A tribute to my (ex) co-worker. Who spent his days alternately hitting on me, snarking on my failures, and treating me like a secretary in front of clients. He began as a lawyer, found his way to Marketing at a small-time assessment publishing company, and then was fired for using company money to pay his car insurance. Last I saw, he had joined a "Find Your Strengths with Astrology" group on Facebook.
May he find happiness with all the cake in the world.
If you need more evidence than the hotness of his sexual exploits, his company produced this - the best airline safety announcement video in existence.
The exasperated bull gets me every time.
Richard Branson has everything I want - he's got swagger, money, opportunities for travel, a kick-ass accent, friends in high places, unparalleled business savvy, and complete and total freedom. He's a living example of someone who's got "the right stuff."
In some ways, he's a motivator, in other ways, he makes me doubt that the success I want to achieve in my own lifetime is even possible, because it seems that people who achieve what he's achieved show their signs of greatness from birth. The guy established his first successful business at 16, took constant big risks at every opportunity, failed in ways that didn't make an impact, and succeeded in ways that did. There was never a time in his life when he WASN'T the face of "Go Big or Go Home." If you believe that Branson's brand of success is one part intelligence and ability, and 5 parts guts, luck, and who you know, it's a little harder to believe that a pretty average 25 year old marketer chick could aspire to reach those heights.
I often find myself cruising through life, not taking too many risks, challenging the status-quo in ways that don't ruffle anyone's feathers TOO much, and I wonder if there's something else I should be doing to position myself in a place to take that big leap. And then I wonder - if I have to think this hard about it, maybe it's just not in the cards for me. The only way I can quell the anxiety of these thoughts is to try harder, to move up, to increase my reach - sometimes I wonder if that's what this whole European tour is about. Feeling like I've got what it takes if I can just find the right place, and be there waiting at the right time.
So it's 6am, and I am trying to understand the complex relationship between self-perception, reality, and time.
Although my brain has been convinced that it's 33 since I was 10 years old, and the voice in my head hasn't changed much since puberty, I can consistently look back and see that my actions belied the maturity I thought I possessed. It leads me to speculate - if I was wrong about myself at 10, wrong about myself at 15, wrong about myself at 20, what reassurances can my 25 year old self have that I am not making an ass of myself on a daily basis? That my thoughts are actually reasonable and sound?
And that is what maturity is, I imagine. That day when the thoughts in your head mesh with reality as you imagine them to do. You hit the magical age when everything falls into place.
That thought is reassuring, but only until I consider the flip side - senility. In my opinion, most people over 70 (maybe in today's world 80) are completely out of touch with reality, rigid to the point of crazy, and win the dubious "Most likely to bitch about the Jewish/black/gay family down the street" award. They are also the most likely group of people to complain the world is going to hell, vote against money for schools, and take issue with the DVD player, in spite of the fact that DVDs have been around for over a decade, and are hardly considered "new" technology or difficult to use.
Is there a window of time when you have it all figured out? When you are a reasonable, and highly functioning member of society? When you are finally considered "wise?" Someone who can confidently go forth, knowing they aren't leaving a massive trail of fucked-up behind them? Is that window smaller than we all think?
On that note, this is my favorite picture of Grandma P. - after our other elderly neighbor backed her car into the front yard. Is this the best we can hope for after a long and well lived life?
