Tag Archives: career

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Overlooking Overdoing It

I have a tendency to over do things. I over think, I over-analyze, I over-obsess, I live my life in an overly manner. I push myself above and beyond, I demand more of myself than I do of anyone else, and I tend to believe I’d rather over-do something than to give little effort.

But the problem with challenging myself and placing pressure on my success, my love life, my appearance, and anything else is that no matter how hard you work, how must trust you develop, or how many miles you run – sometimes, it just isn’t enough. Because unlike my severely independent and control-freak self will tell you, there are so many factors in life that you have no control over.

You can control your efforts, but you can’t control the results. It’s a simple truth but one that’s really difficult to accept. As women, especially the type-A personality that I am, I don’t accept what I perceive as failure well.

By being a person who does things in terms of more and better and faster and stronger – constantly searching to improve myself and my life, when I hit a stumbling block or a bump in the road, I let it go overboard. I start devising the worst case scenario in my head, I go over each word I said, each step I took, each email I sent, each kiss I shared, each everything that could have affected the outcome…and I criticize myself. Instead of encouraging myself to move forward and visualize the opportunities on the horizon, I only see what could have been.

I imagine what the success of the failure would have looked like and fail to see any successes to come.

But if I continue this pattern, I’ll have a long list of all the wrongs and no account of the rights. I won’t see all the progress I’ve made because I’ve been wise enough to find a new chance instead of focusing on the one that was missed. I won’t see the person I’ve grown into because I’ve faced disappointment but not let it get the best of me. I won’t realize when something is remarkable because I’ve seen when something was falling to pieces. I won’t be thankful for what I have if I never watch what I love walk away. I won’t consume the taste of sweetness if I never have to swallow my sour pride.

So what’s the trick to stay onboard instead of going over? What’s a gal to do when the easiest reaction is to overanalyze, over think, and over-exert her emotions to compensate for the pit of pity she can’t shake?

You stop looking to the outside and you go inside.

You reevaluate your priorities. You reestablish what you want and what you need by figuring out the difference between the two. You reenergize your spirit by treating yourself to positive thinking and indulgent compliments paired with sensible criticism.

Because while you’re looking in, you’ll find that all the overtime you put in, all the overtures you made, all the times you felt overlooked, and all the plans you had that may had been over your head, will work themselves out. And while all this worry and frustration won’t be over forever, you’ll find yourself less focused on being more and find peace in being present.

That is, in an overly excited way, of course.

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Can You Channel Peace?

I haven’t really breached the surface of my career. I feel lucky to be employed doing what I want to do in a market that’s undeniably competitive and difficult to penetrate. I enjoy the freedom I have to write this blog and freelance occasionally, and that while it is a small contribution to the world, it is my own, and I stand by it happily. I’m young and I see my future as limitless and ripe with opportunities and chances that I can’t even imagine, but will shape my life in ways I’ll never understand.

Though I’m pretty set on the path I’d like to take – I don’t have tunnel vision so severely that I would never think of doing something else. I’m not blind to the fact that sometimes the things you least expect or the choices you never thing you’ll face, are the ones that fundamentally change you into the you you’re meant to be.

Part of the reason I feel confident that I could sincerely do anything I put my mind to is because I’ve learned not to define myself by what I do. Sure, editing and writing are a huge part of my day-to-day and pastimes that not only bring me joy but money, too. But I’m not the only talented writer. And I make mistakes as an editor (I’m sure there are dozens across this blog but I forgive myself, I hope you do, too). The beautiful truth about the career I’ve chosen is that even if it wasn’t my career – I could still write. I would still seek out ways to be published. I could be anywhere in the world and have a byline in New York. They aren’t really mutually exclusive of one another.

Where I live, what I do, and who I am isn’t dependent on being an author, a journalist, or a blogger – if that was the case, WordPress and the other platforms wouldn’t be successful. Online magazines wouldn’t attract readers from all regions of the world and no one would lust after the rare travel writer who is paid to have lavish globetrotting adventures, dining at the finest, and staying in the room with the best view and service.

I’m not afraid of not being a writer or not having the dream job I’ve wanted for literally decades now. In fact, when it comes to my career or my ability to string together sentences, I have no doubts. Being a writer is part of who I am, but not the entirety of what makes me function. After all, if a writer leads no life, if they don’t read others, if they don’t find new people and experiences to observe, if they don’t make themselves into a modern-day anthropologist of some subject matter – what would there be to write about anyway? I’d imagine their stories would be quite boring.

Perhaps as boring as I feel my blog is becoming.

I’m not looking for compliments or reassurance – I know a good thing when it’s good and I know a once-sweet thing when it turns sour. In a lot of ways, this space has been a place for me to handle my own identity crisis as a 20-something. It has been a place for me to answer the tough questions in my own language, on my own terms, and in my own time. And now, over six months later, with less than six to go, I find myself at a crossroads.

I started this blog unhappy, dissatisfied with my life, and unable to enjoy my life as a single gal. I was not a mess but I wasn’t together, I wasn’t closed off, but I wasn’t incredibly open. I wasn’t syncing as well as I wanted to with the rhythm of the streets and New York was still idealized instead of realized.

But that’s not exactly who I am now, on a rainy May 4 afternoon, frantically writing this post while attempting to eat a leftover burrito, chat on Gchat, and enjoy my lunch break before getting back to work. No, this Lindsay is different.

She’s not that much older, but she’s wiser. She isn’t exactly single, but she isn’t consumed by it. She has found comfort in the ways that matter: in her relationship status, in her city, and most importantly, in herself. She ventures into the heartbeat of buildings and the people and the sounds that surround her, and instead of worrying about money or worrying about moving up or worrying about things that don’t quite matter right now – she’s settled in today. She’s found a confidence in herself that isn’t defined by links and published posts, by boys and boo-hooing over them, by being the most beautiful or the most sought after.

So what’s next? What now? With still four more steps to go and a personal commitment to write daily for a year – where do you turn a niche blog when your niche changes? Or expands? When what you love to do, who you want to love, and where you love to be are all working in a loving cohesion with one another, where do you seek more love?

Or is love really the answer to all of those questions left unanswered in my heart? Or do I have that many questions that pester me at this moment, anyway? Or maybe it is just one simple question that’s plagued me for months now: why does it become difficult to write about love on a blog about dating and self-love, when you’re dating and you’ve found love within yourself? Shouldn’t it be easier?

Could it be that the best fodder comes from…pain? Struggle? Outright, irrational despair? How do you channel peace to get your groove back?

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Baby, Talk is(n’t) Cheap

Some become uncomfortable when others talk religion. Or politics. Or the birds-and-the-bees. These conversations rarely make me lose my train of thought and though others may not agree, I don’t sway my opinion to match what’s considered acceptable by whoever’s standards I’m discussing such topics with.

However, while money talks louder than sex, I’d much rather review every sexual encounter I’ve ever had than talk about cash flow.

For whatever reason, finances freak me the [insert foul word] the out. I come from a family that never struggled to make ends meet and my parents managed our assets smartly and strategically, giving me mostly anything I wanted – minus the pony in the backyard when I was six, but who remembers that? I’ve always been taught to value the dollar and that it is something that comes with hard work. Applying that mentality from the get-go, I started my own baby-sitting “business” at 13, after taking classes at the Red Cross for CPR and childcare, and my dad printed business cards for me, un-cleverly titled, “Lindsay’s Baby-Sitting.”

At 15, off the books and under the table, I earned an hourly wage at a privately owned hotel as a maid. My first day on the job, the head maid escorted me around the premises and I shadowed her cleaning skills and how to tuck the corners of the bedspread carefully. However, when we pulled off the sheets in the first room to discover whipped cream and strawberries, my virginal-self was a bit distracted during the rest of her lessons. Come to find out, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing I discovered at that job.

During high school and college, I worked at grocery and retail stores, restaurants, and daycares. On the side, I freelanced articles for next-to-nothing pay and for eight months, I wrote a weekly column for $10 a pop about worldly issues affecting local teens. I started a non-profit and I became a marketing machine of what I considered my greatest potential – my words. I was using MySpace to network before social networking was ever a topic of discussion. And through all of these odd jobs and while I developed an entrepreneurial spirit, I never stopped worrying about my mini un-wealth. It wasn’t – and maybe still isn’t – something I feel at ease talking about and while I believe in the freedom of speech, for me, that’s a talk that isn’t cheap.

To combat my woes, I’ve always been a saver and never one to really accept financial favors from anyone. After a certain age, it would churn my stomach to ask my parents for cash and I felt a sense of guilt that they were supporting me during school, while so many of my friends were already independent of their families. Men have often paid for my dinners and I almost always allow them to, but once I’m in a relationship, I feel more of a need to go 50/50. Mr. Possibility‘s bonus is more than my annual salary and while he can afford to cover me for every outing we take, I always make an effort to add in my literal two cents frequently. Because I’ve placed my savings where I can keep track of them, I know where I can spend money and where I can’t.

Even so, for years and even at points to this day, I’ve lost sleep stressing if I was making the right decisions with my income. Am I saving enough? Should I start investing? Am I getting the best deal? Do I really need that or can it wait? Have I gone out for drinks too often this week? Should I not get coffee this morning? Should I book that ticket or can I afford it?

And who the hell thought I was capable of maintaining my own financial stability when my idea of managing my money is logging onto BankofAmerica.com?

It took until I was truly on my own, without any financial support from mom and dad, paying my own bills and student loans, having only my name on a lease, and depending only on myself to eat, drink, and be merrily-with-money, that I started to relax. Within the first three weeks of moving many moons ago, I bought a plane ticket, transitioned myself into a new apartment where I had to fork over $1,600 for a deposit and first month’s rent, plus fed myself, and bought an unlimited Metro. I watched the stockpile of money I had been building for over six years quickly disassemble and realized that money was meant to be spent, not continuously counted and admired. I had not gone into banking because I couldn’t stand the thought of it – I had picked a career that no one pursues for the monetary pay-off, but almost all are satisfied with the print-out.

If the last few years attest to anything, it is that much of what we consider permanent is not as sturdy as we view it. Stocks and companies crash, bailouts aren’t always the best choice, and the lap of luxury we’d all like to lay in may never be an actual option. Their is no secret remedy to dismissing the fear of losing it all because no matter how much we make, how much we spend, or how much we save – there is no guarantee that what have today will be there tomorrow. Though I find myself mature with my finances and for the most part, I always make smart decisions – I’ve discovered the key to managing money is learning that to get, you have to give. Not just in charitable donations (as you should) but by enjoying your life instead of preparing for what could come or what may be inevitable.

I’m not to the point of frivilous spending or unplanned trips to exotic places, but if I want that Kate Spade bag or a pair of shoes half-off at Bloomingdales, I remember I’ve worked this hard and treating myself won’t destroy my accounts. Even so, if you ask me about it, I’ll won’t reveal my purchase. I’m just not one to spend and tell.

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The 20-Something Syndrome

There’s something special about being a 20-something.

It’s after the uncomfortable teenage years, but we still have enough awkwardness to keep us humble. Well, at least at the start of our twenties anyways, until we discover a certain power we have because we’re young and yet to be jaded. By the time we reach the mid-way point between the second and third decade, we’ve been burnt, hurt, used, tossed, and treasured, and we’ve done to the same to countless men, jobs, friends, apartments, and shoes. But more than the year before and less than the one that will follow, we’ve managed to capture and ignite the spark we have to offer the world and the men in it – and though we may still settle for less than first rate at times, at least we’re aware we’re settling. Unlike before when we may have not been able to spot a red flag a mile or an inch away. I haven’t reached the late 20’s, so I can’t speak for that crowd – but if my friends are any indicators (or Mr. Possibility), it seems something happens around 27 or 28, where the need to lockdown a relationship or make some really impressive steps in our career becomes priority. Either, in my opinion, seem like a lot of pressure when desired at the drop of a dime.

But really, isn’t being a 20-something about pressure? Isn’t the 20-something syndrome an ordeal (or a blessing?) we all have to pass through to make it to the 30’s? (Which, I’m told by my mother and every 30 and beyond, will be the best time of my life.)

The pressure of being a 20-something is not just from external factors but often enforced by ourselves. If this 10-year span is when I’ll look my very best, be in the best shape, feel my best, and put my best face forward – shouldn’t I be going out constantly? If this is the period where I’ll have the most opportunity to travel, where I won’t have to consider anyone as a higher priority than myself, where the decisions I make won’t weigh as heavily as future choices, and where I’ll have the most energy and brightest perspective on life – shouldn’t I go after whatever I want with diligence?

But isn’t that the issue? When you’re a 20-something, the options seem limitless, but the resources are often not – at least for me, currently. However, I have ways around monetary setbacks, primarily because I’m female. Right now in this late hour as I write this blog after a few glasses of wine and an evening spent with Mr. Hubby, I could grab a pair of heels and a swipe of my signature lipstick and be at a bar in midtown in thirty minutes or less. I could lure in an eligible bachelor or two, have my drinks paid for all night long, and head back uptown in a cab paid for with cash given to me by a stranger I met an hour earlier. Tomorrow morning, I could go anywhere on this island I want to – Times Square, the Empire State, Wall Street, and Magnolia’s (let’s be honest, it’s sadly a landmark now) are not destinations for me, they are just part of my home.

If I wanted to – or if I was brave enough – I could save enough money to live abroad for a year, working low-paying jobs, backpacking, and experiencing the world I’ve never witnessed. I could consume alcohol in vast amounts, I could go by the golden rule that if he’s foreign, he doesn’t count as part of my “number”, and instead of focusing on editing and writing, I could take a completely different turn in my career. Or not focus on work at all and throw my luck to the fates, hoping I’ll land up where I’m meant to be, even if it is far away from what I pictured or hoped for.

I have no real obligations – my lease is actually up in May and it is undetermined what commitment I’ll make after that. And really in New York, signing your name has merit, but finding a subleaser is quite simple. I’m not married. I don’t live with a boyfriend. I have no children. I don’t own a pet, unless you count Giorgio the fish – who I’m sure would be happy with anyone who fed him and cleaned his bowl once a week. I have barely any bills to pay (damn you Best Buy and Student Loans). Nothing is keeping me in New York other than the magazine job that’s important to me and the fact that I love this city with most of my heart.

And yet, when I think of being in my twenties, when I feel the pressure from the 20-something syndrome, I never feel like I’m doing enough. If I go out three times a week and stay in on a Saturday because I’m tired and the commute home at 3 a.m. nearly kills any opportunity for a 10 a.m. run – I feel guilty. If my friends beg me for one more glass of wine or one more song or one more hour when I’m exhausted, if I don’t give in – I feel like I’ll regret it or I’ll miss something. When I see my peers who, instead of joining the workforce or going to grad school, like many of us who graduated in the downward pivot of the economy, decided to live in another country without any concrete plan – I’m envious. When I skip a night at the gym to cook dinner and consume large quantities of ice cream with Mr. Possibility, the next morning – I feel fatter, though I didn’t gain a pound. When I succeed at work, only to take two steps backwards the next day – I feel like I’ll never get to where I want to be as a writer. And then again, sometimes I have no idea what the endpoint or goal is – or if there even is one.

So what’s the cure for the 20-something syndrome? How do I forgive myself for indulging or giving myself a much needed evening in for me-myself-and-I? How do I celebrate what I’m doing right instead of turning every little miss into all the reasons I’m going about my life the wrong way? How do I prepare for this seemingly inevitable end-of-decade turn when my priorities will become more important? How do I get through my twenties happily, successfully, and healthily – feeling like I’ve done all that I could with all that I had?

I’d like to have a real answer, but I don’t. I only have a guess – and it’s maybe simplified too much. But to overcome the 20-something syndrome, I think the trick is stop trying. Or deciding it isn’t something to get over or to get through or to survive. It is, like every other period and person we’ll experience, temporary and yet, absolutely necessary. Children grow into teens, and teens into twenties, and twenties into thirties, and so on, and so it goes – there is no end in sight until it is, the end.

Time may seem to pass as quickly as it does slowly. I may be dumbfounded seeing the start of April this upcoming week. I may be shocked to know I’m closer to my next birthday than I am to my last. I may not always feel like I’m doing what’s best or what’s good or what will take me the furthest or make me the happiest.

But I’m living. I’m learning. I’m loving. I’m 20-something.

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When Time Turns the Tables

After the serendipitous meeting with Mr. Fire a few weeks before I graduated, where he confirmed my existence actually did mean something to him, he told me he’d let me know when he was in New York. He knew I’d be there and if he could help it, so would he.

Several years later, it looks like he finally made the move. Or at least for a job interview, that is.

Though it has been quite some time since I’ve laid eyes on the dude and I’m not interested in sprouting any new chapters with him – as I headed toward sushi for two on Wednesday, my mind couldn’t help but race.

After all, this was an evening, a moment, an opportunity I had dreamt of since the day he ended things far quicker than I thought he would. Following the late-Spring breakup in our college’s commons, I collapsed into my bed, equal parts shocked and desperately sad. A few hours later, with my puffy face and tired eyes and spirit, my roommate tried to console me, and though I’m pretty sure we both knew there was no magic phrase or surprising sentence that could alleviate my tears, something she said inspired me to move forward with a little hope: “It doesn’t seem like you guys finished anything. There are all these questions – he’s gotta have them too. I promise you, years from now, you’ll get the answers and you’ll see him again. By then, you’ll probably be happy and won’t care.”

I disagreed in that moment – how could I ever care less than I did then? How would this feeling ever leave or lessen? But maybe, if we were meant to cross paths again – say on Park Avenue South – it’d all make sense. Perhaps he felt just as broken as I did.

Come to find out, we both coined each other as the “one who got away” or the guy/gal who we’ll always wonder what could have been or what we should have experienced, but were too young to take a shot at. Since the split, we’ve never managed to be single at the same time. There’s always been someone else in the mix, another component to complicate any prospect of attempting to finish what we started or give another round to cards we laid many years ago. And up until that night, a part of me, even if it was just the tiniest sliver of silver-lining I had– I thought maybe, we’d end up together. That while I can’t be convinced I believe in fate in its indefinite definition, I do have faith in time.

And my love, my darling, time can do a gal many wonderful splendors in terms of love.

Walking to meet Mr. Fire, heels and lace-mini prepared to stun – I thought how my roommate was right. Here I was, living in the place I knew I’d end up, strutting toward my past, and other than a few butterflies, I was calm. And while I think there will always be questions left unanswered, love left unfinished, and ends left untied – it didn’t matter too much.

Because time, in its unpredictable ways, took me from lusting after this idealistic notion that Mr. Fire and I were destined, to realizing I didn’t want him anymore. In the seasons that had cycled, the tides that turned, and the feet that landed me in this city – I had changed.

And he hadn’t.

Sitting across from him, listening to him ramble and flush a sweet color of pink – I remembered the facial expressions I had adored, the gestures, and the stories I had fallen for. I still found him incredibly attractive – but had he always had that deep Southern accent that I was lucky enough to escape (Thanks Dad, from New Jersey)? I still found myself laughing at his comics, but that intelligent, witty conversation that I value in a man – does he have that? And yes, he was tall, but that stagger, that thirst to drink more than necessary – will he ever outgrow those silly habits?

Perhaps time can divide lovers for years and then bring them back together in some sort of romantic-comedy approved manner – but it also can make you see how wrong someone is for you. How while you loved them – or at least the idea of what they could be – when people grow, either together or separated, they end up in different versions of destiny than what they originally hoped. And perhaps, that ending is better than the happy one we once planned for ourselves.

Even if he was – or maybe always will be – the one who slipped through my fingers and pushed away the love I was willing to give him. Maybe the ones who do leave before we expect them too, were always meant to walk before closure could be granted, before reasoning and discussions could be completed. In some sort of twisted hand of Father Time, they are the ones who make us realize down the road, that what we think will happen, what we hope will come to be, who the people we can’t imagine living without – aren’t always what’s best for us. Or at least the us we become in this continuous progression we call life.

Sometimes, time makes you see that you love the you you’ve become more than the man who was. Or the we that was supposed to be. That while minutes or hours or days or even years may pass by so slowly -all that was, all that is, and all that will be, will work itself out, somehow, someday, along the way.