Whether it is business or love or career or life, so many people long for it to happen.

For that small sliver of hope.  The shouting beacon that our lives are lived in the tiniest parts of the extreme ends of the spectrum, rather than the vast expanse of the middle.  That somehow, we don’t matter unless we are being extraordinary.

We all long to prove that there really is an exception to every rule.

I see it so often in discussions amongst people.  “But what about that perfect candidate” or “Remember that one time” or “It could happen.”  While all these situations and scenarios are true, they apply to a teeny tiny fraction of reality.

So why do we look at every situation holding out hope that the exception to the rule will come swooping in to manifest our greatest hope into actualization?

Now before everyone starts getting all upset and defeated and thinking I’m squashing your dreams of unicorns and double rainbows let me clarify.  I have always subscribed to the school of thought that you should push yourself to a place that challenges you and brings you alive.  A life complacent in mediocrity is a sad life indeed.

But what is even sadder is all these people and posts and articles and books telling us that if we aren’t the exception to the rule, then we are doing something wrong.  That we are all going to achieve notoriety as “the one” that was different than the rest.

And then we beat our heads against the wall again and again because we feel almost ashamed that we are, in fact, in the pool of “common folks.”  Life knocks us down again and again and it takes a special type of person to keep getting up, bloodied and bruised for the next hit.

The exception to the rule ONLY happens occasionally.  That is why it is an exception.  It is not something that we should strive for.  To say that there is only one way of achieving goals and happiness, and that is to somehow win the game.

I’ve always been a fan of changing the rules instead of winning them.   Exceptions are rarities that should be staples.  But you don’t change the world by wishing you could be the one in a million.

You change the world by making the one the new million.

Photo Credit: Getty Images – Max Oppenheim

Do you ever read through a book or watch a movie and think “I wish I could do that?”

Unfortunately no amount of wishing or hoping will ever allow us the ability to absorb super powers or find ourselves walking onto a starting rotation with the Chicago Cubs as a twelve-year old.

That doesn’t mean that the stories and plots and characters are a completely impossible daydream.  In fact, long before they were chapters engaging you in thought and blockbusters riveting you to the screen, they were merely ideas lingering in the back of someone’s mind.

Why then, do we live our lives vicariously through these fictional manifestations?

What stops us from being the authors of our own lives?

Photo Credit: Getty Images – Stockbyte

In college, majoring in creative writing, I spent semesters learning how to tell other people’s stories.  Plotting the nuances of character and setting, analyzing the beginning/middle/end, creating entire worlds for other people yet continuing to let my own world create me.

Watching the plot unfold and somehow feeling helpless against the turning of my own pages.  Living a life of re-action rather than pro-action.  Letting someone else tell my story.

That is when I began to apply some of the same strategies I had learned in creative writing to my own life.  Visualizing how I wanted scenes to unfold.  Storyboarding my future dreams and ambitions.  Creating the characters I wanted to be part of my life and seeking them out.

And as soon as I started applying these techniques and ideas, I started feeling like my life was my own.  And being belligerently happy with what I was forming.  Taking calculated risks, falling on my face a lot, but getting right back up knowing that my readers would always be cheering me on.

The hero and heroine of a great story are imperfect, tangible and beautiful disasters that you still want to win.  So I ask you…

Who wants to live a life that is irresistibly engaging?

Want to learn more about Being The Author Of Your Own Life?  Want to escape for 3-days to a lakeside retreat in scenic Maine, pictures straight out of the LL Bean catalog?  Want to “come home” and learn more about the person you yearn to be?

Then join me at Kingsley Pines where I will be on the Homecoming Retreat team leading one of the circles on Saturday morning.  The entire weekend (lodging, food, circles/sessions, yoga/dancing & much more)  for two nights is only $495.

Register today because space is very limited and going very quickly!

And make sure to check back to my site in 2011 (and in the interim, of course!)  for more on Being The Author Of Your Own Life.

There are people that let things happen and there are people that make things happen.

I’ve spent most of my life being the prior.  Which has always been a difficult existence because most people assumed I was the latter.  In reality I’ve been an EXTREMELY lucky person.  That was likable enough that people went out of their way to help me.

And the Universe has been kind and caught me time and time again when I made foolish leaps without any thought or planning.  Even without the enticement of Tootsie Rolls (which I hear it adores!)  And I was left to wonder “why?”

Why does everyone else get to leap and do these fantastic things while I leap and don’t splat but do end up tumbling into the side of the cliff.

It was yesterday morning, as I sat listening to alternative wake-you-up-all-pepped-and-energized music that I realized the difference.  I had spent all those years letting things happen.  But I had done very little to MAKE them happen.

Photo Credit: Getty Images – Tooga

See, there are most definitely things you have to “let happen.”  Those things that are beyond your control.  Those things that will drive you CRAZY if you delude yourself into thinking you should try to change.

But a happy and successful and content and wonderful life isn’t about those things.

It’s about the things in between.  The things we DO have control over.  The reactions we have to them.  The first thought you have in the morning and the last thought you have before going to bed.  The things you ponder and during those long car trips no where and agonize over in the quiet moments when your mind inadvertently wanders to them.

They are the things we make happen.

We can sit and wait for life to happen to us.  To let it guide our path while we float along waiting for that email from a special person or promotion at our job or perfect condo or or or OR!  Like zombies on a march towards

Or we can make the plans, take the time to think, get our equipment and gear all in line and prepare to take the leap.  To scare the bejeezus out of ourselves and to trust ourselves like we never have before and to close our eyes and feel the wind begin to hit our face as we free fall into our futures.

There are people who let things happen and there are people who make things happen.

Which kind of person are you?

There are things we have control over and there are things we don’t.

My old boss used to say this to me all the time when I’d get all feisty over company policies that I didn’t agree with.  And I used to get feisty.  I believe I’ve been known to throw stuff, scream, curse, stomp…fortunately in my adult life I can’t remember ever throwing myself on the ground and flailing my hands and feet into the floor in a noisy act of defiance.

I see this a lot in business and life in general.  I’m guilty of it myself much more often than I’d like to admit.   It’s especially hard when you are a little bit of a control freak like me.  The idea that you have to let certain things go.  That you put the control in someone else’s hands.  That you know what the correct solution should be but there’s nothing you can do about it.

Photo Credit: Getty Images – Brad Wilson

Sounds pretty depressing, right?  There are things that you just don’t have control over.  So should you just roll over and take it?

For some people that’s what they do.  When life challenges them they back away, too scared or possibly lazy to fight back.   For others the fight is where they get their thrill.

The smart ones, they fight strategically.  They pay attention to the variables that are movable and the walls that pop up.   They will assess the whole situation and determine what changes they can affect and what must be left.

And who knows.  Maybe the changes that you implement to those things that you have control over will affect the things you didn’t.  It’s like the delicate game of dating…you can’t control if someone else likes you.  But if you like yourself and make necessary changes to be happy when you are with them?!

Well there’s nothing sexier than that.

There are things we have control over and there are things we don’t.

And life is so much happier when we embrace that and still strive to make positive changes in our lives.

The day is finally here.

I’ve written about it a bit before.  Mostly about how my friend Melissa (who did my FABULOUS headshot pics here on the website) summed it up to be “touching down” on the age that finally feels right for me.  And if the past 24 hours of awesomeness and smiles and love from friends and whatnot is any indication, “touching down” on my 30th birthday is already shaping up to be pretty swell.

Some other friends have written great birthday/age wisdom post recently, and I totally don’t know that I would want to compete.  And the post that my sister wrote ABOUT me yesterday is so beautiful and poignant and wonderful and about a million other things that I feel like you should all just go read it instead of mine.

Photo Credit – Melissa Mullen Photography

I tried to figure out what I wanted to say and I kept thinking of stuff that other people have said.  Snippets of wisdom and pieces of advice left in books and movies and letters that left impressions and shaped me.  I want to share a few today in hopes that you will get yet one more glimpse behind the curtain to me and maybe glean some wisdom and advice from these words too.

~ I take the good with the bad – I can’t love people in slices My best friend/dorm roommate in college loved the movie First Knight and this line comes from it.  It’s so true and so often forgotten.  We only cling to and love the good parts of people, and hold the bad parts against them.  Why?  People are like puzzles, without all their pieces there are holes.  I try to remember to love the whole.

~ Doing one crazy thing might make you crazy, but who knows…it just might make you happy… In the name of transparency I must admit, this comes from an ABC Family channel movie with Melissa Joan Hart.  Don’t you dare judge!!!  But it’s just so true.  Crazy things just MAY mean we are crazy.  Not adventurous or bold or outside-the-box, we just might be plain-flat-out should-be-given-a-jacket-to-hug-ourselves-daily crazy.  And you know what?  If that’s what makes you happy, then hug away!

~ I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best. Ah, Marilyn Monroe, the woman oozed so many things.  And though I try to view everyone else in their whole rather than in their pieces, I frequently forget to do that for myself.  But the truth is there’s a worst and a best side to me.  And the people who matter in your life, they’ll be there for you through both.

~ To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment Oh Ralph Waldo Emerson, I think you and I would have been tight if I were alive two-hundred years ago.  Let’s face it.  There are always outside factors and pressures trying to conform you to be what they want/need.  It’s a constant struggle.  The true beauty and accomplishment lies in being who you are, and instead of struggling to be what everyone else wants you strive to be what YOU want to be.

~ You must be the change you want to see in the world Gandhi was just a wise wise dude.  This is one of my two favorites, the phrases you say over and over again in your head to remind yourself of your purpose on Earth.  We cannot expect others to create change.  We CAN work with others, but we cannot ask the world to bear the weight of deep and lasting change without participating ourselves.  It is our duty as human beings to leave the world better than it was when we came in.  So find your favorite and most passionate causes and start being instruments of change.  If you don’t who will?

And finally, my favorite.  No explanation, if you’ve learned anything about me you will understand why this is the phrase that I fall back on when I have lost direction or vision.  It’s often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, but many believe he didn’t come up with it.  I don’t care who did, I just know I’m eternally grateful that they chose to share it.

To laugh often and much
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends
To appreciate beauty
To find the best in others
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch
To know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived
THIS is to have succeeded

I know that Twitter and blogging and Facebook are just crazy things that many of us do, but to me you are all a piece of my life.  These online tools have given us the ability to create relationships and connections that I cherish.  And judging by the flood of Tweets, Facebook wall posts, Text messages, phone calls and emails I’ve already received at 7:30 AM on my actual birthday DAY I am a VERY lucky and blessed and happy girl.

I grow tired of everyone assuming that living in the middle is a life unfulfilled.

Let’s face it…I’d say that 95% of us will never achieve the fame and fortune that we once dreamed of, exactly as we dreamed it.  Which is devastating to our gentle young professional generation.  As a group we were raised to get medals for participation (not winning) at every sports banquet.  Sliding scales and bell curves graded our work “more fairly.”  We’re taught that you should try to find Mr. Tall, Dark & Handsome to find true love (even though there is only a sliver of the population that fits this image we have in our minds.)  We grew up believing anything is possible, if we just try hard enough.

Some of us learned in college, some learned just out of it, some of us are only now learning or still haven’t learned that this isn’t usually the way life shakes down.  Yet we set ourselves up time and again to write the great American novel, discover the next “get rich quick” scheme, meet Mr. TDH in a “made only for romantic comedies” scene and fall desperately in love to make lots of babies, or walk onto the Pats.  There’s a reason I still choke up a little 3,927 views later when Wild Thing steps onto the field to face his nemesis Parkman in Major League II.  We long to know that it is “real.”  That people overcome their adversities and challenges to achieve their own rockstardom.

So if we are most likely not going to achieve our dreams exactly as we envision them, why should we even bother, right?

We should still try and learn and grow because even if we aren’t the absolute best at what we originally set out to do, it is safe to assume the other extreme is not true either.  In other words, we probably won’t be the worst at it either.  We need to learn to find happiness in the space that lies here in the middle.

I don’t believe in settling while we are in the middle either.  As I wrote in final response to Carlos Miceli’s post that inspired this one: “Settling is what happens when stuff ceases to move. I will listen to your ideas most definitely, but unless someone compels me with a great argument,  I refuse to believe that a happy life is one that is not in motion.”

We measure far too much of our success and failure by what others think.  We push for what we think are our dreams, completely oblivious to the realities and circumstances surrounding us.  We adhere to a life of all or nothing, which is an exhausting existence to live.

Instead I urge to embrace the middle.  To constantly adapt and adjust your dreams and beliefs when compelled for good cause.  To never settle and never progress blindly.  That we not live a life without motion nor constantly spinning.

Photo Credit: Getty Images: Michael Hall

I hate election/voting/referendum season.

You’re probably thinking I’m one of those people who hates politics, hates discussions and hates conflict.  None of those things could be further from the truth.  In college I was very involved in Student Government, I’m at my happiest hanging out with people discussing issues/ideas/theories and I’ve been known to get in my share of heated debates/conflicts/bar fights.

I hate the political season because it brings out the worst in people.  No longer do people engage in logical discussions of fact and theory.  Instead they get upset and angry and throw bits of mud and sticks and stones and by the end of it I have no desire to be involved in ANY sort of politics.  They fight dirty and ignorant and stupid.

I’m seeing this especially in my state (Maine) as we get ready to vote in a referendum regarding gay marriage.  A law was passed (after it has been voted down twice by public vote) making Maine more progressive in terms of gay rights than San Francisco.   Yes, gay marriage was legalized here.  Before the ink had even dried on the new law it’s opponents had referendum paperwork flooding the State House.

Thus began the attacks and “truth benders” and various other depravities in the human spirit.

Here are some truths for everyone out there -

• When you refuse to comment on your stance as people ask you questions about it, it only shows that your stance has a lot of fluff and not very much substance. (By the by, a comment saying “The bottom line is, we see the pending law as a bad bill.  Our contention is that if the legal definition of marriage is changed, there will be consequences” is not a comment of substance!)
• When you start to argue about a piece of information, know what you are talking about (I engaged in an all-together useless back and forth with a local newscaster that still baffles my mind, regarding a public school system entirely removed from the situation!)
• If you are going to use people in your campaign, make sure they are actually associated with your stance (or, in fact, you know their actual names.)

I’ve got to say I wish this post was not so one-sided.  I wish that the Yes on 1 (cause the referendum is craftily worded as one of those “No is Yes and Yes is No” conundrums) had more substance and press-bytes and legitimate discussions and debate points.  And it isn’t because I agree with their stance  (oooh, it all comes out now!)

It is because the whole situation just perpetrates the ignorance of our society.  Arguments based in emotion and pure opinion have no place in decision making – whether it is government, the board room or the family den.  And I want to see this issue once and for all be discussed in the manner it deserves to be discussed in.  We are talking about the rights of two people in love to publicly commit to each other in the same pure and “needs to be protected” way that such marriage rock-stars as Britney Spears and Warren Beatty have done before.  This is NOT an issue that should be taken lightly.

No on 1 folks, I know this argument leaves you sitting pretty on a high and lofty seat knowing that YOU would never campaign like this.  And while your campaign has involved more logic and fact and substance, I would like to point out that your supporters are becoming banana slugs.  Yes, closed-mindedness goes both ways.  And when you attack people for what they believe and try to turn it to thus be about their character and “stupid” ideas, well then you are no better than they are.  While you don’t agree with what they say, they are JUST as free to say it as you are, too.  And when you fight as dirty as your opponent no one wants to listen to your message any more.

Let’s try to make it through this political season by making it about the ISSUES and their merits and detriments.  This is for ALL the votes, including health care reform which includes a commercial from which I literally wrote down the phrase “These insurance companies can’t be trusted – they profit by denying people care” from.  (By the by, I work for an insurance company and I’m undecided.  Way to sway my vote, see what happens when you make emotional statements?)

What do you say?

Photo Credit: Getty Images:Sam Bloomberg-Rissman

No one enjoys feeling sick.  I am especially unruly in the “irritating sick person” category.  I have seriously contemplated buying a fainting couch just so I can dramatically lay my forearm against my forehead and gracefully (ha, like I do anything gracefully…) faint backwards onto it.  With a huge sick person sigh.  So everyone around me knows that I’m miserable and ill.  And they will baby me til I’m better.  At least that’s the plan.

This past summer  I started making some pretty big changes and setting some pretty lofty goals for what I’m anticipating will be a pretty sweet life starting next summer.  That’s right, my goal is set for 12 months away.  I’m not a jumper and I’m not a leaper.  I’m not someone to be admired for the bold and brash and brazen life changes they’ll make.  I’m not the shiny new toys that you get every birthday, I’m the Velveteen Rabbit in the corner.

With all these goals and all these changes and all this stuff going on I made the (brilliant) decision to start working with a life coach (in another post, in another time, I will tell you why you are foolish to do big things without having an adequate sounding board…Lael is mine…)

During one of our discussions, Lael introduced me to a concept which I have grown to embrace/love/fear.  She calls it “vomit moments.”  Those moments in time when stuff becomes so real that you are just overwhelmed with every gambit of emotion the human body is capable of producing in about ten seconds of time and you frantically search for the nearest bathroom cause you are quite positive you are about to puke.

Lael is working to build her company and brand as well, and she’s shared a couple with me.  They make me giggle, in a “That’s cute and I feel for you”  not a “Haha, I’m laughing at you fool” kind of way.

I’ve started to have a few of my own.  I either text/email/Tweet/Facebook to tell her about them.  I’m giddy like a 5-year old showing off her mad macaroni frame skills.  I seem to be obsessed with noting that the nausea sometimes causes me to throw up in my mouth a little bit.  She calls me a “mouth booter.”  I adore her.

As someone who loathes all things sick related, I am learning to LOVE these moments.  To seek them out.   “Vomit moments” are the new addiction, like adrenaline and base jumping.  “Vomit moments” are the things that push us and motivate us and help us to get to our goals.  Cause if you aren’t SO EXCITED about the life you are pursuing that you occasionally feel the waves sweep over your body then you are MOST DEFINITELY not doing it right living your dreams.

My name is Elisa, I’ve become a puke junkie, and I’m constantly seeking out my next fix.

So I ask of you…have you ever had a “vomit moment” in the changes you are making in your own life?  If you haven’t (yet) – don’t you kind of wish you had?

Photo Credit: Stockbyte, Getty Images

Are you losing your religion? It is no secret that the young professional generation is flocking away from the flock, and in a survey from 2007, 70% of us had “dropped out” of church/mosque/synagogue/organized religion. Is it just because we are a commitment-phobic generation? The secret lies instead in the question “Are young professionals only losing their religion or are they also losing their faith?”

Let me explain.

For a long while now, I’ve elaborated personally on a little philosophical thought that is often quoted and even more often misused. When Friederich Nietzsche stated that “God is dead” he wasn’t saying that God had physically died. He was talking about the belief in God and the fact that people were no longer turning to the church for full unabashed direction in their decisions, morals and explanations. He felt that humanity was going to become a nihilistic society, their values no longer routed in anything of substance but instead the fabrications of whatever whim people wanted to adhere to.

My elaboration of Mr. Nietzsche’s statement is simple. “God is dead, organized religion was the death of God.” (I know, deep, huh? I was a good little clove-smoking philosophy student!) The obscuring of God by organized religion started long before the young professional generation entered the mix. Anyone remember a little thing called the Spanish Inquisition? It isn’t like we’ve got the corner market on corruption of power by organized religion.

We are, however, becoming adults and learning how to be “ourselves” in a world that is drowning in nihilsm. Between reality TV, neon yellow journalism and the superficialities that are acrylic nails, tanning booths and Louis Vuitton people are turning to everything but the church for their foundation in life. We are also extremely lucky in that we are the first generation that has really been raised to think for ourselves, to challenge the authority that Generation X had to fight so hard against. And for a lot of the young professional generation, religion is not the place that we are finding our answers.

This isn’t to say that we are in a crisis of faith. On the contrary, I think young professionals have a better grasp of their beliefs than those who have gone before them. However, organized religion does not seem to offer the things that are important to young adults. They are either left out of a lot of the rhetoric because they have not coupled and joined the ark or they are not interested in sitting in uncomfortable seats for 2 hours listening to someone preach at them rather than engage with them. We have had to leave organized religion to find the community we want.

For me, I don’t think we’ve lost our faith…we’ve just lost our religion. No longer do I find my personal moments with a higher power in the confines of four walls being told what I should believe. I see the love of my God in my friends, in a beautiful view from a mountaintop, in doing good for others. I don’t get anything anymore from an organization that is more interested in furthering its own agendas rather than teaching me how to believe in something greater than myself. I will admit, though, I’m a little worried where that is going to lead us.

What do you think? Are young professionals losing just their religion, or are they also losing all semblance of faith?

There’s two kinds of selfish in the world. There’s the selfish that makes you want to look someone in the eye, punch them in the face and leave them for the rest of the wolves so that you can benefit and then there’s the other kind of selfish. A lot of people argue that differentiating between the two is sorta like trying to figure out which of the 7 sins is the worst. Selfish is selfish, and convincing yourself anything different is just trying to make yourself feel better about being selfish.

I am one, however, that really does feel that there’s a legitimate second (and better) selfish in the world. It’s the selfish that makes Boy Scouts learn to help others in the name of getting more merit badges on their sash. It’s the selfish that makes famous celebrities sell swag and tickets in their online store for a guy trying to figure out the craziness that is the healthcare system. It’s the selfish that makes you stop hiking halfway up a mountain because going any further is just not going to be safe for you.

I am the quintessential “nice person.” When asked at a corporate workshop for words to “describe” me, the most frequently used were: nice, friendly, smiling. This was especially interesting in my workplace, as the people in my workshop generally do not always see me in this light. This makes me sad sometimes. It’s hard to live as a dichotomy, a nice person wrapped in a corporate raiding body.

Which is why I sometimes wonder about my motivation for being a nice person. See, part of it is the way I was raised. My parents taught me to abide fastidiously to the Golden Rule and to offer my help anyone who needed it. So I grew up in a world of nice. As I got older, however, I realized an even better reason to continue being nice to others. It just makes me feel good. It takes way too much time and energy to try to be angry and mean, and for most folks with a soul, it just leaves you feeling bad at the end of the day. I’ll be the first to say, I’m nice because it makes me feel…well…nice.

Then there’s the second half of the good selfish coin, the selfish that makes you stop in your tracks and actually take care of yourself rather than letting life walk all over you. Notice I say “life” rather than others/friends/family. Most of the time, friends and family don’t mean to disrespect your time/feelings/energy, they just do. It’s the curse of being a “nice guy/girl” – you get so wrapped up in being nice that you try to please everyone. Occasionally you have to take a step back and say that magical tiny word, “No.”

Unfortunately there are those out there in the world that don’t think any type of egoist altruism is a good thing. That if you are going to benefit from an act in any way, then the act itself must be tarnished. In our land of lies and cynicism it has almost become easier to not believe in anything good and always wonder about people’s ulterior motives.

But you know what? If this other kind of selfish is wrong…well, then, I just don’t want to be right.

Do you think there are two different kinds of selfish behaviors? Is one good or is selfishness ALWAYS bad regardless of the motivation?