“My mind is always on 20 different things,” Mr. Lawlor said. “What do I need to get done? How much will it cost? Is it necessary? Can I do it cheaper if I do it myself? Can I make the earlier commute home? Rush, rush, rush, and then suddenly someone makes the wrong comment and I become uncorked.”
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
I'm going to start simply writing my observations of the world, the adveritsing business, branding,c ommunities, healthcare, what have you. I have too many tiny thoughts I need to get out and not enough essays.
So here's something from Fast Company.com about brand-led innovation. Making change in the world by changing your brand to fit the changing world. Or put more simply:
A colleague of mine offered the following thought: "The greater the gap between the current infrastructure of a given business or industry and the changing needs of its customers, the greater the value of design for that business."
Why is that? In the current environment most businesses cannot adapt their existing infrastructure rapidly enough to meet changing demands in the market-place. They are seeing rapid changes in consumer expectations that have the potential to open up new markets and opportunities if they can be translated into sustained behavior. But, instead of jumping ahead most companies are falling behind.
Consumer behavior in areas like health and prevention are a great example. Communities like Patientslikeme are becoming more and more sophisticated in how they coordinate and support collective behavior and shift consumer demand in ways that traditional provider networks can only dream of.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Not where I want to be
I want to write, but as with everything, I can't get started. It used to be easy when I had a topic, a word count and a deadline. Essays have formats. Biographies don't.
Everyone tells me I could write a book about my life experiences. I wish I could. I can't create right now. All I can think about is finding ways to fill my days. Walking, free gyms, Travis, guitar, writing. It's no a full life. It's not a challenging life. It's just not the life I EVER envisioned for myself.
Something tells me I do need to write this story to fiure it out. But I don'tknow where to start.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
In Too Deep
Whatever the moments in which I remember how beautiful life is are the same moments in which I feel most tragic. That a little thing can be so significant means that in its ability to bring joy is also the ability to confer great pain. Really, rocks and dirt and trees are not little things at all, and who am I, a little thing, to determine anything?
Today, a cat laid on me and I felt its heart and its breath and its purring as validation for the care I had given him. It made me cry. It happened not once, but twice, and I cried. Maybe three times. Thirty is coming fast and I'm not supposed to feel so openly, but I find myself feeling more -- and feeling quicker.
To be moved by the world is an amazing thing, but it's tumultuous. I understand suicide so much more now because life is so unsettled. In the ellipses between childhood and adulthood you don't know who you are or maybe you do, but you don't trust it. You don't trust yourself and you don't trust the ground under your feet. You don't trust that it's OK to be who you are and you are tired of trusting others for direction.
When Christie told me she didn't think I would be married by 35, I think she saw this in me. Not split personalities, but the split in my life.
I would never ever even own a cat in a state like this. To be depended on is the best thing in the world, but I don't have enough ownership over my own life as it is. Whether or not I overeat or breathe steadily or play my music has everything to do with someone I don't care about. I am literally ruled by a nasty, pathetic roommate who takes his unhappiness out on me in unpleasant and passive aggressive ways. I allow him to make me unhappy, and I don't even interact with him. I am still living the same old ways, dividing people into tyrants and allies; dividing myself into the sycophant or the advocate, but only allowing others to make the call.
Yes, it is time to announce that Eddie has nothing to do with me. I have to get out of there. Like a parent who stays in a failing marriage because of the children, I have played martyr long past the opint of good. My life and health are damaged, and I am calling "trapped", but I only need to be saved from myself. Eddie is not a part of my life. The fact that I'm mentioning him at all grosses me out. He grosses me out. That apartment grosses me out.
I want out.
I don't want to write about life details anymore. Unemployment and job searches, freelance and money. In reality, I don't give a damn about the problems I help society plague me with. I want to love and have fun and bring in money many different ways, but I don't care about the things my parents care about. I want love, dammit. I deserve to enjoy my life. I am going to be thirty, and I earned it. All the little steps I'm taking took little steps to get to, and all those little steps are exhausting. You don't always go up those steps, you sometimes turn around and go back down before heading onward. Life is amazingly hard, and then you feel so stupid because it's so easy to just do without thinking like you did when you were a kid. Getting hurt isn't that bad, is it? Then why do I fear it so much?
I need to let go of the past. I need to smile at what's coming. Not in 10 years, but tomorrow. I've got incredible friends here who represent everything I ever wanted. I love them so much and I gotta pull myself up by my bootstraps and at least make it through my birthday songs for them. I owe them a moment when they don't have to be there fo rme. I owe them what I can give them.
Today, a cat laid on me and I felt its heart and its breath and its purring as validation for the care I had given him. It made me cry. It happened not once, but twice, and I cried. Maybe three times. Thirty is coming fast and I'm not supposed to feel so openly, but I find myself feeling more -- and feeling quicker.
To be moved by the world is an amazing thing, but it's tumultuous. I understand suicide so much more now because life is so unsettled. In the ellipses between childhood and adulthood you don't know who you are or maybe you do, but you don't trust it. You don't trust yourself and you don't trust the ground under your feet. You don't trust that it's OK to be who you are and you are tired of trusting others for direction.
When Christie told me she didn't think I would be married by 35, I think she saw this in me. Not split personalities, but the split in my life.
I would never ever even own a cat in a state like this. To be depended on is the best thing in the world, but I don't have enough ownership over my own life as it is. Whether or not I overeat or breathe steadily or play my music has everything to do with someone I don't care about. I am literally ruled by a nasty, pathetic roommate who takes his unhappiness out on me in unpleasant and passive aggressive ways. I allow him to make me unhappy, and I don't even interact with him. I am still living the same old ways, dividing people into tyrants and allies; dividing myself into the sycophant or the advocate, but only allowing others to make the call.
Yes, it is time to announce that Eddie has nothing to do with me. I have to get out of there. Like a parent who stays in a failing marriage because of the children, I have played martyr long past the opint of good. My life and health are damaged, and I am calling "trapped", but I only need to be saved from myself. Eddie is not a part of my life. The fact that I'm mentioning him at all grosses me out. He grosses me out. That apartment grosses me out.
I want out.
I don't want to write about life details anymore. Unemployment and job searches, freelance and money. In reality, I don't give a damn about the problems I help society plague me with. I want to love and have fun and bring in money many different ways, but I don't care about the things my parents care about. I want love, dammit. I deserve to enjoy my life. I am going to be thirty, and I earned it. All the little steps I'm taking took little steps to get to, and all those little steps are exhausting. You don't always go up those steps, you sometimes turn around and go back down before heading onward. Life is amazingly hard, and then you feel so stupid because it's so easy to just do without thinking like you did when you were a kid. Getting hurt isn't that bad, is it? Then why do I fear it so much?
I need to let go of the past. I need to smile at what's coming. Not in 10 years, but tomorrow. I've got incredible friends here who represent everything I ever wanted. I love them so much and I gotta pull myself up by my bootstraps and at least make it through my birthday songs for them. I owe them a moment when they don't have to be there fo rme. I owe them what I can give them.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Becoming
I've been claiming that I'm "in a weird place" for a while now. Only, I don't tell anyone that because just when I think I'm over it, I enter a new plane and do it all over again. I am constantly changing, but barely evolving. I want so much to be something that gives instead of always taking, but I'm not sure enough of my purpose to go headstrong into something. I'm lacking the great motivator, the biggest purpose of all: Love.
Three years ago, I ended an engagement that was really ended for me when my boyfriend groaned about every step of getting married and, I later found out, slept with, went on dates with and tried to pick up dozens of women.
That guy was an ass and I start to see it more every time I go looking for it, but he wasn't the problem. There weren't just warning signs: He flat-out told me from the get-go he didn't want to get married, but we were so in love, I vowed to prove my worth to the world by being the woman who could change all that. I was stupid.
My issues go way, way back. Back far enough so that I think everyone else is perfect and confident, and I'm the only shit still continuing on. I need love and have always missed it, but have been keeping myself out of relationships by working hard on liking myself. It's slow. First, I have to get myself back to where I was before the cheating, before the grad school that actually made me think every person there wanted me to kill myself. I realize that former line screams paranoia, and I think that came with the territory of being beaten down verbally every day. That school was a true hell for me. The last few years have been unhappy, as well.
I think that I have made it through enough rough stuff for now. I see myself as happier, prettier, freer, more confident, and these are the years to live that way. To fall in love, to laugh, to joke over small things and make the most out of rainy days stuck indoors. There are the days for that, and they're few, and they are lonely when you keep yourself from enjoying them because you're waiting for someone else to enjoy them with you.
Three years ago, I ended an engagement that was really ended for me when my boyfriend groaned about every step of getting married and, I later found out, slept with, went on dates with and tried to pick up dozens of women.
That guy was an ass and I start to see it more every time I go looking for it, but he wasn't the problem. There weren't just warning signs: He flat-out told me from the get-go he didn't want to get married, but we were so in love, I vowed to prove my worth to the world by being the woman who could change all that. I was stupid.
My issues go way, way back. Back far enough so that I think everyone else is perfect and confident, and I'm the only shit still continuing on. I need love and have always missed it, but have been keeping myself out of relationships by working hard on liking myself. It's slow. First, I have to get myself back to where I was before the cheating, before the grad school that actually made me think every person there wanted me to kill myself. I realize that former line screams paranoia, and I think that came with the territory of being beaten down verbally every day. That school was a true hell for me. The last few years have been unhappy, as well.
I think that I have made it through enough rough stuff for now. I see myself as happier, prettier, freer, more confident, and these are the years to live that way. To fall in love, to laugh, to joke over small things and make the most out of rainy days stuck indoors. There are the days for that, and they're few, and they are lonely when you keep yourself from enjoying them because you're waiting for someone else to enjoy them with you.
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