Idealog – Make A Living Have A Life

Three calls to confidence via “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou

Posted on 8 March 2018by livinglife

A poem that could be an anthem of International Women’s Day, by one of the most inspirational women in recent times.

This poem is powerful in its entirety. It has helped me through times comparatively trivial to those it speaks about, and yet I keep coming back to it and drawing strength from the weight of its history.

There are three calls to confidence in this poem. The first is about how you project yourself. My father taught me to “walk into a room like I owned the building” way back when I was too young to really appreciate what he meant. His words came back to me when I read this poem, like I owned the building, the gold mine, the oil well.

Reflections

Hypothetical Conversation with Margaret Atwood

Posted on 26 February 2018by livinglife

Me: I’ve always admired you

MA: harrumph

Me: Well, I’ve actually never read any of your books, but I know about them and I truly admire your courage and confidence

MA: double harrumph (but intrigued at my audacity)

Me: I’ve got this novel inside me…

MA: yeah, you and about 6 billion other people

Me: I’m a busy working mum and the time I have for creativity is limited

MA: bullshit. Creativity seeps out of you, it finds the cracks in your daily trudge and tries to exit – you have to capture those moments

Life hack Transition

Relocation

Posted on 27 September 2016by livinglife

Our family relocated this summer, from Miami, a hustling bustling global tropical salsa of an American city, to Crediton, a picturesque market town in the middle of rural Devon in south west England.

Um, yeah | 25.8N, 80.2W to 50.8N, 3.6W | 305 to 01363

No regrets… but yeah, it’s different.

It’s not the first time our family has moved countries and cultures, and we seem to adapt, absorb and evolve together so that our home is the multicultural entity that it is. I have a lot to say about identity, belonging, integration, acceptance, tolerance and the concept of Third Culture Kids, but I’ll get to those in a different post. Today I want to talk about the transition itself.

Relocation transition has three phases. Phase A is wind-down preparation, Phase B is wind-up settling in, and Phase C is equilibrium.

Transition Work-Life

Keep Calm and Make Friends

Posted on 24 June 2016by livinglife

Nearly 20 years ago, a team of psychologists wrote about how people handle stressful situations. They found that while most men went into fight or flight mode, most women went into an instinctive tend and befriend strategy, solving the stressful situation by making and strengthening interpersonal connections.

Around 10 years ago this article was reviewed in Experience Life magazine, and both men and women were encouraged to go out and make more friends. “Social ties are the cheapest medicine we have. When we erode our social and emotional ties, we pay for it long into the future. When we invest in them instead, we reap the benefits for generations to come.” wrote Anjula Razdan in her excellent review at the time.

Last year, Harvard did a study and found that the secret of happiness was to have close friends and family.

It made me wonder about our support networks. Do we instinctively go into tend and befriend mode when our lives enter a new phase or we move to a new location? Are we after emotional support, or “can you pick up my kids on Thursday” support, or both?

Reflections

Facing Facts in Traffic

Posted on 3 May 2016by livinglife

Driving to work today I got caught in every single traffic light all the way up from where I live to where I work – a stretch of about 8 miles, crossing about a hundred traffic lights. OK, not a hundred. Maybe 17 or so, but when they all turn red just as you inch up to them they feel like a hundred by the time you’ve reached your destination.

As I was stuck in traffic, I looked around me. I had time to think so I began to notice how we go into alone mode in cars and try to pretend that the other drivers do not exist. Everyone knows that they are in traffic, knows that every car around them has a driver and maybe some passengers, and knows that this is not the correct forum for pleasant conversations across glass windows. We steadfastly look in front of us, talk to our passengers, and think our own thoughts.

This morning I made it a point to look at the faces behind the wheels of every car I stopped next to at traffic lights. I didn’t stare or make eye contact, I just glanced to see what they were doing.