Living Lessons of Joblessness

Sometimes, when I'm on the job hunt, I wonder whether this whole joblessness thing is here to teach me something. It helps when I'm headed back on the train in the middle of the night, still wondering how to respond perfectly to that oft-asked party question -- 'so what are you doing now?' 

The lessons I have surmised so far, in no particular order:
1. Rely on other people. Spiritually, emotionally, financially. If they say they want to help, then trust that they do. I cannot put more emphasis on this. The thing that has gotten me through the low moments -- and truly, there have been some low moments -- has always been the brilliant group of friends and family members I have that hold me up in my new full-time gig: finding a job.

2. In the meantime, do only your passion work. I'm guilty of spending hours staring at job listings, writing cover letters, and trying to 'out-achieve' the job market. Even though I know that's not the way things happen. Spend some time focusing on yourself, and on the work you want to be doing (perhaps you, like me, have a National Novel Writing Month word count to get back to...)

3. Your time is only your own and the systems that exist are made to feel like you are wasting it. Your life purpose is not to find a job, so why do we so often feel bad if we don't have one? I'm learning myself how to re-value the work that I do in a bunch of different spaces, whether that's volunteering or working on an online magazine or creating art. If I undervalue all of these things and overvalue the idea of a job, then it makes all of those other things I'm passionate about seem meaningless.

4. Continue having adventures. And hare-brained schemes. As you can see, this holiday season I am selling some knitted and craft items. Not really because I want to make money -- hard enough to do that with a steady job -- but because selling knitted items is a little adventure I want to go on.

I'm not nearly having as rough a go of it as others I know, but I also want to make clear that none of these points make it permissible to chalk it up to my 'Millenial' attitude. Nothing burns my butter more than an article going on about how Millenials are entitled, and thus unhappy or, alternatively, are '#funemployed' and spending their parents' money. That only depicts a very narrow slice of our generation, and casually forgets the state of the current economy. (For a fun -- and full of expletives -- article on the subject, I give you Adam Weinstein).

Best of luck to you all, and holler at me on Twitter if you've got any more lessons or general frustrations from joblessness.

Posts From Memory Lane: Fear, Sorrow, Anger, Hate - Unpeeling the Layers

These posts were written during the summer while I was in Bangladesh, in preparation for the upcoming academic year. Long story short: when I looked back at the archive, I didn't have the desire or the time to put them up. But now, since I'm coming back to the blog, I decided that some of them aren't half bad. Read on!

One of the most important lessons that I took away from yoga class was the idea of layers. At that time in my life, I was angry a lot - misguided anger, unlike the kind I prize today that can generate change. I asked my yoga instructor about ways to deal with that anger, and she gave me a parable, as well as a lesson on where anger comes from.

The Demon of Perfect

I am sitting under a brown blanket on brown bedsheets in my dorm room, the first time I have seen the place in over a month, and I am sick.

If you take the 'everything happens for a reason' line of thinking, I suppose this could be signaling to me that it was a positive choice not to go to DC for inauguration, or that I am really not ready to complete my last semester at college, or perhaps that I should have heeded the warnings of the librarians last Friday when they said something was 'going around.' But, as I hack and sniff, I wonder if this is really just the latent effect of the work hard/play hard mentality that I took towards winter break. Though nominally a 'rest' period, this time for me was spent meeting up with friends and reading all the books I could and working and seeing all the exhibits/boroughs/TV shows that I don't get a chance to during the school year.

The fun blow-out felt necessary. To balance out the pressures of the previous semester, why not go on a 100% do-what-you-want spree? But somewhere in the second to last week before returning to campus, I started to feel like my energy was waning. An immense guilt settled itself like a bullfrog in the back of my throat: there was only a week left and I hadn't gotten through even half of my 'goals' for the break. I felt guilt over not reading articles, over not writing enough, over not spending more hours at work. The balance I had chosen wasn't giving me any rest - I had been caught by the demon of perfect.

I'm bad at rest, as I've written about previously. But when you're sick, all you can think about is rest. All you can think about is the presence of your body and how off it feels - what you normally 'feel' is an absence of body, something you can ignore until it drips or itches or aches. And sometimes it leads me to believe that sickness serves the purpose of slowing you down by force; it puts me in a reflective mood just by virtue of my lacking energy. And when I look back on the last month, I realize that my lofty goals were planned under the assumption that one does not have to sit still to replenish - that you can balance difficult academic pursuits by entering into difficult artistic pursuits, rather than putting a hold on any pursuits at all. But people don't always give themselves what they need.

I am sick at an inopportune time. A new semester of classes, with all its accompanying responsibilities, dawns tomorrow. I cannot even muster the energy to do the bare minimum things beyond feeding myself and browsing around on the internet. Yet the legitimacy it gives me, to feel tired and to slack, has allowed me to examine the wrong-headed guilt I've been feeling for the past few weeks. For that, I am grateful. As I am confined to my bed, I begin to dream up the connections between balance - this mythical state that we seek when looking for the best methods of productivity - and achieving perfect. Even when we're supposedly resting, it can take us away from what we really need.

P.S.
I've disabled the comments on my blog from here on out, not to discourage conversation (which I hope you will take to my email inbox, Facebook page, or Twitter), but to let this place stand as a great writer-ly experiment without the pressure of garnering pageviews or comments as a proof of some arbitrary notion of 'success.'

Re-learning Forgiveness

When you're busy, everything feels like a miniature crisis. Didn't turn in an assignment on time? Horror! Didn't send that email to the right person? Madness! Every moment is part of an efficient machine and any small deviation feels disruptive. But you always know that those things are the small ones, the ones that can be fixed. This week, the crises I faced were not those small inner demons of inefficiency or time crunch - they were deeper and more fundamental.

"Emotions don't follow rational logic," my friend told me last week. She was comforting me after the latest email chain came in, when my anger and frustration had come to a head and I needed someone to rage with and not just text. Having lost two people who were close to me in the last year, I felt I was letting them down. I wasn't being strong enough. Another person might not feel so affected by the words of others. I was wasting my tears. But even though I resisted, I knew my friend was right. Emotions don't follow a rational logic. Neither do people in crisis.

I've been trying to be gentle with myself, to forgive my own personal failings or that I can't be all things to all people. But in some ways, that's the easy part - I can feel wronged all I want, but that is only useful for so long. Emotions may not need to follow rational  logic, but actions should. Send that email. Make that meeting. Ignore the tug towards staying bitter that feels satisfying but immature. At the end of the day, the work is the most important part and that's what must be the focus when others have acted poorly to you. I am very good at holding on to negative feelings, but perhaps now is the time to un-learn that instinct.

Best Learned Lessons from Being Abroad

I talked a bit about appreciating my American identity while being abroad, but now that we are down to the very last wire, I wanted to share some of the other lessons that I've taken away from this trip. Here it goes:

Denying the Word 'Should'

This week, I entreat you to reject the word 'should.'

I remember in my high school, there was a giant orange poster that had a quote from Yoda on it that read: "There is no try, there is only do or do not." I want to take that message and apply it to 'should,' in any of it's forms.

Small Celebrations

Recently, I wrote an article for ThinkSimpleNow on celebrating everyday life. Since that time, I've been thinking a lot about incorporating celebrations into monthly, weekly, and daily rituals - because honestly, sometimes it can feel like time is just slipping past without you even realizing! My hope is that we claim even a small bit of that time for ourselves, and celebrating it is one of those methods. Here are my suggestions on creating mini-celebrations:

Teach Yourself! 7 Lessons in Self-Education

My English advisor often tells me that you're only going to learn what you teach yourself - formalized lesson plans and reading lists are great and all, but if you're not engaging with the material on your own, it won't really stick. And I think that's very important in relation to the articles I've written this week on Asian Americans; that material rarely gets taught in the classroom, but is more often something that we have to approach on our own. So, today I want to generalize the process of learning something new. Whether that's learning about the social history of Asian Americans in the US or learning how to roller skate or learning a new language, here are 7 tips to getting yourself on the road to learn.

Guest Post on ThinkSimpleNow & Some More Lessons

Today, I have the great pleasure to be featured on ThinkSimpleNow, a website that I have repeatedly recommended during the course of writing this blog. Check out my post on The Power of Rituals over at their website and, if you're interested in taking a few other leaves from my book, check out this collection of my top advice articles:

Gentle Goals and Soft Manifestations

Change and the Destination

4 Ways to Bring Gratitude Into Your Life

Living in the Moment

How to Live Your Life Like It's One Big Experiment

3 Ways to Follow Your Dreams (Even the Tiny Ones!)

12 True Things

The Pale Thin Light: Looking Forward after a Loss

As I shared last week, there was a recent death in my family. As a result, I've been struggling to process the event while still keeping myself on a regular schedule, spending time with people as they return to campus, and getting ready for the new classes that started today. In some ways, the regularity and the busy school atmosphere are helping me to take my mind off of the loss, but it's definitely going to take some time to come to terms with. The thought regularly crosses my mind that this is not the worst of it - the hardest part will be returning to Bangladesh and knowing that that person will no longer be there.

But, while I find it very important to keep that in mind, I believe that its not the sole thought that should take over my spirit throughout these tough times. As a result, I have been thinking of ways that I hope to buoy myself up and work forward from this loss, and I hope to share them with you. Loss can appear in many forms other than death - small and large, there are many life events that can feel as if they will shatter our spirits and hold us hostage. All we can do in those times is to turn inward and keep our attention on the light that comes from within us, even when it feels as if that light has only a weak glow to offer.

12 True Things

Today? A round-up of wisdom, some clichéd and others not, that bears repeating.*

(via My Modern Met)

The world will not end should you decide not to engage with it.

"Be different from one another, and love our differences with big, open hearts." - Sally McGraw from Already Pretty

The memories you make are all you get to keep.

"Most of us have an invisible inner terrible someone who says all sorts of nutty stuff that has no basis in truth." - Sugar via The Rumpus

Loving yourself is not an option - rather, it is the denial of an essential truth.

"Saying I have to suggests that we do not have a choice, and that we are not in control of our lives... For starters, you don’t have to do anything! You know that. The world will not come to an end if you don’t do something (in most cases)." - Vanessa Paxton via ThinkSimpleNow

Take care of your emotions as if they were a bath: too hot and they burn you, too cold and they make you shiver. Let them drain out when it's time and build up when you need them. Don't leave the water unchanged for too long.

"You have permission to: not ever feel the need for permission." - Danelle LaPorte on White Hot Truth

Revision to the Golden Rule: Don't treat others the way you want to be treated - ask them how they want to be treated and honor that decision.

"…What matters is the work: the string of words propelled by God becoming a poem, the weave of colour and graphite scrawled upon a sheet that magnifies His motion. To achieve within the work a perfect balance of faith and execution. From this state of mind becomes a light, life-charged." - Patti Smith via Nextness

Love the challenge. Love the process. Don't settle for less.

*If you're counting the picture, we have 12 True Things. Good eye! Here's a bonus:

You will become what you manifest.

Gentle Goals & Soft Manifestations (Or How I Stopped Obsessing Over Books)

There once was a girl who wanted to read all the books in the world. She believed sincerely that she could chew her way through book after book, never re-reading and never looking back. She would read the good with the bad, the classics with the post-modern, and eventually conquer all the material there was out there.

That girl grew up a little bit, started writing her own work in the same proportion as she was reading. Created many good stories, learned a great deal of lessons about writing and publishing and how expansive the world of literature is. But she still held on to the idea that she could finish every book in the world someday. Someday.

And then the fated day came when that little girl became a teenager and felt like the entire world was too overwhelming. Including the world of books. She threw her head down on her desk, long hair flowing, and felt her illusions unraveling - there was simply too much to get through! Oh, the crushing defeat...

Ok, so perhaps my childhood fantasy went on a little too long. But, at one point in my life, I sincerely believed I could conquer all the written material in the world. I realize that's impossible now. And this hyperbolic personal example serves to illustrate my greater point: expansive expectations are the stuff of fantasies. They are bound to disappoint.

Gentle goals and soft manifestations, however, make magic happen.

The Value of "I Don't Know": Cultivating Curiosity

I was disappointed with my recent visit to the Museum of Natural History. I hadn't been there in quite a while, but walking into the Asian animals room immediately brought back memories of how the museum gives me some serious creeps. I started looking at the museum map, which indicated rooms for "Asian Peoples" and "African Peoples," which also made me feel odd. It had the clear purpose of taxonomizing "them" as a racialized other. Beyond that, when we entered the exhibits, the plaques read as if each of these "peoples" were in a vacuum - this is what happens in Hindu marriages and this is what jihad means for ever and always. The curators were very sure of their ideas, but the words seemed just about as accurate and nuanced as the taxidermy animals seemed alive.

In fact, the only exhibit that I was particularly impressed with was the floor dedicated to dinosaurs - on that floor there were signs that said some absolutely magical things. "Little is known." "Probably." "Potentially." And, my favorite, "it is yet to be discovered..."

It might not be abundantly clear why this is so fabulous. Shouldn't I prefer definitive plaques over wishy washy ones? But these words got me excited. It was a small admission by the curators of the museum (in whatever convoluted language they desired) that they didn't know.

And that phrase, "I don't know" is the first crack in the ornamental vase from which curiosity can flow.

On Gratitude: 4 Ways to Bring it Into Everyday Life

Happy Thanksgiving!

Now that you've getting a hefty dose of tryptophan and starches in your diet (and more than a small serving of my counternarrative argument from yesterday's post), I want to introduce some levity into the idea of Thanksgiving.

I think it's a great holiday because it highlights - however strangely - the need for community and the need for gratitude in the American way of life. Gratitude and being thankful can often be overlooked or overshadowed as we go about wielding our extreme individualism and slaying the demon of time management. In our culture, gratitude often only makes a holiday appearance, but today I want to tell you how you can carry it into the rest of your year. Here are some ideas:

Clear Intentions: My Trip to the National Zoo

While in DC, I went to the zoo. For an entire afternoon, I was wandering the grounds of the National Zoo, spending some quality time in the small mammal house, hanging out as a party of one. You might be asking: why did you spend an entire day at the zoo? Aren't there all these other fascinating/DC-specific things you could have done? And you would be right - there are many museums, cemeteries, monuments, and other places of interest in the DC area that I could have gone to.

But I chose to go to the zoo.

It is the trap of most tourists to feel like they need to experience everything a place has to offer in order to feel "satisfied" with their visit. Vacations turn into these long sprawls of scheduled time where people are more or less running from place to place, feeling just as harried as when they are in their regular workday (if not more!). On this vacation, I wanted to break with the idea that every one of our actions has to be productive or profitable.

The zoo allowed me to connect with my intention: to relax.

Always Learning: A Round-up of Life Lessons

This week, I looked back through the archives of life lessons that I've put up over the last few months and picked out some of my favorites. I've been learning so much from just thinking about how to teach others the methods that have worked well for me, that it's nice to revisit some of my past ideas. Here's a brief retrospective:

Living in the Moment

How to Live Your Life Like It's One Big Experiment

5 Ways to Find Balance in Productivity

3 Ways to Follow Your Dreams (Even the Tiny Ones!)

7 Lessons I've Learned from Re-Watching Buffy

What Blogging Has Taught Me

Let me know what your favorite life lessons have been, from this blog and otherwise, in the comments!

8 Tips for When Your Writing Seems Unoriginal

In the interest of distracting my inner editor this National Novel Writing Month, here are some tips on what to do when your writing seems unoriginal:

1. Play a creativity game with yourself. Perhaps these or the ones on this site.

2. Lock away your inner editor (possibly physically) by envisioning them as a real person/animal/thing and putting them in a dark quiet box.

3. Grab another medium of expression and put all the "unoriginal" thoughts into a visual, musical, or physical form. I would love to see an interpretive dance come out of this project.

4. Write long brilliant lists and entitle them all "Swirling Thoughts." As you know already, lists are my life.

5. Write it out, write it again, write all your ideas out in some form until the words melt into single letters that don't look like they should fit together. Also known as free-writing.

6. Seek out advice for writers, including this quote from Ira Glass. And this list. And perhaps this video, although it's not related to writing per se.

7. Listen to top 40 songs and imagine them as poems. Bleh!

8. Remember that you are forever learning how to write.

Bonus: Check out some more lessons and advice on creative ventures.

My Birthday Wishes

Few holidays find me giving myself as much protracted self-love as birthdays. I get to gather all my friends around me to appreciate my very existence on this earth - what could be more awesome?

Birthdays can also be a time of self-reflection and regeneration. A time to look back on all the growing you've done and celebrate the moments that have formed you, for good or for ill, over however many years of life have passed by. I myself did a retrospective of life lessons by 19 last year for just this purpose.

This year, however, at the (ripe old) age of 20, I want to offer an outward glance to the people who have shaped me along this life journey. I want to wish them all the happiness and love that the world has to offer through two birthday wishes that I myself want to take on in the coming year. Here it goes:

1. Love and forgive yourself every day in a small action. There are so many days that go by uncelebrated, and yet so many ways to celebrate the very fact that you got to experience another 24 hours of our beautiful planet. I suggest meditation, giving yourself time for a creative pursuit, and/or eating something flavorful.

2. Dream outrageously. Do incrementally. Get rid of the destination mentality that says you have to get somewhere in order to be someone. Work on the most outrageous dreams with the smallest of actions. Every footstep takes you further from where you started.

Thanks to all the people in my life that have made this year and every other a special blend of intense experiences, deep conversation, and beautiful silliness. My love to you all!

Just Water, Please: 5 Lessons About Habit Formation

For the past two weeks, I have been conducting an experiment on myself to answer the question: what would it be like to drink only water for a week? While I did not use the strictest scientific method (never record what happens, no controlled variables, etc.), I set out to discover whether I, as an avid soda drinker, could keep myself to water only.

And the results were quite intriguing - I learned quite a bit about my own hydration needs and the pull of temptation, but most importantly I learned about habit formation. And how hard it is to listen to the experimenter, even when that voice is your own. Learn more after the jump!

5 Tips for Incoming College Freshmen

Me, as a terrified freshman.

I love freshmen or - as Barnard would have us call them - first years. Having moved in early this year for Well Woman training, I got to see them as they went about their orientation activities and attended endless programming. And in between the student services fair, the perspectives on diversity training, the floor meetings, and the early morning introductory breakfasts, I remembered how overwhelming the freshman experience can be. So, since we are kicking off classes this morning, here are my 5 tips for freshmen, not just at Barnard, but at large: