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On Our Weird, But Historically Accurate, Fourth of July Traditions

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Hot dogs, fireworks, Will Smith marathons—the Fourth of July is Americana pop culture at its finest. Can’t you practically hear the Lana Del Ray song playing in the background? Believe it or not, this is actually pretty close to what the Founding Fathers envisioned.

When the Second Continental Congress voted to approve a resolution of independence on July 2, 1776, future president John Adams wrote the following to his wife, Abigail:

“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.”

Aside from the early advocation of manifest destiny, Adams was actually incorrect—it would be the Fourth that would be fêted, as that is the date upon which the actual Declaration of Independence was dated (there is some skepticism about the actual timing of the signing, but whatever). Written by Adams’s legendary friend Thomas Jefferson (maybe you’ve heard of him?), the Declaration was the first time that anyone had bothered to write down the self-evident truths of equality and unalienable rights: Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

Let’s set aside a whole lot of politics for the moment and focus on the Happiness. The history of events and celebrations around the Fourth are interesting in their own right and tell a surprisingly comprehensive story of our evolved and evolving national culture.

National Holiday

Despite the immediate acclamation the Declaration received, the term “Independence Day” wasn’t actually popularized until the late eighteenth century—the first recorded usage of the name was in 1791, fifteen years after the initial signing. And, ever the slowpokes, it took Congress until 1870 to make Independence Day an unpaid holiday for federal employees. The cheapskates finally made the Fourth a paid holiday in 1938.

Fireworks

Despite their Chinese origins, fireworks have long been a part of national celebrations, dating back to the original thirteen colonies. The first instance of fireworks being used to celebrate was the very first Fourth of July celebration in 1777. Nearly 200 years later, in 1976, Macy’s sponsored their first Fourth of July fireworks show.

Hot Dogs

While no one is sure exactly who to credit with creating the hot dog, everyone pretty much agrees that they were invented in America, adapted and popularized by German and Polish immigrants who began selling sausages in rolls throughout New York, St. Louis, and Chicago. Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest in Coney Island, New York began in 1972, and regularly attracts half a million live spectators, in addition to more than a million viewers who tune in to watch on ESPN. American Joey Chestnut has held the title since 2007.

Movies

For a time after the westward expansion, the American Dream became synonymous with fame, fortune, and Hollywood glamour. And, while we can’t claim the invention of cinema, blockbuster films are definitely a uniquely American export. Mr. July himself, Will Smith, has faced countless aliens across two franchise films in the name of patriotism. Though his star has faded in recent years (just say no to Jayden and Willow, America), huge tent-pole movies are still released on the Fourth of July weekend with the expectation of breaking box office records. This year, look out for Earth to Echo and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes to battle it out for the #1 spot.

Weird and Wonky

Some things just come full circle. Both Jefferson and Adams died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration’s signing, July 4, 1826. Lifelong political foes and personal friends, the two continued a written correspondence throughout their lives. Though Jefferson passed several hours before, word never reached Adams, whose last words were reportedly simple—“Jefferson survives.”

A year later, on July 4, 1831, former president James Monroe also died, making him the third president in a row to pass on the Fourth. Calvin Coolidge so far remains to be the only president to be born on the Fourth, though current White House occupant Malia Obama also celebrates her birthday on the same day.

Perhaps the oddest fact of all is that the most sobering quote about the Fourth comes from a fictional president:

“In many ways our great Declaration of Independence was a work order issued under fire. One we still struggle to fulfill.” – President Bartlet, The West Wing

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Career

My Journey To Behind the Chair

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The first time I cut off someone’s hair, I was 5 years old, unsupervised while the adults were watching the Super Bowl in the other room. I set the scene, making sure to have a towel to cover my younger, easily convinced friend, and placing a box on the floor to catch the hair, and then I went to town with my cuts-only-paper scissors. Her hair was fairly long, having never been cut before—and, needless to say, her very pregnant mom was not nearly as thrilled with her daughter’s hacked up pixie-esque haircut as I was. Scissors were generally kept away from me from that moment on, but when I could get my little hands on them I chopped off the hair from every Barbie possible.

Growing up, I always loved doing my own hair and makeup. In middle school and high school, I started researching special effects makeup programs and declared that that was what I was going to do. Alas, like many parents, mine felt that a traditional college path was what I needed, and off I went to the University of California Santa Barbara. After just over a year there, I knew it wasn’t for me: while I thrived in arts and humanities classes, I changed my major almost every month (much to the despair of my advisors) and I struggled to find my place. I moved back to San Jose and after trying my hand at college for another couple years while working in retail management, the best thing happened to me: I was laid off. I decided to take the plunge. Within three weeks, I dropped out of San Jose State and started attending cosmetology school.

I immediately felt like this was the learning environment I had been searching for. The first time I held real shears and cut hair, it just felt right. It came easily for me. In traditional college, my main struggle had always been taking classes I wasn’t interested in or that weren’t applicable to my major-du-jour. Why did I need to learn something I wasn’t actually going to use? Yes, I realized it creates a well-rounded person, but it just wasn’t for me. Now, everything I was learning applied directly to what I would be doing as a career. When I started cosmetology school at the age of 24, I was definitely a little older compared to my classmates—many of whom were fresh out of high school. I felt this gave me an edge, however, and I realized that a few years of college had endowed me with the skills to really study and readily absorb the information. I was hungry for the knowledge and, at this point, paying for school myself, which made me want to excel further.

Working with hair is much like sculpting, beginning with a block and carving out a shape. You use straight lines to create curves and softness, which translates into visual weight lines and forms. Adding color to the hair takes the shape further by adding shadow and light. Cutting hair is an equally terrifying and exciting thing all at once: you literally get to create a shape out of nothing… but as we all know, you can’t put back anything you take off. As an extremely visual, hands-on person (from playing piano and many other instruments to baking, knitting, and crafting), I love using my hands to help people feel beautiful and express themselves on a daily basis.

Cosmetology isn’t all creative, as there’s also the service part. Working with clients can be both challenging and rewarding, and often develops into a very personal experience for both the client and myself. It isn’t always an easy job. It is mentally and physically exhausting at times. Trusting someone, especially a stranger, to touch you isn’t something that comes easily for many people. Hair is an intimate part of us: it defines us and is one of the first things noticed about us. On the other side of the chair, the work I create is an extension of me and, like most creative jobs, my ego can be tightly tied with that. When a client is dissatisfied, it’s painful: I only ever want the best for my clients and I hold myself to the highest standards.

Throughout my career I’ve had some unhappy clients, either because of mistakes I’ve made or unrealistic expectations. Clients bring me pictures of celebrities or models as references, and I always do my best to explain that things like extensions, wind machines, lighting, and Photoshop contribute to the image, and that for the average person, most of those looks aren’t achievable. If a client isn’t happy with their cut or color, I always have them come back in so we can discuss and work together to reach a happier conclusion. I’ve had a handful of people cry in my chair. Nothing is worse. Those days I want to hang up my apron, lock my cabinet, and put my shears away forever. But I’ve learned to shake it off and get behind the chair again the next day, and work to learn from the experience.

My closest clients are like family. We talk about anything and everything—at times, very personal and privileged things. I’ve had many people tell me getting their hair done is better than visits to their therapist. It never ceases to amaze me how complete strangers feel comfortable telling me things they may only tell their closest friends. I feel fortunate to have a career that allows me to create tight, personal bonds with my clients.

I recently made the move from being an employee at an amazing team-based salon where I did all my assistant training to now renting my own chair and essentially running my own small business. This change in my career has given me new goals and hurdles to conquer. I’ve been able to expand the bridal side of my business, which has been quite exciting. It’s a whole different side of cosmetology for me: although I love cutting and coloring hair, I have a passion for styling because my freedom of artistic expression gets to shine the most in this area. It has allowed me to work with numerous brides, other creative types on photo shoots, theater productions, and even styling for The B-52s!

I definitely don’t have it all figured out yet. I’m growing as a stylist and trying to find my voice in this amazing industry. I feel fortunate to live in an area with many outlets for hair and makeup artists. It can be scary to follow your passion, especially in a society where we are pushed toward a traditional four-year college plan. I look forward to seeing my career evolve, traveling, meeting interesting people, and sharing in their journeys all through the simple commonality of hair.

Photo by Gali Levi-McClure

Photo by Gali Levi-McClure

Career

Office Drama, or #WHATSHOULDWECALLTOXICJOB

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How many times do you need to come home from work in tears before you start considering a new job? My last job was terrible almost from the moment it started, but I stayed for nine months trying to make it work, and then trying to hoard enough cash to get out. Looking back on this past year, all I can see is the slow buildup of quiet-yet-demeaning incidents that made me question my worth, my abilities, and my general sense of why I am at all interested in do what I do.

Here is a list of the major red flags.

  1. When I started my job, there was no training. None! They actually said: “Here is your computer!” and then left me on my own.
  2. My supervisors act like they don’t trust me, and revise deadlines without telling me. Once, after seeing the timeline for the interviews that I manage, my supervisor approved and implemented it, and then scheduled all the interviews and emailed the schedule to me. She never addressed whether I had done them wrong or late, or any reason why she had done my job for me, even though it was a full week before we had agreed it needed to be done.
  3. There are three people whom I report to. Every time I ask for clarification on whom I go to for what (even things like time off and emergency situations), they tell me that I was hired because I could “work independently.”
  4. And then when I ask one of them for help with one of the other departments, they usually fail to answer the question because they get sidetracked, ranting about how pretentious the other department is.
  5. Once, in a committee meeting, I had an older co-worker stop mid-discussion, turn to me and say “who are you?” I responded with my name and title, and he said, “Oh! I thought you were a student spying on us. Are you even on this committee?” He checked on his phone, found I was, and said, “Oh, well, what can you do?” We had met multiple times.
  6. When I was introduced to one of the departments, which was formerly all-male, and I’m a young woman, several comments were made to the effect of “Well, now we can’t curse in meetings.”
  7. Recently, one of my supervisors has been asking me to help her with Excel spreadsheets, and when I turned in a draft (like she asked me to), she brought me into her office and pointed at a column without borders and yelled at me, “Where is the column?! Where is the COLUMN?!? There is no column there!” and then had me redo it.
  8. I am required to have an autoreply message on my email instructing students how to make appointments. I have gotten back multiple emails from coworkers who are outraged that I would send them appointment instructions. The first sentence is “This is an autoreply.”
  9. This year, one of my papers was accepted to a prestigious conference. When I asked that same supervisor if there was any funding I could apply for, she said “If you get funding, we might as well add a budget line for my cats.” That was about two months into the position.
  10. I am frequently asked when I am planning on having children. These are not subtle hints from people I am close with. Coworkers who I rarely interact with have come into my office specifically to ask me when I am planning on getting pregnant.
  11. After having congratulated me for improving our numbers so much that a particular department might not be at risk anymore, one supervisor came in and told me that the numbers should go up even more because “we haven’t worked that hard

What I’ve learned from this experience is that—surprise!—my happiness really is affected by being treated poorly by the people whom I spend the majority of my day with. I’m really not sure when the turning point was… when I knew I needed to GTFO. I wish I had known when to say something, because maybe things would have gotten better. But by the time I left, I trusted no one that I worked with or for, and I dreaded going to work. I worry I’ll run into coworkers around town and I feel like I’ve developed some really bad work habits (like hiding from my supervisors) that will affect me in the future. My job was affecting my relationships outside of work as well, I was so emotionally drained that I wasn’t myself.

The worst part was that this was supposed to be my dream job—working with exactly the right population in exactly the right role. But my coworkers and terrible supervision ruined it. I put in my two weeks’ notice despite not having something else lined up because not knowing what was coming next was better than being unhappy every day.

Much to my surprise though, leaving my toxic job felt just like a really bad breakup. It probably should have not been surprising, but ah well. My last two weeks were full of utter insanity, and all I could do was hold on to my end date, knowing that it would be over soon. A small sample: My two weeks’ notice was initially rejected so they could “think” (is this legal?). I had more than 12 meetings with all levels of my supervision, where the second question was always “but, your partner isn’t leaving too, is he?” driving home the point that in their minds I was only there because of him. They told me that I would have had a better time in the job if I were “friendlier.” On my last day, none of my supervisors even showed up, wrote an email or left a voice message saying goodbye. And then, as if to tie a big bow on the whole package, about a week after I left, one supervisor sent an email to my personal address about job searching in my field, and how to know if a job is a good fit.

I’ve been free of this job for three full weeks, and let me tell you, life is so much better. If any of the above sounds like your job, get out. ASAP. Don’t wait. If you don’t have a cushion that will let you bail, start sending your resumes faster, network more, do something. It’s not worth being unhappy every day. I also highly recommend just reading the entire archives of Ask a Manager: this helped me figure out the difference between what was simply strange and what actually crossed a boundary, so that I could work up the courage to leave.

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Photo by Meaghan Morrison

Relationships

Glimmer of Love

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She is my muse, love.  My life.  My soul, which I never knew or believed existed until I felt her breath… my breath, filling my lungs.  Lately words have been flowing from my heart that I never expected to hear, feel, or believe.  It is as real and as drastic a transformation as I have ever experienced.  Apparently, it is wholely possible to look forward to speaking to someone just moments after hanging up the phone – to miss someone mere seconds following farewells.  It seems that, despite all doubt, in all appearances, potentially, probably, ipso. fucking. facto. that love not only exists, but that I find myself eyebrow deep in it.  This is a first.  Many firsts, in fact.  But, certainly the first time I find myself deep in something that did not require legal, medical, or moral assistance to get out of.

I am writing this for the same reason I’ve ever written anything, because I have to.  I have written, to date, a number of letters beyond my ability to count (which is to say, I’ve run out of fingers and toes) regarding the subject of love, the subject of my love, addressed to… well, you get the point.  I have killed four pens, 2.5 notebooks, and three packs of envelopes in just a couple of months.  So for anyone wondering if The Duke of Glimmer has been writing… he has, but only for one person as of recently.  And although she prefers not to share my attention, I’m sure she’ll grant me reprieve in this case.

My love is music, for I found her through music.  My love is friendship, for I found her through friendship.  She is dance, and light, and laughter… gorgeous hot days, and long desert nights.  She is drugs – I will not lie.  The greatest (seriously, the greatest) drug I’ve ever known.  I am convinced she is the path to my enlightenment – if that is a thing and it can truly be achieved.  And if not, I’m just fucking happy.  Really happy. Happy enough to write this sappy post that you will probably read, say “awww,” puke, then take an insulin shot.  And that’s fine.

The point is that it’s real and it’s out there – love.  It’s not something you’re expecting to find, or that you seek out on purpose.  It just grows, organically – non GMO, always fair trade.  I didn’t even know I wanted it until love found me, but now I’ll fight with the passion of a thousand souls to keep it, this fire that burns in my heart.  There’s no formula, just live your life and let it find you.  It will.  Somehow it found me.  Somehow there’s a beautiful woman in this world who is just like me, but better… so much better.  Genuinely, just ask Tracy, she’s better… and she loves me, lucky fool that I am.  So for anyone struggling or lonely out there – trust me, if you’re holding the glimmer, sooner or later the universe will send someone to share the burden.

Originally published by Hold the Glimmer at http://holdtheglimmer.com/

Photo by Anastasia Heuer

Photo by Anastasia Heuer

 

Health

Being Busy and Taking Care of Yourself

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My first semester of grad school was really awful, and it was mostly my fault. I was taking classes in DC, and working and living on a university campus in Baltimore. I got up early and started work immediately. I would dive into my job and not look up until it was time to head to class. It was an hour each way, and a particularly arduous commute. Classes were long and I had little chance to transition between one task to the next. At home, I’d only face another avalanche of work, and then realize that I was starving. In my infinite wisdom, and more often than I would like to admit, I would grab a candy bar from the vending machine below my apartment and keep going. In the zingy sugar glow, I would work until I couldn’t anymore, and then at some point late in the evening, I would collapse, fully clothed, into bed. I felt like I was drowning. Please, please, please don’t do this.

Clearly, this was not a sustainable model. During the winter break after my first semester, I faced the fact that I had to make some changes. Today, I’m still not an expert at making sure that I am taking care of myself, but there are a few key things I’ve found necessary to avoid completely burning out.

Body

When I’m busy, I can get in this weird mindset where I convince myself its okay to put my physical self last. I have to consciously work to reframe taking care of my body as not being selfish or as putting off “real work,” but rather as taking care of the equipment I need to get the work done. If my brain doesn’t function well, I can’t write, read, respond to emails, or help others. If I think of it that way, it’s easier to justify treating myself with kindness and compassion.

  • Physical exercise. I do yoga, I dance, I run, I sometimes swim when I get super motivated, but no matter what I do something intense, regularly.
  • Enough and consistent sleep. Lots of studies will tell you about why this is important, but seriously, it is so important. I just remind myself that sleep deprivation actually kills people [trigger warning: violence, animal studies]. Work with your chronotype, because it actually makes a difference to your happiness: if you are a late riser, don’t force yourself up every day, or if you’re an early riser like me, go to bed early enough. As would be expected, there’s an app (or two hundred) for that.
  • No sugar (or whatever is your escape drug of choice). Personal but huge for me. What do you do that makes things short term better but long term worse? Is it caffeine? Alcohol? Other drugs? Not-so-wonderful relationships? I am super sensitive to sweet things. The sugar high only gets me so far, and when its over I’m just moody, groggy, fat, and nothing about my situation has changed. Treat yourself, but not with things that harm you.

Mind

There are definitely good ways and bad ways to approach what you have to get done. The following are the things that I need in order to not feel like I’m being crushed when my to-do list expands. This may not seem like self-care, but really, what could be more caring than respecting your own time and worth?

  • Have a plan. Let me tell you about the Planner Pad. I geek out about it on the regular because it is so perfect for when you are busy. It has space to divide your tasks by category or type, then a section for daily lists, and lastly a section for appointments during each day. When I can look at a single page and get a snapshot of what is going on for the entire week, I do not feel buried. I also take a few minutes at the beginning of each day to figure out what my priorities are. I do the same at the beginning of the week, month, and quarter. I think about my goals and my progress and adjust accordingly. Having that time set aside means that I consistently update my plan and can handle curve balls with way more grace.
  • Pomodoros! It may be geeky to keep a timer running in the background of your computer, but it keeps me from burning out. I love the Pomodoro Technique mostly because of the five minute breaks—just enough time to watch a music video or send a text or two to a friend, and keep myself from fizzling during a marathon work sesh.
  • Know when you’ve done enough. What is the bare minimum you need to get done during the day to keep on track? Once I’ve passed this line, I congratulate myself, and decide whether or not I need to keep going. Thinking of working more as a bonus round keeps me from getting caught in the never-ending to-do list.
  • Change what you can change. In my second year of my grad program, I got a different job without a commute and life got significantly better. I think overall it freed up another twelve hours per week to get other things done. Twelve whole hours. It was unreal.
  • Write yourself a mission statement: Why are you doing what you do? Sometimes when I felt my worst, I would stand in the shower and pretend I was in a job interview. The (imaginary) person across the (imaginary) table would say, “Why are you in grad school?” I would have three minutes to explain, out loud to myself, exactly why I was studying what I studied. This distilled my purpose, and cemented my desire to get things done. If I couldn’t say why I was doing something, then I knew it was probably time to figure out how to not do it anymore.

Spirit

Remember to take care of the other aspects of your being.

  • Schedule time for yourself. Again, you are just taking care of the equipment that you need to get the job done. It’s like putting gas in your car. I save this time for reading and sewing and not working on my to-do list.  I put this right in my calendar, because I am a geek and otherwise I wouldn’t do it.
  • Have a support network. Who can you call to get away? Who can you call if you’ve got to cry? Who always finds the best parties/concerts/adventures? To whom can you speak your biggest fears out loud, and know that they will have your back? These people are magic and I keep mine on speed dial. If this is a professional, like a therapist or a mentor at work, even better.
  • Don’t let the important things drop. My biggest regret from the busiest time in my life so far was not being part of a choir. This was the first time since 4th grade that I was not part of some sort of singing ensemble, and I could feel it. I would have been way happier if I had taken the couple hours a week or month to join some sort of group.
  • Remind yourself of your power. Chances are, if you are doing a lot now, you probably did a lot to get to where you are. I have a good friend will simply reread his resume whenever he feels like he’s not doing enough. “Hah!” he tells the universe, “You think I can’t conquer this? Look at everything I’ve conquered in the past!”

When I’m at my busiest but make sure to take care of myself, I have this wonderful, bare bones, stripped down feeling. Treating myself kindly feels like flying. I am doing exactly what needs to get done, working at my most efficient, and making steady progress towards my goals. The days go quickly, and I can think and work hard. I love having a lot going on, but if I’m not treating myself with care, I can’t enjoy it.

Want more suggestions? Peruse these 55 gentle ways to take care of yourself.

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Photo by Andy Sutterfield

Food

Negotiating My Peace Treaty With Food

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This article deals with an account of learning to overcome an eating disorder and finding ways to enjoy food again. Its content may be triggering to some people.

I used to do this thing. Maybe you also used to do this thing. Maybe you still do.

I kept a diary of every bite of food that went into my mouth, the margins scrawled with discouraging messages to my future self. A Diet Dr. Pepper and an apple was considered a passable lunch (dinner, too). I taped down my bra so I’d look flatter and more “waif-like.” I avoided being photographed at all costs. And, above all, I abhorred a full meal—whatever, let’s be honest, I abhorred food in general. I was fucking miserable, but for some reason, I felt like I had no other choice.

All of this started when I was about twelve. Growing up, I never really had the whole “your body is becoming something beautiful” chat (though who knows if it would’ve made much of a difference). I felt like my body was turning into something unfamiliar, something grotesque and lumpy and disproportionate. I had daily panic attacks that went undetected by my parents for at least a year. They probably thought I was way too young to have any real issues—they were holding out until high school for that. But it made sense: I’d always been a bit of a control freak, and this was just another facet of my life that I was desperate to have control over—i.e. “No, body. Stop that. You are not in charge. I AM.” So I started starving myself. The whole thing was pretty cut and dry. I don’t think we need to go down the rabbit hole of “why” and “how” this kind of thing happens. The internet is already chock full of that: “Why do we allow our daughters suffer from poor self image? Is the media to blame? Are other women to blame?” Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But this isn’t about that. This is about how I learned to love food again and how, 15 years later, I even began identifying as an amateur Foodie. This is the peace treaty I negotiated with food.

Hey, food. So as it turns out my body really, really needs you. Like, a lot. Like I will actually physically cease to be without you. So let’s start there…

Because I absolutely must eat food, because I do not have a choice in the matter despite how long I withhold it, I might as well not treat dinnertime like a trip to a renaissance-era torture chamber. I might as well eat stuff that doesn’t suck.

And by “stuff that doesn’t suck,” I don’t necessarily mean indulgence 24/7. I’m not talking about In-N-Out Burger or Girl Scout Cookies (although sometimes, yes, I absolutely am talking about those things). But in this particular instance, I’m talking about awesome, unique, complex flavors. Food that goes crunch! Food that melts in your mouth, spices that clear up that sinus infection in 5 seconds flat, or just the perfect amount of saltiness. I’m talking about the experience of eating.

Regardless of whether it was a carrot I consumed fridge-side on my way out the door or lasagna and red wine at my favorite Italian restaurant, I forced myself to enjoy fueling my body. I re-tooled my brain with enjoyment. Recently, while training my dog, I learned that this is what is referred to as “counter conditioning.” Give the dog a treat every time she sees a skateboard? Eventually she’ll stop howling at the skater kids.

Do I have off-days? Yeah, obviously. Anyone who tells you there’s such a thing as being 100% free of such a warped perspective is bullshitting you—I’ll probably never pound that coveted In-N-Out burger without having to silence those dumb, self-deprecating thoughts at least once. I have to remind myself, time and time again, that eating is wonderful and good for me and fun.

I think that’s one of the reasons I became such a Food-Network-Watching-Restaurant-Week-Enthusiast: it was a way to make food fun. Thank God we live in the age of Alton Brown and Gordon Ramsay and her holiness, GIADA. Learning how to cook is an awesome, totally viable hobby, and more importantly: eating is cool. Seeking out hidden culinary gems in my city and telling people about them is so exciting for me, like passing on a juicy rumor. The pleasurable experience of eating, as a whole, is what helps me keep it together. There’s so, so much more to it than forcing calories into a body that’s running on fumes. This might sound like a no-brainer to most people, but for someone like me, it’s taken 15 years to wrap my head around.

Learning to love the body you’ve got can be hard. A lot of people can’t ever fully master that, try as they might, despite what their families and friends tell them. I think maybe this is because “love” is too strong a word: it’s too tall an order. We’re told to love our bodies. But sometimes we don’t love ourselves, and we feel like we have failed somehow when people tell us that we should. I think “acceptance” is a much better word to use. We can all learn to accept what we’re working with. But learning to love food… that, in my opinion, is totally within reach—the same way you might fall in love with a new band or a series of books. When a person with an eating disorder eats something they think they shouldn’t, there’s a tendency to tie the event to the very definition of their self worth. But to me, viewing eating as a hobby keeps me from internalizing the experience in a negative way. It’s something you do, not who you are, so it’s somehow easier to swallow (pun absolutely intended).

If you’re trying to claw your way out of a similar hole, I highly recommend cozying up to a marathon of Chopped, Yelping your neighborhood’s newest gastropub, or learning to make some really crazy dish, like paella or homemade pasta from scratch. Food is going to be a part of your life if you want to continue having a life, so you might as well make peace with it. You might even surprise yourself in the process: you might even have fun. 

Photo by Michelle White

Photo by Michelle White

Career

Let’s Ask: What Does it Mean to “Make It”?

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Three UE writers, Sally, Jessica, and Emma, sat down to discuss what it means to “make it.” They were joined by Sally’s mom, Anne, who shared her perspective. They have asked that their names be changed for honesty.

Anne: I chose to take time off to raise my kids because I figured you can always get a career, but you can’t get kids’ lives back.

Jessica: Yeah, totally.

Anne: So I chose to do that and everybody said it was a mistake. And when I tried to go back to work, everybody wanted me to start all over again. They think if you take the time off to raise your family, you sit at home and lie on the couch.

Jessica: Obviously.

Sally: And you’ll forget everything.

Anne: I don’t know anybody who’s ever raised kids that has laid on a couch.

Everybody laughs.

Emma: Do you think that’s changing?

Anne: I honestly don’t know. I have a different perspective about people and their families now. It’s not necessarily a positive one. But I said, “Well, if I’m gonna start all over again, it sure as hell isn’t gonna be for some corporate asshole.”

Everybody laughs.

Anne: It’s gonna be for me. So that’s what I did.

Jessica: That’ll be the tagline.

Anne: I think it’s probably easier to go back at the same level. But, in my day, most people didn’t come back—they just never came back. They had their kids and they didn’t come back. But if you had any kind of position or potential, it was like by choosing to stop you’re kind of shortcutting yourself. It was very hard to get ahead and I was at the point where people said, “Well, you know, you have a lot of opportunities—you’re gonna have a lot of opportunity, you’re gonna go really go far,” and I was “throwing it all away.”

Emma: But it’s just so fascinating that in the generation before you, every woman who was working was basically hearing, “You’re a terrible mom,” or “How dare you work and screw up your family.”

Anne: Well, my mom raised seven kids and she never worked. I mean, that’s what you did.

Jessica: But that’s how that perception has changed. Now: if you do work, you’re a bad mom; if you don’t work, you’re a bad mom. How do you make that choice?

Emma: You find the balance that works for you and your family. Turning perceptions into expectations makes for a lot more bad than good. Following your instincts is way better than societal pressures.

Jessica: I think it all comes down to “self-worth.” I know far too many twenty-somethings, myself included, that tied—or are still tying—all their self-worth to their jobs.

Sally: I remember one of my co-workers telling me that when I first walked into my last job, I was my “best self” that I had this confident “sass.” But the pressures of trying to be perfect took that all away, and he said, “It was just so sad to see how your confidence completely diminished and to watch you second guess every single thing you did.” Because, by the end, I was so unhappy and I needed validation and approval every step of the way. And even though that’s in the past now, I still feel like I’m trying to find my own self-motivation and self-confidence.

Jessica: And when it’s what you’re used to—when it’s where you’ve found your value—that’s a very hard thing to do.

Sally: Yeah, when I left, he told me again, “You cannot tie all of your self-worth to your success at your job.”

Jessica: I did that for a very long time, you watched me do it.

Sally: Everybody does it.

Jessica: Not everybody.

Sally: A lot of people do it. People who confuse drive and ambition and trying to play the game.

Jessica: People do it in different ways. Some people do it to their jobs, some people do it to their relationships, some people do it to their families: it depends.

Sally: Well it all goes back to perfectionism—trying to change yourself to fit that perfect ideal.

Jessica: You’ve got the craziest role model here though. (Nodding towards Anne.) She quit, walked away from her career and raised your family.

Sally: Yeah.

Emma: And then was like, “I’m gonna come back and start my own business.”

Jessica: My mom left her career because she hated it but she’s never been able to forgive herself for not finding a way to like it—or find another job that made her happy. So she’s always felt like she did something wrong because she never found a way to be happy and earn money. I remember, growing up, she didn’t want to be called a stay-at-home mom. But she was an awesome stay-at-home mom, and a writer, and it’s just that she saw that as a failing instead of seeing it as this really cool thing she got to do.

Emma: Yeah, like she needed to both work and be a mom. To be only one is—

Jessica: —To fail. I think that was because it wasn’t an active choice she made, like she didn’t actively choose to be a stay-at-home mom. Rather it was a reaction to being so miserable in her career.

Emma: But that reaction is still a choice.

Jessica: Exactly. “I’m miserable and I’m choosing to do this so I won’t be miserable anymore.” And let’s be honest, life is just as much about our successes as it is about our failures. And how we react to those failures is probably even more important than how we react to success.

Emma: Amen.

Jessica: “Bravery isn’t a lack of fear, it’s doing something despite your fear”… That’s a quote I stole from UE writer, Lily Henderson. But, the first and only time I ever quit a job, it was one of the most terrifying and painful things I’d ever done. And, from the outside, it looked really brave, but from my perspective, it was fucking terrible. But once I realized that the world didn’t end, it was like, oh…

Sally: It’s all about how you define success. I mean it’s interesting because you compare and contrast: I have a friend who’s getting promoted at age 23 and I have other friends who are like 30.

Emma: But what are you measuring?

Jessica: What is happiness? And is it defined by age? Because I feel like that marking system goes back to this idea that you are only “making it” if you have a successful career. I had a very successful career at 23 but I was really unhappy. I thought I had “made it” but all I had was my career. If you don’t have anything else, or the time to find anything else, it won’t ever fill that void.

Sally: That’s the thing I’ve had to learn, to try and really let go of this idea that it’s not a race. It doesn’t matter. And that I don’t really know what I want to do and it’s all about trying to learn.

Jessica: I look at my life, I used to be able to go into rooms and be like, “I do this,” and people would be like, “Oh shit, I want talk to you, I want you to help me get me a job like that.” Now, people are like, “Wait, what do you do?” And it’s not that it comes from a place of judgement, but it’s confusion, because I have an unconventional, “un-famous” job now. But it’s the perfect job for me right now. Because even though it’s only tangentially related to my “career,” I’m way happier as a person, way happier in all the elements. So it’s that balance, those choices. But the point that I was gonna go back and make right after you were talking about how miserable you were at your job, was that we all sat around and told you this, and people sat around and told me this when I was unhappy, but—

Sally: It doesn’t matter until you realize it yourself.

Jessica: Yeah, you can’t learn that lesson until you learn it yourself.

Sally: I would hear it and I would understand it logically, but I still couldn’t emotionally accept it. You have to get to that part. And that can be very hard.

Jessica: Absolutely.

Sally: I remember when I got coffee with a friend and he was like, “Hey how are you?” I was like, “Oh I’m really great.” And he’s like, “How’s the new job? Wait! No I didn’t want that to be my first question!” The whole point was we were gonna meet for coffee and be friends and not talk about work. You’re changing your identity and who you are—as you see you and as others see you. I’m trying not to be defined by my work anymore. And it’s hard.

Jessica: So hard. That’s a huge shift. I had to leave this city and come back to do that. But I’m so glad I did.

 

Photo by Michael Cox

Health

What is Happiness?

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“Happiness is some cryptic shit. It’s a chimera. A faceshifting freak in a room of mirrors. It’s wonderful and horrible. It helps us and it hurts us. It hamstrings us and elevates us. It’s a pit and it’s a ladder. It — and its many forms, be they satisfaction or pleasure or bliss — is a thing so intensely personal it’s impossible to let anyone else tell us how to get it, keep it, or use it. I think it’s worth asking yourself, how will I be happy? It’s worth trying to find the path to satisfaction. And I don’t think that path is drawn through careful study or through mathematical findings. You don’t get happy through a pro/con list. (Unless you do? See? So personal.) It’s in your gut. It’s a feeling, an instinct, and maybe at the end of the day the shortest path to unhappiness is to ignore yourself and all the inner voices that are screaming for you to go left, go left, for fuck’s sakes go left and all you do is go right. Go with your gut. Follow your bliss. Give to others without taking. Be you. Be the best version of you. And share it with the world. Then again, what the fuck do I know? ” — Chuck Wendig, “25 Things I’m Wondering About Happiness”

Here at UE, we are not trying to give you the answers. We are trying to share the options. These weekly We Don’t Know posts are designed to focus on questions where the only answer is your answer.

Today, we feature a post by author and blogger Chuck Wendig from his website Terrible Minds. When we were sent this post, it immediately struck us how Chuck’s musings on happiness embody so much of what we try to accomplish through our UE community.

At the beginning of his post, Chuck describes his ability to be an “expert” on happiness as follows:

“So, here I am. A clueless, inexpert, inelegant dude. Trying to figure shit out. Like, even now, I don’t know that I agree with half of what I’ve written here. And tomorrow I won’t agree with the other half. But it feels like it’s worth talking about anyway.”

That’s pretty much how we feel about everything we post on UE, just as our mission statement says: You don’t know everything. Neither do we.

To give you a taste of Chuck’s first four “wonderings” on happiness:

1. “Nobody knows what the fuck it is.”

2. “Nobody knows what the fuck it does.”

3. “Happiness is a choice.”

4. “Except when it’s totally not a choice.”

…You get the idea. Go read it for yourself and tell us what you think about happiness in the comments.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Health, Relationships

Let’s Go Get The Shit Kicked Out Of Us By Vulnerability

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After Dr. Brené Brown gave her first TED Talk, about the power of vulnerability, she woke up with a “vulnerability hangover.” She hid in her house for three days, ashamed of confessing that she’d had a “breakdown” to the over 500 attendees. Knowing her video was headed for the Internet, she told a friend she anticipated another couple hundred people seeing her admission but, “If 500 turns into 1000 or 2000, my life is over.” Her talk has since been watched over 12 million times.

[ted id=1042]

When I think about vulnerability, I imagine something raw and tender. The kind of thing I might boast about embracing but, more often, actually find myself cowering from. When I watch a TED Talk like Brené’s, or read some quotes on Tumblr, I think, “YES! That sounds amazing! I am going to start being vulnerable right now! I am going to let go of all my insecurities immediately, accept my imperfections, be kind to myself, really let go of who I’ve thought I should be for all these years, and embrace the imperfect reality of who I am!” Boom. Done. I am vulnerable. And yet, just saying the words “imperfect reality of who I am” sets off a wave of discomfort. Because that’s the reality of vulnerability: it can be really uncomfortable.

[box] “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” ― C.S. Lewis [/box]

For most of my life, just like Brené, I thought I could “outsmart” vulnerability—that if I just locked it up in a box, made all the right choices, and checked off all the boxes on my list of impossible expectations, I could be perfect. And, obviously, perfection was, well, perfect and when you’re perfect, there’s no need for vulnerability. If only that was true. But I did not see vulnerability as a strength back then, I saw it as a weakness. A big, undefined, pain causing weakness. And this unknown thing was so scary to my brain that the idea of even exploring it was enough to get me to bury anything tagged “could be painful” so deeply, that once I started searching, it took me almost a year before I was even looking in the right place.

The fear that vulnerability induces in me is the kind of terror that dictates my actions without me even realizing it. So, first, I had to not only recognize, but also accept, that so many of my actions were defenses. As if that wasn’t vulnerable enough, then I had this exposed raw, tender, place that I was supposed to stay with and sit with! Patience in my life before: not fun. Patience while sitting with discomfort caused by vulnerability: excruciating.  In her TED Talk, when Brené talks about the “whole-hearted”—the ones who believe that what makes them vulnerable makes them beautiful, that vulnerability is not comfortable or excruciating, just necessary—you need to know that when I started this process, I was not one of them. Whether I was willing to articulate it or not, I was one of the ones who always questioned if I was good enough and I was pretty sure I wasn’t.

[box] “[The whole-hearted] talked about the willingness to say, “I love you” first, the willingness to do something where there are no guarantees, the willingness to breathe through waiting for the doctor to call after your mammogram. They’re willing to invest in a relationship that may or may not work out. They thought this was fundamental.” ― Dr. Brené Brown [/box]

Some of the most seemly confident, happy, and/or successful people can still have this voice in their head that makes them believe, in spite of their “accomplishments,” that they are not good enough. On the outside, I denied that I had low self-esteem. Because, honestly, I didn’t think I did. But that was because I only gave weight to the parts of me that I showed to other people and I didn’t count all the things that I only thought to myself.  Look in the mirror and pay attention to your thoughts: Are they kind? Are they accepting? Or do they scan for every flaw? Do they plot how to hide away the things you’re most ashamed of? Do they berate you for not having done more to “fix” something that you consider “wrong”? I was feeding my own insecurities without even knowing they were insecurities. And, worse, I just accepted them as limitations to myself. This was “the way things were” and nothing and no one were ever going to change that. Well, I was right about part of that, no one else was ever going to change the way I saw myself, but I could.

[box] “When you’re raised with the belief that perfection is possible, it’s very hard to let go of that.” – Hannah “Harto” Heart [/box]

Alright, so finally I start digging up my insecurities, I acknowledge them with a curt head nod, and I start trying to sit with them in a very large room (in which I do my best to never directly look them in the eye, because, ow.) Finally, we get closer, we’re not cuddling on the couch or anything, but we’ve started having marginally polite conversations, and then I realize it’s not enough to be aware and sit with my insecurities by myself, to really heal, I have to accept them: out loud. I have to let them be seen by others.

Terror doesn’t come close to describing how I feel about doing this. Because this is not the kind of “being seen” where I get to admit my flaws and then get patted on the back with some reassuring comment to make me feel better. This is the “being seen” where I admit them to a large room full of people and then we all just sit there awkwardly in silence together. Not because it’s awkward, or shameful, or even anything revelatory that they are seeing, but because I am so scared of the risk, I create my own fear-fueled reality. But when I figured out that I was actually sitting in the middle of a boisterous vulnerability party and my shame was just sitting on top of the mute button, every thing changed. Of course this also required something else I had been in denial of: the ability to really trust. Because finding self-confidence in your imperfections requires a kind of trust in yourself and others that is not the kind of trust you give your friends when you tell them about that one time you waited outside a hotel to stalk the Jonas Brothers in college, but the kind of trust that is choosing to go on television, naked, to do an interview in which you willingly hand over a flashlight and say, “Please, examine me.” And I do mean choosing, because that was my turning point with vulnerability, when I realized no one was going to roll out a red carpet and escort my vulnerability to the party. That I was going to have to drag her out myself, sometimes kicking and screaming, every day, for the rest of my life.

[box] “We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.” — Pema Chödrön [/box]

Vulnerability is a choice. It’s about making the choice to accept my imperfections, my mistakes, my failures, even when it really stings, when all I want to do in the face of criticism is launch into one of my “Whatever, you’re wrong!” or “OMG, I’ve failed at everythinggg” monologues. When going on Facebook to complain seems like so much more fun than apologizing, when sending an angry and defensive email makes us feel better than admitting that maybe the other person is actually right. It’s never starting a thought with, “I know I said I was going to be vulnerable, and that I need to sit with this discomfort, but that sucks and it is uncomfortable, and I don’t want to feel this, so just this once…” It’s not seeking out a drug hit of sympathy from someone by making sure, “You still love me, right?” It’s not justifying my mistakes so that I can make them again. It’s not going numb in an attempt to forget, ignore, or deny. As Brené says: we cannot selectively numb emotion.  If we numb out pain, grief, shame, disappointment, we also numb our happiness, gratitude, and joy. That’s why taking a risk is such a vulnerability, because the inherent definition of a risk is that there is no certainty, and without certainty, we risk failure. And vulnerability is all about embracing your successes and your failures. It’s actually being yourself in the face of possibly losing everything because of it.

[box] “To let ourselves be seen, deeply seen, vulnerably seen; to love with our whole hearts, even though there’s no guarantee, to practice gratitude and joy in those moments of terror, when we’re wondering, ‘Can I love you this much? Can I believe in this this passionately? Can I be this fierce about this?’ just to be able to stop and, instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say, ‘I’m just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I’m alive.’ — Dr. Brené Brown [/box]

There’s an ancient Japanese art form, called Kintsukuroi, that repairs pottery with gold or silver lacquer with the understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken. That’s the biggest truth of all this. I still do not have this figured out. I will probably never have it all figured out. I will succeed and fail at vulnerability, and in life, again and again and again. The point it not to actually figure it out but to make the choice to go on that journey, to be broken and put back together. So I am trying, and stumbling, and trying again. And even when I fall into my old patterns, and cycle through the same loops, I just remember that it’s not about the loop, it’s about how much more quickly I can get out of it. And every time I make that choice, as hard as it can be in the moment, I always look back and feel better, stronger, and more alive than I ever did before.

[box] “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” — Theodore Roosevelt [/box]

If you’re interested in reading more about these ideas, I strongly encourage you to go read all the Pema Chödrön you can get your hands on (apparently the Buddhists have had this vulnerability thing figured out for over 2,000 years) and watch Brené’s other TED Talk, about listening to shame. Brené has also written several books that I have yet to read but are waiting for me on my bookshelf. Or just go watch Love Actually.

Photo by Remi Coin

Photo by Remi Coin

Uncategorized

How to Turn 26

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In the weeks before I turned 26, a tide of nausea briefly rippled through my stomach. It was equal parts vanity, regret, and mortal terror. Turning 26 is not as easy as turning 25, 27, or even the dreaded 23 (when nobody likes you, because, what’s your age again?). There are no more additional perks that come with age—renting a car at reduced cost came at 25, and there is nothing else coming down the pike until Social Security (hah) and being able to get the senior discount at movie theaters and Denny’s (assuming your digestive tract somehow grows an iron coating, or perhaps you stop caring about having to buy new underwear). When you turn 26, you leave the 18-25 demographic—meaning that advertisers now care less about what you think because, statistically, you act and buy and think like a young person no longer.

Photo by Sara Slattery

I began to think of all the things I hadn’t done, all the plans I’d made and failed to live up to, all the ambition that couldn’t measure up to the demands of reality. The thought popped into my head “…what if I am turning 30/40/65/on my deathbed, and I still feel this regret?”

Suffice to say, I got quite inebriated that night. But, there is really nothing quite like existential terror to shake you out of your routines or thoughts or beliefs that are, for lack of an accurate and more polite term, bullshit. There is nothing quite like existential terror to make you really step back and evaluate what you are doing, why, and whether or not it’s the right thing to do.

1. Vanity – “I’m too old for this sh*t.” – Roger Murtaugh, Lethal Weapon

You have to take a look at the things you do and the things you did. Some folks can line up shots on Tuesday night and be fresh and ready to go for round two at 5 pm Wednesday. If you are 26, chances are you are not one of those people—I certainly am not.  Put down the Keystone Light and the shot of vodka if you know deep-down you’d rather have a pint of a microbrew or maybe a nice glass of red wine.

At first, when I had this epiphany, I just thought that it was about me getting old and boring, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. It meant I cared more about the journey than the destination—less about getting messed up, and more about really enjoying a nice thing. Youth is turbulent and extreme, and this is just the curve of human experience normalizing. The volume on life doesn’t need to be at 11 all the time. Also, you may now come to understand that these types of volume-11 activities were stupid or embarrassing more often than you are comfortable admitting out loud.

2. Regret – “Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.” J. S. Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Life is a game in which you have a finite number of points to allocate to skills, and a finite amount of experience. You must understand that you cannot be both a cowboy and an astronaut—a choice must be made, and that pragmatism will do everything it can to micturate upon the rug that brings together the room that is your life. Money and your means of living will do everything they can to dominate your decision making, making them predicate to happiness—if you let them. It’s your job now, as a 26 year old, to carve out happiness from the charred husk of post–Great Recession America. This will require willpower, creativity, and periodic bursts of self-destruction borrowed from your youth (known prior to your 26th name day as “fun”). This project will take you roughly 30-40 years, so plan it out.

And speaking of “fun,” if you are still doing this stuff well into your 30s and it isn’t otherwise causing your life problems, then don’t listen to critics who’ve “grown up”—if you like doing it, find folks who also like doing it, and make them your friends. Don’t feel bad: remember, it’s keeping you sane and letting you live your life the way you’ve planned it. Unless it’s hurting your health or relationships, don’t be easily shamed by people, especially older critics. (If you feel particularly saucy, remind them that the economic meltdown was voted in by their generation, and that you are dealing as best as you can with the mess they made. It seems to be popular to hate on Millennials—don’t tolerate it. Stand up for yourself.) Eat. Drink. Be merry.

If you wanted to do something, take the time now. Nominally, you’re still young. Go on that adventure, that trip overseas, the road trip across America. Do that thing you always talked about doing, but never got around to doing. Do it now, and let no mortal stand in your way.

Most importantly, do away with the notion that you or anyone else in your peer group has this part of life figured out. If it looks like it, they’re only good at faking it. I’m pretty sure even Mark Zuckerberg went through a “what does it all mean” phase while sitting on a throne made of 100-dollar-bill bricks rubber-banded together and stacked like cocaine-stained legos. There is a relative scale, but more or less we all feel it. Don’t try to compare yourself to other people—they aren’t you. They don’t want what you want, and they haven’t been through what you’ve been through. I was surprised to find that some people I know who are happy on paper are filled with the same existential terror and they question themselves even harder than I did. If you still haven’t found what you’re looking for, go out and find it.

3. Mortal Terror – “Someday, I am going to be dead.” Everyone ever on at least one night, staring at the bedroom ceiling

Yeah, you’re going to die. Unless humanity manages to pull its crap together and invent clinical/biological immortality (which, awesomely enough, exists in lobsters), you are probably going to feel the icy grip of death wrap around your chest and squeeze out your final breath. Did that make you uncomfortable? Good, that means you’re paying attention.

Let it inspire you. Let it motivate you. That mortal terror you feel is a fire underneath you that you need to transition through this phase and accomplish what you wish you had already done. You are down two touchdowns in the game of your 20s, and you need to rally a comeback.

Let your life be worthy of a bard’s song. Hit each day like it’s a good day to die (as if you were a Klingon). Your days aren’t long, and they’re getting shorter.