Oh, Happy Day!

Fall is here and with it a renewed sense of joy and wellbeing. After struggling this past week with a disappointing outcome with a potential employer, today I came face to face with the reason for the disappointment: a better opportunity. I'm excited about the potential to work with a nationally recognized company doing what I love to do.

Beyond that, there is just something refreshing about cool, crisp mornings and breezy afternoons. Even though fall brings with it the unenviable task of raking the copious amounts of pinestraw that fall from the dozen or so trees that surround my home, I don't seem to mind so much. There's a feeling of pride and satisfaction that comes at the end of the day, when all of the straw has been gathered into neat nests surrounding the trees and blanketing the azalea and perennial beds.

Here's to this new season -- may it bring wondrous things!

My Seven

7 things I plan to do before I die:

1. Travel to Europe
2. See the Grand Canyon
3. Own a beach cottage
4. Retire early
5. Establish a scholarship fund at my high school
6. Dance at my nieces' weddings
7. Dance the tango with a sexy Argentinean

7 things I can do:

1. Play piano
2. Sing in English, Italian, Latin, German and French
3. Drive a stick shift
4. Give speeches/presentations
5. Pretend to be someone I'm not (otherwise known as acting)
6. Convince people to do things they don't want to do
7. Write a semi-interesting short story

7 things I cannot do:

1. Fly a plane
2. Hangglide
3. Surf
4. Water ski
5. Play any kind of sport that requires hand-eye coordination
6. Rollerskate backward
7. Operate a weed whacker (they scare the pure-t-living shit right out of me)

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:

1. Eyes
2. Ability to operate a weed whacker (see above)
3. Smile
4. Sincerity
5. Compassion
6. Love of children and animals
7. Willingness to put up with me

7 things I say most often:

1. You've got to be kidding
2. Love ya, bye
3. Hiya schnookums
4. Hey, ladybug
5. Abso-tively
6. Un-fucking-believable
7. That just chaps my ass

7 celebrity crushes (I'm not a big celebrity hound):

1. Sean Connery (every man should age that well)
2. Vin Diesel (as long as he doesn't TALK)
3. James Marsters (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
4. Naveen Andrews (Lost)
5. Josh Groban (just sing to me -- anything else would be illegal! LOL)
6. Goran Visnjic (ER)
7. Hugh Laurie (not his current character -- just his EYES)

There you have it... A bit of meme.

Rejection... it sucketh mightily

For the first time I can remember, I have been passed over for a job that I really, really wanted -- really, really NEEDED. I sat in stunned silence when I opened the form e-mail that said, thanks, but you have not been selected. I was convinced that I was perfect for the job and thought that I had done a good job of communicating that. It feels so personal -- so surreal.

I keep trying to assure myself that everything happens for a reason -- but I'm also the type of person who will spend hours second guessing myself and trying to figure out what that reason is. Is it that there is something bigger and better out there, or is it that I needed a good dose of humility? (Surely that can't be -- I've eaten enough crow with the demise of my last position.) Is God trying to tell me that I'm not intended to be in this industry? Should I be doing something else entirely with my life? Or maybe the reason is less dramatic -- maybe I would have been miserable working there!

At any rate, this turn of events has left me feeling shaken -- unsure of myself -- and questioning my purpose on this earth. It might seem silly to allow a simple job interview to wield so much power over my psyche, but I can't resist the urge to sit down and have a good cry now.

National Crisis

For the second time in a month, the Gulf Coast of the US has been struck by a powerful hurricane. Despite the pleading of state and local officials, scores of people stayed behind - thinking they could withstand the wrath of the storm. Now, federal and state resources are having to be diverted in order to pluck these people from rooftops, trees and flood waters. Part of me is extremely pissed off that people could be so ignorant -- or perhaps so arrogant -- as to thumb their noses at the mandatory evacuation orders.

It angers me that my tax dollars are now having to be spent to send in special search and rescue teams to remove people from harm's way who should never have been there in the first place. The admonition that "those who stay behind do so at their own peril" is really rendered meaningless when time and again folks such as these are rescued from their own stupidity. Transportation is no excuse in this instance -- the parishes in question made transportation available to those who had none. Like children who disobey, perhaps these folks should be left to suffer the consequences of their own decisions... no, wait, that's right... the government's responsible for fixing EVERYONE's poor decisions -- from bankruptcy protection to rehabilitation of prisoners to unending support of those who continue to procreate without the means to support the resulting innocent lives -- the US Government must fix it all.

You know what I think of that notion? In the immortal words of Col. Sherman T. Potter, "Mule Fritters!"

Cut from Different Cloth

Every test that I took for my career change to a commissioned sales job pointed to my potential to be a TREMENDOUS success. My personality profile was spot on. My sales acumen exceeded the top agents in the industry. There was nothing to indicate that this career would stress me out to the point of nearly having a nervous breakdown (I know there's no such thing as a nervous breakdown any more -- but that seems an apt description of what I was feeling).

I absolutely love helping people. I love meeting new people and doing presentations and most of the tasks involved in running a successfully financial services practice. I was even named "New Agent of the Month" in July and was ranked 4th in the agency in Disability Income Sales. Why, then, did I come up short? I look at the people who are successful and I think to myself, "he's a pompous ass." So, maybe I'm not pompous enough. I look at others and I think, "he's so artificial." Maybe I'm too real. But I think the real reason is that all of these people, regardless of their pomp or lack of sincerity, had one thing in common -- a tremendous natural market. This is where I have to say I fall short. My natural market was weak and quickly exhausted an I simply did not have the financial resources to hang in there long enough to build my own market.

I've continued to dream about this business -- about being successful -- about client meetings and closes. I wonder if I should have tried harder to finance the venture (loans? additional lines of credit?) or if I'm simply cut from different cloth than I thought.

In Search of Sanity

Yelling, screaming, crying
Sleeping, hiding, lying
Thinking, shrinking, drinking
Failing, falling, dieing