- Wake up and open your curtains. Your windows too.
- Drink some tea or coffee, whatever pleases you. Notice every sip.
- Have some fresh fruit and finish breakfast feeling full.
- Stand outside and feel the air. Cool or warm, it will make you feel real.
- Get some exercise. Yoga to soothe, running to breathe, lifting for strength.
- Take care of your body. Have a nice shower and pamper as much as you want afterward.
- If you’re going to work, remember you have the chance to make anyone’s day or to ruin it. Act accordingly.
- Weed out the bad language. It’s only creating tension in your body and mind. Kind words are infinitely more appreciated.
- Take some time each day to improve your mind. Keep reading that great book. Listen to an incredible piece of music. Practice an instrument or a skill. The progress is its own reward.
- Pictures will help you remember how wonderful life is. But spend less time on your phone and more time seeing the world face to face.
- Go to sleep knowing that you have done well. Tomorrow is there with room to become even better.
-Notes to myself on how to become a better person this summer.
Here’s the thing. Your career won’t take care of you. It won’t call you back or introduce you to its parents. Your career will openly flirt with other people while you are around. It will forget your birthday and wreck your car. Your career will blow you off if you call it too much. It’s never going to leave its wife. Your career is ****ing other people and everyone knows but you.
Your career will never marry you.
Now, before I extend this metaphor, let me make a distinction between career and creativity. Creativity is connected to your passion, that light inside you tat drives you. That joy that comes when you do something you love. That small voice that tells you, ‘I like this. Do this again. You are good at it. Keep going.’ That is the juicy stuff that lubricates our lives and helps us feel less alone in the world. Your creativity is not a bad boyfriend. It is a really warm older Hispanic lady who has a beautiful laugh and loves to hug. If you are even a little bit nice to her she will make you feel great and maybe cook you delicious food.
Career is different. Career is the stringing together of opportunities and jobs. Mix in public opinion and past regrets. Add a dash of future panic and a whole lot of financial uncertainty. Career is something that fools you into thinking you are in control and then takes pleasure in reminding you that you aren’t. Career is the thing that will not fill you up and never make you truly whole. Depending on your career is like eating cake for breakfast and wondering why you start crying an hour later.
| — | Amy Poehler, “Yes Please” on the importance of ambivalence in one’s career (pp 222, 223) EVERY MODEL READ THIS NOW (via kmitt) |
