The Joys of LinkedIn

I am indeed on LinkedIn, which is both good and bad. It's good for my business, but it's frequently horrific because the evil elves of LinkedIn will, in their desire to be helpful, suggest I reconnect with former boyfriends who wouldn't speak to me if they were under the wheels of my car driving over them. This is going to surprise you, but I am not always the most mature person when it comes to romance. I am not always the easiest person to get along with. I do not always bring happy happy joy joy to the men of America.

I'm leading in with this, because recently LinkedIn tried to get that lovin' feeling going again between me and a certain ex of mine. I'm fairly sure that this particular boy feels something for me more akin to what Hitler felt for his art instructors..so I just sort of chortled, reading LinkedIn's, "Do you know...." Oh, indeed I do. How could I forget the boy who invited his mom to come along on a romantic weekend trip to Graceland. Because truly, adding your mom to my Dirty South adventure is guaranteed spice! Is it hot in here or is it you waking up at 7am to cook your mom breakfast, and yelling at me to be perky...whoo!(My vagina's all, "Blah blah blah, I'm not listening!")

The thing about this particular boy--besides his insanity; besides his lack of humor; besides his assertions that a certain one of my cats was crazy which was all, Hi, Kettle, have you met Pot?--was how much he loathed himself. And thus, by extension, how much he loathed anyone who liked him. Though he was, of course, desperate to be liked. What a tangled web we weave, yes?

He was in the process of getting not one but two doctoral degrees, when I was "dating" him, besides all of his other various degrees and awards. Tall, great figure, handsome...but talk about your own worst enemy. Then again, when you grow up in a family where your father has decided from day one that you're gay, so he never spends any time with you, never even speaks to you; when you grow up in a family in which no one ever tells you they love you, or that they're proud of you, or displays any sort of basic human compassion...well, those types of charming experiences do tend to make things complicated. It's hard to be your own biggest fan when you're raised to despise yourself, and to be ashamed of all that makes you unique. 

He used to frequently talk about his wish to be "normal," by which of course, he meant he simply wanted to be loved and accepted for whom he was. Crazy! His mother, who could only barely grasp how much pain he was in, used to send him all these pamphlets about Jebus loving him, and I wanted to get her in a choke-hold, and scream,"You moron, he doesn't need Jesus, he needs you to for once tell him you love him! For once!" But apparently choke-holding some sense into people is against the law. #horsesh*t

I suppose I bring all this (lurid) back-story up, because when LinkedIn reminded me about him, I found myself genuinely hoping he was happy. (I don't really have to tell you that I was not the best girlfriend for him, since I was dealing with my own value-meal sized issues and did not have tremendous sympathy for anyone else. Oh don't give me that look; at least I'm honest!)  I found myself hoping he had forgiven himself, and given himself the love that he needed and deserved. I also found myself hoping that wherever that healing process was (Allah willing) taking place, it was far FAR away from me and my vagina. Life's too short! We're too busy.

Want some help making your own healing life changes? (We don't have to talk about my personal life. Yes, yes, I promise.) Email me @carlotazee@gmail.com, or like my Facebook page, "Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta," for a free consultation!

Nixon's The One!

This is going to kill it for some of you, but I've always had this little soft spot for Richard Nixon. Not that I don't think he deserved everything he got; he did and more. But most politicians are so boring, so plastic...Nixon, on the other hand, was a walking and talking embodiment of the best kind of  dramatic villain. And, as I get older, I think a great deal of my fascination owes something to his life-long quest to achieve his goals, and then destroy them, with the same bloody-minded zeal. That sort of paranoia and self-loathing, writ large, is just fascinating to my inner Freudian. He gets elected in one of the, if not the, biggest landslides in presidential history...and then, within two years, he leaves the White House in disgrace, telling his aides and followers that, "...always remember, that others may hate you, but those that hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself."  You don't say...#notetoself. Oh, Tricky Dick, we hardly knew ye.

(If my mother reads this blog, pretty sure that it will be the last time EVER, she'll be d-o-n-e. Mrs. Zimmerman can handle me talking about my vagina, but she cannot handle me talking about Nixon with anything approaching sympathy.)

Anyhoo, I'm thinking of Nixon today because so often in this business I tell clients to just get started, just do it and you'll figure out a way. But I always have to remind myself that before you can even get started...you have to stop sabotaging yourself. You have to stop being your own worst enemy. You have to mute the part of your brain which thinks you're fat, stupid, boring, unattractive, not smart, not likely to succeed and THEN you have to just f**king get started. Because with that destructive soundtrack going on, you cannot get started.

Because no one can sabotage us, no one can make us feel as crappy about ourselves and our choices as we  can. No one can ruin opportunities for ourselves like we can. So I can talk to you till the cows come home about people like Kurt Vonnegut collecting 800 rejection letters and still writing, endlessly writing...but Kurt had his mind right. Kurt was going to be Kurt's biggest fan, no matter what anyone else said. Kurt believed in Kurt and he believed that what Kurt had to say was important. That's why he was able to shrug off the crap other people gave him. Otherwise...forget it. He wouldn't have even been able to survive one rejection letter.

I think back on times in my life when I was convinced I was the biggest a$$hole ever and that everyone else knew exactly what they were doing...and I cackle a little bit. (Oh, those lovely dulcet tones.) Because now I see that no one knows what they're doing...and that's so liberating! You just do what you think is best, learn from your mistakes and keep on doing it. Now this business is getting tremendous opportunities because...what exactly do I have left to lose? I just want to have fun, and help people and hopefully wake up next to Idris Elba. So again: what do I have left to lose? My law school debt? Sure, right. The boring people who are stuck making love to their destructive addictions, while complaining about their lives? I've already kicked them out. The cats? They have no thumbs, thus they cannot unlock the front door. #psyche

I'm fascinated by Nixon...but I don't want that to be my story. (Though yes: my mother is also a saint to have put up with my shit.) And hopefully, you don't want to sabotage yourself, either. Let your freak flag fly so you can have the courage to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work necessary to create and achieve goals which will propel you! Want some help with that? Unless you're an exasperating Libertarian, email me @ carlotazee@gmail.com, or like my Facebook page, "Carlotaworldwide Creativity Yenta," for a free consultation!

A few days ago, a comedian I follow on Twitter, sent out a Tweet which read something like this: "Yoga, therapy & I still wake up in the am, hating myself." Whoa. It was such a raw note, it stayed with me. Especially since, if one looks at her impressive resume and talent, one would think, "Hey, you really have it made." Well, yes and no. If you hate yourself, it's hard to ever really enjoy anything. Kind of a conversation stopper.

So, it got me thinking. This being Independence Day...wouldn't it be great if we all declared our independence from the sh*t which weighs us down, and wastes our time? Declared independence from the haters, from wanting to be perfect, from caring about what other people think, from being unhappy. Declared our independence and then started, slowly but surely, changing the negative patterns which continue to hold us hostage.

It's so odd, Americans are obsessed with happiness, with being happy, and as a whole, dislike and are frightened by public airing of unhappiness. Conversely, people who are happy are looked upon as stupid or naive or unaware. People who are happy have to justify themselves. Really? I have to convince you that it's fine for me to be happy? Shut up. Here's a better idea: why don't you make the same choice that I did? The choice to be happy. (Dammit.)  And start doing the things that matter to you, and stop doing the shit which just wastes your time....and then wastes my time, when you bitch to me, again, about your job/relationship/weight blah blah blah.

It's the Fourth of July: go out and have some fun! Go out and be happy, dammit! But maybe also take some time to think about, what things in your life you should be declaring your independence from...

And then, let me know either in the comments section, or shoot me an email@ carlotazee@gmail.com!