Obtaining Confidence

venus williams

Last week Venus WIlliams wrote an article in the New York Times about the 3 factors in obtaining confidence.

When you don’t feel good about yourself and your prospects it can be hard to have confidence.

At 53 I haven’t yet gotten what I wanted. My love and literary prospects haven’t panned out yet. Operative word in the last sentence: yet.

Venus Williams is on to something when she eschewed setting goals in favor of asking yourself: “Do I feel good?” This makes perfect sense to me.

The question “Do I feel good?” is relevant to whether you succeed.

The Dark Horse authors whose book I wrote about in the Flourish blog think achieving success doesn’t lead to happiness–it’s the pursuit of fulfillment that makes you happy.

Again, it’s the process not the outcome that counts.

Which ultimately reinforces my perpetual claim that fashion isn’t frivolous. If you feel good, you’re empowered to take on the world.

In terms of the fashion freedom I hinted at in a recent blog entry I don’t think you can feel good in ill-fitting clothes that aren’t becoming on you.

To know your style and flaunt it guarantees you will be a success in whatever you do.

If you don’t feel good–about what you’re wearing; about the people you’re working with; about an aspect of yourself or your life–you have the power to change this.

This is the truth: you can be happy even when you haven’t achieved the goals you set for yourself. Venus Williams is right and she’s a champion: the goals are irrelevant.

In the coming blog entry I’ll talk about living for today, which is the ultimate method for feeling good.

1985

1985 was the year I started my first career as a disc jockey on the FM radio.

This labor of love was chronicled in Left of the Dial.

Every two months I get a few radio show cassette tapes converted to CDs. They can be played back on my SONY boom box.

Not a lot of people have an actual recording of who they were when they were in their twenties.

Listening to my radio shows I’m struck by how chatty I was on-air. Talking to my audience in a hip, upbeat fashion.

The point of this introduction being that you can reclaim yourself after illness strikes.

I was diagnosed when I was 22 years old. That cut my life as I knew it short. In one night in an instant my life was forever altered.

Do you feel like you’re not the same person you were before?

Most likely a breakdown happened because something wasn’t working. You have the chance to heal what’s broken.

You have the ability at any point along the road in your recovery to change an aspect of yourself or your life that you don’t like.

Why wait until you’re 40 or 50 or older?

Though making changes in mid-life is also possible and highly recommended.

For me it started with the decision to wear makeup and dress bolder and yes shout louder.

As with any kind of change a person wants to make I recommend using the tactics outlined in Changeology: A 5-Step Method for Achieving Your Goals and Resolutions.

The technique is a 90-day plan that can work.

I’ll end here with this realization:

You might not be the same person you were before illness settled in.

That’s okay. You’re always a person of worth equal to others in society who don’t have an illness.

It takes courage to set a goal and go after what you want to get.

This doesn’t get easier at mid-life. Yet my hope is that in reading these blog entries you can be empowered to make your own resolutions.

I respect and admire anyone who has the courage to want to change their life for the better.

The only real failure is the failure to try.

As long as you give your goals your best shot, there can be no shame if they don’t work out.

I’m 53. My goal is to continue to champion my vision of Recovery for Everyone, from whatever it is you’re in recovery from.

I’m not going to back down in advancing that getting the right treatment right away results in a better outcome.

What’s your goal? Go for it.

Winning

In an upset victory Max Rose beat out Dan Donovan for Congress for the the Staten Island/Brooklyn seat in Washington.

I was quite surprised by this win. Yet under Dan Donovan’s DA rule the cop who killed Eric Garner in a choke hold was acquitted.

The district that covers Staten Island/Brooklyn (Bay Ridge Brooklyn) has been Republican for decades.

Max Rose’s victory is a stunner to me. I hadn’t expected he would win.

Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez won her Congress bid elsewhere in New York City.

In the U.S. we have elected 2 Muslim American women to Congress as well.

We have elected a Native American woman too.

From the New York Times:

“Women shattered records and precedents. One-third of the female nominees for the House were women of color, the highest ever. A record number of women faced off against other women, from Arizona to New York. Ms. Pressley in Massachusetts and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York were among women who defeated long-serving white male incumbents in party primaries and won tonight.”

In the same New York Times article:

“Despite being more than half the population and the voters, women were still less than a third of all candidates for Congress, the governors’ offices and other statewide executive seats.”

We have a way to go. Yet we can be proud of these gains.

One day I’m confident we will elect a woman president.

Ladies, start your engines.

Acting True to Yourself

I’ve learned a life lesson courtesy of having interacted with the jewelry vendor.

It’s a lesson I’m reminded of because on my job I deal with books and people every day.

The life lesson comes after years spent trying to conform by working in cubicles in corporate office jobs.

Mid-life is the time to get this schooling right once and for all. You won’t ever be happy trying to be someone you’re not.

This is a FACT in my book of life:

Taking joy in being who you are is the greatest gift you can give yourself. To be who you are when others don’t want you to be this person takes guts and grit. The glory of being you lasts a lifetime. To squander this gift is the greatest tragedy.

Remodeling Your Self At Mid-Life

The book The Happiness Curve talks about the myth of having a mid-life crisis. Apparently, people are happier in their fifties sixties and beyond. There’s an uptick in joy in our later years.

We have the balls or breasts to defy other people’s expectations:

We go back to school, remodel our kitchen, get a divorce or do any number of new things when we’ve had enough of life as it’s always been.

Today I reckon with this new requirement to stop caring what other people think.

It’s true no one’s going to like you or approve of you for speaking out, for having a diagnosis, or whatever you do or have that they can’t wrap their head around.

Only here’s the truth:

No one changed the world for the better (or even just their world for the better) by sitting on the sidelines and waiting to be called into the game.

Readers, mid-life is our game to play. We own this particular playing field at forty and beyond.

Only you have to be okay with your newfound bravado.

The secret to success at mid-life is indeed doing what gives you joy that comes easy to you. Other people might be envious that you’re happy. That shouldn’t concern you.

The older we get our time here becomes shorter. To steal the Maxwell House Coffee advertisement from the 1980s, we need to make each moment: “Good to the last drop.”

At 40, at 53, at however old you are, it’s time to pay attention.

Life will tell you what to do, if only you stop to listen.

So, remodel your kitchen or your self. It’s all good.

Well

I’ve been blogging for over 11 years so far.

At the start in the original incarnation of the blog I stated that if you have your diagnosis going against you, you might not want to dye your hair green and look weird.

Today I recant that assertion.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the tragedy that is conformity.

You can’t repress your soul and expect to be well.

You shouldn’t hide your life or your light.

Trying to change who you are so that other people will accept you or approve of you is a losing battle. Doing so will cause ill health.

Be not afraid to “Be who you are, not who the world wants you to be.”

Today I abide by this refrigerator magnet quote as the one true livable maxim at mid-life.

In the coming blog entries I’ll talk about how things often pan out in our older years.

Living life whole and well is predicated on embracing and expressing our individuality without fear of reprisal.

God is Ariana Grande

ariana grande

I shot this photo on my dining room table with an overhead light fixture. Thus the hologram effect on the singer’s face.

Reading Elle is my secret joy. I quote from the magazine to encourage women blog readers to go out and buy the magazine. You can get it in Rite Aid.

The August 2018 issue of Elle features Ariana Grande on the cover with this manifesto below her coveted mane: God is a Woman. I beg to differ: God is Ariana Grande.

In the interview with this pop singer superstar it was revealed that Grande is Italian: part Abruzzo; part Sicilian. Though I’m Sicilian too I’m as white-faced as Casper the 1970s TV show ghost.

“You’re a real white girl,” the guy who shot the first photo for my original website told me. “Are you sure you’re Sicilian?”

It makes me proud that Grande is Italian too. Italians are not all dum-dums, racists, and mafioso. With no other group of people is it okay to slander them like is commonly done with Italians. It seems like it’s open season on people with a lot of vowels in their last name.

Ariana Grande has a tattoo that reads in fine print bellissima, or most beautiful. She’s copped to having anxiety. At her concert in Manchester a bomb exploded and her fans were sent running away. Ever the trooper, she returned to Manchester for a benefit concert.

Why I ultimately like Grande is that she doesn’t care about her reputation. I’ll quote this snippet from the Elle interview: “She is loud and proud in her anti-Trumpism and has aligned herself with gun reform and Black Lives Matter.”

You don’t say? She does: “There’s a lot of noise when you say anything about anything. But if I’m not going to say it, what’s the fucking point of being here? Not everyone is going to agree with you, but that doesn’t mean I’m just going to shut up and sing my songs. I’m also going to be a human being who cares about other human beings; to be an ally and use my privilege to help educate people.”

As per the interview too: Ariana Grande has been in therapy for more than 10 years.

Did I say Ariana Grande is Italian?

People Have the Power

“People Have the Power” is my favorite Patti Smith song.

Yes I believe it’s true people in America have the power to change the the direction our country has been going in.

This starts when we challenge the hateful rhetoric in the media. It continues when we speak out against the drastic policies being enacted. The dialog can’t end it can only change its focus.

Why just fight for our rights? Why not figure out new rights we haven’t had that we can champion for everyone?

Instead of merely reacting to what goes on. We can be proactive in helping each other. We can treat each other with dignity.

Responding to hate with hate solves nothing. To love bomb the haters is the solution.

I read somewhere that if America wanted to convert other nations to our democratic ideals we shouldn’t bomb them. We should drop TVs on them.

I doubt anyone who needs to read what I’m writing will chance upon this blog. Yet here goes for those of you aren’t loyal readers. Here goes too for the ones who tune in every week. Here goes for everyone:

See who a person is not who you think they are. Labeling other people and judging them and stereotyping them is not the way to go.

I’ve listed in here the names of the over 30 people cops killed as well as written about Kate Spade.

Having been bullied early in life and having a diagnosis I’m no stranger to being viewed as the Other.

Yet it seems that before a person meets me or you or someone else that person sees fit to judge us and stereotype us and label us with a name.

Those of us with this kind of psychic ability to figure out a person’s life story just by looking at them: should set up a table on Venice Beach telling fortunes.

This aim might not be accurate so then again that would be a lousy way to make money.

Only our elected officials are making hundreds of thousands of dollars by daring to judge the needs of ordinary Americans as subservient to corporate greed.

Our elected officials are daring to think that the lives of ordinary Americans–lost to poverty, disability, lack of education, imprisonment, etc.–aren’t worth saving.

Sadly, I have given up on our government as being an agent of change.

The latest measure I’ve heard coming from Mr. Toupee is to stop funding public libraries.

No kidding.

Bombs away? I think not.

Let’s band together to treat each other with the respect, dignity, and compassion that seems to be lacking in media editorials and congressional fiats.

This blog will always be a hate-free and stigma-free forum.

Kate Spade – A Tragedy

Today Kate Spade–the designer of iconic handbags–took her own life.

She had everything going for her in terms of external success.

It’s a tragedy that inside at her core she wasn’t doing very well.

A year or two ago in my Flourish blog I wrote about the phenomenon of “smiling depression.”

Women are suffering all alone because no one takes them seriously.

“How could you be depressed when you have a great life?”

“Just pray and go to church and you’ll be fine.”

“Get married and have babies and raise a family.”

That last sentence contains actual words a young woman was told years ago.

The other two sentences are oft-repeated ill advice that women are given too.

I remember vividly when I was going on a job interview in the 1990s.

I rode the elevator up to the office with another woman. She held a Kate Spade tote against her shoulder. I coveted that Kate Spade pocketbook.

It wasn’t until this spring that I dared splurge to buy myself a Kate Spade pocketbook.

I bought it at a reduced yet not cheap cost at an off-price discount retailer in New York City.

Kate and her husband sold their company years ago. Yet American women have coveted the Kate Spade handbags since their first creation.

Disability is no joke.

Mental health issues strike everyone from all walks of life.

It’s a tragedy that Kate Spade and hundreds possibly thousands of nameless faceless individuals feel the only way out of their pain is to end their life.

What if Kate Spade could’ve gotten treatment? What if she had bipolar or another mental health issue that wasn’t diagnosed?

A part of Kate Spade lives on in the pocketbook I bought this spring.

Yet that’s no consolation for the fact that another human being’s life ended in tragedy not recovery.

God bless you Kate Spade. God bless everyone living with a mental health issue who suffers. You are not alone.

The Suicide Prevention Helpline can be reached at (800) 273-TALK (8255).

You can use the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.

Please. The pain you are in can be healed. People care about you. Help is available.

There is a way out of the pain that will enable you to live a better life.

There’s no shame. What you feel is real and true. What you feel can be healed

“Dignity is Valuable”

david bowie super CD

“Heroes” is my favorite David Bowie song. I bought a Heroes magnet at the David Bowie exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. I used to play this song all the time on my FM radio show in the 1980s.

Everyone gets a headset to listen to a documentary while viewing the items from start to end. It was just beautiful.

The words “Dignity is valuable” kept repeating in the headset. Soon after I was able to listen to Bowie’s “Major Tom.”

David Bowie had a career that lasted over 30 years. After the show I picked up in the gift shop his Scary Monsters CD.

That’s what it’s like to be a “super freak” in the eyes of others: You have to act true to yourself or you’ll wither.

Years ago I wrote in this blog “Conformity is repression.”

You can’t keep trying to be someone else to get others to like you and approve of you. That’s the quickest route to ill health.

I”m a Dilettante / Lover. These are actual archetypes.

If you’re an Artist or a Dilettante / Lover get yourself a ticket to the Bowie exhibit. Do this if you’re in NYC before July 15 when the show ends.

Adults cost $20. Senior citizens if I remember cost $12.

You will hopefully be so inspired by this experience. As it was I got turned on to live a freely creative life after seeing this homage to David Bowie’s work.

It was a beautiful experience. The rooms were crowded yet that was part of the fun:

To see a woman dancing while listening to a video on a screen.

To see a woman in a wheelchair view the exhibit.

The David Bowie exhibit was simply life-affirming.

I beg you if you are a Dilettante / Lover or an Artist that you dare commit to making art all the days of your life.

Even if it’s just changing the dining table decor at the start of each new season.

Or stirring up a pot of onion soup you created from a recipe in a cookbook.

Whatever you do that is artistic be it ordinary or big just keep doing it.

David Bowie continues to be a great inspiration to me long after he’s gone.

The Man Who Fell to Earth left this earth to soon. Luckily we have his music and his legacy to carry us on.