Author Archives: janersays

An Interesting Way to Think About Picking a New Career

December 12, 2014 By in Grab Bag Leave a comment

As you may know if you’ve been reading this blog, I’m currently studying for my MFA in screenwriting at UCLA. I couldn’t have asked for a better, more exciting, more close-to-my-heart experience. Because, at the end of the day, I love stories and I get to geek out with other fellow writers over this shared passion. I’m obsessed with stories and I take film, TV and theater extremely seriously. I think stories are incredibly valuable in our society as simply a basic way of relating to each other as human beings.

But I do wonder about the practical side of making a living at this career choice. A lot. There’s way more supply than demand for talented writers. I know SO many great dramatic writers who just aren’t finding work. You get to make up stories for a living, of course you’re going to be competing like hell for a job writing for a TV show or a movie! So, it’s impossible for me not to think about a back-up money-making plan, especially since I’m 32. So of course, brainstorming alternate careers has become something of a hobby for me.

I recently came across the below info-graphic and thought this was a really helpful visual to share on the blog. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but basically, to find a successful career you want to find that sweet spot – the bold red intersection of the three circles.

Maybe this will stir up some ideas for you. I’m still thinking about where my sweet spot is.

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Being Kind To Your Friends’ Relationships

December 10, 2014 By in Relationships Tags: , , , Leave a comment

As I moved into my late 20’s/early 30s, many of my friends partnered up, settled down and/or started families.  It simply comes with the thirty-something territory. When our close friends get involved with someone, it can be tricky to navigate the new dynamics – do we like our friend’s partner? Do we feel they are the right fit for our friend? In the beginning, we may analyze the new guy or girl and his/her actions, read their texts, and basically become a sounding board for our friend. But as the friend’s relationship with their new partner deepens over time, we usually step aside on the analyzing and discussing because their relationship has reached a different stage.

Eventually though, relationships will hit rocky patches. It’s inevitable. And here’s what I want to talk about today. Too often, when we gripe to our friends and acquaintances about our relationships, they try to support us by saying things like, “Are you really happy?,” “You can do better,” or “You deserve someone who fits you 100%,” and “Don’t settle.” It’s a natural instinct, right? To help our friends by pointing our that they are Queens and deserve only the best.

Here’s the thing: I believe that while these comments can seem supportive, in many cases they may be more harmful than helpful. Clearly, if your friend is in a terrible relationship where she feels belittled, disrespected, or scared – then yes, you want to help your friend realize she’s in a bad relationship. And of course, any good relationship should be one in which you’re with someone who you love and who loves you, who respects you, who supports you, and also fulfills whatever deep need you may have for your particular loving, intimate relationship.

But, a lot of times I think we should remind our friends that relationships involve work. They are not all work, of course, but there’s a healthy amount of learning to communicate with a new person. I really believe that a lot of people give up too soon. It’s hard to find someone you click with. And at the end of the day, you’re not going to find 100% of what you want in a relationship. Show me someone that says they’ve found that, and I’ll show you someone who’s not very self-aware. I believe you should enjoy and “click” with your partner probably something like 80% of time.

I got to thinking about all of this when I read an article yesterday, and before you read the title and say “Oh no, he didn’t…” – I suggest you give it a read.  It’s titled “The Good-Enough Marriage.”

The author cites a fascinating study about happiness in marriages and the use of social media:

“In a study in the February issue of Computers and Human Behavior, the authors noted that those who didn’t use social media sites at all ‘reported being 11.4 percent happier with their marriage than heavy social media users. And heavy social media users were 32 percent more likely to think about leaving their spouse, compared with 16 percent for a nonuser.’ “

This is all to say that input, from social media, friends, etc. can be dangerous. It can make us doubt ourselves, doubt our feeling, experience FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) because we think we’re not in the ‘right’ relationship.

So what can you do to be kind to your friends relationship? Mark Regnerus, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of this article says it best here:

“Remember that when we offer comfort by belittling someone else’s spouse, we do damage to their marriage—an entity that we did not found, and one that exists independently of each. The temptation to do this is very strong (and often fed by one of the spouses). I myself am guilty. To be sure, some marriages must end—but not so many as we’ve witnessed.

Second, be gentle…We do harm when we fail to esteem others’ unions, fragile though they may be. Praise those aspects of others’ marriages that merit it. A bruised reed we ought not break…We forget that marriage is bigger than two people—two frail lovers. It is about sacrifice. It is your own project for the world.” – Mark Regnerus

Beautiful words. I’ll definitely try and be more open-minded when a friend tells me about their relationship woes. And also take advice given to me with a grain of salt.

Real Happiness Begins at Age 33?

December 5, 2014 By in Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

In four months, I’ll be turning 33. And apparently, I have a lot to look forward to, according to a study by Friends Reunited, a British social networking site. In the 2012 study, 70% of respondents over the age of 40 claimed they were not truly happy until they reached age 33.

One of the study’s authors, psychologist Donna Dawson, explains the findings this way:

“The age of 33 is enough time to have shaken off childhood naiveté and the wild scheming of teenaged years without losing the energy and enthusiasm of youth…By this age innocence has been lost, but our sense of reality is mixed with a strong sense of hope, a ‘can do’ spirit, and a healthy belief in our own talents and abilities.”

This makes a lot of sense to me. I definitely feel like I’ve been more confident in my abilities in the past few years than I was in my twenties. And overall, I just like myself better. I don’t put much stock in if other people like me or not. Because if they don’t like me, most of the time, I don’t like them either. It just seems to work out that way. And realizing that is liberating.

Another recent study (also, British – those Brits must love these happiness studies!) done by The Huffington Post UK Lifestyle and YouGov found that the average person doesn’t achieve ‘true contentment’ until age 38. The study asked 2,000 Brits between ages 18-80 and took into account the respondents’ contentment with relationships, family, friends, and jobs.

So if you’re reading this post and stuck in a early thirties crisis, hopefully you can take a little comfort and relief in these studies.

Laura comes to LA

December 4, 2014 By in Friendships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It’s Laura’s final night visiting me in LA, and it’s been a really fun couple of days! We’ve been doing a lot of eating, talking and wandering. Since I moved to LA about fifteen months ago, she’s come to stay with me twice. BOTH times it has rained consecutively for several days straight. For those of you that don’t know SoCal weather, that’s odd for LA. One day of rain is somewhat normal, but not several days in a row.

We’ve made the best of the crappy weather though. I introduced Laura to my favorite TV show, Nathan For You on Comedy Central, and today we went to see the movie Wild, about the woman who hikes the Pacific Coast Trail to deal with her grief from the death of her mother. (FYI, it’s amazing and we left the theater sobbing, dying for a life-changing camping trip in the woods.)

While we were on the bus earlier this week, we started talking about our 30’s, and we agreed on one major thing. While this decade definitely has left us feeling uncertain about our futures, the truth is, that as we grow older, we keep feeling better about ourselves and our experiences in the world. This is not to say life somehow gets easier, in fact, it absolutely gets harder – we have more responsibilities and more challenges, but still, life feels better. You go through tough situations but discover that you’re still standing after each one, having grown into a more flexible person than before.

The key thing is that you don’t fear things as much. You’ve seen enough to let the fear dissipate a little. You can deal with it.

There’s a gorgeous quote from the Cheryl Strayed book Wild, on which the movie was based, that I feel like is appropriate to growing older in your thirties:

“I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Here’s to us all getting stronger every day in our thirty-something journey!

Here are some pictures from our public Transit experiences in LA. And yes, taking the bus is possible, if hard, in this city.

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Advice for Turning 30

November 30, 2014 By in Career, Friendships 1 Comment

So, as you may remember from an earlier post, Laura and I both love the Ask Polly advice column on NYmag.com. Reading her posts is like talking to a deep, funny, older sister who’s an incredible listener and has soul-stirring, almost life-changing advice. Once you start reading her columns, you can see how easy it is to get obsessed.

The real “Polly” behind the awesome advice is the writer Heather Havrilesky. She’s also a columnist for Bookforum, writes for the New York Times Magazine, and was Salon’s TV critic for 7 years. In 2011, she wrote a memoir titled “Disaster Preparedness,” which I just ordered on Amazon.

She recently did an AMA on Reddit. For those of you that don’t know what that is, AMA stands for “Ask Me Anything,” and basically, Reddit invites well-known folks and experts on topics to have a dialogue with users on the site. Users can ask a question and the guest can choose which questions to answer. What I love about AMA’s on Reddit is that they tend to be more off-the-cuff, relaxed than interviews.

When I read through the AMA recently, I saw that she had some AMAZING advice for a woman turning thirty. The woman was basically saying she’s having an existential crisis about turning 30 and not being where she thought she’d be in her life. As usual, ‘Polly’ had some lovely words of wisdom to share.

Well, I’m definitely better at the long-winded response that I can think about for hours than I am at firing off quick advice. But I will say that turning 30 can be insanely tough, particularly for women. I think this is mostly true because when you’re young, you think “30” means “settled” or even “successful.” It’s pretty absurd to believe that, but many of us in our late 20s believe that if we’re still lost, that means we’re doomed to be huge losers for the rest of our lives.

But life doesn’t work that way. It’s not like musical chairs, where the music turns off and you’re screwed if you can’t find a chair. Paying too much attention to big turning points and numbers and landmarks is always a bad idea. All you can do is be very clear about what you want in your life, and take tiny steps every day to get there. Sometimes a tiny step is just reading a great book or vowing not to think negative thoughts first thing in the morning. I think I’ve taken a million different tiny steps along the way, and I’m still constantly readjusting my life so that I’m living in a way that’s true to what I believe and true to what I want for myself. It’s healthy to keep looking closely at what you want and to keep recalibrating, past 30 to 40 and 50 and 60 and beyond.

I love that she says life is not like musical chairs! Isn’t that a perfect way to describe what it feels like to be a little lost in your thirties? That somehow you haven’t found the answer when everyone else seemingly has.

I also love that she says paying too much attention to “big turning points and numbers and landmarks is always a bad idea.” So true. For me, I want my decisions to marry, have children, buy real estate, etc. to all feel organic.

Hope you enjoyed this food for the sometimes-angsty thirty-something mind.

Happy Thanksgiving!

November 27, 2014 By in Grab Bag 3 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our lovely readers! We are so grateful for you, our compatriots in this thirty-something journey. I know some of our readers are in Ireland, England and other countries all around the world – so you may not celebrate Thanksgiving.  But even if you don’t, there’s always a reason to be grateful, and a gratefulness practice has been proven to reduce depression, help you sleep better, and improve personal relationships.

For me, my “gratefulness” practice is to simply acknowledge moments when I’m happy and say a silent prayer for that moment. It’s guaranteed to happen at least once a day. For me, it’s sometimes after an amazing cup of coffee, a conversation with a friend, or a shared kvetching session with a fellow writer who just “gets” it after I’ve had a shitty day.

For instance, tonight. I spent the evening at my boyfriend’s dad house, in the company of my mom, his father and partner, and her son. It was a lovely evening of great company, delicious food, and relaxation. While it wasn’t a traditional family dinner, I’m grateful for this evening.

Here’s a beautiful quote by David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk –

“The root of joy is gratefulness…. It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”

Sending you all love and happiness, wherever you may be. We’ll thrilled you’re reading and wouldn’t be writing without you.

Are you hosting or attending?

November 25, 2014 By in Grab Bag 1 Comment

If you’re like me, you’re a thirty-something and you’re in a somewhat in-between position when it comes to Thanksgiving. Are you hosting your own festivities or attending someone else’s event? I don’t have your own family yet (by this I mean “family” defined by the very traditional idea of kids and a partner and stuff), so you’re joining with someone else’s or maybe you and your group of pals are hosting your own shin-dig.

Whatever your plan, and however low-key the festivities, the idea is the same – being thankful in the midst of transition. We’re always in transition anyway, so the goal is to accept what it is. On that note, happy pre-Thanksgiving! Wishing you safe travels!

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The Secret Lives of Your Friends – Their Jobs

November 23, 2014 By in Career, Friendships Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

How much do you know about the nitty gritty of what your friends do at work? When you think about it, this is where your friends spend most of their waking hours. And it’s funny how we probably don’t know much about what compromises their days. Phone calls, meetings, emailing, all of that stuff, sure. But what aspect of their job do they love the most? What gets them excited to get through the day?

When we first graduated college, office jobs were something of a novelty, and I remember emailing my friends several times a day with updates from cubicle-land. “I just got inter-officed an envelope. Awesome.” “OMG, my boss is crazy.” “Ughhhh….so bored right now. Need a coffee.”

But as we inched into our late twenties and early 30’s, the emails stopped as we became more focused and dedicated to our work. Now, while I know my friends’ job titles, I don’t know the specifics of their day. I love specifics. Call me nosy, but I want to know what a typical hour of their day looks like.

Well today I got to visit Laura at work and see what her job is like. She was visiting Southern California, where she was working as a Product Specialist for Ford Motors at the LA Auto Show. Laura’s job is a mixture of marketing and sales and it was pretty fascinating to see her in action. She travels across the country, presenting the new products to consumers. She’s interacting with consumers all day and getting sales leads. It’s also exciting to see what a non-office job really looks like. I think it’s pretty great that she doesn’t have to sit tied to a computer screen all day.

Here’s some pictures from my visit today.

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Laura and I in the crazy big Ford truck. Not sure which one this was.

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My dude, Me and Laura in front of the underside of a Ford Mustang

Making Friends When You’re in a Long Term Relationship

November 22, 2014 By in Friendships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Let me preface all of this by saying, I love female friendship. I’m kind of obsessed with it, actually. From the popular Sex and the City and Golden Girls to the less well-known Walking and Talking and Heavenly Creatures, I’ve seen EVERY movie and TV show about female friendships. Maybe it’s me being an only child and craving siblings, but I find these friendships to be deeply sustaining and life-affirming.

But I realized that since I’ve been in a relationship, about five and a half years, I haven’t made many super close girlfriends. I’ve made a lot of acquaintances, but not as many really close pals. It might simply be more challenging to meet new friends in your thirties, or it’s just plain harder when you’re in a serious relationship. Most likely, it’s a combination of both of these things. But for me, there’s one more element that I think is a factor.

Talking about boys.  In high school and college, I bonded with a lot of my friends by talking about boys and dating. I don’t feel like less of a feminist for saying that I love talking about these subjects, because I enjoy talking to my female friends about other subjects too. But one of the ways I bonded with new female friends was over men. This may just be my personality, because I was the girl who ALWAYS talked about her crushes or my fear that I would never meet that special someone.

I think it touches on something deeper, though. Talking about love and dating is really intimate; it’s not just superficial talk. You expose yourself, share your hopes for the future and that’s vulnerable. When I would share a story about my crush with a new friend, most of the time, she would share her own romantic adventures with me, and often, a friendship was born. I suppose I could share stories from my relationship now, but honestly it would almost feel like a betrayal to share anything negative about my relationship to new friends, since we’ve been dating for so long.

Now I feel like I’m more of a listener, and less of a contributor to these conversations about dating, and it makes me a little nostalgic for the old days. I don’t have stories involving crazy dates, or the drunk dial from the ex I still care about,  or the cute co-worker who I kissed once…And since I met my boyfriend before the boom of Tinder, I’m bummed that I can’t share my own adventures in swiping left and right.

But I guess you trade one thing for another. I wouldn’t want to go back to dating lots of new people just for the stories I could share with my new girlfriends. It’s about finding fresh meaningful ways to connect with recent women friends….quilting, anyone?

A ‘Braided’ Lifestyle

November 20, 2014 By in Career Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

The other day I came across the idea of a “braided” career on Penelope Trunk’s website. Penelope is a founder of multiple start-ups including her most recent one Quistic, a site dedicated to helping people discover their next career moves. She now lives on a farm in Wisconsin with her husband and kids. She has a graduate degree in English, played professional beach volleyball, and taught herself to code. Umm…awesome. I was so impressed by her wide range of experiences and ability to not be pigeonholed by one experience.

About seven years ago, she wrote an article on her website in which she coined the term “braided career.” I so wish I had read this in 2007, when I was 24! I would have been three years out of college, and so in need of this advice.

In this article, she says unequivocally, “The most important thing in your life is the people you love, so you need to figure out how to create a work life that will accommodate that.” It’s an obvious statement, to me at least, but I think a lot of people neglect the nitty-gritty of what this actually means.

She goes on to coin the term “braided career,” writing:

“The best way to make sure you will have time and money to create the life you want is to have what I am going to start calling a braided career. Intertwine the needs of the people you love, with the work you are doing, and the work you are planning to do, when it’s time for a switch.” – Penelope Trunk, Letter to new graduates. And how about a braided career?

Can I just tell you how much I love this term? It’s such a perfect descriptor of this new career landscape many of us are navigating.

I get the impression that this post was tailored to millennials having quarter-life crises, BUT it’s absolutely applicable to anyone at any stage in their career. A key takeaway of this article is that a braided lifestyle is almost always going to be in transition because our needs and the needs of our loved ones are always in transition. It means we can’t be afraid to ditch a 70-hour a week job when it’s not aligning with our values for, let’s say, time with friends and family. We need to not let fear guide our decisions, and instead put our values first.

“It feels like you’re all over the place, it feels like you have no plan, it feels like you’re always about to spend your last cent. But you are learning to create stability through transition. You can become a master of transition and you are achieve the thing you want most: A work life that supports the values you hold dear – time, family, friends, community, passion, and fun.”

For me, the key takeaway is that we must learn to be okay with a constantly evolving career.  Like she says, stability through transition.

When and “If” to Course-Correct your Career

November 18, 2014 By in Career 3 Comments

How certain are you that the career path you’re working towards is one that will make you happy? When I worked at film studios after college, the question I asked myself was: “Would I want the job my boss or VP of the department has?” For me, that answer was always no. That’s one of the ways I realized I needed to find a way to write full-time or just find something that would make me feel at least somewhat fulfilled. This basically led to my decision to go to graduate school.

But now, I find myself again unsure if what I’m working so desperately towards (writing for movies and TV) is what will make me happy. Because continuing on, I’d most likely have to live in LA for at least five more years, and I don’t love it here, in fact, at points I think it makes me downright unhappy. Also, from what I’ve seen about how television shows and movies get made, all of the requisite bullshit might drive me to an early grave, or at least to indulge in an unhealthy amount of gin and tonics.

I keep asking myself, why do I find myself so unhappy this quarter at school? What I once found incredible joy and release in (writing) brings me great anxiety now. I’ve been told it’s because I’m in a very competitive program where we’re constantly talking about writing and the industry, and that that environment is not conductive to writing.

I don’t have a definitive answer. Friends tell me to soul-search. But how does one soul search to get to the answer? Should I take a long weekend of meditation or a solo hike down the Pacific Coast Trail like Cheryl Strayed in Wild? I’m a bit of a weenie when it comes to camping, and too antsy to do a weekend of meditation. So I think for me, the answer is closest to this lovely piece of advice from the poet Rilke, who has always been a personal favorite writer of mine:

“…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

Maybe you just have to keep going, making teeny-tiny course corrections every day. Because course-correcting allows for growth. It’s also a really important life skill to master.

So the question I leave you with is this: Are you sure where you want to go is worth it? This is an important question to ask, and if you’ve been chugging ahead towards a specific goal for a long time, you may neglect even re-evaluating this question, thinking to yourself like I did, “Of course this is what I want, I’ve wanted this for so long.”

But you’re not who you were five years ago, even last week. So maybe it’s worth another look.

What’s your re-charge routine?

November 15, 2014 By in Health and Wellness Leave a comment

How do you re-energize and center yourself when your emotional batteries are low? Personally, I’m a big fan of alone time spent reading novels, watching movies and TV, and drinking a glass of wine. I guess you could call that escapist re-charging and for me, that’s phase 1. For me, this helps because alone time is an essential, non-negotiable part of my life. In case you haven’t heard this before, the prime difference between introverts and extroverts is where each get their energy. Introverts get energy from being alone, while extroverts get energy from being around people.

Phase 2 re-charging is a bit more active and involves taking care of my body. So, hitting a Pilates class or the gym and eating a healthy meal.

Phase 3 recharging is after my alone, quiet quota has been filled and I can focus on the “lifters” in my life – the people that make me feel energized, motivated, and importantly, loved. So that normally means a coffee, wine, or long-distance phone call date with a close friend. Once I’ve accomplished these three phases, my battery is juiced and I’m ready to begin again.

For some reason, I love visualizing myself as containing an internal phone battery who need to ‘charge up’  from time to time. I imagine watching the green light on my human body iPhone progress further and further to the right of the screen. While we know our phones are dying because we see that lovely percentage indicator going down, how do we know that it’s time for us to plug in and charge up? It’s so easy to keep pushing and pushing and pushing…to the neglect of ourselves. Should we have warning signs for ourselves?

I have three main red flags that mean I’m need of juicing up: when I find myself being snappy with people, I know it’s time for a re-charge because I’m not normally a snappy person. Secondly, if I find that I’m starting to see things in a consistently negative light, I know it’s time for a break. And thirdly, if I just find that I’m not finding joy in things I normally enjoy, I know it’s time to settle in and let myself relax.

The funny paradox about re-charging is that it’s not about ‘vegging out’ or totally relaxing yourself into a comatose state (though sometimes that’s both nice and needed), it’s about re-connecting to yourself. Finding your ‘zone’ as it were, finding that motivated excited self.

So, here’s a little drawing of what my battery re-charging looks like. What would yours look like?

Pardon my super dorky rendering! Never said I went to art school.

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Do you have a mission statement?

November 13, 2014 By in Health and Wellness Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Last night I was down in the dumps, feeling lost and somewhat aimless in my life. A lot of this feeling comes from being in graduate school, in a program where I’m often home alone, writing, trying to will my imagination to work with me, damnit. You would think graduate school would actually provide me with MORE of a sense of focus, but alas, that has not been the case.

I could write with other people, or go to different locations, but I find my best work is done solo in a quiet space. (I might have to re-evaluate this theory soon). When I’m in my own head too long, I tend to go a little stir crazy, but when I have too much social interaction, I also go crazy. It’s all about keeping a fine balance between nurturing my introversion and extroversion.

Back to last night. I poured myself a glass of wine and got into some google searching. I think I started with “thirty something feeling lost,” and found some interesting articles. As long as you don’t go down a crazy rabbit hole time-suck, I highly recommend googling your feelings to make yourself feel less alone.

One of the articles I stumbled upon was about crafting a life mission statement. The kind of mission statement the writer is talking about isn’t the one at the top of your resume, or your LinkedIn profile. This is your personal life mission statement, perhaps oriented around your values or how you want to spend your time.

Here are two anonymous examples I found on franklincovey.com. (This company is a business oriented leadership site, but they had some great examples of personal mission statements.)

“My mission is to give, for giving is what I do best and I can learn to do better.
I will seek to learn, for learning is the basis for growth, and growing is the key to living. I will seek first to understand, for understanding is the key to finding value, and value is the basis for respect, decisions, and action. This should be my first act with my wife, my family, and my business.
I want to help influence the future development of people and organizations. I want to teach my children and others to love and laugh, to learn and grow beyond their current bounds. I will build personal, business, and civic relationships by giving, in frequent little ways.”

I loved this one:

“I want to be the kind of person my dog already thinks I am.”

Do you have a mission statement?

I don’t have one now, but I’m going to craft one soon. Maybe it could help alleviate that ‘lost’ feeling.

A humorous look at the 30’s

November 11, 2014 By in Career 2 Comments

Two Sundays ago, there was a great op-ed in the NY Times called “The Terrible 32s” written by Kate Greathead and Teddy Wayne. The title immediately drew me in, because I’m exactly 32 years old myself and I read anything and everything about this life stage, including way too many BuzzFeed listicles. You can kind of guess what the article is about from the title – a humor piece about life in your early 30’s.

Here’s the link:

The Terrible 32s

You can get a taste for it from the first line:

“The Terrible 32s are a perfectly normal stage in your youngish adult’s development, characterized by cranky self-pity over the discrepancy between the life she has and the one she feels entitled to based on popular-culture narratives and her peers’ achievements, such as those of Laura, who recently landed a big promotion, and maybe it’s worth calling her to see if there’s an opening at her company?”

Being 32 myself, I thought this was both hilarious and comforting. The authors poke fun of MFA programs with little post-grad career prospects, hate-reading Facebook wall posts, and more. Have I made you want to read this yet?

All jokes aside, the truth is that not only do we all have different ideas of success, but we all have different timelines for success. Some of my favorite playwrights and authors didn’t even publish work until their fifties or sixties. My classmates and I often talk about how challenging it can be when we hear about all peers getting literary managers or agents, selling scripts, winning awards, etc. and how it makes us feel like we’re behind somehow. What helps is remembering that we’re all on our own journeys. Cliche but true.

And after all, if other people are achieving success in your chosen field, it means it’s possible for you too. When a classmate gets a top-notch agent, I think, okay – there’s hope for me, too.

Tracking and Hacking Your Health

November 9, 2014 By in Health and Wellness 1 Comment

Today I impulse bought a Jawbone Up Fitness tracker. I guess it’s unfair to say the purchase was impulsive, because I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, but I’d held off because I assumed I’d use the new iPhone to track my steps, once I bought it that is. But the iPhone is just too expensive for me at the moment ($370, gasp!), so this was a in-between purchase. The Jawbone Up was on sale at Best Buy for $64.99. Not too bad.

You wear the Jawbone around your wrist, and it tracks the amount of steps you take and the amount and quality (deep vs. light) of sleep you’re getting. I’ve always liked the idea of collecting data about yourself and trying to “hack” your health to make yourself healthier and happier.

As I’ve gotten into my thirties, I’ve noticed that my body isn’t functioning the way it used to. And not only my metabolism – which is the change every thirty-something seems to mention when it comes to changing health. For me, my body seems to be having trouble digesting the food I used to love, namely carbohydrates. I think it might be a gluten intolerance, so I’m ‘hacking’ my body by trying a 21-day no-gluten diet.

So, I like the idea of the Jawbone because it’s a way to track and monitor your habits, and I hope that it helps me develop better ones.

Have you ever used one of these devices? What did you think?

Photo on 11-9-14 at 5.19 PM

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.