“Careful now, you’re so beautiful
When you’ve convinced yourself
That no one else is quite as beautiful.”
– Dashboard Confessional, So Beautiful

I hesitate to say all, but I will say most of having a defining moment in our lives. At least one. Probably two, or three, or more than a dozen over time. A moment when your world threatens to fall apart. When you have the choice [and you do, have a choice that is] to either slide down the slope of embarrassment, resentment, shame, regret, and self-loathing….or to pick yourself up and say, “How can I turn this into something positive? How can I make myself better because of this?”

I will let you in on two in my life.

The first one is perhaps an extended moment. I had cancer when I was 18 months old and I lost my left eye to it. I don’t remember ever having two eyes. I don’t know what my parents went through when they found out their daughter had surgery and only had a 40% chance to live.

All I know is I was a kid with one eye, and I was [and am] different. I can’t put eyeshadow and eyeliner on properly because my eyelids don’t sit symmetrically. I’ll never be a model and I can’t take the perfect selfie unless one eye is hidden by hair.

But I made a choice, so many times growing up, to not be ashamed of this. Sure, there are days that I wake up and wish that I had two eyes. That I looked like everyone else. That I could look to the side in a photo and not look like a weird caricature of someone. But it doesn’t define me, at least not in a bad way. I make one-eye jokes all the time because it helps let people know that it’s okay. It’s okay to talk about it. It’s okay to ask, because I’m okay with it.

Having one eye is something I can’t change, so I might as well get over it and just be me.

In high school, a friend and I decided to run for Student Government Secretary. We knew we would lose, because we were running against the popular guy. So we decided to make the most ridiculous speeches possible since they were broadcast to the entirety of our 2500 person high school. He made an entire speech about the song ‘My Humps’ with hand drawn pictures included. It was amazing.

I took my eye out on camera.

The reactions were varied. Some people championed it. Some people thought it was hilarious (which was the intent). But I also got anonymous messages telling me I should kill myself. I got people telling me I was gross and disgusting and that I should be ashamed. I could have let these things get to me, but I didn’t. In fact, I repeated the whole thing in college, earning myself the nickname ‘Leela’ with the USC Drumline.

Sure, some people think it’s gross and weird, but I don’t. I simply won’t let how other people view my physical appearance define who I think I am.

My second moment is a more of a ‘moment’ and in fact an ‘ah ha!’ moment to put it frankly. Without going into too many details, before classes even started my senior year of college, I got called into the office of our band director and told that I couldn’t be Drumline Section Leader anymore. In fact, I couldn’t be any type of leadership. I couldn’t even go on my senior trip to Hawaii.

And it was all my fault. Someone else may have been the reason the leadership found out about what I had done, but it was my fault.

As someone who spent many years of high school and college depressed and blaming herself for everything that went wrong, I went back to my house and locked myself in my room. As the others involved raged about it and threatened to quit band (and some did), I spent a lot of time lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling.

I surprised myself that night. Usually, I would have broken up. And by ‘broken up’ I mean totally and completely lost it. I would have cried, and sworn, and told myself I was such a miserable idiot for putting myself in that situation. I would have tried to drink it away and become even more of a mess.

But it clicked for me that night. I could do all that, and sure, it would be easy. It would be so easy to just give in. But it would be more useful – more useful by far – to do the difficult thing of saying,

“Yes, I screwed up. Badly. Really badly. But I won’t let this moment define me. I won’t give in. I won’t give up. I will move forward, and I will move forward now. I will find some way to make this experience a positive thing. I don’t know how I’m going to manage to do that, but I’m going to do it.”

And I did.

I still think back to that day wondering where on earth that mindset came from. I wonder what woke up inside of me. I wonder what finally realized that I can define myself. I can choose to define myself, even when I’ve made a major mistake.

And you can too.

“A certain shade of green,
tell me, is that what you need?
All signs around say move ahead.
Could someone please explain to me your ever present lack of speed? “
– Incubus, A Certain Shade of Green

While I was running yesterday, I was thinking about how glad I am to be starting on the path of a new career, but how I wish I had started it earlier. This is a dangerous path to go down. It starts you down the path of, “what if?” which usually leads straight to regret. Regret for past choices, regret for not taking a chance, regret for not speaking your mind.

Here’s the thing. You can’t go back. Ever. The sooner you get over that, the happier you’ll be.

I’ve made quite a few bad decisions in my life and I’m positive I’ll make more in the future. But any time I catch myself thinking, “If only I had…” I stop myself. A better way to think about it is, “Ok, so I did (or didn’t do) that. What steps can I take in the future to be better? What can I do now?” 

There’s simply no point in thinking about what you might have done, except to learn from it. But the ‘what if’ path is ludicrous. While quantum physics tells us that time runs in both directions (and that there may be infinite universes), for those of us on the macroscopic scale, we only know how to move forward on one timeline.

All mistakes are learning opportunities. All missed chances are chances to learn how to seize the moment in the future. All choices tell us about who we really are.

The more you dwell on the past, the more you get stuck there. The less you see the future and the less you move ahead into that future. I know it’s trite to say that ‘everyone makes mistakes,’ but it’s true. We all do. The best of us know to dust ourselves off and move on, without hesitation, without delay, and without our best friend sitting on our couch telling us to get over it already!

So stop wasting time wondering what could have been. Stop beating yourself up over that thing you did a week ago, a year ago, or ten years ago. It happened. Or it didn’t happen, depending on what it was. Either way, that time has passed, and all you have currently, is now.

*author’s note: there are expletives in this post. read at your own discretion*

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” – Gone With The Wind

After my last post, Contradictions, my friend asked me the following in a Facebook comment:

“What do you think about people’s right to privacy and the outing of these people? Do you think celebrities, particularly those who make a living off of showing their private lives and seek to control the private lives of others, deserve the same rights?”

It is a well-worded and thought out question, but I haven’t responded until now because I didn’t know how to put into words what I want to say. I think I’ve figured it out, so here it goes.

I don’t care. I really, truly, don’t care and don’t to waste my time thinking up an opinion on it, except the opinion that I don’t care. I merely used the Ashley Madison topic as a jumping off point to my own thoughts, which is where I would like to stay.

In today’s world where those of us in first world countries are all connected by the internet and can get news via tweet, email, facebook, instagram, you name it at any second of the day, everyone feels entitled to have an opinion on everything. And, (for lack of a better phrase) god help us, to share that opinion.

In no specific order, the first reason why I don’t care to answer the questions above directly is because I am not excited by the thought of getting into heated comment-debates online with people. The amount of stupidity and ignorance that goes into most online comments makes me cringe. If I have an opinion on an article I’ve read, I usually go talk to an actual person who is sitting with me about my views. I almost never leave a comment. Nothing comes across the way you want it to and people hide their ignorance behind their keyboard and their 140 characters. I’m just not into it. Plus, other than generating conversation about a topic I’m really not interested in, leaving a comment on my own facebook wall doesn’t actually accomplish anything.

Reason Number 2: I just really don’t care to debate this particular topic, or most news/politics related topics in general. I’m not interested in most current events. I know that everyone in my life tells me I should be, but to be honest, if I can get through my day, accomplish my goals, and interact with my friends, then I really don’t care about whether or not it’s right to ‘out’ people who paid to get help cheating on their spouse. Really, it has no impact in my life whether that’s right or wrong, and whether celebrities have a right to privacy even though they live public lives. And my opinion won’t change what they do.

I simply don’t give a fuck about most other topics that have no direct (or significant but indirect) impact on my life. Because my life, and the lives of the people that I interact with, are what concern me. I don’t have room in my busy life to sit around and think about whether or not I care about if hackers have a right to do what they do.

I know to a lot of you this makes me callous, uncaring, and selfish. I am all of those things, to some degree. I won’t deny that. But to me, it means I don’t waste my day worrying about or thinking about things that don’t help me personally progress in life. Being a little selfish helps you get what you want. Being callous means you aren’t hurt or affected by every misstep in life. Being uncaring means you don’t get sucked into trying to fix every problem of the people around you.

Which leads right into reason number 3: I don’t have time, and I don’t think it’s important either, to care about issues like this. I’m currently painting an aisle runner for my sister’s wedding that’s going to take 2 full days or more. I finished my online Ruby course today. I have Udacity courses to watch and projects to complete. I have a ‘Learn to Program’ book to read. I am reading/critiquing a science fiction book written by a friend of my dad. I’m trying to switch my health insurance plan and apply for a scholarship.

Seriously, I couldn’t possibly care less about the rights of celebrities. I’ll let other people spend their precious daily fucks giving a fuck about that topic. Mine are used for more important things like, ‘did I write this Ruby module correctly?’

Now, don’t get me wrong, if I’m drunk you can get me to debate almost anything, even things I don’t really care about. Because I’m already drunk and not doing anything productive.

Anyway, this post may be a littler harsher than most of my others, and it certainly is written in a different tone, but feel free to like it or not because frankly, I don’t give a fuck. 🙂

“My skin is not my own.”
-Leto II, Children of Dune

There’s a lot coming out in the past few days about the Ashley Madison website hack, namely that there’s at least 2 ‘major’ people who have been preaching/championing marriage and family while secretly having Ashley Madison accounts to for the sole purpose of cheating on their spouse. It got me thinking about contradictions.

How can people live with such a major contradiction in their lives? On a daily basis, they have to wake up every morning knowing that they are going to put on one face for the world while secretly wearing another underneath.

It’s extremely difficult for me to imagine, because I simply can’t do it. Well, I guess I can do it, but I really dislike doing it. But the more I ponder it, the more I convince myself that most people can fake who they are and what they believe on a daily basis, to a greater or less degree.

I see it every day at work. People who confess in private that they hate their job, they hate the politics, they hate the management game…these people still put on a smile and play along when the right people are around. They may know that there’s a contradiction buried inside them [I hate doing this but I’m going to fake liking it anyway] and yet they keep going. When there’s a question burning within them that they want to shout at a manager, they simply don’t.

I’m terrible at this. I hate wearing a mask. I hate putting on a personality at work, or in front of friends, or honestly, anywhere. I simply can’t live with the contradictions.

I’m no good at being someone I’m not, and while it often makes me an abrasive person, I still think it’s a good thing.

Trying to hold in my opinions makes me stressed out. I bottle it up, I get frustrated, and then I unload on my husband at night. I don’t like that. I understand it’s how so many people live their lives, but can’t I just be me, the whole day, every day? Shouldn’t people be allowed to just be themselves?

I’m not sure if we are afraid of what others will think of us, or if we are afraid of ourselves. Maybe they both amount to the same thing.

I have some advice to you, my readers. If you’re living in a contradiction: stop. Even if it means hurting someone, even if it means leaving your safe and secure job, even if it means finally admitting to yourself something you’ve been running from.

Who knows, maybe you’ll even have a chance to figure out why you let yourself live in that situation. Maybe you’ll allow yourself to learn something about who you actually are – the good and the bad – without hiding behind who you wish you were.

“Fake it til you make it” isn’t always a good strategy, because there’s a big difference between wanting something you can achieve and pretending to be someone or something that you’re not.

“Go then, there are other worlds than these.”
– Jake Chambers, The Gunslinger by Stephen King

In my industry, you hear a lot about people leaving and then coming back. As more people find out I’m leaving, I hear this on a daily basis in various forms. I get to hear lots of stories about how so-and-so went into ‘the commercial side’ but came back because the money was better. Or the benefits were better. Or they just didn’t like the other culture.

It’s a warning people feel they need to give me. I’m young, I don’t know what I want, and I will come back. So I shouldn’t burn any bridges.

But there’s a disconnect – and a big one – with how people at work see it and how my long time friends see it. My friends know that there is no way, and I mean NO WAY, that I will ever go back to working for another giant corporate aerospace company.

Simply put, it just isn’t me.

I’m a person who makes decisions quickly, because I think about things from every side almost obsessively. I’ve put an extreme amount of thought into this decision. I’ve also considered a lot of other options over the last 4 years. I may be young, but this is what I want.

I can’t guarantee it’s what I want in the future, but after years of being in aerospace, I can say with absolute confidence I know what I don’t want and there is no way that’s changing.

If you didn’t attend my wedding, you wouldn’t know that the rabbi told a version of a story about how my husband and I came to find each other. She learned this from our multiple [required, per Jewish custom] conversations before our wedding. While my husband dated whomever came along and eventually happened to stumble upon the woman for him, my path was far more deliberate.

I learned from each relationship I chose. I didn’t stay long if I knew it wasn’t going to work, even if I still liked the person. I learned what I liked and I didn’t like, and I didn’t settle for someone with characteristics I’d already ruled out as desirable. When I wanted someone, I went for them.

My career is no different. I know what I like and what I don’t, and while I know people are going to continue to look at me and think she’ll be back, I know they’re wrong.

I move forward whenever possible. There are new things to learn, new places to see, and other worlds to experience.

There’s more to life than this.

And there’s more to life than waking up every day knowing you’re not in the career you should be in.

“When you have insomnia, you’re never really asleep, and you’re never really awake” – Fight Club

Depending on how well you know me, you may already understand the title to this blog. It’s about time I explain it for those of you who don’t.

Since high school, I haven’t slept well. Actually, I thought I slept just fine until sometime during high school or college I started talking to people about their sleep. I was absolutely floored to find out a few things about sleep that don’t apply to me at all.

1. Falling asleep takes 20 minutes or less
2. Waking up during the night doesn’t happen often, but if it does, they fall back asleep quickly
3. They wake up feeling refreshed
4. Having control over your dreams is uncommon (actually, really uncommon)
5. Dreams are often mundane

The more I talked to people, the more I was generally shocked. I take generally between 45 and 120 minutes to fall asleep. I wake up 5 – 25 times a night, and while this didn’t used to be as much of a problem, in the last year I’ve been having a much harder time falling back asleep. I don’t think I’ve ever felt refreshed upon waking up. I’m not even sure I believe people who say they feel refreshed when they wake up because it just seems so unbelievable.

And when I do sleep, I lucid dream. I’m going to make up some numbers since I have never tried to track this accurately, but I would say that I am aware I’m dreaming about 90% of the time and have control (to varying degrees) over what’s going on in my dream about 70% of the time. Most of my dreams are pretty intense. Full on adventures in crazy fantasy lands where I can fly and there’s some goal I’m trying to accomplish. Or people/things are trying to kill me. Or there’s some puzzle to solve.

It’s pretty exhausting.

I feel like I’m tired all the time even though my body is just used to it. I’ve been in  situations where I’ve dreamed something so real that I’ve woken up still believing it actually happened. I’ll check a drawer a day later to get something that doesn’t exist. I’ve even forgotten if a conversation I had with someone was real.

Sometimes, the lines between what happened in real life and what happened in a dream get blurred.

I have finally started down the path of getting all of this sorted out. I had my first sleep study a few weeks ago to rule out sleep apnea as a cause of insomnia. There’s probably more sleep studies in my future.

But the thing that is guaranteed to make me instantly annoyed with you to ask me what I’ve tried and to have me try your home remedy. I promise you, I’ve tried most of them. I’m sure they work for people who on occasion take 30 – 40 minutes to fall asleep. I’m sure it’s even worked for you before.

If I could fix my sleeping problems with hot tea, reading before bed, no ‘electronic screens’ for 30 minutes before bed, a darkened bedroom, a quiet bedroom, melatonin, sleep aids, Zzzquil, more exercise, healthy eating, not eating immediately before going to bed, going to bed around the same time every night, no alcohol, etc. etc. etc.
…don’t you think I would have tried that already?

Oh yeah, I have. Because I can’t sleep and it totally sucks.

I promise you, my insomnia isn’t fixed by a combination of all these little tricks.  I am though, currently trying the ‘if you can’t sleep, just stop trying to force yourself to sleep’ method because, well, why not keep trying things? I’m a little desperate.

Anyway, this isn’t my most motivational or uplifting post. I suppose it is simply an ‘explanation post’ of where the title came from. Lucid dreams are sometimes called waking dreams since you are ‘awake’ within your dream. I want to take control of my life the way I take control of my dreams. I don’t want to float through life watching things happen to me the way a lot of people feel when dreaming. I want to wake up every day feeling like I’m in control of what happens to me, because that’s what makes me happy.

And with that, it’s probably time to (attempt) to get some sleep.

“Are you where you thought you’d be?
So beautiful and only twenty-three.
Opposition rests in the hearts
with no, with no, with no opportunity.
It’s not that we don’t talk,
it’s just no one really listens and honesty fades
like a politician lost in the course
all smiles and no one remembers our names.
With downcast eyes
there’s more to living than being alive.”
– Anberlin, Alexithymia

It’s easy to fall into a routine that’s comfortable. But when you’re trying to achieve something you haven’t done before, ‘comfortable’ is a feeling you should be wary of. It’s the opposite of pushing yourself, of testing your limits and finding your boundaries. It’s a way to let yourself think you’re moving forward when you really aren’t.

If you want to progress and achieve your next goal, you have to push yourself. You have to do something different and you have to force yourself to be uncomfortable.

No one wants to be uncomfortable. You may look at fit people doing intense exercise thinking that they’re just used to it and they probably feel OK. They don’t. I’m sure they feel terrible a lot of the time. But they’re doing it anyway. If you don’t feel uncomfortable, you aren’t going to get better. It takes a lot of mental strength to decide that you’re going to purposely do something that you’re not sure you can do or that you are afraid of or that is going to be mentally, physically, or emotionally stressful.

It isn’t easy for me, and it isn’t easy for anyone. It’s a decision you make, not just something that happens automatically when you decide you want something.

I want to get a PR on my next half marathon and I know that if I keep running comfortably, I won’t get there. Wanting it doesn’t help unless I really push myself to follow through with it on every run in the next 2 months. I could do every run on my schedule without really pushing myself.

I usually avoid running in the heat (which for me is anything above 75 degrees) because it’s difficult and I hate being that hot while running. I’ve decided yesterday I need to get over this because if I keep doing what’s comfortable I’ll never learn how to run in the heat and I’ll always have a reason [read: excuse] not to run during the summer.

Similarly, last year I forced myself to learn how to ride moguls on a snowboard because even though I’m an advanced rider on other terrain, I was missing a huge portion of the mountain. I was sick of it. I finally faced my fear of looking like a beginner for an entire season and just did it. It was terrible at first but after a few weeks I finally got the hang of how to make the turns and started enjoying myself. Now instead of swearing (a lot) every time I find myself in the middle of a run full of bumps, I seek them out and end the run with a big smile on my face.

Allowing yourself to stay where you are comfortable provides no sense of accomplishment.

Most of us are guilty of not pushing ourselves yet complaining that we don’t see any change. It’s a mental pattern you have to break out of it you want real change in your life. Unfortunately, even if you break your habits and make a change, it’s incredibly easy to slide right back into your warm, happy comfort zone.

It’s why my second tattoo is a question: Are you where you thought you’d be?

I always want to keep asking myself that question and all the others that come along with it. Am I where I thought I’d be? If not, why? Maybe I’m not where I thought I would be, but is it because I’m in an even better place? Do I need to make any changes to my life to get to where I want to be? What choices did I make that brought me here? Would I make different decisions now? What do I want to do next?

I got the tattoo not just as a reminder to me, but as a question for everyone else in my life. You should always ask yourself these questions, at least every six months. It helps you take charge of your life and it helps you realize when you’ve allowed yourself to become comfortable. You may not even be able to answer them at the time, but at least you’re thinking about it.

So, are you where you thought you’d be?

Are you pushing yourself or are you allowing yourself to be comfortable?

“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”
-William James

Today at work I received an email titled “Implementation of ‘Fun Spaces'” from the Director of Operations of my division targeted to all “Young Employees” in my division. It was a link to a four question (anonymous) survey which went like this:

1. What is your primary work location? (pick one)
2. With many people working long hours, [we] are considering implementing rejuvenation or “Fun” spaces at our campuses. Do you like this idea? (yes, no, not sure, etc.)
3. What kind of “Fun” activities would you like to see on campus? (video games, table tennis, foosball, billiards, other)
4. Approximately how often would you expect to use the “Fun” spaces? (choose a frequency)

I filled out the survey, then sat at my computer and laughed. They couldn’t be serious, right? There wasn’t even a space for comments or suggestions on the survey. Also, they’re calling it ‘fun spaces’ as if somehow that entices us Millennials?

Needless to say, I’m not one to stay quiet. And since this high level employee made the mistake of including their name on the original email, I took the time to write a (quite long) email back to him expressing my thoughts.

I can say honestly that adding a pool table to the foosball table we already have at my site isn’t going to change my mind about leaving the company or suddenly make me tell my young friends that this is a cool, hip, fun place to work. The whole culture needs to change.

I assumed I wouldn’t get a reply, but I got one an hour later that was actually pretty surprising. He agreed with me and understands that bigger culture changes need to be made. He appreciated my honesty and sincerity. Also, he wants to meet up to chat in person about it and any other ideas I might have when he’s in town in two weeks. I’d say it was worthwhile sending my (possibly offensive and definitely candid) email response to him.

But I will bet right now that I’m the only person about of 1000+ people receiving that email that responded to him. Know why? Because I have no fear when it comes to speaking up, and you shouldn’t either.

Recently at work I also got fed up with some of the management making just another decision without consulting us little minions, aka the ones who are stuck doing all of the rework. They presented to us yet another half-baked plan that hadn’t really been thought out. After 30 minutes of us grilling them on the details (most of which had no answers) I finally just said, “Look, I’m not doing this until you come up with an actual plan, and neither should anyone else.” [note: this is paraphrased]

They agreed that we shouldn’t do anything yet (the opposite of their original direction) and that they would think about it some more and get back to us with a better solution. Which they did, saving us little minions hours of unnecessary rework and stress.

Afterwards, a co-worker told me that I was her hero. But the thing is, I’m not a hero, I just don’t have a fear of saying what’s on my mind even when it’s to people above me.

Now, acting this way may get you voted “Most Argumentative” as it did for my classic one-on-one showdown with a 10th grade English teacher (among other things), but the point is things get done when you’re honest, open, straight-forward, and unafraid.

There’s nothing that makes me special or more capable of speaking up. There’s nothing that’s preventing anyone from doing it except themselves. Even when you think you might get in trouble (for example, telling a manager something they don’t want to hear), it usually ends out working in your favor.

Don’t be afraid to ask, to question, to give the wrong answer, or to demand respect. Don’t be afraid to tell someone why they are wrong. Don’t sit around hoping someone like me says the thing that’s on your mind, and being disappointed when they don’t.

Once you start speaking up and voicing your opinion, you’ll realize there was nothing to be afraid of to begin with.