Live and Learn

Tuesday May 26, 2015Live and LearnView all 2 comments

For as far back as I can remember, people have made fun of me because of my intense focus on things like organization, cleanliness, etc. Not just my focus, but my enjoyment of a good organizational project. I like things to alphabetized or grouped by height, size, color, type, etc. Everything has a home, and I prefer things to be in their homes. My roommate does not share my, “a home for everything, and everything is returned to its home” compulsion. Therefore, there are baskets all over my apartment. In the bathroom there’s one on the sink for hairpins and such and a larger one for sprays, curling irons, etc. By creating a convenient home for these items, she puts them away 90% of the time. The other 10% of the time, I can put them away in under 10 seconds, so it doesn’t bother me. Same goes for shared household items. I established where they go and I replenish them so we never run out. This makes me happy and she enjoys the fact that we never run out of things like toilet paper and dish soap. We both win.

I have done things like this in every place I’ve lived, including my parent’s house. However, over the years I learned to tone down anything more overt because I knew that it either wasn’t sustainable with the people I was around, or that I would be teased. Being late causes me stress. A massive pile of unwashed laundry, causes me stress. Not having a home for papers and mail that need attention, causes me stress. Unfinished work/business, causes me stress. I know this about myself, but since I spent years downplaying and ignoring these needs so that I could fit in and “just relax,” I think that I became accustomed to this underlying constant level of stress. Instead of telling people that reorganizing shelves in my living room was much more relaxing to me than going to the spa, I went to the spa and pretended that my mind wasn’t racing through the items that I could be checking off my to-do list at that very moment. Because that is what normal people did. That is how you avoid getting teased.

I have lived like that for a long time now, and I’ve noticed that recently I have had this overwhelming urge to go through all of my belongings and get rid of almost everything. Downsize and weed out until I have the bare minimums. Not for any reason, other than the fact that I am sick and tired of having stuff around. Which left me thinking that there had to be something underlying this growing need. That’s when it occurred to me; it is much easier to have everything hyper-organized when you only own a handful of belongings. So instead of getting rid of everything I own, I’m going to stop pretending that I’m okay with clutter. I’m going to relax by cleaning and organizing everything that I own to within an inch of its life. I will post my calendars and to-do lists and pre-plan my meals and it will be fabulous. If something doesn’t have a home and I can’t find a suitable home for it, then I will get rid of it; but I’m not getting rid of things just for the sake of getting rid of them. That’s ridiculous and won’t solve the underlying problem.

My name is Kat, I am a hyper-organized, neat-freak and I don’t care who knows or makes fun.

This Makes My Soul Happy

Thursday May 21, 2015Depression, Live and LearnOne comment so far

Everybody says that you find out who your true friends are when you’re down. I definitely have to agree with that. When I hit rock bottom there were people who were there for me, people who ignored me and people who handed me a shovel. It was eye opening. Recently I heard a saying that covers the flip side of that. Pay attention to those who do not clap when you succeed.

I’d never thought of that before, but I have to admit that it’s true. I think we all have, or have had, at least one friend who never seems to be happy if we’re doing well. It is almost as if they prefer, are happier, when your life is a mess. These are the people who do not clap when you succeed. These are the people who do not deserve your time.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the people you surround yourself with plays a huge part in the happiness and success of your life. Obviously, you play the biggest role, and at the end of the day make the decisions about what you do and don’t do in your own life. But I feel that if you spend all of your time with people who are content wasting their gifts and subsisting from day to day, then your life is likely to fall along the same lines. If you spend all your time with people who are constantly working at their gifts and striving for more, you will be more likely to do the same.

By the same token, if you surround yourself with pessimistic people who complain all the time, your mood is going to be pretty shitty compared to if you spend all of your time with people who are happy, find the good in life and laugh a lot. Just a simple shift from focusing on everything that is bad, to focusing on everything that is good – no matter how slight – can make a huge difference.

I had a rough year last year, so for Christmas my roommate bought me a gratitude journal. It has cute pictures, some quotes and spaces for you to write three things that you’re grateful for every day. Being the Type-A person that I am, I immediately counted the pages and realized that there weren’t enough for an entire year, and worse yet, the number didn’t break down into an even denomination like 5 or 6 months. If you used one page per day, like you were supposed to, you would wind up at the end of the book somewhere in the middle of a month, in the middle of a week. *twitch*

Clearly, the hippy-dippy person that created this journal is lacking even a shred of Type-A personality. That being said, it was a really sweet gift, especially since almost all of the drawings were of elephants, my favorite animal. Despite this, I still couldn’t quite get over the loosey-goosey lay out that had a complete disregard for standard delineations of time.

So it has been sitting on my nightstand. Well intentioned, but unused. Until last week. I crashed, have been in a funk, depressed as all hell, whatever you want to call it, and I decided that maybe I could use a little bit of focus on the positive. I started writing in my gratitude journal last week. Let me tell you, there have been a couple of nights where it was hard to get to three things I was grateful for that day. But I did it. I got to three every night. And it has been slowly getting easier. Easier to come up with three things that I’m grateful for, easier to focus on the things that are good and easier to see which people support me on the path to positive vs preferring me to stick around and wallow.

That’s when I realized that the wallowers are the same ones who do not clap when you succeed. I think it’s time to be done with them. I’m in no mood to wallow.

Thursday May 14, 2015Depression, Live and Learn, LossLeave a comment

I was talking to a friend last week and gave them a piece of advice – don’t borrow from future bother. Which, is pretty damn good advice. I’m not patting myself on the back here, because I didn’t come up with that. I’m pretty sure I read it on a meme on Pinterest*, and I told the person that. I’m not gonna take credit where credit isn’t due. That aside, it is damn good advice. Don’t borrow from future bother. I have also come to realize that I need to take my own advice.

I’m not a huge worrier per se. I tend to be pretty good at focusing on solutions and preparations instead of problems. That wasn’t always the case though. In the past, I tended to always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was always expecting something bad to happen. I didn’t know what that thing would look like, or whether it would be big or small, but there would be some sort of crisis. I had every faith in myself that I would be able to handle whatever came along though. I’m great in an emergency. The only problem, is that it is exhausting being on ready alert at all times. Especially since, if I got to the end of a day and all had gone well, it’s not like I would let out a huge sigh of relief and pat myself on the back for a job well done. Oh no! I simply figured that I got by with a lucky day, but tomorrow would make up for it. So I had to be ready. It. Was. Exhausting.

You’re probably thinking that this is a conversation that I should really be having with a trained professional, and you are right. I have already had this conversation with two different trained professionals. I know why I did it. During my childhood, a member of my family died every even year of my life from the ages of 8 – 20. Needless to say, those last couple of months of my 22^nd year were a little hair raising. Every time my phone rang, I assumed that someone had died. I didn’t realize that I had been doing this until I woke up on my 23^rd birthday and a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. It was almost as if a curse had been broken.

Unfortunately, I have lost people since then, but it hasn’t been on any sort of a schedule and in 12 years it was only three. Huge improvement! Until last December, when my aunt died. I think it was probably the suddenness of everything that rocketed me back into my childhood, but ever since, I have returned to that old feeling of dread. That feeling that disaster is right around the corner. And I am exhausted. I don’t want to be on alert for trouble that isn’t even on the horizon. I don’t want to keep borrowing from future bother. When a crisis crops up I will deal with it, but worrying about it now, will not relieve any of the stress then. So no more shoes dropping, no more dread. The world gets to be a bright, shiny, happy place . . . until it’s not, and when it’s not I’ll deal with it then. For now – bright, shiny, happy.

I will not bother from future bother.

*Okay, I have no idea where I saw that, but it definitely wasn’t a meme on Pinterest, as I just had to make my own because I couldn’t find one!

Tuesday April 28, 2015Depression, Live and Learn, PermissionLeave a comment

I read an article today about how people feel the need to tone down emotion. Whether it be happiness, sadness, anger it must be expressed in moderation. When I first read that, I scoffed. What good does toning down emotion do? Then, the more that I thought about it, the more I realized that I do believe this article is entirely true. Some people become disconcerted when emotions swing outside of a normal, “acceptable” range.

I have never been that person. Well, that’s not true. I was forced to be that person for many years and I was miserable. But I have never inherently been that person. If something makes me happy, or excites me I’m going to express that with a joyously ecstatic fervor. I guess I figure if you’re going to get excited, GET EXCITED! The same goes for concentration. If I truly want to accomplish something my focus is on that and that alone. The room could come down around me and I would be clueless. I can’t tell you how many times I have been at dinner with friends and been industriously trying to dig the cherry out from the bottom of my drink only to look up and discover the entire table looking at me with mirthful smiles. Which officially begs the question, why do they put the cherry on the bottom?!?!?!? Okay, that’s probably not the first question that springs into your mind, but I would certainly like to know!

At any rate, reading this article made me aware of just how much my life has changed. Throughout my childhood I was admonished to squelch this side of my personality. I was told that it was, that I was, inappropriate. Because of this I became afraid to express myself. I doubted my ability to appropriately react in situations and I felt the need to constantly wear a mask, pretending to be someone that I was not. It sucked! It wasn’t until I began to venture out on my own and question the precepts of my upbringing that I discovered that there was nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with feeling and expressing emotions outside of “normal” ranges. If that makes other people uncomfortable, then that is their problem, not mine. My feelings and how I choose to express them are legitimate and correct for me.

Now the people that I spend my time with are not embarrassed when I drag them over to another aisle in Smart and Final to show them the epically large can of ravioli – those things are ginormous, you have to check it out some time. They think it’s funny, they think it’s ridiculous, actually who knows what they think, but they don’t disapprove. They don’t tell me to knock it off, or tone it down. They smile, laugh, or sometimes join in my excitement and generally accept me for who I am. That is a state of being that I never fathomed could exist. Being surrounded by people who accept me and love me for who I am, in all of my quirky goodness. So I guess the point of all of this is to say to the outcasts, to the people who feel like everything they do is wrong, stay strong and hold on to who you truly are. There are people out there in this world who will love you for you, not a modified or “corrected” version of you. Be joyously ecstatic, or dorky, or quirky, or whatever, and don’t let anybody tell you that it’s wrong. Your people are out there, you just have to find them.

Thursday April 23, 2015Life, Live and Learn, WritingLeave a comment

I have been a super stress monkey lately with the release of my second book, and have been giving myself a hard time about it. After all, it’s my second book, this isn’t my first rodeo and all of those other clichés. I finally realized this morning, that while it may be my second book, this is the first book that I’m publishing through the new company that I launched this year. It’s my first time working directly with a printer, and dealing with fulfillment and distribution. So while it is my second book, there are a whole lot of firsts going on. Essentially, this isn’t simply the release of my second book, it’s the launch of my business. Holy shit. I feel like the stress may be justified.

Though at the same time, are the moments of near panic really doing anything productive? Is fixating on the paltry online sales and staring at the boxes of books in my living room that are not dwindling fast enough to ensure that I’ll be able to pay the printer for them when the bill comes in, doing any good? No, they’re not. All it is doing is keeping me up at night and causing me to use my asthma inhaler more often. Which, FYI in case you were curious, a couple of puffs of albuterol will help shortness of breath caused by a panic attack. You learn something new every day! Look at that silver lining. I can find them anywhere.

Aside from that little tidbit of knowledge there, no good has come from the freaking out. In fact, I’ve noticed that instead of motivating me to problem-solve, it has actually motivated me into a cycle of self-sabotage. Good times! Over the past two weeks I have been so overwhelmed with stress that I have lost track of how many times I have sat on my couch and actually thought to myself, “Kat, you have plenty of time to get X done. If you don’t get it done tonight you’re pretty much shooting yourself in the foot for tomorrow.” Logic says that with that realization I would get up and go do whatever task X was. However, stress-monkey-self-sabotage Kat said, “Okay.” Then cocked the gun and shot myself in the foot. At this point, both of my feet look like Swiss cheese – figuratively of course because no one in their right mind would give this klutz an actual firearm!

Because of that, on top of having a whole slew of books in my living room that I need to sell I also have:

A box with an unassembled organizational unit (to more neatly store the aforementioned books)
Four loads of laundry
Two sinks full of dishes
A half-finished birthday present
A half-finished baby-shower present
A half-finished article
Two unread manuscripts with author’s waiting for responses
7 chapters behind on rewrites
And a partridge in a frickin pear tree

Okay, I don’t have a partridge, but you get the point. Now all of that isn’t that bad, except for the fact that I’m scheduled to get an injection in my ankle today which will require me to stay off of my feet for two weeks. Hence, the shooting myself in the foot analogy above. Some of that stuff I can get done sitting on my butt, but some of it I definitely can’t which means that it will drive me batty for two weeks, which I know will increase the stress-monkey-self-sabotage tendency that I have fallen into. So I am putting my foot down, the good one, and ending the cycle. I’m not exactly sure what that’s going to look like, but I know that it’s going to start with me finishing my article tonight. From there I’m gonna have to make it up as I go. Any advice, or suggestions on strategies that have worked for you are gladly appreciated. And should you want one of the books that are piled up in my living room, the links are below.

To Purchase Domestically Click Here – You can also browse custom, hand made jewelry here!

To Purchase Internationally Click Here

Tuesday April 21, 2015Life, Live and LearnLeave a comment

Okay, so we all know that I’m a bit of a “Prepare for the worst” type of person. Which is why I have 3, count them, 3 earthquake kits. One at home, one at work and one in my car. People make fun of me, but when the shit hits the fan people are gonna be freaking out, and I’ll be hunkered down under my tarp tent, making lentil soup on my portable stove, and perusing a crossword in my comfy pants. We’ll see who’s laughing then! Just kidding, I wouldn’t laugh. I would probably be helping someone make their own tent . . . even if it’s just out of duct tape, which I will also have.

At any rate, I find myself reading quite a few articles about preparedness and then patting myself on the back afterwards, because I’ve usually taken the majority of the steps mentioned. Then somebody sent me an infographic about how to prepare your car for emergencies and I realized that I don’t actually have anything in my car to help with car-related type emergencies, with the exception of jumper cables. So needless to say, I have some work to do on that front. Since I found it helpful, I figured that all of you might as well. Here’s a link to the original post, but here’s the graphic that I like:

Pretty cool huh? Now if you will excuse me, I need to do some research on seat-belt cutters and flares!

***10 Cheeky Monkeys is now available for purchase. Click here to order today!***

Tuesday April 14, 2015Change, Inspiration, Live and LearnView all 2 comments

For years I was one of those people that would scoff at the thought of having a mantra. I guess to some extent I considered the practice to be too new-age, mumbo-jumbo-y for me. Or maybe I thought it was silly and felt embarrassed at the thought of repeating self-affirmations to myself. Who knows? Even after going through two different therapists and seeing great results, both of whom had me primarily focus on retraining my inner monologue, I still found myself looking down my nose at the thought of having a mantra. Perhaps I watched Stuart Smalley on SNL a little bit too much. At any rate, I was anti-mantra for no discernable good reason.

Then a couple of years ago, a friend and I started to get together for “Goal Nights.” We each came up with our own list of goals (both personal and professional), then got together for dinner and discussed the goals and how they could be achieved. It was empowering, liberating and scary all at the same time to see what I wanted to achieve written down in black and white. Okay, truth be told it wasn’t black and white, I used colorful markers, but you get the idea. Then every month or two we would get together to discuss how we were doing, and after about a year we reevaluated. Lo and behold, we had each achieved a goal or two, made strides toward achieving others and come to realize that some weren’t important to us after all.

So the goals were revamped, using our new found knowledge of what we wanted. This is when I stalled out. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what needed to be done, that was right there in front of me. My problem stemmed from the fact that I was getting in my own way. My self-doubts and emotional hook-ups were preventing me from taking the strides forward that I wanted to take. After much soul-searching I came to realize that I had three main issues that were holding me back.

I had no faith in my writing ability. Every time I wrote something and worked up the courage to share it, I just KNEW that it was horrible and whoever was reading it would say so. If I happened to get a compliment back, I assumed that they were simply being nice. It’s really hard to achieve goals that involve large amounts of writing when you believe that you suck at writing.
I believed that the only reason anybody would want me around is because I could provide them with something. Some skill, some service, some knowledge, something more than the pleasure of my company.
Then to compound the above belief, I felt the need to prove myself. It wasn’t just that I had to be able to provide something for a person, I also had to prove to them that I could be helpful. Prove that I was good enough.

I realized that until I got over this, I would remain stalled out on my goals. I then did the heretofore unthinkable; I turned each of those hurdles into a mantra.

I am a brilliant writer.
People love me for me.
I have nothing to prove.

Now, I would be lying if I said that I felt like anything but an utter and complete fraud when I wrote down those three sentences. There were laughable and egotistical and so far from the way I felt I was writing pure fiction. But I wrote them down anyway. I wrote them down on 5” x 7” cards in bright, impossible to ignore, colored markers. I made three of these cards then posted them all in my bedroom. At first I made a concerted effort to read through them at least twice a day – morning and night. Then that slacked off to once a day, then only whenever I found myself standing in front of one. However, as my room is not that big and I had made three cards, it was impossible to enter my room without seeing and at least subconsciously recalling what they said. “I am a brilliant writer. People love me for me. I have nothing to prove,” became as much a daily part of my brain as saying, “Zoey don’t eat that!” (For those of you who don’t know my dogs, I say that particular phrase a lot.)

I have had those cards up for probably close to two years now, I don’t know for sure, and I realized this morning, as I stood in front of my vanity and read them, that I don’t need them anymore. I believe what they say. They worked. Don’t get me wrong, there was a whole lot more work involved than simply repeating a mantra over and over again, but I feel that by repeating the mantras I tricked myself into believing that they were true. By believing that they were true, I started to act as if they were true, and by acting as if they were true, they actually became true.

Which I guess means that I am now a believer in the power of mantras and I would like to apologize to anybody that I openly, or secretly, scoffed at or made fun of for having mantras. I was an idiot, and failed to recognize the profound wisdom of your ways. But I see the light now, and find myself in need of some new mantras. I’ll have to do some soul-searching.

What’s your mantra?

Thursday April 02, 2015Live and LearnLeave a comment

I tend to have a pretty fast trigger finger when it comes to unfriending or unfollowing people on social media. If someone is perpetually negative, offensive or vexatious in some other way I will press that button to sever our contact and never look back. Because of this, I’m connected to virtually no overtly religious people. Not that I’m discriminating against the religious, but all it takes it one post or meme saying my gay friends are going to hell and you’re gone. I have no tolerance for that. Therefore, those people get weeded out in short order. I don’t need three strikes. One and done. This means that you are much more likely to see Star Wars pop up in my Facebook newsfeed, then you are anything about god.

Then, the other day, I commented on a post of a woman that I rarely interact with. After this comment, the Facebook algorithms decided that I was clearly interested in EVERYTHING that she posts, and I started to see a whole lot more of her in my feed. That’s when I realized that she is overtly religious in her posts. At least one per day, sometimes more, will have something to do with her faith. My trigger finger started to itch, ready to unfriend her, but I soon discovered that I had no need. While she clearly has more god in her life then I find necessary, it’s just that, in her life. Any religious sentiments were geared toward herself and her family. The comforts and guidance that her family gains through faith.

I was intrigued. I started seeking out her posts almost like it was too good to be true. It was refreshing to find someone who is unabashedly religious, someone who clearly celebrates that religion, but feels no need to impose it on others. As this particular woman is Mormon, I found that even more amazing. It’s been more than a week that I’ve been watching her posts and I have yet to see any vitriol, damnation or judgment of others. Simply a love of her faith and her god.

Do I share her particular beliefs? No. Do I find the same comfort in god that she does? Definitely not. If we were to have a conversation in real life and delve into religion and politics would we most likely wind up in a heated disagreement? Probably. Would she walk away from that discussion thinking that she needed to pray for my immortal soul? Most definitely. Would I still be willing to have that conversation? Yes.

There’s the difference. I would be more than willing to have that conversation with her, because unlike every other extremely religious person that I’ve encountered, I have never once felt judgement from her. 99% of the time I am uninterested in discussing religion or politics because, in my experience, those conversations wind up in harsh judgements, and sometimes name calling. People enter those conversations unwilling to entertain any viewpoint but their own, so instead of a discussion it becomes an attack to get the other person to concede and come over to their side. If both people have the same mind-set it turns into a lot of screaming at deaf ears.

That’s not to say that the same thing wouldn’t happen with her. It might. But her non-judgmental approach to religion, makes me believe that maybe that white whale does exist. Who knows? If we ever find ourselves sitting across cups of coffee from each other, perhaps I’ll ask.

Tuesday March 31, 2015Live and LearnLeave a comment

They say that the behaviors you dislike the most about yourself are the behaviors that you dislike the most in others. Last week I wrote a post about how it has been driving me nuts lately when people complain. Well, after writing that, it occurred to me, that I personally have been complaining a lot lately. Therefore, I have reached my “complaint patience” limit before I even leave the house. So it makes perfect sense that I want to bang my head against the wall when I run into other people that are complaining. I’m full up with my own, I don’t’ have room for any of theirs.

This revelation, doesn’t not negate the point that I made though. Complaining is pointless and achieves absolutely nothing. This revelation, does however, mean that I need to take my own advice – assume responsibility for my own life. So in that vein, here are the things that I’ve been complaining about lately, and what I can am going to do about them.

I never get the things on my to-do list done and therefore always feel behind.
- I have a two-pronged plan of attack for this one. First – I need to start making my to-do lists realistic. Most days I have more on there then is actually possible to do in one day. So I need to get more realistic about how long certain tasks take. Second – Prioritize my list. Should I fail to be successful with my first attack, or I throw caution to the wind do something that isn’t on my to-do list (gasp!) I will know which things absolutely have to get done today, versus what can be put off. As long as the high priorities are completed, I’m good to go.
I hate that I have to spend so much time at my day job, when I want to be working on my own business.
- On one hand, this is a frustration that I need to live with. I am actively working toward my goals, and when I started I knew that it was going to take time. On the other hand, it would behoove me to start implementing the part of my plan that will make money in the short-term, versus only working on the long-term aspects. I’ll need to revisit my to-do list . . .
I always feel like I’m broke.
- Number 1 – I am not broke, so I need to break myself out of that mind set. I don’t have to go grocery shopping with a calculator, play the “which bill can be paid late this month” game, or decide between adequate food or gas for my car. I’ve been there. I’m not there now. Number 2 – I do however, have a budget. If I actually stick to that budget then balancing my checkbook will be a lot less traumatic. Note to self: instead of complaining, start paying attention to my budget again!
I’m horribly disappointed that the only way my body can be healthy is with the intervention of daily supplements and drugs and even then I’ll still have bad days.
- This is one that I need to learn to live with. I have lost track of how many different things I have tried and how much money I have spent to try to get away from this. It is not possible. So I need to become okay with that. I’m working on it . . .
I’m frustrated that nine months later, I’m still having pain which makes implementing an exercise routine difficult, and because of the meds I’m on, I’m still gaining weight.
- I can’t do the exercise that I want to do. That does not mean that I can’t find exercise that I CAN do. So my new goal is to find exercise that I can do, so I can finally start moving my body again. Oh, and as much as it pains me to say this, I should probably cut back on the amount of pizza I eat . . . I’ll probably try the exercise first. After all, I should get to keep one vice, right?!?!?

So there’s my game plan. What do you need to stop complaining about? What’s your game plan?

Thursday March 19, 2015Inspiration, Live and Learn, WritingView all 2 comments

I ran across this phrase – My work has yet to live up to my standards – and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. On the one hand, I think it is very good to have standards, especially high standards, for your work. It helps to push you to always be better, and to strive for more. If I had been content with mediocre, had set my standards lower than I have, I never would have accomplished what I have so far. Not to mention that I wouldn’t be as happy as I am with the work that I have done and am doing. That being said, in the last couple of years, I have definitely lowered my standards.

I feel that amongst artistic people* there is an excruciatingly high prevalence of perfectionism. I think to a certain degree, it is that very perfectionism that makes a master stand out from an amateur. It is that perfectionism that drives them to keep working on their craft until it is just right. I would wager that even DaVinci winced at an imperfection or two on the Mona Lisa that he couldn’t get quite right. However, I also think one of the main differences between a master and an amateur, is that the master has learned to let go of a piece before its perfect, because they have learned that perfection is impossible.

I am surrounded by incredibly talented people. Being artistic/creative I tend to be drawn to that type. But it breaks my heart at how many of them don’t share their work, or don’t value their work. And inevitably, the reason that they don’t share it, or value it, is because it’s not good enough, or they didn’t get it quite right. Trust me, I can sympathize with that feeling. I definitely know the horror of letting something out into the world when it isn’t perfect yet. This is why it took me until I was 25 to start sharing my writing with people. So I know how that feels! What I never realized though, is how much I would grown as a writer and how much my writing would improve, by the simple act of lowering my standards and letting it go before it was perfect.

Is it still hard? Absolutely. Do I still cringe when I read something and realize that it could have been phrased better or more eloquently? All the damn time. But the flip side is that I am much happier with my work, and quite frankly, happier in general as well. I have also learned to be much more gracious with myself when I do make a glaring error. I was supposed to release my second children’s book last week, but within an hour of turning on my online store and announcing that copies were available for sale, a co-worker pointed out to me that there was a misspelled word. And not just any word, one of the vocab words, which means that it appears twice . . . misspelled. FUCK!!!

I immediately turned off sales, announced an apology that it wasn’t available and began beating myself up. How in the world did I miss that? I was the one who did the final proof, and I thought that I had gone over the entire thing with a fine-tooth comb so that it was perfect before sending it off to the printer. I had even spent 10 minutes on one of the pages with the misspelling, deciding if I had the rhythm of the phrasing correct. How in the world could I have possibly missed that?!?!? Easy. I’m not perfect, and neither is my work. It never will be, and quite frankly I’ve lost track of how many professionally published books, by famous authors I have read that have misspellings in them. So as far as errors go, I’m in good company. But here’s the real kicker. The issue was discovered before I had sent a single book out. That’s when I stopped beating myself up.

That error had become a non-issue. Yes, I now have books that I won’t sell on the open-market and have had to get creative in an attempt to recoup some of the cost – Speaking of which, if anybody is interested in a limited run “White-Out” edition of 10 Cheeky Monkeys, at a highly discounted price, let me know. Seriously, I’ll even sign it. – but, I was easily able to make the needed correction, as well as a few other tweaks, and get a new run of books started. In the grand scheme of things, that mistake is pretty damn minor. But 5-6 years ago, it would have crippled me. I don’t know that I would have been able to bounce back from something like that anytime soon. It is amazing what a remarkable difference has been made in my work/life/psyche since I decided to lower my standards. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still really damn high, just not as unrealistically high as they once were.

So I guess what I want to say to all of my artistic/creative people out there, and anyone else who needs to hear it, if your work, after years of working and practicing, has never lived up to your standards, maybe the problem is with your standards, not your work. Let the world see your gifts my friends. Life can be an ugly place without art.

*I’m sure this is true in any field, but as I have the most experience with those of the artistic persuasion, that’s what I’m focusing on.