Inspiration from irritation
May 4, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Importance of Motivation
As I’ve been working the kinks out of this site, I’ve been learning some interesting things about myself. I get really embarrassed by what I see as completely avoidable errors; I found six broken links that were broken because I had copied the html code incorrectly. An easy and human kind of mistake and completely fixed within an hour. I’m still struggling with feeling like I should have focused more on those details; never done it in the first place or caught it sooner!
As I was messing around with all the online tools I also solved a mystery. A handful of people have been putting my name in search engines, going to my photography site which has my name as the domain (www.julietchase.com) and then leaving immediately. I could tell the latter because the average time on site was around 1 second. Ouch! It’s hard not to be flattered by strangers googling you, but then for them to leave without even looking at my work?
How would you feel if an adult film actress had recently changed her name to yours?
Quite. I’d probably be more irritated if I didn’t laugh picturing men with umm, certain expectations suddenly staring at landscapes and flowers! No wonder they left so quickly. But on another level, it made me realize that little mistakes are going to happen and what I’m not doing may actually be more serious. There’s a lot more I could be doing to promote my business and thereby dominate the search results for my own name. Instead of feeling defensive, I’m feeling inspired to go the extra mile and keep working to hit that tipping point.
As part of that I’ve been thinking about how to make this site’s content more meaningful and consistent. I thought I’d start by doing more posts and trying to structure them a little more to the days of the week so Inspiration & Motivation on Mondays, Tools & Exercises on Tuesdays, Humor & Fun on Wednesdays, Books on Thursdays, and continuing my Journal on Fridays. For now I’ll continue to take the weekends off. However, if there are things you aren’t finding out there in the great wide world of the web, I’d be interested in hearing about them. Maybe that’s the missing link! I need all the help I can get on this mission:-)
I’m curious to know if something similar has happened to anyone else? Or what you would do if you suddenly found yourself sharing your name like this?
Perspective
May 4, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Visual Meditation of the Week
Why is it that the human eye sees straight rows as angling to a single point on the horizon?
Do your thoughts do the same thing? Leaving room for only a single conclusion, one right answer? Take a moment and ponder where each row (or question or problem) is really leading – what might lie at the end of it, if it isn’t the single destination you can perceive from a distance.
Skagit Valley tulip fields, Juliet Chase, all rights reserved
Being myself
May 1, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Juliet's Journal
Last Friday was a very interesting day – so much so that most of the following week pales in comparison. I got up very early so that I could catch the good photographic light in the tulip fields (and avoid the crowds.) I made a quick web check as I was rushing around to make sure things were in good working order before I left for the day and practically swallowed my tongue in surprise.
When I really let my sense of humor out with no reservations, odd things happen so I tend to corral it more than I should. When I wrote an online personal ad in this voice I had over 200 responses in 24 hours which was nice but overwhelming. The last time I let it out at work, senior Vice Presidents at a national bank were texting me from a meeting after seeing my email on their blackberries. So maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised on Friday, but the urge had overtaken me earlier in the week anyway and I enjoyed writing something that I figured only a few people would see. The first comment to that blog ever was posted within an hour of that article going live and from the human subject of the post – you can see it here (scroll down to the first comment and you’ll begin to understand my reaction.)
The sheer odds of that happening for a blog that reached it’s peak so far of 20 visitors later that day had me grinning for the rest of Friday. And that exuberance of ‘anything can happen’ led me to take some artistic risks with the camera that resulted in some really great pictures. I do feel inspired when improbable things happen, because maybe more are on their way! Would I have written it differently if I’d thought the subject would read it? Probably, but now that he has, I don’t feel compelled to change a word. I’m resolving to let that side of me out a little more often – nothing wrong with being caught by a wave of surprise.
Isabeau on her 18th birthday
Another thing I tend to hold back on is talking about my cat. I’m not fond of the stereotype of single women with their cats so I tend to avoid giving that impression. But… Monday was Isabeau’s 18th birthday- that’s actual years so something like 126 in cat/dog years. I’ve had her since she was six weeks old so it did make me pause and reflect on what she’s seen me through (2 graduate degrees, 4 states, 3 cars, 8 residences, …) When people say that nobody succeeds on their own I think most people are talking about other people which is true enough, but the support of pets shouldn’t be discounted either. Her confidence is me means I can never really lose mine.
The need for instant gratification
April 29, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Importance of Motivation
Today I found myself yearning for instant gratification and feedback. I’d been brave and dived into the template code to add the “subscribe by email” link in the header. You probably didn’t notice that it wasn’t there yesterday, but it wasn’t. After nudging it around a little so that it fit in with the other header links I found myself really wanting a hundred people to instantly show up and use it.
They probably will over time but when? I have no way of knowing and that leaves me uncertain that it was even worth doing. It’s not hard to find people placing the blame for the need for instant gratification on the fault of the new millennium, new technology, too much money or what have you. I think it has more to do with the speed of change and the confidence that comes with repetition. Growing a garden is never the same thing twice, but after you’ve done it awhile you have a general sense of the sequence of things; approximately how long before you can claim the seeds will not sprout and will need to be replanted or whether it’s realistic to pull a test carrot to see what’s up under ground. But you don’t know any of that the first time you try it. Probably in a year from now if I were to do this again I wouldn’t even blink until a month(?) had passed, but by then if I were to start a new website all the other variables are likely to have changed significantly.
So much of our lives now are spent on ‘first times’ from blogging and social networking media to new cell phones with new buttons and beyond. I love the constantly changing modern world as much as the next person although I admit I wouldn’t mind some of the confidence that comes from repeating an experience occasionally. I take a certain amount of comfort in knowing that nobody else really knows the answer either. They hand out their best guess and advice but if they’re really making an effort they’re as uncertain of the outcome as the rest of us. At least that levels the playing field and we all have the same chance to become experts!
How to broaden your perspective by changing just one word
April 28, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Health and Happiness
I can’t take any credit for this one; I recently read it in The Art of Possibility and didn’t think much about it at first. The simple concept suggested using ‘and’ instead of ‘but’ when joining two clauses. It was a brief section in the book and I noted it mildly as I read on. A few days later I started to realize just how often I use the word ‘but’ in a conjunctive sense. For example:
- I want to drive to Alaska, but I also want to see the Greek islands
- I want to make money blogging, but I need to pay the bills now
- I want a loving relationship, but I appreciate some of the things that go with being single
These sound innocent enough except that I really use the word ‘but’ frequently. Ouch. At first I didn’t even think that I’m limiting my options by doing this; more of setting a priority or qualifying the desire until I sat with these sentences having rephrased them with ‘and’ instead:
- I want to drive to Alaska, and I also want to see the Greek islands
- I want to make money blogging, and I need to pay the bills now
- I want a loving relationship, and I appreciate some of the things that go with being single
It doesn’t imply that I can do anything simultaneously or suggest anything impossible. Yet there’s a subtle difference between the two sets of sentences. Maybe there’s a solution out there that involves both Alaska and the Greek islands that I wouldn’t find if I were only looking for one side of the equation. I don’t know yet. What I do know is that the second set seems infinitely more open to possibility and the potential for abundance. It doesn’t deny one thought or desire in favor of the other; it makes them more equal. So while I work on reducing my use of the ‘b’ word, try it for yourself and let me know if it makes a difference for you.
Mystery
April 27, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Visual Meditation of the Week
Fog makes everything a little softer and more mysterious. It’s harder to see the edges that separates one thing from another. That in turn creates more possibilities.
In your quest for knowledge and improvement, have you left room for mystery?
Wallace Falls State Park, Juliet Chase, all rights reserved
Keeping the plates spinning
April 24, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Juliet's Journal
I am finding myself much more productive this week, now that I’ve got priorities assigned. And my vegetable garden is even cleared and ready for planting this weekend.
I had a momentary struggle with my great idea, one where I wondered if it was really worth pursuing now that the excitement of hatching it had faded. I decided it was and have questions out to both an insurance agent and the State to see whether I need to charge sales tax or not. Next week I’ll be working up marketing materials – at least as far as I can until I get answers back.
Today I’m heading out to take pictures in the tulip fields and nearby islands. It’s hard to force a break in routine when there are other things to be done but this also is a priority, not to mention fun. Every year that I go I take completely different pictures so I’m curious to see what this year produces.
I’ve been getting great inspiration for my top projects everywhere I look. An ebook on blogging led to a site on marketing art online, a quick online contest led to a self-publisher I hadn’t heard of before that might be the missing link in my writing projects, and in an article on finding photos for blogging, I figured out that Flickr’s creative commons would actually be a great way to allow others to use my older work; photography from an older digital camera that is now really only suitable for web use but they’re still great shots. So I’m gradually working on adding those as I get a chance.
That’s a lot to keep track of and yet I’m feeling incredibly excited about it all. This is fun:-)
To tweet or not?
April 22, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Pursuit of Happiness
Just in the last few weeks I’ve been feeling the peer pressure to start using Twitter. It’s on the blogging advice sites, it’s on the talk shows, it’s implied by people putting @ in front of my name in other contexts. I’m starting to get defensive. I have no intentions of joining the tweeters for a number of reasons, but primarily my sanity. I just don’t see how it would enrich my relationships, save me time, or give me any joy. That doesn’t mean others won’t find it fun and meaningful. If Twitter and cell phones had been around when I was in high school I would probably have been in heaven. Now I’m not sitting around waiting for classes to start or all that worried about keeping track of who broke up with whom.
I went looking for why people think it’s a good idea as opposed to just a time waster and found the following article from Lifehacker: 6 Ways You Should be Using Twitter which lists as one of the reasons that it saves time when you want to find out who got voted off American Idol. I had two reactions to that one, first do you really need to know that immediately, and if you do, won’t Google deliver the news with less effort?
I suspect that the blogs that deal with simplifying and time management are finding a way to defend Twitter because of pro-blogging advice, such as Benefits of Twitter for Bloggers more than anything to do with efficiency. The irony is that when you try to search a site for the word “twitter” all you get are the constant “follow me on twitter” links so I may have missed some great arguments on both sides.
I can see why some people would find the value in using it as a mini press release tool for things that you might actually issue a press release for. However I can’t quite bring myself to encourage the use of something that is contrary to what I’m preaching – being more thoughtful and joyous by focusing on the important stuff. So I’m not giving in to the pressure and if I miss out on a few hundred or thousand viewers, well, I’m probably too wordy to have kept their attention anyway.
For those that have no idea what I’m talking about, just substitute any growing ‘must have’ of the moment that doesn’t quite feel like a great fit to you. Really ask yourself and others if there is any benefit outside of fitting in and then make the decision that’s right for you even if the whole world seems to be going in another direction. You may just find the next greatest thing ahead of everyone else by skipping this one.
The art of inspiration
April 21, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Pursuit of Happiness
The video below packs a lot into twenty minutes so it’s a little difficult to point to the most important point. I think it’s one of those things that each person will watch and find an individual message. So I’ll let the video do the talking; it’s both thought-provoking and inspiring. Save it for when you have 20 minutes to sit with it without interruption and absorb. You may find yourself setting new goals and looking for where you put the emphasis in your life. Sometimes it’s the subtle things that make the most difference.
Subtlety
April 20, 2009 by Juliet Chase
Filed under Visual Meditation of the Week
Sometimes the best things are small and grey. Would pussy willows be quite as exciting if they showed up in the height of the summer flowers instead of marking the end of winter?
Are you giving yourself room to enjoy the small pleasures in life? Simple things that simply feel good to touch?
Washington Park Arboretum, Juliet Chase, all rights reserved
