Monthly Archives: April 2015

Letting Go of the “Achievement Demons”

April 8, 2015 By in Grab Bag 2 Comments

Do you feel this gnawing need to achieve something great? Do you feel like you’re constantly striving? I have and I do. Throughout high school, I strove to get into the best college I could, make Dean’s List in college, and after college, my dreams were always huge and perhaps unrealistic, “make my own feature film,” “sell a screenplay,” “have a play reviewed in the NY Times.” Now I understand that these goals can take years comprised of steady work that builds over time. But when I was 24, I assumed I could accomplish them in a year, and when I didn’t, I felt woefully inadequate that I had “failed.”

That’s why this article by Andrew Yang, CEO of Venture for America, resonated  so much with me:  The dark side of American’s achievement culture. Yang talks about this drive to succeed, saying:

I jokingly call the hang-ups associated with a drive to achieve as “the Achievement Demons.” When I was growing up, I’d study for days trying to get good grades. When I’d get an “A,” I’d feel elation for about 30 seconds, and then a feeling of emptiness. Rinse and repeat.

Man, I can totally relate to that. His article is fascinating, and he gives some tips and tricks to avoid letting the achievement demons get you down. My favorite quote in the article is this one:

“FOMO (fear of missing out) is the enemy of valuing your own time.”

I’ve never thought about FOMO that way, but that’s exactly what it is. When your really think about it, FOMO is the biggest self-insult there is. You’re basically devaluing and insulting whatever you’re doing at that moment. It’s kind of like when you have a guest at a party who leaves early to go to another party that will seemingly be more fun. But  in this case, you’re the guest at your own party who wants to leave!

Anyhow, I highly recommend reading this article if you ever feel like you’re constantly striving.

Portrait of a Thirtysomething- Kari Bentley-Quinn

April 7, 2015 By in Career, Friendships, Grab Bag Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

We’re so happy to have Kari Bentley-Quinn as our next featured guest in our new Portrait of a Thirtysomething series! Portrait of a Thirtysomething asks our invited guests (in their 30s) questions about their lives and what this decade means to them.

Kari Bentley Quinn is an absolutely amazing playwright and we co-founded the theater company, Mission to (dit)Mars together along with two other wonderful cofounders. Kari and I met a few years ago through another theater group, Packawallop Productions, and have been friends ever since! Jane and I are thrilled to have her here!

Enjoy her beautiful interview below, and be sure to check out her website and say hi!  http://www.karibentleyquinn.com/

Kari Bentley Quinn

“The challenge is “how do I live as happy and fulfilled a life as possible?” At the end of the day, the person I most have to answer to is myself. I can’t live for anyone else – my husband, my family, my friends – I have to be a whole person. And I think that’s hard sometimes, but it becomes more necessary.”

Name/Age/Location:
 
Kari Bentley-Quinn/ 33/ Astoria/Woodside border, in the amazing borough of Queens (Woodstoria?)
 
Occupation: 
Playwright/Executive Assistant (proud hybrid for ten years strong!)
 
What’s the accomplishment you’re most proud of in your 30s so far? 
It has to be the fact that I went back to grad school after nearly ten years out of undergrad. I am getting my MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College, and I graduate in May, which I can hardly believe. It was an absolutely terrifying thing to do, but I did it! Well, almost. Still have a few things left to do. But I am 90% of the way there. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done – mentally, physically, emotionally, creatively. I did it while working a full time job. I don’t know if I would have been able to do this in my 20s when I was less sure of myself. I also got an agent last year, so that was really nice. And I’ve had two productions!
What do you NOT miss about your 20s? 
I think just the crushing uncertainty and working so hard to have people take you seriously. The 20s are the time you’re supposed to be making a lot of mistakes, but is also the time when you become a full blown adult. Trying to reconcile the fact that you’re still young and inexperienced with making good enough decisions that your future won’t be a wreck is tough. There were a lot of wonderful things about my 20s. But there were a lot of scary and bad things, too. I would say that my early 20s were actually quite awful. My mid to late 20s, less so.
 
Looking back, what shouldn’t you haven’t been afraid of in your 20s? 
Being a failure. Not making everyone happy. Money stuff. What people thought of me. Being fat. Not working hard enough. Getting older in general. What my future was going to be like. I spent a lot of my 20s freaking out about stuff that 1. was impossible to know the end result of and 2. didn’t matter one bit. I am a huge Type A perfectionist and I think it held me back more than it moved me forward!
Any surprises about what your 30s are like? 
Yes – which is that I kind of love being in my 30s! I feel much more confident and assured in professional situations. I think I’m a way better writer and just more capable in basically every aspect of my life. I have a strong marriage and absolutely amazing friends. I also like that its totally okay to stay home on Friday night when you’re in your thirties. I have learned to value my downtime, to fiercely protect it, and to say no. Learning to say no has been super important.
 
What do you find most challenging about this decade? 
While in some ways I am much better than my 20s, I find that I have less stamina and way less bullshit tolerance. I also found a WHITE hair on my head (thanks grad school!), and while I don’t like to think of myself as a vain person, seeing the fine lines start to appear is a little humbling. I also think its tough for women to age. Youth and attractiveness are so overemphasized for young women, and as much as we all like to think we’re above it, the messaging we have received is really damaging. I really hope that we stop that in future generations.
I also am just more aware of my mortality in general. I don’t know if that’s bad – but the challenge is “how do I live as happy and fulfilled a life as possible?” At the end of the day, the person I most have to answer to is myself. I can’t live for anyone else – my husband, my family, my friends – I have to be a whole person. And I think that’s hard sometimes, but it becomes more necessary.
 
What are you most looking forward to? Be it tonight, next month or ten years from now.
 
More travel, more love, more laughter, more time off, less giving of fucks about dumb stuff. I think I’ve made good choices. At least I hope I have!
 
What would you like to hear more about regarding the thirties. What articles would you like to read?
 
I’d love to read more about the challenges women face professionally as they get older. I think these struggles change and continue as we age and as our lives change.

Capstone or Cornerstone Marriage?

April 6, 2015 By in Relationships 1 Comment

How do you view marriage? What does it mean to you? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what marriage means to me. When you’ve been engaged for almost two years and haven’t started planning a wedding, you’re obviously going to do a little soul searching as to why you’re waiting and what it all means. To really wrap my head around it, I’ve tried to distance myself from the entire industrial marriage complex and the opinions of friends and family with the hopes of understanding the institution for myself.

I recently came across a fascinating distinction between two types of marriage, Capstone and Cornerstone, coined by a study put together by the National Marriage Project.

Here’s a loose definition:

Capstone marriage: Where marriage is seen as a kind of reward after you’ve accomplished a certain number of goals in your life, whether they are professional, personal, etc.

Cornerstone marriage: It’s where your marriage is your starting point, something from which you build a life.

To me, I’d have to say I view marriage more in the capstone way. It’s like an icing on the cake sort of deal. So, perhaps the reason I’ve delayed marriage is because I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished my career goals. But the scary thing is – considering how challenging my career choice is, I could be waiting FOREVER to get married if I’m waiting to be a professional success.

When I initially read about these definitions, I assumed that capstone and cornerstone marriages are simply a matter of age: if you marry young, that’s probably a cornerstone marriage. And marrying older is probably a capstone marriage. But, since I may marry before I’m professionally successful, is that a cornerstone marriage?

Semantics aside: I have reached one conclusion. I do think it’s important to mark transitions. Even if it’s a very personal marker between you and your partner. Marking the beginning of a new, committed journey. And to back that up, there was a statistic on the National Marriage Project that those people who “slide” into life transitions – i.e., those who don’t consciously decide to mark a transition by an official wedding and simply start co-habitating together,  are less likely to enjoy happy marriages.

Food for thought.

I’m Easily Distant…Even Now

April 5, 2015 By in Relationships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Now that I’m thirty, I feel more comfortable with myself than I’ve ever felt in the past.

I’m eerily familiar with that weird vocal quirk in my voice I’ve had since third grade that people occasionally remind me I still have.

I know exactly what I should eat for breakfast in the morning to keep me going for at least 3 hours and not make me groggy (right now it’s bananas and peanuts butter, and/or a green smoothie plus coffee. It used to be oatmeal). Boring, but necessary for me to know.

Vegetarianism is part of my soul. I can’t imagine eating meat ever again. For now, anyway.

I’ve gone almost platinum blonde kinda by accident since the summer (I suddenly decided to dye my hair myself for the first time, and after much trial error and purple hair it just kinda happened). And I love it. Right now, anyway 😉

When I feel good, I feel really, really good. Overall my life seems to get better and better as I get older- I’ve always felt that way. I’m very much still working at feeling my best more often (I know it’s all waves), and tracking down major life goals that can help me move forward. I really want to master the subtle art of Not Giving A Fuck about unimportant things, which we’ve talked about a lot on this blog….more than once.  However, one of the things I’m really always working on, especially now that I know myself better, is being able to tell others what I need and want…after figuring out what I need and want.

It’s very easy for me to let friends, family, and significant others take the lead and pull me down their path without much resistance from me. I’m very good at going with the flow (something I really know about myself)- and that combined with a dislike of confrontation, an intense empathy for other people’s feelings, and a deep curiosity for other people’s habits and points of view can occasionally leave me feeling swept up in lives that are not my own. I can let others sweep me so far into their lives that I don’t even realize how distant I suddenly feel from myself.

I don’t know if that makes sense exactly or if it feels familiar to any of you. Or if you’ve outgrown this now that you’re in your thirties. But sometimes I’m the polar opposite of the ideal cool and collected thirty-something who doesn’t give a fuck. I used to give so many fucks about what other people thought that my life became a guessing game and I thought I was the ultimate winner of knowing what people wanted. All I cared about was making my favorite people happy and figuring out how to play their game correctly.

I doing so, I would sometimes lose what exactly I wanted and who I wanted to be. With my best friends, this didn’t really happen. But with acquaintances and romantic relationships, I would become distant from myself which would also lead to a certain distance from others. I couldn’t honestly communicate who I was and what I wanted because I myself wasn’t aware of what exactly I wanted. And once I figured it out, it felt scary to tell.

Sometimes that distance returns, even in my thirties. I find myself getting swept up in other people’s lives and dispositions once again, and I lose what I want and start to forget who I am. If I don’t stay in touch with myself by meditating, re-centering, talking to good friends, and expressing what I need, this old habit from the past seems to return.

It’s interesting that even though we can come so far by the time we’re in our thirties, those old traits from our younger days can still seem to be lurking around the corner, waiting for a time to reappear and scare the crap out of us. For now, anyway.

ghost

While We’re Young – Movie

April 3, 2015 By in Grab Bag 3 Comments

I recently saw the new Noah Baumbach movie, While We’re Young. He’s the same filmmaker behind Frances Ha, which was an absolute gem of a movie about female friendship and if you haven’t seen it, SEE IT NOW. Anyway, the premise of While We’re Young is basically that a childless couple in their 40s form a friendship with a young, free-spirited artistic couple in their 20s who force them to re-evaluate their lives.

I loved the film because it explores topics I’m interested in, including: what success means, choosing whether or not to have children, how age affects our expectations, friendships over time, etc.

Even though I’m in my thirties, I related to the older couple and how they had fallen into more comfortable day-to-day existence that their 20-something selves would probably scoff at. I think a lot of thirty-somethings can relate to the movie, especially because our paths oftentimes start to diverge from our friends causing distance and sometimes, resentment.

Check out the trailer below:

It’s Our 6 Month Anniversary!

April 2, 2015 By in Grab Bag 7 Comments

It’s April 2nd and we started this blog on October 2nd!

We’re now officially 6 months old- woohoo! And we’ve been continuing to write 6 posts a week about the thirties every single week! 🙂

We want to officially thank our awesome readers and friends! So much love and shoutouts to our fantastic wordpress and email readers! Thank you so, so much!

And thank you so much Karen from Confetti and Curves for being so inspirational to us right from the the beginning and for being one of our top commenters! Also, thank you Rico, from Smart Money, for always having such insightful comments and suggestions for our finance posts. Thanks so much to Katie from Plus +Beauty for always having positive and helpful things to say, and always brightening our day!  Also, you’re awesome Nadine from Ladies and Lace– we always love what you have to say! Also, thanks to Eljon Wardally for being our first Portrait of a Thirtysomething interviewee! (Also, if anyone wants to be a part of Portrait of a Thirtysomething in the future, we’d love to have you- just click here!)

And special hugs to Jane’s awesome mom Elaine, and Sayuri, Seth, Aaron, Colleen, Janna, Gabby, Ryan, Christina, and Kari!

We’re so grateful! Thank you all again!

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Your Marriage is More Important Than Your Wedding

April 1, 2015 By in Relationships Tags: , Leave a comment

This recent New York Times article , How to Avoid a Post-Wedding Letdown, is worth a read if you’re getting married or thinking of getting married at some point in the future. This article talks about the “post-wedding blues” that can sometimes occur after the wedding and how you can avoid that by going to pre-martial counseling to set expectations.

My boyfriend and I got engaged about two years ago. And no, we haven’t started wedding planning. It’s not that we don’t want to get married, but we’ve got a lot of other things on our plates – figuring out where to settle down, our careers, etc. that have taken precedence in our lives.

Sometimes I worry – is something wrong with me because I’m not foaming at the mouth with excitement about my wedding plans? But that worry quickly fades, because I know myself, and I know that I naturally don’t enjoy being the center of attention and that spending large sums of money gets me anxiety. I also know that when the time is right, we will marry. It also feels like there’s no reason to rush – nothing will fundamentally change after we marry – we’ve already been together for 6 years  and have lived together for more than half of that time. I’d rather wait until we have a little more money and life security so we can really show our friends and family a beautiful time together.

This was my favorite quote from the article.

“If the couple’s primary focus is on the wedding day itself rather than the marriage, then a crash is inevitable,” Dr. Charnas said. “However, if the emotional investment can be shifted from the wedding to the marriage and the couple’s partnership, then the perspective changes and the wedding is cast in a new light.”

Good words to take to heart. And to the altar.