Shelagh Meagher's Blog, page 7

She appeared screaming in my kitchen

A few years back, I moved with my family into a leafy, peaceful downtown Toronto ‘hood. Our neighbours were a lovely couple, late fifties, who had successful careers in education. They’d been diligent, saved their money, had a beautiful house, and planned to retire the next year to begin their dream of travelling the world. […]

Let Me Do Laundry

Ever notice how, when you’re trying to find the time to do something intimidating, your most boring and mundane chores become really compelling? I experience this frequently when writing (especially if I’ve got a bit of writer’s block) or when I’m faced with doing anything for which I feel less than 110% competent. As in, I should spend […]

Want to be part of something cool?

As any of you who have been following me know, The Practical Woman’s Guide is founded on contribution and sharing. It’s been 2 1/2 years in the making so far – years of meeting and talking with scores of wonderful women who have been giving this community their stories and sharing how they got their gumption […]

Answer this: I am…what?

Build the life you want. That’s the promise of many self-help books these days. But what if you’ve done that, or you thought you did, then woke up and found it wanting? As in: I have a nice life so why am I feeling dissatisfied? How pathetic is that? What’s wrong with me? I believe what’s […]

A Crazy Way to Gain Sanity

Here’s a zany but intriguing exercise for learning to overcome fear: get on a crowded subway train (if you have access to one) and call out the stops as they’re coming up. Why would anyone do this, you ask? Psychologist Albert Ellis, its originator, would tell you (if he were still alive) that it shows […]

A crazy way to gain sanity

Here’s a zany but intriguing exercise for learning to overcome fear: get on a crowded subway train (if you have access to one) and call out the stops as they’re coming up. Why would anyone do this, you ask? Psychologist Albert Ellis, its originator, would tell you (if he were still alive) that it shows […]

My Beautiful Hair is Freaking Me Out

So much for not giving a damn; clearly that’s a work in progress. I recently started dying my hair much lighter, after a lifetime of being a brunette which was, back in some long-forgotten age, my natural colour. Everybody is noticing and saying how great it looks – even clients, who don’t usually talk about that kind of stuff.

So why is this freaking me out?

Because the first thing they say is not ‘Wow, your hair looks great’. It’s ‘Did you change your hair colour?” … and then the ‘it looks great’ part. And this is enough to discombobulate me. The key difference is that, suddenly, people are noticing that I colour my hair. Horrors, I’ve been exposed. No matter that I’ve been dying it for decades; I’ve lived with a fantasy that it comes across as ‘natural’ even though I’m easily past the age where anyone would assume it’s flawlessly un-grey.

How insane is that? The colour job is doing exactly what it was meant to do – make my hair look so great that people notice it. But ah, the subtleties of a woman’s heart. I feel like I’m getting the thumbs-up on a lie.

This is way harder than the pink coat. Nobody ever asks me if I ‘changed my coat’, they just say they love it. So I guess I have to recognize that this small adventure in hair colour is going to take more toughing out than I thought. Because, really, once I get over shocking everyone I meet, I know my new hair looks frikkin’ great.

 

We All Have Doubts

And if I ever doubted that, I was reminded by a recent article in The Economist about the remarkable Dr. Angela Belcher of MIT, who makes super useful things out of viruses. Things like environmentally friendly batteries (with which she hopes one day to power electric cars), and turning methane into gasoline. Dr. Belcher has made mind-boggling discoveries, co-founded two companies to help get her stuff out into the world where it can make a difference, has personally demo’d her work to Barack Obama, and manages to be a part of not one but two of MIT’s faculties. She started off with a BA in creative studies, which has clearly been a boon to her thinking outside the box.

This is all striking enough in itself, but the thing I found really surprising in the article was this bit regarding how she felt about extending her MIT involvement into yet another faculty, The Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research:

“She was nervous about this. ‘Working on cancer is so important. I didn’t want to take up space and not contribute and make a difference.’ But she attended tutorials and became more confident by considering cancer as yet another material to work with. Although it is early days, the work looks promising.” (From The Economist Technology Quarterly, March 8, 2014)

She was nervous. Isn’t that comforting? Even really remarkable people have this issue.

And how did she move past that obstacle? By using a technique many of the contributors to The Practical Woman’s Guide have also talked about: She applied herself to learning what she needed, using what she already knew to inform what she didn’t yet know, which gave her the confidence to proceed. 

Making our dreams happen often involves venturing into unknown territory. Personally, I hate feeling incompetent. But armed with this tool it’s possible to feel a little less incompetent; just enough to keep going through the muck and doubt until, voila, you discover you actually have something to contribute.

If you’d like to read the whole article about Dr. Belcher you can find it here:

http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21598324-angela-belcher-materials-scientist-who-makes-things-viruses-she-now

Here’s to not giving a damn

As I get older, I care less about what others think. This didn’t come from an epiphany or a ‘damn the torpedoes’ moment. It kinda crept up on me. After hundreds, if not thousands, of embarrassing experiences in life, it’s finally dawned on me that I will not drop dead in such situations. A case in point: travelling with Violet, my now-grown-child’s ‘Incredibles’ suitcase from when she was ten. I didn’t mean to travel with Violet, but she turned out to be the only carry-on luggage in the house when it came time to pack for my trip to visit my sister in Florida.

The photographer had a little trouble with focus…

The bag has wheels – although it was only on arrival at the airport that I discovered the handle is set so low (child height) I had to string it on my scarf to get it to roll properly. An added sophistication to my look. The bag’s owner, now 19, found this all sufficiently funny that she wanted a photo. A nice lady in the waiting area complied as she made a discreet comment along the lines of “I was kind of wondering…” But no matter. Once I hit America, there were comments galore. “I love your suitcase!” “Nice luggage!” No-one was being mean. On the contrary, Violet instigated a whole lot of fun conversations I would never have had otherwise, with laughing adults and envious children.

I was reminded of the time I went to the grocery store in the pouring rain with my mother – I was in my late teens then – and, from the car to the entrance, she donned these crazy, gag eyeglasses with battery operated windshield wipers on them, something my father had given her as a joke. It was the first time I realized my mother had more of the prankster to her than I’d thought. I was both mortified and giddy. I still cared a lot about what other people thought.

Violet in her glory

Not giving a damn is a wildly liberating idea. It’s far from a 100% commitment for me (my children might be relieved to know). But it’s one heck of an interesting new avenue to explore. I might take Violet with me every time I travel…if only I can figure out how to extend that handle.

Everybody’s Quitting

 

It seems that every time I turn around these days, someone I know is quitting their job. Have they suddenly inherited money? Are they nuts? Neither. They’ve decided that there has to be a better way to make living. I’ve been there myself more than once.

Our jobs take up a lot of our waking hours and are the central need around which much of the rest of our lives revolve. When they suck, it sucks the life right out of us. The money we’re making seems to cost an awful lot. Now, these ladies haven’t just woken up one day and thought “I can’t do this anymore” and that was that. They woke up thinking it for much longer than is good for a person, agonized, rationalized, and had moments of panic that sent them scurrying back into the arms of their employer like some kind of abused spouse. They had conversations with their actual (non abusive) spouses if they had them, their kids, their parents, their bank managers or accountants. They put plans in place to cope with their losses, or put together something new that might, one day, replace their old income. 

Then they acted, even though they were still scared to bits, because they recognized that no-one is ever 100% certain but, at a certain point, the unknown becomes way more attractive than the known.

How did it feel, besides scary? Liberating, like a leash had been cut and all the pointless straining against it was over. And motivating; they have a fire under their butts now to make their new things work. The compromises they’re making now to cope feel more worthwhile than the ones they had to make to stay in their old jobs.

I’m not advocating that everyone who thinks their job sucks should up and quit. But quitting often gets a bad rap, equated with ‘giving up’, when it can actually be a very positive thing. So I’m just putting it out there…quitting is a kind of adventure, too. For these ladies, it’s the best decision they’ve made in ages.