Take What You Have And Fly With It

Postcard from a fish out of water

Short Run at Night — By Short Run, I literally mean a 10 minute run*

* I know, it’s like if George Kastanza had a running blog, and it kinda is but at least you know I’m not making this up & if I am trying to improve myself every day, so can you

The Benefits of Group Running

By LIZ ROBBINS

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/the-benefits-of-group-running/

This run taught me:

1. Begin by thanking — I used to take the bus past a half-way-house in San Francisco that had a sign in the front which read “Everyday is the first day of the rest of your life.” I love that sentiment, problem is I love it too much. Am I alone in this? But everyday I want to start over, to begin anew.

Well, if like me you want to begin again. Begin by thanking — there are so many ways our lives could be worse, we have so much to be happy about if we pause and acknowlege it.

2. If I am going to pull this off, I need a group to sign up with. I can’t always go it alone.

Postcard from home

Photo Credit: http://instagram.com/p/StcxqLIGGV/ via http://heyamberrae.com/

My dearest Reader,

Previously on Chasing Fish – I have been blogging about marathon training as a frame to write about life and a 10,000 hour commitment to my passions: writing, dancing, and running since last March.  

I still intend to blog about this same commitment. But recently business has been on mind.

Everywhere I look from the young man with a cardboard sign reading “Ready to Work” standing on the corner that refused my groceries but probably would accept “What Color is Your Parachute” by Richard Bolles. To people with three degrees who can’t find a minimum wage job. To the mother buying the lotto ticket with a baby on her hip. To my friend at the library the kindest, most well-adjusted, competent citizen who it took two years to find a job. To adult (adult-adult) children moving in with their parents after losing businesses, not finding jobs or bailing their parents out financially to pay the mortgage. To young women more or less fresh out of Yale, Duke or the like, starting career coaching startups : http://www.trerodriguez.com/, http://www.themuse.com/ , or http://heyamberrae.com/ . (Either they could not find work in this economy and became so familiar with applying for jobs, realiazed how bad we are at finding work as a nation and saw their niche. Or they saw the Need and a way to make money. Either way there is a pattern of this right now — young women starting career coaching startups.)

The financial crisis happened the first semester I was in a master’s degree program for international journalism with a business and finance specialism. We noted it but did we notice it?

I was living in western Europe since 2007. I bounced back to work in the U.S. for eight months, returned to London and then moved back last summer because one of my family members became suddenly ill. When I was working I didn’t notice the economic plate tectonics as much but now that I am in a career shift, I do.

There is a change going on in the workplace-as-we know-it right now. I think we have the responsibility to address our times, to lift each other up in hard times and brainstorm a way through together. I hope my musings will give you some inspiration on business + a career chase in a re-configuring and still challenging economy. In terms of career chase we need to be ninjas now more than ever.

I am going to shift my focus to include writing about these changing forces re-configuring the work world as we know it from the perspective of the everyday person trying to make their dreams happen and needing to hustle. And needing to apply more Chutzpah!

Join chasing fish explore career chase —

‘Take what you got and fly with it’

Yours,

Pepe Gonzalez

Have the courage to choose happiness

Postcard from a fish out of water

:

Xtend Barre 1/2/2013

Run 1 mile 1/3/2013

Walk with my sister 1/4/2013 

Run 1/5/2013

Run 1/10/2013

40 min. Run 1/12/2013

40 min. Run 1/13/2013

Postcard from home

‘Take what you got and fly with it’

— Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons (who is quoting someone else whose name I can’t remember)

Now go buy her book —

Take What You Got And Fly With It

http://www.amazon.com/Take-What-You-With-ebook/dp/B007JBH5EM

Today (I wrote this a while ago), I learned that the internet genius and Reddit co-founder, Aaron Swartz, hanged himself http://www.quinnnorton.com/said/?p=644. He was found on Friday in his New York City apartment.

If your depression is so full-blown that you can’t get out of bed, then yes you need to seek help. But I am afraid – this is financially out of reach for a lot of people, often.

We need access to free mental healthcare in this country – Why aren’t we marching?

I have been in a dark spot. From a dark spot the problem is your view becomes skewed, it’s hard to imagine happiness, and it’s easy to look back on your life and see all the other dark spots, the regrets, mistakes and failures. Your mind fixates on the bleak hole you are in now and attaches it to your entire worldview.

Looking back I’ve had my blue patches and maybe I have always been a melancholy type. I re-took my Myers-Briggs type test yesterday http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp and besides not knowing if I am an extrovert or introvert – I score alternately (between an INFP and ENFP). Turns out Shakespeare &  Anne of Green Gables (yes, I know she is fictional but still) were INFPs — I can’t think of anyone whose company I’d rather be in.

Which makes me think if you’re wired – as I am, to be really in your head, almost always over-thinking. If you think a lot about everything all the time (think writer type) – how can you not sometimes get blue at the state of the world, at injustice, and unfair circumstances?

The truth is in any situation you can get blue and in any situation you can stay positive. You are not a victim. You have the power to make your life as beautiful as you can envision it to be. Have the courage to choose happiness.  

Join me in finding your chutzpah + creating your happiness