The first step to anything is knowing where you are starting from.  Personal growth is no different.  Are you open to learning to see yourself as you are? Without worrying about the gap between you and who you’d rather be?

Technorati Tags: self acceptance, self-perception

So how am I going to going to solve this one? I’m not entirely sure. Leaving it at ‘I have no idea’ is just another excuse so I’ll keep pressing on. The experts say when you’re stuck on how to proceed to look to something you solved successfully in the past and try the same process.

I’ve read books and tried online dating without liking the results – glad it works for some but it felt too forced for me (and trust me, feeling trapped does not project well!)

It’s a stretch, but I think the mental shift I underwent between working for a non-profit and making barely enough to pay rent and making ‘good’ money in high-tech isn’t that different from what’s required here. My skills didn’t really change – I didn’t go back to school, I looked the same, and wasn’t appreciably different in any way. The difference was in my attitude about myself and how I projected that in resumes and the like. And if you think romance and business are really that far apart try writing an online profile sometime. It’s all about stressing the good points.

It’s easy to say I’ll just change my attitude; doing it is something different. If you’ve ever tried to force a mental shift you know how hard it is. So I’ve laid it out for myself in small pieces -based on what I know I did before when I didn’t have a plan ahead of time. Will that solve everything? Probably not – it should shift enough that the next steps will become more clear. Then I’ll write the book that makes it all sound self-evident and obvious!

I’m not just leaving it at mental effort though – my other action item is simply to find more events around my other goals that will get me out of my usual haunts and mixing with new people at least once every two weeks – something other than home, work, and the train.

Next week: Treasure hunting – the hobby

Holding myself accountable

I’d say I’m holding my own on gardening, photography, and exercise – the last improved over the weekend with the threat of more drastic action.

Technorati Tags: excuses, self-perception

Photo by ed.ward

I don’t answer questions about race. I simply don’t identify myself or others that way. I wrote my college entrance essay on that topic more than 20 years ago and haven’t changed my mind since – even though the U.S. government hasn’t either. For awhile it seemed like we were making progress in moving away from this ‘standard’.  My older sister and I were born in the same hospital but while her birth certificate lists race, mine does not. So I always check that ‘choose not to identify’ box on job applications or the like. My ancestors came from more than one continent, but even so it’s an archaic set of choices based on Victorian values and not genetics (or even culture.)

The U.S. Census this year devotes 20% of the questions to race and Hispanic ethnicity with no box to choose not to identify. That’s a lot considering that the purpose of the Census is to count the population in order to assign the districts and number of elected Representatives – and it’s illegal to use race in determining voting districts.

While I’m answering the questions pertinent to apportionment in Congress I’ve chosen to leave the race and Hispanic questions blank. I doubt anyone is going to come after me for it, but it still feels like civil disobedience. Particularly given all the warning letters in my mail about how answering is required by law (I read the law cited and it wasn’t quite that specific). I’m not doing this because of some conspiracy theory or fear of Big Brother. I’m doing it because I refuse to be defined that way. I see myself as a lot of things; a woman, a member of Gen X, an American, but not as a member of a race. I think it’s important not to let others force us to apply labels to ourselves that we don’t agree with whether that’s race on the Census or a limiting disability. If someone else wants to check a box based on what they think my blue eyes mean they’re free to do so, but I won’t do it for them.

Technorati Tags: negative labels, removing limits, self-perception

Without getting too political, the whole “Haitian Incident” involving the American missionaries really rubbed me the wrong way, particularly the people I’ve heard defending their actions – ‘they had some parents’ permission’. And that makes it OK? If a van pulled up in rural Appalachia and offered to take kids to a ‘better place in Mexico with opportunities’ Americans would demand that they be arrested and any acquiescing parents be investigated by Child Services. Why on earth does anyone expect Haiti to have a lower standard for its children? Poverty, even extreme poverty, is no excuse to break up a family, a culture and a country. Poverty is not abuse.

Unfortunately it’s not an uncommon attitude. I see it in my fellow volunteers working with foster kids too. Surely ballet lessons with a middle class adoptive family should trump street dancing in the projects with her recovering birth mother? The problem is, it doesn’t. Connections with who and where we come from are some of the most powerful on Earth. Which is why we are somewhat inclined to believe that helping someone else means bringing them into our world and our connections; we value them that highly. But if we do it at the expense of someone else’s points of contact with family, culture, language, food and their world we are doing more harm than good.

Value your connections, your food, your culture as unique to you; special, not better.

Have a different opinion? Share it in the comments…

Technorati Tags: perceived value, self-perception

Taken in pieces there really isn’t anything that outstanding about this camellia flower – it’s doesn’t have an unusual color or shape or even number of petals.  It’s not particularly small or really gigantic and yet somehow it commands attention. Do you view yourself in terms of the pieces or the overall?

Camellia, Juliet Chase, all rights reserved

Technorati Tags: meditation images, self confidence, self-perception