Working Life’s G. P. S.

I get lost a LOT!  It’s not something I’m proud of, but I can actually get lost between the bedroom and the bathroom.

I love my GPS a LOT!  I call her Flo and she’s gotten me where I want to be on many occasions.

Flo needs two pieces of information in order to do her job.  She needs to know where I want to go and she needs to know where I am now.

Years ago my life was a bit off track…OK I was lost in the dark and no happy about where my lack of direction had left me.

My life needed the same two pieces of information:

Where did I want to be?

Where was I now?

Getting clear answers to these questions wasn’t easy; there was a lot of denial, low self-esteem, bad habits and WAY too many choices, but when I finally got clear and honest my life started moving in good positive directions.

There have been road blocks, detours, potholes and more than a few rough roads, but I’m loving the ride…most of the time. J

It’s time to get clear about where you are and where you want to go.

M*A*S*Hing it up with friends

Aside

M*A*S*H cast season 2

M*A*S*H cast seasons 8 – 11

I’ve been thinking a lot about friends lately, how much I love and cherish the people in my life who drive me crazy and keep me sane.

Thinking back about friends who have come and gone, and those who have been consistent, I realized that a circle of friends is like the cast of a long running TV show.  There are a core of regulars, cast members who are in every episode; we can count on them being in every episode, if one of them is missing you know there’s a reason why.  Then there are semi-regulars, people who are part of the character’s world but don’t show up every time we tune in, then there are characters (sometimes great characters) who show up for an episode and then disappear.  Sometimes these one shot character makes such an impression that they keep coming back, and sometimes a semi-regular becomes a main character.  I think the lesson here is pretty obvious; we have people who are permanent fixtures in our lives and people who come and go, and people who show up for a short time and then disappear.

When I was in High School one of my favorite Television shows was M*A*S*H.  It mixed comedy and drama seamlessly, the acting was brilliant and the writing was some of the best in the history of Television.  The show handled the replacement of lead characters better than most, M*A*S*H took place in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War.  The show ran 11 years (8 years longer than the Korean War) and had some major cast changes.

Here’s what M*A*S*H did right when someone left the show; they replace them with a totally new character (who filled the same basic role).  As an example: for the first five years of the show the main antagonist was Frank Burns (Larry Linville), an irritating, whining wimp who kissed ass, slavishly followed rules (except the one about cheating on his wife) and irritated everyone around him.  When he left the series, he was replaced by Charles Emerson Winchester the Third (David Ogden Stiers), a pompous, rich snob who looked down his regal nose at everyone around him…he still irritated the hell out of everyone, but he was anything but an ass kissing wimp.  We missed Frank, but Winchester was a great character and the show took on some super new directions with him on board.

Here’s the sucky truth: our circle of friends is going to change, especially during times when our whole lives are changing (finishing schools, new jobs, moving, marriage, kids).  Strangers become acquaintances, acquaintances become close friends and sometimes close friends move out of our lives.  The secret to surviving it all is to M*A*S*H it up.  Let new people in.  They can’t replace the friends we’ve lost, but they can keep us laughing and touch our hearts, if we let them be who they are and not who we think we need them to be.

A Challenge To Change

This blog doesn’t say anything about art or animation, but it’s my blog and I’m keeping it loose . . . that’s just how I roll.

I took up a challenge at the beginning of the week.  My friend Arlene Moshe; a dietician, inspirational blogger and awesome person; set up a three day fitness/health challenge.  It was called “How to break the cycle of not following through . . . this is a bit of a problem area for me, so I signed up.

http://www.arlenemoshe.com/2013/01/16/how-to-break-through-the-cycle-of-not-following-through/

I got an e-mail with a HUGE list of simple small tasks that could make my health and fitness better.  I gulped down my feeling of being overwhelmed and then read the whole e-mail.  I had to choose one.  ONE.  ONLY ONE!!!!   Make one small change.  The pressure came off and for three days I packed some healthy snacks and ate them between classes (and sometimes in front of classes – nothing like modeling a healthy lifestyle for the youngins).    I’ve had healthy snacks now for a week and on Monday (tomorrow) I’m going to add some gentle, easy, simple morning exercise.

Arlene’s smart.

The part of her challenge that I loved the most (seriously, check it out) is the difference she makes between the words “should” “could” “would” and “WILL”.

There are a lot of things I should do…there’s not enough room in this blog for that list.

There are a lot of things I could do…that usually gets followed by “if” I could do _____ if.  So far, that didn’t work out for me.

Don’t even get me started on would.  I would do a lot of things if (this usually ends with blaming someone else).

Last week I took a hard solid look at what I WILL do . . . and I did it.

I tell my students that stretching too far or too fast is a good way to hurt yourself.  I ate my broccoli, almonds and yogurt and . . . am down a pound.  Weight loss wasn’t the goal, but I’m feeling a lot better, it might be the broccoli, but I think it’s about celebrating a small victory.