Generation Meh

I am not very good at waiting. Never have been. And lately, I’ve been doing a lot of waiting. A lot. Boomerangs that I’ve tossed out and now it’s up to the universe to return them.

Photo by Bondseye

I wasn’t one of those kids who kicked the back of the seat and kept asking, “Are we there yet?” Instead, I sit with my hands knitted together in my lap. I bite my lip. Stare at the wall. At my watch. At the horizon. I told you; I’m no good at this. And that annoys me. This is valuable time that’s being frittered away on impatient sighing and half-drunk cups of tea and unread books I’ve been stacking on the coffee table. Time and energy that could be channeled toward something other than the wait. I tell myself this  as I’m half drinking and not reading.

But that’s the rub. It actually can’t be. Waiting, speculating, conjecturing is a full-time preoccupation. Waiting for college acceptance letters, for job offers, for test results, for decisions and permissions and responses and approvals. Your time isn’t your own. It belongs to the eventual answer, to the future when everything will be resolved. One way or another.

Are we there yet?

Hate To Break It To You is a recurring feature wherein we dispense succinct home truths that everyone could benefit from facing up to, unpleasant as they may be.

The more you are actually engaged in the highs and lows of life, the less time or inclination you have to dissect them in public detail. You’re too busy living through them to bother issuing press releases as to which way the emotional wind is blowing today and then eagerly monitoring the responses to your sharing. You realize that you can’t capture the poignancy of what it feels like to experience this, right here, right now in 140-characters or less and you place a greater importance on actually being present in this moment than on gauging how best to distill its poignancy into a soundbyte. Believe it or not, there are folks out there like that. And you’re never gonna hear a peep out of them.

Photo by Tayrawr Fortune

The people who are truly struggling with getting out of bed in the morning, keeping themselves together, shattered by grief or illness or simply overwhelmed, aren’t trawling for cyber hugs and cute animal pics. They’re trying to make it through the day. When push comes to shove, playing for public pathos isn’t even on the radar. Surviving trumps surveying the internet peanut gallery for moral support.

And the same goes for happiness, for accomplishment. Is your joy incomplete if you don’t get it externally validated? Do you really have to update your Facebook status from the top of the Ferris wheel at the Montana State Fair in order to preserve the wonder of that moment for posterity? Couldn’t you just, you know, STFU and enjoy said moment as it happens?

I’m so over this compulsion toward narration and color commentary and pithy little battles of wit that our 24/7 internet world fosters. It’s a thousand supermarket checkout conversations, a million first date getting-to-know-you chats, an uncountable number of holiday newsletters, every New Year’s resolution you ever made, rolled into one big ball of noise. And I leave every exchange hungrier than the last for something, anything of genuine, unedited substance that cuts through the static.

Your life isn’t performance art (unless you’re Lady Gaga or James Franco).  It’s for living, not mining for anecdote potential. And eventually, talking (about what you have, what you want, the abstract, the quotidian, the flavor of the week) gets tiring, both for you and your listeners. It rings hollow, a disingenuous and unfulfilling proxy for action and emotion and yes, participation. Talk is cheap. Talk is ephemeral. Talk makes you feel a part of something even as the more you talk, the further you distance yourself from the real something of life and connections with other human beings that aren’t based on commenting on each others’ blogs or giving the thumbs up to someone’s spring break photo album.

There’s more out there. If and when you find it or if and when you decide to put your money and forward momentum where your mouth is, let me know.

New York Magazine runs a regular feature on the food diary of a celebrity/public figure/whoever they can round up. Last week’s happened to be Mika Brzezinski, co-host of Morning Joe.  I can’t remember where I stumbled upon a link to the rundown of her recent eating habits, but after reading it, I felt compelled to share it on Twitter, where it provoked quite a discussion about the implications of her diet and the terms in which she chose to discuss it.

Photo by anitasarkeesian

Laying aside the disturbing physical and psychological implications of subsisting on granola bars and Starbucks coffee while working 18-hour days and taking frequent five-mile runs, it was the language that she used to frame her consumption of a scoop of gelato that really struck me. She claimed that she was now at a weight where she could “afford” to have this indulgence, but had to be mindful that it was a one-shot deal.

Her mindset is all too common and it extends beyond eating habits to the idea  that until we’ve satisfied X prerequisite, we should avoid Y. Dating can wait until we get the career stuff sorted out. Why bother with a new sofa if you’re still stuck in this lousy apartment? And forget sprucing up your wardrobe for at least another 20 lbs. I call it motivation by deprivation and it doesn’t work. Oh, if I just keep holding my breath, think about how much more I’ll appreciate that oxygen when I finally allow myself to inhale. See how silly that sounds? How are you going to appreciate it if you’re lying on the ground blue-faced and unconscious?

There is a moralistic undertone to this line of thinking, of course. Only successful people have earned enjoyment.  Happiness or “indulgence” (please don’t get me started on this word or we’ll never stop) is the prize for exhibiting self-control, will power, or superhuman hustle. To enjoy in the here and now would be unseemly. We’ve haven’t done enough, been enough, sacrificed enough to warrant it. There will be time for that when we’ve finally gotten everything else squared away (hint: that will happen at just about half-past never).  We pride ourselves on our ability to multi-task, but can’t wrap our brains around the idea we can balance contentment in some facets of our lives with striving or yearning in other aspects.  But it’s not an all or nothing game and blanket self-denial and austerity isn’t the character-building path to future success (especially if you’d actually like to retain the capacity to appreciate said success).

Framing the present as a trial to be endured and holding out happiness or self-care as a reward instead of an integral element of your current existence and something you have the absolute right to experience doesn’t push you to work harder, it simply makes you miserable and robs you of the capacity to unreservedly savor something as basic as a bowl of ice cream.

When I put out a Twitter call for career and life coaches interested in chatting it up on GenMeh, Nailah Blades was one of the first to volunteer. Nailah is an LA-based life coach (and the brains behind Polka Dot Coaching) who specializes in quarter-life experiences. Our interview was supposed to be video-based, but technology had other ideas (and I even wore make-up just for you guys!), so we regrouped and jury-rigged a transcript for your edification.

Photo by rachel_titiriga

What got you into coaching?
I’ve always been passionate about helping people. And I thrive on connecting people with the people or things they need most – helping them get from point A to point B. After going through my own quarter-life crisis I realized that coaching would help fulfill these passions for me. I also liked that there were so many different avenues I could take with coaching – I was guaranteed to never get bored.

Why did you decide to focus on the quarter-life?
I went through my own quarter-life crisis when I was 24. At the time, I didn’t see a lot of resources out there to help me get through what I was feeling. The programs I did find were geared towards older women. To make matters worse, everyone else was telling me how happy I should be and how my twenties should be the best years of my life. I felt completely alone. I decided to focus on the quarter-life experience because I didn’t want other women to have to recreate the wheel. I want to be a resource for young women who are looking to find themselves.  Plus, since I’m still in my twenties, I can fully understand the quarter-life perspective.

How could your target audience – people in their twenties and thirties who are experiencing the issues you spoke about – benefit from the coaching process?
I work with women in their twenties and thirties who are ready to live bold and vibrant lives but are unsure how to get there. They may be stuck in a job they dislike or they may be feeling unmotivated about life. They can benefit from having someone guide them through the process of unlocking their true passions and figuring out how to design a life they crave. Coaching is all about forward movement. It’s about setting and reaching your goals. Anyone who is feeling stuck or unmotivated can definitely benefit from the coaching process.

Can you tell us about what your process is for working with a client?
I like to break it down into three big steps: 1) Who am I? 2) What do I want? 3) How do I get there? It’s incredibly important to be crystal clear on who you are. What your values are, what makes you tick, what makes you happy and what makes you unhappy. Laying that foundation is the most important step. Second, I move on to what you really want. It’s important to outline what you truly want in life so that you can clearly align your goals with your core values. The last step is outlining how you’ll actually reach these goals. This is where a lot of support, motivation and gentle pushing comes in. Along the way, I also help identify and break down any blocks, fears or barriers to success.

What gives you the biggest feeling of success in your coaching?
I love knowing that what I do has impacted someone in some way. Whether it’s in response to a blog post, one-on-one coaching, or even a tweet or Facebook message, I get the biggest high when I get positive feedback from clients or readers. Knowing that I’ve touched someone brings me absolute joy and makes everything I do totally worth it.

What’s currently in the works for Polka Dot Coaching?
I’ve just launched a new online workshop called the Authentic Happiness Guide. AHG is a unique four-week online workshop focused on helping you uncover your true passions so you can begin living your life authentically, on your terms. Each day, participants will be given a worksheet, exercise or journal prompt that will guide them through the process. The four weeks are broken into: Who Am I, What Do I Want, How Do I Get There, and Dedication & Celebration. Everyone will gain access to a private online forum where they will be able to share, discuss and support one another.  It will be a great resource for anyone who is looking to get unstuck and will serve as a good way to get a taste of what coaching is all about.

List Served is a semi-regular feature wherein I present you with an ordered grouping of (at least tangentially) related points. I love lists and the internet loves ephemeral minutiae. It’s all good.

These are the things that I do when I’m trying to avoid writing a piece/am stalled at a particular point/have dramatically decided Scarlett O’Hara style that I shall never write again. In case you were, you know, wondering or something.

Photo by soartsyithurts

• Go to the gym. Fume about people who put their mats too close to mine. Prop myself up on my elbows and surreptitiously check out what everyone is doing during the end of class meditation (lying there with their eyes closed like I should be). Work on my right hook.  A lot.
• Listen to the Vitamin String Quartet YouTube channel. Shut up. No, really. Shut up. I will not apologize for loving Livin’ On a Prayer arranged for the violin and cello and you can’t make me.
• Bookmark dresses on etsy and ModCloth.
• Fantasize about living a life in which I would wear cute dresses every day instead of the reality in which my legs would be cold and I would whine about that and be paranoid that my hemline was too high.
• Subtly rearrange info on the site and wonder if anyone notices. Launch a Facebook page, but then wonder if I should have waited for Diaspora to be extra cool.
• Write stuff for other folks. Recently, it was this. In the near future, there will be more. James Franco and feminism may or may not be involved.
• Bake gluten-free vegan cupcakes. Marvel at how well they turn out. Temporarily forget that I don’t like cupcakes.
• Have insomnia. Yes, still. Have strange matrimony-themed dreams when I do sleep. Did you know I can officiate weddings? Because SleepMe so can! Also, in case of apocalypse, you should totally marry the dashing scientist who lives next door to your antebellum mansion because you both anticipate that wedded status will guarantee you more civil rights under whatever post-apocalyptic junta seizes political power. Just a little tip from me to you.
• Read articles about social media and web metrics. Take diligent notes. Tell myself that weirdness in my chest is probably a heart murmur and not a rising tide of bile.