The Career Clinic Blog

“Twitter is for people who don’t live in New York.”

I can’t remember where I read that. Probably on Twitter! But doesn’t it nail the appeal?

I will never, and I mean never, get used to the pace of a small town. I crave the bedlam of a city. I’m at my most relaxed walking through Manhattan, or weaving through seven lanes of traffic in Los Angeles.

When I first moved to Detroit Lakes, Minnesota almost twenty years ago (twenty!) I’d go to the Twin Cities almost every weekend. The people I worked with wondered why. What would I do there? “Go somewhere crowded,” I told them, “and wait in line.”

I missed running on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. I missed needing my turn signal, to borrow a sentiment from someone else, because people didn’t already know where I was going. I missed driving around Minneapolis at twilight--with all those Mary Tyler Moore houses lit up--to see kids playing hockey on frozen neighborhood lakes.

I also missed the bedlam of working in an office--where I’d double over with laughter at the latest interruption from a colleague who was actually on his way to interrupt someone else.

I have Twitter for that, now. Oh sure, it helps me keep up with college basketball and the news and even the weather--but mostly I love the constant infusion of silly.

Darrell works crossword puzzles and Sudoku. I rewire my brain with interruptions from people I choose to follow, from the privacy of a spare bedroom in a gingerbread house in what’s often the coldest swirl on the weather map.

Care to join me?

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Impulse purchases give the word impulse a bad name. Just because you don’t need that candy bar or flashlight doesn’t mean acting on impulse is a bad move.

Almost every decision I’ve made on a whim has been the right one. Maybe that’s because I was following my heart before my head had a chance to weigh in.

The decisions you make with your head look good on paper. The decisions you make with your heart feel good.

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Once upon a time Katie told Santa she wanted a Slinky Dog from Toy Story for Christmas. This was mommy and me time, so Dad had stayed home to work--but he was eager to hear how it went.

“What did Santa say,” he asked, “when you told him what you wanted?”

“He said,” she reported without the slightest bit of disappointment, “‘Here. Have a book and some reindeer antlers.’”

At which point our little two-year-old donned the antlers and wore them as proudly as Miss America sports her tiara. It was almost as if she’d decided, “If Santa thinks I should be happy with these, by God I’m going to be.”

Children that age have what’s called indestructible happiness. You can no more remove it than strip the red from a tomato.

If you don’t mess up a kid too badly--which is about as much credit as I’m willing to give Darrell or me where Kate’s concerned--joy continues to be the compass. Katie chooses her friends, her after-school activities, and her plans for after high school based on the short and long-term happiness potential.

The word we use most sparingly around here is “should.” It reeks of judgment, of obligation.

Ever notice how the people most likely to tell you what you should be doing with your life are the people you’re least inclined to emulate?

If you don’t enjoy getting there, who cares if you arrive?

That’s why the only thing I promise my guests on the talk show is a good time. If they have fun, however many more books they sell on Amazon will be a bonus. Sparkling conversation about things that matter is an art form--and worth doing all by itself.

It’s a good metaphor for life. Be in it for the thing itself--the writing, the conversation, whatever--and not for some other reward that may or may not happen, and was always beside the point.

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You know that scene in The Sound of Music when Maria’s on the staircase and finds out she’s welcome to stay on as governess after all?

I have that feeling a lot. Someone discovers my blog and quotes not one but several posts as she raves about it, a listener writes to say how much she enjoys the talk show, and someone I thanked for one thing even though she was a little bit of a pill on something else tells me how much my sentiments meant--and how badly she feels about being, well, a little bit of a pill.

I’m like almost everyone else in this respect, I suppose. I enjoy the reassurance I’m not the biggest joke in the history of the universe when it comes to my career--that I was right to trust my instincts about it.

Steering your life is a matter, I think, of noticing how you feel. “Go this way. No, not that far. Back that way a little bit…” The better you feel--the more fun you’re squeezing out of every moment--the more likely you are to look back and say, “Yep. This was the right move…”

This is only a guess, but I think a lot of us confuse hard work with the wrong way. Hard work and great fun are not mutually exclusive. To the contrary. That’s why I bristle at the suggestion I should be “taking it easy” by now. Yeah? And do what? Watch TV? Go boating? Golf?

Those are fun ways to rest up. Well, except for the golf. But a steady diet? Just kill me now.

My favorite place to do homework as a kid was at the kitchen table, with the bedlam of seven brothers and sisters swirling about as Mom made dinner. If I was in a quiet corner of the house it was much more difficult to concentrate. The lack of distractions was…distracting. Maybe that’s why so many writers who finally get their cabin in the woods--so they can write that great American novel--find it suffocating. Chaos is grist.

And hard work is fun, if it’s the right work.

Resting up from that is also fun--if, for the most part, you don’t dread going back to work.

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A woman I know doesn’t want her kids to grow up feeling like they’re always in trouble for something.

It’s such a simple statement, really.

But it put into a brand-new perspective why I’m forever dreading an encounter with another woman I know. It feels like I’m always in trouble with her.

Why did it take me so long to realize that? Why hadn’t I noticed how much disapproval hangs in the air whenever we’re in the same room?

A few years ago I lost those twenty or so extra pounds and kept them off. No big, except for one thing. The reaction this woman had when I reached for a sweater even though it was a warm summer day. “That’s what happens when you get old,” she said!

“That’s also what happens when you get skinny,” I thought, but I kept it zipped.

I kept it zipped again when a hairstylist--also uh, weighing in on my appearance--suggested I not throw away my fat clothes. Forget I wasn’t fat enough to have fat clothes. If this was how she treated her clients, I couldn’t imagine how she treated other people.

I wish I would’ve kept it zipped instead of sharing what I thought was good news with someone else--back before I realized he wasn’t a fan, either. “I hope you make a million dollars!” he exclaimed with such a sneer I practically wilted as Darrell and I made our way out of that gathering.

How embarrassing.

Not for me--as I’d later decide--but for him.

I loved the response one man had to people who make you feel as if your very existence is just…annoying: “When people don’t like you, nothing actually happens.”

Isn’t that great? To know you won’t be everyone’s cup of tea--that’s mathematically impossible, after all, because people disagree with each other--and to be able to say, “So what?”

For now I’m calling it progress that I notice how I feel--and I avoid, whenever possible, situations that don’t feel good.

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“Why, thank you! I will!”

The woman at the counter who presented our coffees was grinning at Darrell as if he’d just asked her to marry him and live in his castle. I’m not kidding. She seemed that happy to be alive, suddenly.

I headed for our table as the two of them exchanged more pleasantries.

“What’s going on?” I asked Darrell as I grinned at him myself, ready to tease him about his new friend.

“She told me to have a nice day,” he reported. “So I said, ‘Thanks. You do the same.’ At which point she told me, ‘No one ever tells me to do the same…’”

You’re kidding. It’s come to this? You can make someone’s day just by returning the same courtesy she extended you?

The other night I watched the people ahead of us in line paying for an oil change. They were picking up a few groceries while they were at it, and the guy at the register had a devil of a time getting the produce department to tell him how much to charge for their kale. He kept his composure as one of the couple’s children spilled something, the other objected to getting bundled up to go outside--you can just imagine.

The couple made their way to the door, kids and groceries in tow, as the store employee called after them: “Have a nice day.” For which he got…nothing. No glance back with a half-smile, not even a grunt of acknowledgment.

We headed home, dodging someone in a pickup who pulled out right out in front of us. We gave thanks for Darrell’s defensive driving and reminded Katie that having the right-of-way means exactly nothing in the age of “I’m on my cell phone so you don’t exist.”

Part of deciding who you want to be when you grow up is noticing what you don’t.

I’m the kind of person who aches for anyone who waits on me. How did I get so lucky to have my job when they have theirs?

I still don’t have the answer to that one, but more thoughts on noticing in the rest of my posts this week.

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Once upon a time I was on the dance floor with my college boyfriend. It was at a disco--remember those?--and I thought I was doing an okay job of imitating the moves of the people around us.

Wrong.

In a trivial but oddly defining moment of my life, my boyfriend--whom I hadn’t been dating very long--looked at me with exasperation and said, “Listen to the music.”

And yes, it’s been a project ever since to talk me into dancing.

I’m not sure where I got the idea I couldn’t sing, but I’m more loathe to sing than dance. I admitted that to a voice teacher once, who assured me the opposite was true. I have a lovely singing voice. The fear remains, though. When I’m in an auditorium filled with sports fans singing along to the national anthem, I don’t even move my lips in an attempt to pretend I’m singing--that’s how spooked I am by the proposition.

So here’s hoping you’ll be surprised and amused by how much I sang to Katie when she was little. You might remember the song, “Basketball Jones.” My version went like this: “Applejuice breath, you’ve got applejuice breath. You’ve got applejuice breath, oh baby oh oh oh…”

Music is so much a part of our lives I feel like we’re in Les Mis--minus the hopelessness, the sadness, and I suppose everything else about it except the singing.

When Katie was in middle school we talked Dad--a farm boy who’d never been to the Big Apple and had no desire to go--into watching the ball drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The two of them wrote a song to mark the occasion--set to “Year 3000” by the Jonas Brothers: “We’re goin’ to New York City. I think we’re nuts but now Mom is in heaven. And our crazy twelve-year-old daughter is on her side…”

Katie dressed up like Kanye and sang “Ice Ice Baby” in her high school’s holiday variety show--adapted for the Christmas season, of course, with help from Dad: “Santa’s comin’ your way, nine little reindeer pullin’ his sleigh. Be good, so you stay on The List. Don’t be a fool or your house’ll get missed…”

Nothing’s too mundane not to sing. Katie belts out the lyrics to the FreeCreditReport.com commercial at the top of her lungs as we run errands…and after a fancy dinner that may or may not have included a glass of wine, Dad relents and sings “Hey, Soul Sister” at the top of his lungs after claiming he didn’t know those lyrics.

Katie gets up an hour early on weekdays so she can practice with the jazz band. When it’s time for regular band a few hours later, she breaks out her bassoon and greets her fellow musicians with riffs from Rebecca Black’s “Friday.”

A friend of Katie’s piano teacher surprised us by being the entertainment on a cruise--and suggested she sing along to Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” while he accompanied her on the baby grand in that piano bar. Which she did. Which just might top our list of favorite family memories.

It’s fascinating to me, how much music can change your mood. Feeling sad? Play a sad song in your headphones just loud enough to worry it’s too loud to preserve your hearing, have that cry, feel better. Need to write a cover letter to that employer? Play something uplifting and coax those words out of your heart and onto the screen. Need a reminder of how sacred life is? Play “Canon.” Repeat.

Speaking of feeling sad, have you noticed it’s impossible to play a sad song on the banjo? I’m probably not the first person to have that observation, but try it. Boing de de boing boing boing. It doesn’t work. Maybe that’s why if I had to pick a genre to stick with as the soundtrack to my life it would be bluegrass. There’s just something about it that works.

And that’s what I hope we’re up to here at The Career Clinic, doing what works!

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Ten years before I wrote my first book I told my brother it was a dream. I don’t remember what I followed that up with--probably the old standby, “Who am I trying to kid?”--but I’ll never forget his reply.

“It happens to somebody.”

It happens to somebody. Well, yes. It does. Otherwise there’d be no People magazine, no Academy Awards, no cover of the Rolling Stone.

That’s one of just so many reasons I loved reading the backstory of Good Will Hunting.

It reminded me what I’ve come to admire most in people. The refusal to decide, “Well, I guess this is it. This is all my life is ever going to be.” A friend once told me that from now on all the interesting things will happen to our daughters. And I thought, “No way.”

No way.

Career consultant Barbara Sher says nothing puts more of a drag on a child’s heart than the unfulfilled life of her parents.

That’s why I smiled even brighter when another friend--watching me outline the next steps in a souped-up version of what we’re up to, here--told me, “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

She knows the best thing I can contribute to Katie’s story at this point is more attention to my own.

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Ever wish you could take every book you’ve ever read, and read it again? I do. I bet it would explain a lot.

Many years ago I read The Three Boxes of Life, by my friend Dick Bolles. Dick pointed out we used to spend the first part of our lives learning, the second part working, and the third part playing. The goal, however, should be like what Lawrence Pearsall Jacks described: “A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labour and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself he always seems to be doing both.”

From then on, that was my goal--for who I am and what I do to be the same. To be learning, working, and playing at once--and not have it be obvious, even to myself, which I’m doing more of at the moment.

If you can succeed at that, the people who hassle you for working such long hours won’t matter as much. Not that they’ll believe you when you say, “I’m not working. I’m playing!”

But that’s okay. As Mother Teresa reminded us, it was never between you and them anyway.

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If you’re feeling frisky, step away from that keyboard. That’s how I’d sum up the advice given by ePolicy expert Nancy Flynn when I interviewed her recently about the dangers of texting while enamored. Why do so many otherwise intelligent people risk not only their careers but their marriages to dabble in office romance?

Mostly what I’m up to with the radio show and this blog are questions--not that you asked! I want to give you thought for food, to fill you up with inspiration for doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

I used to think of The Career Clinic as an inspiration factory, but it’s really more of a question factory.

Here are a few questions that have been tickling my imagination lately…

Why does it delight me to be teased about the way I eat? A man I’m fond of kept poking me with a box of cookies, trying to get me to take one but knowing I wouldn’t relent. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face for days. Is it because he reminds me what an accidental litmus test this diet is? If people are mean to you because you only eat healthy food, they’ve done you a favor--by showing you there’s no winning with them. Next!

Why did I not notice how very cold the floor in our basement bathroom is until Darrell pointed it out?

You know those ads that pop up on your screen, obscuring whatever you’re trying to read? I hate them. But I find it interesting, how patient I am when they pop up on The Onion. It’s The Onion. Forgiven! Where are the people who write headlines for that site? What was it about the way they were brought up that made them so hilarious as grownups? How would it feel to know you’re bringing that much joy to the world?

You’ve probably seen them, the panic-stricken faces on men on the eve of some holiday. They’re in line behind you at the florist or the jewelry store or even the convenience store. They know they’re expected to come through, yet again--and with what? What could possibly be the point?

When the actor Larry Hagman died--you might remember him from Dallas--I read that when he was doing I Dream of Jeannie he started observing a silent day once a week. He wouldn’t speak to anyone for twenty-four hours. “I would go out and party on the weekend,” he told reporters. “I was at a rodeo with all the dust and horse s--- blowing around and I got a sore throat. My doctor told me not to talk for the rest of the weekend and I liked it so much, I did it for one day each week for the next twenty years.” What would happen if I tried that? Nothing bad, I bet! The more I talk for a living the less inclined I am to talk just to talk. It’s Darrell’s bouquet of roses, every day.

What about you? Any questions?

Darrell has one. Did you realize I phrased it “thought for food” intentionally? Maybe he doesn’t think I’ve earned that cred. Then again, you might remember I have it from two sources I’m the only person in the history of cartoon watchers to mispronounce Boo-Boo the Bear, friend to Yogi. I got it in my head his name was pronounced like the “bow” in (his) bow tie. “How?” a friend wondered. “How?” Pause. “It isn’t like you heard someone else pronounce it that way…”

But I have to ask Darrell every time. Is it bow-bow? Or boo-boo?

You can say that again!

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