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Hippie In Chic Clothing |
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Phetasy Resolutions: Wrap Up 2011
“You are what your deep, driving desire is…
As your desire is, so is your will,
As your will is, so is your deed,
As your deed is, so is your destiny.”
~The Upanishads
The cursor blinks at me, disappointed, like a mother tapping her foot impatiently waiting for her tween who snuck out to make mischief.
“Where have you been young lady?” it blinks.
I stare at the blank screen. My fingers shuffle around the keyboard uncomfortably. I don’t have a good excuse. I went to a farm where I worked all day and at night watched all 5 seasons of Dexter like an addict.
I’d review my goals for Q4 but what’s the point? I kind of blew it. I never even wrote what they were going to be so writing a check-in is kind of pointless.
I learned on the farm that hippies are pretty funny about goals. As in--they don’t have them. It’s an interesting philosophy. No goals. No disappointments. On the commune I heard a lot of, “I just try to stay in the flow…”
I need goals. They rein me in and act as my adult playpen, setting boundaries and limits in a world that has none. Without goals, I would float around, drifting in my sea of limitless options. Occasionally bumping up against the whales and dolphins of opportunity, sometimes being tossed in a white squall of drama, possibly ending my journey on a beach…forever resting somewhere in Australia.
So I’m going to let you in on my ritual I began four years ago. Every year, on or around New Year’s I sit down and go through the same process. I like making lists and this is my moment to really go for it.- 1. Accomplishments. I write down everything I’m proud of achieving or grateful for experiencing/surviving from the year before. I do this to combat my constant, nagging feelings of never doing enough, being enough or having enough.
- 2. Overall Goals. This can be anything from “cont. to get ahead financially” to “paint cabinets and rooms” to “stay away from toxic relationships and married men” to “go horseback riding” to “learn to feel beautiful”. I try to think big, but also realistically. I try to get some of the practical stuff I need to take care of on there and also incorporate some of the more random desires that have been nagging at my soul. I try to put reminders of old mental patterns I am moving away from and reminders of the new psychological territory I am heading towards.
- 3. Old Habits Die Hard. This one speaks for itself. All the bad habits I’m working on changing. It can be anything from swearing to drinking to not drinking enough water.
- 4. New Habits to Pick Up. You can’t quit one thing without filling that void with something. I prefer to make it something healthy or productive. This is also where I put down things I want to make a more regular practice in my life. It helps to be realistic and specific. “Tennis 1x/month” is much more tangible than “Tennis”.
- 5. Fears to Conquer. A couple of years ago, I had “Roller coasters” on my list. I banged that one out in Q1. This list is important because just in writing down my fears, I am forced to acknowledge them.
- 6. If the World Ends I’ll Be Pissed I Didn’t… This is my most important list because herein lies the key to my soul’s truest desires.
After this process I make more lists. All of my creative ideas. All of my creative goals for the year. Phetasy even gets her own list. I break my Overall Goals into manageable pieces—dividing up the year into quarters. Then I divide each quarter up into three columns: MIND/BODY/SPIRIT.
Yeah. I told ya’ I was a maniac for lists. (There is a lot more that goes into this process and I return back to it constantly throughout the year, reevaluating and reflecting. If you really want to know more about it, let me know in a comment and I will be more than happy to expand.) The important thing
is that they are out of my head and on paper. My friend told me a
study was done recently and only 1% of people write their goals down
but out of that 1%--95% meet them. You can't argue with numbers like
those.
Anyway, as you may guess by my many competing interests, my creative goals and my personal goals don’t always see eye to eye. Traveling may not be conducive to finishing that script—but it’s as necessary to my development as a writer as sitting my ass in that chair and finishing a teleplay or a novel or a stand up routine.
So how do I decide what gets the priority? Well, I don’t. My goals are merely a reflection of my desires, so ultimately whatever wish whines the loudest, gets the most attention.
I’ve chased many things in my life. Power, money, fame, men, the dragon…now—at 33—I chase one thing and one thing alone: the experience. The experience is unique in that when Death comes to collect--you CAN take that with you.
It’s been 5 years since I have been back in Los Angeles after leaving when I was 21 for six years (“The Dark Years” as I call them). In that time I have written a movie and a TV show I am extremely proud of and continue to evolve as I receive feedback. I’ve written pages and pages of stand up material. I’ve pitched my movie and show. I’ve had a manager. There has been momentum and then there has been disappointment. And that’s the name of the game here in Hollywood. I have done what many ambitious, creative youngsters have come here to do—knock on doors, get noticed, get rejected, get back up and get made.
I reached a certain level of frustration this year with my personal and professional life that forced an enormous amount of change. A lot of my friends say, “Stick it out. Keep knocking. This is what separates the men from the boys.” No. What separates the men from the boys is age. And I’m not getting any younger.
For the past two years the first thing on the “If the World Ends” list has been: “SEE MORE OF IT”. More importantly on my Overall Goals list it reads: “Leave the country—NO EXCUSES.”
It’s funny. I took off on this walkabout almost 3 months ago. From an outside perspective, leaving LA is a move away from my goals, desires and ambitions. But I was able to do a radio show, something I’ve wanted to do my entire life. Now, after some hard work, I am heading out on a grand adventure I've dreamed of taking since I was a little girl.
Perhaps I learned something on that farm through osmosis.
One of the many definitions of the word “goal” is: “the destination of a journey”. I think therein lies the problem. The only true goal of life, is death. Everything else in between is just part of the journey.
That’s why I think from now on I prefer the term “intention”. So call me a hippie all you want. Because I looked up the definition of that too: “Bohemian, beatnik, long-hair, free spirit, nonconformist, drop out.”
If the Birkenstock fits…
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