judge not....

In the past I have been flippant about my tendency to judge people. Largely because you can say something mean about someone that is true and factual without being judgmental just for the sake of being judgmental.

For example "I can't believe how superficial Carrie is, if I have to hear her talk about her Gucci purse one more time...." Now this is not a NICE thing to say about someone - and you probably shouldn't say it - but I would never feel like a bad person for saying that and it's more bitchy than judgmental.

But lately - lately I have been becoming really judgmental. And for no reason. NONE! Even Devin, who is prone to judgments himself from time to time, has noticed. So today I decided that it must be as simple as the age old self-help-advice-guru knowledge - when you judge someone else you are really just judging yourself.

So that means that for the past several weeks I have been judging myself more than usual. But I can't figure out why. Aside from the fact that I keep judging myself for being so judgmental! And then I get mad at myself for being so judgmental, and then I get upset for judging myself about being judgmental...!!

Although I have a theory. I live with a roommate who is a very nice person but is a) not a great roommate as far as cleanliness and her cats are concerned and b) After living alone for two years going back to a roommate was not fun for me. So mainly I am judgmental towards her (silently in my head to myself) which is really just a manifestation of my frustration with my living situation. However - that situation is ending in two weeks (!!!) so my hope is I will relax and stop being so judgemenal.

And then I guess I can start working on my occasional tendencies to exercise factual, if completely unnecessary, bitchiness.

Pop-Country and the full spectrum of human emotion

This last week I've had the Carrie Underwood song "Before he Cheats" stuck in my head. I thoroughly enjoy that song. And think it's a great example of pop-country music. That being said, I completely disagree with the entire message of the song and think that any song that glorifies destruction of property as an appropriate response to emotional betrayal is really not setting the best example for today's youth. (seriously).

However, I do appreciate the message about getting in touch with your anger. I have come to realize in the past month that I don't get angry. I get sad and I get frustrated but I don't get angry. Which probably (okay definitely) means that for some reason (cough, internalized societal role of women, cough) I re-direct/internalize my anger and don't allow myself to acknowledge my emotions when those emotions are anger - regardless of whether or not the anger is directed outward at someone else or inward at myself. So I have decided to start acknowledging and feeling and acting on, and therefore being able to process my anger. Not that I think I have a lot. But I am pretty sure I have more than zero.

All part of the process of becoming the perfect person.

If not me, then who?

This past week has been very strange because I haven't felt at all like myself. Now this was puzzling to me, because clearly I am still me. But I didn't feel like me. I felt like the regular me emerged several times a day to express frustration with how the current me was behaving, but was unable to do anything about it.

Now, today I have once again begun to feel like myself, which is a welcome relief from feeling like the non-me. Hopefully I can manage to continue to feel like me.

The feeling that I have less control over my thoughts/feelings/actions - even though it is still clearly me controlling all these things - but it's like looking at yourself through a smudged window so all of your movements are sluggish, akward and inaccurate and you can't make yourself behave quite properly.

On an unrelated note: I remember growing up my parents getting upset with my sister when she was out with a cell phone and turned it off so they couldn't call. Well geez louise parents - when you go out with a cell phone - keep it turned on so important people (like me!) can call you! sheesh.

life.

what do you do when someone sends you a piece of paper that gives you an opportunity to realize your ultimate life goal - three weeks after you decided you no longer had an ultimate life goal. It helps if that piece of paper also suggests that your ultimate life goal will cost $200,000CAD. It's what I wanted for so long. I don't want to give it up. I know that I should. I know that giving it up will make me happier in the long run. But damn will it be hard.

inspiredbyinspiredbydooce.blogspot.com

I lead a rather simple life. I do similar things everyday. Sometimes I watch television when I could be reading a book. Sometimes I would rather go to Starbucks than the beach. Somedays when I am napping I let my machine pick up my calls.

One of my most acomplished friends is currently spending 6 months travelling and volunteering in South America. She went by herself. She is planning her journey as she finds it. She is creating enough memories to last other people several lifetimes. At first I thought I was jealous of her, and of her adventure. But I am not. I am inspired by it. I know me. I know I could spend a month in Europe travelling by myself. I also know that (right now) I could not spend six months in South America, by myself, without an iterniary. So I look at her amazing life and say - that is not my ultimate expression of me.

I have another friend - lived all over the world - gone to university in three countries for two degrees and worked in Switzerland for the UN. She speaks at least three languages fluently and I think three others passably. She has more life and energy in her than almost anyone I have ever met. She also has the most intense fear of emotional-romantic intamacy of anyone I have ever met (she knows this). Her life suits her, it allows her to push herself in all the ways which she wants, and to excel, and to be her ultimate expression of herself.

So why these stories? (and trust me, I have some pretty amazing friends, I could go on). Because these are woman whose adventures, but more importantly, whose spirits I admire. I was (for a long time) pushing myself to be the very best I could be - and I recently realized that how I saw myself, was not, in fact, how I was. I knew what my reflection looked like, so I never stopped to see if maybe it had changed. And it had.

Now I am in the very fortunate and deeply petrifying position of being at a crossroads - and I am completely okay with it (or so I tell myself). I can now decide who I want to make myself. How I think I can be the best, most true me possible. This is not a question that needs to be answered overnight, or a question with only one answer, or a question with a permanent answer. I can be an international aid worker, or a mother, or a flight attendant, or a nurse, or a teacher, or a writer, or a pet groomer. The world is full of extraordinary people living ordinary lives (and also ordinary people living extradorinary lives, which is an integral part of my theory of North American humanity, but is for another post). And I think that as long as I am an extraordinary person living an ordinary life I will be happy. I will strive, in my life, to never be ordinary. Or complacent. Or boring. Or bored. And though at different points I will be all those things, I will never be trapped in any of them. I will strive to become the best me I can be.

**Pleased by advised that the author is available to address your group or organization with inspirational, psycho-babble, b*llsh*t for a speaking fee of $100/hr. Quality assured as she is still innocent and optimistic enough to believe what she says.

so the other day I was thinking....

Everyone I know is getting older. I realize that every second of every day we all grow older, but in a more abstract sense of the word, I feel as though everyone I know is getting older. and so imagine my suprise when the other day it occured to me that within the next ten years I will probably have a child. That's right. Ten years is not a long time and a child is a really really big deal. So after my panic attack began to subside I thought about all the things I have done in the past ten years. I am not going to create a completely self-serving list of things - but I feel that since half-way through the 8th grade I've achomplished a fair number of things.

In grade 8 I wore black jeans pretty much everyday, still had my mom drive to me the mall (in fairness, we used to go to the across town mall to see movies with our across-town friends), did not think I was especialy beautiful, had never dated a boy, didn't know my parents as people, didn't really appreciate art and knew what I wanted out of life.

Since that time things have changed, I now wear blue jeans, take the bus all by myself, think I am beautiful, have dated a boy (a man even!), know and love my parents as the beautiful and imperfect people they are, love art and am no longer sure what I want out of life.

However, I still rarely wear skirts, I don't like to drive, I cannot do my own hair, I have never been married, I still don't know my sister as a person, I don't like ballet and I know very little about opera, and I cannot see my future.

My point is that ten years is a long time. In ten years I expect to be the person I am now, just with different priorities, a little more money, and more people to love. And at the end of my thought about having a child within ten years, I realized that when that happens I will be both ready (or as ready as one can be) and lucky, even if right now I couldn't begin to tell you where in the world I will be in ten years, or what I will be doing, or what I will think or believe. But see the thing is, in the last 10 years I have begun to trust myself. And that is why I know it will be all good.

My name is Liz and...

I'm an Advic-o-holic.

Yes - that's right. Everyday I read advice columns. Some days I read only one. Other days I read up to four. It all depends on the day of the week. Wednesday and Thrusday are the most popular days for new advice columns. Dear Abby is the only one I read published 7 days a week. I don't know why I do this. It's not like I need advice. In fact, I think I do a pretty okay job and solving my problems and helping others with theres. And yet I have this obsession, compulsion, addiction (call it what you will) with advice columns. However, admitting your problem is the first step. And not only have I admited it, but I have helpfully added a new links section on the right-hand side directing you to some of my favourites (there are one or two I read not yet listed). So enjoy - but remeber to do so in moderation.

more of the same

I think I worry too much. I never used to. I don't like this person. This worrying person. I want to be a person of action and adventure! I want to make decisions! But then I look at the lives of people around me and I'm just like "don't want your life, don't want your life, don't want your life..." which is probably good in that I am happier with my life than anyone elses - but still I feel as though I am not doing as good a job as I would like at living my life - even though I'm not exactly sure what I should be doing differently. And my new years resolution was to stop worrying about the future. well now I am worrying about the present and the future - so that's hardly an improvement. And then yesterday I (again) started to think about how 10 years from now - these years will be the time when things were "simple" and "easy".

In other news, I have started drinking Americanos in the morning (much to alex's chagrin), I have replaced my t.v. with flowers and candles (much less distracting) and I've had brunch three times in the last 8 days. So I guess it's not all bad :)

me and other people

Last nite I went out for halloween and I had a really fun time. I went dressed as a person from an ipod commercial (black pants, long sleeved, high necked black shirt and my ipod). I posed and did funny ipod dances, and everyone thought it was clever.

Something I noticed about myself last night, is that when I am at a party (or whatever), I perfer talking to people I don't know rather than people I do. I am more relaxed talking to people I will never see again, and I am far more witty and charming with people I never have to see again. I think because I feel less pressure to perform and I am less worried about other peole judging me. So maybe I should relax and start talking to people I will encounter more than once in my life.

on growing up

It is Saturday morning. I am reading the Globe and Mail online and watching Felicity and it just occured to me how much older I feel than I did when I started first year. It also just occured to me that that was five years ago. And I would like to think that 18 year old me would be reassured to see the 23 year old me. All the fear and insecurity that comes with being 18, alone for the first time, trying to navigate the complex world of friendships, relationships, partying, school etc. And not that I have since mastered all those things, but I no longer worry nearly so much. Though I think at some point I will miss the drama and excitment which comes from being young and always having the promise of the next adventure around the corner. I think that the key is to keep up the ideal of adventure as an adult (this becomes infinitely more complicated when you have children, I'm sure). In conclusion, even if I haven't done it perfectly, I think that maybe I like this growing up business.

change

I've been thinking lately about change.

we spend years trying to figure out who we are, and what we believe, and what we stand for, and once we figure something out, we can just put it in a little box and keep it there. decided. peremanent. part of who we are. but then someone comes along and asks "why"? Why do you think that? what assumptions have you made that are causing you to think that. look at my assumptions - aren't they valid too? and then you have to work through everything again. looking at their arguments and your beliefs and deciding what to keep and what to throw away.

and this is not always an easy thing to do. it can be very unsettling when changing beliefs can affect how you define yourself. and on the one hand, sometimes I think that if I were really strong person I would stick to my thought out beliefs no questions asked. but I think the situation is more nuanced than that. I believe that by allowing myself to question my beliefs I can gain both compassion and wisdom. and I think admitting that you are not right makes you stronger, and not weaker.

today I got really upset about something really stupid and I kept going over it in my head, and then I said - wait an hour - see how you feel then. So I did lots of things and then came back to it. and realized that though I still thought what I thought and wanted a chance to work through my thoughts and feelings outloud - that the situation as a whole was not as important, not as life and death as I thought it was. I am in this great big hurry to grow up. to appear grown up on paper. but there are many ways of growing up - most of which are not quantifiable - and owning a home, having more degrees, being married, buying a dog - these can all be things that I want to do someday - but doing them today won't make me happier. I am happy. these "grown up" things will make my life different - but not better. and at some point change for the sake of change is pointless. I want to look to the future - to choices and decisions that will affect my life - and I want to have many many options. but not forcing my hand, just because, when I am already happy now.

random thoughts

Some days I think that I know myself so well - and other days I think that I haven't a clue. Some days I think that I am excellent example of a human being and other days I think I am horrible person. I am far too judgemental - even though I am much less judgemental than I used to be.

And it is complicated because the way we understand ourselves is through comparing ourselves with others (not like "A is more judegmental than me") but just because how else do we understand ourselves except through our knowledge of others and how we relate and interact with others. There is no self without the other (Hegelian line of thinking). And so everyday I strive to better understand myself and to be a better person - and I am learning (at least I think I am) - and sometimes, someone else will be nice enough, or perceptive enough, to point something out to me that helps me to grow and to learn to become a better version of myself.

the meaning of....

Happiness.

My father always tells me that I was a very happy child.
And I like to think of myself as being a fairly happy person.
And I always try to find happiness in everyday things.
And I think it helps that I always look for, and usually find, the best in people.
But you can't always be happy because then you would never be happy. So you have to take the not happy moments and hope that someday down the road the happy moments will be all the more sweet because of the unhappy moments. (Although as I reflect on my life I don't actually know if that holds true, but it seems to work in theory so what do I know?)
In any case, that still doesn't stop me from always wanting to be happy.

On standing in line at Yorkdale.

Okay.

This is my latest brilliant thought (I know... there are so many it can be hard to keep track on them all... but try to keep up).

The other day I was standing in line at Sephora when I noticed a quite stylish young lady (18 or 19) in line behind me. After spending 3-4 seconds wishing that I was stylish something occured to me. Looking back on the past 20-some years of my life - there is not a single moment that when I reflect back I think "gosh, if only I had been more stylishly dressed that moment in my life would have been better"

It was not have made the amazing moments more amazing or the depressing moments less depressing. There are moments when I looked amazing and was horribly sad, and moments where I looked boring or dowdy where I was as happy as could be.

The moral of this story I feel to be fairly self-evident, and it's not really new or orginal - but I still felt it worth recounting because of how suprising yet obvious I found this revelation to be.

perspective

Two days left in Vic.

This morning I went to serious coffee and the bread store (aka bakery).

I also talked to one of my friends on the phone.

We had an excellent conversation. It's fabulous when you are talking to someone and they are able to articulate what you are thinking and what they are thinking and just completely get it. In one of those - hey - someone else is going through what I am going through. Someone who I think is amazing and a person whose life of which I am occasionaly super-envious of, and who is freaking out about many of the same things that I am. Which makes me feel a) less irrational and b) helps give me perspective.

Maybe I will take comfort in the fact that I am living simaltanously in multiple parallel dimensions and so other mes will live alternate lives. Maybe that will take some pressure off and I can stop worrying that I am making thousands of wrong choices and just accept the fact that I will make thousands of wrong choices and go from there.

thoughts from today

today I finally submitted my paperwork for my grant - which means soon I will have money. Which is good b/c I have to pay a ridiculous amount of tution to sit in a room alone and write a thesis.

I have no orange juice. This makes me sad. Today I ordered three books online. This makes me happy. My kitchen is a mess. This makes me sad. But not suprised. I have started thinking a lot about my life lately. And what I want right now. But right now I am still too busy to think. But do I really need to think? Would it really be so bad to just keep letting stuff happen? Taking it day by day - not worrying so much about what the future holds.

There are some days when I think that I am super old and have to figure out exactly what to do with my life - have a five, ten and twenty year plan - be planning my career, marriage, first morgage etc. Other days I want to graduate then travel the world, or become a teacher (other people dream of acting on broadway - I dream of being a teacher), or adopt a baby girl, or work on a development project in Africa or Latin America. What I really want are answers - even though I get that such ansewrs are not to be found externally. But if anyone has any anwsers I'd love to know!

inside/outside/happiness

A long time ago (ago not that long) I made the decision that if I have a choice between being happy and being not happy to choose to be happy.

And a lot of times one can make a decision to move from being not happy to being happy. Most of the time the decision is internal. but occasionally it is external.

Like when Dan Savage tells a gay man in a town of 17 in the American midwest to move to a big city. At some point no matter how many choices you make inside - the environment might make it completely impossible to actually be happy.

The flip side of that is people who try to run away from their unhappiness. People for whom it is easier to move across the world than to address what is going on inside. But evenutally it catches up with you and you have to move again. etc.

And sometimes it is hard to know which is which. When to cut and run and when the problem is internal. Usually my problems are internal - but there is an occasion or two where I have to reflect an internal decision with an external change.

In order to know what you should do you have to trust yourself. And until you figure out what to do - you have to trust that you know yourself well enough that eventually you will figure it out. And lucky for me - I trust myself.

maze.

I feel trapped.

I don't know what I am trapped in, but for the purposes of this second-rate metaphor lets say a maze.

I feel trapped in a maze and everytime I think I can see the end I'm right up against another wall again. And part of me wants to give up and leave the maze completely. But there is comfort in the maze, because at lease I know I am in a maze.

And part of me wants to simplify. To go from difficulty level 6 back down to difficultly level 4. But I don't want to make it easier just b/c I don't like doing what is hard - but I don't want to keep doing what is hard for the sake of doing it.

crash

okay. so i just watched the movie crash. the 2005 movie, not the david cronenburg movie of the same name. and wow. i don't know if you've seen it. but it was really good.
po
okay. first. and this is by no means the first time i have realized the following. but i have led such a privilleged existence. and i don't (just) mean economically. growing up in canada, in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic city a simple view would be that i come from a world where racism is not a very big deal and where we embrace cultural differences. however - i am not that naive. i come from an upper middle class existence where racism and intolerance and disciminatory treatment are hidden and assumed. the women who clean your houses and race your children. the men who sweep your floors and work behind the counter at the convience store. people we see every day and don't see.

but even more than that - not living in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, economically varried neighbourhood - if there were racism etc. would i even see it? not really. but that's not true. i bet if i lived in the same neighbourhood and was black, or arab, or indian (native or from india) i would notice it. maybe not a lot. maybe not everyday. but i would. I went to a high school where everyone was white. i have lived in kingston, belfast and victoria - each city whiter than the last. i have the luxury of a) being in the majority and b) living in a country/city who perpetuate the myth of racial harmony and the "tossed salad" ethic.

now i am also not trying to suggest that toronto in any way resembles the los angles presented in this movie (which i am taking for truth - but clearly i cannot know this, hence the caveat) but i am saying that in some respects we have ourselves convinced that it doesn't exist - when maybe in fact it does. or maybe it doesn't.

the other thing that i was thinking about (relatedly) is how naive i am. by which i mean i think that the world should work - that there should be mechanisms in place to combat racism, sexism, homophoiba, and that people should be held accountable for their actions. but i don't think there is - really. and the thing with this stuff is that it's so systemic and systematic that on some level it can't be addressed (just to state the obvious) and i don't know what the answer is.

minority policing in minority communities - this makes so much sense on the one hand - on the other hand people claim that it is reverse racism (or something like that). Having women and minorities in parliament. i like to think it makes a difference - but does it? Once people are in a place where they have become part of the instituion, machine, at some level they must have accepted the status quo.

incidently - there is literature of "critical mass" - the amount of women needed in a parliment, legislature to affect change - it's around 40%.... imagine.

the other thing which this film did really well is it showed the multi-dimensional nature of human beings. so well. we are all deeply fucked up and conflicted indivdiuals and you never know how you will act under any circumstance. you just don't. even if you are lucky enough to know how you would want to act - actually behaving in that way is something else entirely. If you were walking down the street and you saw someone being beat up would you step in? Someone you know makes a gay joke. someone you don't know makes a gay joke. when does humour show integration into a cultural fabric and when does it mask fear and hatred? what do cultural sterotypes accomplish? if they are true why shouldn't we use them - or do we perpetuate them?

we reify (definition: To regard or treat (an abstraction) as if it had concrete or material existence) identity as though it were real. something that exists in the abstrat. but it doesn't. i'm not saying that individual's don't have their own identities, but i am saying that identity is not something that you can hang your hat on (so to speak). It has only the value attached to it, which we attach to it and signifies only what we want it to signify. yet somehow it seems inescapable. and i don't think that's okay. but we all already know how much i don't like labels. the thing is they are so goddamn useful in affecting actual political change. crucial in fact. oh my god. this stuff is all far too complicated. who would stupid enough to actual try to study it. it just makes no sense and there are no answers. well. no realistically implementable answers.

it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

travelling pants and learning.

my god! that movie was fabulous. i want travelling pants. actually - i would settle for pants which stayed in one place which fit me perfectely and in which wonderful things happened to me. or i suppose - i which i learned important lessons about myself. acutally - i think that i am learning important lessons about myself. i haven't quite figured out what they are - but i am defininetly in the middle of learning them. and there is no real reason for me to put myself in a position for this learning - i mean - its not something i need to be doing right now - heck it's probably not something i even have time to be doing right now - and though this is not exactly an example of carpe diem - i seem to have had something of a lack of carpe diem opportunities of late - so maybe i am just trying to position myself so i'll have more. oh heck. i don't know. it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.