Day 2 With Chrissy

Morning always comes too quickly. Especially with this job I dread showing up to every day.  I had to leave early today to tend to a broken a/c (not the type of thing you want in the summer, especially with a fluffball of a cat).  I felt like I was asking to go traipse around Manhattan the way I was looked at and spoken to after telling my boss I had to meet the repair person.  Thing is, I don't care at this point, so I just basically said "I have to go".  End of story.

Thank goodness Chrissy was here, she ended up dealing with one of the repair guys, who couldn't fix it.  Unfortunately, everything has to be overly complicated, so I had to still run out and purchase a drill because I wasn't going to pay $169 for someone to remove an a/c from my window.  Also had to con P.C. Richard into picking up my old a/c, delivering a new one.  Then book someone for tomorrow to come out and install it. 

FF I had an interview this afternoon.  SUPER exciting company.  Super exciting position.  Not going to let myself get remotely excited about it, because if I don't get it, the disappointment will be way too much to handle.

Met Chrissy for a Magners, then headed home to attempt the a/c removal.

2 blondes, 2 beers and 5 flights up... SUCCESS!!

After removal - we discovered the "Ghost" pane... just click the hyperlink if your memory is eluding you, and see below for reference. 

Landlord is currently on his way over with a contractor to get it fixed.  Secretly hoping to get new windows out of this ordeal.

Exhausted for now, trying not to think about going to work tomorrow.  Going to start focusing on the next few exciting weeks I have coming up.  Scotland friends in NYC, going to Scotland, Loon next month... All EXCITING stuff!  I shouldn't be this down and anxious! 

I know my writing is all over the place lately (as is my brain). I'm just sort of letting it pour out for now and I feel like the more I write,  the more I'll get back to my own patterns.

Positions

"There is a huge difference between leadership and simply using one’s title, position and given authority, to exercise political and/or bureaucratic power. "

I promised myself I'd blog before the weekend is up.  I wanted to do 2-3 postings, but here I am at just one.  Better than nothing.

So I'm sitting here in a roasting hot apartment - my a/c broke this afternoon - on the eve of another week at XX Corp. Sundays are sort of the worst.  Basically, all day I dread Monday. It's really awful and actually shortens my enjoyable weekend.

I never felt this way in DC.  I never had stress or anxiety about going back to work on Monday, in fact, I looked forward to it.  I really need to stop beating myself up over the decisions I've made, as they're already made.  What I can do is make BETTER decisions for my future. 

I'm still on the fence about which program to pursue.  I SWEAR it's not just due to indecision, but I don't want to invest $5-7k on something if I'm not making the most educated decision I can.  I have set the absolute goal that I will be enrolled in something before I leave for Scotland on Aug. 14th.  I'm sticking to that.

Going to go read a bit of my book and do some thinking before heading to sleep.  Chrissy lands in NY tomorrow morning for 3 days.  It will be really nice to have a friend around, but I need to make sure I stick with my workout program and not go off course too much.  I feel like I'm really in a pattern now, which is fantastic.  It's really that and the ASF that keeps me sane right now.

Scaredy Cat

I never really fancied myself a scaredy cat.  But upon examination, I find I do actually live quite a portion of my life in fear.  Those silent, unspoken fears that you never quite want to admit to anyone, but when you crawl into bed at night, they haunt you.

Fear of being alone, fear of commitment, fear of staying in this job, fear of leaving this job, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of losing my parents, fear of losing Chhaya...

All of these things are generally kept at bay, but sometimes they creep in and like a rabid infection, spread quickly if not stopped quickly.

Lately my fear is based mostly on career.  Perhaps it is a fear of failure, but one can never succeed if one never tries.  So failure is really a form of success.  Being passive is probably the highest form of failure, really.

On my way to pick up the rental car for this weekend, I opened up my Kindle and began reading The Prosperous Coach, and I was a bit surprised to find that there were many instances addressing some of these fears.  Some of the great quotes I found inspiring were:

“Do it badly; do it slowly; do it fearfully; do it any way you have to, but do it.”
" True independence is about living a CREATED LIFE."
" Stop trying to live under the Failure Zone. Your mission is to embrace failure—not fear it. Actually, who cares if you fear failure—embrace it anyway."

On another note, I'm heading to Glasgow Lands tomorrow. This will be a great day after the nightmare week I had at work.  Although, I had a lovely time at the British Societies Summer Garden Party on Wednesday.  Met some interesting folks. Just wish there were more networking events such as this to get me better acquainted with more people in power.

On that note, I really should pack my bag, since I have to wake up at 6:30am tomorrow! 

Something Clicked!

So this has, somehow, been a weekend of epiphanies.  I (think) I finally made some actual decisions. 

The weekend actually began smashingly due to getting an alert about a drop in price on Hotwire for car rentals next weekend.  I had planned to go to Glasgow Lands Highland Games and Festival next weekend, but prices were outrageous!  I'd settled in on the fact that I'd miss another Highland Games.  Since my boss comes back this week and there is a board meeting on Friday, I know my week is going to be pure hell.  Now I have something exciting to look forward to if I make it through the week in one piece!

For instance, after MONTHS of indecisiveness about a new laptop, I bought a MacBook Pro today.  I've had my old, trusty Dell for 8 years!  The sound card is blown, so I can't watch Netflix from it, or take a class, should I finally decide what sort of classes to take, and on Friday the joint of the screen to the keyboard split in half.  Truth be told, my dad actually got me to walk out the door and commit to the purchase.  I had initially called him because I was pretty sure he'd talk me out of it, or into buying something less expensive.  But no! He surprised me and told me to get off the phone, walk up the street and "buy the damned thing, already!".

My second decision of the weekend involved an (almost) decision of finally committing to making the commitment to becoming an accredited coach.  I'm speaking to someone tomorrow about the actual game plan and courses, but I've toyed with this idea for numerous years.  I've really always wanted to do this, and perhaps this is the time to get my ass moving and do something about it.  I'm so tired of getting great ideas, then proceeding to talk myself out of them little by little.  I'm constantly convincing myself the plan won't work, or I can't afford it, or the plethora of other excuses.

No more! I've told just 3 people about this decision and each one of them told me they think I'd be super successful and great at coaching.  So, that's that!  I'm ready to get going on this.  No better time than the present to get started on being happy!

Long Time, No See

Wow, over three years since my last post.  I think the blog title still fits.  There is so much going on in my head, I thought it might be helpful to get it out on *paper*.

I think my career is the biggest obstacle in my life right now.  When I was in DC, all I knew is that I would eventually move back to NYC. I LOVED my job, but I felt like I was not living where I was "supposed to be".  I was wrong. And because of that, I completely sabotaged my job.  Which seems to be a running theme with great things in my life.

You would think after XX number of years on this earth, and countless readings of the cliche, that I would KNOW that the grass is RARELY greener on the other side.  That held true in this instance.

I moved back to NYC and took a filler job while I searched for my perfect path.  I turned down 3 positions that might have fit well to take something I thought would be my future.  I quickly realized I was spiraling down into, well, depths that I did NOT want to be swimming in.  Every day is now a struggle.  Sundays are filled with anxiety and feelings of dread.  You know, that pit deep in your stomach where you aren't sure if you want to eat or throw up?

So now I'm at a crossroads.  There are options, but because my self-confidence is just this side of shot, my risk tolerance is low.  I have gained so many skills in my line of work over the years, that it has been a huge challenge to figure out a specific path to take.  IT? Real estate? Coaching? That last one... I've been thinking about it for about 7 years now.  It seems right that I should look into it more.

I just finished taking the Gallup StrengthsFinder 2.0 assessment and read the book.  It's been incredibly helpful, but now I want to delve deeper.

I think I'm going to close out for now, but I'm going to be taking up writing more, there's so much I want to get out of my head and onto the screen.