successful people make….

Lists.

I’ve always made lists, and usually they wind up on the back of printouts or receipts. Not in the many notebooks that I have stacked everywhere. Anyways, I’m going to start a new kind of post here where I just find a list I have made recently and record it for posterity. In honor of Mother’s Day and my own mother, who in fact is a compulsive list maker as well, this first post will be a list of some things I have learned from my mother.

1. Personality type tests aren’t meant to pigeonhole people, but you can avoid a lot of confusion and anticipate a lot of conflict by knowing someone is a high D instead of an I.

2. It’s not frivolous to want the details of your life to be beautiful. Our life is made up of many small things, so spend the extra $20 to get a bedspread that makes you happy every time you see it.

3. You’ll never look back and think, I made such a fool out of myself when I worked that hard for something.

4. No matter what, you can run a 5K. Physical fitness is a muscle in and of itself.

5. Nothing beats ensemble cast coming-of-age movies from the 1980s.

6. It doesn’t matter how well something fits if it’s not in your color season.

7. All girls want to know they are loved and beautiful and all boys want to know they have what it takes.

8. There’s nothing as rude as someone immersed in technology instead of people.

9. Happiness takes effort.

10. The best antidote to depression is gratefulness.

participate relentlessly

Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.

Elizabeth Gilbert

I didn’t want to be a fan of anything related to Eat Pray Love, but this quote from the author (and main subject in the story) has stuck with me ever since I read it on some ridiculous website. It gets to the heart of everything, not just happiness. And I think the more you try, the more you care, and the more invested you feel in your own life. Tiger Woods  said if you’re not nervous, you don’t care. How many of us care enough about our lives that it makes us nervous? I want to.

I want to participate relentlessly.

choices.

“You are a mashup of what you let into your life.”
- Austin Kleon

The concept of choices fascinates me. By making certain decisions, we separate ourselves from those who let life happen.

By deciding that learning is important, one finishes school.

By deciding that what one ingests is important, one lives a longer and healthier life.

By deciding that loyalty and respect are values important to a relationship, one cultures trust and love.

I love that, if you look for it, you can reverse-engineer unfortunate outcomes to choices. Every time. A source cancelled on me this morning, and I can look at the fault from two places: mine or theirs. If it’s technically more mathematically their fault, it really doesn’t matter. What can I do to avoid this negative outcome next time, that’s what matters. I can make the choice to schedule farther in advance. I can make the choice to deal with someone I feel more confident about not flaking on me. I can make the choice to have a back up plan. This didn’t happen to me, I made decisions that led to a situation with a higher probability of this outcome.

Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to. But other things are harder. Try it: “I’m not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it’s not a priority.” “I don’t go to the doctor because my health is not a priority.” If these phrases don’t sit well, that’s the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don’t like how we’re spending an hour, we can choose differently.

-Wall Street Journal

I love how this piece stripped away the euphemisms. It reminded me that we all have priorities, they just are ridiculous sometimes. No, doing my laundry is not a priority right now. My biggest priority is staying here on the couch and watching this infomercial. No, taking the Quad II time to plan out my next week is not a priority for me right now. Looking at pictures of puppies on Pinterest bumped that down.

The phrase that has most zinged me over the past five years is a simple one, probably on a million clay statuettes of Buddha or a butterfly: be mindful.

It’s so simple. If it’s a Saturday morning and I’m lying in bed, is this where I want to be? is this how I want to spend my weekend? Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. To me, be mindful reminds me to be a participant in my life, and not a spectator.

I have to remind myself to choose the things I want in my life. Choose the people I want to receive counsel from. Choose the disciplines. Choose to drink more water. Choose silence.

a rant.

I hate twitter bios.

Such typical American conceit that we describe ourselves at all – Photographer. Dreamer. Tech Geek.

Writer.

Gag me.

Is that all it is now? Just like photography, drained of so much by the ease of access we now have to high-level technology and ease of publication provided by the internet, has writing become something the loghorreal Facebook generation has also degraded? The great photographers I know, and I know only a few, would have been just as successful (probably more so, when the market was less inundated by untalented chaff and the consumer may have had an ounce of taste) in the film era because they have an eye. They have that perspective no one else has, that sense of color and light that helps them to paint with living things a memory that seems larger than life.

The idiot consumer argument is neither here nor there – way too many horrifically mediocre people get paid for their photography, way too many stupid people get paid for their words and way too many nauseating people get paid for their songs.

This rant was brought to you by Gracie Shepherd’s gut, named Outrage, and the letter W.

the romantics

We were just in love with each other. Because that’s what friends do. They fall in love with each other. And they fall out of love and they fall back in love and this happens over and over again for the rest of their lives.

One of my favorite movies of all time. I’ll never forget watching it, fresh off the heels of a week and a half with my romantics group, in a big empty house lying on the floor, stuffing chocolate covered strawberries in my mouth and crying slowly. I don’t know what made this plotless eye candy such a soul poke, but it does something to me.

People talk a lot about how marriage and romantic relationships take work and love is a decision, et c., but it was a new realization to me that friendships that last are the ones where there’s that indefinable spark.

now a memory

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Not go to school. And it was crazy. Not getting a summer break was the worst thing ever. But vacation days are amazing surprises and delicious treats, and getting paid beats working for grades any old day.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I make resolutions after long car rides by myself, rarely connected with the new year but a thought I’m entering the new year with is to make less rules for myself in attempts to feel better about who I am. I’m a christian, so if there’s sin in my life it needs to stop, but “improvements” are something I should leave more up to God and less up to slate.com’s lifestyle articles about what makes women live longer.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

I thought this was a borderline weird question last year, but I did have two beautiful friends get married and have a tiny little daughter and it was so mind blowing to look at little Honora and think that she is a genetic creation of two people I love. She’s the most original thing they have ever done.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, thankfully.

5. What countries did you visit?

This is the first year in five that I haven’t traveled. I don’t know what to think. Is this a bad thing or a good one? Paris next fall is happening, though.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

I don’t know. More of a health conscience?

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

July 4 was a surprisingly important day. I took a freak invitation from a casual friend and met some of the neatest people I’ve been given in my whole life.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Not doing something insane like chopping my hair off or quitting my job. Which really would have been fine.

9. What was your biggest failure?

I don’t know. Too close, too soon.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

No?

11. What was the best thing you bought?

What a good question. My iPhone? Tickets to California?

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

I’m proud of Caroline for working a job she hates, and for hating it in a respectful and grateful way. I’m proud of Cam for working so hard at school and in becoming himself even more. I’m proud of George for working hard and for charting his own path through debate, finding a job and writing his column.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

A lot of people’s. People I follow on twitter and shouldn’t. People who write for a living and shouldn’t.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Gas and clothing.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Caroline moving home. Writing for skirt!. Frozen yogurt. Lana Del Ray for like a minute.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Stereo Hearts

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?

Oh, so much happier.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Run around outside.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

overanalyze.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

Family.

21. How did you spend New Years?

Most T-Pain worthy party ever.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Parks and Rec.

24. What was the best book you read?

Bossypants. I’m not kidding.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Coconut Records.

27. What was your favorite film of this year?

The Romantics.

28. What did you get on your birthday, and how old were you?

Creme brulee torch, 22.

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Personal plane?

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
I really don’t care.

31. What kept you sane?
Caroline being in town again.

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
What does that even mean.

33. What political issue stirred you the most?
Irresponsible activism and ignorant opinionating. From Occupy Wall Street to the Republican field for 2012 prez, I have been viscerally disappointed in the strength of selfish, lazy thinkers who are fishing for a reaction.

34. Who did you miss?

Not everyone. That was a big lesson, realizing I’m glad certain people are a finite part of my past. They’re good, they just aren’t forever.

35. Who was the best new person you met?

That’s hard. So many good ones. How about…the lady Ellie Benson.

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:

Good things happen when you just do the next thing.

words for 2012

erudite.

fierce.

nadir.

adroit.

unambiguous.

culpable.

aegis.

Zeitgeist.

skulduggery.

marshal.

quotidian.

pajuxy.

peregrinate.

phobophobia.

recherche.