Category Archives: General

A Cookie Monster Reverie.

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Image via Shop Style.

Vulnerability. It’s one of those onomatopoeic words – you know, the ones that sound precisely like what they mean.

[vuhl-ner-uh-buh l]

It’s slow and fragile and difficult.

But like green vegetables and red wine, as I grow up I’m beginning to grasp wholeheartedly, and fall madly in love with the things I once hated.

Vulnerability is one of them.

But before you get this image in your mind of a girl sitting alone reading Jane Austen novels, shy and meek and timid, stop immediately.

I’m talking about being vulnerable from a place of tumultuous, delicious excitement – the ‘risk it for the biscuit’ type.

Because in risking something, whether it be money on the roulette table, ego in a relationship, becoming friends with your parents on Facebook or ordering anything other than a Chicken Parmagiana on Wednesday night, there’s this wicked sense of vulnerability. Couldn’t it all go totally wrong?

Or right? So right.

I think it’s borne from this underlying sense of self-entitlement, which has me sure that the cookie jar is infinite. That maybe today there are Oreos on offer, but tomorrow could be teddy bear biscuits and the next day choc chip (the Coles Farmhouse ones though, amirite?). I hope you’re getting my analogy.

Is the willingness to take risks, and be vulnerable and putty-like in the hands of a new experience borne from the optimism that nothing can really go wrong?

I’d like to think so.

As the new year rings in (for me to the sound of Flight Facilities, YAY!), I’m hoping some of the #resolutions come not from a place of getting everything together, but instead, in pursuit of getting lost in a deep spiral of vulnerability, of risk-taking.

Be okay with not knowing the answers, trust the cookie monster to deliver the goods. Everyday.

Thinking in Yesterday’s.

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Image via Hair Silver

Amongst a new found adoration for The Weeknd’s album, and a (definitely not new) love for the actual weekend, there’s a new tune on repeat in my little head at the moment.

It goes something like this: min. effort, max. effect.

I’m convinced there’s a sort of profound escrow, like an upside down u-shape of effort vs output. We think that more time, more reflection, more effort and energy will result in something better, bigger, grander – something to be ‘more prouder’ of. (That is terrible English, and I’m not sure prouder is even a word, but you get me.)

It’s a joke, because this incessant perjury of ‘perfectionism’ is really quite paralysing.

How many things are put off, delayed, revisited, re-discussed, redone or still left untouched because it’s still not 4000% perfect?

While I always thought a messy bun looked better than a structured ballerina one anyway, I’m learning real quick, that done, is more often than not, better than perfect.

I’m also learning with this finite schedule, that shit needs to get done. Yesterday.

Today my food for thought is this delicious nugget: don’t let perfection get in the way of progress.

We’re done now.

Imperfect, but done.

ily.

SB.

Coco Made Me Do It.

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Image via I’d Throw Glitter in The Air, Tumblr.

It’s funny; I’d like to think of myself as someone who thrives on learning new things.

I really want to learn how to play guitar, to speak Spanish, and to master the art of cooking rice without totally ruining another good ScanPan. I also want to learn SEO and how to use chopsticks like a pro and be able to snap from raw story-telling to intensely formal corporate email writing in a second. Can I also learn how to use MailChimp, and change a spare tyre, and bake the perfect chocolate soufflé? Please and thank you.

A lot like you, there’s a lot I’ll get to, one day.

Keywords: one day.

What I’m finding though, that learning doesn’t happen from a place of ‘really wanting to’, there’s no motivation, scorecard, satanic trainer, or authoritative accountability associated with such an aloof desire. Not for me anyway.

The day dream of playing chords like Taylor Swift for the pleasure of campfire banter and impression of a Matt Corby-esque, man-bun is just not strong enough. And learning how to make an app just because it could be useful one day, doesn’t have a rich enough timeline to meet.

I still haven’t learnt any of these things, and I probably won’t. Why would I? I don’t need to.

Herein lies the catch: necessity equals results.

I’ll have you know, I’m becoming an expert in Google Adwords because my job demands it, I’m learning how to cook the perfect Spanish dinners because I now live out of home, and I discovered how to pump up my tyre because Dad wasn’t with me when a dose of air was vital if I wanted to roll any closer towards Yoga class.

Only out of desperation I skilled up.

The lesson is blatantly clear then, that nothing will happen unless it’s forced, demanded and required. End of.

Now I think of one of my favourite proverbs, Parkinson’s Law, which states that, “work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”

As a student, I know this to be supremely legit: you can either smash out an assignment in two weeks, or go from zero to hero in a record 4 hours with the company of a significant amount of caffeine if required.

Using old friend Parkinson to our advantage, there’s just one thing to do: get accountable.

And most of all, uncomfortable to the point where everything is new. Because by jumping over the edge the body has no choice but to follow, and live on. We hope.