Below The Sun

The holidays are upon us, which unfortunately means a lot of rain and cold weather.

Luckily for me, I live in the south. Every couple of days it warms up enough for me to wear a tank top and jeans, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

In order to maintain the summer time level of happiness through the indoor season, I find it’s best to keep busy and social.

Yesterday we had some friends over for a craft party, we made weird christmas cards and drank wine (well, the guests did, I don’t drink) and had a good time. Then followed it up with a rock show at a dive bar down town. It’s nice to surround yourself with people that are happy to see each other.

The move from full-time to freelance is working out well so far. I have a lot of time to see my friends, I have time to work on my photography, I have been continuing my ceramics classes, and I still find the time to sneak some design work in here and there :)

My father came in town from Milwaukee to visit early in November. We don’t see him very much due to the geographical differences but it was nice. My dad and I spent the day riding bicycles, eating lunch, and hanging out at the park. Later on, my sister and I brought dad to the Red Elvises show at the Dragons Den. My sister and I are twins, albeit very different twins. We are pretty much the exact opposite of each other in a lot of ways and very similar in others. She is a massage therapist and also teaches massage therapy.

Later on in the month I went with my mother to Kansas City to visit her side of the family. I have a couple of uncles and cousins who are musicians, so we all got together and played for a little while.

It’s nice having a family full of artists. It’s hard to explain really, but there is a strange feeling of continuity in the bloodlines. Both my mom and my dad’s side of the family are all artists and all work with their hands. As a result I have to feel absolutely everything to every extreme. I have to constantly be stimulated or else I feel depressed. Luckily I am very easily inspired and amused.

Being around so many creative people on a regular basis kind of makes keeping up on my own creativity a little bit daunting. It’s a bit of a double edged sword, because it makes you want to create something beautiful and magical but at the same time it makes you start to question your own talent and skill. I definitely stay on my toes, but sometimes I tend to spread myself a bit thin.

I have found a couple of ways though to buckle down and focus.

1) Sketch it out. Any idea, be it writing, a design, a painting, a photo, a song, map it out somehow. Even the most basic of outlines will keep your project somewhat on track.

2) Eliminate distractions. If you must have the television on, mute it. If you must check your email, your myspace, facebook, etc set up a schedule, only check it once every 2 hours or so.

3) Manage your time. If at all possible, task yourself with phases of your creative process, and don’t be overly ambitious. Go through all of the tasks in order, and never stop mid-task. Finish the task at hand before coming to a stopping point so that it’s easier to pick up when you come back.

4) Finish it! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten to the middle of a project and decided that it would be a better idea to stop and forget about it. Terrible idea. Even if you dont feel like it, finish the project you already started. It will give you a sense of pride that you followed it through, and best case scenario, it could come out even better than you imagined.

This post is a little bit of a stray from the norm, thus far. It’s about how to deal with being belittled… be it by friends, family, or professional associates.

This is a feeling I have had to deal with a lot in life. I’ve always been one of the youngest people in my immediate group, I’ve always been a girl, and I’ve always been small framed with a quiet voice.
It can seem hard to overcome at the moment in which you are experiencing the belittling but its important to remind yourself that these obstacles are never insurmountable.

I had an interaction with a coworker in which I felt I was being dragged into a very malignant relationship between he and his wife. Long story short, for months I was uncomfortable going into work every day and going to work related events involving spouses.

I wish that I could say that I had the answers to resolve this kind of situation, but the truth of the matter is that I still feel uncomfortable every day that I come into work now, and every time the company has an event where people may go with their spouses especially.

I’ve seen plenty of other people in less drastic though very similar situations..
An associate tells you that they feel you are overpaid or would not have hired you in the first place..
A coworker down plays all of your ideas or dismisses them..
Being made fun of, harassed, or abused.

You don’t have to put up with it. I am very passive so I ignore it, but I always keep in mind that I am the bigger person for not sinking to those levels.

You can overcome these obstacles by fortifying your confidence in yourself.

If you keep in mind everything in life that you are happy about, and how these things may correspond to the situation, then you are armed to fight it head on.

When it comes to my coworker, I always keep in mind that he was only promoted out of desperation, not based on merit. I keep in mind that I am lucky to have friends who like me, people who don’t need to prove their worth over mine, I don’t need to flaunt my money or accomplishments to prove my own worth, I have a happy and healthy relationship, a family full of wonderful and interesting relatives/stories, and a overactive imagination full of creative ideas and finally the ability to communicate those ideas and share them with others.

I keep in mind everything that I have to be proud of and vow not to let those ego usurpers get one ounce of my own, and that’s how I cope with being belittled.

Boris with Merzbow - Flower, Sun, Rain

Will power is one of the human virtues that is all too often overlooked. It does, however, contribute a lot to our over all happiness. What many do not understand though, is that each human actually only has so much will power and it is important to keep yourself satisfied somehow when giving something up to reach a goal.

For instance, one trying to lose weight will do so through diet and exercise. Pretty common, right? But the majority of diet and exercise routines fail because of that person’s inability to be as strict as necessary to reach the goal. Usually it is a cracker here and there, some potato chips, a cookie. Finally they are tired of being on the diet altogether. When you restrict yourself from doing one thing, it is important to allow yourself satiety in another aspect of your life so that will power is never stretched too thin, that way you have a better chance at continuing to deny yourself in that one area that you need.

I quit smoking about 4 months ago. I promised myself that when I quit smoking I would buy myself a new laptop. I had been in need of a new computer for quite some time but kept putting it off because I knew there would be a point I would come to where I could no longer hold off. That time came, I used the push to quit smoking. I wanted to give it a couple of months to make sure I really quit completely… but the urge was there to do something to stay occupied, to just do something. I wanted to eat, I wanted to distract myself by spending a lot of money. I had started running, but that wasn’t enough. I cracked and went shopping and bought more new clothes than I probably needed.

It felt good. I felt satisfied, I felt like I had accomplished something. I felt like I had sufficiently occupied myself and I felt like I could look nice and new to go with my now smelling nice and new. I didn’t need anything new but my will power only took me so far. I had been stretching myself thin by trying to save all of my money, trying to eat healthy, exercise, and not smoke. Thankfully all I did was buy clothes and not buy a carton of cigarettes, but the point is that everyone needs to reward their will power in one area by breaking the restraints a little bit in another area or else one might burn out and give up.

I finally bought my new laptop in September to reward myself for not cheating while trying to quit smoking and it was a very triumphant feeling. I had reached the goal of saving the extra amount of money needed for the laptop as well as the goal of having quit smoking for over 2 months at that point without looking back, and it was a great feeling.