Funny how sometimes movies have a way of hitting the truth nail on the head. I need to stop watching TV.

Take risks, take lots of them. Do things that you’re afraid to do so that you don’t ever spend a day wondering “what if?”

This has been a truly hard lesson to learn, but the more risks I’ve taken, the more I’ve gotten to know and truly appreciate the person I am, and that is undeniably worth every single risk.

Take chances, take a lot of them. Because honestly, no matter where you end up and with whom, it always ends up just the way it should be. Your mistakes make you who you are. You learn and grow with each choice you make. Everything is worth it. Say how you feel, always. Be you, and be okay with it.

-unknown

Expecto Patronum then chocolate. Problem solved.

I’ve recently stumbled upon a correlation that is VERY important.

In life, when things go bad and you feel like your soul has been sucked right out of you, you have some chocolate and it makes you feel better.

In Harry Potter after the Dementors come by and do their whole soul-sucking thing, you have some chocolate and it makes you feel better.

HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THIS BEFORE?!?!

(Please note, they are not arranged in any particular order).

1. People who seem to think it is ok to *abuse their colleagues for the pure sadist joy of it. Yes, I understand that there is an asshole in every office; there are always one or two people who make it hard for everyone else – that’s office culture, and that’s fine and uncontrollable for the most part. However, in this case, the reverse is the status quo. Everyone spends so much of their time proactively making each other’s lives miserable that they’ve completely lost sight of why they work for an aid organization – to help people (at least I hope that’s why we’re all here).

*abuse in this context means any of the following:

• Harassment
• Bullying
• Verbal abuse
• Attacking people’s character, integrity & person

2. People who seem to think its OK to squander the entirety of their time at work playing solitaire and/or Farmville. Everyone is entitled to a break; in fact, I think it makes for more productive employees if you give them the freedom in the workplace to check personal email and/or social media networks. However, there is a statute of limitations on how much is too much. If you spend so much time wasting your time that you’re claiming over time in order to compensate for time wasted, or if you spend so much work time on Farmville that not a single one of your colleagues (or even you yourself) can accurately explain what you do all day beyond the minute descriptor your title provides, then perhaps we should re-evaluate your contribution/the necessity of your role/person entirely. There are too many people willing to devote their lives to organizations of this nature to waste salaries on those not even willing to devote 9-5.

3. People who are unqualified to do the job they do. By this I mean that if your job requires you to do a number of tasks that you do not know how to do, nor are you willing to learn, (even after they’ve been explained to you by multiple sources, even when training has been paid for by the organization to better aid you in the doing of your job but you were too busy doing nothing to attend) then perhaps you are not the right person for said job. I’m not saying, but I’m saying. Know what I mean?

4. An ‘unspoken’ organizational policy that requires so much bureaucracy for decision making that more often than not by the time the decision has been made, a decision is no longer relevant or necessary because the ship called opportunity has sailed.

5. A fear of taking a stand on anything. These people ride the fence so hard on everything they’ve grown fence welts on their asses. There’s a saying “If you don’t stand for something, then you’ll fall for anything”. Like, oh I don’t know, taking money from companies with very questionable corporate practices but arguing that it’s ok because you’ve done your “due diligence” by google-ing them. Here’s the deal, if you’re going to say that it’s not ok to take money from a cigarette manufacturer because it sends the wrong message, then perhaps it’s also not ok to take money from other corporations who are equally if not more questionable. Again, I’m not saying, but I’m saying.

6. The inability to let go of the past and move into the future. The world is ever-changing; the way in which people operate in this world changes with it. It’s survival of the fittest; the animal that adjusts the quickest to changing environments is the one that will survive. Remember this before it becomes your downfall.

7. Respect, acknowledge and take advantage of the existing skill-sets of your employee base. If you happen to have a one-off need for a juggler say for an event, and one of your employees happens to be an excellent juggler who is willing and able to take on the juggling at said event, then perhaps you don’t need to go out and hire a third rate circus act.

8. If the exact same amount of money is being brought in under your portfolio as was being brought in before you were hired and there was no one managing said portfolio, then you and your salary are unnecessary expenses. You cost the organization more than you bring in. These are hard financial times, and this is a charity not the 1%.

9. Let’s stop rewarding everyone because it’s that time of year again, and let’s start rewarding people because they deserve and have earned it. This is business, not a communist state. A bonus/raise should not be akin to the participation award at an elementary school track and field event.

10.  Double standards. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander right? Right. If you insist on having a policy for all employees, but only enforce it selectively on a select few,  then you sir are creating double-standards and as a direct result of said double-standards you are creating resentment in your employees.

While it’s fun and cathartic to list this out, it’s also incredible disheartening. I may never have truly loved the work I was doing, but I’m damn good at it and  I love this organization so I was committed to doing my absolute best, because when I love something I put 100% of my being into it. It is killing me that things are the way they are, that I feel like I can’t do my best because it makes me a target rather than an asset. How is that an acceptable work environment? I know that I’m young and still have a lot to learn about the “working world”. I know that I still have idealistic views about being able to change the world, why does that have to be a bad thing? Why does that have to be stomped out of me? I may be idealistic because of my age but youth neither makes me stupid, a doormat, or incapable of enacting change.

I’ve wanted a graphics tablet for years, and now, just a few short hours into having one, I’m wondering why it took me so long to get around to it. Get ready 3 readers, I’m about to get all crafty on your asses. Imma start to draw soo many happy little trees I might  break out a Bob Ross fro.

That’s about to be over though, not the listening to Florence/Adele, that’ll never end. The feelings however, all 70 000 of them need to be stowed away in a pretty little box somewhere in the far back. It’s time to pull up my invisible bootstraps and put the pieces of whatever is broken back together. Even if I maybe want to leave some of them strewn on the ground like Hansel and Gretel hoping to find their way back home. It’s time for Britney Spears and the dancing, definitely the dancing.

I’m not giving up, I’m moving forward. There’s a very distinct difference.

When it comes to relationships, men, boys, et al. I make a lot of mistakes, and they tend to be quite extreme–not necessarily the mistakes, but the certainly the risks that lead to those mistakes. The irony of it all is I’m not a person who lives by extremes, in fact I tend to veer away from them in all other aspects of my life. That’s not to say I don’t take risks, I do, just calculated and well-thought out ones; I’m not the ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ type. When it comes to men, it seems I throw logic right out the window and the baby with the bathwater.

I believe there are lessons to be learned, and that every failure is an opportunity to grow but the past year of my life have been a whirlwind of unnecessary lessons learned and damage done. It’s like I’m trying to catch up (to what I have no idea), or tick items off a checklist I didn’t know I was keeping. So, just a few short weeks ago I decided in a moment of clarity that it was time for  a break. I needed to take time away from dating to sort out my mind. Time I could now refocus back onto me, my friends, my goals, and my career. (ME ME ME) But first, I’d have one last hoorah, go out with a bang!

Before meeting him I’d decided nothing would ever come of it. The distance between us was too great, one week was nowhere near enough time to really get to know someone, and let’s face it, it takes me about ten times longer than most other people to get emotionally involved–Decision made.

Perhaps because I wasn’t seeking his validation (it didn’t matter what he thought of me because in my mind I’d already placed him in the temporary box) I was candid in ways I’ve never before been (not with a man, and much less this early on in any kind of relationship). I was me. I wasn’t the dating version of me: perfect hair, perfect nails, perfect makeup, the right words, the soft laugh, the right outfit. I was just me, the same girl who doesn’t always think before she speaks, the girl who snorts when something is really funny, the girl who is sometimes incredibly vulnerable, who makes ridiculous faces in the middle of a conversation just cause, the me  I am with my friends, and it was good.

It was very good, and as soon as I realized how good it could be, I realized how much I’ve shortchanged myself over the past year, or actually, over the past several years. Here I was feeling all these things I’d started to believe that I wasn’t capable of feeling–because I was broken, because I was never enough, because I never felt loved, because this and that and all the negative things that run through your mind when you’re at your lowest. And in that moment, when my head was so full I felt it would burst, he just held me and told me it was ok, and I exhaled. Allowing myself the opportunity, if only for a moment, to let go.

Then he left like I knew he would and no promises were made.

I’m not sad, how could I ever be sad about meeting someone who held on long enough to let me exhale. You share a very special place in my heart with a  select group of extraordinary people. I needed this, this was a lesson I needed to learn.

In my life, in 25 years, you are the best one. Now you’re gone and everything just hurts, and I know that it’s not the end because I don’t believe for a second that this could be it, but that doesn’t change this feeling.

There’s nothing attractive about khakis. Oh, and seriously why must some men pair it with a matching khaki vest and/or bucket hat, it just makes you look like you think you’re on safari, you’re not, stop.

I don't care what the Gap says, there's nothing that exciting about a pair of pants.

]]> http://brundiggity.com/2011/06/19/men-in-belted-khakis-with-tucked-in-shirts/feed/ 0 brundiggity http://brundiggity.com/2011/06/06/friend-like-me/ http://brundiggity.com/2011/06/06/friend-like-me/#comments Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:32:31 +0000 brundiggity http://brundiggity.com/?p=696 ]]>

It's ok, you weren't my favourite disney prince anyways.