31Ways2GetItStarted™!: January 19, 2013

Day 19: Get Over Yourself...Seriously.

I know, the 19th was yesterday was but yesterday was a "helluva" day as Rick James used to say, so stop giving me that look before we have to step outside and finish this? Ya feel me? Okay, I'm a little grumpy. But today's "hint" to get over yourself--and I include myself 100% in this--came to me after I re-read Joan Didion's wonderful, Play It As It Lays, http://amzn.com/0374529949, a exquisitely-written look at ennui in 1960s/70s Hollywood, and troubling (sexual) relationships between men and women, and primarily the extended nervous-breakdown of anti-heroine Maria Wyeth. 

I read this book, originally, a few years ago, when I was going through a "rough time." At that point, the book really emotionally resonated with me, and I had tremendous sympathy for Maria. This time...well, this time I found myself wanting to smack quite a few characters and say, "GROW UP! Life's hard! You're sick of being treated as interchangeable sexual "talent" by the men in your lives? Finally, huh? Dump 'em! Get a job, volunteer, get a f**king skill and contribute to society and leave that wasteland!" (I told you I was grumpy.) I was especially impatient when one character, who is paid to remain married to her husband--a "fixer" type of person--gets into a fight with her husband over a girl they've both been "enjoying." Except, of course, the wife isn't enjoying any of this. She's doing this...oh, for a multitude of bad, cowardly reasons. And she says,"You started it." (Deep sigh.)

That exchange made me want to throw the book across the room. GROW UP!

Let me go on the record, again, and stress how highly I esteem Ms. Didion's prodigious talent, and her unrelenting emotional honesty: it's really an extraordinary book. Can't recommend it highly enough.  But the more pragmatic part of my brain--programed by years of Chekhov, and ambition and feminism and you know, taking responsibility for how I feel and live--just can't have a ton of sympathy for people who choose to wallow in the "misery" of living in Hollywood, instead of changing their lives. You do only get this one life. Them's the rules. It does seem rather juvenile to waste it feeling bad and being unhappy so as to torment your husband/lover(s), when, you know, not to be corny, but you could cut your losses and try to be happy. You could try. Like the rest of us, honey. Personally, I'd always choose to be corny and happy, over being melodramatic. (Many former mens, were they to read that sentence, would simultaneously say,"...since when??" Luckily, they're too busy being committed to their stupidity and youporn.)

Such is my rant. *stepping down from soap box* Let me know what you think in the comments section, and, as always, email me @carlotazee@gmail.com!

 

 

An acquaintance of mine on Facebook--oh stop acting like you don't start sentences with those words all the time. Unless you're a Luddite. In which case, why are you reading this blog and not churning your own butter or shoeing your horses or something while it's still daylight?--recently noted that since he had left his job, he could now tweet with impunity, since he didn't have to worry about marketing anymore. Oh my.

I'm not a huge fan of this um "friend," so I didn't say anything. But I do have a soft spot for people who read this blog, so here's what I would have said: "You are incorrect." He was incorrect to 1) think he didn't have to worry about marketing anymore, 2) to think he could tweet with impunity (especially, given the fact that he is unemployed), and 3) to think that he was ever not marketing.

News flash: We're all always marketing. We're marketing, in big and small ways, when we go to the gym, when we gain weight, when we go to graduate school or drop out, when we get hung over or laid, when we get married, when we stay single, when we post photos on Facebook, or don't post photos, when we wear shorts or jeans or capris, when we have pets or don't, when we wear makeup or don't....if you're breathing, you're marketing. And to think that you can somehow choose when you're going to market...alas, no. All you're doing then is choosing to market poorly.
Marketing is interacting with other humans, it's leaving a path through life, it's being alive. (Oops, almost became a Barbra Streisand lyric there.)

I, for example, have a personal Facebook page and a public page. At this point, I don't accept any friend requests anymore--sorry, Bradley Cooper, you missed your chance--since at one point, I was perhaps a little less savvy about marketing and put up quite a few status updates and photos that um, perhaps I didn't think out too well. (Translation: http://youtu.be/QYHxGBH6o4M)

So, as I got deeper into this business, I realized: this is who I am. I could try and hide it...meh. Lying is so boring. Or, I can embrace it: bingo! Its now part of my organic marketing. Or something.
My point being: you are always marketing. Every social media imprint you leave, every comment, every joke, every photo you click "like" on, every group you join, every stupid thing you re-tweet, every party you attend, the people you date, the types of food you eat...you are marketing. And if you think you aren't, then you're marketing something even worse...your lack of intelligence.

Before you get cranky and join a Luddite commune (unless it's a free love kind of commune, and then high five, son!), email me @carlotazee.com and let's see how I can help you improve your marketing...or at least avoid making some of the more egregious mistakes I made.