life lesson

life is unfair

some of us win in ways of luck and others in ways of strategy, but rare is the soul that wins at everything. life is unfair. sometimes that idea can be a comfort, more often an outrage.

on a personal level, being fair is often a challenging virtue. sometimes we want more than our fair share, sometimes we give more than we get...how we suffer in the name of equity!

when i was little, my mother, exhausted by sibling squabbles, made somethings fair with this simple rule: one cuts, the other chooses.

in other words, you have a piece of cake that you must share. one takes the knife to cut it in half, the other chooses from the halves. the idea is that the most fair cut comes when the other gets first dibs on your slicing skills.

i like to use this rule in many aspects of relationships. if there is a choice to be made, let one person come up with options and the other make the final decision. go with it. if there is work to share, divvy it up and let the other choose their lot. things tend to be more equally distributed when the chance to get stuck with the less desirable lot is real.

cutting and choosing...it's a fair as fair can be...

the one thing

as many of my friends know, i tend to obsess over one thing at a time. i am prone to cooking one day and eating it all week or getting on a kick and eating the same thing every day. i tend to have one favorite hang out and then move to the next place i repeat; i often wear the same outfit until a new one takes it place and then...repeat... i have also been known to love just one song at a time...in fact, back in the day i made a 90-minute cassette tape of the same song over and over so i wouldn't have to rewind my walkman and could listen to my latest favorite one song on repeat without complication or interruption. yeah, i am that old...waaay pre-ipod...

i realised when i was recently in my hometown with my family that some of those "one things" have been with me for more years than i care to admit. this is one of those "one things":

from their last album, warehouse: songs and stories and, if memory serves, their last song at their last live performance (that i, so very fortunately attended)... hüsker dü "you can live at home now". i have been listening to this song since high school. when i am frustrated, angry or upset, it calms me and smooths my ruffled feathers.

sometimes one thing is all you need.

hemåt

“happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”

                                           -george burns



...and i am off to visit mine...

the importance of being...

to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance

                                                  -oscar wilde, an ideal husband



speaking of love this week…

finding love is another common theme in my line of work. is there a definitive answer to how one goes about finding and attracting love? i believe there is. when my clients are distressed about the state of their love life i try to remind them that loving yourself is the beginning of attracting the kind of love you truly desire. sometimes this whizzes right past them. often we are so consumed with the desire to be with someone we forget what qualities we want in that someone. not just any love will do…

you can find love anywhere, at any time. really. being open and receptive to love is a state of mind, not a state of place.

many times my clients are frustrated and angry that they have not found “the one”. having witnessed many of my friends at that panicky moment that often occurs in our thirties, i gently introduce a few reminders about love.

is there really just ONE, singular love of our lives? for some of us, maybe…for most of us, that one person is many. different times of our life have different needs and desires. is there really just one person to fulfill those changing demands?

and more importantly, i suggest to my clients and friends, is marriage the penultimate expression of love? for me, i know that the people that have touched me most deeply were not meant to be life partners. rather, they were people that meant a great deal at a pivotal time in my life, then…well, things changed. but does that dilute their love?

we attract people that reflect where we are in our own lives. if we are not meeting THE ONE, maybe we are not ready for that kind of relationship. and that is okay. it is just where we are now. take a break from the hunt and learn to be happy with what we have within ourselves. if that is not enough, searching for what makes us happy will attract the kinds of relationships that support that dream. another person cannot deliver your happiness; they cannot complete your life. they can help to augment it, detract from it, even derail it but happiness is internal. it is ours to discover and to own.

i know it sounds trite and cliché, but if we don’t truly love ourselves, how can we expect someone else to do the same?

*photo credit: atame, pedro almodovar

piano concerto no. 21

there are women who inspire you with the desire to conquer

them and to take your pleasure of them;

but this one fills you only with the desire to die slowly

beneath her gaze

-charles beaudelaire

it seems everyone i know is suddenly in love. so for my weekend thought i am sharing one of my all-time favorite movies: elvira madigan. it is a beautiful, although tragic, love story. if you haven't already seen it, put it on your list...puss och kram!

*photos courtesy of bo widerberg, elvira madigan, 1967

the year of the ant

i went to my final holiday party on monday. i never imagined i would be glad to see the bottom of a champagne bottle, but I was…

predictable new year’s conversation focused on resolutions. even more predictable were the reports of “lose weight”, “live healthier” and graciously “give more to others”. i did not offer up my resolutions because for once, i haven’t made any.

this year i spent some time on new year’s day (recovering, yes…) reflecting on the events of 2011 and trying to map out a game plan for 2012. 

i have never been goal oriented. always more the impulsive grasshopper than the industrious ant. never in my life did i have a long-term strategy.

sure, i have made some plans, completed rites of passage and i guess i had some sort of vision of what i wanted my life to look like. true, that vision mostly included Marni dresses and wandering through sunny flower and cheese markets in Provence, but still…i could close my eyes and see what i wanted things to look like; i just didn’t have a road map to that destination.

this year i want a path. goals are important. they give shape to our lives, meaning, direction and purpose. you can’t go backwards and rewrite the past but going forwards without direction is really just spinning your wheels. i have often joked that i am where i am because of inertia but it isn’t really much of a joke when it is true.

this year i am avoiding resolutions in favor of aspirations and plans. halting the momentum that has propelled me to where i am now and choosing where i am going is the framework for my 2012 plan. the swede lowdown version 2.0, if you will.

stay tuned…

*photo via this farming man