“At Home” in Indiana?

I’m one of those souls blessed, and cursed, with what can only be called a form of wanderlust. When I was growing up, we never went anywhere…except for a very occasional one-day trip to Indiana Dunes. My father apparently considered that enough “vacation” for the family. He took my brother to an occasional Cubs’ doubleheader—when those things used to be regular occurrences, on selected holidays—but, of course, my mother and I never went along on those trips.

That’s how it came to pass that, until I went to New York over one college spring break, I’d never been farther away from Chicago than a few inches over the Wisconsin and/or Indiana state lines. People who had summer cottages three, four, or ten hours away? Alien life forms, for sure. Families who thought in terms of “where are we going this year?” Speaking a foreign language.

So I’ve grown up figuratively Down on the Farm and couldn’t wait to escape—which explains why I’m one of those people who, if she is at an airport, a train station, or the like for whatever reason, longs to simply walk up to the counter and buy a ticket out of town. Wouldn’t even much matter where.

But the flip side of that wanderlust is a paradoxical mirror-image sentiment: the obsession to find “the best place” to live, put down roots, and stay there…perhaps even at the exclusion of trips to see the Rest of the World.

From time to time, you’ll hear it said that if you truly found the right place to live, you would be “on vacation” every day, in a sense, and thus have no real desire to spend any time anywhere else. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Life as a permanent vacation?

Getting to that ideal place, however, can be trickier than it sounds.

Back in the Chicago area, to live in a place I would have considered “ideal,” I would have had to have the income of a brain surgeon, (the late) Johnny Cochrane, or a drug dealer (or maybe all three). Even if one did manage to score the coup of getting the income in place, finding a great house in a great location, and protecting one’s environment so that some bright-eyed developer wouldn’t end up putting a strip mall behind one’s back yard…the hidden cost of a “perfect” place in an area like this is the lack of time to actually enjoy it. Many suburbs in the Chicago area are practically legendary as vast stretches of breathtaking neighborhoods that, during weekday daylight hours, are ghost towns. The irony of the fact that, during the week, the “help” spent more time in these gorgeous homes than their owners did was inescapable…and illuminating. Seeing such a thing, a normal person starts to think, “What’s wrong with this picture?”

I used to say I liked to be close to the city for the sake of “culture,” “concerts and plays,” and the like—until I asked myself how often we actually did those things. The fireworks downtown, maybe twice or three times; we went to one opera, no plays, no concerts. It was embarrassing to realize that this great “cultural” life I claimed was so important to be a part of, I wasn’t even using…but it was freeing as well. If you don’t “have to” be tied to a city for any particular reason, you can live anywhere, including a place where it doesn’t take you 25 minutes to drive three and a half miles.

Inertia is a tough thing, however—as is a job for the primary breadwinner located smack-dab in the city center. It’s a rotten tradeoff: you go to where you can breathe the air, see the stars, and afford a decent house…but you pay for it by commuting 4 hours a day to that job.

Until you lose that job…and suddenly, everything changes.

Long story short, we had a job in Chicago vaporize, one in Indiana appear, and so—swallowing my inborn revulsion to embrace all things Hoosier—I signed on the dotted line. (Although I will admit, I passed up this job listing at least once because I didn’t want to move to “godforsaken, where in the h*** is Huntington, Indiana?”) I got here on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, in the black of early-winter evening, was esconced in the Parish Center of a local church, was pointed in the general direction of the new office, fed dinner, and bidden goodnight…and I was on my way.

Fast forward to now, and an odd thing is occurring. I’m beginning to see that one has to be careful what one wishes for—because one might get it, in the most unlikely place one could imagine.

For the first several months I was here, when I was trekking back and forth between the still-unsold house in Illinois and the various apartment places I landed in as temporary housing in Huntington, I wondered approximately once a week what kind of insanity had prompted me to do this. I would get home from Illinois and just sob for a couple of hours. No doubt part of the emotional turmoil was missing the family, the cats, or just the fact that our ties were rapidly being cut with a church we’d been in for 17 years and an environment that was at least familiar…but interwoven in that conflict were a whole bunch of generous “pluses.”

I lived in a place where I commuted 5 minutes to work.
I lived in a place where I could walk to church, to the library, and to a grocery store…among other places.
I lived in a place where, bare minutes out of town, I had not one but two major reservoir/lake picnic and camping areas—including one with a swimming beach—reachable by country roads lined by woods.
I lived in a place where I was close enough to Fort Wayne to get a “mall fix” but far enough away that when I’m not in the mood for a mall—which is often!—I don’t have to contend with the incessant traffic of those who love them.
I lived in a place where most people in the local shops didn’t let you get away without a conversation.
I lived in a place where, for the last year of my son’s baseball career at Michigan, I was a full hour and a half closer to him than I was in Illinois.
And best of all, I lived in a place—eventually—that is as physically close to my “dream house” as I’ve ever been…a house I couldn’t even dream about paying for in Chicago.

When the rest of the family got here, and we began the real adjustment process—otherwise known as “no, we’re not living in Chicago anymore”—of course, things were a bit rocky once again. And more than once, after having visited some neat place in Illinois for some fun reason, I’ve wished that I could just transplant what I have here…back there.

But I knew I’d turned a corner of sorts when I drove to Illinois one Sunday to sing at a special anniversary Mass—requested by my former pastor—and realized, once I got to the church, that I was really glad I would “get to go back home to Indiana” that night.

Back home to Indiana. Four words that I never thought in a million years would be reassuring to me. Four words that I never, ever imagined would come out of my mouth. Four words that I still can’t believe I say.

But four words that are starting to really feel comfortable. Strange, yet comfortable.

Don’t get me wrong. You can take the girl out of Chicago, but you don’t take the Chicago out of the girl that easily. Any glance at the links here will tell you that. :-)

But, living as I am a “red” girl finally in a largely “red” state…has produced an ease of spirit I can’t say I’d readily want to give up. And I know this because, at one point in here, a job possibility actually opened up for my DH to go back with his previous employer on a contract basis…for scandalous money, in terms of what we really could use here. And it was tempting to jump at it.

Until we realized that would mean we’d have to live a commuter marriage again—because we couldn’t give up my job here and still make ends meet, even on what the potential contract job would give him. We had no reassurances that the contract job would last any particular length of time; it was a “permanent” position…but so was the one he was laid off from after 21 years. And knowing that we’d go from everyone living together to, once again, one of us having to set up new housekeeping somewhere else…with all that that entailed…

…we couldn’t do it. PM stepped back from it, making the decision to stay here and commit himself to his new career rather than trying to “play both sides of the fence”…and we are now rooted to our spot, for better or worse, for the duration.

I still don’t consider this necessarily the ultimate “perfect” place to live, not by any stretch of the imagination. I’d love to be on water. I’d love to be in the Snow Belt.
I’d love to be further north, with more pine in the woods than oak. And as far as “embracing all things Hoosier” goes…that ain’t gonna happen any time soon. In fact, I’ve taken to referring to this place as “the far east side of Chicago.” It makes things a lot easier to take. :-)

But when I drive down Route 24 to go sing at the beautiful new performance hall at IPFW…
…or I go swimming in the reservoir…
…or I take a jaunt uptown to look in the shop windows…
…or I walk to my church and, once again, am convinced it’s the most beautiful church I’ve ever seen…
…I do feel “at home in Indiana.”
And…in Chicago…not so much anymore.

Scary? Yes. I don’t know if I’m ready to consider the possibility of never being back in Illinois again…or living the rest of my life here, as opposed to any other “near perfect” place.

But for now, one day at a time, it’s not all that bad.
For right now, it’s home.

Thoughts?

Janny

The Religion of Eeyore?

An interesting comment came through on my previous post about the enthusiasm of Scott Hahn—to the effect that no doubt, his “on fire” nature came out of his Protestant roots.
Catholics, it seems to many people, are not “on fire” for anything; Catholics, it seems to many people out there, are kind of glum, cynical, lazy, dull, depressing, sad…

Yeah. Kinda like our friend here.

Well, yeah, there are some glum Catholics. For good reasons, in most cases. But, no, the reasons aren’t contained within the Church, her teachings, or her character itself. The reasons are a bit closer to home — like, say, Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy. With people like that claiming to be in our Church, who needs enemies? Think on that too long, and you will get glum.

But what Archbishop Noll said so long ago is true. It has always been true, and it will always be true. The Catholic religion—faithfully followed—is a religion of joy. So if you’re encountering joyless Catholics, it ain’t because they’re “too Catholic” or “too constrained by rules and regulations,” or such. If anything, it’s because they’re holding themselves back from the real joy that comes from total surrender, from embracing Christ in His Church, and from being embraced in turn by the world’s biggest family, with God as its Head.

You see, the best kept secret in the world is that being Catholic is really easy. It’s easily the simplest way to be a Christian. The most supported. The most rewarded, and rewarding, and grace-filled. But that secret is so murked up nowadays with people who make false claims about Catholicism, or who muddy it up with their own agendas, that “my yoke is easy and my burden is light” can, at times, sound like a bad joke to the people in the pews.

But it doesn’t have to be thus. At its heart, it isn’t. At its heart, Catholicism is simple, one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. And the more one learns about this Church, the more one comes to love her, and her Spouse, more deeply.

“Getting” that might just make even Eeyore smile.

Thoughts?

Janny

One Down, One (or More) To Go

Well, today the proposal for Rainman’s Bride—and its accompanying spinoffs—goes out the door to Beth Adams at Guideposts Books. This is the signal, boys and girls, for everyone to start praying hard…because I truly feel that Guideposts’ “happening” to decide to expand their fiction line (s) to go into the trade market in a big way is a wide-open door for me. Added to that the fact that Beth and I got along like gangbusters at our ACFW appointment—well, let’s say that as much as I’m afraid to hope for anything anymore, this opportunity has tempted me to start believing again. I truly believe that Guideposts is as close to an ideal match for my style as it gets; time and experience will tell. But it’s time to get that Golden Heart book out on the shelves where lots more people can read it!

The next project to pitch is Voice of Innocence, which I’ll be putting together a proposal on and pitching to an agent electronically. This doesn’t stop the pitching for that piece, but it may end up being the last stop it needs to make…until it sells. Let’s hope so.

OTOH, I’m having nagging doubts about this piece, I will admit—if for no other reason than it’s met with such resounding indifference in the agent marketplace. Yet when I entered it in a contest where booksellers judged, they gave it overall high ratings, including one perfect score. One particularly poignant comment came off those contest sheets, from the bookseller who said, “I want to meet this author, and I want to read this book.” To which I murmured, “From your mouth to God’s ears, honey.” All comments were anonymous by nature, but I wished I knew who and where this bookseller was…I would have e-mailed her, or maybe even gotten on the phone, and asked her if she knew any literary agents with taste like hers!

So it’s a mixed bag this morning, but the good news is I’m bringing myself one step closer, on at least one front. Now, does anyone know Guideposts’ response times????

Staying the course (as best she can),
Janny

One More Awesome Video before I Write Again...

To me, obviously, you can insert the word "Christians" into this and it works just as well. :-)

Janny

This is awesome. Just sayin'.

Now, This Is Inspiring!

Thanks to TL Hines for bringing this onto my radar!

Janny

Press On!

In times of deep discouragement you should never make a change, but stand firm in the resolutions and decisions that guided you the day before the discouragement.

— St. Ignatius of Loyola

More to come soon....

Janny

Just. Shut. Up. (Part I)

Let’s face it. You take one look at the title above, and you figure the Catholic Writer Chick is probably hacked off about…something. Well, yes and no. :-)

Fact is, something did fry my bacon this week, but that issue will be dealt with in another post. This, however, is simply a quick and dirty complaint. Or maybe…shall we say…a suggestion? 

Please… PleasepleasePLEASE… If you are putting together a blog, website, or other online station where I’m likely to land and stay awhile to read, please resist the urge to use the “playlist” feature to piggyback music onto the reading experience. 

PLEASE. 

 I don’t mean to sound like a curmudgeon here. Heck, I’m a musician. You’d think I’d love to sample the music that other bloggers enjoy, and listen while I read...right? 

Well, actually, not so much. Here’s why. 

The first, and most obvious, reason is that my tastes in music and yours are probably not the same. In some cases, I wouldn’t be caught dead listening to the music I find on blogs. So the blog itself—the writing—is often compelling, witty, entertaining, or otherwise extremely enjoyable…but I can’t enjoy it because in my face is some rattly noise that sets my teeth on edge. This does not encourage me to stay and page through your blog; it encourages me to get away, and fast. To be blunt, creating a setting that makes people want to escape…is rather counterproductive to the idea of blogging in the first place. 

The second reason—one more specific to me—is that unlike many writer/readers, apparently, I am not wired to be able to write or read with music playing in the background, especially very active music. Even music I enjoy—actually, even more so, with music I enjoy—I simply cannot do those two things at once. I can edit with music in the background, as long as it’s fairly quiet and fairly subtle: think classical here, or the most subdued Celtic folk. But trying to create something? Or trying to read things I’ve never read before? Let’s put it this way. My hearing is extremely sensitive, to the point where if there’s music playing around me, no matter how quietly, my brain gravitates to it like a cat to canned tuna. I have bought not one, but two, “white noise” machines in the past several years, just for the purpose of blocking out external sounds while I’m trying to concentrate. They work, I relax, and the brain stays clear. 

But I can’t plug in my white noise machine when I’m surfing the Net…especially not when your music completely takes me by surprise. 

No doubt some of you are muttering, “Well, you dolt, just mute the stuff.” Easier said than done; in every blogging/playlist platform, the ways to do this can vary slightly. So making your readers hunt for which link is the “magic key” is, to say the least, inconveniencing them. Some of you add insult to injury in this matter as well: one particular blogger (who shall remain nameless) didn’t help matters by tossing off a remark about “those of you who are too stupid to figure out how to turn off the sound.” 

 Lemme get this straight, then; not only am I subjected to your taste in music just by clicking on your link—but should I find it tricky to escape having this stuff shoved at me, then I’m stupid, too? Yeah, that makes me want to come back! 

The late, great Uncle Bobby at WGN Radio used to say, “It’s easier to stay out than to get out.” He was referring to trouble, of course—in all its varied forms. But in this case, that “proverb” seems to apply equally well. Want to avoid irritating your readers, inconveniencing them, or giving them an excuse not to read your blog? Simple. Keep it simple, keep it straightforward…and keep it quiet. Many, many, many of us will thank you for it.

Thoughts? 

Janny

Perking along!

What’s for Dinner? The menu at Glenfarg over the past week:

• Chuck Wagon Chow...if you don't know what this is, I'll post the recipe. :-)
• What my dad used to call "Concoction" and what I call "College Student Spaghetti": the most unbelievably simple recipe on God's green earth. It's 1 medium onion, chopped and sauteed in butter until transparent; one 6-oz. can of tomato paste; and cooked, drained spaghetti. Combine, salt to taste, and watch it disappear! Perfect for Fridays in Lent. :-)
• Pork steak simmered with garlic, chopped onion, fresh sage, and frozen french cut green beans. In the last three minutes, add 1 package of Oriental flavor Ramen noodles--break up the noodles, add a bit of water, and sprinkle the seasoning from the packet overall. Works with chicken just as well!
• And, of course, the usual grilled delights: yesterday we had thin, lean beef steak, cheddar dogs, and turkey burgers with all the trimmings, plus potatoes, garlic, and broccoli roasted in foil on the coals. Can it get any better than that?

As for the rest of the weekend, it was spent the way weekends should be spent: mostly, working in the yard, interspersed with sessions of watching baseball in lovely air conditioning. This was, of course, after we puttered on Saturday chasing dust bunnies...

Hey, it's not a frantic life, but it's mine. :-)

Tonight? We putter in office, probably chasing some more dust; we work on writing tasks; and we watch THE CLOSER.

And then it'll be Tuesday!

Perking along,

Janny

When in Doubt, Reboot!

more cat pictures I will write more as soon as I clear the Cat Jam. Really. Janny

The Absolute Sure Cure for Writer's Block!

Thanks to Pub Rants for this wonderful stuff!

Janny

What’s For Dinner? Leftover Stuffed Green Peppers...featuring ground turkey, tomato sauce, onions, garlic, and homemade bread crumb topping. Yum and a half! (This is, of course, pending what happens now that Daughter is back at home after being out and about for the 4th of July weekend. There may be punting if I get home and what was left over...isn't anymore!) For dessert: chocolate chip/chunk and pecan bar cookies. Double yum! If I'm really, really good, I'll eat fewer of them and more of the fresh fruit I bought... More to come in a bit! Janny

Of All Stars, Pot Roast, and...To Be Continued

You Need to Do This! Well, okay, let’s put it this way: if you want to reward some truly outstanding baseball performances this year, go to the All-Star voting site, click in on the NL ballot, and vote for Cubs. Specifically, vote for Kosuke Fukodome, Geovany Soto, Alfonso Soriano, Mark deRosa, Ryan Theriot, and Derrek Lee “Fuk” deserves to start the All-Star Game if anyone does; Soto more than likely will, barring a complete breakdown in the voting; and I truly believe Derrek Lee deserves way more respect than he gets. Theriot and DeRosa would be really nice to have on the squad as well, and Soriano…goes without saying. But voting ends at midnight TONIGHT…so do it while you have the chance! (This diehard Cubs fan will thank you.) What’s For Dinner? Pot Roast, slow-cooker style. One beef roast (a couple of pounds), one-half of a medium sized sweet onion (rough chopped), a half-pound of mini carrots, a half-cup or so of mixed frozen pepper and onion mix, a can of chopped tomatoes, one stalk (about 5 leaves) of fresh sage, two bay leaves, kosher salt, lemon pepper, and about a quart or so of water to simmer it all in. It’s on LOW at the house now. Should be ready for my lucky husband’s lunch today as well as stay warm for dinner for me. Y’all come over! If I need to stretch it, I’ll bake a couple of potatoes to ladle it over. :-) And yes, I do have something else to write about today as well...to follow shortly! In the meantime, go do your baseball civic duty! Janny

The Writer Chick Cooks...

What’s for Dinner? Pasta! More than likely, aforementioned cheese ravioli with a little garlic-and-tomato sauce, a bunch of spinach (or two), and lots of parmesan cheese... (So how many guests should I plan on? ) More in a bit, Janny

Today's Writerly Kitchen Musing...

What’s for Dinner? Chicken Salad: chicken, celery, onions, dill pickle, poultry seasoning, mayonnaise...served open-face in sandwiches or just plain by itself! ...that is, if I don't decide to do cheese ravioli instead! Whatever you have, wash it down with a glass of killer wine. Janny

Beware! Writer in Kitchen!

What’s for Dinner? Cornmeal-coated Perch Fillets, sautéed in olive oil and served with…well, that part’s to be determined. But I do know There Will Be Fish. (This space for drooling) Yup, you’re seeing what I hope will be a new feature here at CWC, and something to take our minds off all the associated writer-angst that so often fills these pages, and our everyday writing existences. What better to cheer us all up than FOOD? (Hey, as a good Italian mother might say, “Ya gotta eat.”) If I actually have a recipe for what I mention, I’ll include it. But I’m one of those instinctive cooks who measures by the “pinch” and “handful” and “when it looks like enough…” so don’t hold me to teaspoons and tablespoons unless it’s someone else’s recipe! My favorite cook at the moment: Barefoot Contessa. More to come, but in the meantime, what’s for dinner at your house? Janny

“Hammered”…and Not

One small aside on the title of this post: a few weeks ago, I remarked to my dh something along the lines of anticipating being “hammered” on the job, and he sweetly observed that it was about time I had the sense to drink my way through this gig. I set him straight, but not without difficulty. And it is a nice thought, albeit it would make staying awake in mid-afternoon tougher than it already is. (!) Anyway, this is one of those rare interludes in the publishing biz—when an editor has projects in the hopper, but for the moment, the next steps involved in said projects are something for which she’s not responsible, something someone else has to accomplish. This likeable state of affairs usually occurs a couple of times a year; it can last anywhere from a few days, or less, to a few weeks. Such lulls are usually preceded by the kind of couple of weeks I just went through, hence the reference to being “hammered.” As in, “put the hammer down.” As in working oneself, literally, to the point where one’s eyes no longer function. I arrived at that point last Thursday afternoon. Fortunately, the most intense part of the work I had to get done…was done. By Friday morning, I had turned over one of the last Fall books to Production; I still have one out there that’s going to require some detail work and some waiting, and I have one last manuscript to start on this afternoon—but this book should be short, sweet, and fairly simple to do, which means I should make my deadlines with time to spare… So I finally have time to put some blog posts up for a change. Which will be good news to that pair of you out there who are regular readers. :-) In the meantime, what are we reading this summer? Or writing, if we’re lucky enough that the Muse has not gone en vacance somewhere and left us holding a blank screen? And what else are we looking forward to this summer by way of nonwriting fun? Thoughts?

Janny

Well, They Always Told Us to "Keep It Simple..."

"All Brian Tracy's Fault," part II

And then we came to the second part...
First of all, I feel a disclaimer is in order. If you happen to have stumbled upon this entry by Googling Brian Tracy, you need to know up front that actually, I have nothing personally against Brian. I’ve been listening to him since Earl Nightingale first introduced him on the old “Insight” series of tapes from the Nightingale-Conant Company (and they were cassette tapes, an admission which dates both me and Brian, although not necessarily in that order). That first speech I heard—about the difference between high achievers and those who fell short—was delivered at a rapid-fire pace that conveyed either a) a breathless passion for the subject matter, or b) a script with too many words to fit in the allotted time period …
…or both. :-)
I just knew that that frenetic, enthusiastic young man had a message that was inspiring, convincing, and challenging all at once. I bought it. And that, in the long run, has become my problem.
Brian, and most motivational gurus like him, preach one consistent theme when it comes to work: “Do what you love.” To this day, I can hear his voice in the back of my head saying, “If you don’t love your job enough to want to be the best at it, get out of that job and find something you do love. Life’s too short to waste it doing something you don’t love.”
But the best part about that was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you found what you loved to do and became the absolute best—indispensable, in fact, at that job—good money would absolutely follow. Some of you scoff at this, but in the 80s, this was leading-edge. This was what all the business/career/self-actualization books said.
Trouble was, it’s never happened.
When I first got out of school, I was convinced my husband and I would both make our living as musicians. We graduated from good schools, we were good at what we did, and we were in Chicago, a place that offers myriad performing opportunities. So we went on auditions—one memorable one in particular, a Civic Orchestra audition my brand-new husband went to on the day after we got back from our honeymoon. (He probably played with a big smile on his face, but the judges didn’t know…they were behind a screen. :-) ) I, too, did audition circuits—to the point where the people at some of these places may well have muttered, “Oh, no, not her again.”
This, mind you, was around moving twice, having a baby, and all the rest of that newlywed-stuff. And I did keep singing; I joined an early music ensemble that sang Palestrina and other great stuff all over the Chicago area.
Of course, none of this paid. Which became a whole ‘nuther problem.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. I did get the occasional stipend for a wedding or the like. But most people think singing is easy, and so except for union professionals who work major opera houses or the like, singers as a whole are lucky they make grocery money, even in major cities. Most of them actually live on teaching lessons and directing church choirs, not the performing itself. And there are only so many church gigs to go around, even in a city like Chicago.
So music wasn’t paying, not in any way remotely close to the “abundance” that was supposed to come from doing what I loved in an excellent fashion.
Much the same thing happened in the writing trade. After staying home with kids for years, writing and polishing fiction, I had a nice collection of rejection letters but very little else. Finally, faced with losing everything, I went out into the work world and found (what I thought was going to be) a great job being an administrator and newsletter editor. The sky was the limit with this organization…or so I thought.
Unfortunately, that sky turned out to be a heavy overcast as well.
So it’s not like I haven’t tried the formula, in various guises: full time. Freelance. Contractor. I’ve been a newspaper columnist, written for magazines, and tutored writers “on the side.” I even did one of those slightly-shady “term paper” jobs for awhile. But the bottom line still was that I worked for years providing “excellence” for people who went on European vacations, lived in neighborhoods I could only dream about, or sponsored Romanian orphans, while I worried about whether I could hang onto a two-bedroom townhouse and keep my utilities on.
So was the promise hollow all along?
And what do I do if it is?
If I talked to Brian about it, he might well say, “Have you truly given this your all? Have you done your best 100% of the time? Are you willing to pay any price, go any distance, to be the best?”
To which I’d have to say Yes. Maybe I haven’t been able or willing to hop on a plane at the slightest provocation to do endless “informational interviews.” But I have hopped on planes to go to writers’ conferences where I’ve networked…which in essence is the same thing. And yes, I’ve practiced visualization. And affirmation. I’m a positive-attitude person enough to choke most people I know. So this isn’t “not happening” because I give up too easily.
Trust me on this. :-)
I entered the Golden Heart for ten years before I even finaled, and that year I not only finaled but won. Persistence ain’t my problem.
So what is?
Here I am, in a career I’m still giving my all…and the brass ring keeps going to someone else. I’m still struggling just to pay my bills. European vacations? Providing for orphans? Don’t make me laugh. And it ought not to be this way.
So I’m wondering…what does Brian say to people when that happens?
Does he plead exceptions to the rule?
Or did I just waste my time for the last twenty-some years, chasing dreams that had no chance of ever paying off the way I’d been promised they would—sold to me by a man (and many others like him) who’s made multimillions off telling me I just need to “work harder” and “believe better”?

Many of us already think professional motivators are selling nothing more than snake oil. That they know a certain percentage of us will never get where they promise, no matter how hard we work, smart we make ourselves, or persistently we try. As long as some of us make it big, that’s good enough for them to keep peddling that same oil to the rest of us, and they don’t much care about the results.
I don’t want to think that way, for many reasons.
But I do have to wonder.

Thoughts?
Janny

It’s All Brian Tracy’s Fault!

Okay, now that ought to get your attention. :-)


The present dissatisfaction levels I’m having with various aspects of my job, my writing (or lack of same), and the remainder of my circumstances, I’ve gone over in laborious detail, in this blog, in conversation, etc. (Some might say ad nauseam, even.) (And I’d agree with you.)

But I’m here to tell you, Amen and Hallelujah!, I’ve had a breakthrough.

In the “old days,” they used to say, “Identifying your problem is half the solution.” (Lucy even quotes something along those lines to Charlie Brown, as I recall.) But our culture has evolved over the last generation or so, yessir, we have. Now, we know there’s a whole ‘nuther level to solving a problem, one that merely “identifying” it doesn’t cover. Merely “identifying” a problem doesn’t “affirm us in our okayness,” as one pundit puts it. It doesn’t bring an “oh, good, it’s nothing I really did wrong” feeling to us all; it doesn’t give us warm fuzzies of emotional “all rightness”…and that’s why mere “identification” or “labeling” of a problem only gets half the picture for us.

The other half—the far more important half, as we’ve all come to know in recent times—is who’s to blame?
Let’s face it. We all know that nowadays, you can’t even begin to get to the heart of a problem by merely identifying it. You can’t even solve it by “owning” it, by “claiming” it, by “looking it in the eye” or “taking it by the horns” or…well, insert whatever catch phrase (read: cliché) you want here. Nope, boys and girls. That’s not gonna do the trick.

You can’t really deal with anything in our present day—get closure, if you will—until you know who you can point the finger at and say, “I wouldn’t have this problem if it wasn’t for YOU!”

Well, I now know who I can point the finger at for my present malaise.
And I feel so much better knowing that, I’m about ready to go on Oprah and jump up and down on her couch. I’m not as cute to look at when I do those things as Tom Cruise is when he does them, but hey, that’s not my problem.

Brian Tracy is.
He did this to me.
Hallelujah! I finally know who’s to blame for this—and that it’s not my fault!
Do you realize what a terrific breakthrough this is for me?

I’ll have some more specifics in Part II…to come shortly. Once I remove the tongue from my own cheek, I’ll be able to explain much better anyway.
In the meantime, if you’re tired of me whining…blame Brian.
It's okay. He can take it.

Thoughts?
Janny