Pick Yourself

Ok, I am secretly addicted to the blog of Seth Godin, a new-age, rah rah, smarty pants publisher/entrepreneur. I do not even know what he is exactly, but I like his blog, his wisdom, and his big bald head, which you click on to get to his blog (this delights me every time). For where I am right now, he speaks to me.

Yesterday (or sometime in the last couple of days) he wrote this.

It was exactly the topic Jonathan and I have been discussing endlessly these last few weeks, as we did our taxes (how depressingly low our income is!) and assessed our life (we are so happy, but we need to make some serious changes!)

We have always been picked. Picked by the teachers, picked by our friends. We have been picked for great colleges and picked for great jobs. We have been picked for scholarships and honors and friendship. We are grateful. But perhaps being picked keeps you passive.

No one is really being picked right now. If you are waiting to be picked, no matter how talented you are, you could be waiting a long time. You could write books, have a child, train for a marathon, learn a language or an instrument, in the time it might take you to be picked. It didn't used to be that way. But the old institutions are dying, no one knows what is going on, or where the world is going, or what the next model of ANYTHING is going to be, so all the traditional pickers are frozen, unable to do any picking.

This can make you feel really bad about yourself if you are waiting to be picked.

And it is hard to change, if you are used to being adored, courted, told you are smart. If you are used to sitting and waiting for someone to say, "I want you!"

Those days are over. If you want to do something, do it yourself. If you want to make something happen, start now. If you want to be picked, pick yourself.

Seth Godin says it better than I do. But maybe if I write it twice, and you read it twice, we will all do it.

Words of Comfort from Dr. Seuss

(stolen from Theo)

"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose."

"Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is youer than you."

"From there to here, and here to there, funny things are everywhere."

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So...get on your way."

"If you never did, you should. These things are fun, and fun is good."

"I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful, one hundred percent."

"So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads."

"And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed."

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."

And, if you want to do the assignment...which do you like, and why?

Words of Comfort from My Hubbie

"Sandra Day O'Connor took five years off to be with her kids. Enjoy it."

Yes. This is What It Has Come To.

I loved Obama's speech last night.

As Jonathan said to me afterwards: "He was talking to us, too."

Yes, he was. We need to re-invent, re-invest, innovate and educate.

Many things touched me (because I am feeling all weepy and vulnerable) but the thing I woke up thinking about this morning was the woman in her Fifties from the Midwest. At fifty-something she was going back to school to get her biotech degree. She said she was doing it to inspire her children and show them that education matters.

These days, thinking of what my boys will think is the only thing that moves me forward. Otherwise I might just lie down and go to sleep.

When I am tired, or lacking confidence, or feeling like I would rather engage in some escapist activity like reading or seeing a movie, or scrolling through housing swap sites looking for a perfect apartment in Paris, or staring at the ceiling and feeling sorry for myself, I think of what message I want to be sending my boys. I think of what I am modeling.

I don't know the answer to that. But I want to model a person who is brave, who works hard, who is a leader in the community, who stands up for what they believe in, even on little things. I want to model a person who dares to dream, even when things are tough, and they are worried. I want to model a person who is humble, and will buckle down and learn what needs to be learned, even if it is totally new, and someone that age should really be successful and set up for life. I want to model someone who is not a victim, but an opportunist (Thank GOD they have Jonathan as a model on this one no matter what, because this may be hardest for me.) I want to model hard work and determination towards a goal that is larger than just me.

Believe me, I point out other people to model and admire. But I know that in the end it is those closest to them who make the biggest impact. So I am trying.