The 2006 results are in and TIME's person of the year has been nominated: YOU are TIME's person of the year. Wait, I am TIME's person of the year. What have I, have we, done to deserve this? Many of us, including myself, have done next to nothing. We've searched the internet at work for crotch shots of Britney Spears; we've stayed in the office over our lunch hours watching youtube videos of college students lip syncing the Pokemon theme song and we've done our best to assure ourselves that this is all in the name of keeping up with the times.
If I am truly the person of the year one thing confuses me: 1) what the hell do I do next year? Just seeing myself in that cover makes me realize how little I have actually done this annum. I have not innovated or entrepreneured so much as a variation on a chocolate chip cookie recipe. I preformed mediocre on the GREs and I'm applying to a graduate school that introduces more questions than answers about my future. Does this mean that this year is the be-all end-all of the life of Leigh?
At 23, I'd like to deny TIME's claim. While flattered at first, I do not find this year in my young life to be one of the Leigh. My education, motivation and accomplishments all desire for more. TIME has done one thing, however, it has inspired me to work towards deserving that award. Meriting another look in that mirror will take a lot, and I do not foresee it happening this decade. I've got a lot of showing up to do before my life is worthy of person of the year. And then TIME, I will give you a call.
Monday, December 25, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
95% is showing up
There are two quotes, in addition to the one tattooed on my body, that have stuck with me in my life. This is not to say that they are my mantras or that I have lived by them. But I appreciate their merit, and perhaps if I had that sort of commitment I just might. They're simple ones, and that's why I like them so damn much. I believe in the complexity of life. However, of late I don't live it. So this is what it's been shorn down to, personally and currently:
#1 Guilt is a worthless emotion.
Of course, there is no end to the squabble that might be had over this statement. Guilt can result in rectifying activities, a change in your mode of being or a recognition of a prejudice. I could think of a million reasons one might argue that guilt can indeed, be quite productive: the Marshall Plan perhaps? Anyway, for me this quote reminds me and remedies me of my OCD tendency of letting things bother me to the point of virtual implosion. It is one thing to recognize that I have done something wrong and will cease the activity or behavior; it is another thing to let it linger such that my demeanor effects a more widespread group of my acquaintances rather than just the offended party. Besides, if it's such a worthless emotion, I'm propelled to act as justly as possible from the getgo to avoid the annoying yet instinctual nagging of my emotional conscious. (Sidebar: guilt still appears an incredible instinct that must be virtually exclusive to humans).
I should end the rant here, since what I really want is to refer to the second quote, but I must say the real reason I remember this quote is not because I have mulled it over so much amidst a world of more "worthy" quotes, but rather because I saw a little scrap piece of paper tacked on someone's fridge by a magnet with the saying scribbled in sharpie. Upon seeing it I was unexpectedly struck but how how much the words effected me, hidden among the refrigerator clutter of pictures, letter magnets and TO DO lists. To this day, I don't know why, but I remember it and I think about it and I use it and that's it.
#2 95% of life is just showing up.
This is the doozy. This is why I have finally started to "blog". This is the shit that some people live by and most people, especially accomplished ones, probably think is horseshit. I couldn't begin to organize my thoughts about it even if I wanted to. I just know I heard it once and thought little of it until I realized how far just the slightest motivation can take a person. Sure, intelligence, creativity and a whole host of social and personal circumstances fit into the mix, but, for me, showing up makes the cake. I've been cultivated by my parents to go to college, do my work, earn my money and eat my peas. I'm young, white and from an upper-middle class household. Showing up is really all we have to do. Yet, for some reason even that gets to be difficult. This blog is something that I've deliberated about for awhile. Having one's thoughts on the internet isn't so much dangerous as exposing. I'm not a very classy gal and I like to complain about my share of banal crap. I'd rather do it in my diary, but somehow this sterile keyboard presents an ironic ease to my fingers that the pen has ceased to deliver. So, despite the fact that my pool of profundity has dryed up over the years, I'm sitting here today, ready to commit my pablum verses to the wired world. Why? Because if I don't, I may never write again. Not to mention, there's no find function in my diary.
#1 Guilt is a worthless emotion.
Of course, there is no end to the squabble that might be had over this statement. Guilt can result in rectifying activities, a change in your mode of being or a recognition of a prejudice. I could think of a million reasons one might argue that guilt can indeed, be quite productive: the Marshall Plan perhaps? Anyway, for me this quote reminds me and remedies me of my OCD tendency of letting things bother me to the point of virtual implosion. It is one thing to recognize that I have done something wrong and will cease the activity or behavior; it is another thing to let it linger such that my demeanor effects a more widespread group of my acquaintances rather than just the offended party. Besides, if it's such a worthless emotion, I'm propelled to act as justly as possible from the getgo to avoid the annoying yet instinctual nagging of my emotional conscious. (Sidebar: guilt still appears an incredible instinct that must be virtually exclusive to humans).
I should end the rant here, since what I really want is to refer to the second quote, but I must say the real reason I remember this quote is not because I have mulled it over so much amidst a world of more "worthy" quotes, but rather because I saw a little scrap piece of paper tacked on someone's fridge by a magnet with the saying scribbled in sharpie. Upon seeing it I was unexpectedly struck but how how much the words effected me, hidden among the refrigerator clutter of pictures, letter magnets and TO DO lists. To this day, I don't know why, but I remember it and I think about it and I use it and that's it.
#2 95% of life is just showing up.
This is the doozy. This is why I have finally started to "blog". This is the shit that some people live by and most people, especially accomplished ones, probably think is horseshit. I couldn't begin to organize my thoughts about it even if I wanted to. I just know I heard it once and thought little of it until I realized how far just the slightest motivation can take a person. Sure, intelligence, creativity and a whole host of social and personal circumstances fit into the mix, but, for me, showing up makes the cake. I've been cultivated by my parents to go to college, do my work, earn my money and eat my peas. I'm young, white and from an upper-middle class household. Showing up is really all we have to do. Yet, for some reason even that gets to be difficult. This blog is something that I've deliberated about for awhile. Having one's thoughts on the internet isn't so much dangerous as exposing. I'm not a very classy gal and I like to complain about my share of banal crap. I'd rather do it in my diary, but somehow this sterile keyboard presents an ironic ease to my fingers that the pen has ceased to deliver. So, despite the fact that my pool of profundity has dryed up over the years, I'm sitting here today, ready to commit my pablum verses to the wired world. Why? Because if I don't, I may never write again. Not to mention, there's no find function in my diary.
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