Insight

http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

Excerpts from this article, which is also the first chapter of NurtureShock: New thinking about children, which I am currently reading.:

"For a few decades, it’s been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent.

When parents praise their children’s intelligence, they believe they are providing the solution to this problem. According to a survey conducted by Columbia University, 85 percent of American parents think it’s important to tell their kids that they’re smart. In and around the New York area, according to my own (admittedly nonscientific) poll, the number is more like 100 percent. Everyone does it, habitually. The constant praise is meant to be an angel on the shoulder, ensuring that children do not sell their talents short."

and

“Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”

This is all so very common sense, isn't it? Thinking about my own childhood and early school experiences, it explains so much of my personal struggles with taking on new challenges, "coasting" through school (and work) by taking "the easy way," and even my difficulties getting over personal "failures" into adulthood.

Holy Cannoli!

What I meant to say only I didn't...

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Quick lesson in manifestation

Setting: Ginnie Springs on a beautiful Saturday, getting out of cars, slathering sunscreen, etc.

Friend: You're wearing your flip flops, they might get lost...
Me: Nah, they stay on tight and I don't want to walk all the way to the river entrance barefoot... and besides, if I do lose them, it's no big deal.

Later, upon entering the river, not quite in our tubes yet, we're tying them together, making sure food bag stays dry, cooler floats, etc...

I'm walking in the water, sandals still on. The river bottom is soft quicksand-like mud, which quickly grabs one of my sandals and my foot slips out. I feel around for it, but it's gone, and I, unprepared to dive in to search for it, decide to let the river have its way and let the other one go as well.

New Year's Resolutions - in August.

It's been an entire year since I posted about finding what I think may be the next step in my path, and though I am only inches down it, I am still committed to walking it. It has been a year more trying than any other, in my life and in my relationships. I have realized I have only been in my own way all along, and it's up to me to create the life I want. So, here's the idea for the next year, put out there for all to see:

1. Auditions - for Singing in the Rain, Independence, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

2. Work on some financial stuff.

3. Once weather cools, be the Soup Fairy.

4. Finally write the food blog and keep it up.

5. Help with hubby's next play.

6. Start Hypnotherapy program in March 2010.

7. Throw some little parties with friends more often.

Learned

I can sometimes be selfish, irresponsible, dishonest, cold, and even a little mean, and yet those who love me, still love me.

I resist change in myriads of ways, but I do take risks, mainly with my "heart."

My emotions are like water, they flow right around and over the haphazard walls I try to build.

I usually nurture others, and have had trouble being assertive. Apparently, this may be a recipe for co-dependence.

I don't necessarily see the truth right in front of me until much too late.

We all share a responsibility to ourselves and those around us, but no one needs to accept blame after the fact.

I may only have the present and can make choices to affect the future, but letting go of what's past remains the most difficult.

"Love" may change, but it never leaves.

Aftermath

I am a broken record, with a deep scratch along one side, which keeps getting stuck on the same old line. Gently, you lift the record and move it just ahead of the scratch, and I keep moving for a little while, until I get stuck again. Hopefully soon we'll flip to the B-side, where there is no scratch, and the line I get stuck on is a distant memory.

Fire Part 2

The fall was soft and slow
not hard and fast
like the first time
so I was taken unawares
found myself
in orbit
Unprepared for when the
warm, playful glances
innocent touches and
gravity
finally revealed
the glowing wreckage