Just saw an Asian guy jump the turnstile. I wanted to scream to the girl with him who paid to run fast from this cheap fool. Life is tragic when you are criminally cheap.
Jordan B. Peterson talks about how we can’t twist reality and then avoid having it snap back at us HARD. Being a moron always catches up with us. If we are being real, everything catches up with us. Good and bad.
Sometimes, I hear people repeatedly talk about things they regret in the past. But if the past regret doesn’t inform the future— what is the use?
Reflect on the past, but also, think about how the present moment will soon be in that past bucket. What are you not doing or doing right now that you will soon regret? Make the present moment what you want. Don’t keep focus on just the past regret. If that’s all you dwell on, pretty soon you will be looking at your whole life like that.
“If you want to work on your art, work on your life.” Chekhov
By: Gabriela Yareliz
It has been burnout season for months for me thanks to a brutal and understaffed work environment (a tale for a different time!). I think that when we reach that point, we just sort of go through life in a bit of a zombie state. We take the convenient or easier routes on some things. With the demands of everyday life, something has got to give. We have grueling commutes and late evening arrival times. Sometimes, after the whole adventure, my battery is at 5%. My shortcut has been with food.
The other week, I made a deconstructed shepherds pie that was very ghetto. It did taste good, but the deconstruction vibe was unintentional and not the recipe— it was me. I eyed it while scarfing it down at my desk wishing it was prettier. I decided to ignore it, and keep editing a contract on the fly (item #278 of the day, most likely). I felt disappointed. My time away from kitchen creations felt justified. I carried that heavy glass container with this thing on a train for two hours? Ughhhh.
You know how people nowadays get offended by what is aspirational? I don’t. I like aspirational. I understand it for what it is, and lately, I feel it inspiring me to get back to trying new things.
People in my aspirational bucket are people like Gwyneth Paltrow (the inimitable GP), Georgia May and Nara Smith. They inspire me. I can’t spend hours baking bread from scratch, but I can take some of the ideas and Sandra Lee them (ha). (For the record, Sandra Lee is not in my aspirational category; she is more practical (and sometimes alarming)).
I think along with adjusting my sleep schedule (which needs help); my workout schedule (which is intact but needs to be moved to a higher energy hour)— I need to get inspired in the kitchen again. My husband cooks very well (and makes things pretty). He has been keeping us alive and thriving because lately, I have been a lazy little dweeb in the kitchen making nothing (or when I do make something, making ghetto deconstructed shepherds pies). Enter GP— I want to do the whole GP thing.
GP doing her thing.
I think that, sometimes, because life gets so disjointed, schedules disjointed, energy disjointed, commutes violent, we feel that if it can’t look a certain way, we would rather not do it at all. Ahhh the perfectionism that kills. I have felt subpar in this area. Never quite sure of myself. Sometimes, it turns out really well, and other times, it’s ok. It feels worse now when it’s not what was envisioned because now it feels like a wife metric. (And this is self-imposed. No one is complaining because he is too nice). Maybe that is the piece that has had me a bit down on my kitchen self. I wonder if it is good enough. This is the mental gymnastics we do to ourselves.
So, while I won’t be wearing evening gowns and making my own sandwich bread like Nara, I am inspired by her care for her family and the energy she puts into. Georgia May makes me want to master an air fryer. And GP, is well, GP. And having creativity here matters to me because it matters more than any contract I am drafting. It’s about nurture. (And I will self-confess, I am terrible at nurturing myself).
Back to GP— while we associate her with a lot of well done things, her magic is she just tries things. She sometimes burns the meal— whatever. But she gives it her best shot. I love that.
I went through a bunch of recipe videos and books. I scribbled down ideas that I know I will forget unless I write them down. They are recorded. I am gonna make each one I wrote down. New (personal) project activated.
Sometimes, creativity gets blocked. We enter a slump. I am in this creative process and working on some projects. One thing I read in our assignment list is we can’t read for a period of time. If you know me, that is pretty wild. One of the pieces of reasoning behind the idea is we often would rather be addicted to consuming something rather than processing our own ideas and emotions. I found this fascinating. I think we do this with a lot in life. We are ok watching others do things, we read the news, posts, courses, and we remain blocked. Lately, for me, it has been with regard to cooking. Truly. What has it been for you?
Anyway, I will be running my experiments again. Pray for us. Find your block. Sit in boredom. Burn the meal. If GP is fine with her crispy birds, who am I to disagree or judge?
It’s time to feed the people under this roof with more consistency. Deconstructed is better than nothing. Sometimes, we just have to keep saying that until we believe it. (Perfectionism, be gone!)
Follow every negative thought with a positive action, Erwin McManus said explaining one of his key practices.
This is a key to growth and rewiring. This is how we train our brain. It will learn to expect the positive follow-up to the negative trigger. This made me wonder how our lives would be different if we trained our minds to follow this route.
Next time you have a negative thought, follow it with positive action, and let me know what happens.
I know someone (who I admire) who is almost 80 and refuses to retire. Now, I do think this person has a sense of calling and vocation. They love what they do. But this brought me to thinking— how many of us are on track to do the same because we fail to have an identity or grow outside of work/responsibility. Have we forgotten who we are because we are a piece of a machine? I see it in myself and those around me. No breaks.
Some people naturally have close people who show them a rich life outside of work and responsibility, and others don’t and need to find an example of this to figure out how to live it out. We are all tasked with finding it and paying attention.
And this isn’t even about taking vacations (though that is a small piece of it). One can’t live life from vacation to vacation. I am talking about daily living where you cultivate a rich life of creativity and variety outside of work. Where, if you have a paralyzing accident today (God forbid), you weren’t putting leisure off to some future unpromised time that never comes. Hilariously, we see the putting off of joy and creativity as responsible. It’s not. It’s wasteful and presumptuous.
This is one of my goals. I want to cultivate an identity outside of responsibility. What does that look like? I don’t know, but the wisest people do it. We don’t get this time back. This is the phrase that keeps swirling in my head like a full sink swirling around the drain.
In Tara Schuster’s last book, there is a scene where she sees her therapist, and she tells her therapist that she is feeling really anxious. She describes everything that has been happening, and her therapist patiently listens, and at the end, the therapist tells her, “You aren’t anxious, you are furious.”
I identified with this scene. There have been seasons in my life where I thought I was sad, anxious, confused— but no, I look back now, and I realize, I too, was furious.
In trials and serious moments, there are serious things that pull you through. I would argue God is one of those serious things. One thing that always brightened my day was comedy. I LOVE comedy. I love comedians, and I love making people laugh, myself. In fact, I found myself thinking this the other day, but I hope I make you laugh here, occasionally. In any serious meeting or presentation, I strive to say something that breaks tension and makes people smile. It’s a syndrome.
I had a short stint in childhood where I wanted to be a comedian. My best friend Jackie and I were The Giggle Gang at the age of 10. We were serious about making people laugh. We would spend time writing jokes in a ratty spiral notebook, and we made a mini magazine that was pure humor. While I am nowhere near a comedian, and I am in one of the most serious professions (though the way these people act is a joke)— comedy is still something that matters. I will always choose it as a genre above all else.
I was reminded recently of the Peter Segal movies I grew up watching. My parents loved comedy, too. We were an SNL household, after all. The people from childhood are people I still seek out— Tim Allen, Steve Martin, Martin Short, David Spade. Adam Sandler is legend, as well.
David Spade… I recently showed some episodes of Just Shoot Me!, a major comfort show to me, to my husband. It still makes me laugh.
Studies show we seek out nostalgic things because they are predictable— we know the ending, and because they are safe. Comedy is a safe space despite the fact that true comedy can be pretty savage. The rules surrounding it though are that it’s not that serious.
On any bad day at work or morning where I feel slight dread because of whatever awaits me (also bc of work with the unserious dweebs), I listen to a comedian’s podcast. I laugh the whole commute. I feel better. Suddenly, the day shifts. Everything changes. Certain things matter less. The serious looks more absurd. As it should be. It’s not a crutch but a putting things in their rightful place.
I have realized comedy is and has been a life raft for many. Through storms, it has been an inflatable raft that allows us to surf the waves. We still end up soaked, but we are laughing, instead.
They say you have to laugh to keep from crying, but really, we should strive to laugh because some tears aren’t worth it. Other perspectives are more worthy of our emotional investment.
This is just a giant “thank you” note to the ones who make us laugh. To the ones who point out the absurdities and bring us back to child-like imagination and laughter. I once heard that comedy is the most intelligent form of communication. It is nuanced and often stems from darkness. But it does a wild thing we all need to learn— it’s the art form that turns darkness into light.
“I will never be satisfied. Life is one constant search for betterment for me.” Jayne Mansfield
By: Gabriela Yareliz
I want to know that I have peace about some things. I have let go of others. I want to have a settled spirit. You know, the kind you can’t f*** with, as we say in New York. I want to be warm with others. I want to be accountable and hold others accountable (thank God I am a lawyer, right?). I want to consistently hold profound unshakeable joy in me.
I want to keep reading magical books that open the mind to new ideas. I want to draw more pictures. I want to keep learning languages, and master Russian at a different level. I want to smile in the face of adversity, knowing all things work together for good. I want to see God’s miracles everywhere. I want to always have a heart of service.
I want to create the future as only an uninhibited child would. I want to see all these things in me and be totally unbothered if others are committed not to. I want to give art and beauty more space. I want to get stronger, physically and mentally.
I want to accept more rest. I want to set aside perfectionism, where so many of us think we derive our value from. I want to maximize life at every step. I want to keep writing letters to the mayor (they painted the bridge— thank God. You’re welcome, Brooklyn and Staten Island). At each moment, I want to feel fully alive. I want to stop working like a machine and leave the familiar numbness behind.
I want to explore. I want to keep laughing. I want to keep dreaming, like LiMu Emu.
Every day is a gift. I never tire of saying it. Every day, I want to learn, grow and be better.
I don’t think I will ever be satisfied. Mansfield said it best.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 