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.
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.
I recently had an epiphany on Up&Go’s claim of possessing the ‘goodness’ of 2 Weetbix and Milk.
It’s an inventive marketing ploy, to embed ‘goodness’ into something as simple as 3 breakfast ingredients, but the events of a certain yesterday have taught me that such combinations really are, inherently god sent.
I’ll break it down for you.
The events which took place less than 24 hours ago, saw me:
Experience one of my worst fears: getting a flat tyre, driving high speed on the freeway,
At the most inconvenient of times: on the way to an end of semester exam worth 70% of my overall mark,
In undesirable circumstances: 120km northwesterly winds, torrential rain and a deep dark sky.
Needless to say, my insurance finally came in handy after an almost perfect 3-year term on my P-Plates. I mean, I was running a stellar track record, and was was pretty proud of having acquired nothing more than a cheeky bump into the back of an old commodore, in my attempts to escape the Safeway car park up to this point.
But this was a whole new playing field, one requiring me to jump on board a tow truck, and effectively miss the essential 10 minute duration of exam reading time (not to mention the ENTIRE exam).
It was horrible, literally the worst possible thing that could have happened, but I have surprised myself in thinking that it was the BEST sequence of events to occur on that very, Melbourne day.
Firstly, I didn’t swerve off the road and cause a major collision, disrupting the homecoming traffic on a major freeway.
Secondly, I didn’t have to suffer a wrongly, prolonged exam duration – the lecturer accidentally prescribed the 3 hour exam as 4 hours on this exam day. Ew.
Thirdly, I came out alive without so much as a broken nail. AMEN!
My RACV ‘knight in shining armour’ says if I’d driven any further, the rubber part of my tyre would have completely stripped off, leaving me rolling fast paced on the metal part of my wheel – a prospect which could have been extremely catastrophic given the weather and road conditions.
This deserves another AMEN, because to be honest, I am in no position to accept any liability – I have a flight to all things Rome: Meatballs, Nonnas, Vespa rides and Italian stallions, in 48 hours time.
So essentially, I am one grateful cookie that these whole shenanigans played out they way they did. I am alive, I am safe and I finally got a chance to make use of those endless insurance fees.
Sure it doesn’t have the protein, energy and fibre of 2 Weetbix and Milk like my favourite, Chocolate Up&Go carton, but it’s pretty damn full of goodness.
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The world is continuing to inspire me with every passing day, and I’m noticing that even though I need at least 3 lifetimes to effectively execute my current bucket-list, and no mater how hard I try to practice some crazy, wild child ambitious dreaming, it seems that there will be some morsels of gold thrown my way, materializing fantasies I haven’t even ‘dreamt’, conjured, tasted, or felt yet.
It is precisely at this point, (when I see paddle-boards on someone’s car roof), that I not only realize that I now want to paddle-board along the entire bay, but also, that my bucket list will never be complete.
I will always need another leaf of paper as soon as all the dotted lines are filled, and a trip to the newsagent, once I have exasperated every option on my 4-pen.
Surely, as soon as I tick off hiking to Base Camp, the Everest trek will supersede my next day-off hike, and just when I think I have seen every crevice of Barcelona, I will acknowledge that Granada is only a short train ride south, with an inevitable backyard of even more spectacular things for me to touch, explore and appreciate.
From that location and perspective, I just know that another place, idea, experience, ride, walk, talk or book will come flying my way and a whole new world will open before me, for the thousandth time.
What I’m learning today, tomorrow, next week, and now, is that this world is fast, so fast that if you blink you might just miss it, the way that you might miss the Town Centre of Yackandandah, if you look down at your volume dial in an attempt to turn the radio up whilst driving. (Shout out to my fave, and only Yack-er, Harry Quealy).
We never really know where the de-tour is actually going to take us, or if we might just find the next big thing on Bean Hunter if we go left instead of right.
The implications and consequences of every thought, word, action, chance encounter, and brief meeting is something we will never truly grasp.
But that’s the beauty of it right? Making rules in order to break them, and setting plans so you can bail last minute for something better, greater, funner?
So keep dreaming, little dreamer, as Cinderella says, a dream is a wish your heart makes. Corny I know, but everyone loves a little Disney flashback (or maybe that’s just me…awks).
There’s a lot of noise at the moment about passion.
Passionfruit has always been delish, and Passiona a somewhat refreshing beverage.
But take away these suffixes, then your’e just left with little old passion. Just. Left. With. Passion. A 7 letter gem that shapes a lot of what the mystics call their ‘life-purpose’, what the entrepreneurs label their ‘calling’, and what I like to call, something bloody massive I just cant decide on.
I mean, personally, I want to be a writer, a dancer (currently I’m perfecting the moonwalk), a surfer (thanks Blue Crush), a corporate bitch, a band-member, a hippie who lives in a combi in Byron and sells handmade jewellery, a yoga instructor, a Buddhist monk, a mining magnate, Miranda Kerr… basically, everything under the sun.
I guess in my fiasco of options, I am desperately just trying to define my, wait for it… PASSION.
As I learn more about the said, 7 letter-er, I can safely say the two of us are slowly becoming friends.
Motivational books will tell you to “follow your passion” if happiness is what you truly seek, but thanks Confucius, how am I meant to follow something when I don’t even know what it looks like? There is no road-sign, no Google answer, not even a Wikipedia article that precisely tells me what my passion is. So, your notions of living a purposeful life are really of no help to me at all, not unless you help me find it anyway.
So I assigned myself a James Bond mission to get to the bottom of the P word. What I found was surprisingly simple.
What. Do. You. Love.
But here’s the catch, you have to limit it to 10. And list them in order.
These are your passions. Voila!
A 10-point list could very well include:
· Cheerleading,
· Shopping,
· Travelling,
· Eating McDonald’s fries,
· Being with friends,
· Reading,
· Watching the Disney Channel,
· Playing in the pool,
· Playing with dogs,
· Being in the sun.
Please note these are the Top 10 ‘passions’ of my 12 year-old sister.
So enlighten me, how on earth is she going to make a career out of being a dog-loving, junk-food munching, cheerleader? Truth is, mate, she’s not.
So as an informer big sister, do I tell her to discard all these fun things because, well honey, that ain’t gon’ pay the bills?
Nope, I tell her to lap them up, do these things, and do them often!
Do them for as long as you stop loving doing them, and when you do, find something more fun and enjoyable to replace them.
Because they are your passions.
(P.S she later argued, telling me that people actually can make money being a cheerleader, enough for a 50-cent cone anyway!)
I think what we get caught up in, is thinking that you have to find passion in a job or career, but truthfully, that would be condemning your crazy passions into a tiny hole and saying, ‘don’t move, breathe, or smile. No fun allowed’. Passion is so much more multi-faceted.
Sure, we would all love to be Oprah, or Kelly Slater, doing for a job what we LOVE, but let’s be realistic. Don’t think that if you are not able to land your dream job on Getaway, that you are going to live in misery, you can be as happy as Pharrell, even if you are the toilet cleaner at Flinders Street Station on a Saturday night.
But “how” you scream. I’ll impart my wisdom with you, it’s all about how you spend the remaining 77 hours of your week (considering a 35 hour work week and 56 crucial beauty sleep provisions).
That my sweet child, is where you live your passions. Read, dance, bake, write, sing, play, laugh and laugh some more!
Even if you just spend half your free time doing the things you love, you have already outbid your day job. Kapish?
So basically, yeah. Homework for this week, list your ten passions, and sacrifice Game of thrones to play out your own fanstasy!
I would love to hear your thoughts on the passionate topic, and what activities and things come up in your Top 10 list.
P.S Take a leaf from Janey’s book, this gal is one passionate painter!