Diminishing Comparativeness

First, I wanted to share my success in my completion of the New Years Resolution...I completed my list of 101 things in 1001 days! Woo hoo! I'm also happy to report that I've already knocked off two things by going to Inauguration and the GW Inaugural Ball. This list is very comprehensive and it's completion is just the beginning. Needless to say, the 99 remaining "things" will definitely keep me occupied during the next 2.75 years!

Now onto the real purpose of this entry. If you know much about me (or have read some of my earlier articles), you will know that one of my biggest weaknesses is a mix of jealousy and comparison. It comes in spurts. One minute I'll be fine with my life, and the next I feel like I don't make enough money, don't have a good enough job, don't have enough friends, etc. And then later, I will see a news story about job losses, or abusive relationships and I will feel blessed about my life. Sometimes I feel like a ping pong ball. I believe that all humans go through this to an extent, but sometimes it is so bad that it can suck the total enjoyment out of my life...diminish my new mantra of living to live.

A few weeks ago, I read an article entitled "Life's Enough: Stop Comparing Yourself to Others", which touches on this exact subject. I'd like to include an excerpt:

Let’s say I take a look at someone who creates amazing artwork and really top-notch podcasts on their website … and I look at my art and video skills, and realize that I don’t come close to measuring up. In fact, I look pretty pitiful (I’m a lousy drawer and don’t know anything about video).

But wait a minute: it’s not a fair comparison. Just because I don’t measure up doesn’t mean I should get out of the blogging business, or that I should get depressed or jealous or resentful. Instead, if I looked at my strengths — writing useful and honest posts — I can see that I have a lot to offer, a lot to be happy about.

And that’s so important — being able to look at your own strengths, and see your true value. It’s actually one of the keys to success, because without this ability, you will be unmotivated, and won’t believe in yourself.

That is so true... I do often make very unfair comparisons. I'll compare myself financially to a lawyer, or compare myself professionally to someone who has been in the field for much longer and has a much more significant amount of education. It's just unfair and it doesn't have a positive affect on anyone, especially me. And in addition to making me unhappy with what I have, it also sometimes keeps me from getting to know others without pre-judging them. If I feel they are better than me, or have something I don't, I have a certain resentment for them before I even get to know them. I hate that SO MUCH!

So my two-part resolution to start delving into this frustration is this:

1) Any time I feel myself starting to compare or become jealous, I want to be conscious of what is happening and mentally say "stop it". I want to stop comparison in its tracks!

2) Rather than compare myself to others, I want to get to know them first. I want to learn from them instead of getting frustrated at what they have and allowing that to prevent me from expanding my horizons.

I would encourage all of you to read this article and to enjoy every day. Live to live and love what you've been given! I'd like to end with a perfect quote from the song "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" by Baz Luhrmann:

"Don't waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and in the end, it's only with yourself."

Exhausted

The past few weeks, including the Christmas and New Year Holidays, have made me keenly aware of something: doing nothing is far more exhausting than being busy. Or at least, it feels that way right now. Up until one week before Christmas, I was consistently running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Between school, work, relationships, and "getting ready" for the holidays I had a to-do list about a mile long. Yet for some reason, an enormous load of adrenaline helped me succeed at all these tasks with flying colors. During both Christmas and New Years, I was consistently tired. Now I know it was probably a mix of jet lag and recuperation, but it seemed I was always falling asleep. Of course it doesn't help that my family loves to watch TV (which I am convinced makes me more tired than anything else).

In essence, I have not started the new year off the way I had hoped. During the first four days, the only real task I accomplished was halfway cleaning my room - I still have a TON of papers/binders to get organized. Other than that I was dinking around online and whatnot. I didn't get my finances in order the way I wanted, or set up electronic transfers. I just looked up random stuff. Erg.

However, this year is new...I have decided that it doesn't help anybody when I beat myself up for past shortcomings. Instead of writing an entire article about how I should have done this or that, or yadda yadda, I am going to make a plan to move forward. The first plan is to unplug my TV - the one-eyed monster. The second, is to take a nap when I get home tonight. The third is to continue developing my 101 things list, and the fourth is to start organizing papers if Greg has not arrived by that point.

In other news, Greg asked me a seemingly easy question last night that I found very difficult to answer. He looked me in the eye and said "Where do you see yourself, and us, in two years?" To be honest...I don't know, and that scares the heck out of me. There are so many unknowns right now, and I don't do well with unknowns. :) So I also plan to start visualizing where I would like to be in that short time frame.

And lastly, I hope all of you will be happy to know that one of my goals is to write in this blog at least once a week or more for a year. So there should be many more articles to peruse through, even if they are quite random.

I hope you had a wonderful new year, and I look forward to doing more self-exploration in this balancing act we call life in 2009.

Balance: Where saving and savoring collide

This article was written about a week ago...sorry it took so long to post!

I read an article yesterday that struck me. It is entitled "Millionaires in the Making: The Rodrigueses. The put more than half of their income into savings, rarely travel, and share one entree when the eat out. Now, most of you who who've met me know that I am a huge fan of fiscal responsibility, but I think there is a point where it can get out of control. I'm not saying the couple in this article has not found that balance, since it is different for everyone, but I used to think I wanted to live this way...saving everything I could for later.

Don't get me wrong, I still believe in delayed gratification; but I also believe in living for today and never holding back. I thought about this a lot as I pondered buying a motorcycle this weekend. Sadly, the only bike in my price range was not what I was looking for, but I am thankful for all the deep thinking the eve of this purchase brought with it. You see, I have no idea how long I will be allowed to live on this earth, or how long I will be able to experience this precious gift we humans call a life. I could live til I'm 100, or I could leave this world long before that. I don't know. This thought both scares the crap out of me, and yet gives me an odd sense of peace. I believe it is important to have a healthy fear of everything, but not to allow that fear to hold you back from life. Just as I don't want the danger of flying in an airplane to keep me from embarking on all the travel I want to experience, I also don't want my fear of future financial security to keep me from truly enjoying life today. I definitely want to live within my means, and I do not think there should be any other way, but I also want to take fun and romantic vacations, go out to dinner once in a while, and live in a house where I truly feel I am at home.

I think a great formula for this way of life was discussed one on of my favorite personal finance sites, Get Rich Slowly. It is called the Balanced Money Formula. Basically, it calls for spending 50% of ones income on needs (rent, groceries, utilities, car insurance, etc.), 30% on wants (dining, travel, cable tv, etc.), and 20% goes toward either paying off past consumer debt or saving for the future. Now, there are times when this may be out of proportion. For example, I am saving for several future items: a wedding, a house down payment, paying off my student loan once I finish graduate school, a replacement car, motorcycle, anniversary travel. So at this point, I will take part of that 30% and put it toward future wants. Hopefully this makes sense in print as much as it does inside my head.

My basic point is that I want my life to be sustainable: living in a desired way without stealing from my future. I want to be able to live life to the fullest, every day...for as long as I am blessed to be here.

Some Random, Daily Thoughts...

So yesterday I wrote, during my initial frustration, about how I am hard on myself. And about how I need to take it easy. Here is my dilemma...a bit of a catch 22. Maybe.

I'm a decent writer. I don't necessarily think I could be a professional by any means, but for the most part, my thoughts come across clear. Yesterday in my "easier" class this semester, our professor gave us his thoughts on graduate school and writing. He mentioned that we could all stand to improve, and gave us precise reasons why each of us received the grade written on our papers. Yes I was a bit disappointed with my low A/high B; but he said something that really hit me, and caused my frustration to subside. He said, "Some of you can really write, but we can all, myself included, stand to improve." He went on to mention how he thought that writing was one of the weakest points for today's graduate students. It is so true though. All of us go in there, expecting to get these perfect grades on our papers. We are all, or at least a vast majority of us are, perfectionists. We get highly irritated when we see a B, or even an A- (case in point, yesterday evening). But, if we are constantly getting A's, how are we supposed to push ourselves to improve. We will constantly be floating in this world where we think we are simply going to school to get a piece of paper, not to learn. Imagine that! Someone going to school just for the degree! I have never heard of anyone who did that! [Insert deeply sarcastic facial expression here]. To be honest, my writing could stand major improvement. My blog would be a lot better, it probably wouldn't take me as long to write good, decent papers, and it would just make me a much more competitive person in the workplace. However, for some reason, I am ghastly afraid of seeing a "B" on my transcript. I got them in undergraduate school, and look where I am now! I'm fine! I have a good job, work with intelligent people. It didn't deter my career path at all. So why am I still afraid. Perhaps it's because of all the rumors that "Graduate school should not be hard; you should not be there if you can't get straight A's. Not to mention the fact that if you don't get straight A's, good luck going for that Doctorate." Oy! I hate pressure, I really do! So that's another one of those lingering goals - dispensing with my fear of imperfection.

In other news, my running program is going very well. I'm finding that, for the most part, I actually look forward to my runs now. Yay! I might actually finish this thing after all! The only bad part is, I need to learn to stretch much better - one of my hamstrings was REALLY sore yesterday.

Okay, enough of this online-journaly entry. I just haven't had the time to write in my paper journal a lot lately and thought I would at least try to throw out some of my thoughts on here; maybe someone else can benefit from them. :)

Over the next week or so, I will be writing a paper on career-oriented education. I have a feeling that may bring up a LOT of thoughts, and I am hoping to post some of them here. Stay tuned!

Balance Buster: Internet Addiction

Ironic, that I am on the internet writing about this particular buster of balance. The subject of internet addiction came up during my counseling class last night and it got me thinking. This might be a somewhat long and often tangential blog; for that, I apologize in advance.

I'll try to keep it as short and sensible as possible. So here goes:

I am a self-proclaimed internet addict. However, I don't know too many people in my generation who aren't. I mean, we practically grew up with the internet. The internet is used heavily for shopping, entertainment, socialization, research and education, and heck, I even met the man I'm going to marry online. So it's not all-in-all a bad thing. However, it can tend to get overwhelming, time consuming, wasteful, and just plain addictive.

Let me give you an example. Right now I do clerical work, so 95% of my workday is spent sitting in front of a computer screen. To be honest, this drives me insane, but right now it is the means to an end. This means that for nearly 8 hours every day I am tempted by the vastness of the web. It is hard to resist constantly looking up new information, checking facebook for updates, finding new blogs to keep me informed on different subjects, watching random youtube videos, and the gazillion other options offered within the giant chasm of the web. No wonder it seems that some people are working more hours and getting less done! Thankfully, I am not addicted to shopping or in an intimate relationship with a blackberry - I cringe to think where I'd be if that were the case!

The other thing is, the internet is the primary reason for my case of information overload. I mean, I can find arguments on any side of any topic I want to look into. It's disgusting really. I mean, I love having information and all but come on! For a person like me who suffers from "analysis paralysis", I feel like I have to look up every single angle of anything before I make a decision. I feel inclined to give another example here. I am trying to get my IRA where I want it to be...and I know that at my young age I need to invest in more aggressive things such as mutual funds, stocks, etc. Well, right now my money is just kind of sitting because I can't figure out which company to get my IRA with, which stocks to put them in, etc. The more I read, the more overwhelmed I get and the less likely I am to buckle down and make a decision. Right now, I have more than enough info to proceed, I just need to do it. But do I? No, I'd rather just keep looking up information til I explode. Oy! It can get so aggravating.

I could write more on the subject, but I hope the point has gotten across. Just in case that is not the case, here is the moral of the story: the internet is a dangerous necessity. It's hard to operate in today's culture without being very versed in the internet. However, it is easy to become consumed. I can spend hours upon hours online without even knowing it. I juggle between windows - reading a blog here, writing a blog there, checking a facebook status here, watching a youtube video there, etcetera, ad nauseam. Instead of feeling productive, I feel as though several hours of my very existence has gone to waste. I know that is a little overboard, but I look back and think how much I would have rather finished one of the good books I'm reading, called a friend, taken a walk, or done something more active. I know the choice is mine, I just need to learn to start consciously making that choice.

There are numerous habits I am trying to develop in my life, especially those related to health. So why don't I take the time I'm often "wasting" online doing nothing and go for a run, or cook some meals to take to work as lunch, or something like that? Instead of being obsessed with facebook updates, I should read a book that I might actually gain some knowledge from. Instead of reading that "Bob is enamoured with his new argyle sweater" I want to read about how to communicate better with friends.

I'd like to turn my love/hate relationship with the internet more toward love.

Financial Balance

As I alluded to in my post on Wednesday, I have been BOMBARDED with ideas to write about. One area I've been working on lately is finances and trying balance those out. By balance in this context I don't mean like balance an account, I mean balance spending habits. I've never been bad with finances by any means - the only real debt I've had is in the form of student loans. However, lately I've been on this saving splurge. With the prospect of a wedding, down payment on a home and a few other possible major purchases looming I've set VERY high financial goals for myself. There is a part of me that feels like this is causing me to avoid truly living in the moment.

Don't get me wrong, I don't ever want to be a major spender and go out to dinner every night, feel the need to blow money on alcohol, buy a new car, make major purchases I don't need, or anything like that. However, there is some merit to truly living and enjoying the money you have been given. It's almost as if I'm afraid to spend money on anything other than basic necessities. Granted I am planning to splurge on a few vacations coming up this summer, but other than that I'm fine to just get by.

There has been some fun in this - finding creative ways to make really cheap, yet very tasty meals; figuring out what inexpensive and even free things there are to do around my area; taking up new hobbies, etc. However, I want to make sure I don't become "cheap" or miserly. So I have to find my balance. I think that simply by keeping this in mind, I'll remember to find the balance between spending and saving, but just wanted to let everyone in on what's rolling around in my brain this morning.

Habitual Balance

Life has become a bit more hectic this week - I began my second semester of graduate school yesterday. I should have written on Monday, but I got lazy. So here I am, Wednesday afternoon, finally getting to sort thoughts. I'm starting to feel like I could really write about anything and everything. For me, it's not a lack of topics that hinders my writing...it is the opposite. I find so much inspiration and I want to write about it all.

Let me give you an example. I've become a regular reader of a few blogs during the past few months, namely Get Rich Slowly and Get Fit Slowly. Last Thursday evening two of those blogs posted entries discussing balance within the area of focus: finances and physical fitness. The article focusing on finances discussed a girl, ironically with the same name as me, who was experiencing an inner battle about financial values. While she was doing well, her family was not. Here is a portion of the entry which struck me most:

"Some readers will say, “Give up and move on.” Others will say, “Family comes first.” But to me (and, apparently, to Rachel), it’s not that easy. There’s a balance to be found. But how? Where is that balance? It’s a difficult question. As a reference point, I consulted my library of 141 personal finance books. Do you know how many discussed this issue? One."

This is exactly what I mean. Life is full of so many variables; the challenge, and in my opinion the rewards, from life come when it is all in line with what we value.

The other blog entry about fitness also had mention of balance:

"I mean, I know I did that stuff, but it’s not sustainable. I’m getting ahead of myself. What I need is balance."

Before this quote the author was speaking of a day when he was beginning to get ahead of himself after taking on too much at once. This entry came immediately after a weekend where he engaged in a 12 mile run followed by a 30 mile bike ride. Holy crap! I know I couldn't sustain that either, even back when I was in better physical shape. What got me about this particular quote echoes what was mentioned in my first entry: it's hard to stay in balance when we're totally focused on one thing.

That being said, here is what these two posts got me thinking (bear with me here): there has to be balance in MAINTAINING balance. You see, we can't always be equally focused on certain things. Sometimes, our health needs to be a priority, like when we are trying to lose weight or get in better shape. Once that becomes somewhat of a habit, we can then shift our focus onto another area, while still maintaining that portion of our life. This led to a discovery which may not be groundbreaking for everyone, but it was for me.

Thus, my "deep thought" for the day is this: balance is achieved through the development of habits.

Create a LIFE to be passionate about!

First of all a brief introduction. My name is Rachel and I am a 26-year-old woman trying to create and maintain my life of passion. However, I am not alone in this mission: I am part of a team. Our pen name is "The Lowe Writers". Cheesy or clever. I choose clever. My partner in crime, Greg, and I have been excited by the idea of blogging, and sharing our struggles, triumphs, joys, laughter, and simple advice with those willing to listen.

The specific topic of "balance", often pertaining to my lack of such, has been brought up within the constraints of my often over-packed life consistently since my time as an undergraduate student. I am taking it as a sign that perhaps this is a topic I should write about, not only because it continually crosses my path, but because it is something I struggle with constantly. Since graduation in 2004, I have been heavily consumed with finding "work" I'm passionate about. However, I am finally coming to the realization that work is only one part of my life. Yes it takes up a good chunk of my day and yes I want to like what I do, but no matter WHAT job I choose there are going to be days I hate getting up in the morning and portions of the work that I would prefer not to do. So that's why I am now placing the focus on finding passion in the design of my LIFE...in its entirety.

In my experience, the primary obstacle of creating a passionate life is a lack of balance. Sure there are numerous articles about how to balance work and family, how to balance a budget, how to achieve physical balance through Yoga, but I'm talking about the bigger picture: balancing an entire life. Our existence contains so many spheres - we have our work life, home life, love life, family life, emotional life, spiritual life, physical life, financial life, etc. How is it possible to keep all of these in check and in balance?

I believe balance is the most difficult, and most rewarding part of life. It may be easy to succeed at one thing if it becomes a sole focus. Take getting fit for example: if this was the sole focus in my life it would be easy to spend all my free time at the gym, cooking healthy meals, and paying personal trainers to help me get rid of those blasted love handles and so on and so on. But then what would happen to the other portions of my life? My love life for example. I'm sure my partner would not be happy that instead of making time for him, I am now only making time for the weight machine. Maybe at the beginning he or she will appreciate the effort because you are taking care of yourself, but soon will begin to resent the fact that they are home alone during you usual date night. Personal trainers are expensive as well, so my financial life may also be adversely affected. Physical fitness is very important, but I do not want it to be the focus of my life; I want it to be part of my life.

I'd like to take this "first" entry to focus on the meaning of balance. Yes, I am guilty of performing the cliche act of looking up the definition in an online dictionary, but to my surprise there were far more definitions than I imagined. Here are the most applicable:

1) A state of equilibrium or parity characterized by cancellation of all forces by equal opposing forces.

2) The power or means to decide and outcome by throwing one's strengths, influence, support, or the like, to one side or the other.

3) A state of bodily equilibrium or the ability to MAINTAIN bodily equilibrium.

4) A stable mental or psychological state; emotional stability.

5) A harmonizing or satisfying arrangement or proportion of parts or elements, as in a design.

6) An influence or force tending to produce equilibrium; counterpoise.

7) The difference in magnitude between opposing forces or influences.

I find it incredible that each of these definitions is so unique, yet so applicable to life. In posts to follow, my partner and I may focus on one or several of these definitions. But I felt this was a good base to start our journey of trial and discovery.