Mostly Pretty

This weekend I met an exceptional lady – the type of person that when you meet them, you know they’ll change your life, and you hope that by the grace of God, you change theirs as well. This woman was a writer in her time. She sold articles to some prominent papers, she was smart, witty, and offered some interesting career advice including a possible title of my first book, “Mostly Pretty” (you gotta admit, she’s pretty spot on). However in the spirit of sharing, here’s the most important advice:

First and foremost she told me I needed to lighten my hair. Lighter hair will make me look snappy and therefore more visual to men. Not sure if I’ll take that into consideration, but you never know.

Travel, travel the world and write about what you’re doing. Write like the explorer you are but be accurate. Remember your excitement will pull through so push yourself to love what you’re doing and make others do so.

Love life, and remember that every good writer needs to constantly push themselves. Everyone’s a lazy writer, but those that work will be able to enjoy life more than even they thought possible.

If you think about it, this advice isn’t all that new or Earth shattering. I mean everyone’s supposed to know that right? But having never really spoken to another writer like that, one who did it solely for pleasure, and still got do much excitement out of it, it really was an eye opening experience. Anyway that’s all I have for now. I’ll see if I can’t channel more of her advice later on – stay tuned.

The Economic Stimulus

I have no idea what’s happening in Washington.  We hear of the bickering, and now $787 billion recovery package is signed into law. What it will do for us and this nation, I have no idea, but what I do know is that this economic crisis, really is everywhere. This is nothing new I know, but it’s true. I think it’s so easy to think, “not me, I won’t be affected, I work too hard, no one has my qualifications”. The reality is, that in business there’s no such thing as personal. Again no real revelation here either, but sometimes it’s so easy to think we’re irreplaceable.

In life we work hard, we think “I can build a career here” and we try like hell to move up the chain, just like everyone else. Unfortunately, sometimes we don’t plan for the bumps, bruises, the undeserved lay-offs. And we find ourselves sqarely back at the feet of mercy, divine intervention, or whatever you want to call it. I think that’s America, today’s America. In the world where you work hard and all your dreams can come true, sometimes the nightmares are a little more prevalent.

I know this blog posting does’t offer any relevent insight, recent breaking news, or anything interesting, but it’s been a while since since I’ve last posted and for that I’m a bit ashamed. I admit I was caugh up in what I thought was important, in what I thought would esclate my career, self-worth and even status in society. In the process I admit I lost my journalist nerve and drive to speak my mind, something I swore I’d never lose. Then the worst thing in the world happened, the thing I feared since I started this job – I was laid off. Let go like all the effort, plans, stress didn’t matter. And like the other 600,000 people that lost their job last week, I had NO idea how I was going to pay the rent, eat, or keep my sanity. How could this happen?

For me, this turn in events may have been the best thing that ever happened – I guess we’ll have to see. But one think I do know is that I will never put myself in a position where I can’t be myself ever again. This may be a tough time (boy did I learn the hard way!) but I know I’m stronger for it and I have faith that this nation will be too.