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Big Life Decisions: The Things That Shaped Me

posted 12th August 2010    Written by: Marian    CATEGORY: Events, Job/Career/Work, Life Lesson, Love/Relationships, Marian, Season 3, Travel, Travel/Adventure

During the final days of Season 2, Molly, Nicole, Heather and Katie asked each other some really kick ass questions. Questions I found myself journaling about later.

Molly wants us to reveal more of our life story and past. To do that I want to answer the question “What do you consider the most important event in your life so far?”

I can’t pretend this is an easy answer, and since no one actually asked me the question, I’m going to make my own rules and give you more than one event that shaped my big life.

The first “big life event” was my childhood sweetheart, K. We started dating when we were 13 and broke up at 20. Seven years of my life were devoted to this boy (we were hardly adults) and being in that relationship influenced how I grew up and how I see love now. For a very long time I defined myself based on that relationship. Obviously hindsight is 20/20 and it was horribly unhealthy, unyielding and unhappy to its core.

It’s been almost 4 years since that horrendous, gut-wrenching break-up and it’s funny how something that tore me up then has little importance on my life now. That said, it resulted in some serious commitment issues, an almost-too-fierce independence and more than a little cynicism. So if I want to learn more about who I am, I need to understand that one-third of that person was shaped by another.

The next big event was my move to London in 2007. After said break-up (of course – Eat, Pray, Love anyone?) I left the US on a whim and did a solo backpacking trip through Europe. After years of having to ask permission, I felt finally free. Free to live my life according to my own terms.

I took off to the Amalfi coast on a whim. I swam naked in the Adriatic. I drank until I couldn’t see (never again!) and got lost in the streets of Rome. I visited 7 countries in 30 days and learned how to say “Do you speak English?” in French, Italian, German and Croatian. It was, by far, the biggest adventure of my life. It was when I finally proved I was capable, enthusiastic, passionate and a more than a little kick ass.

When I finally arrived in London I created a life. I studied for a while, got my first apartment, supported myself and continued to travel – everywhere from Norway to Morocco. That Norway trip was also when I met Sam and, as you know, the rest of that story is sort of history.

Thirdly, the Facebook ads that helped me land a job? That small event I pulled out of my ass one night launched my current career and while it may not be perfect, I work for myself and I essentially owe those damn advertisements for showing me it’s possible. I’m also aware how much being a part of social media has changed my personality. I’m more outgoing, friendly, opinionated, and generally chock full of ideas for my future and the way that I want my life to turn out.

Being part of the Joy Equation and blogging here with you fine folk is giving me the opportunity to really evaluate myself so I can live my best life. I feel like explaining why that’s important is a little silly, because doesn’t everyone want to be happy? Doesn’t everyone want their best life? Doesn’t everyone want to live a life of authentic joy?

I’m not so sure. People have been living for millennia without practicing any sort of personal development, so that shit must just come with time and life experience, right? Right? But I’m looking at people my parent’s age – my grandparent’s age – and thinking, “I don’t want to be that.” I don’t want to look back on my life and not be extraordinarily happy. My memories of my travels and loves and new friendships are the memories that make me think, “Dude! Why shouldn’t I make my entire life one big, awesome, juicy memory? Why I am settling now?” But I have no idea where to start. I don’t know what to evaluate or how to define my life in a way that’s going to make me who I want to be.

What I do know is, I’ve always been honest to the point of (sometimes rude) bluntness, but I rarely practice that same “call it as I see it” with myself. I think if I could find a way to do that I could open up an entire world, an entire life of possibility.

So here’s to starting now.



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Less Virtual, More Reality

posted 4th August 2009    Written by: Kendra    CATEGORY: All Posts, Kendra, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 1

One of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes strips is the one where Calvin points out that nothing helps a bad mood as much as spreading it around. It’s funny because it’s true.

As an official member of the unemployed class (my internship has finally ended) the one upside to my unemployment is that a lot of my friends are too. This makes me feel like less of a loser.

If my brilliant, funny, talented friends are having as hard a time finding a job as I am, well, clearly I’m not the problem. Right? Right!?

While I find a certain comfort in my friends unemployment (although I hope they all find fabulous jobs), what I’ve lately found discomforting is Facebook. This tool for connecting both friends and vague acquaintances can sometimes feel like a tool for self-flagellation when my feed informs me of a flurry of recent nuptials, births, home purchases, exotic vacations, law school acceptances and other oh so joyous occasions.

Retch.

It’s not so much that I want what they have. It’s just that sometimes, at the risk of sounding petty, I get tired of being happy for other people. It’s not a jealousy thing. In fact, I’m perfectly content with their happiness. But I’d be more content if they chose to be happy somewhere else.

Once again in the misery loves company vein, I find that I’m not alone in this sentiment. A good friend of mine recently admitted that she rarely logs into Facebook because constantly being inundated with other people’s good news depresses her. Her own closet admission, makes me wonder, why can something as banal as Facebook be so, well, irksome when you’re in flux?

As my friend Rachel pointed out to me recently, “It can be annoying to see happy little family photos, just as I’m sure it can be annoying for my friends to see happy singleton photos when they are married. There’s such a thing as TMI and Facebook is great at it.”

But I think that’s only half the story.

For the most part, what Facebook gives us is the happy bits of people’s lives.

It doesn’t tell us that the acquaintance who just got married doesn’t really love her husband, but that she gave into social pressure and settled. It doesn’t tell us that the person who seems ebullient over his law school acceptance doesn’t actually want to go to law school. In other words, Facebook is like the reality television of life – what it presents is real, but edited down and filtered to present one’s best possible self. And inundated with the perception that people we at least sort of know somehow manage to navigate life without the banal everyday lows of a quarterlife crisis, can leave those of us in the depths of our QLC feeling like a starving kid staring through a window at the rest of the world devouring a five star feast: hollow.

There is something to be said of using willful ignorance to preserve one’s sanity. In much the same way that the 24 hour news cycle has given us information without context that study after study has shown only serves to amplify mistrust and fear, I think the constant overexposure into windows of acquaintances lives can convince us that everyone else is happier and more together than they really are.

I’ve given this some thought and I’ve decided that to both preserve my own sanity as well as my ability to appreciate other people’s joy I’m going to dial down my exposure to the virtual reality of Facebook.

I’m going to spend more of my time living life instead of Facebooking about it.


photocred: Marius!!

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