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WhyDid Wisdom: Just the Right Dose of Delusion

By |November 15th, 2013|WhyDid Wisdom|
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We’ve all heard the phrase, “Fake it til you make it thrown around.”  Maybe you’ve looked more deeply into what the sentiment implies or perhaps you’ve chocked it up to just another cliché.  Being someone who has a very difficult time faking just about anything from feelings to a simple smile, I didn’t put much weight into the saying until this past year.

As I watched people basically “dumb luck” their way into success after success, I started to wonder how it was all happening and why the heck was I having such a hard time catching a break?  Looking logically at these various situations as an outsider, it seemed there was no possible way that some of these fairly ordinary people had done much to achieve such extraordinary results.  (Please note, this is by no means me being a “hater.”  I love a happy ending more than a businessman in a massage parlor).  So, I put on my detective hat, which I always have handy, and started to look into this phenomenon more closely.

As I studied these success stories, I started to notice a similar thread between all of the individuals who had hit the dreams do come true jackpot.  Each and every one of them appeared to have no sense of reality.  I don’t mean that these folks were full blown wackadoo’s, but unlike many of us, they didn’t seem to have any inclination towards failure.  There’s a reason people who don’t see any type of barriers or roadblocks are so successful.  The thought of defeat or the possibility that they are completely off their rockers never comes to mind.  They absolutely believe their own delusion and while the rest of us stand there shaking our heads in disbelief thinking they must be mad, they’re hitting it out of the park and realizing their greatest fantasies.

Have you ever listened to rap music?  Rappers don’t seem to have any concept of what most of us consider “real life.”   It’s all beemers, bitches, blunts and beats.  I have yet to hear a rap song about making a late payment on a credit card bill or working an extra shift at Burger King to make rent this month.  I mean, do you think Lil Wayne ever worries about clipping coupons or buying the generic store brand to save cash?  (Spoiler alert: he has a song entitled “No Worries”).  Hell, 2Chainz has already made more money than you and I will probably ever see in our lifetimes.  (See, a rapper would never have that negative thought- and that’s perhaps why I’m still not yet a millionaire.).  They see what they want, start living the lifestyle, and like a self fulfilling prophecy, it all becomes their reality.  It’s quite evident that many rappers have mastered the art of self delusion- or as some might call it, positive thinking.

There is much to be said about the power of thought and there’s good reason why books like The Secret are bestsellers.  As powerful as a positive thought is, conversely, a negative thought can be just as powerful.  We become what we think most about and if your mind is full of doubt rather than delusion, you may be the very reason why you have yet to catch your maverick.  We psych ourselves out with our own feelings of inadequacy and let society’s standards keep our own hopes and dreams anchored down here on Earth.  One can’t be successful when his or her beliefs are heavier than a lead balloon.

Of course, all of this positive thinking is easier said than done.  You don’t have any idea the number of times I’ve become completely and utterly discouraged with my own work.  On more than one occasion I’ve wanted to just throw in the towel and quit trying.  It’s incredibly difficult to work hard day in and day out only to watch others succeed while you are still struggling- a feeling which I’m sure isn’t alien to many others out there.  But here’s the thing.  Despite how delusional or how much lean Lil Wayne is on, he’s probably never sat around being a hermit or crying crocodile tears on his leather couch.  He put on his skinny jeans, hopped on his skateboard and got back to work.  Delusion alone won’t get the job done.

Sure, some people seem to catch the first wave that breaks and ride that sucker right on back to success shore, but not everyone is destined for the same success. You certainly aren’t going to catch your big break pouting under the covers in your ratty sweats.  You’ve got to keep working hard, putting one foot in front of the other especially when it feels like absolutely nothing is going your way.  Rather than focusing on the struggle, think about the everyday successes.  And every time one of those pesky, fretful, negative thoughts creeps into your head, envision yourself where you want to be- like on a yacht surrounded by puppies, rose, and bags of gold coins being hoisted by magical unicorns.

Moral of this story?  You’ll never get what you don’t ask for and no one is going to believe in you or your dreams if you don’t believe in them yourself.  So, dream big, keep your chin up and maybe, just maybe, being just the right amount of delusional is the key to great success.

xx,

WhyDid

WhyDid Wisdom: Crazy is Contagious

By |November 7th, 2013|WhyDid Wisdom|
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kirsten smithFirst things first, we’re all insane.  Some of us hide it better than others.  Some of us are in complete and utter denial.  And some of us have just not had the last little screw knocked loose before going completely and totally mad.  I, for one, have never claimed to be sane.  My self-awareness is both one of my best and worst qualities.

I mean, I’m the girl who went all kinds of Carrie Underwood on an ex after finding him at the strip club across the street from our apartment with a woman wearing a cabbie hat.  That was the first time I realized just how crazy I could be.  Having woken up with bruised hands after beating on the window of the cab they had hopped into upon exiting New York Dolls and pouring my red Solo cup full of beer (thanks to the bar next door for providing me with a to-go cup) on them both, I knew the looney in me had been unleashed.  Thank heavens I must have looked like a raccoon with rabies, because had that lady gotten out of the cab, I ‘m not sure what I would have done.  I’m not the type to take part in a girl fight.  Sorry, Jerry Springer, but I do know karate.

That wasn’t the last time I lost my shit.  Remember my little lost bird?  My human wrecking ball?  (Oh, hey, Miley).  Well, wouldn’t you know, I wasn’t quite through with him.  It’s hard to kick an addiction and I sure do love a challenge.  I’m no quitter.  After having gone north with him and nursing him through a full blown panic attack, I thought I’d seen enough.  But that’s the thing about love, New York, and Pandora’s box, once you’ve been bitten by the bug, there’s no turning back.  If I looked at the situation as a logical human being, which most of the time I am, I knew that it was time to abort mission.  Had one of my girlfriends been sharing her horrifying experience with me, I would have grasped her firmly by the shoulders and shaken her.  However, my cognitive thinking was way out of whack and to be completely honest (another one of my best/worst qualities), I didn’t want to kick the habit.

After an especially volatile text exchange a couple of months ago, I found myself in a puddle of tears on my hardwood floor with Smitty looking on in despair.  I indulged in far too much wine and the lunacy was rolling in like dark storm clouds. Receiving a message that really set me off and having already prepared his grilled cheese, I chucked my phone across the room.  Let’s be clear, I’ve dropped my phone down the stairs on more than one occasion and had a couple of near death experiences with it on the treadmill, I had yet to crack my iPhone screen in all the time I’d had it.  The straw that broke my iPhone’s glass, was me, not an average accident.  I couldn’t even answer my phone, let alone respond to texts without risking shards of glass in my fingers.  Thanks to the cute guys (seriously, they’re so cute) at Gotham iPhone, my cracked glass was repaired, but the same couldn’t be said for my heart– or my sanity.

I knew I’d gone nuts as I stared at my shattered screen.  This was completely out of the norm for me.  After my last breakup, the most tragic of many, I’d behaved like a real lady.  Sure I could have kidnapped his fluffy white cat and left rotting fish in the vents of the Bahl house we shared to haunt him, but I hadn’t.  I took my belongings and my dignity and never looked back.  I thought I’d moved past those emotions when I moved back across the country.  I wasn’t mad or even sad.  Perhaps I just hadn’t cared as much as I’d thought.  To inflict pain on myself, was something I’d never done- though close friends might argue I’m a bit of a masochist.

kirsten smithBut alas, the story doesn’t stop there.  Even after the broken glass, typhoon of tears, and bruised heart and ego, I continued on with the crazy.  A glutton for punishment, I kept trying to put the pieces back together and hold onto whatever it was that had me so hooked.  There’s a very fine line between being loyal and being a lunatic.  I was straddling that line.  So, how on Earth did a seemingly sound woman find herself clinging by bloody fingernails to the last ounce of her sanity?

It took me a while to really grasp what was going on and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a sliver of my heart that belongs to him today.  I’m still in recovery.  The thing is, a seemingly rational person can be swayed to the other side when exposed to too much mania for too long.  The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. When a person is capable of looking you in the eyes and telling a boldface lie somehow convincing you that you’re the one to blame, more than likely, they believe their own story.  And more than likely if you stick around long enough, you’ll start to believe it too.  No one wants to be rejected and everyone would rather not believe a painful truth.  We all just want to be loved and sometimes it’s just easier to swallow the crazy pill than to be honest with yourself and walk away from something you’ve grown attached to.  But you can’t fix crazy and you definitely can’t fight crazy with crazy.  It’s like when they say never engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed man. In this instance, you’re the unarmed man.  You will not win.  Show me one guy who doesn’t have a “crazy” ex-girlfriend and I’ll show you a liar.  That girl didn’t become psycho on her own.  They never do.  It’s like when someone knocks down the first domino and the rest just follow suit.

kirsten smithSo, I held on until it was no longer possible.  My fingers had to let go in the end and I was forced to begin picking up my own dominos.  Perhaps the only really crazy part was trying to salvage a situation and person who was completely hopeless.  I was not only staying on the Titanic while it sank, I’d gone ahead and sat down with a cocktail to watch.  I can tell you one thing for sure, no one ever won a prize for staying in the midst of a storm.  So, as I sat and tried to figure it all out in the aftermath, my dad reminded me, yet again, that if I understood why some people act the way they do then he’d need to start worrying about me.  And so, the first moment you detect the slightest bit of batty, you need to cut your losses and look for the nearest exit- unless you, too, want to come unhinged.

 

As it turns out, crazy is contagious and there is no known cure.

 

 

photos by Michael Stielger

Smart Is the New Pretty: Shut. It. Down.

By |October 2nd, 2013|Smart Is the New Pretty|
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On the second day of October, we also find ourselves on the second day of the government shutdown.  I can’t take full credit, but I do hold myself slightly accountable as I haven’t been keeping up with keeping you up to date.  Therefore, I’m reinstating “Smart Is the New Pretty” effective immediately.  Heaven knows it doesn’t matter how great you look if you can’t keep up an intelligent conversation and it would appear that our country is all kinds of out of whack.

Do me a favor and don’t shut down your brain just because our politicians have decided to shut it down.

xx,

WhyDid

WhyDid Wisdom: A Little R & R

By |July 15th, 2013|WhyDid Wisdom|
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There comes a day in every girl’s life when she must part with something she truly loves. Something she’s spent every single day for several years with. Though it’s painfully hard, she knows it’s for the best for both of them. So, she takes her computer to Tekserve to give it a little rest and relaxation.

It would appear that I’ve been awfully hard on my Mac. The poor thing has run out of space and I’d been seeing the “wheel of death” way more frequently than one should. Things that would normally take a few moments started taking many minutes. My patience finally wore thin and I knew it was time for an intervention. What took me so long to bring my baby into the shop? Well, it’s terribly tough to figure out the most opportune time to be without your computer when you’re a writer. Not to mention, spending an hour in line waiting to speak to a technician is less than an ideal way to spend Saturday afternoon–but that’s precisely how I spent mine. The technician was impressed that I’d backed up my hard drive that morning and I informed him that Sex and the City had at least taught me one valuable lesson. He admitted he’d only seen the episode that had been filmed there because it used to play on a loop in the waiting area.

So, that’s where we’re at. My computer is having a spa getaway, I’m feeling anxious posting from an iPad, and we should be reunited and up and running again this afternoon.

xx,
WhyDid

WhyDid Wisdom: When Your Fixer Upper Becomes a Human Wrecking Ball

By |July 11th, 2013|WhyDid Wisdom|
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open cage doorHi. My name’s Kirsten and I love to save things. That’s right, I’m the girl who found just about any and all types of stray animals and wanted to keep them. Wild bunnies, frogs, lizards, birds, and even hermit crabs—you name it, it was coming home with me. I’m the girl who brought in her rescued baby squirrels to third grade show and tell. Yes, squirrels. Some might say I have a penchant for rescuing things, taking in the lost and forlorn. My parents were certain I’d become a veterinarian… or zookeeper. I probably would have had it not been for ninth grade biology and that whole dissection of a frog thing. Well, turns out the same little blonde who fed baby bunnies with an eyedropper when she was eight graduated to her own species as she got older.

Without fail, I seem to find those who are wounded, lost, or troubled for friendships as well as romantic relationships. I don’t seek out the wayward and wandering, but without fail, that’s who I find. It concerns me they say, “like attracts like” because if that’s the case, I must be completely insane. Whether it be an alcoholic, narcissist, schizophrenic or sociopath (I specialize in sociopaths), I’ve opened up my home and heart to all sorts of human personality defects. After many tears, broken hearts and promises, I started to realize my pattern. Admission is the first step in the road to recovery, you know. After my last breakup and a “pal” who couldn’t seem to pull it together, I made a mental note to be more wary of those telltale red flags.

So when my dear friend, ironically the same one who introduced me to my ex-fiancé– which should’ve been my first clue– brought me to a SuperBowl party hosted by another one of her friends, I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone of dateable interest. As our gracious host came over to introduce himself, I found myself attracted to his boyish charm mixed with nonchalance. My friend must have seen the glimmer in my eye because she immediately put her hand on my arm and warned me, “He’s not your future husband, but he’s definitely a good time.” What sealed the deal for me was his reaction to a gaggle of bitchy girls foreign to the East Village who pitched a full fledged fit over his inability to switch the sound from the evening’s playlist (bonus points for a shared love of gangster rap) to Beyonce’s halftime performance. Somehow phone numbers were exchanged and so began the dysfunction.

Heeding my friend’s warning, I hadn’t taken things very seriously. It all started off as some kind of joke. A form of entertainment for me and my girlfriends. I shrugged off the 3am dinner invitation. We laughed about the 13 missed calls ranging from 2 until 7am. The nonsensical text messages that poured in well past my self imposed curfew were topic of discussion over frittatas and mimosas. The strange promises that we’d some day be taking our children to Epcot seemed like silly ramblings, but somewhere along the way, I fell for this little lost bird. And I fell hard.

Sure, his clothes never quite matched, but in the most endearing manner. I never knew what he had been doing all night or where he’d spent the evening doing it. I couldn’t be certain where he’d be the next day or when I’d hear from him next. We could barely make it through brunch without a minor to moderate meltdown. But as I looked at him lying in my perfectly pristine white bed, long lashes, perfect teeth, floppy brown curls, and long limbs, I was hooked. The moment he walked out of my door with an inaudible adieu, my heart ached. I wanted more. And the cycle repeated. Over and over again.

After one particular raucous evening out, one might say that I could be labeled as “intoxicated.” Let’s not play Mary Magdalene, we’ve all been there. The problem was when we returned back to my apartment, my little lost bird said to me, “Maybe we should hang out some other time when you’re– less wasted.” The tables had turned. The caretaker had become the responsibility, the charge. I awoke the next day not only feeling hungover, but confused, hurt. How could someone who I’d been not only tolerant but nurturing of, turn his back on me in my time of need? That’s the pattern though. In a functional relationship, partners take turns with the ups and downs. As a zookeeper, you’re always going to be making sure the elephants have clean water and the tigers have fresh meat. They won’t bother worrying about if and when you take your lunch break or how you slept last night. To be a successful zookeeper, you need to make sure you’ve taken care of yourself before you take a step into the lion’s den, otherwise you’ll become their lunch.

And so, painful as it was, I had to let my little lost bird go, at least until I could reconfigure my own wellbeing. I can’t lie, however. If a hippopotamus with a sprained ankle and narcotics dependency showed up tomorrow, I’d make room in my queen size bed for him to recover. This time, I’ll just make sure my own deficiencies are handled first.

 

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