I was out running this am, feeling a little sorry for myself--probably because I hate to run, but today I simply couldn't make myself go to the gym, yes my life of grim suffering--and I suddenly thought that as tough, in some ways, as my life currently is...for many people, it'd be a joyous walk in the woods.
Specifically, I was thinking about Nadezhda Mandelstam, widow of (murdered) poet Osip Mandelstam, and an amazing author in her own right. She wrote her first book, a memoir of her life with, and without her husband, Hope Against Hope...when she was in her late 60s. (http://amzn.com/0375753168) Not only was she a senior citizen, but she had spent the past 40 years surviving conditions of almost unimaginable poverty. She was constantly hunted and persecuted by the Soviet government, and had to witness the government-sponsored harassment and killings of her friends. If you're interested, I would advise you to Google Joseph Brodsky's wonderful obituary of Mme. Mandelstam.
Anyway, despite her decades of loss and grinding poverty, in her late 60s, she wrote a book that is completely honest, passionate and almost incandescent. She writes about her life, about the love she shared with her husband and about poetry, among many other things. She wrote about working overnight in factories, keeping herself awake by memorizing all of her dead husband's poetry, since it was far too dangerous to write any of it down. She wrote about how her husband was snatched from her and sent to the camps, and how she had no idea how he had really died...nor where his grave might be.
Yes, I have a huge hard-on for Nadezhda. I love her because she was old, she was cranky, she was smart, and very funny...and she was fearless. She had seen Stalin come and go and she knew that one day her values would be triumphant.I have a big thing for people who can dismiss dictators, no matter the personal cost.
So I thought about this (astonishing) woman this morning, on my run, and realized that the things I was whining about...would be like riches to Nadezhda. Here I have the freedom to read and believe what I want, to use my intellect (or something) in starting this business, to express myself without fear. And here I was kvetching because...what? Because I haven't taken a vacation in a few years? Because I have to work hard to earn what's important to me? Oh, meow meow meow. Suffice it to say, I stopped whining, finished my run,went home... and got down to work.
You took away all the oceans and all the room.
You gave me my shoe-size in earth with bars around it.
Where did it get you? Nowhere.
You left me my lips, and they shape words, even in silence.
-Osip Mandelstam, 1935 (http://amzn.com/1590170911)
Showing posts with label whining. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whining. Show all posts
Monday, September 17, 2012
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Frequently, clients ask me for time management hints...translation: Carlota, how can I take my daily routine of tedious, irritating tasks and make it either fun or somewhat less inclined to drive me to masturbatory thoughts of suicide? Well, good question. I'm self-employed, and I'm also a writer, so pretty much my entire life is forcing myself to do tedious things, to stop procrastinating, to uncurl myself out of the fetal position, and stop feeling sorry for myself and get. To. Work!
(Reminds me of a history professor I had in college, who had, taped above her desk, a note reading: "Writing is fun if you don't mind bleeding daily from your eyeballs." At the time, I thought she was a little over-the-top...now, with hindsight, I think she was remarkably restrained.) It's not always pretty in the YentaBunker™.
But through great trial and effort and whining, I've had to become dramatically better at time management because: 1) I enjoy eating every day and 2) the better I can manage my time, the more fun I can have. Some of you are thinking, "....this? This is the big reveal? Fun?" Indeed. I'm not sure why we think it's so important for kids to have fun, to run around and be silly, while at the same time, adults are made to feel like career criminals for trying to bring any enjoyment into their lives. If I unplug, and, for example, go read in the park, I return to approximately 3 million texts and emails from clients saying, "Well, I wish I could have fun too...but some of us have to work." (Seriously? You want to take it there? I'm self-employed, bitches, so 3am is the same as 3pm for me: I work all the damn time. If I wanted someone's negative shit in my life, I'd be monogamous.)
Especially because adults cannot function well without fun. Our brains are not wired to work without stopping, our bodies aren't made to sit still for 8 or 10 hours a day. I'm not sure why we need all these studies telling us the deadly effects of sitting, full story of 11pm. You should know it's bad to work all the time, without breaks: think about how your body feels!
On the other hand, think about how much better you feel when you walk around, when you go to the gym, when you go out and dance have a good time. I'm up at 6am on a Saturday morning, after getting home at 3am, to hit the gym. Trust me: no me gusta! I'd rather sleep till noon, and then wake up to a young 1970s Martin Sheen rubbing my feet. But I know that once I get my (kvetching) self to the gym, and start working out...I shall feel ALIVE! (Okay, not as good as waking up next to an exhausted Channing Tatum, but you know, pretty good.)
So, since I'm self-employed, and spend a lot of time working alone, which is against every biological rule, I've had to become much better at time management so I can get more work done, spend less time alone and have fun, instead of losing the remaining bits and pieces of my mind. In short, I'm awake at 6am on Saturday am, with about 3 hours of sleep, in order to get the most irritating work out of the way, so I can then hit the gym, and have some fun. If I allowed myself to sleep in and do it "later"...um, not much. Later=never=goddammit! No es bueno, as my Abuelita would have probably said, in between yelling at me to leave her alone, so she could watch her "Lucha Libre" in peace.
That being said, here's some quickie time management hints:
1. At the start of your work day, write out the three most important chores you will get done that day. Ideally, those will also be the 3 most irritating chores...that way when they're done, you'll feel a huge sense of relief, which in turn will motivate you to accomplish more. Leaving those chores for the next day, means you'll wake up already feeling under the gun. ( If your "must do" list is 10 items...um, you need to call me since that's insane and all it's going to make you do is hyperventilate and procrastinate and get nothing done, which will make the next day's list even longer, yes? Yes.)
2. Next, try and organize your day into blocks of time, say an hour, maximum each, with each block devoted to: making phone calls; answering emails; writing; etc. (Email especially needs to be set aside and done only in specific blocks each day otherwise you can waste 5 hours a day just responding to email.) That way, when you're writing or researching or whatever it is you people do, you can set the phone to go directly to voice mail and get some work done. Yes, this will take some discipline at first. You will have to train yourself to not start drooling like one of Pavlov's dogs upon receipt of emails, or phone calls...but once you do, you'll realize how efficient you can be!
Want more hints? Email me @ carlotazee@gmail.com!
(Reminds me of a history professor I had in college, who had, taped above her desk, a note reading: "Writing is fun if you don't mind bleeding daily from your eyeballs." At the time, I thought she was a little over-the-top...now, with hindsight, I think she was remarkably restrained.) It's not always pretty in the YentaBunker™.
But through great trial and effort and whining, I've had to become dramatically better at time management because: 1) I enjoy eating every day and 2) the better I can manage my time, the more fun I can have. Some of you are thinking, "....this? This is the big reveal? Fun?" Indeed. I'm not sure why we think it's so important for kids to have fun, to run around and be silly, while at the same time, adults are made to feel like career criminals for trying to bring any enjoyment into their lives. If I unplug, and, for example, go read in the park, I return to approximately 3 million texts and emails from clients saying, "Well, I wish I could have fun too...but some of us have to work." (Seriously? You want to take it there? I'm self-employed, bitches, so 3am is the same as 3pm for me: I work all the damn time. If I wanted someone's negative shit in my life, I'd be monogamous.)
Especially because adults cannot function well without fun. Our brains are not wired to work without stopping, our bodies aren't made to sit still for 8 or 10 hours a day. I'm not sure why we need all these studies telling us the deadly effects of sitting, full story of 11pm. You should know it's bad to work all the time, without breaks: think about how your body feels!
On the other hand, think about how much better you feel when you walk around, when you go to the gym, when you go out and dance have a good time. I'm up at 6am on a Saturday morning, after getting home at 3am, to hit the gym. Trust me: no me gusta! I'd rather sleep till noon, and then wake up to a young 1970s Martin Sheen rubbing my feet. But I know that once I get my (kvetching) self to the gym, and start working out...I shall feel ALIVE! (Okay, not as good as waking up next to an exhausted Channing Tatum, but you know, pretty good.)
So, since I'm self-employed, and spend a lot of time working alone, which is against every biological rule, I've had to become much better at time management so I can get more work done, spend less time alone and have fun, instead of losing the remaining bits and pieces of my mind. In short, I'm awake at 6am on Saturday am, with about 3 hours of sleep, in order to get the most irritating work out of the way, so I can then hit the gym, and have some fun. If I allowed myself to sleep in and do it "later"...um, not much. Later=never=goddammit! No es bueno, as my Abuelita would have probably said, in between yelling at me to leave her alone, so she could watch her "Lucha Libre" in peace.
That being said, here's some quickie time management hints:
1. At the start of your work day, write out the three most important chores you will get done that day. Ideally, those will also be the 3 most irritating chores...that way when they're done, you'll feel a huge sense of relief, which in turn will motivate you to accomplish more. Leaving those chores for the next day, means you'll wake up already feeling under the gun. ( If your "must do" list is 10 items...um, you need to call me since that's insane and all it's going to make you do is hyperventilate and procrastinate and get nothing done, which will make the next day's list even longer, yes? Yes.)
2. Next, try and organize your day into blocks of time, say an hour, maximum each, with each block devoted to: making phone calls; answering emails; writing; etc. (Email especially needs to be set aside and done only in specific blocks each day otherwise you can waste 5 hours a day just responding to email.) That way, when you're writing or researching or whatever it is you people do, you can set the phone to go directly to voice mail and get some work done. Yes, this will take some discipline at first. You will have to train yourself to not start drooling like one of Pavlov's dogs upon receipt of emails, or phone calls...but once you do, you'll realize how efficient you can be!
Want more hints? Email me @ carlotazee@gmail.com!
Friday, December 9, 2011
"Sentence structure is innate but whining is acquired."- Woody Allen
I promise I'm not whining. (If I was whining, trust me: you'd know. That sound would get in your brain and you'd want to kill me and probably yourself so as to liberate yourself from my dulcet tones...ha.) But recently, I kinda got, figuratively at least, punched in the solar plexus. It was especially disturbing because I never anticipated it. Never saw it coming.
But, I'm a big girl, and after surviving TV news, Russia, law school, Queens, The Kitten eating items in my purse, various ex-mens, etc...well, it really takes a great deal to knock me down. I mean, if you can survive multiple Russian winters, you're golden. (Hitler couldn't...and we all know how that ended.) So, I had my little pity party, I felt a little bad for myself...and then that got boring and I moved on. (As a friend would say: " I rose above it all, on my broomstick!")
The person who gave me the punching? Well, I never let on to them how painful I found their actions to be.I simply killed them with kindness, as the saying goes. So when they, shortly thereafter, sent me a sincere apology, I brushed it off: no harm done! (Did not feel the need to mention that I had been sincerely hoping the NYPD would pepper-spray them.)
Because, in reality, there was no harm done. After years of feeling at loose ends in my life, and in my work, I've finally figured out some very important things about myself, my life, etc. I've gotten my sh*t together. It's awesome. (Exhausting but awesome.)
So now, do you really think I'd give any person that power over me? I "ha" in your general direction. You don't want to help me? Fine. Go with God, live your life, etc. At this point, I could lose all physical ability, and only be able to blink out the letters of the alphabet and I'd get the job done. It would be brutal. It'd be extremely un-fun for all involved...but it would happen.
I'm not writing this to show off what a bad-ass I am...but to hopefully make you good people out there, who might be going through the same thing, start thinking the same thing about your own passion and determination.
But, I'm a big girl, and after surviving TV news, Russia, law school, Queens, The Kitten eating items in my purse, various ex-mens, etc...well, it really takes a great deal to knock me down. I mean, if you can survive multiple Russian winters, you're golden. (Hitler couldn't...and we all know how that ended.) So, I had my little pity party, I felt a little bad for myself...and then that got boring and I moved on. (As a friend would say: " I rose above it all, on my broomstick!")
The person who gave me the punching? Well, I never let on to them how painful I found their actions to be.I simply killed them with kindness, as the saying goes. So when they, shortly thereafter, sent me a sincere apology, I brushed it off: no harm done! (Did not feel the need to mention that I had been sincerely hoping the NYPD would pepper-spray them.)
Because, in reality, there was no harm done. After years of feeling at loose ends in my life, and in my work, I've finally figured out some very important things about myself, my life, etc. I've gotten my sh*t together. It's awesome. (Exhausting but awesome.)
So now, do you really think I'd give any person that power over me? I "ha" in your general direction. You don't want to help me? Fine. Go with God, live your life, etc. At this point, I could lose all physical ability, and only be able to blink out the letters of the alphabet and I'd get the job done. It would be brutal. It'd be extremely un-fun for all involved...but it would happen.
I'm not writing this to show off what a bad-ass I am...but to hopefully make you good people out there, who might be going through the same thing, start thinking the same thing about your own passion and determination.
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