Make Your Own Luck, Part II

Continuing on with our series (...saga?) about ways not to sabotage yourself, here's a novel idea: When you say or do something stupid, apologize sincerely and move on.  I know, I'm crazy like that. Whoa, mama! I believe in taking responsibility when I say something stupid and apologizing. But apparently I am crazy like that, because, just yesterday for example, I received an email from a certain crazy man who had previously cursed me to the high heavens for not returning his clippings. Now, that I had returned said clippings and apparently redeemed myself as a human, he emailed me again, not mentioning his un-medicated, un-scripted outburst, and proceeded to quote Shakespeare.

Well, I enjoy Shakespeare also... but I much prefer people who are somewhat stable adults; those are the people whom I am going to focus this business on. I worked with enough raging, moronic bi-polar types in TV news, thanks. I'm set.

Some of you are thinking, "Wow, it must be so wonderful to be perfect, Carlota, sorry I'm trying to make it here on Planet Earth!" Simma down, I never said I was perfect, nor wanted to be. Perfection tends to be very boring. I'm one, overly-sarcastic woman with not enough cats. In fact, just this week, I truly mortified myself by saying something highly offensive to a client. I experienced that level of mortification wherein time stops and you see slowly, oh so slowly, your life passing you by. (Note to self: This time, don't buy the Wham! Make It Big album. Just don't.) But I am an adult, so I apologized. Profusely. My client, being far more mature than me, accepted my apology in the most gracious way possible. I did NOT ignore it, or blame it on someone else or quote Chekhov. It's not Chekhov's fault, I behaved poorly. (True story: Russians of a certain generation will sarcastically invoke Pushkin to make a point, as in, "So who do you think is going to clean up this mess? Pushkin?! Pushkin's going to clean up your trash?")

Many people talk about achieving their goals, right? The inability or refusal to apologize after hurting other people can really derail your dreams. The world is very small. If you're going to be that kind of malicious douche, news gets around. I'm sure that crazy man who emailed me Shakespeare genuinely believes we're BFFs again and that soon we'll be hanging out, and all is well. Or, at least that's what he told himself. Me, I'm a simple girl and I don't lie to myself. Because that's the worst kind of sabotage.

Want some help achieving your goals? (You can quote Shakespeare to me, if that's what gets you going...) Email me @ carlotazee@gmail.com, and like my Facebook page, "Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta," for a free consult!

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!

 

 

Happy birthday, Ray Bradbury!

One of my dirtiest personal secrets is: I was a nerd. (Some of you are rolling you’re eyes like, “Was? As in, no longer? Huh.”) I was a total nerd; I was happiest being left alone, with my dog, Dynamite (Come on. I was eight when I named her.), reading. Voraciously, obsessively reading. Reading anything and everything, from Mad Magazine to Hunter S. Thompson to Harriet The Spy to Chekhov. I was the kind of nerdling whom librarians adored, as I systematically read my way through bookshelves.

I’m thinking of this, because I recently read an inspiring essay by Ray Bradbury, on how and why he became the wonderful writer he is today. [The essay can be found in Sean Manning’s Bound to Last: 30 Writers on Their Most Cherished Book, Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2010.]

 Also, Bradbury just celebrated his 91^st birthday and he shows no signs of slowing down and I have a total crush on him. (I know, so weird: my thing for younger men is well-known, but I would totally break my own rule for Ray. Call me!)  As a nerd, I went through the usual nerd-infatuation period with Ray Bradbury wherein you devour everything he wrote…and then become slightly depressed, because you’ve just read everything he wrote and you need him to write more great short stories right. Now.

In the essay, Bradbury discusses his childhood in Depression-era Waukegan, Illinois. Crucially, he makes scant mention of the fact that there was no money…because he had 1) books and 2) his Aunt Neva, a costume-designer and general artist, who developed his imagination. She loved him, encouraged him and gave him the life-long gift of a rich imagination: the ability to see the world differently.

I’m thinking about this today because...times are tough, kid. People are watching their lifestyles go “pop!” I have a lot of clients who can’t believe that this is their life. Which is why imagination, and the hope, the inspiration it provides to get through tough times and work for something better, is more important than ever. As Ms. Dickinson said: “Hope is the thing with feathers.” I’m a creativity yenta; I’m here to help you, the client, figure out what it is you want out of life…and then help you create a realistic (if ambitious) plan to achieve that. What I’m not here to do is to tell you to lower your expectations, to tell you: “Well, there’s a reason they call it ‘work',” and imply that happiness is overrated, or that you’re being childish for wanting to live a life of meaning, while paying the bills.Yeah,  f**k that noise; I’ll leave that to the morons politicians making political hay with people’s lives.

Ray Bradbury, at 91 (91! Love. Him!) is still living a rich, vibrant, passionate life due to the lessons he learned as a child in the Depression. Lessons he learned from books and from a woman with the courage to take his dreams seriously. That’s an excellent lesson for all of us to learn…