I'm on the verge of a new hobby, I can feel it.
It makes me want to catalogue all the hobbies I have pursued in my entire life so that I can see the time, effort, money and equipment I have purchased and subsequently discarded when the next "shiny new toy" came along...
Should make for interesting reading.
1. Piano - age 5 to 18. Equipment: one piano. Hourly lessons weekly, one hour practice daily (theoretically), theory and practical exames yearly Time invested: 5,447 hours
2. Italian lessons - age 6 to 12. 2 hourly lessons weekly, one pageant annually. Time invested: 630 hours
3. Trampolining - age 12 to 14. Weekly lessons, regular competitions. Time invested: 104 hours
4. Linnet Girls Choir - age 14 to 17. Weekly 3 hour practice sessions. 2-week Japan and Hong Kong tour. Regular concerts and Eisteddfords each year. Time invested: 894 hours
4. Motorbike riding - on and off from age 12 to the present. 2 x Honda CB250s, Honda Hornet 600 and Honda CBR600F, complete with leathers, wet weather gear, travelling equipment, various after-market parts such as Pazzo racing levers, tinted screens and Staintune exhausts... Multiple trips and multiple biker clubs.
5. Surf boat rowing - one summer during uni.
6. Skiing, rollerskating, snowboarding, surfing and skateboarding... various times and ages in life, never invested in gear, but did many many lessons in all of them, or just hung out at skating parks
7. Improvisational comedy - been doing this for over 2 years now, have done levels 1, 2, 3, and 4 (long form), performed in various shows and done numbers one-day workshops with Bill Arnett (Second City), Cale Bain (Toronto improv), Ed Iliades, and Jason R. Chin.
8. Stand up comedy - just started a workshop.
9. Roller derby - just starting out... this could get expensive with not only skates, pads, helmet, but also the various costumes those girls wear... not to mention time invested in coming up with a cool Roller derby name...
In short, I've done a lot of things (some I haven't bothered listing, as they come and go so quickly) and I enjoy doing a lot of things.
Life's too short to be bored.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Mojo facelift
Right, bugger this for a lark, the recent R U OK promotions have given me a new found honesty, and I'm gonna come right out and say it.
I am currently suffering from anxiety and depression. I am struggling with the big fat "why is life worth it" question again of late. I have a lot of negative self-talk going on at the moment, and I am buggered if I know how to deal with it, as it's the same old questions turning over in my head, making me feel worthless as though I am a big fake, defrauding my loved ones into thinking I am this amazing person, when in my own head I am spiralling. I have been here before, I don't want to be here now, and I have limited resources to deal with it when I find myself here, which is why I tend to withdraw from real life and just exist online (Facebook, Twitter, blogging) as it takes less energy to fake it till you make it (in cyberspace, no-one can see you scream).
I don't get this all the time, not even most of the time.
But occasionally, like the last few weeks, Depression will creep up on me like a Ninja, envelop me in its ever-darkening cloak, then keep me submerged with lethargy and apathy until all of a sudden I'm awoken to its presence by its hyperactive twin, Anxiety, who will burst into my room with a shrill cry that sounds like nails down a blackboard, take my heart in both his hands and squeeeeze until I'm breathing from the shallowest part of my chest and my brain goes haywire.
That's where I found myself yesterday, as I sat in my Life Coach's office and cried for the first 10 minutes of our appointment.
I have started seeing a life coach because this rollercoaster of enormous highs and lows in my life has started wearing thin. It's great to get things done while things are going really well, and steamroller ahead putting more things on my plate, and I really do come across to others like I have a Midas touch with everything I do... until I realise I am heading for another trainwreck.
It's times like these when I sit down and re-evaluate everything I have going on, and realise that I have put my health back to the bottom of the list again. Things like eating well, getting enough sleep, moving more than simply walking to the bus stop to and from work each day... it's time to get these things kickstarted again.
Moving => breathing => better headspace
So, I'm gonna walk my Mojo back into town again. But, as "Coach" said yesterday, I am also going to be kind to myself. I'm NOT going to hit myself over the head with a huge training schedule, I am going to pick a few times a week where I can do something physically active, and also plan my daily meals a little better, instead of grabbing toast as I get to work, grabbing takeaway for lunch, in between coffees and sitting down an awful lot while doing a mainly sedentary job, while avoiding drinking my way through a bottle of wine of an evening while watching Project Runway!
Oh yeah, cos lately, that's what it has been like. It ain't a pretty picture.
I also need to brainstorm things that nurture me and strategies for warding off the brooding mentality. Like reading a good book (any recommendations?), scheduling TV time (rather than sitting in front of it all evening like a Zombie), painting my nails, calling a friend, reading a magazine, writing my comedy routine, sipping a cup of herbal tea in a cafe watching the world go by.... the possiblities are endless.
Baby steps. And one day at a time.
I am currently suffering from anxiety and depression. I am struggling with the big fat "why is life worth it" question again of late. I have a lot of negative self-talk going on at the moment, and I am buggered if I know how to deal with it, as it's the same old questions turning over in my head, making me feel worthless as though I am a big fake, defrauding my loved ones into thinking I am this amazing person, when in my own head I am spiralling. I have been here before, I don't want to be here now, and I have limited resources to deal with it when I find myself here, which is why I tend to withdraw from real life and just exist online (Facebook, Twitter, blogging) as it takes less energy to fake it till you make it (in cyberspace, no-one can see you scream).
I don't get this all the time, not even most of the time.
But occasionally, like the last few weeks, Depression will creep up on me like a Ninja, envelop me in its ever-darkening cloak, then keep me submerged with lethargy and apathy until all of a sudden I'm awoken to its presence by its hyperactive twin, Anxiety, who will burst into my room with a shrill cry that sounds like nails down a blackboard, take my heart in both his hands and squeeeeze until I'm breathing from the shallowest part of my chest and my brain goes haywire.
That's where I found myself yesterday, as I sat in my Life Coach's office and cried for the first 10 minutes of our appointment.
I have started seeing a life coach because this rollercoaster of enormous highs and lows in my life has started wearing thin. It's great to get things done while things are going really well, and steamroller ahead putting more things on my plate, and I really do come across to others like I have a Midas touch with everything I do... until I realise I am heading for another trainwreck.
It's times like these when I sit down and re-evaluate everything I have going on, and realise that I have put my health back to the bottom of the list again. Things like eating well, getting enough sleep, moving more than simply walking to the bus stop to and from work each day... it's time to get these things kickstarted again.
Moving => breathing => better headspace
So, I'm gonna walk my Mojo back into town again. But, as "Coach" said yesterday, I am also going to be kind to myself. I'm NOT going to hit myself over the head with a huge training schedule, I am going to pick a few times a week where I can do something physically active, and also plan my daily meals a little better, instead of grabbing toast as I get to work, grabbing takeaway for lunch, in between coffees and sitting down an awful lot while doing a mainly sedentary job, while avoiding drinking my way through a bottle of wine of an evening while watching Project Runway!
Oh yeah, cos lately, that's what it has been like. It ain't a pretty picture.
I also need to brainstorm things that nurture me and strategies for warding off the brooding mentality. Like reading a good book (any recommendations?), scheduling TV time (rather than sitting in front of it all evening like a Zombie), painting my nails, calling a friend, reading a magazine, writing my comedy routine, sipping a cup of herbal tea in a cafe watching the world go by.... the possiblities are endless.
Baby steps. And one day at a time.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Happiness: an obsession
I travelled to New York in my 20s, where I struck up a passing acquaintance with a French woman. We talked about life, the universe and everything (in other words, my kind of conversation). After our long and involved conversation she left me with these final words of wisdom:
"The most important thing in life is a penis."
Needless to say, I was a little gobsmacked and confused. Did she mean that you needed to be a man to get by in life? Did she mean that I, as a young woman, should pin my life goals on getting married? Did she mean that penis envy was at the heart of the feminist issues that prevented most of us forward progressive gals from getting the most out of life?
After ruminating long and hard (pardon the pun) over this conundrum, it finally dawned on me.
The advice had been lost in translation through her delightful French accent... the most important thing in life was, in fact, HAPPINESS!
The pursuit of happiness has been analysed, dissected, discussed, hypothesised, studied and deliberated upon. Surveys are conducted to determine how happy we are as a nation, as individuals, as demographics, any which way you care to chop up humankind and peer at it on a petrie dish.
The pursuit of happiness is even encoded into creeds, into national anthems, national psyches and an entire self-help genre has sprung from this sense of entitlement and pursuit of the damn thing.
I have spent a fair chunk of the last half a decade getting myself from a state of suicidal depression to the bouncing, joyful, lust-for-life attitude I currently display 90 per cent of the time. I was, for a long time, obsessed with this pursuit, and how it happens, and the whys, wherefores and how-to questions we all have.
If happiness is so important, what is the key to happiness?
Thankfully, yet another study has surfaced to satisfy my curious little mind.
According to new research, you can't blame your genes any longer, it is mainly your choice in partner and life goals that are the determinent to happiness. The study was done over 25 years, the only study to take long term tracking of happiness levels into account.
I found this fascinating. I have experienced some pretty low lows in my life, all within a very short period of each other, that tore me from my anchor in life, and sent me tail-spinning into a deep black abyss of pain. It was SOLELY my relationships with key family members and friends (although not, unfortunately due to having a great life partner, that was the reason I went on the spiralling journey in the first place) that re-focused me and my ability to set and maintain life goals. The first and most important of which being: stay alive long enough to make it worth living again.
The only thing that has improved my happiness levels since that time has been seeing my life goals come to fruition, such as doing improvisation comedy, being stable enough to maintain a great job again, prioritising friends and family, having friends and family who prioritise me in their lives (no matter how off-centre I sometimes get). Letting go of any kind of materialistic outlook (I know from experience how damaging that focus can be), and my happy partner these days is simply: myself.
My relationship with myself has only gone from strength to strength. I have allowed myself to grow, blossom and create room for happiness to come to me, rather than chasing it.
I journalled during my darkest hours. I sometimes read over those pages to see how far I have come, and it always brings tears to my eyes to see the journey from this end of the road.
I once wrote: "Happiness is like a butterfly. You can't chase it, so I have to just stand as still as I can and allow it to land on me."
RECIPE FOR CONTENTMENT
Key to being happy may not be in genes but in your choices by Amy Corderoy, Sydney Morning Herald, October 5, 2010 - 9:33AM
Have a happy partner
Don't be overworked or underworked
Prioritise family and community, and have a partner who does so as well
Don't be materialistic
Don't be obese
"The most important thing in life is a penis."
Needless to say, I was a little gobsmacked and confused. Did she mean that you needed to be a man to get by in life? Did she mean that I, as a young woman, should pin my life goals on getting married? Did she mean that penis envy was at the heart of the feminist issues that prevented most of us forward progressive gals from getting the most out of life?
After ruminating long and hard (pardon the pun) over this conundrum, it finally dawned on me.
The advice had been lost in translation through her delightful French accent... the most important thing in life was, in fact, HAPPINESS!
The pursuit of happiness has been analysed, dissected, discussed, hypothesised, studied and deliberated upon. Surveys are conducted to determine how happy we are as a nation, as individuals, as demographics, any which way you care to chop up humankind and peer at it on a petrie dish.
The pursuit of happiness is even encoded into creeds, into national anthems, national psyches and an entire self-help genre has sprung from this sense of entitlement and pursuit of the damn thing.
I have spent a fair chunk of the last half a decade getting myself from a state of suicidal depression to the bouncing, joyful, lust-for-life attitude I currently display 90 per cent of the time. I was, for a long time, obsessed with this pursuit, and how it happens, and the whys, wherefores and how-to questions we all have.
If happiness is so important, what is the key to happiness?
Thankfully, yet another study has surfaced to satisfy my curious little mind.
According to new research, you can't blame your genes any longer, it is mainly your choice in partner and life goals that are the determinent to happiness. The study was done over 25 years, the only study to take long term tracking of happiness levels into account.
I found this fascinating. I have experienced some pretty low lows in my life, all within a very short period of each other, that tore me from my anchor in life, and sent me tail-spinning into a deep black abyss of pain. It was SOLELY my relationships with key family members and friends (although not, unfortunately due to having a great life partner, that was the reason I went on the spiralling journey in the first place) that re-focused me and my ability to set and maintain life goals. The first and most important of which being: stay alive long enough to make it worth living again.
The only thing that has improved my happiness levels since that time has been seeing my life goals come to fruition, such as doing improvisation comedy, being stable enough to maintain a great job again, prioritising friends and family, having friends and family who prioritise me in their lives (no matter how off-centre I sometimes get). Letting go of any kind of materialistic outlook (I know from experience how damaging that focus can be), and my happy partner these days is simply: myself.
My relationship with myself has only gone from strength to strength. I have allowed myself to grow, blossom and create room for happiness to come to me, rather than chasing it.
I journalled during my darkest hours. I sometimes read over those pages to see how far I have come, and it always brings tears to my eyes to see the journey from this end of the road.
I once wrote: "Happiness is like a butterfly. You can't chase it, so I have to just stand as still as I can and allow it to land on me."
RECIPE FOR CONTENTMENT
Key to being happy may not be in genes but in your choices by Amy Corderoy, Sydney Morning Herald, October 5, 2010 - 9:33AM
Have a happy partner
Don't be overworked or underworked
Prioritise family and community, and have a partner who does so as well
Don't be materialistic
Don't be obese
Monday, October 4, 2010
Do your best... then get over it
Long time, no blog.
I've been sick, which always stifles my creativity. But the past week off work, stapled to my couch, coughing up lungs and getting rid of the lurgy that overtook my body with a speed and savagery of a Mongol horde has given me plenty of time to reflect on the use of "feeling sorry for yourself".
I don't want to sound all ranty-lecture-lady, but with illness comes far more limited patience with OPDs (Other People's Dramas) of which I have been subjected to a lot lately. I am a good listener, and a compassionate person, which is probably the reason people come to me for advice, sympathy or just a friendly ear.
But I must say that lately, there seems to have been a lot of dramas of the "mountain out of a molehill" variety, to which my response has been "just do your best.... then get over it".
What I mean by this is.... it's never as bad as you think.
Putting your life's dramas into perspective can be liberating; as that classic Casablanca quote goes "the problems of two little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world".
The only thing any of us can do is our best. Do your best in your relationships, your work, your self-improvement, your creative pursuits, your spirituality, your [insert aspect of life here]... then if it doesn't work out, understand that you have DONE your best, that most other people's reactions to YOU don't really matter, that their reactions are about them, and it probably isn't personal.
So, feel sad that whatever you expected to happen hasn't happened, and that you have been disappointed, then whack a sense of humour over the situation, put on a smile, and get over it.
It takes some practice, believe me. But it really works.
And, you'll feel better for doing it, trust me :)
I've been sick, which always stifles my creativity. But the past week off work, stapled to my couch, coughing up lungs and getting rid of the lurgy that overtook my body with a speed and savagery of a Mongol horde has given me plenty of time to reflect on the use of "feeling sorry for yourself".
I don't want to sound all ranty-lecture-lady, but with illness comes far more limited patience with OPDs (Other People's Dramas) of which I have been subjected to a lot lately. I am a good listener, and a compassionate person, which is probably the reason people come to me for advice, sympathy or just a friendly ear.
But I must say that lately, there seems to have been a lot of dramas of the "mountain out of a molehill" variety, to which my response has been "just do your best.... then get over it".
What I mean by this is.... it's never as bad as you think.
Putting your life's dramas into perspective can be liberating; as that classic Casablanca quote goes "the problems of two little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world".
The only thing any of us can do is our best. Do your best in your relationships, your work, your self-improvement, your creative pursuits, your spirituality, your [insert aspect of life here]... then if it doesn't work out, understand that you have DONE your best, that most other people's reactions to YOU don't really matter, that their reactions are about them, and it probably isn't personal.
So, feel sad that whatever you expected to happen hasn't happened, and that you have been disappointed, then whack a sense of humour over the situation, put on a smile, and get over it.
It takes some practice, believe me. But it really works.
And, you'll feel better for doing it, trust me :)
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