Everyone has the same shot at the same time in their lives. Fortune favours the bold, and I remember working locally in sales and my manager, a lightweight, middle-aged lady matched against my early thirties or mid-thirties, called out, “Didn’t your grandmother teach you that?”
The lesson was both spoken and fated to be a memory, until tonight. The subject of a day-to-day example is hard for me to compose. I almost feel as though I should read something new. I didn’t know I would find it so hard to write a post about the question of what every person needs to learn. I thought I could write of love, or perhaps family, but I didn’t settle on either of those topics. I remember what my sales manager asked about my grandmother, and I knew that was probably the best lesson the lady would give me.
It was a seasonal job, mostly year-round. I exited it discretely by failing to call up the office, at the end of December. Some well-timed holiday wishes and I might have stayed employed there. A call a little too late, and I saw I’d been too optimistic. The same opportunity was present for everyone who knew to call. I was too late, and it wasn’t owing to my ability to do the job that it became kind of a fail for me, it was realizing that perhaps I’d better settle in or I would be left behind. It was a two-part lesson.
The second part is to go the distance and make an initiative. Two notes: draw on whatever positive direction you were sent. Once situated, continue and you’ve got a cue to aim with.
The self-awareness in my life I am fortunate to have lends itself to taking a neutral stance. Self-awareness is one of the primary characteristics of someone acting maturely.
Years ago, in the late 2000s, when I was thirty-ish, I heard a public speaker who was talking about someone I took to be the famous philosopher of relationships, writer John Gray. The man proposing Gray’s books appeared certain about his suggestion.
Not too long before, a lady had given me Gray’s blockbuster, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. If you’re sensitive, you’ll have experienced coincidences of that same sum and substance. I chose to peruse Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, and I enjoyed it enough to get intrigued to discover what else Gray had said in his books.
Photographer: Stephen Rahn
At our library, I found Gray’s very first book, which is What You Feel, You Can Heal. I read what Gray wrote about surviving homelessness when he was in the springtime of life. He talked with individuals he met en route, asking himself what was genuinely upsetting these individuals. Gray evidently thought he might be able to light the way for those struggling.
Gray thought of life experiences that he felt are universally true. He wrote, in What You Feel, You Can Heal, that when people reach their mid-thirties, it is time for them to get down to raising a dependent, whether an animal, or a person. And at the age of 42, individuals are ready to experience what it’s like to be in a community, people together forging more than the sum of their parts.
I was reading my favourite blog last night, the title Beauty Beyond Bones, and I saw she wrote she was just so tired of men who wouldn’t grow up. It didn’t sound like she was having the most splendid time at the moment.
I like reading her blog on a Monday or a Thursday evening. She also does a Wednesday evening post, where she shares recipes, but I’m not such a talented kitchen hand.
Incongruously, I’ve got an interest in Star Wars. I like cinema, I think Star Wars is absorbing, but it crossed my mind that it might not be the kind of priority that’s too impressive for someone of my level. I’m evaluating how mature I am.
I’ve tweeted a few times about Disney. I enjoyed most aspects of the task–my dear mother reading my thoughts on the Star Wars movies, told me I must be an expert! Thanks for that.
On the subject of Beauty Beyond Bones, last night that blog cast back what it’s like going into the 2020s. The author’s a beautiful young lady. Her blog has many thousands of subscribers, and of course, she doesn’t need to be concerned unduly with undeserving men.
I like reading her because she’s Catholic, and she lives in the Big Apple, and she has charm. She’s a great blogger.
There are changes I would like to make about myself, in light of the number of years I’m racking up, but I do need a strategy to get there (somewhere better than here, ostensibly). I like some of the YouTube videos about motivation or strategies to make life improvements.
Photo: Jonas Svidras @ STEP.CAMERA
You’re welcome to like, to follow and or/to comment on this post. Do take care, and may there be happy tidings.
I am grateful to the Beauty Beyond Bones blog, for its inspiration. It’s Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
The Little Mermaid is a site which entertains bloggers who bring together their thoughts on a theme suggested by the moderator. These tea parties, the setting for discussion, began several months ago. The Little Mermaid is on a new site now, found at https://www.thelittlemermaid.site/tag/tea-party For the tea party, March’s theme is fashion.
Personally, I am fashion-challenged, by which I mean I haven’t let fashion out of my bag. I don’t have a memorable sense of fashion.
Aiming to define fashion reminds me, for example, of an Internet dating profile, where a user is invited to assess his sense of fashion in a field drawn from a list of narrow but conventional approaches.
I wish I’d made the decision to dress better when I was younger. If you don’t invest in yourself, how can you expect anyone else to? In a media-hungry capitalist structure, it is important to be “cool” by wearing a wardrobe that both help you feel good about being seen in the street and identifies your lifestyle to people who speak with you.
I believe it’s important, and I would have liked to be more fashionable.
A rule for wear is that clothes must mostly fit. This sounds obvious, but it isn’t necessarily easy to determine that clothes which cultivate a brand for you are far superior to dressing at random.
I am less interested in making an outfit look good than I am, I feel, non-discerning about social mores. That’s how I haven’t let it out of my bag.
I do experience mild anxiety about looking shabby when I ought to be feeling fine, but something in my psychology prevents me from being able to coordinate a wardrobe. That’s kind of funny, eh?
I hope you are not disappointed. You are welcome to click “like,” to follow my blog, and/or to leave a comment.
The Little Mermaid’s tea parties provide inspiration and heighten my interest in others for who her tea parties are likewise attractive.
The Myth of the Independent Blogger and How I Learned to Love It 