a real post - Thought Police by Amy Maclin

Marisa needs this: Thought Police. Here are a few common cognitive distortions.

Emotional Reasoning: Conclusion based on nothing but strong feelings. ("I feel guilty - I must have done something wrong.")

Overgenarlizing: Seeing a negative event as part of an endless pattern of defeat. ("I didn't get the job. I'm such a loser. I'll never get another job again.")
...
Disqualifying the positive: Discoutning anything good as a fluke. ("That interview ent well, but soon they'll figure out I'm a fraud.")

All or nothing thinking: Looking at an issue in black-and-white terms. ("My boss didn't like an example in my report - I blew the whole thing!")

Step back and ask - what's the real world evidence that contradicts my negativism? (not your imaginative evidence!)

buying christmas gifts

I seriously am writing this blog only to get the last title to move down the page because I don't like it. It's weird. I can't tell you about buying Christmas gifts becuase then somebody would read it and know what their gifts are.

Do what you really want, follow your heart, live your dream

What should I do? You ask. And the answer is, "What you really want, what your dream is. Do what you really want to do." This question assumes a lot.

What I really want to do?

Why is it so easy to assume that I know what I really want to do?

And this message is easily mixed with contrary messages. Major in something practical in college, and follow your dream later or on the side. Then later it's -  you spent all this time and effort in this major, now you want to go do something else and throw it all away? Why, yes I sort of thought I was supposed to. I guess I misunderstood.

Do what your heart really wants. Or if you're a evangelical Christian, do what God has really called you to do.

Finding that out is half the battle. When somebody tells me that, or even worse, asks me that question, I think, Will somebody help me please?

John Acuff has a few candles of hope held out, in the form of some oddly surprising advice, considering that the book they come from is called "Quitter".

"Don't quit your day job."

Use it as a platform to launch into what you really want. What your dream is.

There it is again. Do what you really want.

Oh and by the way, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So don't waste your time on something that's not working.

Don't give up on your dream. The only one who fails is the one who gives up, or something like that.

There is one difference my life now and my life a year and a half ago. I'm not any closer to my dream, or even knowing what it is. But I have a job. And according to John Acuff, my job could be a launching pad or drawing board for my dream.

And to some of you, this sounds like a bunch of sentimental hogwash. I shouldn't have a dream or care about what it is - and if I don't know what it is why am I so worried about losing it? Maybe I should reword things for those special readers out there - I'm worried about missing what God really made me to do. He formed everyone with gifts and ways to channel his love and creativity and message to the world, and that's what I don't want to miss.

Perhaps John Acuff has it right when he says finding that is not a matter of discovery (oh the options!), but recovery (when did I know I was doing something I was supposed to? What are the hinge moments? When are the moments from my past I was doing something that stirred my deep gladness?). I threw in the word deep gladness because A. I can't remember what phrase John Acuff used and B. I pulled it from another great quote about mission, vocation and finding dreams.

"The place God calls you is where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." That was Frederick Beuchner. One of my heroes.

Why am I so unlike my heroes?

don't have much to blog about

Of course I could tell you that I went and scheduled a training over our department's luncheon. So I missed most of the only festive non-work part of my job. What a bummer.

Why I'm Too Spacey for My Life

Or Maybe I'm just Too Spacey for My Life.

The other day Nate and I drove to a near by neighborhood in his cream-colored Ford Edge 2007 to look at a car. We test drove the car (a little black 97 Chevy Cavalier). When we were coming back to the neighborhood we were trying to remember which road it was that we were supposed to turn on. I tried to remember what kinds of vehicles we had parked next to as I looked down the little roads of houses and cars. I saw a Cream Colored Ford Edge 2007. "That looks like our car." I thought. "A Cream Colored Ford Edge 2007. We didn't park next to a Cream Colored Ford Edge 2007 that looks like our car, that I can remember. So I don't think this is the road."

Huh?

Dori from Nemo: "es CAH pay. Hm. That's spelled just like Escape."

Why I'm Too Spacey for My Job Part 2

Important Meeting. Lots of Important People. Introduction. How I hate Introductions. Everyone went around and said their name and title. My title? Web Content Management Coordinator. Long? A little. Too much for me to handle anyway. When my turn to came my mind blanked out as usual. "Uh. Marisa Porter. Uh. Director of Web Content Management." Oh the guffaws and snorts and laughters from my team. "What did you get a promotion?" the most vocal of the group said.

It was a web conference, so the reactions went largely unnoticed by the other company present. But not in my room. The real director - the Director of Store Communications tried to stifle a laugh and continue on in the meeting while my cooworker Amy threw her head back and laughed. Another coworker rolled her eyes and shook her head. It was hard to surpress the snickers. I bit my lips for almost ten minutes and could feel the blood rise to my face.

I'll never hear the end of it. "Be like Marisa and you can be whoever you want." People say. "She's just a coordinator but she doesn't let that stop her. Today: Director of WCM. Tomorrow: SVP of Form-making."

Why I'm Too Spacey for My Job

Subtitled: And why I pray a position in advertising opens up soon.

The assignment was to call 8 stores - four from each division, and ask if they had any problems with lotus notes related to the deployment of IE8. This all made sense Wednesday Evening when my Mr. Supervisor and Mr. Director gave me the assignment. It even made sense when Mr. Director said I should call the stores that already called the help desk since we knew they had problems.

The next morning, it did not make sense at all. "I'm not a morning person." I thought, and went to talk to the director of the home division's help desk. "Why am I calling stores that opened up tickets at the help desk? I mean if they already opened a ticket, and I call back and don't have a solution, that will just make them mad." She agreed.

So I went and talked to Mr. Director. "Why am I calling stores that opened up tickets at the help desk? I mean if they already opened a ticket, and I call back and don't have a solution, that will just make them mad?" It had worked with Help Desk Director.

Mr. Director just laughed and said, "You don't want to make the calls, do you?" Not to be thought of as trying to get out of work, I hurriedly said I had no problem with making the calls and somehow ended up back at my desk staring at my notebook, which said, "Ask the stores if they had any problems with lotus notes....etc."

I will not call help desk stores, I thought. I will only call non help desk calls.

So I made my list and chirpily called two stores from each of the four divisions. "You are on my list of stores who had their Internet Browser upgraded. Have you had a chance to use the internet yet today? Did you have any issues?"

"No issues ma'am."

"Ok thank you for your time!"

Soon the task was done and I was feeling very good about it as I sent my summary to Mr. Director and Mr. Supervisor, which included one store which said their some app was now blocked.

Mr. Director walked into my office later, thanked me for the report, and said, "So what did the stores say about lotus notes?"

How could I say that I forgot the only question I was supposed to ask them? "Fine." I said. "They're fine." After all, none of them had reported any problems with lotus notes.