how to become a more sensual person

For many, the word sensual has a purely sexual connotation, but the more traditional meaning of the word is, 'gratification of the senses'. Using that definition, a sensual person is someone who knows how to stimulate their senses for not just practical, but also both pleasurable means.

Aside from the obvious benefit of experiencing pleasure, being able to tune into or focus one's 5 primary senses has numerous physical and mental benefits.

What Keeps Us From Being Sensual In the First Place?

As babies and small children, we were completely engrossed in sensory exploration of the world around us - putting everything (including our own little toes) in our mouths, delighted to hear the sound of our own shrieks, laughs and cries. Our five senses were the way we learned about everything. But social conditioning and maturity taught us to lessen our sensory interaction with the world in the name of appropriateness. Things like self-touch, loud vocalizations and uninhibited movement were discouraged and labeled as things that 'well-behaved boys and girls' didn't do.  As a result, many of us have become largely detached from our senses, and may even be uncomfortable as over-indulgent or immoral.

sensuality osho

To become a truly sensual person, some unlearning of the norms of so-called good behavior is necessary.

These tips from MindBodyGreen and Mind Map Inspiration will help you increase your awareness and heighten your senses.

25 Ways to Increase Your Sensual Awareness

1. Dance

2. Self-massage

3. Walking meditation

4. Stretch

5. Give a hug

6. Eat and drink more slowly

7. Silently observe nature - watch your cat grooming, listen to the wind rustle the leaves outside, pay attention to the pace and rhythm of your own breathing

8. Go barefoot

9. Close your eyes to enhance your hearing

10. Focus totally on your breath

11. Look at a close object then a distant one and alternate focus

12. Study your hand – explore the detail and aging!

13. Smell deeply – differentiate between subtle odours

14. Touch with eyes closed – explore textures, surfaces, shapes

15. Close eyes and feel temperature of objects with hands

16. Close your eyes and sense individual body parts

17. Close your eyes and identify objects solely by touch

18. Close your eyes and try observing your pulse or blood flow

19. Gently pull your ears out and listen!

20. Feel the wind – really feel it with all the senses

21. Close your eyes and pass your hands through water

22. Identify foods with your eyes closed

23. Close eyes and brush fingers lightly over arms and face sensing hairs not skin

24. Walk and be conscious of every step as you plant your feet

25. Become aware of your entire body and “feel” with every cell

The more we feel with non-judgmental awareness, the more we open to the experience of our innate sensual pleasures"

While becoming more sensual may make you feel sexier - it may even make you a better lover - the real benefit in being more in tune with your senses is improving your ability to deal with the stress of everyday life.

What tips do you use to heighten your senses?

happy inauguration day

Aight. I’m just gonna speak on this once, then I’m done. This message is for my godchildren, praying folk, spiritual warriors, lightworkers, wakan women, men of magic and mastery, meditators and chanters, and for all those that have ears to hear. All of this railing and gnashing of teeth and swearing at TV screens and hyperbolic commenting on every move or action this new leader makes is not the move. More than ever, your purposeful energy and focus is needed, and frittering it away on ‘being in your feelings’ is effectively weakening our cause. Case in point: I work with a lovely woman, a godly woman who mentioned to me on our way to lunch today that she was doing the ‘Daniel fast’ with her church. I asked her about it and what it entailed and then went on my way. Moments later, we were both in the breakroom. Me eating my lunch and deep into my Facebook feed, purposely ignoring the goings-on in the room. She – along with at least a dozen others – staring at the inauguration on the TV screen with a long face and emitting a caustic comment to almost every line of the new leader’s inauguration speech. When I finished my lunch, I quipped to the others as I walked out, “What y’all watchin’?” before laughing and sashaying off to my next meeting (Yes. I said, sashay, dammit.).

Later, still intrigued by the ‘Daniel fast’ my co-worker mentioned, I googled it to learn more about it. The fast is based on the biblical passage from Daniel 1:12 which talks about eating veggies for 10 days. But looking back to the beginning of the chapter and taking the verse in full context, the larger story is about 4 Hebrew youth (Daniel being one of them) who were true to their faith and considered some of the ‘cream of the crop’ in their community. A new leader had recently taken control of their lands and had specifically picked these 4 to come ‘be on his team’ so to speak, which included learning his language and eating his food. Danny-boy was like, ‘Cool, I get it. New leaders come and go. It’s the Old Testament. Sh*t is mad unstable. But this whole eating the food thing? Nah. Not gonna work for me and my homeys. We are officially anti- that.’

inauguration-danielfast-ill-pass-obama

The king’s caretaker was nervous. ‘If y’all just eat veggies, you’re gonna be thinner and ashier than everybody else on the team for sure, and that’s gonna get all of us in trouble. No way, Daniel-san. Not on my watch.”

To which Danny replied, “Just give us 10 days.”

After the 10 days were over, Danny and his 3 kinfolk were fatter and prettier than everybody else in the place, so they were left to their own devices from then on. Over time, they came to be known as the wisest men in the land and even became known for having ‘extraordinary’ powers.

Now, all mystical / spiritual texts can be taken either literally or as encoded message. What I took from that text was not a command to eat veggies for 10 days, rather it was a command to not swallow the BS if you want to stay true to your own values and grow in personal power.

Don’t consume the filth, the vitriol, the bad behavior. Refuse it. Ignore it. Fast from it. If you do not, your mind and energy will be scattered with every new occurrence, and you already know there will be plenty of occurrences. Furthermore, don’t be dismayed when some of your assumed kinfolk start supping at the king’s table. Instead, bring all of your energy back into yourself. Redouble your efforts on your work, your craft, your service. Dance your dances and sing your songs with all the windows open and the lights on. Never let them see you looking thin and gaunt, or sad or frustrated or unhappy or bitter. Support and speak life into others who are working on causes that are aligned with yours, and watch us all grow fatter and stronger.

We all have our chosen work. I am not a political person, but I appreciate and support and answer the calls of those who I trust that are activists in that arena. Those of us who focus our efforts on areas that transcend politics have a responsibility to work just as hard as our cohorts. We fail them and ourselves if we focus on the distractions and neglect our own goals and missions.

So, for all of us who are officially ‘anti-that’, today was your inauguration. What promises will you keep, what accomplishments will you count over the next 4 years?

how to tell when you’re working with smart people

Recently, I had an interview with a prospective client about a project they were interested in having me work on. Interviewer: “So, tell me. How do you decide what projects you like to work on?”

Me: “I like doing interesting work with smart people.”

****

I’ve been pretty lucky in my professional career. Not only have I worked for some pretty amazing companies and clients on engaging and challenging projects, I’ve also worked on some great teams. Teams comprised of people of different ages, diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds, and various areas of specialized knowledge and experience.

When I first started out as a young management consultant straight out of undergrad, I was about as green as they come. I’d done a couple of internships, but none of them prepared me for the fast pace and demanding ‘expert-at-everything’ role of a consultant working at one of the so-called ‘Big 4’ consulting firms. On my very first project, I felt like a newborn deer. Awkward, unsure of myself, wanting to ‘get it right’, but not knowing exactly what ‘getting it right’ looked like. I was in complete awe of the intellectual and professional giants on my team who’d been working in either consulting or specialized industries for decades.

Thankfully, these were friendly giants.

Instead of leaving me to sink or swim on my own, my more experienced team members met my desire and willingness to learn with an equal amount of information sharing and professional grooming. Over time, as I worked on more projects with different teams, I learned from those people as well. And within just a few years, I’d grown from a bumbling fawn to a swift-moving gazelle with my own unique blend of skills and specialties.

Since those early days of consulting, I’ve come to appreciate the immeasurable value of working alongside smart people. I’ve also come to view work as less of a job and more as 9-to-5 school, so when choosing a new role or project, it’s always important to me that the teams I’m on are people I can learn from.

Sometimes, it’s not possible to tell in advance whether the people I’ll be working with are smart. But it usually becomes pretty apparent after a few months. Here are some of the telltale signs that I’m working with a group of smart people.

working with smart people - work recipes and career advice

They’re generous.

As I learned on my first consulting project, smart people are generous. They give freely of their time, their knowledge and accumulated information, resources, even their humor. I think it’s because smart people realize that most things are better when shared, especially if those things are being shared with someone who has just as much interest in them as they do. Smart people also seem to have a different concept of scarcity and lack. Since they’re less likely to squander their time or resources, they tend to think there’s enough of themselves and other available resources to go around.

Conversely, not-so-smart people are more likely to withhold information or time. This is often due to an underlying idea that ‘there’s not enough for everyone’ or that someone has to lose in order for them to win. On one of my projects, I heard more than one person on my team tell me that, “The way to get ahead in this company is by hoarding information.” It was a telltale sign that I was not surrounded by smart people.

working-with-smart-people-life-recipe-wozniak

They are no respecters of title.

Smart people don’t associate title or position with an individual’s degree of ‘rightness’ or worth. Smart people tend to be egalitarian in their behaviors, and they treat high-ranking colleagues with the same amount of respect as a newbie or lower-level team members. When you’re working with smart people, everyone on the team is treated as a potential expert or valued contributor. Not-so-smart people often fawn over the higher-ups in the organization, while completely ignoring or talking down to those who don’t have any significant power or status.

They’re confident, but not arrogant.

Smart people know their strengths, and they’re not shy about showing them off, especially when they see a need for their particular strengths on a project or within a team. Oftentimes, instead of waiting to be asked to put their talents to work, a smart person will confidently forge ahead with what needs to be done, without much prodding and with little fanfare. In doing so, they may even inspire others to be more confident in their own strengths. While not-so-smart people primarily seek praise and recognition for exercising their strengths, smart people are more in it for the satisfaction of a job well done.

They ask lots of questions.

Asking questions is probably how smart people got that way to begin with. Smart people aren’t afraid to raise their hands or open their mouths in front of everyone (or pull someone off to the side) to ask for an explanation, more information or clarification. Even if the question is one that others might consider dumb, tough, or challenging, smart people will ask it anyway. The question that smart people tend to ask most often: ‘Why?’

They learn from (and teach) others.

Smart people are always looking for ways to become smarter. If they see that someone is more knowledgeable or more skilled than they are, they’ll get closer to that person to learn what they know. Sometimes this is done by asking lots of questions, but many times it’s done through careful observation and adaptation.

working with smart people

They act on facts, not feelings.

This is not to say that smart people don’t have feelings or emotions. Rather, they’ve learned to let facts guide their actions instead of reacting to situations or people based on their current emotional state. Even if all the facts aren’t available to them, smart people will rely on previous experience and less-than-obvious clues to make an educated guess or assumption on how to proceed.

They focus on the future.

Continuous improvement, what’s next, industry innovations, what the end goal looks like – these are the things smart people focus on at work. While not-so-smart people tend to emphasize what didn’t work before or are often heard saying things like, “We’ve always done it that way,” Smart people realize that the past is only relevant if it helps determine the future vision. If what happened yesterday doesn’t help them get to where they want to go tomorrow, smart people let it go and move on.

They own up to (but don’t dwell on) their mistakes.

Smart people don’t attempt to hide their errors or mistakes. They readily own up to them and often have a plan of corrective action already thought out when they realize they’ve messed something up. But once the mistake has been acknowledged, they won’t dwell on it or beat themselves up about it. Likewise, they don’t ‘punish’ others for their mistakes. For smart people, the mistake itself is punishment enough.

They admit when they don’t know.

Wait a minute, don’t a lot of not-so-smart people say, “I don’t know” a lot? True. The difference with smart people is that they usually follow “I don’t know” with, “But…” and an action plan or approach to finding out what they don’t already know. Both smart and not-so-smart people may have gaps in knowledge; but not-so-smart people tend to be comfortable remaining ignorant, whereas smart people don’t stay ignorant or unknowing for long.

working with smart people

What differences have you noticed when you’ve worked with smart people? What are some ways you can tell if a person or team you’re working with is ‘smart’?

food as culture – why cooking is important to preserving identity

Food has always been important to me.

Not just the consuming of it, but the cooking of it. More recently, food has grown in its importance in my mind because I’ve come to see it as a primary vehicle of culture.

How Food Defines A Culture

When you think of other cultures, there are usually 3 things that define them:

• what they wear

• how they speak, and

• what they eat

{for example: If I were to ask you what comes to mind when you think of Indian, Japanese, and Jamaican culture – I can pretty much guarantee that – in addition to saris, kimonos and dreadlocks – curry, sushi, and jerk are going to show up somewhere in the list. }

An individual or group’s food culture is more than just what they eat for dinner, more than a single, iconic dish. Food culture is a complex mishmash of history, geography, climate and social values that go into what food is served, when, where and by whom. It’s an important way of preserving and transmitting the culture as a whole.

The Lexicon of Food’s definition of food culture summarizes it perfectly (if not succinctly):

View fullsize

Travel as Cultural Exchange

Travel has definitely influenced my perspective about my own food culture as an American, as a Southerner and as an African-American. After having been invited into the homes of co-workers from other cultures, or being cooked for by people I’ve met travelling, I’ve realized how important food is in communicating to someone who you are and where you come from.

I have a newfound appreciation for Sunday and holiday dinners past at my grandparents’ house, backyard fish frys and barbecues out in the country, sitting on the front porch shelling beans, patiently stirring a pot of grits, all things okra. I’ve recognized how important it is to preserve my own unique culture by knowing how to cook even a few signature recipes that are intrinsically linked to the land and the people I come from. In fact, I see it almost as a responsibility.

What Exactly is ‘American’ Food?

One particular point of dismay when I’ve traveled has been the realization that people from other countries and cultures typically think of American food as either hamburgers or pizza. It’s an unfortunate side effect of the globalization of American fast food chains, and the failure to mass export more authentic, often regional American cuisine. This misconception makes it all the more important for me to continue to hone my skills in the kitchen and add to my repertoire of true American recipes, so I, too, can share who I am and where I’m from with new friends from other cultures and parts of the world.

I challenge you to do the same.

How to Become a Food Culture Ambassador

Even if you don’t consider yourself much of a cook, take it upon yourself to learn how to prepare at least one dish that is representative of your culture. Use it as an opportunity to learn more about where you come from – to understand the connection between the ingredients used in the dish and the place it originated. Call up someone else from your culture – your mom, another person from your hometown – and ask them to give you some pointers on how to make one or more iconic cultural dishes, then invite them over for a taste. Practice making the dish until you feel proud of it, until other people start to request that you make it for their next potluck dinner, their son’s birthday party, their wedding reception. Once that happens, write your recipe for the dish down on really nice paper. Make copies of it and give them out as gifts to people who’d appreciate it.

Culture is many things – food, dress, language – and each element of culture has a story of how it came to be. Preserving food-related stories, and bits of culinary background info is essential to preserving a culture. Unlike many other countries with more homogenous populations, America has a wide and diverse range of cultures living in proximity to one another and intermingling every day. Some degree of assimilation or fusion of cultures is understandable, but when entire food cultures are abandoned for pre-packaged, mass-produced commodifications of a particular culture’s food (see: Taco Bell, Panda Express) it’s a huge loss for everyone. And since profit and mass appeal are the primary motives of food-centered corporations, it’s we individuals who must maintain the authenticity of our respective food cultures, not only for our own families, but also for those curious enough to seek it out, and those who we meet on our travels.

how to make anything you cook taste better

Since I caught the cooking bug, I’m always looking for ways to make my food look and taste better. If I’m going to take the time out to cook, I want to make the best meal I can. So whenever I cook at home, I try to come as close as possible to creating a restaurant-quality meal for myself and my guests as I can. Fortunately, that’s not as difficult as it might seem to be.

What makes a really good restaurant meal really good, generally isn’t the fact that the dish contains a lot of unrecognizable ingredients, or that the chef uses fancy cooking techniques. Instead, a really quality meal relies on some very simple cooking tips that should be incorporated into every dish.

how to make anything you cook taste better

5 Tips for Creating Restaurant-Quality Meals At Home

Use fresh ingredients

Fresh ingredients have much more flavor and texture. To make your food taste better, avoid canned or jarred goods if fresh is also available. This is especially true for vegetables.

Canned vegetables are probably to blame for many people who claim they don’t like vegetables. Canned veggies are mushy, and all of them taste kind of the same after soaking in room temperature salt water for god knows how long. In my opinion, canned food is emergency food that should really only be used under certain circumstances, namely:

When you’ve run out of everything else in the house,

When camping, or,

When the zombie apocalypse pops off.

For almost every other occasion, use fresh. Also. If you’re using that jarred diced garlic? Stop.

There are some exceptions where I think canned foods are an ok alternative to fresh, like: beans, tomatoes, fish (tuna, sardines, salmon).

How to Make Anything you cook Taste Better-flavor

Add more than just salt & pepper

While salt and pepper are the basic must-haves for seasoning food, if you want to create more complex and interesting food flavors, you absolutely need to use herbs and spices. Stock your spice cabinet with some basics, and learn how to use them in your favorite dishes to make them truly taste like something.

You can even coax more flavor out of your standard salt and black pepper. Instead of table salt, use a good quality sea salt – a tiny bit goes a long way, and you’ll find that you need to use less of it. Which is particularly helpful if you’re looking to cut back on your salt intake. Fresh ground black pepper also tastes much more flavorful and goes a lot further than pre-ground black pepper.

Combine olive oil & butter

If you’re sauteeing, pan frying or roasting something, instead of using oil on its own, combine both olive oil and butter to cook your food. There are a few benefits to this blend:

1. Adding butter to olive oil adds a richer, more luxurious flavor to a dish than just olive oil on its own.

2. The browning power of butter creates nice color and crispness on the exterior of the food.

3. Butter burns much more quickly than olive oil, so adding olive oil protects against over-browning or burning the outside before the food is finished cooking inside.

4. Since oil and butter have about the same number of calories, by combining the two, you get extra flavor without extra calories.

I recommend the olive oil & butter trick more for meats and proteins (like this recipe for perfect pan-seared salmon), than for vegetables, but if  you’re one who doesn’t really like to eat veggies to begin with, go ahead and add some butter to help yourself out.

Follow the rule of 4

Try to make sure your home-cooked dish includes all of the following 4 taste components:

1. Salt – as mentioned previously, you shouldn’t only do salt, nor should you overdo salt, but the right amount of salt will instantly bring out the other flavors in a dish.

2. Sweet or savory – Dishes usually fall into either the sweet (aka, sugary) or savory (non-sugary) category. But any dish can benefit from adding sweetness or savoriness to help balance out already existing flavors. Aside from sugar, sweetness can be added to a dish with: molasses, sweet vegetables like butternut squash or sweet potatoes, and dried or fresh fruits. Ingredients that add savory flavor include: herbs, broths, soy sauce, MSG, and fish sauce.

3. Acid – Your tongue has bitter and sour receptors for a reason. Don’t forget about them when you’re making a dish. Adding a touch of something acidic – a squeeze of citrus, a dash of vinegar, bitters, something pickled, fresh chopped onions – to a dish creates a layer of brightness and contrast to almost any dish, whether sweet or savory.

4. Texture – Ok, so, technically, texture is not a component of taste. But! It’s so intricately linked to how we perceive the flavor and taste of food, that the lack or presence of texture definitely influences how good we think a dish or meal is. Words like crunchy, crispy, tender, fluffy, creamy all express texture, or, the way a food feels in your mouth. Be sure that your dish has the right texture for what it’s supposed to be.

Including all of the above flavor components in your home-cooked meals will stimulate all of the flavor receptors on your tongue, along with the sensation of texture. And that means better tasting food.

How to Make Anything you cook Taste Better-pleasure

Plate it nicely

It’s said that you eat with your eyes first. If you’re going to go through the effort of cooking, make sure you show off the finished product – even if you’re only cooking for yourself. Don’t just slop your food onto the plate, take a few minutes to arrange everything nicely and admire it for a few moments before digging in. And, dear God, please don’t serve your lovely home-cooked meal on a paper or plastic plate. I mean I get it, I don’t like to wash dishes either, but my food is better than that, it deserves a proper plate. And so does yours.

If you must eat on plastic, at least refrain from posting a picture of it on the internets. It just looks sad.

If you’ve already mastered these tips for cooking better tasting food, try these more advanced tips from Lifehacker on how to make your food taste better.

What other tips do you have for making your food taste good?

how to make time slow down

how to make time slow down

A while back, I was talking with a co-worker about an NPR story on why time seems to move faster as we age. One explanation offered in the story was that, when we were younger, everything we encountered was new and big and significant – we’d never done most things before, or, we’d done them so few times that it all still seemed like new.

Something about how the brain registers time makes it feel like everything slows down when we’re in new situations or experiences. Likely, it’s so we can process all this new information and store it in a logical place according to our brain’s particular filing system. As we age and repeat experiences, however, the brain takes shortcuts. It no longer needs to record every minute detail of something that you’ve done a thousand times. It speeds past those familiar and known experiences, and as a result we feel like our lives have sped up as well.

But part of the beauty of being older is the accumulated experience. The wisdom that is its own treasure. Even if we could turn back the clock to when we were young and time moved more slowly, certainly we wouldn’t to lose all that precious learning and growth we’ve gained over so many years of living?

So the challenge is: how do I look through ever-older eyes with a forever-new heart? How do we make time slow down like way back when everything was new?

Here are some ideas:

9 Ways to Make Time Slow Down

Be fully present in your body. I think most of us are pretty detached from our bodies. We only really pay close attention to our body when something’s wrong with it (‘my knee hurts’, ‘I’m hungry’), or when it experiences pleasure. Most of our relationship with our body is spent in either avoiding pain or chasing pleasure for it – things that send our mind racing through time. Taking time to slow down and actually focus on how the body functions, and what it feels like when it’s being used, is essential. Active hobbies (e.g., sports, biking, walking), stretching, meditation, sex, even massage are good ways to get your mind back into your body.

Be observant. I can get in the habit of having blinders on while going about my day – walking with such purpose to my next meeting or to grab my lunch, that I don’t really see anything except for what’s directly in front of me. You’ve probably done the same. Convinced yourself you’re in a hurry, even if you don’t want to go where you’re headed (Really? I’m rushing… to work?) or you aren’t on a schedule at all (It’s Saturday, why am I mad that everyone’s moving so slow?). Instead of rushing past everyone and everything to get to your next location, slow down and pay attention to the things that you would normally pass by without noticing. Turn your head from side to side as you walk. Look up at the sky, count how many trees you pass from the train station to the office. Imagine the whole world is a ‘Where’s Waldo’ drawing, and you’re trying to see where that sneaky sumbitch is hiding.

how to make time slow down - ferris bueller quote

Change 1 small thing. Routine makes weeks and months pass by in an indistinguishable blur. If you’ve been going about your daily life with minimal variation, introduce a little change. Take a new route on your commute. Switch your brand of cereal. Take a day off for no reason at all.

Go somewhere new. Even if it’s just a new park, a new restaurant or new area of town. Explore somewhere you’ve never been.

Learn something new. A new language, a new dance move, a new joke. Once you’ve got that one down, learn a new one.

Hang with kids. If you can’t be a kid again, be with kids again. Ask them questions, listen to them talk and engage in conversation with them like you would with any other friend. Play a game with them, show each other your best dance moves, have them tell you a story, laugh together at something silly.

Stop saying you don’t have time. I’m a big believer in the idea that what you affirm mentally and verbally, is made real in your life. If you say you don’t have enough time, you won’t. Your actions will follow your words and you’ll keep finding ways to squander away your time on a hundred things that you’ve chosen to do instead of the things you should be doing. If you really don’t have enough time to do the things that you need or want to in your life, that’s a big red flag that you need to sit down and make some difficult decisions about what needs to stay and what needs to go in your life. Ask yourself what and who you need to re-prioritize in order to stop feeling so overscheduled and overwhelmed. Or, you need to stop sweating the small stuff and change that statement from a helpless, “I don’t have time,” to a knowing, “I can’t do everything.”

Be someone new. This isn’t as un-doable as it sounds. I’m not suggesting you go fugue or check into the witness protection program, but do something that lets you see yourself as a different person. Change up your style, get a new hairdo, lose or gain some weight, talk in a German accent for an entire day, schedule some sessions with a therapist or a life coach.

Plan a vacation. Cuz, seriously, time moves at its absolute slowest in the weeks and days before it’s time for you take a highly anticipated trip somewhere.

Do you feel like time has sped up as you’ve gotten older? What other ways have you found to make time slow down?

how to do the impossible

how to do the impossible

“It always seems impossible until it’s done." ~ Nelson Mandela

When a group of friends comes to you and says that they’ve found a great deal on a 2-hour private Mediterranean boat cruise and want to know if you’re in, you say yes. You don’t think about the fact that you swim like a rock and are therefore mildly terrified of deep water without a pool’s edge or lifeguard in sight to cling to. You simply say yes. Because it’s summer. It’s southern Spain. And it’s what you do.

So when you subsequently find yourself scared shitless on a sailboat off the coast of Malaga on a blazing hot summer day with half of that group of friends taking turns diving from the boat into the water and playfully splashing about, and the other half shouting for you to jump in and join them, you’ve got a choice to make. Do you:

1. Disregard the mind-numbing fear that’s gripping you, your bowels that keep threatening to loosen on you, and your lack of strong swimming skills, and take the plunge? Or,

2. Act like a sensible person and say, “No thanks, guys, just gonna stay on board and make sure the chips don’t get soggy,” and miss the opportunity to add ‘swam in the Mediterranean’ to your list of ‘have you evers’?

If there’s anything I loathe more than the fear of ending up in a watery grave, it’s the fear of missing out on a chance to make an amazing memory. So, after watching my friends enjoy themselves for a few moments longer, I walked to the edge of the boat and stood there peering down into the water, hoping I’d be able to will myself into doing the impossible.

How to Do the Impossible

Find your motivation (aka, ‘the push’)

What is the one thing that makes you feel like you can’t not do this? The one thing that makes the impossible task looming in front of you seem like something you must attempt, even if you don’t prove to be successful at it? This is the thing that will give you that initial push that you need to get started with an impossible task, and will keep fueling your fire to see it through to the end. In almost every situation, that push will come from one of the following:

Naysayers

Years earlier, I was faced with a similarly impossible moment. I was at the famed Rick’s Café in Jamaica, nervously waiting my turn to jump off of one of the surrounding cliffs into the cool blue waters below (I know, I know. For someone who can’t swim well, I jump into deep water an awful lot). I wasn’t even sure if was actually going to jump. I waved 2 or 3 others ahead of me, while I continued to work up the nerve. Just as I was starting to talk myself out of it, one of the guys who’d seen me around the resort that I was staying at, sauntered up and took a seat on a rock off to the side of the diving ‘platform’. He took one look at my terror-stricken face and started playfully chiding me, telling me that I wasn’t going to jump, that I was too scared, that I should just walk back down and join my friends at the bar. It turns out that someone telling me that I couldn’t, was all the motivation I needed to realize that I could. When my detractor was right in the middle of one of his wisecracks, I ran to the edge of the cliff and jumped. Geronimo, ho.

how to overcome fear and do the impossible despite naysayers

Necessity

You’ve heard the stories of people who’ve rushed into a burning building or displayed superhuman strength to save someone they love in a moment of disaster. What makes those miraculous feats possible is a certain type of necessity. A necessity brought about by the fear of an outcome that is worse than or would cause more suffering than the impossible thing to be done. The avoidance of pain or suffering is a powerful motivator, and can make you completely suspend the notion that you can’t do a thing. After my Rick’s Café cliff jump, I hit the water so hard that my watch – which I’d forgotten to remove – came off and began to float away from me as I sank beneath the surface. The watch was a treasured gift from a dear friend, and I was damned if I was going to let the Caribbean claim it. In that moment, I completely forgot to remember that I couldn’t swim well. My panic at being in a big body of water was replaced by the panic of potentially losing my watch, and before I could think, I’d swum my way up to retrieve it and over to the bottom of the cliff where I extracted my beloved watch and my beloved self from the water.

Tragedy

Sometimes a personal life tragedy and the long, slow pressure cooker of time is what you need to accomplish a seemingly impossible feat – like this guy who went from Homer Simpson to hotbody in one year after a breakup with his girlfriend. Tragedy and adversity often gives us a reason to fight and a willingness to win – or at least, persevere – despite impossible odds.

Cheerleaders / Role Models

Things don’t seem nearly as impossible when you’ve got a friend or few by your side cheering you on, believing in you, and pledging to be there for you if and when things get dicey. Sometimes a support group and a gentle nudge is what you need to get started on an impossible task. While I was standing on the edge of that sailboat in the middle of the Mediterranean, still debating if I could jump, I heard my friends cheering me on and smiling from the water. “C’mon, Kisha! You can do it! Jump!” Surely these smiling, strong-swimming people wouldn’t let me drown, I thought to myself. They weren’t even pointing and laughing at how obviously scared I was. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I can do this.

Fully commit (aka, ‘Sh*t or get off the pot’)

So you’ve found your motivation, but you’re still a little bit scared, you may even still be hemming and hawing about going through with this impossible feat. Nothing unusual about that. Fear doesn’t necessarily fade away simply because you’ve found a reason to face it. But if you’re still hesitating and reconsidering once you’ve started down the path toward the impossible, there’s a huge chance that you’re going to hurt yourself in the process. While motivation gives you the power to start an impossible thing, commitment is the thing within that says there is no stopping, no turning back, no giving in once you’ve started. Or, if you’ve decided to ‘get off the pot’, commitment prevents you from regretting that decision and continuing to beat yourself up about it.

how to do the impossible

Visualize the Desired Outcome

What’s the worst that could happen? Instead of letting that be just a rhetorical question, allow yourself to imagine the worst possible outcome – failure, embarrassment, physical pain, financial loss. Sit with that image for a while, try to feel the emotions attached to that outcome. Now, imagine the most desirable result. How would that feel? What would that look like? Spend more time filling out that image in your mind. See yourself swimming and playing with your friends in the water. See yourself not drowning, making it back to the boat and enjoying soggy chips with your friends as you sail off into the sunset, still laughing. Imagine yourself 1, 5, 10 years from now telling your kids the story of that one time when you swam in the Mediterranean despite the fact that you were scared to death. Then tell yourself that all the positive things you’ve just imagined can be real. All you have to do is….

Once It’s Done, Do It Again

You already know how my story ended, right? Of course you do. I eventually jumped off of the sailboat into the water on that sunny summer day in southern Spain. It was much, much colder and a lot less scary than I thought it would be. I splashed about in the sea, dodged several jellyfish undulating by, floated on my back (yay, saltwater!) and admired the cloudless sky above, and, when our little swimming pit stop was over, I climbed back onto the boat, proud of myself for having conquered my fear. We pulled up anchor, sailed off and headed back towards the shore. But just a few minutes later, my friends pleaded with the captain to stop the boat once more so we could take one final dip before heading back in. Once again, my intrepid friends dove fearlessly into the water. And, once again, I was struck with fear at the prospect of following them. Even though I had already jumped, here I was, moments later, just as scared as I was the first time. Even I was surprised at my lingering fear. Why was I still afraid? Hadn’t I already slayed this dragon? Doing the impossible once doesn’t necessarily make it any easier or less frightening to do the next time. My fear was still present and it was clouding my brain with irrational, but very convincing thoughts. What if I just got lucky the first time? What if it was just a fluke? What if I was about to let a false sense of confidence get me into trouble? Fear is not a rational thing. Which is why the only way to conquer it is to do what it says you can’t, and do it again and again and again. The fear may never fully disappear, but you will eventually learn to tune it out when it starts whispering its senseless nothings to you.

That day, I ignored my fear, and jumped. Twice. And once my friends and I were safely back on the shore and enjoying a few celebratory beers at the nearby beach, I confessed to one of them how scared I’d been because of my weak swimming ability.

“Whoa, that’s pretty awesome! I didn’t even know you couldn’t swim that well!” exclaimed my friend, before giving me an enthusiastic high-five. And at that moment, I realized a simple truth. Even if your attempt at the impossible is awkward, fumbled, ugly, causes you to shit your pants, lose money, lose friends, or get laughed at, going ahead and doing it anyway is infinitely better than the feeling of ‘what if’ or what might have been.

In short, doing the impossible – not necessarily being flawless at doing it – is the reward.

how-to-overcome-fear-do-the-impossible-jay-z

How have you overcome impossible feats in the past? Are there any big, impossible things you're afraid of that you need to go ahead and do anyway?

q&a with atlanta artist michael jones

Atlanta artist Michael Jones at his Moving Targets: Full Clip exhibit at Eyedrum

Atlanta-based artist Michael Jones is a man of many faces – he’s a visual artist, a budding musician, an accidental comedian, a social commentator. He also happens to be my neighbor. A fact that made it easy for me to reach out to him to discuss his latest exhibition, Moving Targets: Full Clip.

The exhibition – a collection of 25 pieces displayed in 3 separate, but conjoined spaces – is a visual representation of the artist’s commentary on the themes of guns and targets in American society. After attending the opening of the exhibit, I invited Michael to a casual one-on-one interview to share his thoughts about his work, his influences, and his take on the role of guns in modern society.

What was the inspiration for the show’s topic? Why did you decide to broach this subject in the manner that you did?

The first time I shot a gun was 4 or 5 years ago. I got invited to go to a gun range for someone’s birthday party. That first firing range experience was exciting, but unsettling – the devil on my left shoulder and the angel on my right shoulder both pissed their pants – it was sensory overload! The sound, the smell, the sight of the fire coming out of the barrel.

The second time I went, there was a group of black ladies at the range too. This was just after Trayvon. I overhead the ladies imagining that it was George Zimmerman they were shooting. That’s when I realized that the target is more important than the firearm.

Moving Targets: Full Clip 'Backpackin''

You’re a Texas native right? How were you influenced by gun culture growing up or living there? Were you at all?

I’m originally from Dallas, Texas. My dad was in the military, he served in the Army in Vietnam. He always had guns when I was growing up. But I never owned a gun. My dad came to visit me one time and when he was going back to Dallas, we were at the airport, and the security guy asked if he had anything on him. And my dad goes, “Yeah,” and pulls out his gun – he had it in a Crown Royal bag. I’m like, “You can’t take that on the plane!” So that’s when he gave the gun to me.

Why do you think Americans are so obsessed with guns? What do you think guns symbolize to the people of this country? Do you think that obsession will ever change?

Because we manufacture them. So it’s only natural that we have our citizens support it. We are the number one manufacturer of weapons and firearms, across the board. I think it’s too late for stringent gun laws. Even if we restricted citizens from owning, criminals would still have guns.

Also – there was a time when African-Americans were prohibited from having guns. I think that’s part of the problem – because we aren’t educated gun owners. Also, a lot of us aren’t responsible enough to have guns.

You’ve said this exhibit is less about firearms, but more about targets – explain what you mean by that.

The media uses the audience as a target – with different media you can do that. Take the Catholic Church for instance. The Catholic Church’s images of Jesus are different because they are targeting a different audience, wanting to give you a bigger guilt trip. I try to utilize those tools as well in this series. This is the first time I’m dealing with social commentary – the reason is that it’s bigger than me. I’m just the vessel. I’m the bottle that’s holding the beer.

The artist, the writer, the target

I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask about how you feel about the increased media coverage of black Americans – men, women, and children – as targets, by both armed police forces and by gun-toting private citizens. There was even a news story in Jan of this year about a police force using mug shots of black men to conduct target practice. As a black person in America, have you ever felt like a target? How do you personally manage those feelings of being targeted?

It ain’t nothing new, it’s just crazy that it’s getting exposed now. They can fix the shit without even showing it on TV. It all goes back to the overseers, the slaves and the master. The masters are the elite. The masters aren’t all white, but that’s what gets people riled up. It also happens to Latinos, poor white people, even some rich people.

I have a friend who’s a cop. But I’m glad he’s a cop, because I know he’s a standup dude. The cops are also a target. My friend had a similar situation happen, and the media jumped all over him – and his victim was white. When all of these mass shootings were going on – where were the people who were supposed to be the good guys? That’s why cops should be honored.

I’ve always felt like a target – but that’s just because of who I am. I grew up in a lower middle class black neighborhood. Growing up being the weird artist kid I was a target in my own community. The other day I was driving thru the ‘hood and hit a stop sign. There was a dude in the middle of the street, saying something. I don’t know what he said to me, but I said, “Naw, man, I’m cool.” And as I drove off, he raised up his shirt and showed me his gun, right by his nuts. And I thought to myself, that’s a bad ass motherf----. ‘Cause if you carrying there? (laughs)

Tell me a little about your background as an artist. How you got started? Who influenced you? When did you first say to yourself, ‘I am an artist’?

My mom and dad got divorced, but they were together the majority of my childhood. I lived with both of them at different times. My dad was the person who pushed me to get into art, but my mom was the artist of the family.

I’ve always been doing artwork, but it’s funny because the title was bestowed on me… by the community. Everybody always referred to me as Michael, the artist. In 3rd or 4th grade I used to draw G.I. Joe men and sell ‘em to my friends, until I got busted for tracing. One of my friends busted me and said he wasn’t gonna pay me until I drew it right there on the spot. So, I did. I thought it was bad, but the dude paid me for it. I used to draw funny pictures of my teachers too, and all the kids would laugh.

Comedy and art has always been something that goes together for me. That’s why I’m a smart ass artist, it’s why I call my art ‘signified’ – it’s a layer cake. It’s satire, it’s comedy, but it’s also truth.

When I got older, my dad was the one who forced me to go to art school – a local arts high school. I fell in love with the school ‘cause girls was running around in leotards, there were kids playing sax in the stairwells after class... it introduced me to art life. I got blown out of my mind – there were artists there that were way better. But they were pushing me to be better, yet also respecting where I was coming from. So that was when I first started painting. And people would come and talk to me, ‘cause my studio was in the school hallway – so people were always passing by, and the principal would walk by with visiting guests and ask me questions.

When I was a senior, I got to go to Chicago on a contest I won – an NAACP ACT-SO award. It was my first time on a plane, so I was nervous. My best friend was like, “Why you nervous? Your artwork will be able to take you anywhere you wanna go.” He was always like that old coach on Rocky – getting me amped up. I remember this one guy came up and asked me, “Are you an artist?” And I said, “Yeah I’m trying to be.” He was like, “What you mean, ‘trying to be’? You either are, or you aren’t.” But I still was kinda bitch about that shit.

About 6 years ago, I went home to my grandma’s funeral, and everybody who came up to me was like, “You’re Paulette’s son, the artist.” At that time, I was getting ready to figure out something else to do. But going back and having everybody already refer to me as that kinda did it for me.

You have an alter-ego persona named Iceworm. Who is Iceworm? Why the need for this persona? What does Iceworm do that Michael Jones can’t?

(Laughs) Yeah… Iceworm Jones, aka, Ratfoot. He’s a very clever individual – he’s been baptized. That’s his baptismal name.

Iceworm likes to explore and push the elements of music – from a person who never took any music classes, but still plays and makes music. That’s what Iceworm brings to Michael Jones. I’m a baby at all of this music stuff, but all of it starts with ambition. Learning how to work with tools and making a rhythm. A rhythm is something that everybody has – I have a heartbeat, or when I tap on something that’s me expressing my rhythm. That’s why I think music is a higher art than visual.

Moving Targets: Full Clip 'Target Practice'

You work with a variety of techniques and media – sculpture, paint, performance art – all of which are represented in this exhibition. How do you decide which medium to use for a piece? Are there any techniques that you feel more comfortable with? Are there any you’re still learning or wanting to learn?

It’s kinda like a pimple or a volcano – it builds up – it don’t come outta nowhere. I’m more comfortable with painting. Less comfortable with spoken word, poetry. But the art that you’re scared of is the shit you need to be doin’. That’s when I said, ‘Imma release an album’.

Speaking of which, what other projects are you currently working on or have planned?

I’m collaborating with a couple of other artists to work on a play. I just finished the mural, Letter Blue in our neighborhood, Westview.

There’s The Pavement Series – my collection of abstract cityscapes. The Trinity Series is a non-objective abstract collection. I’m also getting ready to go back in the studio.

Tell me a little more about the Westview mural you just completed – what’s the subject of the mural?

It’s funny ‘cause I like to layer things. When I went to the first community meeting about the mural and listened to things people were saying, what I got out of it was: some people want the new and change; some people fear it. The piece represents the tug between the two – where you have an old school neighborhood and the downtown influences that could be coming, not necessarily taking over – but sometimes they could be doing that, too.

michael jones letter blue mural westview atlanta

What’s one of the greatest obstacles you’ve encountered as an artist? How did you overcome it? What advice would you give to other new and budding artists?

Getting people to give you the chance to showcase your art. And being a hustler – hustling.

The people I do know that are in the game – they are good hustlers. Hustling is something that they all do well.

I would pass this on from 2 or 3 people who’ve said this to me; and I just recently started to apply it. Be a part of a community or some kind of family, and be loyal to your word. Artists give artists a bad name. I hate artists. Artists suck.

Why?

Because we need to think a lot bigger than ourselves; we need to stop being selfish. Artists are assholes. Artists are divas.

Are you a diva?

No, I’m a smartass.

One thing artists can do is volunteering. Dedicate some free time to do something that’s not just on you; that doesn’t have shit to do with you or the career that you’re trying to be in. It’s a way to get connections, but also to learn and grow.

What can people expect from the show, the venue – Eyedrum – the 3 different spaces? Why should people want to be there?

The space is perfect for me – it allowed me to display and showcase some of the work in different mediums. The space was able to allow for the opposing themes of the show – which I like. The gallery space holds framed artwork; next door allowed me to create an interactive scene, to recreate the shooting galleries that used to be at the back of arcades or state fairs. Then, on the rooftop – the space with the videos – those are like the teasers, the previews you see when you’re getting your popcorn at the theater.

The curators at Eyedrum definitely push artists to be out of their comfort zone. They gave me that opportunity, and I wanted to jump on it.

What is art to you?

I figured it out when I went to Chicago to visit my best friend one time. I was driving through Chicago and I saw that someone had made a penis out of the snow on someone’s windshield. Then, later on, I was outside smoking a cigarette, and I started stomping these patterns on the snow.

That’s when I realized that art is when u purposely put something here. And there and there. Martial arts is when you intentionally put a kick or a punch in a certain place. It’s about coordination, practice, repetition, rhythm, vibrations. That’s what f—kin’ art is.

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Moving Targets: Full Clip is showing at Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery in downtown Atlanta until December 5. Michael Jones will host an artist talk at the gallery on Sunday, November 15 from 1-4 p.m.

michael jones eyedrum gallery atlanta

what to do with sh*tty wine

One of the best things about hosting a BYOB party at your house is all the great bottles of wine and liquor left over after the party is finished. Well... usually.

After the last BYOB shindig I hosted, I found myself left with 3 bottles of not-so-great wine that I knew I'd never drink. They sat collecting dust on the bar in the dining room for weeks and weeks. Every so often my gaze would fall on them, and I'd think, "Now what in the hell am I going to do with this wine?" Then: "And who in the hell brought this to my party anyway?" I considered re-gifting the bottles, but didn't want the recipient to get the wrong idea about my wine taste. With my luck, they'd end up thinking these undrinkable wines were my favorites and making that my next birthday present.

No thanks.

To make matters worse, the unwanted wines weren't your standard reds or whites - which I might normally work into a favorite recipe. No sir, the three I had to contend with were: a moscato, a pink moscato, and a sparkling rose with the word 'sweet' in the name. Halp.

Determined not to let even wine that I didn't want to drink go to waste, I turned to the Internets for ideas on how to transform these leftover wines into something delicious.

what to do with leftover ine

What To Do With Leftover Moscato

Moscato Poached Pears - This recipe is super simple and uses a full bottle of moscato (perfect for my needs!) along with a touch of honey to soften and flavor delicious ripe pears. The poached pears can even be sliced and saved for serving later over ice cream or yogurt.

Apples Baked in Moscato - Slow-baked apples and prunes in a wine bath flavored with vanilla, cinnamon and brown sugar? Not only is this a great way to use up some leftover moscato, it's the perfect healthy dessert for Fall.

What To Do With Leftover Rose'

Homemade Wine Jelly - While the original recipe uses red wine, I think it would work just as well with a rose' like the pink moscato I've got on hand. The original poster recommends pairing the final product with cheese and crackers, but I could see using this jelly on everything from biscuits to burgers.

Gummy Wine Fruit Snacks - This recipe also calls for red - but are you telling me you wouldn't want to tear into these sweet and boozy gummy treats if they were made with rose' instead? I didn't think so. Package some of these easy to make adult treats up and share with your friends!

What to do With Leftover Champagne

Strawberry and Champagne Pancakes - When you think champagne and breakfast, you usually think mimosas. But this recipe infuses champagne into homemade pancake batter to make them even lighter and fluffier, then tops the flapjacks with a fresh strawberry and champagne sauce.

Homemade Champagne Vinegar - The thought of making my own vinegar from wine kinda freaks me out, especially since the process involves fermentation. But since that bottle of sparkling sweet wine is going to just sit there collecting dust anyway, might as well give it a shot. Some recipes for making champagne vinegar, like this one from The Kitchn, opt for natural fermentation (i.e., just sitting the open wine in a dark place for a few weeks), while others, like this one on the Williams-Sonoma blog recommend the use of a bacterial vinegar starter or 'mother'.

More Uses for Leftover Wine

They say you shouldn't cook with wine you wouldn't want to drink. But they didn't say anything about baking with it or using it around the house. These 27 uses for leftover wine from Greatist are range from savory to sweet and even  household uses

how to survive a zombie attack

The recent flesh-eating incidents in Miami and Maryland may have you wondering. The zombie preparedness kits issued by the CDC may have you questioning. But believe me, Dear Reader, zombies are real*. They are already here. And… they’re coming to get you, Barbara. You may have even had a few run-ins with zombies already and survived those incidents based on nothing but sheer luck. Well, let me tell you, luck isn’t gonna get you to the end of the movie with all your limbs still intact. Know-how will. So, since I’d like to see you on the other side of the closing credits, I thought I’d share these 10 tips for surviving a zombie attack (aka, 10 tips for dealing with the people and situations that suck the life out of you).

1. Learn How to Identify a Zombie

Aka, ‘What You Don’t Know, Might Eat You’. Some folks find it difficult to spot zombies since zombies kinda look like everybody else. But it’s actually pretty simple to identify a zombie once you know how. Zombies move very, very slowly and they stumble and stagger about without any sense of where they’re going. They always seem dazed. Everything that comes out of their mouths is either a foul, disgusting mess or incoherent babble. If you find yourself in the company of someone like this, you might be chopping it up with a zombie. No need to excuse yourself. Just bounce.

1. Don’t Go Where Zombies Go

This can be difficult to adhere to, since zombies can be almost anywhere. But there are certain places that zombies seem to have particular affinities for, such as: places where there’s not a lot of intelligent life around (like graveyards and shopping malls); Dark, smelly places (like graveyards or strip clubs); and places where there are a lot of plump, slow-moving humans to feed on (like crappy Chinese-food buffets and South Florida). Try to stay clear of these places as much as possible.

1. Wear Protective Gear

Even in their decaying state, zombies seem to have pretty strong choppers. They can chomp right through bone, flesh, and organs. A full-body suit of impenetrable armor probably isn’t practical, but you can minimize your risk by protecting your most vulnerable spots from suspected zombies, namely:

• Your head / brain – brains are zombie delicacies, remember?

• Chest/heart – without your heart, you’re useless

• Feet / hands – the two things that will allow you to either escape or fight off a zombie

1. Learn to Use a Weapon

Doesn’t matter if it’s a rifle, a pickaxe, a bow and arrow, or a slingshot. Get skilled at using something to defend yourself against the zombies when you can no longer outrun them. And the # 1 weapon you should learn to use? Your brain. It’s the one thing they’re after and the one thing you’ve got that they don’t.

1. Keep a Light on You

Zombies hate fire. Make sure you always have something on you (or in you) that burns brightly enough to send them scurrying away like roaches.

1. Go to a Deserted Island

Aka, ‘Go to Your Happy Place’. You ever seen a zombie swim? Me either. Find a place in the middle of a vast, deep ocean that the zombies can’t reach.

1. Get a Redneck Friend

If, during your zombie-fighting adventures, you encounter someone who regularly wears a cowboy hat or boots, speaks with a Southern twang, or sounds un-self-conscious saying the word ‘y’all’, stick to that joker like white on rice. A good redneck friend can be just what you need to help you survive in zombie land. They generally know how to make do in the worst of circumstances without letting it get them down; They’ve likely been shooting and killing things since they were knee-high to a Junebug; and they’re pretty much guaranteed to have a kick-ass batch of moonshine one them, which you’re probably gonna need to take the edge off. Just be sure to make sure your redneck buddy isn’t a zombie before you ride off into the sunset together.

redneck-in-zombieland

1. Travel in a Group

It can get lonely in zombie land. So, if you can, find some like-minded non-zombies to keep you company. You’ve got the added benefit of safety in numbers, and you can even share strategies for zombie survival with one another. And remember, if and when the zombies attack, you don’t have to outrun the zombies, you just have to outrun your slowest friend.

1. Be Ruthless

As I mentioned earlier, zombies kinda look like everybody else. In fact, a zombie could be someone you thought you knew. Sure, that re-animated corpse looks like your Great Aunt Thelma, but it’s actually a brain-eating pile of rotting flesh. The zombie apocalypse is no time for being overly sentimental. If Aunt Thelma starts trying to nibble on your brains, don’t get all weepy and start screaming, “Why Aunt Thelma? Why!!??” Do both of you a favor, and put her out of her misery.

1. If All Else Fails, Blend In!

Yes, I know I said you shouldn’t go where zombies go, but in the off chance that you find yourself surrounded by them with no immediate way out, blend in. It’s pretty easy to fake like a zombie. Anybody with half a brain could do it (refer back to #1 if you’re not sure). Just be very careful with this tactic and use it only when you have no other choice. Because the longer you pretend to be a zombie, the more likely you are to end up a zombie.

*Of course, I don’t really believe in zombies. And neither does the CDC, in case you were wondering. But we’ve all encountered people who made you question that belief. You know them. People who drain your energy, people who’d chew you up and spit you out and think nothing of it, or just people who seem to be wandering aimlessly about in life without a thought for you or even for themselves. It helps to have some strategies for dealing with those kinds of people or situations, and I hope this tongue-in-cheek list of tips not only gave you something to laugh at, but also something to think about.

Also – If you’re looking for a little break from zombies, I’m helping to coordinate a ‘get away from it all’ trip next month in the great outdoors. There will be rafting (no zombies in the water), hiking and camping (essential redneck stuff), and of course, a campfire (zombies hate fire). You should check it out.

cheers,

k

photo: Zombie Barbies by niallkennedy, on Flickr

photo: zombie-warning by This is Awkward, on Flickr

how to live happily ever after

I saw a funny-but-true statement on the internet the other day. It went:

Question: What’s the difference between a Northern fairy tale and a Southern fairy tale?

A Northern fairy tale begins with, “Once upon a time…”.

A Southern fairy tale begins with “Y’all ain’t gonna believe this sh*t!”

Well, y’all ain’t gonna believe this sh*t, but… I think I’ve discovered the secret. You know, the big one. The one everyone searches to find from the minute they realize that life is a search to find something.

I’ve discovered the secret to living happily ever after.

Ok, ok. So I didn’t really discover it, I just borrowed it from this guy named Kierkegaard. But hey, if Christopher Columbus can say he discovered America….

Wait a minute, Kisha. Who’s this Kierkegaard guy, and what’s he all about?

Oh. Sorry. I’m getting ahead of myself.

soren-kierkegaard

Well, to keep it brief, Soren Kierkegaard was a 19th century Danish philosopher (apparently back in the good ol’ days when philosopher was actually a valid job title). In his book ‘Either / Or’, he explains this idea that one has to progress through 3 stages on the way to becoming one’s true self (aka, living happily ever after).

Here’s my summary:

Aesthetics (Love of Pleasure) – The First Stage

In this stage, one is concerned with maximizing pleasurable sensory experiences. Music, food, drinking, sex, travel, art, poetry, pleasurable memories, and the like. Even the anticipation of pleasure is maximized by someone in this stage. The primary purpose of this pleasure-seeking is to combat boredom. But since pleasure is usually temporary, the person at this stage is constantly pursuing the next pleasure to battle the boredom that always returns.

Ethics (Love of Others) – The Second Stage

At this stage, one is concerned with how his actions affect others. Instead of being driven by self-pleasure or personal gain, the ethical person is driven by pleasing others, adhering to a certain set of social principles, and doing things for the good of society as a whole.  The ethical person is in a constant battle with anxiety – the anxiety of not being good enough, or not being accepted by society.

Religion (Love of God) - The Third Stage

In this stage – which Kierkegaard considered the highest plane – one is concerned with her personal, spiritual quest, or her personal relationship with God above all else. Unfortunately, very few reach this stage because of the distraction of large-scale religion which discourages personal relationship with God, and encourages being ‘falsely religious’ by adhering to one-size-fits-all doctrines. The person at this stage battles the despair of trying to live an authentic, spiritual life in a religious world.

Kierkegaard proposed an either / or approach – that is, you either dedicate your life to love of pleasure, love of others, or love of God. But instead of either / or, why not ‘all of the above’?

You see, living happily ever after means you get to have it all. You don’t have to choose between one way of living or another. It’s your fairy tale. You own everything!

you-own-everything

In my opinion, to live happily ever after you have to find a way to balance all 3 of these loves. Thinking and living in terms of ‘either/or’ will almost certainly lead to a life of excess or imbalance. With the either / or mentality, something will always be lacking, missing, or given up. So, how can you start to move from 'either/or' to 'all of the above'?

The Path to Happily Ever After

Appreciate More – Or, exercise your 'pleasure muscle'. Instead of pursuing or chasing pleasure, derive pleasure from more and more things – even the simplest things. This will likely require a shift in perception, maybe even a slowing down. Instead of rushing through traffic or hurriedly gobbling down a meal, or speeding through your household chores, take time to savor something about every moment you experience. The more you do this, the more you’ll realize that pleasure isn’t something that has to be chased down, it’s something that has to be tuned into.

Give More – Now, I want to be clear here. I’m not necessarily suggesting that you sign up for another committee to save the world or keep going out of your way to be all helpful and savior-ish to everyone you know. On the contrary, I think many people (especially women, since we are often trained to be over-givers) should be more conservative with how much of themselves they’re giving away and who they’re giving it to. What I’m talking about here is giving more of the things that you have – whether they be material things or abstract things. Give more compliments, give away more credit (even if you did the work), give away more ideas, give away more of your belongings. Remember, you own everything, so why should you be so concerned with clinging so tightly to it all?

Meditate More - It takes a tremendous amount of energy to just sit still and shut the hell up. To calm your brain, cancel-out all the inputs and just be in silence (not even in deep thought). If you’ve ever tried meditating, you probably know that even seemingly harmless, little itty-bitty thoughts can quickly balloon into monstrous distractions.

stay-puft-marshmallow-man

By meditating more, you develop the discipline and strength you need to find God or your spiritual center even in the midst of all the distractions that life presents. Imagine More – Or, exercise your 'faith muscle'. Imagining is a way of reminding yourself that everything is possible. Even the seemingly absurd. Many of us SAY that God is the source from which all good things flow or that the universe is abundant and overflowing. But the way we ACT is that God or the universe is judgmental, demanding, and always ready to punish. The reality is YOU’re the one doing the punishing, the demanding, and the judging by believing you’re not worthy of good things, or by not having faith in the idea that almost anything you think of, can happen in real life. Think of it this way, whenever you  present something to God (or the universe, or whatever you choose to call it) the answer is always yes. If you continually present ideas that affirm negative thoughts about you and the world around you, the answer will be, “yes”. Whatever you focus your mind on has a way of materializing. So instead of using your mind to focus on the negative, dedicate time to imagining the best possible things you can, and watch for the “yeses” to roll in.

as-you-wish

cheers, k

Career Transition: 8 Steps For Turning Your Craft Into A Career

Your day job is what pays the bills. So you get up every day and go to work faithfully. But secretly (or maybe not-so-secretly), you harbor a passion for some other work – your craft – that one thing you feel like you were destined to do with your life. The only problem is, if you were to jump head first into pursuing your passion, you might not be able to keep the lights on. So, maybe you should just give up on that dream of yours, right?

Wrong. If you’re focused and willing to put forth a little extra effort, there’s a way for you to make it happen. While there’s no guaranteed path to success, here are 8 steps that will undoubtedly help you transform your part-time hobby into a full-time career.

1. Educate Yourself - Either enroll in a paid course or do some targeted self-study. Buy books and read articles in industry publications. You need to get very smart about the history, and current and future trends of the work you want to do. Is there a viable market for what you want to do? Also, get a feel for what goes on behind-the-scenes of the craft - those things that you'll have to do that aren't necessarily related to the craft itself. For instance, if you want to be a writer, you need to learn how to write pitch letters. If you want to be a musician, you might need to learn about putting together a press kit or music copyright law. Find out what average salaries or pay rates are in the field. This step alone may make you second guess your decision to pursue your craft as a full-time career.

3. Carve Out a Niche - How do you do your work differently? Are your products and services for a certain type of person or audience? What can you do with your work that's totally unique? Develop your own persona, your own set of offerings that's just a little bit different than what's already out there.

5. Build a Resume - Whether you want to work your craft as an employee or as a business owner, you'll need to show that you're experienced. Early on you may not have a lot to put on a resume, so seek out volunteer or non-paying opportunities that will give you that experience. Look at previous jobs that may have required you to use the same skills, even though you might not have had the exact title. If you have the time and energy, consider moonlighting or taking some one-off projects or a part-time gig in the field you’re looking to break into.

7. Join a Flock – Seek out a trade association, industry organization, or just a network of people who are doing the same work. Be active, ask a lot of questions, let people know that you're trying to break in to the industry, ask for ways you can lend your talents to the group, offer to take people out to coffee, to collaborate with them on their next project. Above all, be genuine with this group. They'll be like your new family.

9. Tell Everyone - Tell everyone you know - friends, family, former co-workers, the guy who makes your coffee at the corner café – about your ‘new’ line of work. This is for two reasons: 1) so you get comfortable claiming your new career, and 2) so people you know start seeing you as this person. Ideally, you should get some self-promotion tools in place - business cards, a website or blog - so you can showcase your talent to the world.

11. Define Your Prey - Clearly define who your target customer is or what type of organization you want to work for. How far are you willing to travel? How many hours do you want to work? What types of people do you want to work with? What kind of salary are you willing to accept? Get clear about what it is you're actually looking for, and then...

13. Go Hunting - Talk to contacts in your network that can introduce you to your target clients. Hang out in places where your clients hang out (be sure to bring your self-promotion items with you), meet people and follow up with them, even if it's just for personal reasons. This step is about building the relationships that will get you closer to your ideal client or type of work.

15. Be Patient Persistent - If you're lucky, you may achieve success overnight. If you're patient, you'll wait as long as it takes for success to come to you. But if you're persistent, you'll realize that it takes both time and consistent effort for you to reach a desired level of success, and you'll continue to do the work required to meet your goals.

Have any other tips for how to make your part-time passion your full-time career? Drop 'em in the comments.

photo credit: Tony the Misfit

cheers,
k