations that are, at the moment, completely out of my control. Neither of these things are things I can change, but I have allowed the two to shove me down a spiral of sadness and misery. I am working at letting myself be happy regardless, but it’s more difficult than it seems.

In addition to this situational thinking, The Dancing Newt and Schmetterling and Eric Weiner and, unwittingly, my roommate have all written, said, or done something recently that set me thinking even more about happiness. (This post of Schmetterling’s actually came when I thought I had ended said thinking riff. And set me thinking all over again. But more on what he said later.)

Anyway, the thinking started last Friday, when my roommate came home from a swing dance date as giddy as I’ve ever seen her. And she’s a happy person. Anyway, she wanted to keep dancing around and before I knew it, our other roommate had started playing the song “Happiness” from You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

And that started it all: the premise of the song “Happiness” is that happiness comes as a result of small things. Charlie Brown starts off the song, because he’s ecstatic to learn that the redheaded girl chews her pencil, and that means she’s human! (Personally, I think chewing pencils is a bad, nervous habit. One I have. And am reminded of when I see anyone else chewing a pencil.) The song goes on to list several small things as happiness: pizza with sausage, learning to whistle, five different crayons, tying your shoes, even in being alone now and then. (My favorite line, by far, that: I find myself craving solitude sometimes, and need a certain amount of “me” time to be sane and content) It culminates in the idea that happiness is anything an individual loves—whether it’s people, food, or a place. While I found this a good idea, I found the opposite eqeually true: even things people love are known to cause disappointment.

Speaking of place, Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World continued to spur on my preponderance of ponderings about happiness as I read it last week. Weiner set out to explore the reverse of the maxim that happiness isn’t a state; it’s a state of mind. There is a whole branch of psychology devoted to studying happiness, and they have a way of ranking places based on how they rank on a happiness scale. (The United States, incidentally, does not rank as high on the happy scale as I expected)

He explored places like Bhutan, where they try to measure Gross National Happiness—because the government thinks it a better indicator than GDP. (Incidentally, happiness as policy connected to this post by my Newt-y friend.) He visited Iceland, a remarkably happy place, due in part to its creativity and its attitude that its citizens are allowed to fail and change. Indeed, failure and change are expected. And he visited Moldova, where it was miserable—but the fruits and vegetables were fresh. In the end, he didn’t try to make any broad sweeping conclusions about happiness: people who were happy were happy for variable reasons. (Which means, I suppose, that Tolstoy got it wrong. All happy families are not alike.)

But it led me to re-think part of the premise I’ve been thinking of recently—namely, that I would be happier if I were someplace other than where I am. (Although I must admit that after reading about Moldova, I think I’d feel happier coming home. Just by virtue of comparison.)

I thought I’d exhausted my thoughts about happiness, especially since I had yet to reach a conclusion about how to force myself to be happier (NEWS FLASH: This just in. I discovered that happiness isn’t something I can force on myself, although I can pursue people and things that have been known to help me be happy before.).

And then Schmetterling’s post came. I already linked it, so use that link. Or maybe you already have. Anyhow, his posted started me thinking. Primarily about Billy Joel’s “Vienna.” He quoted the latter half of this line: “You know that when the truth is told, you can get what you want or you can just get old” and I thought about that and this line: “Dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll all come true.”

At first I thought the dreaming line stood as stark contradiction to the whole song. Then I realized: it doesn’t. The song is advocating slowing down, but not giving up. If you only imagine all of your dreams will come true, they won’t. But some dreams come more easily than others, and rushing around does not always help us to fulfill our dreams.

“Vienna” is replete with admonitions to slow down, and (thanks to Schmetterling for the post that triggered the epiphany) I realize far too often I equate happiness with being so occupied and stressed, I am practically frenetic. And while exact and perfect happiness doesn’t come from slowing down, it does help to bring a little mellowness to my demeanor.

Besides, I’ve made a discovery: I don’t think we’re intended to be happy all the time. Otherwise, it would be void of any meaning as an emotion. Just as smiles would lose their power if they were the law.