Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up
Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban Life
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Archive of "changes" Category
Thank you President Bush
When I was in 9th grade, our history class took a month to discover our political beliefs under the guidance of Mr. Kennedy (who would not tell us his own beliefs until the very last day of the school year but only with the promise that we would not tell the 8th graders who would follow us). We had debates. We wrote essays. We took political quizzes. All of this was to determine which party we belonged to. Are you a Democrat? Or are you a Republican? There are your options and you must know who you are.
I landed in the Republican side of things. There was only one other kid in class who was farther in than I was but it seemed like his reasons were based more on not liking anyone and not being interested in even helping his own family whereas I ranted like a lunatic about Social Security and what seemed like a crazy system (some things never change).
I stuck to my party ever since.
I voted in the 2000 election for George W. Bush but my little Republican dream was John McCain in the White House.
I voted in the 2004 election for George W. Bush – although for that I argued was a choice between inconsistency and incompetence. At least I voted for the man who was consistently incompetent. At the very least, smart people might be around him. I wasn’t happy but I took the options presented to me.
But I haven’t been happy with Bush for quite some time.
So as I wrote yesterday, I voted proudly for Bob Barr. I made a financial donation to his campaign. And for once, I didn’t feel like I had to sacrifice my beliefs for the options in front of me.
I also changed my Republican status to Libertarian. Next time, I’ll be a registered Libertarian.
It turns out there are third parties. You do have other options.
During the 2000 election, I had no idea third parties existed until I got to college. There I discovered the Green Party but every collegiate Green Party member I met appeared to be a ranting, paranoid whack job. It wasn’t exactly the best advertisement for third parties.
This time, I did my research. I learned. I explored again with the same enthusiasm I had in the 9th grade. I needed to do this.
My dissatisfaction motivated me forward. And for that, I want to thank George W. Bush. I truly believe Bush was the best thing that has happened to the United States of America.
Before you get mad, think about it. Yesterday I stood in a record breaking line at 6 in the morning because people were so dissatisfied that they had to do something. Yesterday morning, for the first time in my life, I stood in line at a polling station that wasn’t just filled with white people. Even people from the Fleetwing section of Bristol (which is known for being worse than Philly neighborhoods and is also an open air drug market) were there to vote. And while some of them scared me slightly, it was important to see that they were there. They never came before.
I wanted to be the first voter at my polling station yesterday morning but there was an African American family ahead of me. They never voted before – it seemed fitting to see them go before me.
As of six o’clock this morning, Barack Obama received over 62 million votes. And they are still counting. That’s more votes than received by any other president in US history.
It seems to me that maybe we all had to get really uncomfortable to be motivated. Bush broke our apathy. And we should thank him for that.
Change and Birthdays
Birthday always feel like a better opportunity for self improvement than the beginning of a new calendar year. I usually try to be a person with great New Year’s Resolutions. And it’s usually an epic fail. This year wasn’t as bad as usual but it still wasn’t the changes I thought I could make.
My heart just was not in it.
The New Year is just a time we expect that we should make changes. Because everyone else is doing it. Maybe it really is because we all want to be part of a culture of change. Or maybe it is because we want to connect with the people around us.
The big problem with making changes at the New Year is the group mentality. We aren’t making changes because the timing is right for our lives. We aren’t making changes because we have an overwhelming urge and need to change. We are trying to change because it is convenient. We are trying to change for the wrong reasons.
I turned 23 in 2005. I like to describe 23 as my scary age – you feel like you should know what you are doing with your life but in reality, you have absolutely no clue. 23 still scares me in ways that I’m told are similar to the ways my friends feel about 30 or 40.
But I don’t say that 2005 was my scary year. 2005 was just fine. It was me being 23 in the year 2005 that was the problem.
And I think 26 is going to be a pretty good age for me. I have a husband that I love and I adore. I have a home to live in. I have my friends and family. I have a job. I have things in my life that I am passionate and excited about doing. My needs are met and I want the things that I have.
I’m not emotionally attached to the calendar year I am living in but I am emotionally attached to the number of years I have under my belt. The process of turning 26 makes me want to make changes to make this year under my belt. I would rather say that I changed the world for the better when I was 26 years old than say “Dorie Morgan changed the world in 2008”. Or “Dorie changed the way she lived when she was 26” would be better as well.
What if we change the way we think about making resolutions to change? What if we picked one thing to change or accomplish every year? But instead of waiting for a universal start date, we use our birthdays. We make one change and we make that change in the form of a well developed plan.
Change rarely looks like a wish list. I may wish that I looked like Angelina Jolie, had the money of Oprah Winfrey and kept a house like Martha Stewart but none of that is realistic. Or probable. All that list contains is a series of wishes that are virtually unobtainable.
If I am serious about making a change, I need baby steps that lead to success.
I’m not sure what exactly I want for my 26th year but today is a really good day to actively think about it.
Change, accountability and Adam Gilbert
Sometimes I hate Adam Gilbert.
In other words, my plan to get back into shape is going great. I’m down about five pounds and I feel great. And Brian keeps telling me how good I look and anytime your husband bursts out a declaration of your superior appearance without prompting, it is a very good sign. And my skinny jeans have become my everyday jeans.
But still, sometimes, I hate Adam.
Yesterday, I hated Adam while I looked at a Tootsie Pop and thought “I could have that and no one would ever be the wiser”. I knew the kids in Sunday school would never rat me out.
But when Adam says that he can get inside your head, he really does mean it. Because as my fingers wrapped around that glorious lollypop stick, all I could think about was having to tell Adam that I ate a tootsie pop. And I didn’t even have a good reason to eat that tootsie pop. My throat wasn’t sore, I wasn’t PMSing and no one had a gun to my head forcing me to eat the tootsie pop.
So Adam’s plan is working. He really is inside of my head. And I put the lollypop down.
The funny thing is I don’t even like Tootsie Pops. They were great when I was a kid but the appeal is minimal now.
Every night I send my food diary to Adam where I tell him every single thing that passed through my lips. When I eat junk, I have to tell him what I ate and why I ate it. And I could come up for excuses for everything I eat (“I ate the Milky Way because I have Mommy issues that only chocolate and caramel can solve” or “I wasn’t going to eat the entire bag of potato chips but I’m concerned about the economy and by eating the potato chips, I am ensuring that someone in a factory has a job”) but I have a little too much pride to do that.
But I don’t really hate Adam. Every morning he sends daily inspirations to his clients. And he actually is inspiring. So while I may hate Adam as I stand in front of the candy bowl in my office as I attempt to practice self control, if I walk back to my computer and read his daily inspiration, I’m inspired again by his commitment and his belief in his clients.
He truly believes his clients can change their lives. And when I remember that I’m his client, I remember that he believes I can change my life. And that feels incredible.
Change and accountability are really rough things to deal with in daily life.
Change sucks because it’s awkward and uncomfortable. It involves stripping away habits and beliefs that might not be the best for you. Sometimes change doesn’t go well and you look ridiculous in the process. But ultimately, change is good for you (despite the initial awkward feeling of unknown). The discomfort forces you to grow. And anything in this life that isn’t actively growing is actually stagnant and dying.
Accountability sucks because it forces you to change. And it makes you get out of your own head and into reality. Reality is harsh. Just like accountability. And I’ll be honest, I know I can’t be held accountable by the people I’m closest to. I would love to think that I could be but sometimes, the idea of being just that vulnerable terrifies me. I fear that if I disappoint them enough, I’d lose their friendship.
It is actually fairly easy to let myself be held accountable by Adam. I could tell him almost anything. I don’t feel judged (this is not shame-based motivation) but I feel encouraged. After a month, I find I don’t want to disappoint Adam.
I also find I don’t want to disappoint myself.
Live your life as if it were a video game
Guest post today by Jun Loayza! In case you haven’t discovered him on your own yet, Jun is the CMO of Future Delivery, blogs regularly and is part of the Brazen Careerist community. I asked Jun to write about something he is passionate about and I love his perspective on approaching life. I hope this changes the way you approach living.
“My name is Cloud Strife, and I fought against the evil forces of Shinra. I stood against the evil Sephiroth and managed to save the planet by destroying him.”
Yes, I was an uber dork in high school, but living in this fantasy world is just oh so fun. The game that I’m referring to above is Final Fantasy VII – it was the last role playing game that I ever played and truly lost myself in. Playing video games is extremely addicting in our society. We see it all the time with hardcore gamers in World of Warcraft or Starcraft. WoW is so addicting that players have actually died from starvation!
I used to live my life like an NPC (Non Playable Character). We have all seen these characters in video games; they stand around in towns to make the place look more lively and fun. They’re always doing the same exact thing, never progress, and are just bystanders to the actual main story of the game. I was an NPC because I was just on cruise-control with my life. I never really had to try hard to achieve anything because everything just came to me: I wanted to get into UCLA, and I got in; I wanted to become a brother in Delta Sigma Pi, and I received a bid; if I wanted to start dating this cute girl in class, I (usually) started dating her. Because of my easy-going life style and my philosophy of letting things just happen to me, I was a true NPC of my life. I was just watching it go by.
Fall 06 was the turning point in my life. I was interviewing for full-time offers in Consulting and approached the recruiting process with the same NPC mentality. After a few interviews, I started feeling confused because I hadn’t heard back from the companies. I went home one weekend to visit the family and saw the letters on my desk, the letters that you dread as a high school student looking to get into college and as a graduating senior looking to get a full-time job. They were my first rejection letters.
It felt like a ton of bricks had just given me a blow to the chest. I had never felt so useless, unwanted, and rejected. I had been cruising in my life, just letting things happen and never truly taking the initiative to progress my life story.
Do you know how you spot an NPC in real life? Go up to someone and ask them, “What’s new?” If they say, “Same old, same old,” then you just found yourself an NPC.
My life of playing video games, ditching class, and non-stop drinking must be put to a stop now. I turned to my friend and now business partner Yu-kai Chou who had a similar turning point in his life. He advised me, “Why don’t you live your life as if it were a video game?” “What in the world are you talking about?” I asked…
Your primary goal in an RPG (role playing game) is to increase in level, gain new abilities, and become a more powerful player. It’s fun to do it in a fantasy world, so why not do it in real life? You can gain new abilities by learning a new programming language, learning a new language, or reading a new business book. You can gain in your social attributes by constantly networking and joining social networking sites that will increase the variety of your social circles. You can level-up in real life by developing yourself personally and professionally. This is what I decided to do and it has dramatically changed my life for the better.
So what did I do? I gained in my leadership attributes by founding Bruin Consulting and the Undergraduate Case Competition at UCLA. I gained experience points by founding The Veridical Group – a small business consulting firm. I increased my social level by creating a blog and making an effort to meet the blogging community. I turned my life into a video game and made it my goal to constantly keep leveling up in real life.
This life goal has lead Yu-kai and I to found Future Delivery. Our goal with Future Delivery is to help student and young professionals have fun with career and professional development. We recently launched our site FD Career which helps you lead your life as if it were a video game. Every time you gain an internship, get a high GPA, or become the leader of an organization, you gain experience points and level up on the site. As you gain in level, you earn prestige, are rewarded new features and abilities, and gain the ability to recruit with prestigious firms. Yu-kai and I had to go through a huge road block in our lives to reach this epiphany. Our hope is that with FD Career, students and young professionals will realize that leveling up in real life is much more fun and rewarding that leveling up your fantasy character in a video game.
I am Level 34 in real life. What level are you?
You were a jerk. Let’s fix it.
So maybe after reading last week’s post, you have realized that you are, in fact, the office asshole. Maybe you had no clue before. Maybe you didn’t care before. But now you know and now, you want to do something to fix it.
As I said last time, I’m not sure you can fix it. I wish it was that simple. But every office has at least one person (or more) with the memory of an elephant. Some people will want to forgive and forget and move on with their workday. Other people will remember and be wary. And either way is okay. Much like they could not change the fact that you are/were the office jerk, you can not change how they chose to deal with it.
Step 1: Stop talking about yourself. Adopt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with your personal life. If they don’t ask, you don’t tell. It really is that simple. You are not as interesting to your cube mate as you are to yourself.
Step 2: Start talking (or at least asking) about other people. Please don’t interpret that as start gossiping though. You’ve spent enough time talking about yourself, now its time to hear about someone else. Ask about what someone’s plans are for the weekend. And then, here’s the hard part, wait until they ask about your plans. If they don’t ask, then refer to Step 1. Mostly likely, the person who is most interesting to the person you are talking to is them self.
Step 3: Take an interest. Sometimes, you have to look out for yourself first. For some of us, that’s next to impossible to learn. But other times, you have to look out for your time first. And for the rest of us, that’s next to impossible to learn. If you have been the office jerk, chances are, you were only looking out for Number 1. So now, you learn how to listen to what projects are on the horizon for your team. And if your team is stuck or struggling, take an interest and offer to help. Don’t offer to help to be the hero and save the day. You are offering to help by saving your team from the tedious. You are showing your team/department/office that you realize you need them.
Step 4: Remember those interns. Maybe you weren’t so nice to those interns before. Now, you have to be. I’ll be honest, I secretly judge most of my coworkers based on how they treat the interns. So take an intern under your wing. Teach that intern something they may not have learned elsewhere. Maybe even pull an intern onto a choice assignment. It will never hurt you to help the low man on the totem pole.
Step 5: Do something nice. Maybe that looks like bringing cupcakes to the office or picking up breakfast for the team. Maybe being nice looks like remembering that someone loves jazz and then letting them know about a music festival they might enjoy. Maybe it is treating someone to lunch. I’m not suggesting you try to buy love (and if you are a jerk, this will only make things worse) but people love to feel like they have been remembered.
Step 6: Apologize. Maybe this is a step reserved for the truly heinous of office assholes but if you are making no progress in improving your office relationships, you may need to acknowledge your previous behavior. It doesn’t need to be anything over the top but it does need to be sincere and to the point. An example: “I realize that for a long time I did not treat the team properly and I need to correct that. What do you think I can do to make the situation better?”
Step 7: Dust off your resume. You may have done too much damage at your place of current employment to correct it. But don’t just hop to a new job and hope everything will be better. You will need to be making an active effort not to repeat the mistakes you made previously. Figure out why you were such a jerk before and then avoid those situations/triggers/whatever that set you off.
Why a change is not forever
Sophomore year in college I decided it would be a brillant idea to die the front two inches of my hair burgandy and then leave the rest of my hair bleached blond. Kinda like the chick from Republica in the late nineties. I was tired of looking like the girl next door. I wanted to look like the edgy girl net door.
My hair color didn’t work out quite as planned. Since I am a natural blonde, the bleached portion didn’t look like normal bleached hair when growing out and the burgandy kept fading to this really odd shade of pink and from there it moved onto this gross orange color. Ultimately, I had to pay to have all of the color stripped out of my hair and then paid to hair the colorist attempt to recreate my natural color.
I haven’t used hair dye since. I’m paranoid that if I do, it won’t turn out well and I won’t want to show my face in the office afterwards.
I made an appointment with my stylist for two weeks from now (she happens to be the very brave colorist that tried to save my hair six years ago - I don’t trust anyone else). I thought I was being adventurous by scheduling for a cut and color with the plan being for highlights. I felt very proud of myself for this bold step forward until I told Brian.
Apparently, if I’m going to spend money on stylist, I need to start make hair choices that scare me a little. And when I started to complain about what if I don’t like it, how will I go to work if it is bad, etc, Brian tells me that it is just hair. It will grow back regardless of how good or bad it is.
He also wants to know what color we should dye his hair.
He makes a great point - most of the changes we make in our lives are temporary at best. We can ultimately decide to maintain those changes or let them fall to the wayside. Sometimes undo-ing the change is painful (from what I hear, tattoo removal is worse than the tattoo itself) but there are very few changes that we are stuck with forever.
Sometimes I find that I’m afraid to make changes in my career. I am afraid that the comfortable situation that I could leave is the best situation I could get. But even a job change isn’t permanent - it is a stepping stone to the next stage of life.
A change is only as permanent as you want it to be. This week I’m a blonde but two weeks from now, I think I am going to be a redhead. I’m a little nervous but now I’m also excited that I decided to do it.
What changes in your life have made you nervous? Did you do it anyway?
What ever happened to anonymous?
While pursuing Facebook this morning, I couldn’t help but noticed that a group had been formed for Alcoholics Anonymous. Yes, that’s right, Alcoholics Anonymous can now be part of your Facebook experience. Even more interesting, Narcotics Anonymous also has their own group. While you are busy social networking, you can also announce your ties to the twelve steps.
I always thought the anonymous factor of AA and NA was part of the effectiveness. I’m under the impression that no last names are used in their meetings. I’ve never been to a meeting before so I don’t have a very good understanding of what happens during their time together beyond the twelve steps. In fact, if you look at their website, you will find that they do not keep case histories or attendance records. That sounds anonymous to me.
But anonymous is part of the organization’s name. Anonymous. Unnamed. Unidentified. Unknown. Nameless. The group isn’t called “Announcing Alcoholics”. We don’t ask people who are changing their lives and moving away from drug and alcohol abuse to wear some sort of scarlet letter. They’ve been through enough already. Their families have been through enough already.
What is the benefit to announcing this on the internet?
I have no problem with personal testimony from addicts. I think it is truly wonderful and important when they share their experiences with each other and with the people in their lives who have not faced addiction. But I’m just not sure what the benefit is to the Facebook Group. If I could understand the benefit, it might be different.
Maybe part of the problems is that I feel it makes light of a very serious problem.
THE TWELVE STEPSOF ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.By the way, if you or someone you know needs help, check out the AA website at www.alcoholics-anonymous.org/
A Year Ago Yesterday
A year ago yesterday, my mother-in-law passed away. I didn’t know at the time that someday I would refer to her as my mother-in-law but I had a very strong feeling at the time that something wonderful was about to happen between her son and I. I believe that in many ways, Beth’s passing was a catalyst, bringing Brian and I together and setting many wheels in motion.
So much has changed since she left this Earth. We are all a year older. We all look different. Most of us have new haircuts. Brian and I were married. Kelly and Jason (Brian’s middle sister and his best friend) were married. Beth’s grandchildren were homeschooled. I found a new job. Kelly moved out. I moved in. Kelly was promoted at work. Don met new people. I went camping for the first time. There was good and there was bad.
Yesterday was still a Morgan Day of Mourning. It marked the beginning and the end of many things. I remembered Beth by trying to do something nice for other people. I baked desserts for the PBU back to school bbq my church had. I did not attend as I don’t think I could have maintained the niceness. I also read the section on mourning in Muddhouse Sabbath. I thought about the ways we mourn as Christians fail the families of the loved ones who passed. I remembered a promise I once made to Beth and took some first steps to maintain it. I held my husband and I told him how loved he is. I made dinner for my family and enjoyed spending time with them.
I’m still sad my babies will never know their Grandmother and that the stories that will be told will be largely inadequate.
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