I could not have asked for a more perfect #trust30 today.

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. – Ralph Waldo Emerson My favorite quote of all time is Alan Kay: ‘In order to predict the future, you have to invent it.’ I am all about inventing the future. Decide what you want the future to be and make it happen. Because you can. Write about your future now. (Author: Cindy Gallop) Oh man. I could not have asked for a better time for this post to come up. I have spent the past week+ in pensive incubation. I have been looking at my future with such a close eye I am beginning to see the very baseboards of its foundation. I have shaken off the frustrations of this early #trust30 period and have instead moved to action, to creation and to vision. My brain: it’s finally starting to work the way it should. And my ideas are starting to take shape. & I believe the future is bright.

Introducing myself as of 2006, the autumn of my senior year of high school. I was 17.

In a noteable act of suburban rebellion and/or quasi-feminist-liberation after a bad day of school that year, I had stormed into the hairdresser and demanded he cut off my waist-length hair immediately. I walked out satisfied, feeling like my head was going to float away. I went home, startled the bejeezus out of my mom and had short hair for the next four, low-maintenance years. I was graduating high school and had wild dreams of the adventure and freedom of college, most of which turned out to be completely accurate. I was a little louder. I thought a little less before I spoke. I expected very different things from life. I thought I wanted to be a journalist or a politician.

I had gone to the same school since I was 4 and I had known most of my best friends for 14 years. I had lived in the same house since I was 3, and had only moved from one other house that was ten minutes down the road. Leaving could not have been more bizarre, or welcome.

Luckily enough for this prompt, I’ve kept a journal since 2006 that still sits on my bedside table in my apartment. I have found two poems

Here’s a poem I wrote in 2006, the day the picture above was taken.

[Author's note:] Please don’t judge! I was young and considered myself ‘literary’ because I’d taken AP English Literature.

[Author's other note:] Wait… isn’t my entire blog like an ‘author’s note’?! Nevermind.

Exodus

We watch as the days slide past,

Sand in our hair, the smell of the sea and  baking asphalt,

Laughter and song.

We are the beloved

and the vanishing.

And when we depart

Our cars will make bowed shadows on the highway

Like lonely giants.

What would I say to myself?

I would tell my anxious adolescent self not to worry, that I would be ok. That I would not be the miserable, confused kid all of us can be at 17 forever, that the boy worries that consumed me would melt into shadows and that the brightness would shine through, as ever. I would give myself a hug.

Fast forward and suddenly it’s 2011, my senior year of college & graduation. Where does the time go?

A little older. 22. Still pretty loud, still don’t think long enough before I speak. Grown, by the standards of any 17 year old. I have graduated college, have my first job and apartment and a wonderful group of friends here and scattered across the world. The crew from high school still keeps in touch, and we’re celebrating a whopping 19 years of friendship this year. Unbelievable.

My taste in music is probably what’s changed the most. I rose from the emo-depths of Brand New and Yellowcard fandom into the more upbeat world of folk, hip hop and house music. One thing I’ve certainly moved past are my misgivings about dancing with myself in public. I am unabashed by the joy that music fills me with, and any raised eyebrows or giggling whispers are evidence of patrons simply not having as much fun as I am. Ha ha ha.

But I digress.

So here was a poem I wrote this year during a particularly flustered/frustrated study break during finals. I warn you, my writing has not improved vastly.

School

We were not made,

To sit crunched over tiny words,

and flashing screens.

Our bodies were designed for the higher purpose

of the

Anything Else.

To leap, to run, to walk, to bend,

And should we so choose,

To follow drum beats like heartbeats

& dance like Gods upon the moon.

If we so choose.

But instead the massive crumbling

Volumes in that silent space

of ‘learning’

Surround us like so many vultures ‘wise’.

And now I sit at my desk,

As my dishwasher makes sounds

Like the vast ocean.

So, a bit of a stretch, but you can see I was disillusioned with the world of academia. So be it, it’s over now!

I am very happy where I am right now, although my 17 year old self could not have imagined it for me. Within the past 5 years I’ve gone to college, survived living in Miami, Germany and New York City. I’ve lain on the bottom of the sea and chased lemurs through the woods. I’ve waited tables, been a camp counselor and sold hookah. I’ve worked in fashion, travel, sports, nonprofits and newspapers. I have loved many and lost a few, made mistakes, gotten messy, learned to cook and to discipline myself.

I am proud of who I have become and look forward to the next 5 years. I can’t even begin to imagine what is in store, and hey– if I imagine too hard, I might ruin the surprise! I’ll be 27 in 5 years, which is the age Mommy was when she got married. CRAZY! Maybe I’ll have my dream job. Maybe I’ll be living in Thailand. Maybe I’ll have a dog. Maybe I’ll be back in school– I just don’t know! But man, am I ever looking forward to the voyage. AHOY!

What would I say to myself? Not much… but I would definitely high-five myself.

And oh wait– one thing in particular has kept consistent through these 5 years. A pair of neon yellow stilettos:

“You’re sick of hangin around and you’d like to travel,

Get tired of travelin and you want to settle down,

I guess they can’t revoke your soul for tryin,

Get out of the door and light out and look all around.

Sometimes all the lights shine on me,

Other times I can barely see,

Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip it’s been.

(The Grateful Dead: ‘Truckin’)

Have a great day everybody!

Enjoy? Follow me on Twitter @hcweiss! I’d love to read your story too!

So here is how I started a few days ago, with Day 4 prompt.

Now I don’t want you to take this the wrong way. I’m not sitting here chewing down my nails wondering when I’m going to make it– not after the last few days, anyway.

I’m a big believer in ‘earning’. Earning money, earning your stripes, earning respect. Proving yourself beyond a reasonable doubt, on a personal level as well as a professional one. Proving yourself to the point where you can sit down and at last agree with yourself that you deserve what you have, without question, because you’ve put in the time and effort.

I have a huge respect for those who have become successful doing what they love and naturally I wish to emulate it. But when I think of the time and years and focus these heroes have spent crafting these lives for themselves, I am simply in awe.

Do I deserve success? Have I put in the mileage?

So the post-it remained on my bathroom mirror for 48 hours. My boyfriend walked into my bathroom that day and I heard him stop.

“Um, what’s this?”

“Oh, that’s one of my #trust30 prompts.”

He turned to me me with such a look of incredulity on his face I may as well have scrawled “I am an alien” all over the mirror.

“You don’t think you deserve success? ”

I shrugged, and started to feel a bit silly. “I don’t know, that’s why it’s up there.”

He opened his mouth, but stopped himself. Instead he laughed, kissed me on the nose and left the room.

It was more reassuring than anything any employer or professor could have ever said to me.

So I took a deep breath and took the post-it down.
So this brings us back to Day 7.

A refresher, so you don’t have to scroll up:

“What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to accomplish but have been afraid to pursue? Write it down. Also write down the obstacles in your way of reaching your goal. Finally, write down a tangible plan to overcome each obstacle.

The only thing left is to, you know, actually go make it happen. What are you waiting for?”

Well, the short answer is… I have made a list, but it’s not ready to be posted quite yet. Rest assured, the formal list of dreams and whims and flights of fancy is still to come.

But this idea of wants, rational thought versus dreams and then my ‘launch hestitation’ evidenced by the earlier discussion tied into some things going on in my life.

So, the longer answer is a little more juvenile and has four legs, fur and a tail.

Introducing Simon. Or, Simon Le Chat de Mystère, as he came to be known.

My brother, sister and I found him about a year ago, a hungry little kittten on the driveway. We petted him, named him Simon temporarily (or so we thought), fed him some cheese and then went back inside and to bed, hoping the best for the little furball. When Daddy went out to get the morning paper, there he was. We took him in and he’s been with us ever since.

But there was a problem. We have another cat at my parent’s house, Chloe. She’s 19, surprising to you maybe, but I’ve theorized for years that she sold her soul to the devil for eternal life. She’s not the friendliest, and has spent most of Simon’s life in our house bullying him, eating his food and kicking him out of sunny spots on windowsills. He was barely seen around the house, preferring to hide under beds and in dark closets, away from loud noise and the menacing ChloChlo. He loves my Mom, but when anyone else approached he would bolt with such incredible speed he earned himself the nickname Ninja Cat and Simon Le Chat de Mystère (Simon the Mystery Cat).

So fast forward a year and change to my graduation, and my first apartment. My mother’s immediately suggested I take him in and after some thought, I accepted. We had a long discussion about how to keep his fragile little kitty psyche from imploding with the move. This involved keeping him in my room for a few days until he became familiar with at least those surroundings.

I was so nervous.

What if he didn’t like me? What if he hated it here? I had loved him very much before but I was never around, why was he required to love me? He wasn’t! He could be miserable! What if he never came out from under my bed?

I wouldn’t be able to bear not being loved by something so fluffy.

So Simon arrived and immediately dashed under my bed. Fast forward a few more hours to me, sitting above him on the bed and calling his name in what I imagined to be comforting tones, waiting for him to come out.

He did not.

“You can’t think of him as a human, he doesn’t have the same emotions,” my mother had intoned earlier. “Assert your dominance and show him who is in charge so he feels comfortable!”

She encouraged me to try and gently tug Simon out from his hiding place. I grabbed his little paw and held it… carefully trying to persuade him. To no avail.

I waited.

I waited some more.

(Cue rational thought) If I were hiding under a bed, what would draw me out, I wondered? (Cue personification)

Food, fun, friends… entertainment.

Then I remembered a gift I had bought the little guy in anticipation of his arrival. Enter Mortimer the Wonder Fish on a Bouncy String.

I lept back on the bed and dangled the fish above the side of the bed. Bounce bounce bounce.

“Simon, get the fish!”

Bounce bounce bounce.

“Play, play, play!”

At last, a paw stuck out to bat the fish. Just one paw.

Then gradually, two.

Then a kitty face!

And then:

So happy together!

He emerged. We played. He let me pet him. We snuggled. He purred.

So I guess the moral of the story is that it’s possible to spend too much time worrying about what you feel you deserve. If you take all the right steps, do your best and relax, what will be, will be. If you spend too much time concerned with your own “legit” allowances, you might actually short-change yourself.

Love!

Enjoy? Follow me on Twitter @hcweiss! I’d love to read your story too!

Keeping with the sea theme.

One Strong Belief by Buster Benson

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

This question sent me in a spiral today.

My first instinct was to pick it apart, so I sat and discussed the difference between thought and belief with myself. I think a lot of things. I think a first impression isn’t necessarily everything. I think I am open to new people and new ideas. I think I appreciate my surroundings and how fortunate I am. I think I would be a good pet owner. I think that white chocolate is a waste of time. But what do I believe?

Belief… I tossed it around a bit. I believe in miracles—where you from you sexy thing? I believe in a thing called love. Now I’m a believer.

I was two stepping around my room, halfway into the second chorus of Simian Mobile Disco’s ‘I Believe’  when I suddenly I latched onto a thought. Strong  beliefs are much like knowledge. What did I know about? What are the outlines of my personal philosophy? What was something that was so strong it propelled me to action? What knowledge do I keep?

And then it came to me.

I believe in the pursuit of euphoria. Fearless, unadulterated happiness is the ultimate goal.

I believe that ridicule is envy.

I believe that no one is ever completely alone with their struggles—not in this day and age. I believe that happiness should come back into vogue. I am tired of hearing people say gloomily “No one understands me, I’m just a **cked up person.” Based on what comparison, I ask you? I don’t believe there has been a single report of an individual who managed to completely sidestep embarrassment, shame, frustration, anger, depression or awkwardness and achieve a perfect point of stability and contentment. While it may seem like you and Holden Caufield against the world, just remember: you loved the book because it was a reflection of yourself. That’s what Salinger was trying to point out—we are more united in our struggles (in Holden’s case, as in all of ours– the particularly bizarre experience that is adolescence) than we are in our success. I believe in the pursuit of untamable, blissful happiness.

Now that that’s clarified, I’ve realized that I’ve been keeping that focus all to myself. Certainly smiling, dancing and laughing often, are symptoms of my belief, but I have not been applying them directly.

I do believe it’s time to shift focus again!

Until next time.

Enjoy? Follow me on Twitter @hcweiss! I’d love to read your story too!

That Nearly Impossible First Step

So it has been a while since my last post. I know, I know, this is like my third post that’s started like this but LISTEN UP. It’s for real this time. And here’s why:

April. Ok, well April just kind of got away from me. As I moved further and further away from the date of my last post, I went through the usual stages of postcrastination. Denial (I’ll get to it!), frustration, (Man, why can’t I think of anything to write about?) shame (Everything I write is stupid!) to acceptance (Well, I’ll get to it eventually.) Then May happened.

May started in a blast of Hellfire. Exams, internships, work and the last goodbyes of Senior Year came all at once and I did my best to keep it all going seamlessly. Life was rushing forward and at risk of being up shit’s creek without an oar I was paddling so quickly I almost missed the fact I’d finally hit the ocean. And then, out of nowhere: a brick wall. I came down with a raging fever. Weeks of pushing myself to juggle too many things at once, too little sleep and too much work came to a head. What can I say, I kind of deserved it.

I was bedridden just in time to finish my last exams and stayed out of commission through graduation. I became my own ball and chain, stuck in a sick room. I had nothing to do but lay back and reflect on the last four years. Everything that I had learned about the world, about myself. Things about people, things about cooking, things about books, things about monkeys, things about coffee, things about music, things about art and things about determination… How with every new piece of knowledge I acquired, I realized how little I actually knew. I was finished with school. I had secured a job and my own apartment. My life was about to begin. I had made my choices and there was no turning back now. I had done it.

But instead of feeling like I was ready to start kicking ass and taking names, I realized I felt like a newly hatched fish in a vast, perilous sea.

The useful thing about that imagery was: I’d to keep swimming either way.

Thankfully, May took a turn for the better very quickly. I took a vacation that didn’t entail work, extra academic pursuits or furthering my career, which was much needed. A three day car ride with my wonderful best Bear, reveling in the joy of graduation and ignoring the impending deluge of reality that was about to set in. It was just what I needed. I distanced myself from work and for what felt like the first time in a long time, I took a deep breath and had enough time to exhale slowly. I learned to slow down at Hostel in the Forest. I watched the highway stretch for miles. I drifted off to sleep. I remembered that having a best Bear means I’m allowed to ramble to her and empty whatever’s in my head so she can help me sort it out. I was reunited with my second family. I wore a traditional Indian outfit and witnessed a Sacred Thread Ceremony. I got my liver whupped by the Lower East Side. I met my awesome boss for the first time. I danced all night long. It was wonderful.

However, this journey was not without its serious moments of self-reflection. I was reunited with the beloved city I had sworn I would return to as soon as my diploma was in my hand. New York. The Big Apple. The City That Doesn’t Sleep. The Empire State. My soul city. It was as if I was reliving the summer before, re-learning to love the pigeons, the subway, the stench of urine and hot asphalt in the sweltering heat.  There was such an ache in my heart delving back into the concrete jungle for only a single day, it was as though I had betrayed her.

I wrestled with the feeling that I had let myself down somehow. That by taking on not one, but two great jobs and staying put in the city I went to college in, I was somehow sucking the sparkle out of my future. Though my career may be lucrative, what if I was doomed to become a boring, pasty, ankle-sock-and-visor suburbanite? Is that what happens? Do people give up the glitter for pastels and golf carts because they prefer it, or because they felt like they didn’t deserve the glitz either? The feeling that there were no sequins left for me, that all the disco balls had been taken, the city lights had been repossessed and the road to success was bottlenecked.

So suddenly I, H “I have a job and a plan since March” Weiss realized… I might not have what I really wanted.

So I thought about things I would want… and I realized I didn’t have that defined either.

That’s so annoying, isn’t it? Sometimes, when you’re so busy getting upset about being upset, you miss the big picture. Step back, take a deep breath, and clarify.

So I made a list… and I immediately calmed down.

The list was as follows:

I WANT:

1. To write.
2. To work.
3. To learn.

I took a breath and realized that I had set myself to learn and work in two wonderfully different realms, but I would need time develop myself professionally. I have so much to learn, and even after I’ve absorbed it, it will still incubate, morph and change. I will discover where I should be going, because I have positioned myself for discovery. At this point, it is a matter of perseverance. Gotta keep on swimming.

Writing is another matter, and one I’ve been kicking my own ass about taking more seriously. I’ve been putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, I suppose) for a very, very long time. Writing my thoughts down has always been a release for me, and revisiting old journals reminds me how important writing down your own life experience can be. It’s time to put those writings some place where they can eventually manifest into something that is (hopefully) useful and relevant.

So… the let the journey begin. Right now.

My first step in this process involved taking the Ralph Waldo Emerson pledge.

Here are the details from the website:

The Inspiration

To celebrate Emerson’s 208th birthday, The Domino Project is republishing a work of art that’s especially relevant today. Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson urges readers to trust their intuition rather than conforming to the will of the majority.

The Pledge Details

1. The #Trust30 challenge starts at 6am ET on May 31st and runs for 30 days.
2. Each day we’ll post a prompt from an original thinker and doer on RalphWaldoEmerson.me. You can also sign-up for daily emails.
3. Fill out the short form below to commit to participating in the #trust30 online initiative.
4. Blog, journal, or create something on each of the 30 days.
5. Tweet using the hashtag #trust30 to show your support and involvement.

–

Although I joined 1 day late, this is going to be my personal writing boot camp.

Today’s prompt is this:

Today by Liz Danzico

Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. The force of character is cumulative. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.

–

So… Day 1:

Today is about taking that very first delve into this wide and extraordinary sea.

THANK YOU #trust30

Follow me on twitter at @hcweiss where my other prompts may show up as well.

Here we go!