Category Archives: advice

My Rules For Life – Version 1.0

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In no particular order…

  1. Have Goals. Work towards goals. Celebrate small victories and milestones. Celebrate failures as a testament your hard work and persistence.
  2. Go to the bathroom and pee before you leave, even if you don’t think you have to.
  3. Assume you’ll be doing more walking than you planned
  4. Let it go, or give and appropriate action/response, and then let it go.
  5. Take a break to help you keep going longer, fresher, better (faster, stronger!). Don’t take a break to put off things that need to be done.
  6. Turn ideas on their head, especially negative ones.
  7. Taking the T (subway) is almost like having a personal chauffeur if you think about it the right way.
  8. Don’t believe something or take something seriously because it’s popular, commonly accepted, etc. Question!
  9. If something isn’t working quite right, ask why and try to find an answer.
  10. Don’t assume you’re the problem.
  11. Forgive, but don’t forget.
  12. Allow people that influence your life negatively to drift out of your life. Even though there’s never enough time, try to remember to reach out to the good ones to let them know you care.
  13. Don’t eat the yellow snow.
  14. Call people on their bullshit, but try to do it in a way that gets them to think. You can’t change most people’s minds, but you’ll feel better doing your thoughts and values justice by expressing them well.
  15. Your body will get old a break. Don’t waste too much time on vanity.
  16. You will die one day, definately too soon. Still, you’ll probably wake up tomorrow and have to deal with things. Plan for tomorrow, but also seize today.
  17. Be well, but don’t try to live forever.
  18. Don’t let others tell you what you should value. Find your own truth.
  19. Games make your brain happy. Leave time for games.
  20. Moderation in all things, including moderation.
  21. Jealousy is useless. The rich and famous are just as miserable, if not more. Pay attention to your own lawn.
  22. You’re always competing with yourself and your own limitations. Learn from and share with others.
  23. It’s not okay to murder people when they tell you something is, ‘not that spicy’.
  24. Try new things, but you don’t have to try something if you don’t want to.
  25. You actually don’t have to overcome all of your fears. It’s okay to be afraid sometimes. You’re not Batman.
  26. Make rules for yourself, and change them when there’s a good reason. Hold fast when there isn’t.

At Least It’s Not a Fruit Cake: A Response to “Résumés – How the French Spell It”

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I sometimes write novel-like comments on blogs that are self contained posts in their own right. I posted this comment as a response to flygirl0’s post on resumes and the process of interviewing. I thought it might be worth sharing it here.

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You’re giving them too much credit if you assume people who are interviewing have any idea the hell they’re doing. I have a lot of very clear “WTF” interview memories, and I haven’t even interviewed in like five years. It’s such an artificial and horrible process, and admittedly, I’m terrible at it.

I get nervous. I feel like the only way I nail interviews is that I accidentally channel some deity/ancestor/alien for the length of it, or I’ve interviewed so much recently that I know what they’re going to ask before they ask it. Manhole cover? Answer that makes even the foremost manhole experts, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, take notes. Stapler? Caught and made into a stunning stapler entree to be judged by the Master Chef celebrities.

At the end of it all, you don’t even know if that was really the job that would have made you happy. Sure, you can assume or expect this or that, but usually jobs are full of that day job work thing. You have to go to meetings about meetings, work on working your work in a more workly way, and design review everything (yes, including the design review process). I’ve always suspected that I’m just not cut out for office life, but I’m doing an okay job pretending. I have an office plant that isn’t dead yet, two monitors, walls, and even a window. I’ve reached so many echelon ladders above cubicle farm monkey that I should be positively ecstatic.

The truth is, it’s okay. I’m not dying here, but I’m not fulfilled by this alone. It’s an office. It’s a job where people tell you what to do and you do it. I know there are people out there working for themselves, but I suspect a lot of them are just monkeys to their clients (still not doing what they really want).

I wish I could close this with some kind of epiphany or inspiration other than, “Yes, I agree,” but that’s all I got. My big consolation is that even if you dodged the stapler, there’s no proof that your life would suddenly be fulfilled, and it probably wouldn’t be. That’s such a horrible consolation. It’s more like a fruit basket for a funeral. At least it’s not a fruit cake, but I’m sorry all the same.

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I’ve posted on this topic before a couple times (probably more than I remember or list here):
Interviewing Tip Toes
Interviewing: The Real Life RTS Game

Cycle

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Sometimes I wonder if something is wrong with me for how I feel about my job. I know I have a good job (better than any ‘regular’ job I’ve had) that is varied, I’m good at, and has many perks. I’d say it’s a million times better than the full time job I had before this one. The next one I land through working hard at this one will probably be even better. Still, I spend every day at it wishing I wasn’t here doing this.

Is it like this for all artists? Are we all doomed to feel like we’re not doing ‘real work’ when we’re doing something other than our art? I look at other people that are amazing and talented who have ‘regular jobs’ and consider their job their actual job and not just their day job. I can’t help but be a bit jealous. Also, I feel like their advice is always, “find a different job” as if the issue is this job I have, and working for another company or in a different position would make this feeling go away. I know at least some other artists ‘get it’, but I also feel like they’ve all either taken the leap into art full time or have found a better balance (or are closer to it).

I envy them, but I also don’t, because I know in most cases it comes at great sacrifice to some very basic things (money, healthcare, food, etc.). I try to think of all the people that have even less fulfilling jobs than me, or are having a hard time getting a job or one that pays enough to put towards their bills. I feel guilty for not being more satisfied with what I have, and I feel guilty for not doing ‘enough’ or ‘the right thing’ (whatever those are) to change things for the better with immediate results.

Every weekend I try my best to forget about this for two days, and every Monday, this feeling follows me out of bed and through every thing I do. I try to ignore the undertone of dissatisfaction, anxiety, and hopelessness enough to get through the work day, make it to my studio, and spend the small amount of time and energy left on what I feel is my real work.

I do it knowing it’s probably not enough to realize any of my goals. I try not to be sad. I hope that if I keep at it, all of the little bits of time I can spare will add up into great things and somehow get me out of this cycle.

Falling on Your Face

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There’s such a thing as being too realistic.

Being too realistic is another way of saying don’t try for the sublime, leave your dreams at the door, and settle for mediocrity.

What’s the worst that will happen if you reach too far? It’s not so dramatic as falling off a cliff, but maybe it’s still as painful as falling on your face. Isn’t that okay?

I’m not so happy sitting down. I’d rather reach. I’m happier when I’m reaching. Even if in some ways it ends up a failure, I still do amazing things on the way. The act of trying itself is a success, never mind all of the other good things that will come of it. We learn, and we can try again.

I’m not saying I want to fall on my face. I’m not going to try for failure. I’m going to reach and do everything to come out of it still standing. I am, however, okay falling on my face. I’m promising myself that I will just get up and brush myself off.

Never Start From the Beginning

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The idea of the beginning is a bad one to start with. All beginnings are a beginning, not the beginning. Every day when you wake up is a beginning. When you step foot outside, when you open a box, when you lock eyes with a person, and even when you enter dreamland every night are all beginnings as much as they are endings and middles.

When you sit down to write, the worst thing I think you can do to yourself is to think of coming up with the beginning. Instead, start with what strikes you. What is interesting to you right now? It can be a scene at the end, a snapshot from the middle, or maybe it will end up as the beginning.

True story: everything I’ve ever finished writing was not written in a linear fashion, from front to back. Every journal I have you will find part finished pages, blank pages, and finished pages at what seem like random.

A beginning blank page can intimidate. There’s a pressure to put down the ‘right thing’ that will set the tone for everything else. If I mess up, everything that comes after is crap, as if writing is like baking a cake. It’s not. With writing, you can rise your cake before you even mix your ingredients together. That is part of the magic of this medium.

So I dare you to open up to a place in the middle and make a mark, even just one. Maybe start scribing on the second to last page. Even better, in this digital realm, write without knowing where exactly it falls into time, just that it exists and you are creating.