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Browsing tag: reflections

  • January 26, 2012

    What does the way you drive say about you?

    I’ve come to the conclusion that together T and I would make the ideal

    English: DTM car Mercedes-Benz AMG 2006 (C-Cla...

    Image via Wikipedia

    driver.

    Combine his skill with my caution and you would come up with the perfect blend.

    T has the confidence, the quick reaction time, the coordination, the spatial perception, the ability to park effortlessly.

    But he’s prone to taking too many risks, accelerating and braking too hard – which is just uneconomic in $2-plus-a-litre times – and belongs to the “try to get ahead at any cost” mentality. By that, I mean when stopped at a light, he always edges as humanly close to the car in front as possible without touching (and laughs at me for leaving “enough room to fly a plane” in between cars). On long trips through the single lane country roads, he overtakes cars only to then get stuck behind yet more cars further along the track. It’s a loser’s game, I tell you.

    Granted, since he was in a string of accidents a few years ago he’s less reckless on the roads. But fundamentally, we’re opposites behind the wheel.

    It’s the same with our personalities and approaches in real life, really.

    We even each other out.

    Combine his physical attributes (strength, perfect vision, coordination), quick learning, inability to sit still, some kind of charisma with my work ethic, stubbornness, patience, planning, attention to detail and we’d be a pretty formidable superhuman.

    Does your driving reflect how you navigate the real world?

  • January 23, 2012

    Of rebounds and relationships

    There are people who go from relationship to relationship, barely stopping for air in between.

    You know the kind I mean.

    Newly freed, they dive into the next one, seemingly heartless to heartbreak.

    I once read that it takes half as long to get over a relationship as it lasted. So if you were together for two years, it would take roughly a year to truly heal. Etc.

    I don’t know if I believe that. Lately, I’ve seen a good number of people exit a long-term relationship (numbering years of dating, not months) and march straight into the arms of a new squeeze. Rebounds, I thought at first. Yet they seem well on track to another long-term love. And who am I to talk? T and I got together only a month or two after the demise of my first relationship. I can’t say I expected it to last at the time, but lo and behold, we are betrothed.

    That said, at that stage I certainly wasn’t over my ex-boyfriend by any means. I still thought about him plenty, particularly as he started going out with another girl I vaguely knew and liked, and always stayed tuned for any gossip involving his name. And I can’t pinpoint the exact moment I honestly could say that I had stopped wondering “what if” and fully threw my heart into T. Maybe it was six months in. My memory blurs.

    What do you reckon? A solid rule of thumb or useless women’s mag trope?

  • January 10, 2012

    The comparison trap

    I’m a thinker, worrier, overanalyser.

    English: School Running Race

    Image via Wikipedia

    Over a year ago, I reminded myself that life is not a race.

    But can I stop comparing myself to others? Hell no.

    I pat myself on the back when I look at people around me having unwanted children, taking too long to finish their degree, and generally not having their shit together. (Yeah, I said it. I’m not going to pretend I don’t make judgement calls.)

    And then I swallow my envy when others more than double their salary to nearly six figures a year after graduation, spend all their savings on travel, find rich and handsome partners, buy houses by 25.

    I trek the path of full personal independence – partly by circumstance, partly by choice.

    I chose noncorporate work that I love and am good at, even if it will never make me rich. I make enough, and a job I enjoy is worth infinitely more than a lucrative one that would stress me out.

    I found a partner who would do anything for me, even if he doesn’t have a life plan all worked out.

    My life is largely what I make of it. Every decision has an opportunity cost. Suck it up, E.

  • December 22, 2011

    Wedding WTFs

    Wedding Dress For Happy Couple in Love

    Image by epSos.de via Flickr

    “Why did nobody tell me?”

    That was the reaction from a friend upon learning just what her friends and family thought of her ex after she dumped his cheating ass.

    I can only guess that it came down to knowing that voicing such thoughts never really does any good.

    Case in point: another friend recently tied the knot with somebody that for all purposes, she doesn’t really know all that well. Everyone thought it a terrible idea, and said so. Didn’t change a thing.

    Now that I’ve met him, though – despite all the practical odds stacked against the relationship – I really do think it could work. So do the rest of us, including T (and that’s saying something; he’s just as jaded as me, if not more).

    The other two engaged couples we know? Different story. In the first case, they have no business together, child on the way or not – and it’s highly doubtful they’ll actually make it to the altar. T will be the godfather – it’s one of those offers you can’t really turn down, I suppose, no matter how disagreeable the entire situation is.

    In the other, he’s gone from long-term relationships with two class acts to someone below his calibre in every single way. We thought it a rebound based on nothing but lust. Alas, it seems we were wrong. (Call us biased. But the dude is a really good guy. He’s a catch, and she knows it – so she’s certainly not going to let go.) But what can you do?

    (Slightly off topic – I’m hoping their wedding will be a large one, which I’m guessing it will as they are the gregarious type with well-off families to boot. I don’t want the pressure of comparisons when it comes to our turn, as they will probably get around to getting married before we do.)

    It’s bad enough standing by on relationships that are all wrong.

    It’s far more worrying when marriage enters the equation.

  • December 19, 2011

    The year in review

    <via>

    And somehow, December rolled around.

    There were times, I admit, that time seemed to be dragging its heels. But mostly, I feel like 2011 shot by like a cheetah on P.

    This year I got engaged. I moved house. I left my first grownup job. I took my first overseas trip in close to 10 years – my first without my parents and my first with T – and for the first time took a dip in the ocean on my birthday.

    Looking back, I’m fairly happy with the way things turned out. Last year was about hunkering down, getting recognised at work, saving, getting a solid start. Having laid some of that foundation, this year I said yes to concerts, events, trips. I’ve said yes to things that scare me, read books that challenge me, and done a fair amount of introspection. I covered major events including Steve Jobs’ death and a rare fatal explosion in Onehunga, but watched from home as news of bin Laden’s death, the second Christchurch earthquake, and the general election unfolded online in front of me.

    In 2012, I want my word to be consistency. Commitment to my work, my savings, my fitness, my hobbies and life balance.

    But first, looking back on the year that was.

    I wanted to:

    • Save 40 per cent of income. I hit this maybe half of the time. We definitely had some biggish expenses this year in car fixes, travel and moving house.
    • Keep eating out to $160 a month. We hit this probably less than half the time. I’m okay with spending with intention here – it’s the little transactions here and there that add up that bug me.
    • Donate to charity every month. Achieved most months, but not all – maybe 70%.
    • Text one friend a week. I suppose I always knew this would be difficult to track, but I reckon I scraped a pass (by definition 50 percent is a pass mark), although many of these weren’t actually initiated by me. I freaking hate texting these days; I spend the vast majority of my time at a computer, so I’d much rather email, tweet or Facebook if possible). Or, heaven forbid, make a phone call.
    • Learn to confidently use full manual settings on my dSLR. Bahaha. Well, I’m a little more confident than I was at the beginning of the year, but like guitar, this kind of fell by the wayside – particularly after June when I changed jobs – there are way fewer demands on your days off when you have Monday and Tuesday off – and went gangbusters on my reading after a lull. Finding visual inspiration is a big struggle, but events like this were brimming with it.
    • Read 100 books. Finished 81, which isn’t too bad an effort. 100 is definitely doable, but combined with reading more literary stuff these days + having a life is difficult at times. I could easily spend all my time reading, but alas, I have a living to earn.
    • Continue running at least once a week, and run a 10k. Hit that 10k, although kind of slacked off on running after that, if we’re being honest. Am contemplating a half – or even a full marathon – next year. I would love to say I did one…but do I want to do it badly enough? Not sure. I’m not a distance runner.

    ONE OFFS

    • Score a travel writing assignment. No longer applicable at my new job, sadly! That ship has sailed. No junkets for me
    • Take a trip somewhere warm on my birthday (thinking Vanuatu, Niue or similar). Raro was blissful, no other word for it.
    • Take a big trip later in the year. By this I really meant overseas, or at least a South Island road trip. New job and starting from scratch with leave put paid to that, but we are doing  a short sojourn to the Coromandel, which is sweet by me.

    I also wanted to fall in love with music again – both as a maker and listener. I was, I suppose, making slow progress on guitar – until taking a new job. Having real weekends again were spent with T, travelling, reading like a fiend when I fell behind, and then dealing with the move and a string of social events. I did go to my first gig a year ago, and since then I’ve been to two more, plus two music festivals and am going to another for New Year’s. Incubus is also another possibility – but I’m not sure I’m enough of a fan to shell out $90. I had a lot of fun compiling my wedding playlist, but haven’t really put any effort into discovering new music. So that’s probably a fail.

    I’m a huge lover of food, but I’m much better at consuming it than cooking it. It doesn’t come naturally to me. But I am getting better at pairing dishes and coming up with random meals combining whatever ingredients we have on hand. Possibly most exciting of all, I’ve discovered the joy of couscous. My life has never been the same. My laissez-faire methodology does not translate so well to baking, and thus my favourite go-tos are buckeyes and oreo truffles (even though they still never look that pretty). Again, slow progress, but all in all, a definite win.

    And while I’m not a social creature by any stretch of the imagination, I think I can definitely give myself a gold star for effort this year. I said yes more often than no (and only when I had a real excuse), including yes to one of the biggest events of the year come NYE, with a bunch of people I don’t know that well – apart from T. Plus I’m forced to get out and about more just due to the nature of my new job.

    Ah, my job. I truly am blessed. I get to write awesome stories, meet awesome people, and generally absorb passion and inspiration. Free swag doesn’t hurt, nor do invites to events (depending on what they are. I felt pretty out of my depth lunching with high-flying national and international business peeps last month, and was rendered mute at another when asked if I was considered a thought leader at my company). I had my first photo published in print (thank goodness for good lighting) – which in no way compares to the online equivalent. Basically, as a staffer there are heaps of opportunities, as I work for free compared to paying a freelancer. I’ve managed a handful of interns and been asked to write my first reference for someone.

    Bonus: an improved relationship with T, in almost all aspects (we don’t spend all our weekends together, but it’s lovely to be able to…). However, blogging fell a bit by the wayside, particularly the Yakezie challenge – I’ve plummeted back down toward the million-mark on Alexa. As I suspected, spending my days writing detracts a bit from my desire to write for the sake of it away from the office.

    I’m curious to know. How did you perceive your 2011?

  • December 5, 2011

    On balancing work, life, and Penelope Trunk at her best

    I’m ambivalent on Penelope Trunk. But you can’t deny that she calls it as she sees it, and she gets it spot on in this interview.

    There is no magic solution.

    There is no get rick quick online.

    A blog in itself is not a business.

    Want to quit your job and work for yourself? You need goals. You need a strategy. You need a business plan.

    Listen good, online empire wannabes.

    What really stood out to me was the point that she made that business and lifestyle go hand in hand. If you want to spend more time with your kids, you’re not going to be able to put in the kind of hours someone single and single-mindedly devoted to growing a business will. (The fact that starting a business takes hard graft goes unsaid, surely.)

    For me, the lifestyle is the most important part of the equation. I changed jobs this year in pursuit of better balance, trading off a few financial benefits, flexibility (a double-edged sword; it goes both ways) and the prestige of a big name for no shift work, shorter commute, more variety and room to stretch myself. As much as I loved my previous position, and felt I was part of something important, I was increasingly frustrated with the sacrifices that came with the territory. In any choice, there are trade-offs, and those may chop and change at different stages in your life.

    (BUT I have to disagree that you are either a people person or a writer and that the two are mutually exclusive. I work with people every day who disprove this theory. There are plenty of journalists who are rather awkward in person – me included – but there are just as many writers who thrive in social situations.)

    As evidenced here on Stuff Journalists Like, it’s a lifestyle that ends in a crash and burn for many. How many times have I read about people giving up on the pay and odd hours that cut into plans or make it straight up impossible to make plans ahead of time? (Answer: Enough to depress me.)

    I’m not convinced by the assertion that journos don’t have many transferable skills, however. True, we have to sell story ideas to editors, but pitching a feature is probably not on the same level as attempting to close a five or six-figure business deal. And some of us are lucky enough to be largely autonomous and work independently – in which case getting used to answering to others in the corporate world could be a nasty change.

    But we’re articulate, know how to ask the right questions, know how to research, have good contacts and know how to handle people, something that shouldn’t be underrated. Some of us have particular areas of knowledge and expertise, although that’s rare nowadays.

    If I couldn’t be a journalist … well, I’d like to try my hand at doing something in the music industry, in arts, in a university setting, in a nonprofit – what exactly I don’t know, but ideally something incorporating creative and editorial aspects.

    Do you agree with any of these points? Or are you just sitting there shaking your head?

  • October 31, 2011

    Knowing when to quit

    <via>

    It took me the better part of a decade to break up with violin. I’m stubborn, you see. It was kind of like a bad relationship. An abusive one. Where 99% of the time, things were miserable. I hated it. I never practised. I never got better. I derived no joy from it. But that golden 1%, those moments when the music flowed, when the strings were nearly at one with my fingers, when the bow glided across them, rather than being dragged screeching – those were euphoric, and hard to give up.

    There are friendships and quasi-friendships that have slid, and that’s okay too. All relationships ebb and flow; the kind of bond you may have had in primary school or high school may not be appropriate 10 years later on in life. And not all relationships are 50/50, but I’m trying to do better at upholding my end of the stick.

    I couldn’t have asked for a better job after graduation – it was my dream. Stability, prestige, fabulous coworkers. But the hours… Eventually the balance tipped, and I don’t think I was fully aware of that until after the fact.

    I’ll admit, I’ve never been very good at knowing when to quit. Deep inside, throwing in the towel equates to giving up = failure.

    Calling it quits. You any good at it?

  • October 19, 2011

    The first step is the hardest

    Step Pyramid

    Image by Ed Yourdon via Flickr

    It doesn’t matter how much I love doing any particular thing – actually getting started is the most difficult part.

    Once I’m at work, I get straight into it, and the day zooms by. I’m writing, editing, coordinating. I’m doing the things I like best and am good at, in between cursing my computer and the internet cutting out (our network goes down far more often than it should for what is a decent-sized company, in my plebeian opinion). But hauling my ass definitively out of bed? That’s the toughest bit.

    I love eating. I think it’s safe to say that it’s hands down my favourite pastime. I spend inordinate amounts of time thinking about food. I even kind of enjoy the process of baking (and to a lesser degree, cooking – which is odd as you’d think I’d enjoy the more freestyle nature of it. But there’s nothing like mixing up batter or kneading dough – to say nothing of the miracle that sees flour and sugar and water swell into something beautiful and edible). But clearing the counter, pulling out the mixing bowl and lining up ingredients? That’s the biggest hurdle.

    Once I’m in my groove, making pace around my neighbourhood, I feel freaking great. Working up a sweat is strangely satisfying. Endorphins and whatnot. But putting on running clothes, lacing on my shoes and stretching? That’s the part I put off.

    Likewise, every time I get in a decent session with my six-stringer, I wonder why I don’t do it more often. But plugging in my guitar and amp? That’s the chore.

    The first step is always the hardest. But once it’s over, it’s all gravy.

  • October 11, 2011

    On friendships, inspiration and loyalty

    Friendship, especially as you enter adulthood, is a strange beast. In my case, my main social group still largely consists of old friends who will always be friends. However, that dynamic is shifting as we have less and less in common. And in some cases, they’re more important to me than I am to them because my circle is smaller. At the same time, newer friendships, at least for me, are not as deep as those I formed in my oh-so-formative teen years.

    The ever-fabulous Sarah of Yes and Yes posted on the concept of a friendship detox not long ago. I LOVE the idea. It goes something like: true friends are the ones who would seek you out should you delete your Facebook account, not respond to texts, basically fall off the face of the modern earth. (Again, not speaking for anybody else, but the number of people I can confidently say yes to on that count is uncomfortably low.)

    The other point brought up was the need to surround yourself with uplifting people. In other words, friends who support and encourage you, act as role models and basically inspire you with their presence.

    I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by incredibly intelligent and talented people both professionally and personally. I do have a couple of friends who still haven’t found their groove, and that’s fine too. So it goes, I guess – you have friends at a similar level, some achieving at a higher one, and a few who look up to you. The golden mean at work.

    What happens when that rule is upset and the balance thrown off, though? I suppose I’m fortunate in that I like T’s friends. But it’s always seemed to me, in almost all cases, a friendship not of equals. From my point of view, his closest buds take more than they give and always seem to be needing rides somewhere or to borrow a few bucks. I laughed when he recently told one of them that the reason I don’t like hanging out with their particular group is because they’re dropkicks. It’s true – I don’t have the patience to tolerate them for long – they’re entertaining, but quite frankly, dumb as wallpaper.

    I hit him up about that – because it occurred to me that not only is he almost entirely surrounded by no-hopers at work (the type who are content with a pretty basic lot in life and are unlikely to go anywhere) but in general. By the way, hinting that someone could do better friend-wise is way more awkward than hinting they could do better romantically.

    His response was thought-provoking, to say the least. Those friends are loyal. They reply to texts straightaway. They don’t have much but are generous with what they have when they have it (it’s always feast or famine on payday). They make good sidekicks, I suppose, and maybe it’s nice to feel like you have your life more together than someone else.

    And they understand his family. Being cut from the same class cloth, they aren’t fazed by the inevitable drunken ugliness that ends every family occasion that we’re obliged to attend. It’s all familiar ground to them. Unlike classier, more accomplished friends, who wouldn’t bother coming to the next one, having been scared off.

    (Although I probably wouldn’t bother with his family either if I didn’t have to – and is that reason enough to write me off? – I know what he means about those friends; they’re more good-time acquaintances now than real friends, whose lives have drifted far from the axis of ours.)

    It seems to me too, that sometimes male friendship ebbs and flows. Friends he used to spend a lot of time with he rarely sees now, partly because we don’t live in the same neighbourhood, and partly because they’ve taken to more expensive pastimes like trips away for skiing and fishing. Although on second thought, that’s probably equally applicable to female friendship.

    Can you thrive without friends who inspire you, or can you derive it from other sources? To what extent do friends define you?

  • October 7, 2011

    Thank you, Steve Jobs

    Every so often, you get a little too settled, a little too comfortable, a little too complacent in life.

    You need a little electric shock to shake you out of it and to refocus your gaze from the road immediately ahead, to the bigger picture.

    I got that jolt this week.

    Thank you, Steve Jobs.

    You know, the first computer I ever remember using was a Macintosh.

    Nonetheless, after we moved to New Zealand, my family never owned anything but PCs. I grew up a PC girl. I owned an iPod, briefly, but didn’t use it all that much. I do use a crappy old MacBook at the office, and a work-issued iPhone. I’ve never purchased an Apple product, and I’m unlikely to do so anytime in the near future.

    Nonetheless, I have immense respect for Apple. Apple is a truly design-led company and makes beautiful, functional products (even if I won’t pay their premium). And Steve Jobs’ story is one of the most inspiring out there. On paper, this was a man who had nothing going for him. Yet this week a world mourned his passing.

    I teared up watching his 2005 Stanford speech as I pulled together coverage of his death at work this week, and again browsing through photos of him in his thick-haired, hippie prime, glowing with health – comparing it to the image I have of the lean, greying middle-aged man from the past few years.

    Like most intensely-driven people,  his work was his life.

    “The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”

    Is this like an orgasm? Will I really, truly, know?  This is something I struggle with.

    Maybe I’m a little more pragmatic. I say no to the soul-sucking job. But I also say no to starving with artistic integrity. My fear of destitution vastly outweighs my fear of personal unfulfilment. Thankfully, I have a more-than-happy middle ground, for which I feel extremely lucky.

    Maybe one day a project that burns me up will manifest itself in my life. Or maybe what serves as an all-consuming passion for Jobs and countless other entrepreneurs is simply a steady, comfortable hum for me.I don’t know.

    But I do agree wholeheartedly with this:

    “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

    And my favourite quote of all:

    “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

    Trust that it will all work out. Words to live by.

    Am I living the life I want to live? Yes. But I can do better. You can always do better. And I have to keep striving to knock those goals off my bucket list.

    How about you?

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