Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up
Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban Life
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Archive of "priorities" Category
Perhaps I need more boundaries
Last night I was totally overwhelmed by life. I walked through the front door, took one look at Brian and just started sobbing. Could this be a sign that any sense of balance I once had has evaporated?
Maybe.
I feel like I’m in some Nationwide commercial and I keep waiting for the voiceover to come out with the “Life comes at you fast” tagline.
I’m still waiting.
At the moment, I’m overwhelmed with the many different roles I play in my life. Wife. Employee. Daughter. Writer. Morgan Family Member. Gillette Family Member. I could keep going but then I’m only going to overwhelm myself again.
The fact is keeping a balanced life is so much harder than I expected. As a kid, my mother made it seem effortless but now that I am an adult, I realize that she was falling apart even more than most. Yet I still hold myself to the standard at which I perceived her.
What set me over the edge last night was this: There are only 24 hours in the day. In that 24 hours, I expect myself to be able to work for eight hours, take an hour lunch, drive 45 minutes each way to work, make lunch for both myself and my husband, shower/shave my legs, cook dinner, eat dinner, do laundry, go to school part time, talk to friends, fulfill family obligations, spend quality time with my husband, find time to do things for me and still look good. Oh and despite my exhaustion, I still expect myself to be ready for love making with a moment’s notice. I should also find time to be able to sleep for seven to eight hours a night.
Clearly, this is not working out.
How do we find resolution between our expectations of self versus the physical limitations of both time and our bodies? How do we learn to say no to the things we think we want to do?
Maybe the key to realistically finding balance is being able to set better boundaries. Maybe I shouldn’t even be thinking about having balance in my life until I’m comfortable setting boundaries that may make people angry. Maybe I need to stop holding myself to the housework standards as a homemaker.
Last night, I looked at my life in terms of two columns: The things I want to do versus the things I should do. Somewhere in the middle lie the things I will actually do.
The question is now, what makes it onto that list?
Why you are actually reading about my husband
I blog about a lot of things.
I blog about work. I blog about my health. I blog about current events. I blog about my relationship with God. I blog about everything.
But really, this blog is about my marriage.
Even when I don’t write about it, it all comes back to my marriage.
Why?
My relationship with my husband is the single most important relationship in my life. It influences every decision I make. When I make a decision about what career path to follow, I am thinking about my husband. When I am seeking medical treatment, I think about how my treatment will affect my husband. When I look at CNN in the morning before work, I am thinking about, that’s right, my husband.
Brian is my priority.
And I don’t anticipate this changing. Even when we have kids, my husband will continue to be my highest priority. Why? Because we can always make more kids. I cannot recreate my husband.
Brian is the family I picked. I looked at him and decided that not only did I want to be in his tribe but I wanted to make our own little tribe with him. I wanted to create a life together.
Jobs will come and go. Friends will move on. Parents will (hopefully) die before I do. Politics will change. Current events will become history. Fads will fade and pop culture will be forgotten.
Brian will be the man I grow old next to. My wrinkly old hand will someday be patting my husband’s wrinkly old butt. And that’s the way I want it.
My commitment to Brian and Brian’s commitment to me is the most influencing factor in our lives. Everything will always come back to my marriage.
Why your parents have been lying to you
Whether you want to admit it or not, your parents have been lying to you for longer than you can remember. At first it was little lies – Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny and Cupid fall into this category. Then the lies got a little bigger – Prince Charming is one of those lies women wrestle with into their thirties. But then came the most monstrous lies of all with the first being “Love Conquers All” and the second being “You can be anything you want to be”.
I’m not capable of touching the first one with a ten foot pole so let me set you straight on the second: You can’t be anything you want to be.
Sucks, doesn’t it?
Need proof?
You cannot be a prince/princess unless you were born into a royal lineage or unless you can manage to smile with your eyes wide open and even then there is a long audition process before you can become a Disney Princess.
That one is a little obvious so let’s try again:
You cannot be a professional athlete unless you are gifted in a physically adept manner, have made the necessary sacrifices of both your body and time and have committed yourself to achieving excellence. I may want to be a professional athlete but with my genetic blessings, it isn’t going to happen in this lifetime.
Life is about choices and the idea of being whatever you want strips young people of the ability to make honest, informed choices.
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a professional actress when I grew up. More specifically, I wanted to be on Broadway. I wanted to be a leading lady who sang and danced and was adored. But I am not a dancer. Nor was I that interested in becoming an accomplished dancer (like I said before, my physical prowess leaves much to be desired). I knew not to fool myself from an early age. But when I went to college, I discovered plenty of women who were like me except that they still believed they would be Broadway stars. Their parents were still telling them that they could be whatever they dreamed of.
To a certain extent, it may be okay to lie to kids about this. I’m not a parent so I don’t know for sure but from this end of things, it seems to cripple my peers instead of helping them. Maybe it would be better to tell kids that with hard work, they could do wonderful things.
The question becomes, at least for me, at what point must the truth come out? Fulfilling a dream requires hard work, dedication, vision, preparation, opportunity and passion. Or maybe, the question is really about when it is time to surrender the fantasy. When does dedication become delusional? There is always that fine line between brilliance and crazy.
But what I am really trying to stress is that adult life is about choices. I work to pay my bills. I am not looking for the career equivalent of hitting the lottery. But I am looking for the freedom to pursue my own loves on my own time. Because at the end of the day, you probably can’t have it all. You can’t have the perfect job, the perfect family and time for your hobbies, unless you think you don’t need to sleep at night. And by kidding yourself that you can have it all and stay sane, you put off the choice aspect of adulthood.
Why Penelope is the swift kick in the ass you need
Penelope Trunk’s Steps to figuring out your next career move should be giving your career the swift kick in the ass your twenty-something career needs. How do I know this is what you need? With the opening paragraph closing with the line “The ones who are complaining the most right now, after reading just this far, are the people who are most in denial of what adult life is about”, you can’t help but realize that what you’ll read next is everything you didn’t want to hear but you had to anyway.
Penelope also gives you the kick your life needs. Afterall, your job or your career is merely a symptom of what the rest of your life looks like. If your home life is in shambles, it is merely a matter of time until your work life is too. If work is falling apart, your marriage or family life will feel the strain. The exercise Penelope provides can really be applied to any aspect of your life. Its really all about making choices and cutting the excess.
I’ve taken the list Penelope provided and I tried to apply it to my personal life. Below you’ll see her list in bold and my comments in italics.
1. Eliminate stuff. I hate to admit but Brian and I have a stuff problem. Both in the activities we take on and the things we possess. This is great advice where ever you are in life. When I was looking at my own list of my life, I noticed that I have this tendency to stay involved in organizations that I don’t believe in just because I don’t want to quit. By giving up volunteer work for organizations I no longer believe and cutting back on Township meetings I don’t really need to be at, I made more time for the things I actually need or want to do. Next step: clearing out the spare bedroom that only makes Brian and I feel swamped and overwhelmed.
2. Look at what’s left. What’s left is still a pretty expansive list. It is so easy to forget about the many rolls we have in our own lives. Wife. Daughter. Clerical Assistant. Member of the Well. Aunt. Granddaughter. Writer. Painter. Reader. Volunteer. Family Organizer. Cook. The list really could go on for days. This is then your cue to go back to item one and see what other stuff you can eliminate.
3. Check in with yourself. I try to convince myself that I love doing things to make my husband’s life easier. But sometimes I don’t and I don’t want to admit. You have to check in with yourself to see what you still value. If you don’t know what you value personally, how will you know what you value professionally? If you need help with this task, try taking the Franklin Covey FOCUS seminar. I assure you, it will be money well spent.
4. Be honest about what you love. Penelope suggests using sex as a litmus test. Which may or may not work depending on the type of person you are. For me, it works. For my friend Kim, that litmus test would not work at all. A better test for her would be daytime TIVOed TV. Whatever it is you love, its okay. Just make sure you know what it is.
5. Admit if you lack a clear passion. Not to bust on Kim but she has no clear passion. That’s why she is a paralegal in a Philadelphia law office. She makes steady money, her needs are met and she has a reasonable work week leaving her time to watch tv in the evenings. That’s the life she wanted. My friend Jeannie, on the other hand, has always been passionate about psychology. She isn’t making great money but she loves what she does. She knows where her passion is. The important thing here is that both of my friends know what they are and are not passionate about and they plan their lives accordingly.
6. Get busy. Doing anything. And on that note….Why you can’t afford to forget your expense sheet.
The end of the month is quickly approaching… Have you submited your expense sheet yet? I know none of us would dream of not submitting our time sheets but for some reason, the same level of importance is not attached to our expense sheets.
I see it all the time at my office: individuals who are not salaried doing company errands on their own time and then never turn in an expense sheet or bill for the hours they worked. The worst part is that it is more common than you think. Frequently, my company only issues one or two reimbursement checks per month.
By not submitting an expense sheet, you are only setting yourself up for failure. You are sending several, very loud and very negative messages to your supervisors and your colleagues. You might as well walk around in a t-shirt that says “I don’t value myself and you shouldn’t either”.
Don’t understand why? Here’s a brief but by no means exhaustive list.
1. You just hurt your ability to negotiate for a raise. Have you gotten a raise lately? Was your last raise everything you wanted it to be? Do you make more money than you know what to do with? Are you independently wealthy and just working for kicks? Unless the answer for all of those questions is yes, you need to submit a sheet. The company isn’t going to remind. HR will not send you an email with the subject line “I notice we owe you money”. But they will notice. And if getting money that is rightfully yours isn’t high on your priority list, getting a raise probably isn’t. If I was your boss, I wouldn’t want to give you more money if you didn’t properly manage the money you already have.
2. You just said you have nothing better to do with your time. I want to work with a group of people with diverse interests and skills. I do not want to work with a group of people that only work. If you are running errands on your personal time and not billing for the hours, you just told your boss that you lead a flat, boring life. My most effective coworkers are individuals who are busy with philanthropy, sports, churches, special interest groups, etc. outside of work. Put yourself in the effective category and get a life.
3. You just obliterated your chance at work/life balance. If you are free to run company errands on your nights and weekends, you’ll never have time for the hobbies you now have in Point #2. While work/life balance is something that falls in the obsolete idea category, most management does not realize it yet. Working an eighty hour work week won’t make you happy. Finding time to better yourself outside of work will. Read a book, visit your grandparents, do some charity work – all of these activities add balance and meaning to your life.
4. You just discounted your contributions to the company. I periodically come into work on a Saturday morning or a Sunday afternoon to clear out some of the work that will only clog the beginning of my next week. I like to start Monday feel clear and refreshed. But when I come in, I make sure my boss and my boss’s boss know about it. And I make sure I’m paid for it. My weekend work time is some of my most productive time all week and I want to make sure my contributions are seen and appreciated. If you need to work a weekend, fine, do it, and do it with a smile on your face. But make sure it is noted. And make sure it doesn’t happen every week. Once a month is plenty. And take the extra cash you earn as an hourly associate and invest it in your career. The money I make in over time goes towards learning new skills that will benefit my career or new suiting.
As odd as it sounds, your expense sheet is a great way to show your company just how hard you work and it is your ticket to getting a company credit card if you haven’t already. If you don’t show that your contributions are consistent and beneficial, no one else will have the time to take note. Your expense sheet is a habit you can’t afford to neglect.
Why the roofers are driving me nuts – and it isn’t just the loud noise
Today I have the joy of listening to the roofers work above my desk and I am not so secretly waiting for a roofer to come crashing through and end up in my lap. The constant ripping and grinding noises are constant and nagging. To be honest, I’m not really getting all that much done today but at least I’m being paid. I’m really just perfecting the art of puttering and trying to make research projects look more substantial than they really are.
At my job, nothing stops the work. When it snows, we work. When part of the building is under construction, we work. When the server is down and there is no access to our computer files, we work. When the power is out, we work. When a roofer is tearing out and old roof and installing a new one (causing debris to fall into the office, I might add), we work. Nothing halts operations. I suspect that even if the President of our company died suddenly, he’d come back from the grave to haunt us if we even stopped working for a moment.
My intent here is not to make the owner of the company sound like a complete slave driver – he really isn’t. We have great employee benefits – our health care is totally covered by the company (and the insurance is Personal Choice which is costs more than what I make in a week). We are eligible for tuition reimbursement after 3 months. The company brings food in all of the time for employees. We have booze at our company events. I know I am luckier than most of my friends at this point in our careers.
But.
We never stop.
I’m not sure that our president has caught on that days like these, our productivity is shot. Any task that requires concentration is just not going to happen. And seeing that I work for a small contract manufacturer/pharmaceutical consulting company, everything we do requires concentration. I don’t think the president has noticed that we are all aimlessly wandering today.
I can’t help but wonder, what would happen had the executive staff opted to give us a week off while the roof was being replaced. Would employee moral gone up? Compared to what it is today, I’m fairly certain it would. I’m pretty certain that a bonus week off would do a lot more for productivity than try to eek out acceptable work during chaos.
Somehow, this doesn’t appear to be an acceptable option. And as someone who wants more flexible work time and work space, I find really disappointing. I want the executive staff of the company where I work to be concerned more with my productivity than the number of hours that I log in the office. I would much rather work 35 highly productive hours than get paid for 50 relatively productive hours. I want the hours I work to really count.
What My New Year Resolutions Look Like: Goal 1
Goal 1: I will take better, proactive care of my health.
I thought this was going to be one of the easiest goals on my list for the year. I had these great plans of things I would do and suddenly everything would be perfect in my health. I was going to become the picture of health and fitness and my husband was going to love me more for it. I was going to go to the gym everyday! I was going to switch my family to an entirely organic diet! I was going to get eight full hours of sleep every night! I was going to eat three, square meals a day! I was going to schedule all of my medical appointments in a timely manner!
I was going to fail miserably because the only goal I managed to succeed on was the sleeping eight hours every night. But man, I’m good at sleeping.
If I wanted to keep my goal, I needed to reevaluate.
The first goal to go was the organic diet. Brian and I have the pleasure of living in Levittown, PA, which is not a bad place to live. It is a bad place to try to find organic food. Beyond Nature’s Promise brand at the Giant, your options are limited. And with the nearest Whole Foods located about 15 miles away, organic became so inconvenient that the stress of finding food for an organic diet seemed to cause more harm than good. The solution? My chiropractor recommended that I start taking Greens. I was not a happy camper about it for the first few days but it has now become part of my morning routine. I’ve also stopped buying junk food for my husband and I make an extra serving at dinner to take to work the next day for lunch. It may not be organic but only having fast food once in the last month is quite an improvement for me.
The next goal to go was going to the gym. My schedule is fairly limited and the only way for me to make it to the gym was to wake up at 4:45 in the morning to haul my booty over to LA Fitness. Seeing as the eight hours of sleep was the only aspect I was succeeding in, it just wasn’t going to happen. So I cancelled my membership and bought an ab-roller and exercise bands. It isn’t quite the same as working out at the gym but its what my schedule allows. And now I don’t feel guilt for not making it to the gym as I should. Score one for me
Finally, I’ve given up on having three meals a day. I tried it, but it was just not happening for me. I’ve always been a grazer. I have been eating about 6-7 meals a day (tiny meals I might add) and I feel better than when I tried to force myself to only eat at work at lunch time. With the one hour lunch, I kept binging and then starving myself. Now I feel less sluggish and more balanced through out the day.
Oh, and the medical appointments? I’ve temporarily abandoned hope of scheduling in a timely manner. I keep needing to schedule appointments involving needles and bloodwork and since I’m such a big baby about needles, I put it off until my husband gets mad. And for now, that works just fine for me.
Coming tomorrow: Goal 2 – I will be kinder to my body.
My 5 Goals for 2008
The day after Christmas, I wrote goals for 2008 in the front of my pink FranklinCovey planner. Usually, I go a bit overboard with my resolutions. One year, I had upward of twenty five. Most years, however, I stay between ten and fifteen goals. No wonder I fail.
I set five different goals for myself this year, which was a quite a cut back for me. There are, as follows:
- I will take better, proactive care of my health.
- I will be kinder to my body.
- I will read.
- I will prioritize.
- I will write.
While none of these are particularly earth shattering, lofty goals, I think I have a better shot of achieving them this year. While Penelope Trunk urges us to only make one goal this year (see link) I know I’m not a one goal kinda girl. I could never cut back that much. I know I’d be tacking on extra resolutions by the end of next week. I don’t even think I could resolve to make no more resolutions.
This year, I’m focused on the life I really want. I want to be healthy. This may be the possible tumor talking but I think I need to account for Peter Keating and the space he occupies. I want to go to the gym. I want to eat food that is better for me. I want to sleep at night. But I also want balance. I don’t want to be a health nut. I want to be able to prioritize my marriage, not my job or the other fluff. And I miss writing and reading. And by prioritizing things other than the TV, I believe that it is possible.
What are your goals for this year? And how do you plan on reaching those goals?
A Tempting Offer by Democratic Hopefuls
Much like events transpiring in Nebraska, I have a tendency to ignore events in the Democratic Party because more the half the time, I find myself more than slightly agitated as a result. With an upcoming election year, I cannot ignore or neglect these news reports, as tempting as it would be, but I find myself intrigued by some of the ideas I am hearing.
Hillary has released her plan for universal health care. Despite my Republican, or rather Libertarian tendencies, universal health care is tempting. My husband has to pay close to $200 per month for mediocre coverage that often leaves us hanging. I luck out that the company I work for has amazing health coverage for all employees but spouses are not covered. Hillary seems to think mandating coverage is the way to go and we’ll be able to pay for our coverage through income tax credits. Hillary, in my opinion, has lost touch with the needs and wants of the American people. We want health coverage, but as our debt prone nation is often found doing, a tax credit is often found spent on more items we cannot afford as we attempt yet again to keep up with every other family on the block. My tax credit for health insurance would most likely be spent of fixing my car, leaving me to worry about my health insurance bill another day.
Hillary’s proposed health care plan is tempting. We will all have health insurance. There will be a tax cut. It is almost enough to lure you into a false sense of security.
Barack Obama has realized his proposed tax cuts as part of his campaign for the democratic ticket. And I must confess – if Obama wins the democratic ticket, he will have my vote. And I have never voted for a democrat in my life.
Obama said at the Tax Policy Center that the current tax code is working for the wrong priorities. As someone who really feels the impact of each tax dollar taken out of her pay check, I am apt to agree. After all, more than half of my take home pay goes towards student loans. If the present tax code rewards wealth instead of work, how can those of us who only have work ever hope to get ahead?
He also has great plans to end income tax for senior citizens who make less than fifty thousand a year. Thank Goodness. I look at all the time that is spent trying to sort out my grandparents income tax each year, mind you for an elderly couple who haven’t worked in over twenty years, and I have this hope that finally someone understands that taxing people who receive Social Security isn’t the brightest idea.
What really won me over to Obama’s plan though was the idea of five minute filings.
“There’s no reason the IRS can’t send Americans pre-filled tax forms to verify,” he said. “This means no more worry. No more wasted time. No more extra expenses for a tax preparer.”
Wow. Imagine not needing to spend hours at the accountant. Imagine just verifying a document and mailing it back. Imagine the IRS doing something more to justify their agency’s existance.
I’ve been sucked in already but we still have over a year to see how all of this will play out.
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