Change Your Attitude

“If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson


Here, gentle readers, is a prompt from the (extended) Trust30 challenge that your MatchGirl can get down with.

It is so very easy to let a bad attitude sully your day. Your week. Your month. Your year. Your life. Seriously. Your MatchGirl, herself, has fallen prey to a poor woe-is-me attitude from time to time.

Let's not let that happen to us, dear ones. Let's pledge to help each other out, when we get down in the dumps. To remind ourselves off all the awesome we have to offer.

Your MatchGirl has a lot of things she'd like to do. She has a lot of things she'd like to be. She has a lot of life to live and she's excited to share it with you.

Stick around.

Play With Fire

Last night your MatchGirl, gentle readers, listened to an interview with Conan O'Brien and something he said really struck me. He said, I'll paraphrase, "When you turn what you love into a career, then you're playing with fire." In light of Trust 30 and of the passion in Anything You Want, this thought gives me pause. I think that to make money doing something that you love is amazing.

Something that most of us can only hope for.

I understand Conan's point - that turning an escape into work is a game-changer. That turning fun into profit, and having to sustain it, is a lot to wrap one's mind around. Still, though, to do what you love every day, even if it is work - hard work, even if others rely on you for their jobs - I think that is a gift that we all should be striving for.


Now that the Trust 30 challenge is (officially) over, your MatchGirl is not sure if she will be able to sustain posting here every day. I hope that I can sustain to post here, as well as on Precious Environment, five days a week, but content creation, as many of you know, is certainly a time consuming endeavor. As I move forward with my new position, creating and editing content for a couple of other blogs during the 9-to-5, and enjoying summer months and activities with Boyfriend, I hope I can continue to provide you with near daily musings. Wish me luck!

Ask. And Receive.

I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think of all the things that are not working in your life. That job you don’t like, that relationship that’s not working, those friends that annoy you. Now turn them all on you. Imagine that everything that’s not working in your life, is your fault. How would you approach it? What would you work on to change your life to the state that you want it to be?

The official final prompt of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Trust 30 challenge comes from Carlos Miceli. Though, if you are so inclined, Amber Rae is continuing the challenge and the site stays up! And what a way to finish the month.

Gentle readers, this is something we all must do, from time to time. This is what this challenge has prompted us to do. We all must take some time and think not about the things that we complain about and how bad we have it, but we must think about the things we're not happy about in our own lives and we must change them.

Unhappy with your job? You have options. Your MatchGirl, speaking from experience, assures you of that. Room for advancement but your not the one advancing? Speak to your supervisor or your mentor or a sympathetic person on the HR team. But don't just question why you're not advancing - tell them why you should be. If you've really worked your ass off, if you've truly contributed, you will have a list of the reasons that you're prime for a promotion. Sing your own praises (without being an asshole) and see how far it may take you. Or not. If your company is going nowhere - or if you are going nowhere in your company - look for something new. The economy, your MatchGirl knows, is tough, and a new job is hard to find. But make your own happiness a priority and look for something new!

Your relationship is not what you want it to be? Where you want it to be? Ask for what you want. This is something of which your MatchGirl can speak quite authoritatively. Dear readers, I have been in that place. I have been seeing someone where I wanted it so badly to be exclusive. Where (and this was a long time ago and in a smaller city) if I saw him out with someone else, I felt physically ill. So I asked for what I wanted. I told him what I needed. I was brave and...  I got what I wanted and it was (though with ups and downs) mostly beautiful for four years. I have also been in the place where I was not feeling good about myself, where my self-esteem was very low and I was afraid to ask. This, gentle ones, has never worked out for the best.

And with Boyfriend? With Boyfriend, I told him what I needed. I told him what I was looking for. I told him on, maybe, our third or fourth date, that I wasn't looking to screw around and that if he was one of those tattooed-bearded-Williamsburg-guys who think there is always a hotter (younger) piece of ass around the corner, we could still be friends, but I couldn't keep dating him. Period. I told him that I was looking for more, I was looking for serious. I was looking for a man who was open to possibilities of the future - not guaranteeing them, mind you, but open to them. And you can see for yourselves how that turned out.

I am slowly, but surely, moving my life into place. I am slowly, but surely, paying attention to the little things - the every day things - that make me happy. And I am making them priorities in my life - as I plan my next steps. As I ready myself to make my next move.

But being brave, gentle readers, that will get you a lot. Look at your MatchGirl. In 2008/2009 and into the beginning of 2010 she was unemployed and single, blogging and dating and putting herself out there. And now? It's 2011 and she is living with Boyfriend. And she was just named the Head of Social Media at the digital media company where she has been employed for the last (almost) year and a half.

How did I make this difference? How did I make this change?

I stood up.

And I asked.

Today Tomorrow Sometime Never

Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Imagine your future self, ie, you 10 years from now. If he/she were to send you a tweet or text message, 1) what would it say and 2) how would that transform your life or change something you’re doing, thinking, believing or saying today?

Ah, Tia Singh's prompt is another where you speak to your future self and you speak to your past self. In this case your future self speaks to its past self which is your present self...  Got it?

Gentle readers, as silly as these types of "what if...?" prompts may be, they are not without validity. They are not without reason. Because if you were to sit and think - think hard - on what you want your future to look like you'd probably scare the bejeezus out of yourself. You'r MatchGirl, when she thinks of the future to come - of being settled with Boyfriend, of a kid or two, of a lot more writing and organizing and a little less nine-to-five - sometimes, as much as I want it, it seems a little ... daunting. Terrifying, really.

And it's not scary because I'm unsure I want those things. It's just scary because big change is always a little scary. Sometimes it's downright frightening. And thinking about the change the future will inevitably bring? Man...

So. To answer the question. The message from my 45 year old self will read:

Push. Focus. Do the work.

It just keeps getting better.

*bonus points if you know where the post title comes from...

Hush

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down a major life goal you have yet to achieve or even begin to take action on. For each goal, write down three uncertainties (read: fears) you have relating to each goal. Break it down further, and write down three reasons for each uncertainty. When you have three reasons for your fear, you’ll be able to start processing the change because you know where the fear stems from. Now you’ll be able to make a smaller changes that push you towards your larger goal. So begins the process of “trusting yourself.” - Sean Ogle

Ahhh. This one's a good one.

And your MatchGirl has an answer.  She's just, gentle readers, not quite ready to go public with them...

It's Alive!

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. If we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

When did you feel most alive recently? Where were you? What did you smell? What sights and sounds did you experience? Capture that moment on paper and recall that feeling. Then, when it’s time to create something, read your own words to reclaim a sense of being to motivate you to complete a task at hand. - Sam Davidson 

This prompt is a tough one, gentle readers. So much has happened to your MatchGirl over the course of the past year - so many amazing things - that I'm not sure I can quantify one moment over another. When I felt the most alive?

A lot of things have happened. Highs and lows. Near nervous breakdowns. Ecstatic moments of life. And I know they will keep coming. It's hard to think seriously that one moment could make me feel more alive than another.

Some cool things have happened. Some things that certainly made me feel "alive."

I stood on the top of the highest point in Bogotá and looked out over the city, feeling like I could go anywhere- that that one stop on that journey was just the beginning of great things to come (it was).

I walked out of my apartment one Sunday afternoon to meet a friend for a drink and saw that friend, that man, suddenly in a whole new light (you can read about that here).

I held my friends' preemie son and heard him coo, happy and healthy and strong, even though born nearly 4 months early.

I went to a friend's house with Boyfriend one night when the snow was just beginning to fall and left three hours later with snow still falling and the whole world covered in white, up to my knees. We walked down the middle of Manhattan Avenue and Greenpoint was silent and clean.

I saw two dear friends marry, in a beautiful, sun-filled room, and cried (I couldn't help it) when they danced their first dance as husband and wife - it was perfection.

Something that I have learned, dear readers, as I have been on the journey that I share with you here, is that every single moment matters. Every single moment is important to the next. It doesn't matter if that moment is spent watching some "trashy" TV. It doesn't matter if that moment is spent working on your pet project or having a drink with a girlfriend or spooning with your hunny or sitting outside in the sun with someone you've not seen for a long time.

These moments, each and every one of them, no matter how mundane they may seem, these are the moments that you should feel the most alive. Pay attention to every one of them - the smallest thing might lead to the greatest opportunity.

The Seed of Action

I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. - Ralph Waldo Emerson


Think about the type of person you’d NEVER want to be 5 years from now. Write out your own personal recipe to prevent this from happening and commit to following it. “Thought is the seed of action.” - Harley Schreiber


In five years, gentle readers, your MatchGirl will be 40 years old (on the cusp of turning 41). Here are things I don't want:

• I don't want to be uninspired.

• I don't want to be bored.

• I don't want to think I know everything.

• I don't want to have stopped learning.

• I don't want to be sedentary.

• I don't want to have stopped trying.

• I don't want to be so comfortable in my live that I've stopped striving to make things better.

• I don't want to be anyone different than me.

My recipe to make sure these things don't happen? I think I'll just continue on the path I'm on and everything will be a-OK. The thing about stumbling onto a clear(ish) path a little later in life is that you have spent your twenties (and maybe early thirties) walking on paths that don't quite make sense. You've got a lot of experiences stored in your memories to keep yourself on track.

Today is the official last day of the Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance Trust 30 Challenge. As I've been posting, when I deem that I want to share my thoughts, only on weekdays, you'll have to bare with me a few more (five) days. I hope that you've enjoyed these musings. I hope that you've gotten something from them. And, most importantly, I hope that you have joined me in contemplating the next actions of your lives, as I have mine.

Getting It Right

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What if today, right now, no jokes at all, you were actually in charge, the boss, the Head Honcho. Write the “call to arms” note you’re sending to everyone (staff, customers, suppliers, Board) charting the path ahead for the next 12 months and the next 5 years. Now take this manifesto, print it out somewhere you can see, preferably in big letters you can read from your chair.

You’re just written your own job description. You know what you have to do. Go!

(bonus: send it to the CEO with the title “The things we absolutely have to get right – nothing else matters.”)

Wow. Sasha Dichter's prompt is no joke. Your MatchGirl has thought on this and, strangely, as she moves into her new position at her job (TODAY!!!), this is something she is working on. This is something, that when it's complete, I will share with my CEO. Sort of. Not necessarily a direction for the whole company, but certainly a direction for the company as a whole. I have been slowly, yet surely, carving out a little place or myself, in the world - in the world of my work and in the world as a whole. I have been quietly making my own manifesto.

It's an exciting proposition, gentle readers. I suggest you try it.

Side note: Anyone else find it weird that Sasha Dichter and Susan Piver chose the same quote, yet arrived at two distinctly different prompts?

Ordinary World

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are our most potent at our most ordinary. And yet most of us discount our “ordinary” because it is, well, ordinary. Or so we believe. But my ordinary is not yours. Three things block us from putting down our clever and picking up our ordinary: false comparisons with others (I’m not as good a writer as _____), false expectations of ourselves (I should be on the NYTimes best seller list or not write at all), and false investments in a story (it’s all been written before, I shouldn’t bother). What are your false comparisons? What are your false expectations? What are your false investments in a story? List them. Each keep you from that internal knowing about which Emerson writes. Each keeps you from making your strong offer to the world. Put down your clever, and pick up your ordinary.

This is a funny prompt from Patti Digh, gentle readers. It's funny because your MatchGirl always sees herself as ordinary. There is nothing particularly special or extraordinary about me. Certainly not. I'm smarter than some, less smart than others. I'm prettier than some, not as pretty as others. I'm a girl like any other, at the same time I am uniquely me.


I can't imagine being any way other than I am. Nor would I want to.


But I'm just a normal girl. An ordinary person. No better and no worse than anyone else out there. What I have accomplished, others can, too. The projects I have going on, they come from my heart and I'm excited to have them, to own them, to share them. But they don't mean that I am anything more or less than anyone else. I'm just doing my best to keep moving - forward, up, ahead - and to bring everyone I meet along with me. 

Intuition

The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. – Ralph Waldo Emerson


If you could picture your intuition as a person, what would he or she look like? If you sat down together for dinner, what is the first thing he or she would tell you? - Susan Piver


Is it just me, gentle readers, or is this prompt a little weird?


Don't get me wrong, your MatchGirl has very much enjoyed going through these thought challenges, one by one, day by day, and thinking about what her answers may be. Many I have shared with you here in the space and a few I have thought about on my own, and acted upon, or not. I'm not sure what my intuition would look like. I'm not sure I can personify something that is inside of me in a way that is any other than a reflection of myself.


I do think, though, that if Intuition and I were to site down to dinner, we'd probably have a good chat about the path I'm on now. About the amount of over-thinking that I am not doing. About how I am following, to the best of my first born child, Type-A(ish) personality, my heart over my head. And about how that seems to be working out pretty OK.

What Price Fear?

Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. - Ralph Waldo Emerson


Gentle readers, let us take Dan Andrews' points, one by one ...

Trusting intuition and making decisions based on it is the most important activity of the creative artist and entrepreneur. If you are facing (and fearing) a difficult life decision, ask yourself these three questions:

1) “What are the costs of inaction?” I find it can be helpful to fight fear with fear. Fears of acting are easily and immediately articulated by our “lizard brains” (thanks Seth) e.g. what if I fail? what if I look stupid? If you systematically and clearly list the main costs of inaction, they will generally overshadow your immediate fears.

Your MatchGirl supposes, dear reader, that the real cost of inaction is your own happiness. It is regret. It is the price of looking back on your life, on your days an wondering "What if...?" Your MatchGirl, those of you who have been here since the beginning, has certainly spent some time regretting paths not taken. I try, very hard to love my life without regret, but that does not mean that I don't, from time to time, look back on this "Choose Your Own Adventure" story we call life and wonder, "What if I had done this instead of that? What if I had been brave enough to ask that question?" One thing I do know... every time I have faced my fears and been brave enough to ask for something I really, really wanted in life, things have turned out exactly the way I wanted them to. The cost of inaction is regret.

2) “What kind of person do I want to be?” I’ve found this question to be extremely useful. I admire people who act bravely and decisively. I know the only way to join their ranks is to face decisions that scare me. By seeing my actions as a path to becoming something I admire, I am more likely to act and make the tough calls.

I want to be a happy person. This has been a long time coming. Doing the things I am doing now, working on the projects I have going, working at the job I have and being in the relationship I'm in - these things make me happy. And my projects, as I push forward, will only lead to greater happiness. This I know.

3) “In the event of failure, could I generate an alterative positive outcome?” Imagine yourself failing to an extreme. What could you learn or do in that situation to make it a positive experience? We are generally so committed to the results we seek at the outset of a task or project that we forget about all the incredible value and experience that comes from engaging the world proactively, learning, and improving our circumstances as we go along.

Gentle readers, your MatchGirl has been here. She has been low. She has been (near) destitute. But she kept her head above water and not only forged a path for herself, but she found herself a whole new career and community, just by doing what she loves most - connecting with people and connecting the people she knows with people they will find interesting/helpful/useful. This is something I will always find fulfilling - no matter the scale.

Dreams

Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down your top three dreams. Now write down what’s holding you back from them.  – Michael Rad

Ah. Your MatchGirl, a little bit, gentle readers, believes that dreams are like wishes. If you share too much, too soon, they won't come true. Don't worry. My top three dreams are at the forefront of my thoughts every day. And I've shared them with the people I know can help them come true - and the one person who is nearly as invested as I am in making them come true.


The one thing holding my back? Me. Of course. The only person who can truly hold you back from your dreams is yourself. I work on that every day.

What's holding you back from your dreams?

Also ... maybe this will inspire you ... just a little bit:

The Future Is Now

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.

After yesterday's whining post about the repetitive nature of the prompts of late, I am happy to see this fun one from Cindy Gallop. Sure, it's about originality. But it's also about invention. And one of the most amazing things we have the ability to do as people - as the thinking, feeling, hurting, growing, fucked up people that we may be - is to invent ourselves. And, in doing so, invent our own futures.

Your MatchGirl has been in a state of reinvention for a while now. Long time readers of this little site will recall, no doubt, many a post about reinventing oneself. So often we think that once we hit a certain point in our lives - be it age or income or some other milestone - that we cannot change anymore. That we cannot make ourselves new. The cool thing about being the flawed people that we are is that we can make ourselves new and make our lives new at any time. It's not so hard.

I think about my future. And I think about the future that I want to have - with Boyfriend, at work, with my personal projects - and I'm working, constantly working (just ask Boyfriend, who thinks I am working too much) to make those thoughts into solid reality. Every day, the harder I work and the more I put into it, the closer I come to this future that I have invented in my mind's eye.

Gentle readers, the future is what you make of it. It's what you invent. It's what you want it to be. If only you can take the first steps. If only you can set yourself on your right path.

Wholly Strange And New

When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name;—— the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Can you remember a moment in your life when you had life in yourself and it was wholly strange and new? Can you remember the moment when you stopped walking a path of someone else, and started cutting your own?

Write about that moment. And if you haven’t experienced it yet, let the miracle play out in your mind’s eye and write about that moment in your future.

Bridget Pilloud poses this prompt in the Trust 30 Challenge and while your MatchGirl enjoys contemplating all of these prompts, I am finding them to be a bit repetitive. In contemplating my responses to these prompts, the ones that I have shared with you online and the ones I have thought about and kept private (of which there are only a couple), I see that the common themes are fear and originality. And while I know these are important things to keep in mind (for your MatchGirl, fear has always been more of a problem than originality. As you, gentle readers, are all aware, your MatchGirl is nothing if not unique.) I want to think about something else.

I follow my own path. I don't think that I have done what has been expected of me. Not that I have disappointed, but, as I wrote previously, your MatchGirl was lucky enough to be raised by parents who not only allowed me to follow my own path, but encouraged me to do so. For me, it's been a windy path, filled with fits and starts and backing up and going forward and veering off in a new and scary direction from time to time. But it's certainly mine. And I push myself to do that every day. And the days that I don't work hard enough or accomplish enough (in my own mind's eye) just make me push harder the next.

I can imagine the next miracles that are going to come to me.

I'm working my ass off to make them happen.

I won't bore you with the details right now. I've written it all before...

Tomorrow Never Comes

Do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take a moment, step back from your concerns, and focus on one thing: You have one life to achieve everything you’ve ever wanted. Sounds simple, but when you really focus on it, let it seep into your consciousness, you realize you only have about 100 years to get every single thing you’ve ever wanted to do. No second chances. This is your only shot. Suddenly, this means you should have started yesterday. No more waiting for permission or resources to start. Today is the day you make the rest of your life happen. Write down one thing you’ve always wanted to do and how you will achieve that goal. Don’t be afraid to be very specific in how you’ll achieve it: once you start achieving, your goals will get bigger and your capability to meet them will grow.

One hundred years, gentle readers, to achieve everything that you hope to achieve. Imagine that. But here's the thing that Colin Wright is wrong about. Most of us don't get 100 years. Not from birth to end of life. Not of active years. Not of a life where we can really make our own decisions.

Sure, some people are lucky enough to have been raised in an environment where they can really be themselves, from an early age, where they can assert their creativity and their entrepreneurship. Where they are allowed to put themselves out their. Where they can fail. Most, your MatchGirl supposes, however, are not.

So... that means we have so much less time than Colin supposes. We have ... maybe 60 years. Seems like a long time when you're young, I guess. I know that time has a funny way of seeming to be very different than it actually is. One hundred years seems like a very very long time. So does sixty. But think for a moment, how quickly a year passes. You blink and suddenly the month is over and you're not sure where it has gone. A year, even when it feels it is so long at times, is not long in reality. It's over before you know it.

Your MatchGirl is a master procrastinator. She started young and she's carried it on well into her adult-hood. It's something that drives me crazy in myself and even crazier when I see it in others. Because, while from time to time I'll leave things till the last moment, I do really love to plan, to make sure that everything will be all set, to make sure that things are taken care of. It's easy to do this when it's your day job. It's easy to do this when it's an event your planning (especially when working with others). It's less simple when it's something that just for you.

My take-away for this prompt then, dear readers, is that I will pay as much attention to planning for a doing the things that are "just" for me as I do to those things associated with my paying gig. The projects that are mine are mine. I need to own them. To dedicate myself to them. To push them forward. And, eventually, to share them with you. I can't do this if I'm constantly putting them off until tomorrow. We all know, after all, that tomorrow never comes....

Find Your Way

When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the foot-prints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name; the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The world buzzes about goals and visions. Focus. Create a vivid picture of exactly where you want to go. Dream big, then don’t let anything or anyone stop you. The problem, as Daniel Gilbert wrote in Stumbling Upon Happiness, is that we’re horrible at forecasting how we’ll really feel 10 or 20 years from now – once we’ve gotten what we dreamed of. Often, we get there only to say, “That’s not what I thought it would be,” and ask, “What now?” Ambition is good. Blind ambition is not. It blocks out not only distraction, but the many opportunities that might take you off course but that may also lead you in a new direction. Consistent daily action is only a virtue when bundled with a willingness to remain open to the unknown. In this exercise, look at your current quest and ask, “What alternative opportunities, interpretations and paths am I not seeing?” They’re always there, but you’ve got to choose to see them. - Jonathan Fields

This, gentle readers, is something your MatchGirl wished she had thought about when she was much younger. Because when I was young, I was stubborn (those who know me now will say I still, am - they are right - but about fewer things, and with a more open mind). And in this stubbornness, sometimes, I'm afraid I missed opportunity. I didn't see them at all.

It has taken some big changes in my life, over the course of the years, to be able to see that the path I am on might have a lot of hidden passages in it. This has been true in the past in work, in school, in relationships.

Now, I feel that I am constantly learning and I am trying to constantly see the opportunities that lie not only in the direction I feel I should be moving, but a little bit off to the side. The most important thing I have learned, dear ones, over the past several years, is that life is rarely what you expect it to be. All you can do is keep your eyes and your heart open to what's around you and you'll find the path you're supposed to be on.

Surprise Yourself

I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think of a time when you didn’t think you were capable of doing something, but then surprised yourself.  How will you surprise yourself this week?

I like this little prompt from Ashley Ambirge. I like it because while she is certainly a gal who faced fear (out of necessity, but maybe that's what we all need sometimes...  your MatchGirl can relate to that!) this prompt is not about fear. This prompt is about surprise.

I do things every day that are so very boring. So very rote. But sometimes, some days, gentle readers, your MatchGirl surprises herself. She steps up. She faces up. She's working on some projects right now and, if I can pull it off, that will certainly surprise me. 

I'll keep you posted.

Holding Back

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. – Ralph Waldo Emerson



Is fear holding you back from living your fullest life and being truly self expressed? Put yourself in the shoes of the you who’s already lived your dream and write out the answers to the following:

Is the insecurity you’re defending worth the dream you’ll never realize? or the love you’ll never venture? or the joy you’ll never feel?

Will the blunder matter in 10 years? Or 10 weeks? Or 10 days? Or 10 minutes?

Can you be happy being anything less than who you really are?

Now Do. The Thing. You Fear.


Fear by Cotter Lachlan

No. The answer is simply no.
Gentle readers, your MatchGirl cannot put herself in the shoes of someone who has lived her dreams. That's just not possible.

Here's the thing, dear ones. My dreams are my own.
Am I inspired by others? Of course. Do I look at people who have reached levels of success that I hope to achieve and wonder how they got there so quickly and if I can get there, too? Of course.
But there is no one person who has achieved my dreams.

I have, though, been held back by fear. Especially when I was younger. I wrote about facing one's fears, posted last Friday, as part of this very challenge.

So here are some things I have been terrified of, and that I have faced head on.

Unemployment.
Asking for what I want out of a relationship.
Approaching people for help - job related or networking related.
Standing out in a crowd.
Talking to strangers.
Getting serious about my life.
Going for what I want.

The main thing that ties all these fears together, gentle readers, is an underlying fear for so many of us. It's a fear of rejection. Here's something, however, that your MatchGirl has learned about rejection over the years - it's not really so bad. Because, at the end of the day, there is always someone - be it friend, lover, parent - out there who loves you and wants you and will steel you up again.

So I agree with Lachlan. Face your fears. Do the thing that you're afraid of.

You'll be better for it in the end.

I promise.

Imitation Is Suicide

Imitation is Suicide. Insist on yourself; never imitate. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Write down in which areas of your life you have to overcome these suicidal tendencies of imitation, and how you can transform them into a newborn you – one that doesn’t hide its uniqueness, but thrives on it. There is a “divine idea which each of us represents” – which is yours?

I don't know how to answer Fabian Kruse's question, gentle readers. I truly don't.

Your MatchGirl, in her own opinion, has always been a pretty original bird.

It was, in fact, probably a bad thing when I was young. At least for my social life. Middle and high school girls tend to want to march to the beat of only one drummer, and those that are different than them are not always (or often) welcomed to the fold.

In terms of art, I think it infuriated my professors at university that they could not stick my paintings or my influences into one neat basket. Not that they did not value individuality and originality. They certainly did. But how to critique something you don't know what to compare it to?

I don't know how to approach this prompt, dear ones. Because I don't see myself as an imitator... To thine own self be true, isn't that how the saying goes? Is there any other way that one ought to live? I believe that I was raised to stay true to myself, to be my own person, and that I have lived that way - or tried to - for most of my life....  I don't have a true answer for this, but for now, though I'm posting it, I leave this essay unfinished...

Be Good To Each Other

Today's Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance Challenge prompt, from Eric Handler, is not a simple thing to wrap one's head around, gentle readers. Your MatchGirl has, for the past two years (a little longer) been sharing her life with you on these virtual pages. She has been sharing her hopes and reams and fears, but, she has also been spreading her message.

And perhaps I could have answered this in a tweet. It's quite possible that it needs no more than that.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What is burning deep inside of you? If you could spread your personal message RIGHT NOW to 1 million people, what would you say?

But as I take this Trust 30 challenge, I have, for the most part, enjoyed sharing my thought process, here with you. I hope that you've been enjoying being part of it. And, though I post a handful of days behind, due the the publishing schedule of this blog, I hope that you've enjoyed keep up with what I'm writing about. Believe, your MatchGirl is thinking on and writing about these prompts every day. It's a good exercise. I hope many of you are participating as well.

But, to today's prompt. If I could spread my personal message to one million people, right now, what on Earth would I say?

Be good to each other. Treat each other right. Think about how you want to be treated and, for goodness sake, act accordingly when you're interacting with others. Life is too short, gentle ones, to act any other way. So I share with you, fewer than one million people, but perhaps I will reach one thousand who will take this to heart an spread it to one thousand more (and that's a really nice start). 


Be good to each other. It's the golden rule.


It's how your MatchGirl tries to live her life. I hope it's how you try to live yours.