#My personality and interests and successes don’t exist outside of someone else observing them. Similar to quantum physics. So..

[zombienarc]

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[chibivesicle]

Golden Kamuy - Kikuta really deserved better [part 2] 277-279.

Can you tell by my title that I’m a fan of Kikuta and I have some choice words for Noda?  Chapter 277 starts out with an introduction to the regional politics of Meiji era Japan.  The entire political shift occurred with the marriage of convenience between Choushuu and Satsuma (the Sat-Chou alliance) and how that is playing out in government and the military. With Hanazawa on the Satsuma side a commanding officer is having Tsurumi deal with the damage control.  That being Lt. General Okuda (and Kikuta’s boss)

He discloses how he’s the person who helped to cover up the scandal for Hanazawa and more of the regional politics comes into play as he pulls Tsurumi into this.

Recall that Tsurumi is from Niigata and we know he is from a family that lost power and wealth due to political changes.  He assumes that of course Tsurumi would hold a grudge towards those from the Sat-Chou alliance.  Usami is also from a fallen samurai family in Niigata and we know that Ogata is from Ibaraki and also from a samurai family on the losing side.  Tsukishima is from the island of Sado where unwanted people were dumped in Niigata so he is also an outsider.  We learn of his ‘true’ feelings as the tells his core group his opinion on things.

I love how we get unhinged Tsurumi calling it all a farce and he’s over Central.  But most importantly Okuda confirmed his own intel about the gold he learned while in Russia at some point in time.  His gold plan can slowly move along.  So Tsurumi becomes in the Hanazawa scandal cover up looking for the young 2nd Lt. and Kikuta, working under Okuda’s direct orders.

Despite his best efforts, Kikuta’s plan is revealed by a secretary at the Military Academy, while we know that Sugimoto and Kikuta are en route to the engagement dinner.

Hanazawa panics and sprints out to determine what is happening. Right on his tail is Tsurumi and his key team of Ogata, Tsukishima and Usami.  Clearly this is going to become a huge mess.  The next few pages are amusing, but really don’t add value to the plot.  I am impressed that Kaeko has an excellent plot to get Sugimoto naked and I commend her efforts!  GK is never short of strong female characters.  Who enjoy sex.

This sets up a hilarious moment where he’s naked and trapped in a bedroom while she leverages the potential scandal to her advantage.  By that point Tsurumi has caught up to them.  What is most interesting is when Usami addresses Ogata as Hyakunnosuke and asks him what he thinks about meeting his brother.  It is clear this isn’t out of concern from Usami’s part, we know he hates Ogata to his very core.

But as usual, Ogata doesn’t respond and we just see only a part of his eyes, not even a glance of his lips to give us an idea of what he’s thinking.

Kaeko and Sugimoto continue to talk as she reveals what she knows from Hanazawa Hiro.  She had been a nurse during the first Sino-Japanese war so it has allowed her to reflect on the impact of war on individual soliders.

This tells us a few things;  Hiro’s patriotism is more nuanced.  If she were being selfish and just saying she doesn’t want her son to go off to war without experience it, that would be one thing.  Instead, she knows being a military spouse first hand what happens - no one could say she didn’t do her own duty and go likely above and beyond.  Ultimately, she wants to protect her son from her own experiences and observations and be a mother.

Sugimoto then realizes he needs to bail and leaves poor Kikuta confused.  And then bam! The 27th is there.

Of course this leads to the most Sugimoto situation of all time!  Tsurumi threatens Kaeko with his handgun and Ogata asks where Yuusaku is.  Of course Sugimoto flies out of the bathroom naked sans Kikuta’s hat and Ogata is just amused beyond belief.

This would be complete if he were relaxed eating a box of popcorn or something like that. 278 continues this absolute chaos and lots of fan service for Miss Kaeko!  I really don’t think the fight scene needs much meta.  Ogata just finds it amusing (and btw sucks at hand to hand combat) while Usami rumbles with Sugimoto.  Tsurumi realizes he’s not Yuusaku and Kikuta rushes in and gets shot in the shoulder by Tsukishima.

Somehow, Kikuta is able to get the rest of them to flee but not without running into the actual Hanazawa Yuusaku.  Awkward.  Tsurumi only then realizes that Kikuta was doing his job and they run out into the street.

Kaeko tries her best to convince Sugimoto to marry her.  Granted he is a very heroic figure and he fought to protect her.  However, reality wouldn’t allow that to happen and Sugimoto decides to join the army - thinking he won’t starve that way.

Kikuta looks so sad and disappointed when he hears this.

He’s definitely thinking of his younger brother who died b/c he told him to join the army with him.  I loved the fact that we learn that Kaeko got to be a successful woman who was also compassionate to others. 

There is a quick exchange that shows the first encounter between Ogata and Yuusaku.  Yuusaku notices Ogata and salutes him as a cadet.

Ogata doesn’t even return the salute and he look he gives him out of the corner of his eyes.  What is he thinking?  I’d say Yuusaku doesn’t know who Ogata even is.  But something has him very suspicious to be this leery of him.  This also makes me think of this previous encounter between Koito and Ogata in chapter 200.

This time Ogata is bolder when he walks by Koito who is also currently still in the Army Academy.  Except unlike Yuusaku who doesn’t seem to pick up on Ogata’s vibes, Koito does!  And the two of them stare each other down.  I think that this in part shows that Koito has more innate awareness of things and could be considered more of a ‘natural’ in the military.  Which Yuusaku isn’t.  We have no evidence Yuusaku has any sort of military talent or skills. 

The chapter ends with Kikuta asking Sugimoto if he’s serious about joining the military and how he’s already fated to go to hell based on what he’s done in his life.  279 continues the conversation between Kikuta and Sugimoto and he flat out tells Sugimoto about how his brother died of illness in the army during the Sino-Japanese war.

Sugimoto then becomes Kikuta’s younger brother telling him that it is time to move on.  This continues the trend in GK where a character that is speaking becomes someone else to the listener.

This is most evident with Asirpa when she becomes Yuusaku on more than one occasion to Ogata.

But this facial expression from Kikuta [sobs].

No wonder Kikuta worked so hard to save Ariko’s life!  He can’t just always be responsible for the deaths of others.

Sugimoto convinces Kikuta that he’ll be alright in the army and he relents and lets him keep the cap.  This shows that Kikuta has moved on from the death of his brother - a big deal!  In an unusual way, Sugimoto has helped Kikuta move on and take the next step in the healing process. Kikuta reports to his commander in the 1st.  Okuda wants him to keep an eye on Tsurumi.  Obviously, he knows now that Tsurumi interfered with Kikuta’s plans for Hanazawa rather heavy-handedly so he would need someone else to balance it out.

It then reveals that Ogata is also working for Okuda in the 1st.  This explains why when the two of them crossed paths in the brewery they did not engage but nor did they appear to exchange any information.

I can’t help but feel like something is still off with this.  Ogata does have skills from working in intelligence with Tsurumi.  He’s observant, makes himself invisible and can get others to talk easily.  But Ogata being a 100% willing spy - it seems like he wants something else out of this. Kikuta’s character screams secret agent - but Ogata, he’s something else.  I’m not sure if Ogata’s choice to be a spy on Tsurumi was a real choice.

When Ogata and Tsukishima had their shoot out in Yubari at Edogai’s, Tsukishima told him he was a pet cat for Central.  Ogata replied that they were part of a rebel element.  We know that Ogata was working with Tamai at the beginning of the manga.  I struggle to see how Ogata has loyalty to anyone honestly.  He seems to be moving throughout this game with again his own mysterious objective.  Ogata is cynical and has no belief in the nation state nor does he harbor any sort of deep patriotism towards Imperial Japan.

Since Okuda is friends with Hanazawa and is based in Tokyo, he may have known Ogata since his birth and has kept tabs on him after the Ogata grandparents took him back to Ibaraki with his mom.  Ogata’s existence might be a sort of trump card that Okuda is keeping . . . but others found out as well like Tsurumi.  Did Okuda have Ogata tell or leak information that Ogata is Hanazawa’s first son? The chapter jumps to the 203 meter hill in the war and we see Yuusaku fallen on the battlefield.  Ogata watches from distance, his face cut off while other members of the 27th run out to help Yuusaku.

This finally reveals Yuusaku’s eyes!  Not the anticipated reveal - I kept thinking this was something that Ogata was going to see but it shows us clear eyes.  Which look sort of similar to Asirpa’s eyes.

So many thoughts are jumping around in my brain about this reveal.

1.) These eyes are not the ‘trademark’ Hanazawa eyes.  Dark black orbs with those eyebrows!  This indicates his eyes aren’t from his father.

Seeing this, I can’t help but think that Yuusaku is not Hanazawa’s son.  Instead, Hiro had an affair with someone else.  A major theme in GK is that the children inherit the skills of their parents.  Asirpa is able to do many things as she inherited the intelligence of Wilk.  And that Ogata is the true inheritor of Hanazawa’s military skills.

Recall this from chapter 58.  Ogata leads the crappy local gang against Hijikata and acts like a commander.

We know that Tsurumi’s lie about Ogata wanting to avenge Hanazawa is to keep Nikaido in the dark.

This would also explain why everything we learn about Yuusaku is terrible at military things.  If he also isn’t Hanazawa’s son it would make it even more reason for Hiro to try to prevent him from entering the military since he’s not even genetically related to this great line of Hanazawas.  I wish we knew more about the Ogata side of things - I think we’ll also learn that the Ogata side had competent military men on it as well.  2.) Yuusaku’s eyes are the same as Asirpa’s and indicate their sort of innocence.  In this case, it would perfectly explain why Ogata sees Yuusaku instead of Asirpa when he has the fever and then the melt down on the ice floe.  Yuusaku kept himself naive and innocent to meet his father’s expectations.  A man who I don’t think is even his father at this moment.  Therefore, Ogata’s guilt on killing Yuusaku is tied to his sort of innocence in these situations and why he can’t seem to shake his mental confusion when it comes to Asirpa.  However, unlike Yuusaku, Asirpa has never forced herself on him to do things or guilt tripped him so it leaves things open for him to not link her to Yuusaku.

3.) Yuusaku was going to blow Ogata’s cover working for Okuda.  Now that we know that Ogata was working for Okuda while in the 27th it means he’d have to keep his role quiet.  If Yuusaku found out that Ogata was working for Okuda, I could see him going to Tsurumi and telling him this information.  Therefore, to protect his status, Ogata used this as his rationale to kill Yuusaku on the battle field.  I have never figured out if Ogata was nudged to kill Tsurumi by his ‘don’t kill him right now.’ comment as one of Tsurumi’s backwards motivations that lead Ogata to directly killing him. So many possibilities!  I want more Ogata backstory dammit!

Anyhoo, to not make this meta super long let’s get back to the action. Asirpa begins working out how to try to break the code.  Hijikata notes that Wilk could have used something other than kanji, since he’d know the Latin alphabet for Polish and Cyrillic for Russian.  Shiraishi makes a clear point that this could be a message from Wilk towards her, though it feels like he’s channeling Kiro.  Out of many of the Japanese characters Shiraishi time and time again comes out much more sympathetic to the minorities than others.

Asirpa begins to wonder how the coin is linked to the skins. She’s thinking things through and is on her way to solving the puzzle.

After saving Ariko, Kikuta is returning to Tsurumi’s group in the church.  Oh Roger, this is why I love you so much.

Look at that smirk with a slightly watery eye.  At the same time Tsurumi is also looking at the coin and realizes he’s figured it out.

Kikuta approaches the rest of the group and comments on if he’s found the location.  Tsurumi states that things are just getting started.  He casually pulls out his gun and fires two shots into Kikuta at point blank range.

And with this I am deeply saddened and shocked.  How dare you do that to Kikuta!!!  He was my Kiro replacement and now he’s also going to die.

First Boutarou died and now Kikuta.  [cries].  We know that Tsurumi is a shinigami but this is just brutal.  The bear death trio died early on in the manga.  Ogata escaped.  Kikuta now is the next link to Central that goes down.

[phoenixtakaramono]

The Untold Tale - Ch4 Preview I

This was the second time they’d held hands. Fingers threaded together, palms touching. A significant amount of information could be communicated in the simple act of taking someone’s hand—the shape and texture of it, the roughness or softness of the life they’d led, and the strength or fragility of their grip. Luo Binghe would remember the feeling of that pale hand gripping his tightly for the rest of his life.

The mist billowed under Luo Binghe the moment he was allowed entry into the dream realm of the divine. Instantly, he was besieged with the feeling of falling into a frozen lake. The cold was a shock through his body, forcing his hand to convulsively clamp down.

Foolish, Luo Binghe berated himself. Instead of a composed and dignified air, he’d just shown his weak side.

To have been finally welcomed inside the dream realm of a celestial being meant this version of his shizun had thought highly of Luo Binghe and his constitution.

Shen Yuan halted midstride. Concern was written upon those white brows upon seeing his reaction.

Luo Binghe forced an amiable smile as he pretended to be oblivious, masking any sign of his discomfort. The sensation of pins-and-needles assailing him wasn’t something he couldn’t tolerate, but it was unpleasant. Except for their one point of contact, no part had been spared. His gaze lingered on the long scholarly fingers wrapped trustingly around his, before sweeping a glance over their new surroundings.

He felt like he’d stepped into a world composed of silk screens. Ahead, the fine mist passing through the painted scenery shrouded the outline of the tall mountain range and forest. Even the walls of the buildings were composed of firm brushstrokes and soft ink wash.

Droplets of water splashed quietly from their strides as Shen Yuan guided him in the direction of whatever he’d wanted Luo Binghe to see. Like black ink that had been dipped into clear water, the transparent surface was beginning to darken with every tread Luo Binghe took.

He stared down at his feet. The sight of the ink and water swirling into one another as though they were made to be together gave rise to the tide of emotions which had been circulating within his mind.

In the newly fallen darkness, he could sense his companion had fallen into another state of deep contemplation. As the two men shared a companionable silence, Luo Binghe took a long, measuring look at the landscape—at the secrets hiding within the fog, behind the translucent silks.

The atmosphere was incomparably resplendent and harmonious, yet it painted an undeniable fact about his companion who had been secreted away from him. More knowledge could be gained of how such a revered existence perceived the outside world.

“...You’ve always had an unruly habit to roam and draw unnecessary attention to yourself!” An insidious and vicious whisper brushed against Luo Binghe’s mind like a wisp of smoke. “To think you’d chase him here on impulse!”

Hearing the litany of grievances, Luo Binghe hid the blade that was his smile. Unlike himself, he had no doubt that his senior might have been exorcised had he not taken refuge in him. However convincingly the Meng Mo conveyed his displeasure, his voice was weakened.

Earlier, Luo Binghe had gambled that on this fateful evening that the celestial fortuneteller would have no choice but to attend to his growing fatigue. His guard would be lowered and that was when the opportunity would present itself.

The practice of invading and manipulating a person’s dreams was nothing new. With his secret tutelage cultivating on the demonic path, beginning from Luo Binghe’s past as a mere Cang Qiong Mountain sect disciple, he had learned to infiltrate many minds.

Several had been his lovers—the first being his shījiě, accidental as it had been pulling his martial sister along with him—although the treatment his women received was far more considerate than the cruel methods he inflicted upon all those who opposed him.

He had seen the duplicity of people’s hearts and reproduced illusions of varying natures. He’d learned how to lure others when they were at their most defenseless and be able to find their worst fears and memories to inflict the maximum psychological torment.

With his enemies who were impervious to physical torture, few could claim immunity upon being confronted with their own inner demons.

With his lovers, he could skim their memory fragments and indulge any spring dreams either of them had fantasized about.

Because unlike the waking world, the dream realm was honest.

It was a glimpse into one’s truest state. The capability to doubt was stripped away. Memories could be spied on. Falsehoods were exposed. And no secrets could be kept from him.

Meng Mo’s withered voice interrupted his thoughts.

“You should be more prudent in choosing your words around him. The ways of those of the Heavenly Realm are mysterious—but they are proud and have always held contempt for our kind. Don’t be muddled in the head just because you believe he can replace the late Qing Jing Peak Lord…. His looks aren’t bad but to eat the tofu of the one who bears the farseeing, discerning eyes of the heavens….” A mocking edge had crept into Meng Mo’s tone. “You are shameless. This elder doesn’t know whether to be impressed or scold you for holding that ambition.”

Although his lips had thinned into a white line, Luo Binghe remained silent.

Water shaped its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flowed. Tonight, many of his initial plans had been waylaid. Although he couldn’t have predicted its trajectory, he wasn’t discontent with the final outcome. He’d gained information that would be invaluable to him—and he’d finally found his shizun.

There had been a quiescent anticipation in the night as Luo Binghe waited like a spider spinning its web, searching and reaching for the only mind of this residence who was of interest to him, until he’d finally sensed the faintest reverberation of the otherworldly and ephemeral—a presence that could only belong to him.

And he’d pulled.

As someone who used to humbly occupy the Mortal Realm, never in his imagination did Luo Binghe expect he could claim success to the achievement of accessing the dream realm of an immortal celestial being.

The rush of triumph had been dampened once, upon seeking Shen Yuan, Luo Binghe encountered a Qi-condensed barrier—a mental defense meant to repel demonic influences. Impenetrable even against the combined efforts of himself and his senior who had centuries worth of infiltration experience, no matter how much he’d concentrated—redirecting the violent and rough flow of his Qi into something more finessed—he was unable to cross the boundary to meet the precious person inside. Breaching it would require a much greater display of force.

Luo Binghe had been stuck at an impasse. He’d realized, unless he wished to cause Shen Yuan psychological pain, the barrier had to stay.

In hindsight, his action had indeed been too rash.

Time was immeasurable in the world of dreams, but with every moment that had passed without Shen Yuan revealing himself, the fear mounted. Perhaps Shen Yuan had predicted such an incident would occur and had taken precaution. The opportunity would have slipped through Luo Binghe’s fingers like water.

It was inevitable that they would be going their separate ways in the coming morning. And the last deep impression he’d leave behind would cast Luo Binghe in an extremely bad light, with Shen Yuan withdrawing back into seclusion and harboring a grudge for being taken advantage of.

All would be lost. Faced with the possibility of being abandoned, Luo Binghe had been inconsolable. The tension in the air around him had been so thick, it presented a heavy atmosphere in his own dream realm.

The giant boulder which weighed down his heart vanished when, with the keen senses of a cultivator, his five senses had detected a ripple in the fog.

From faraway, he’d been spellbound. He’d seen a sight resembling that from legend, with the unattainable moon that was Shen Yuan descending down from the stars which glistened like shards in the night.

He had chosen to come to Luo Binghe out of his own volition.

Another realization had struck Luo Binghe. Seeing the regal figure out of his immaculate finery—dressed down to his inner clothing and with his moonlit hair undone, without a headpiece in sight—was a rare and intimate sight. Aside from the servants who tended to their peerless master, no one else must have been bestowed such a gift.

It’d been fascinating observing how someone of the Heavenly Realm would interact within his world. Shen Yuan had assimilated quickly. Wandering aimlessly in an unfamiliar environment, his appearance reminded Luo Binghe of the purest white snow, high above and unreachable, the likes of which could not be tainted. His manner had been aloof and vague; such bearing was similar to what Luo Binghe expected for someone of high status. The only difference was that his attitude toward Luo Binghe had not been indifferent or uncaring. Courtesy had been given, even knowing who he was.

“...Xiōng dì.” A deep and steady voice trickled into Luo Binghe’s awareness, pulling him from his deep reflection.

An invigorating energy suddenly blanketed him. All discomfort fled, replaced with the refreshing coldness of a spring brook. Shen Yuan had fallen a step back so that they were now shoulder to shoulder.

Shen Yuan’s gaze was appraising as his breaths feathered the fur. “I had not expected you being here would be strenuous on you. Please take care of your body.” A hand went up to clasp him on the shoulder. “I think, for now, it’s better to stay close to me until you can stand on your own. You’ll be safer by my side.”

Luo Binghe inhaled sharply.

“Hoh. How considerate!” Dryness filtered into his thoughts. “Such goodwill. He must really have a good heart.”

Stay out of this, Luo Binghe rebuked. Scram!

He ducked his head. The hidden meaning of Shen Yuan’s words had not been lost on him. He simply hadn’t expected how protective Shen Yuan was of him.

In this lifetime, Luo Binghe would like to think he could recognize his shizun even if he turned into ashes—or took on a different appearance. Even the slow-witted were able to see that Shen Yuan was of different temperament, reminding Luo Binghe of the other “Shen Qingqiu” of the mirror world. This fortuneteller had a sincere and utterly honest personality.

This night was the first time they’d met, but it was undeniable that there was a flow to their conversations—as though they were not strangers but instead dear friends reuniting. It was like someone had peered into his heart and crafted him a person according to his desires. Being with Shen Yuan felt like the most natural thing in the world.

There was no such thing as a string of coincidences. Since they have finally encountered, it must have meant they were fated. Since fated, one must live up to the fate that the Heavens bestowed.

When his host had yet to retrieve his infatuated eyes, Meng Mo’s tone changed into that of a fussy steward coaxing his headstrong young lord. “Have you not wondered what he’s after? What his true intentions are? This fortuneteller’s character and actions have been truly mysterious. He seems to be an intelligent person. For him to offer his assistance to change your fate, he must have plans for you. We must figure out what they are.”

What do you know? Luo Binghe’s remark had been as cutting and swift as a blade. Don’t exaggerate. You know nothing.

“...You’ve finally gone insane.” A heavy sigh was heaved. “Don’t be so quick to dismiss my words as superfluous. His kind has no qualms destroying us both if your existence is implicated as a calamity-sized threat. ...But knowing your wicked temperament, listen to me very carefully: you’d best prepare to make sure his cooperation doesn’t deviate. If he is speaking the truth, you already have one meddling benefactor in your life.”

One hand curled into a fist at his side. Xiàng Tiān Dà Fēijī…. It took everything in Luo Binghe’s willpower to keep his expression from becoming unsightly.

It was a detestable name he vowed to never forget. While he was grateful to know now the one responsible behind his every misfortune, the mere suggestion of such an existence stoked the flames of resentment.

To a higher being who crafted this world, the realms were a pond. And Xiàng Tiān Dà Fēijī had caused too many ripples. To have planned everything in Luo Binghe’s life, that wily schemer must feel quite pleased with himself. He’d treated his creations—he’d treated Luo Binghe, his supposed “original masterpiece”—as helpless pawns of his mind games, not putting the sufferings of others in mind.

And why wouldn’t he? Such conceit was ordinary among those who occupied the realm of gods, immortals, and fairies.

Had Luo Binghe been raised under different circumstances, had his benefactor been more caring and had not made his life all the more difficult, had he not had to suffer the countless humiliations and injustices, his soft heart of the past would have felt moved to discover he had the backing of such a great and magnanimous patron behind him. He might have even expressed gratitude to such a “creator” for teaching him the lessons that could only be learnt through adversity!

Luo Binghe hid the spiteful sneer in his heart. If there was an altar dedicated to Xiàng Tiān Dà Fēijī, Luo Binghe most certainly would find a way to desecrate it. He felt no filial piety for such a callous being.

What reasonable person would appreciate their life being treated as a stage play? Xiàng Tiān Dà Fēijī’s favor was a terrible burden. He had placed Luo Binghe on a path of greatness that led to a cliff to his death.

Hearing his vicious thoughts, Meng Mo murmured, “Even so...the will of the heavens has always been enigmatic and impossible to predict. For two heavenly beings who wish to stake their claim on you...an immense honor has been bestowed. Be careful of how you act with this one; he must be testing you.”

Allowing the weight of his words to sink in, Luo Binghe gazed at Shen Yuan. Even though he had tacitly implied a falling out, there were signs of obvious estrangement between himself and Xiàng Tiān Dà Fēijī.

Himself being here must have presented Shen Yuan an irresistible impulse to take initiative. Had he not intervened, Luo Binghe would have blindly followed Xiàng Tiān Dà Fēijī’s design for him like a clay doll.

A thought suddenly occurred to him. Wouldn’t Xiàng Tiān Dà Fēijī be angered if his clay doll spurned him and had instead sought another benefactor? It was an alluring prospect. The advantages of having someone like Shen Yuan on his side far exceeded anything else. He was hidden like a song heard by the river. And he knew the way of all the heroes of the world.

...What does Senior think? Shizun has foretold this lord’s fated one to be an indispensable source of wisdom. Naturally, my future prospects are limitless if this astute person becomes tied to me. You’ve said the heavens were unforgiving against those of demonic blood, so would this not grant the greatest protection if they witness how this lord cherishes and protects one of their own? If such a revered existence becomes known as this lord’s closest person? Great heroes and wise scholars live freely without guile or contrivance.

A moment of silence passed.

Eventually, disbelieving laughter ghosted along Luo Binghe’s mind, as faint as autumn leaves rustling in the wind. “This elder has done well to have chosen you as my successor. You have a one-track mind that cannot even be reined in by eight horses!”

Luo Binghe hid the cold smile in his heart. He had not outright stated it, but he knew Meng Mo could read between the lines.

Since he had two benefactors wishing to stake their claim on him, then it was only fair if he staked his own claim over one of them. But to do that, he had to reach the pinnacle. Only then would he be in a position where he could not be crossed, and his image would be elevated in the eyes of others.

Resources must be consolidated. The more meritorious his achievements were, the more he could make a name for himself and demonstrate his capability as a leader. He had to expand his prestige and quickly spread his power; connections were needed.

He refused to die a dog’s death like how Xiàng Tiān Dà Fēijī had planned for him after his use had been expended.

Like how it had been when he’d been weak and defenseless, it was either Luo Binghe moved forward—or he’d die. With a handsome and refined match by his side guiding him, the Three Realms would be his.

“Have patience,” Meng Mo chastised. “You’ve only just met him. From now onwards, until you have determined which benefactor provides you the better benefits, it is better not to provoke either.”

There was a grain of truth to his advice. There were no good prospects if a dulled knife became sharpened. Likewise, as soon as one underestimated their prey, they were done for.

Luo Binghe couldn’t help recalling his past little by little. The Cang Qiong Mountain sect had opened its doors only once every few years to recruit new disciples. It didn’t feel too long ago when he’d been handpicked from the selection of people hoping to have the potential to develop a golden core. In his youthful ignorance, bearing a poor orphan’s hope to live a better life, Luo Binghe had not known the path to enlightenment would be treacherous. Many of his martial siblings, his masters, and his own shizun had exposed themselves to be snakes and scorpions.

They were as corrupt as the very evil they opposed, their injustices hidden behind the veneer of being virtuous and just.

The side of the righteous was filled with hypocrisy. To hold steadfast to the ethics of a disciplined cultivator was not enough. He had to be ruthless.

Just like then, there were all kinds of hidden talents and geniuses in the world. To be blessed by the grace of a celestial being—the very height of immortality—was unheard of. Preposterous, even. Yet he had managed to accomplish such a feat.

Had Meng Mo not claimed, because of Luo Binghe’s inheritance as a Heavenly Demon, that cultivating on the demonic path would allow him to grow by leaps and bounds? That he would stand above thousands? That the entirety of the Three Realms, of the heavens and the earth, would be swept away by his mere existence once the seal was lifted? He had a bright future, if he just reached out his hand and grasped those opportunities with an iron fist.

To have aspirations and goals was high and admirable.

A fine owl would perch on a fine tree; a good servant would serve a good master. As a worldly man, there was nothing wrong for him to pursue ambition. In this world, power was authority.

It had been preordained for him to climb into a position of power. Even Shen Yuan had said so himself, both in his reading and just moments prior. He would obtain it all in the end.

And even if it took him his entire lifetime, in one way or another Luo Binghe would ensure to repay his “gratitude” back to Xiàng Tiān Dà Fēijī for his consideration.

“Since you value loyalty and bonds...who knows, perhaps being chummy with this one might turn him into a loyal dog…. This senior looks forward to the day an emissary from the heavens comes to pay respects to the last bloodline of the Heavenly Demons.”

——————————

Notes: “Xiàng Tiān Dà Fēijī” is referring to Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky. Since this sneak peek is from the first draft, some details will be subject to change when the final draft is published on AO3. Since this chapter is mostly Bing gē simping for SY, to balance out the loveydovey majority, Meng Mo is, as the Chinese saying goes, “kicking up/ raising a stink” (at least in the beginning of this chapter).

Link to ch 1-3 on AO3 can be found in my profile!

[eldritchsurveys]

764.

What is something small that brings you a lot of joy? >> The first dandelions of the season.

What would it take for you to feel completely satisfied with your life? >> Honestly, at this point, I think all it would take is moving somewhere a bit warmer and greener and with a lot less people around. I’m pretty okay with everything else in my life. It’s light-years better than it ever was.

What was going on the last time someone yelled at you? >> An argument, most likely.

Describe the best and worst aspects of your personality? >> I’d rather not.

How did you discover your current favorite band(s)? >> ---

When was the last time you changed your mind about something? >> I was originally not going to go for a walk this morning, and then I did.

How have your dreams and ambitions changed since you were younger? >> They haven’t really. I still don’t have any ambitions.

What are some of your current favorite lyrics? >> Lay Me Low by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds has some good lyrics. I listened to it today on my walk and was reminded of that.

Are you more of a private person or an open one? >> I am open in the sense that I’m not ashamed of myself or anything (you know, when Inner Critic isn’t in charge). But I’m private because I just don’t think everyone needs to know everything about me all the time. The fortress of my existence isn’t necessarily impenetrable, but you can’t just fucking waltz in either, lmao.

What is something you wish you had learned when you were younger? >> Meh. There’s no guarantee that learning a particular lesson at an earlier time would have made my life any better, so who cares. I did my best with what I had and here I am.

What do you consider to be your greatest achievement? >> Being here, right now, still alive and not, like, fucking locked away somewhere or dead in a gutter.

Are you creative or artistic? What do you like to express through art? >> Sure. I don’t know how to answer the second question.

What is something you eat that others consider gross? >> I dare someone to call something I’m eating and obviously enjoying “gross”. See how long I put up with that rude bullshit.

Five ways your life has changed over the last five years? >> I moved out here, I stopped using DXM, I gained weight, I got married, I experienced first class flight.

When was the last time you needed help with something? >> I don’t remember.

What kinds of things do you consider romantic? >> I’m not interested in romance.

What is something you will never do again? >> Who knows.

In what ways do you think you inspire others? >> I’m not sure anything about me is particularly inspiring. I’d have to be explicitly told otherwise if I’m going to have any idea about this.

What is something from your childhood that you still enjoy? >> The Prince of Egypt.

In what ways are you open-minded? How about close-minded? >> I’m open-minded in almost all ways I can think of. I can’t think of a way in which I’m close-minded...

What is something that is uniquely YOU? >> I don’t think anything is uniquely ME. There’s always going to be someone out there with at least a similar experience or opinion or worldview as me, even if I never encounter them. There’s probably someone else right now who is reading The Dark Tower and getting to my part and going “that’s... that’s me, I lived that life” and tbh I hope I do encounter that person so I can have someone else to bitch about Roland to.

How do you tend to conduct yourself in arguments? >> I tend to just. Not have arguments. I’m over it, there’s nothing in the world I have ever found that is really worth arguing with someone about. Maybe I’ll find something one day, but right now I am really content with just not bothering.

When was the last time you apologized for something? >> I don’t remember. I try to avoid doing things I need to apologise for as much as possible.

Name one healthy and one unhealthy thing you do? >> ---

Do you prefer to be alone or around other people? >> I prefer to be alone, although I will make an exception for a certain few people. And by “few” I mean “I can count them on one hand”-few. (There are plenty of people that I like, sure, but when it comes to purposefully setting aside my alone-time to spend time with someone else... there’s gotta be more than just “yeah, you’re cool” going on.)

What is your most recent passion or obsession? >> Final Fantasy XIV.

If money wasn't an issue, how would you live your life differently? >> Well, I’d buy more high-quality, long-lasting products (which are usually outside of my current budget, so despite my preference for them I often have to settle for the cheaper options). I’d be able to make all the food choices that I prefer, buying local produce and better ingredients and such. And we definitely wouldn’t be living here.

When was the last time you made a drastic change to your appearance? >> I don’t remember. My appearance has been pretty static for the past five years, aside from my weight.

What is something you believe in that not many others do? >> The experience of being from another world, which happened to be written about by some guy on this one and published as fiction.

What calms you down or comforts you? >> Can Calah, primarily. Also, sitting in the sunlight.

When was the last time you went somewhere new? >> Ha! Good fucking question, eh.

With whom do you spend the most time? >> Sparrow, because we live together.

What's your favorite food to have for breakfast? >> Veggie burgers and chips. I don’t know when or how that happened, but it did. Samefood gang~

Do you have any unusual eating habits? >> I guess the concept of samefooding is a little unusual, considering it seems to be particular to people with spectrum disorders or whatever.

How old were you when you figured out what you wanted to do for a career? >> ---

When was the last time you conquered a fear? >> I don’t know.

What did you think of the last book you read? >> The Poisonwood Bible took me like three years to finish lmao (I would read some of it and then put it down and forget about it for months at a time -- a whole year, even) but I found it to be very engaging and immersive. I loved the way each character had such a distinct voice -- I would sometimes cover up the chapter title (which would be the name of the POV character) and try to guess the character from just the first couple of sentences and I always got it right, just because I could tell their voice immediately. It was a lovely story full of emotional and philosophical depth and I gave it five stars on Goodreads now that I’ve finally finished it, hah.

What is your current favorite television show? >> Succession, lmao. I didn’t expect to get sucked into it the way I did, but HBO dramas really are good at that.

What happened the last time you were annoyed? >> Spooky is jumping on things he shouldn’t be jumping on again. He’d better not knock anything over that I have to clean up. This is reason 3498587 why I don’t care for pets.

How would you describe your bedroom? >> Small and easily cluttered. Ask me again after I’ve thrown away/donated half of my belongings (as I tend to do).

What happened the last time you cried? >> I was being overwhelmed by environmental noise.

When was the last time you were out in nature? >> This morning. Not like, fully immersed in nature -- I was walking down a sidewalk, after all -- but there was some to observe. It’s as good as it gets, for now.

When was the last time you were in a big city? >> January (Houston, Texas).

Have you been drifting away from anyone lately? >> Not to my knowledge.

Is there anyone with whom you would like to be better friends? >> Meh.

What do you like most about summer? >> The warmth, the Sun, the wealth of outdoor things to do.

What are your favorite things to do during the winter months? >> Be inside :|

Who were you with the last time you watched a movie? >> I was alone.

What was the subject of your last phone conversation? >> Insurance bullshit.

What was your first pet? Do you still have this pet? >> A Rottweiler. No way, that was when I was a child.

What was the last thing you purchased online? In a store? >> Underwear (got price-gouged, too, but that’s what happens when you will only wear a specific kind and no other will do). The last thing I purchased in a store was groceries.

Where was the last place you went on vacation? >> I guess going to Elle’s wedding was kind of a vacation.

What is your favorite thing to learn about? >> I have a lot of favourite things to learn about.

Who do you trust most in your life? >> Can Calah.

Have you ever done any volunteer work? If so, what? >> No.

If you have a job, what do you like best about it? >> ---

If you were to redecorate your house, what style would you choose? >> I live in an apartment, that’s not happening.

What is your relationship like with your parents? Siblings? >> Nonexistent.

When was the last time you visited your relatives? >> ---

What are you going to do now that you're finished? >> Might take a peek at my dashboard, might get bored of that within 5 minutes and do something else, who knows.

[creatingthewritelife]

Cultivating Community

I think to some degree or another we all have the image of a writer as some lonely figure sitting in a dimly lit room with their typewriter or their fountain pen and a glass of whiskey. Maybe a cigarette. It’s a strange aesthetic for writers to attach themselves to considering that so much of what we do relies on other people. Most likely it stems from the times long before the internet when forming connections with other writers was likely a significantly more challenging feat, and made popular by well known authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway. Whether you love them or hate them they’ve had an impact on the type of image writer’s often see for themselves.

On top of which we’ve been supplied with quotes from well-known writers about what a lonely, solitary, life it is being a writer, and as so much of writing is done alone in solitude, especially in the early stages when it’s just you and the page as everyone and everything else becomes background noise it can be easy to fall into the trap of believing that creative work has to be a lonely endeavor. But as writers so much of our work revolves around other people; from beta readers, to editors, agents, publishers, to our final intended audience and then some. Part of what we do involves exploring the depths of humanity, whether we’re writing human characters or not our perspective will always be human. Which means we’re constantly working - consciously or not - to understand. We people-watch, spend our free time with friends, watch movies, listen to music, watch or read the news, and all of it contributes to our understanding of people, but there’s only so much that can be learned from our own perspective. Which is why it’s important to establish a connection with other writers. Why it’s important to find community.

There are dozens of reasons to find your place in a community of writers. They can help you to improve your writing in ways you might not even realize, and you can do the same for them. It gives you the opportunity to learn what’s being done by other writers, in other genres, allows you to hear other perspectives and observations, thoughts on what troupes are are being overused or underused, thoughts on harmful stereotypes or descriptions. That’s all with only barely pausing to consider the many life experiences outside of writing - not every writer is only a writer, some work in different fields with indepth knowledge that they’re happy to share so that other people can write better too. A community of writers is an opportunity to learn, and to help others. Those types of opportunities are some of the most important we may ever receive, and we should take advantage of them

Writing help alone isn’t all that these communities are good for. Writing communities are full of people who understand. Whether you’re a young writer who’s still in school, a single parent with multiple jobs, a full time student paying off debts, married with kids and a house in the suburbs, unemployed and struggling to get your life together, there’s always going to be someone in one writing community or another who can understand your struggle through sympathy, empathy, or having been there or being there themselves. Writing is hard. Living a creative life is hard. No matter your circumstance, your mental state, your physical ability, it’s hard work and a hard life. And it’s one that’s often looked down on by people who aren’t living it and can’t understand because of that. Having people to talk to about writing itself, and life as a writer is essential. It gives us a place to turn when we feel like we’re drowning in our work, our lives, and the opinions of other people.

If friendships and learning aren’t convincing enough there’s always the chance that becoming a part of these communities can help you to establish yourself as a writer. Self marketing. They can be a place to share your work, talk technical, discuss tropes, cliches, and diversity, share your thoughts and opinions, as well as a place to give and receive feedback. Writing communities, if nothing else, can serve as another excellent tool to help build your craft and your presence as a writer. Though building that sort of a presence will always be easier if you keep yourself open to the possibility of making friends as well, support leads to support, and kindness to kindness. A creative life is easier to manage when you have people to walk beside you.

That includes any creative life, actually, and other creative communities. Art wasn’t originally a singular endeavour. It was The Arts, and it included everything; writing, music, sculpting, painting, performance and so much more. A writing community is a wonderful place to be, to feel at home and understood, but so much can be learned from contact with creatives in other fields whether you dabble in those art forms or not. Joining book communities can be a fantastic way to stay close to home while learning about what potential readers - who might not be writers - are interested in reading about, the things they liked, the ways they’d like to see the industry evolve and improve. Artist communities are wonderful for learning about ways to describe characters and settings, they’re a perfect place to draw inspiration from or even talk about potential collaborations with. Photography communities are a wealth of realism and magic, the visual imagination to the words we write. Music communities and lyricists might have insight on how to fill your worths with rhythm and feeling and how to make them flow in a way you had scarcely imagined before. Poets; well they’re poets for a reason aren't they? With how they spin webs laced with metaphor and meaning something is bound to stick.

Artists complement other artists. We often have both such similar and different views on everything. We take on the world in unique ways while managing to understand each other and with so many ways to express anything and everything through visual, literary, performance, auditory arts and more we’re offered constant opportunities to learn. By taking an interest in how people who are invested in artforms other that our own we can better improve our understanding of humanity and improve our own art. Humans are social creatures, and art is a human-based experience. Through community with creatives and artists of all types we have the larges opportunity to thrive.

How do we do it though? How do we find these communities and get involved? Where do we look? Everywhere. We look everywhere. We live in a period of time where the internet thrives as a hub of information and communities. The world, both off- and online, is a treasure trove of communities that are often more than willing to welcome new people into the fold. Social media is a magical resource for communities, and each one will have its own personality combined of every individual who participates, there’s guaranteed to be a place for you somewhere. There are so many options that I’d never be able to list them all. I’ve personally had the most success with the writing community here on Tumblr using the tags #writeblr or #writelr as well as the community of book-lovers here who often use the tag #booklr. Twitter has a great community of readers which isn’t hard to find and a writing community that often posts with the tag #amwriting. Everywhere is worth checking though - The Nanowrimo website is a great place to connect, especially during the month of madness, Facebook surely has writing groups worth checking out, and Instagram is a perfect chance to combine any interest with photography while finding others who share those interests. Every social media platform is likely to have a community or two worth exploring. And offline? Schools, libraries, and community centers are perfect places to find information on meetups. Maybe even ask around at your church or local coffee shop.

Most importantly; don’t be afraid to dive right in. Once you’ve found a community that you think you might be comfortable in start talking and posting, ask questions, give feedback. Express yourself and share your thoughts and opinions on different subjects, answer questions when you have an answer. My anxiety made it hard for me to start to join the conversations over and over again. Sometimes it still does. What if I say something wrong? What if someone disagrees with me? What if I sound stupid or accidentally offend someone? Thoughts like those held me back for a long time at first, but as I began to open up and reach out I found it easier and easier to relax because more often than not the people in these communities were kind, and helpful, and welcoming. Other times I stumbled and felt awkward or embarrassed and uncomfortable. Mistakes were made, but they were also overcome. My place in these communities, with the friends I’ve made so far and the ones I have yet to make, is a reminder to my anxiety that sometimes I get to be the one who wins. As my connection to these people grows every mistake I’ve made so far feels a little more worthwhile. Every mistake you make along the way will be worthwhile as you start to get somewhere. Beginnings are scary, whether they’re a new adventure or a new conversation with a stranger, but in all our favourite books where the protagonist takes up their adventure - whatever it may be - it always includes some wonderful people along the way.

We’re long past the days of dark and dreary writer aesthetics seeping into our reality. In order to understand, grow, and contribute to improvement, we need to be willing to connect and communicate with other people. We have to listen and hear the thoughts of others, share our own, and decide that growth - in ourselves, our communities, our cultures, our crafts, our world - is worthwhile. Humanity is not a solitary existence and a craft hell bent on exploring it like writing shouldn’t be either. Like this post? Want to see more? Consider becoming a Patron!

[bandbacktogether]

Coping With Self-Injury Resources

New Post has been published on https://www.bandbacktogether.com/resources/mental-illness-resources/self-injury-self-harm-resources/coping-with-self-injury-resources/

Coping With Self-Injury Resources

What Is Self Injury?

Self Injury (SI) is the act of deliberately harming one’s own body. People who self-injure often express their inner pain, anger and anguish by cutting or burning, but self-injury is not meant as a suicidal act.

The most common type of self-injury is skin-cutting, but self-harm refers to a wide range of behaviors, including burning, scratching, trichotillomania, poisoning, and other types of injurious behaviors.

Read more about self-injury.

It’s hard to know what to do when someone we love hurts themselves deliberately. It’s even harder when we, ourselves, don’t know why we can’t just “stop” self-injuring. It’s hard to know what the treatment for cutting is, especially when so many people don’t understand reasons for self injury.

You are not alone. Here are some practical tips and advice about self injury for those who self injure and those who love people who self-injure.

If You Self Injure:

If you’re the one who struggles mightily with self-injury, you may not know why you can’t simply stop. Why others don’t raise awareness of self-injury. Why you cut yourself to release your inner pain. Here are some tips for coping with self-injury and the decision to stop self-injuring.

If you’ve decided to stop self-injuring, you may think it’s an easy decision – it’s not. Self-injury is a long-honed coping mechanism for you and stopping SI is similar to stopping any type of addiction: it’s easier said than done.

First, you must determine why you want to stop self-injuring: is it outside pressures? A family member who wants you to stop cutting? Remember: in order for you to be successful, you’re going to have to choose to stop self-injuring for yourself.

If you’re not giving up self-injury for yourself, your decision to stop cutting may fall short.

While it may be easy to stop self-injuring in the short term, you must develop some healthier long-term methods of coping with the urges to SI.

To stop self-injuring, you must first determine why you do it in the first place – is it stress? Anxiety? Anger? Frustration? You must develop other methods of coping with these feelings in order to stop hurting yourself.

If you have a special time and place where you self-injure, change your patterns of activity to reduce the urges to self-injure. Changes in latitude…or something.

Try putting yourself in a place (or situation) in which you can’t engage in self-injury BEFORE the urge to self-injure strikes.

It’s important to get rid of your self-injury tools. Make it a production and use it as a way to say goodbye to your old self and hello to your new self.

Change up your routines – especially the rituals associated with self-injury. Changing a part of your ritual can make SI more uncomfortable for you, and the less comfortable you are while engaging in self-injurious behavior, the less likely you are to want to engage in that behavior at all.

Become aware of your surroundings and your rituals, especially if you dissociate while you self-injure. Increasing awareness conflicts with dissociation and can help reduce the urge to SI. Add or remove steps from your SI ritual to promote awareness of your rituals.

Get some help. No, not necessarily like professional help (like a therapist), but open your mouth and tell others what you’ve been doing.

By telling others that you self-injure, you’re decreasing the social isolation of self-injury and allowing other people the opportunity to support you.

Use that support system when you feel the urge to self-injure. Call a trusted friend. Tell them that you’re feeling the urge to hurt yourself. Ask your friend to come sit with you while you sit through your discomfort.

When breaking the SI habit, try using the rule of two: don’t do anything that you can’t tell at least two people about.

In order to stop self-injuring, you’re going to have to change your thoughts (the ones you have immediately before injuring yourself) about SI.

Challenging the negative thoughts you have right before you self-injure is instrumental – challenge how accurate these thoughts are. Are they really true? Chances are, most of your negative thoughts are just that: thoughts and not reality.

When you start thinking those negative thoughts, one of the ways you can make them stop is to say, “STOP” out loud (or in your mind). It may take awhile to make the thoughts go away, but it can help.

Reframe those negative self-injury spiral thoughts from a negative into a positive. If you think, “I’m so stupid for cutting,” say to yourself, “I did what I had to do to make it through.”

There’s a lot of shame, guilt and secrecy that go along with self-injury. Remember: you were coping with stuff in your life in the best way you knew how. Certainly, you will learn more healthy ways to cope with life stuffs, but tell yourself the truth: you were coping the best you could. That’s not shameful.

Self-injury often occurs in those who have difficulty expressing or regulating their emotions.

It’s not uncommon to have negative thoughts about ourselves in relation to SI. Instead of making a judgmental statement like “I’m so stupid for cutting,” or “I’m so weak for burning myself,” sort out the facts and observe and describe them. “When I get in to a stressful situation, I don’t know how to express my feelings, and when I become overwhelmed I cut to release the pressure.”

You may not know all the words for what you’re feeling, so check with your body – how does this feeling feel inside your body – hot flashes? Fluttering tummy? Learn to describe these feelings so you can recognize them when they occur and stop before you begin self-injury.

Check in with yourself and your body every day to see how often you felt the urge to self injure, how strong the urge to SI was, and whether or not you succumbed to self-injury. This is a good way to make yourself more accountable and in check.

Remember that there is a difference between feelings and thoughts: feelings can be described in “I am” or “I feel” statements. Often, people think they’re describing a feeling, when it’s really thoughts they’re talking about. The phrases “I feel like,” or “I feel that,” are both thoughts, NOT feelings.

Change, don’t deny. You can’t pretend away those ugly negative thoughts. You must express, respect, and honor your feelings in healthier ways. Rather than pretend they don’t exist, remind yourself this:

Feelings happen for a reason.

Feelings are often illogical.

Feelings are transitory – they often change and/or disappear over time.

Once you learn to identify your feelings, one of the easiest ways to change them is to express them. Feelings are often satisfied once expressed. Each feeling has a different way of expressing itself (usually in a physical way) – sadness may be expressed by crying. Self-injury is often the way that people who have difficulties expressing emotions let those feelings out. Learning that there are other ways to express feelings without negative consequences is very important.

Changing the physical sensations. Most people who SI describe the build-up to self-injury as a tension that is released when you hurt yourself. Examine the physical feelings you have before SI and figure out a better way to release the tensions. One such method is exercise.

One method that helps some through a really strong self injury urge is to find something that has a very powerful sensation. For example, really strong mints, something with an interesting texture, a sound you find soothing or interesting – make a little “survival kit” that you can take with you so that if you have the overwhelming urge you can shake your mind out of the SI place more easily.

When you’ve made the decision to stop self-injuring, the most important thing you can do is to tell someone else you’re ready to stop. Telling someone helps with the isolation and the shame associated with self-injury. If you can’t do it face-to-face, do it in a letter or an email.

Self Injury Relapses: they happen. When stressed, your brain will default to the path you’ve taken most often. Your brain is familiar with self-injury so it’s easier for it to go down that connection. Over time, new connections will be made, so keep on recovering from self-injury.

Falling off the wagon and relapsing into self injury doesn’t mean you’ll never quit or that you’re an utter failure. Instead look at it as a learning experience: choose something different next time.

Quitting Self-Injury:

If you’re ready to get help for cutting or self-harm, the first step is to confide in another person. It can be scary to talk about the very thing you have worked so hard to hide, but it can also be a huge relief to finally let go of your secret and share what you’re going through

1) Opening Up:

Choose someone who isn’t going to gossip or try to take control of your recovery.

Who makes you feel accepted and supported? It could be a friend, teacher, religious leader, counselor, or relative. But you don’t necessarily have to choose someone you are close to. Sometimes it’s easier to start by talking to someone you respect-such as a teacher, religious leader, or counselor-who has a little more distance from the situation and won’t find it as difficult to be objective. While you talk:

Focus on your feelings:

Instead of sharing detailed accounts of your self-harm behavior focus on the feelings or situations that lead to it. This can help the person you’re confiding in better understand where you’re coming from. It also helps to let the person know why you’re telling them. Do you want help or advice from them? Do you simply want another person to know so you can let go of the secret?

Communicate in whatever way you feel most comfortable:

If you’re too nervous to talk in person, consider starting off the conversation with an email, text, or letter (although it’s important to eventually follow-up with a face-to-face conversation). Don’t feel pressured into sharing things you’re not ready to talk about. You don’t have to show the person your injuries or answer any questions you don’t feel comfortable answering.

Give the person time to process:

As difficult as it is for you to open up, it may also be difficult for the person you tell-especially if it’s a close friend or family member. Sometimes, you may not like the way the person reacts. Try to remember that reactions such as shock, anger, and fear come out of concern for you. It may help to print out this article for the people you choose to tell. The better they understand cutting and self-harm, the better able they’ll be to support you.

Talking about self-harm can be stressful and stir up a lot of emotions:

Don’t be discouraged if the situation feels worse for a short time right after sharing your secret. It’s uncomfortable to confront and change long-standing habits. But once you get past these initial challenges, you’ll start to feel better.

2) Identify Your Triggers:

Understanding what triggers you to cut or self-harm is a vital step towards recovery. If you can figure out what function your self-injury serves, you can learn other ways to get those needs met-which in turn can reduce your desire to hurt yourself. Self-harm is most often a way of dealing with emotional pain. What feelings make you want to cut or hurt yourself? Sadness? Anxiety? Anger? Loneliness? Shame? Emptiness?

Work on Your Emotional Awareness:

If you’re having a hard time pinpointing the feelings that trigger your urge to cut, you may need to work on your emotional awareness. Emotional awareness means knowing what you are feeling and why. It’s the ability to identify and express what you are feeling from moment to moment and to understand the connection between your feelings and your actions. Feelings are important pieces of information that our bodies give to us, but they do not have to result in actions like cutting or self-harming.

Paying Attention to Feelings Without Releasing Them:

The idea of paying attention to your feelings-rather than numbing them or releasing them through self-harm-may sound frightening to you. You may be afraid that you’ll get overwhelmed or be stuck with the pain. But the truth is that emotions quickly come and go if you let them. If you don’t try to fight, judge, or beat yourself up over the feeling, you’ll find that it soon fades, replaced by another emotion. It’s only when you obsess over the feeling that it persists.

3) Replace Old Coping Mechanisms With New Ones:

This may be the hardest step for people who self-injure as it can be very challenging to find what works for you – what appears below are suggestions, and they are not one-size-fits-all solutions. You may have to experiment to find out what works best for you.

If you self-harm to release tension or vent anger, you could try:

Exercise vigorously run, do major housework, dance, anything to get your body moving.

Punch a cushion or mattress or scream into your pillow

Squeeze a stress ball or squish Play-Doh or clay

Rip something up (sheets of paper, a magazine)

Make some noise (play an instrument, bang on pots and pans)

If you self-harm because you feel disconnected or numb, you could:

Call a friend (you don’t have to talk about self-harm)

Take a cold shower

Hold an ice cube in the crook of your arm or leg

Chew something with a very strong taste, like chili peppers, peppermint, or a grapefruit peel

Go online to a self-help website, chat room, or message board

If you self-harm to express pain and intense emotions, you could:

Paint, draw, or scribble on a big piece of paper with red ink or paint

Start a journal in which to express your feelings

Compose a poem or song to say what you feel

Write down any negative feelings and then rip the paper up

Listen to music that expresses what you’re feeling

If you self-harm to calm and soothe yourself, you could:

Take a bath or hot shower

Pet or cuddle with a dog or cat

Wrap yourself in a warm blanket

Massage your neck, hands, and feet

Listen to calming music

Substitutes for the cutting sensation

Use a red felt tip pen to mark where you might usually cut

Rub ice across your skin where you might usually cut

Put rubber bands on wrists, arms, or legs, and snap them instead of cutting or hitting

Why Does My Loved One Self-Injure?

As cutting and self-harm tend to be taboo subjects, many people harbor serious misunderstandings about their loved one’s state of mind. Ignore these common myths about self-injury

.Myth : People who self-injure are crazy and/or dangerous.

Fact: It is true that many people who self-harm suffer from anxiety, depression, eating disorders, or a previous trauma-just like millions of others in the general population, but that doesn’t make them crazy or dangerous. Self-injury is how they cope. Sticking a label like “crazy” or “dangerous” on a person isn’t accurate or helpful.

Myth 3: People who self-injure want to die.

Fact: When people self-harm, they are usually not trying to kill themselves—they are trying to cope with their problems and pain. In fact, self-injury may be a way of helping themselves go on living. However, there is always the risk of a more severe injury than intended and, in the long-term, people who self-injure have a much higher risk of suicide, which is why it’s so important to seek help.

Myth 4: If the wounds aren’t bad, it’s not that serious.

Fact: The severity of a person’s wounds has very little to do with how much they may be suffering. Don’t assume that because the wounds or injuries are minor, there’s nothing to worry about

Myth: People who cut and self-injure are trying to get attention.

Fact: On the surface, this sounds like a reason, however, the painful truth is that people who self-harm generally hurt themselves in secret. Think about it – if they really wanted attention, they’d do something flashy and showy to gain attention. They aren’t trying to manipulate others or draw attention to themselves. In fact, shame and fear can make it very difficult to come forward and ask for help

If Your Loved One Self Injures:

Learning that someone you love dearly struggles with hurting him or herself can be hugely shocking. Here are some tips for loved ones of self-injurers.

While the temptation to tell your loved one that he or she should stop self-injuring comes from a good place, adding the pressure of your judgment can hurt someone who engages in self-harm.

Support your loved one who uses SI – which is often used as an unhealthy coping mechanism – by letting them know you love them NO MATTER WHAT.

Learning that someone you love self-injures can bring up a lot of conflicting emotions.

If someone you love confides in you that he or she self-injures, it may be a great emotional shock to you. Most who self-injure do so in secret, so while the SI behavior may have gone on for a long while, you may never have suspected it: you may not have known why your loved one refused to wear short-sleeved shirts or shorts in hot weather.

You may want to deny that your loved one cuts – this is a common reaction to learning that someone you love self-injures. However, denial is extremely harmful for someone who self-injures, as it denies the emotional pain your loved one is.

While you do not have to dwell on it, it’s important to acknowledge that your loved one has a problem – a serious problem – and needs help.

You may be angry when you learn that your loved one hurts his or herself. Especially once you connect the dots and see the lies that your loved one told you to cover up his or her behavior.

You may feel frustrated – self-injury isn’t something you can control or necessarily feel as though you can help with. You cannot control the behavior of another, no matter how you’d like to. This may make you feel helpless.

Make sure that you keep SI an open dialog between you and your loved one who self-injures. Ignoring self-injury does NOT make it go away, and can reinforce feelings of isolation and shame.

If your loved one opens up about self-injury to you, know that it was an incredible burden for them to share. Thank them for trusting you with this information.

Be available to your loved one within limits (limits YOU can handle) – tell them that if they feel the urge to cut or burn coming on, to call you so you can sit with them.

Spend more time with your loved one – most people who self-injure do so while alone. Keeping them occupied can help reduce the self-injuring behavior.

If you’re having challenges with coping with the self-injury of a loved one, don’t hesitate to talk to a therapist about your feelings.

Ask how you can help your loved one – often, it’s hard to know HOW to help. Instead of guessing, ASK!

Keep the negative thoughts and judgment to yourself – you’re certainly entitled to your feelings, but the person who self-injures doesn’t need more shame heaped upon him or her.

You must put up some emotional boundaries between yourself and your loved one, especially if the person who engages in SI has issues setting boundaries him or herself. Be clear and consistent with your support as well as make sure that he or she knows that you have your limits and what they are.

What To Say To Someone Who Self Injures:

“I support you no matter what.”

“How long have you been hurting yourself?”

“Thank you for trusting me enough to tell me.”

“How can I help?”

“How did you learn how to hurt yourself?”

“What makes you want to hurt yourself?”

“Do you want to stop self-injuring?”

What NOT To Do If Your Loved One Self Injures:

Sometimes, despite our very best intentions, we say or do something to make our loved ones hurt more than they already are. Here are some things to avoid doing if you have a loved one who self-injures.

Do not pressure your loved one to stop injuring. SI is an intensely shameful way of coping and adding the pressure of your judgment will likely serve to increase the self-injurious behavior.

Don’t issue an ultimatum – you must stop hurting yourself or ELSE. This will only make your loved one want to hide his or her shameful secret.

Don’t scold your loved one for injuring him or herself – he or she already feels shame for his or her behavior.

Don’t press the issue – if you’ve tried talking to your loved one who self-injures and he or she doesn’t want to continue the conversation, don’t force them.

Don’t make judgmental remarks about self-injury to your loved one. If you haven’t walked around in their shoes, you don’t know what it’s like to be them.

Don’t discourage the self-injury (this is a hard one). SI is a way that many people cope with emotional pain; they may not have other, healthier ways of coping. Making comments like this may make the person who engages in SI retreat further into isolation and despair.

Don’t assume that the person who self-injures is suicidal. Self-injury is not a suicidal act.

Don’t take your feelings out on your loved one – that’s for a therapist, not you, to handle.

What Not To Say To Someone Who Self Injures:

“Why don’t you just STOP?”

“You’re just doing it for attention.”

“You’re crazy.”

“You’re trying to manipulate me.”

“You’re not the same person I thought you were.”

“How could you do this to me?”

Page last audited 8/2018

[racheltgibsau]

5 Ways to Survive and Thrive in a New Job

“Here. This map is going to be your guide to North Shore. Now, where you sit in the cafeteria is crucial, because you got everybody there…” — Janis Ian, Mean Girls

I try not to go more than a day without quoting Mean Girls, slyly adding “I have a fifth sense” or “Whatever, I’m getting cheese fries” into everyday conversation. A prospect and I once dissolved into hysterical laughter during a demo because they asked about a feature in Marketo and—true story, cross my heart—I replied “The limit does not exist!” without realizing what I’d just said.

The movie’s iconic status is no accident. Anything in the pop culture hall of fame gets staying power from deep emotional connection with loyal fans. The Mean Girls fan base, in particular, is interesting because I have yet to meet anyone, regardless of gender, age, or other identifying characteristics, who didn’t love this movie and find it deeply relatable (and quotable. So fetch.)

Over the past few years, I’ve been particularly interested in studying the nuances of human behavior, specifically decision-making, and power dynamics; topics that are both cleverly addressed throughout the movie.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s a quick summary: the main character goes from being home-schooled in Africa to attending a suburban Illinois high school. Hilarity ensues as she attempts to adjust, thrive, and make her way.

Like the Mean Girls main character, Cady Heron, when we start in a new workplace there are many things we need to adapt to as time goes on. Here are five lessons I’ve learned throughout my career so far that I believe will help you be successful in a new job.

1. Stand Back and Observe

It’s your first day at work. You’ve carefully picked out your outfit, received your laptop & badge, and filled out piles of paperwork. You’re sitting at your new desk, hopefully with some cool first-day branded swag. We are a social species, and it’s only natural to want to jump in and make friends right away. However, there is definitely something to be said for exercising caution. Observe different departments and how everyone interacts. What are the main team & individual priorities? What goals are they working towards? In your first 30, 60, and 90 days, what are the top areas to check off your onboarding list so you can help drive success and have a short time to impact?

The best advice I ever received in this arena: when you’re in a new role, soak up everything for one month. Shadow every call and show up to every meeting. Take copious notes. You’ll probably never read them again, but they work wonders for your retention and processing capabilities.

2. Play Full Out

I know I just suggested that you dip your toe into the water to test its temperature—from a relationship building and company dynamic perspective. This is because ‘playing full out’ is far more important when it comes to your actual role. In my first 6 weeks at Marketo, I hunkered down in various conference rooms with a few key mentors and increasingly large piles of typed notes, annotated with my scribble-cursive and yellow highlighter. My goal was simple: learn the product as fast as possible, get on calls, and close deals. I quickly realized that marketers spoke a foreign language to me (what is TOFU/MOFU/BOFU?) and that the hardest part of my job would be taking their questions, interpreting them, and mapping them to actual technology. Upon having this realization, I started to show up to every single sales call and write down, verbatim, every question that marketers asked, then read and re-read them until I understood them and could respond. I may not have been the most social co-worker during this time period, but I was playing full out as I ramped up in my role.

3. Find Some Friends

Don’t worry, I didn’t stay anti-social forever. I was just focused! Once I started joining sales calls and had some repetitions under my belt, I balanced my focus and growth with a truly extraordinary group of friends at Marketo. I firmly believe that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with—a philosophy often attributed to personal development expert Jim Rohn, but paraphrased and repeated by others in similar fields.

At Marketo, I have the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated, smart, fun-loving people I have ever met. My iPhone camera roll and Snapchat stories are full of pictures of Marketo people—at dinner, at company events, and at events of our own invention, such as paint night and Giants games. As a team, we genuinely love spending time together and it has a huge positive influence on the quality of work that we produce. Marketo is an incredibly special place, and I’m grateful to have found my tribe.

4. Practice Self-Care

In this arena, something clicked for me in the past year. I used to eat well and exercise purely for optics—to fit into my clothes. Eventually, I realized that was a perfectly fine result of my efforts but certainly wasn’t my goal—I like to feel physically strong and energetic. When my nutrition and exercise schedule are locked down, I feel sharp, clear-headed, and less susceptible to outside influences changing my mood and focus. This tiny, 2mm, change shifted my internal conversation from “Get up and go work out so you’ll look good” to “Get up and go workout so you can be on your ‘A’ game and have the absolute best day at work”.

5. Pay It Forward

Arnold Schwarzenegger recently wrote a compelling foreword to Tim Ferriss’s latest book, Tools of Titans. In it, he talks about the myth of the self-made man. It is so easy to look at a successful person and give them all the credit for their status and accomplishments while glossing over every roadblock, failure, and frustration. However, no one is truly self-made. Each and every one of us, no matter where we are in our lives, have stood on many shoulders to get there. Every incredible athlete, executive, and top performer have had mentors, heroes, and coaches. It is impossible for one person to do everything. But each and every one of us can do a little bit to extend a hand and give someone a leg up. Look around your workplace. Find someone who reminds you of yourself or ever better someone who doesn’t, and go out of your way to serve as a sounding board, teacher, and champion. Ask just one thing of them: that they one day turn around and do the same for someone else.

So what should you do now? Surviving and thriving at work doesn’t have to be a daunting road. If it all feels like too much, you could always just go to Taco Bell.

OR…

Pour your favorite beverage, grab a bowl of popcorn, and settle in on the couch to watch Mean Girls for the first, tenth, or 30th time. Then come back and let me know what parallels you’ve found between the movie and real life. I’d love to hear from you!

The post 5 Ways to Survive and Thrive in a New Job appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 http://blog.marketo.com/2017/06/5-ways-survive-thrive-new-job.html

[maxslogic25]

5 Ways to Survive and Thrive in a New Job

“Here. This map is going to be your guide to North Shore. Now, where you sit in the cafeteria is crucial, because you got everybody there…” — Janis Ian, Mean Girls

I try not to go more than a day without quoting Mean Girls, slyly adding “I have a fifth sense” or “Whatever, I’m getting cheese fries” into everyday conversation. A prospect and I once dissolved into hysterical laughter during a demo because they asked about a feature in Marketo and—true story, cross my heart—I replied “The limit does not exist!” without realizing what I’d just said.

The movie’s iconic status is no accident. Anything in the pop culture hall of fame gets staying power from deep emotional connection with loyal fans. The Mean Girls fan base, in particular, is interesting because I have yet to meet anyone, regardless of gender, age, or other identifying characteristics, who didn’t love this movie and find it deeply relatable (and quotable. So fetch.)

Over the past few years, I’ve been particularly interested in studying the nuances of human behavior, specifically decision-making, and power dynamics; topics that are both cleverly addressed throughout the movie.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s a quick summary: the main character goes from being home-schooled in Africa to attending a suburban Illinois high school. Hilarity ensues as she attempts to adjust, thrive, and make her way.

Like the Mean Girls main character, Cady Heron, when we start in a new workplace there are many things we need to adapt to as time goes on. Here are five lessons I’ve learned throughout my career so far that I believe will help you be successful in a new job.

1. Stand Back and Observe

It’s your first day at work. You’ve carefully picked out your outfit, received your laptop & badge, and filled out piles of paperwork. You’re sitting at your new desk, hopefully with some cool first-day branded swag. We are a social species, and it’s only natural to want to jump in and make friends right away. However, there is definitely something to be said for exercising caution. Observe different departments and how everyone interacts. What are the main team & individual priorities? What goals are they working towards? In your first 30, 60, and 90 days, what are the top areas to check off your onboarding list so you can help drive success and have a short time to impact?

The best advice I ever received in this arena: when you’re in a new role, soak up everything for one month. Shadow every call and show up to every meeting. Take copious notes. You’ll probably never read them again, but they work wonders for your retention and processing capabilities.

2. Play Full Out

I know I just suggested that you dip your toe into the water to test its temperature—from a relationship building and company dynamic perspective. This is because ‘playing full out’ is far more important when it comes to your actual role. In my first 6 weeks at Marketo, I hunkered down in various conference rooms with a few key mentors and increasingly large piles of typed notes, annotated with my scribble-cursive and yellow highlighter. My goal was simple: learn the product as fast as possible, get on calls, and close deals. I quickly realized that marketers spoke a foreign language to me (what is TOFU/MOFU/BOFU?) and that the hardest part of my job would be taking their questions, interpreting them, and mapping them to actual technology. Upon having this realization, I started to show up to every single sales call and write down, verbatim, every question that marketers asked, then read and re-read them until I understood them and could respond. I may not have been the most social co-worker during this time period, but I was playing full out as I ramped up in my role.

3. Find Some Friends

Don’t worry, I didn’t stay anti-social forever. I was just focused! Once I started joining sales calls and had some repetitions under my belt, I balanced my focus and growth with a truly extraordinary group of friends at Marketo. I firmly believe that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with—a philosophy often attributed to personal development expert Jim Rohn, but paraphrased and repeated by others in similar fields.

At Marketo, I have the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated, smart, fun-loving people I have ever met. My iPhone camera roll and Snapchat stories are full of pictures of Marketo people—at dinner, at company events, and at events of our own invention, such as paint night and Giants games. As a team, we genuinely love spending time together and it has a huge positive influence on the quality of work that we produce. Marketo is an incredibly special place, and I’m grateful to have found my tribe.

4. Practice Self-Care

In this arena, something clicked for me in the past year. I used to eat well and exercise purely for optics—to fit into my clothes. Eventually, I realized that was a perfectly fine result of my efforts but certainly wasn’t my goal—I like to feel physically strong and energetic. When my nutrition and exercise schedule are locked down, I feel sharp, clear-headed, and less susceptible to outside influences changing my mood and focus. This tiny, 2mm, change shifted my internal conversation from “Get up and go work out so you’ll look good” to “Get up and go workout so you can be on your ‘A’ game and have the absolute best day at work”.

5. Pay It Forward

Arnold Schwarzenegger recently wrote a compelling foreword to Tim Ferriss’s latest book, Tools of Titans. In it, he talks about the myth of the self-made man. It is so easy to look at a successful person and give them all the credit for their status and accomplishments while glossing over every roadblock, failure, and frustration. However, no one is truly self-made. Each and every one of us, no matter where we are in our lives, have stood on many shoulders to get there. Every incredible athlete, executive, and top performer have had mentors, heroes, and coaches. It is impossible for one person to do everything. But each and every one of us can do a little bit to extend a hand and give someone a leg up. Look around your workplace. Find someone who reminds you of yourself or ever better someone who doesn’t, and go out of your way to serve as a sounding board, teacher, and champion. Ask just one thing of them: that they one day turn around and do the same for someone else.

So what should you do now? Surviving and thriving at work doesn’t have to be a daunting road. If it all feels like too much, you could always just go to Taco Bell.

OR…

Pour your favorite beverage, grab a bowl of popcorn, and settle in on the couch to watch Mean Girls for the first, tenth, or 30th time. Then come back and let me know what parallels you’ve found between the movie and real life. I’d love to hear from you!

The post 5 Ways to Survive and Thrive in a New Job appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 http://blog.marketo.com/2017/06/5-ways-survive-thrive-new-job.html

[archiebwoollard]

5 Ways to Survive and Thrive in a New Job

“Here. This map is going to be your guide to North Shore. Now, where you sit in the cafeteria is crucial, because you got everybody there…” — Janis Ian, Mean Girls

I try not to go more than a day without quoting Mean Girls, slyly adding “I have a fifth sense” or “Whatever, I’m getting cheese fries” into everyday conversation. A prospect and I once dissolved into hysterical laughter during a demo because they asked about a feature in Marketo and—true story, cross my heart—I replied “The limit does not exist!” without realizing what I’d just said.

The movie’s iconic status is no accident. Anything in the pop culture hall of fame gets staying power from deep emotional connection with loyal fans. The Mean Girls fan base, in particular, is interesting because I have yet to meet anyone, regardless of gender, age, or other identifying characteristics, who didn’t love this movie and find it deeply relatable (and quotable. So fetch.)

Over the past few years, I’ve been particularly interested in studying the nuances of human behavior, specifically decision-making, and power dynamics; topics that are both cleverly addressed throughout the movie.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s a quick summary: the main character goes from being home-schooled in Africa to attending a suburban Illinois high school. Hilarity ensues as she attempts to adjust, thrive, and make her way.

Like the Mean Girls main character, Cady Heron, when we start in a new workplace there are many things we need to adapt to as time goes on. Here are five lessons I’ve learned throughout my career so far that I believe will help you be successful in a new job.

1. Stand Back and Observe

It’s your first day at work. You’ve carefully picked out your outfit, received your laptop & badge, and filled out piles of paperwork. You’re sitting at your new desk, hopefully with some cool first-day branded swag. We are a social species, and it’s only natural to want to jump in and make friends right away. However, there is definitely something to be said for exercising caution. Observe different departments and how everyone interacts. What are the main team & individual priorities? What goals are they working towards? In your first 30, 60, and 90 days, what are the top areas to check off your onboarding list so you can help drive success and have a short time to impact?

The best advice I ever received in this arena: when you’re in a new role, soak up everything for one month. Shadow every call and show up to every meeting. Take copious notes. You’ll probably never read them again, but they work wonders for your retention and processing capabilities.

2. Play Full Out

I know I just suggested that you dip your toe into the water to test its temperature—from a relationship building and company dynamic perspective. This is because ‘playing full out’ is far more important when it comes to your actual role. In my first 6 weeks at Marketo, I hunkered down in various conference rooms with a few key mentors and increasingly large piles of typed notes, annotated with my scribble-cursive and yellow highlighter. My goal was simple: learn the product as fast as possible, get on calls, and close deals. I quickly realized that marketers spoke a foreign language to me (what is TOFU/MOFU/BOFU?) and that the hardest part of my job would be taking their questions, interpreting them, and mapping them to actual technology. Upon having this realization, I started to show up to every single sales call and write down, verbatim, every question that marketers asked, then read and re-read them until I understood them and could respond. I may not have been the most social co-worker during this time period, but I was playing full out as I ramped up in my role.

3. Find Some Friends

Don’t worry, I didn’t stay anti-social forever. I was just focused! Once I started joining sales calls and had some repetitions under my belt, I balanced my focus and growth with a truly extraordinary group of friends at Marketo. I firmly believe that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with—a philosophy often attributed to personal development expert Jim Rohn, but paraphrased and repeated by others in similar fields.

At Marketo, I have the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated, smart, fun-loving people I have ever met. My iPhone camera roll and Snapchat stories are full of pictures of Marketo people—at dinner, at company events, and at events of our own invention, such as paint night and Giants games. As a team, we genuinely love spending time together and it has a huge positive influence on the quality of work that we produce. Marketo is an incredibly special place, and I’m grateful to have found my tribe.

4. Practice Self-Care

In this arena, something clicked for me in the past year. I used to eat well and exercise purely for optics—to fit into my clothes. Eventually, I realized that was a perfectly fine result of my efforts but certainly wasn’t my goal—I like to feel physically strong and energetic. When my nutrition and exercise schedule are locked down, I feel sharp, clear-headed, and less susceptible to outside influences changing my mood and focus. This tiny, 2mm, change shifted my internal conversation from “Get up and go work out so you’ll look good” to “Get up and go workout so you can be on your ‘A’ game and have the absolute best day at work”.

5. Pay It Forward

Arnold Schwarzenegger recently wrote a compelling foreword to Tim Ferriss’s latest book, Tools of Titans. In it, he talks about the myth of the self-made man. It is so easy to look at a successful person and give them all the credit for their status and accomplishments while glossing over every roadblock, failure, and frustration. However, no one is truly self-made. Each and every one of us, no matter where we are in our lives, have stood on many shoulders to get there. Every incredible athlete, executive, and top performer have had mentors, heroes, and coaches. It is impossible for one person to do everything. But each and every one of us can do a little bit to extend a hand and give someone a leg up. Look around your workplace. Find someone who reminds you of yourself or ever better someone who doesn’t, and go out of your way to serve as a sounding board, teacher, and champion. Ask just one thing of them: that they one day turn around and do the same for someone else.

So what should you do now? Surviving and thriving at work doesn’t have to be a daunting road. If it all feels like too much, you could always just go to Taco Bell.

OR…

Pour your favorite beverage, grab a bowl of popcorn, and settle in on the couch to watch Mean Girls for the first, tenth, or 30th time. Then come back and let me know what parallels you’ve found between the movie and real life. I’d love to hear from you!

The post 5 Ways to Survive and Thrive in a New Job appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 http://blog.marketo.com/2017/06/5-ways-survive-thrive-new-job.html

[zacdhaenkeau]

5 Ways to Survive and Thrive in a New Job

“Here. This map is going to be your guide to North Shore. Now, where you sit in the cafeteria is crucial, because you got everybody there…” — Janis Ian, Mean Girls

I try not to go more than a day without quoting Mean Girls, slyly adding “I have a fifth sense” or “Whatever, I’m getting cheese fries” into everyday conversation. A prospect and I once dissolved into hysterical laughter during a demo because they asked about a feature in Marketo and—true story, cross my heart—I replied “The limit does not exist!” without realizing what I’d just said.

The movie’s iconic status is no accident. Anything in the pop culture hall of fame gets staying power from deep emotional connection with loyal fans. The Mean Girls fan base, in particular, is interesting because I have yet to meet anyone, regardless of gender, age, or other identifying characteristics, who didn’t love this movie and find it deeply relatable (and quotable. So fetch.)

Over the past few years, I’ve been particularly interested in studying the nuances of human behavior, specifically decision-making, and power dynamics; topics that are both cleverly addressed throughout the movie.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s a quick summary: the main character goes from being home-schooled in Africa to attending a suburban Illinois high school. Hilarity ensues as she attempts to adjust, thrive, and make her way.

Like the Mean Girls main character, Cady Heron, when we start in a new workplace there are many things we need to adapt to as time goes on. Here are five lessons I’ve learned throughout my career so far that I believe will help you be successful in a new job.

1. Stand Back and Observe

It’s your first day at work. You’ve carefully picked out your outfit, received your laptop & badge, and filled out piles of paperwork. You’re sitting at your new desk, hopefully with some cool first-day branded swag. We are a social species, and it’s only natural to want to jump in and make friends right away. However, there is definitely something to be said for exercising caution. Observe different departments and how everyone interacts. What are the main team & individual priorities? What goals are they working towards? In your first 30, 60, and 90 days, what are the top areas to check off your onboarding list so you can help drive success and have a short time to impact?

The best advice I ever received in this arena: when you’re in a new role, soak up everything for one month. Shadow every call and show up to every meeting. Take copious notes. You’ll probably never read them again, but they work wonders for your retention and processing capabilities.

2. Play Full Out

I know I just suggested that you dip your toe into the water to test its temperature—from a relationship building and company dynamic perspective. This is because ‘playing full out’ is far more important when it comes to your actual role. In my first 6 weeks at Marketo, I hunkered down in various conference rooms with a few key mentors and increasingly large piles of typed notes, annotated with my scribble-cursive and yellow highlighter. My goal was simple: learn the product as fast as possible, get on calls, and close deals. I quickly realized that marketers spoke a foreign language to me (what is TOFU/MOFU/BOFU?) and that the hardest part of my job would be taking their questions, interpreting them, and mapping them to actual technology. Upon having this realization, I started to show up to every single sales call and write down, verbatim, every question that marketers asked, then read and re-read them until I understood them and could respond. I may not have been the most social co-worker during this time period, but I was playing full out as I ramped up in my role.

3. Find Some Friends

Don’t worry, I didn’t stay anti-social forever. I was just focused! Once I started joining sales calls and had some repetitions under my belt, I balanced my focus and growth with a truly extraordinary group of friends at Marketo. I firmly believe that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with—a philosophy often attributed to personal development expert Jim Rohn, but paraphrased and repeated by others in similar fields.

At Marketo, I have the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated, smart, fun-loving people I have ever met. My iPhone camera roll and Snapchat stories are full of pictures of Marketo people—at dinner, at company events, and at events of our own invention, such as paint night and Giants games. As a team, we genuinely love spending time together and it has a huge positive influence on the quality of work that we produce. Marketo is an incredibly special place, and I’m grateful to have found my tribe.

4. Practice Self-Care

In this arena, something clicked for me in the past year. I used to eat well and exercise purely for optics—to fit into my clothes. Eventually, I realized that was a perfectly fine result of my efforts but certainly wasn’t my goal—I like to feel physically strong and energetic. When my nutrition and exercise schedule are locked down, I feel sharp, clear-headed, and less susceptible to outside influences changing my mood and focus. This tiny, 2mm, change shifted my internal conversation from “Get up and go work out so you’ll look good” to “Get up and go workout so you can be on your ‘A’ game and have the absolute best day at work”.

5. Pay It Forward

Arnold Schwarzenegger recently wrote a compelling foreword to Tim Ferriss’s latest book, Tools of Titans. In it, he talks about the myth of the self-made man. It is so easy to look at a successful person and give them all the credit for their status and accomplishments while glossing over every roadblock, failure, and frustration. However, no one is truly self-made. Each and every one of us, no matter where we are in our lives, have stood on many shoulders to get there. Every incredible athlete, executive, and top performer have had mentors, heroes, and coaches. It is impossible for one person to do everything. But each and every one of us can do a little bit to extend a hand and give someone a leg up. Look around your workplace. Find someone who reminds you of yourself or ever better someone who doesn’t, and go out of your way to serve as a sounding board, teacher, and champion. Ask just one thing of them: that they one day turn around and do the same for someone else.

So what should you do now? Surviving and thriving at work doesn’t have to be a daunting road. If it all feels like too much, you could always just go to Taco Bell.

OR…

Pour your favorite beverage, grab a bowl of popcorn, and settle in on the couch to watch Mean Girls for the first, tenth, or 30th time. Then come back and let me know what parallels you’ve found between the movie and real life. I’d love to hear from you!

The post 5 Ways to Survive and Thrive in a New Job appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 http://blog.marketo.com/2017/06/5-ways-survive-thrive-new-job.html

[sualkmedeiors]

5 Ways to Survive and Thrive in a New Job

“Here. This map is going to be your guide to North Shore. Now, where you sit in the cafeteria is crucial, because you got everybody there…” — Janis Ian, Mean Girls

I try not to go more than a day without quoting Mean Girls, slyly adding “I have a fifth sense” or “Whatever, I’m getting cheese fries” into everyday conversation. A prospect and I once dissolved into hysterical laughter during a demo because they asked about a feature in Marketo and—true story, cross my heart—I replied “The limit does not exist!” without realizing what I’d just said.

The movie’s iconic status is no accident. Anything in the pop culture hall of fame gets staying power from deep emotional connection with loyal fans. The Mean Girls fan base, in particular, is interesting because I have yet to meet anyone, regardless of gender, age, or other identifying characteristics, who didn’t love this movie and find it deeply relatable (and quotable. So fetch.)

Over the past few years, I’ve been particularly interested in studying the nuances of human behavior, specifically decision-making, and power dynamics; topics that are both cleverly addressed throughout the movie.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s a quick summary: the main character goes from being home-schooled in Africa to attending a suburban Illinois high school. Hilarity ensues as she attempts to adjust, thrive, and make her way.

Like the Mean Girls main character, Cady Heron, when we start in a new workplace there are many things we need to adapt to as time goes on. Here are five lessons I’ve learned throughout my career so far that I believe will help you be successful in a new job.

1. Stand Back and Observe

It’s your first day at work. You’ve carefully picked out your outfit, received your laptop & badge, and filled out piles of paperwork. You’re sitting at your new desk, hopefully with some cool first-day branded swag. We are a social species, and it’s only natural to want to jump in and make friends right away. However, there is definitely something to be said for exercising caution. Observe different departments and how everyone interacts. What are the main team & individual priorities? What goals are they working towards? In your first 30, 60, and 90 days, what are the top areas to check off your onboarding list so you can help drive success and have a short time to impact?

The best advice I ever received in this arena: when you’re in a new role, soak up everything for one month. Shadow every call and show up to every meeting. Take copious notes. You’ll probably never read them again, but they work wonders for your retention and processing capabilities.

2. Play Full Out

I know I just suggested that you dip your toe into the water to test its temperature—from a relationship building and company dynamic perspective. This is because ‘playing full out’ is far more important when it comes to your actual role. In my first 6 weeks at Marketo, I hunkered down in various conference rooms with a few key mentors and increasingly large piles of typed notes, annotated with my scribble-cursive and yellow highlighter. My goal was simple: learn the product as fast as possible, get on calls, and close deals. I quickly realized that marketers spoke a foreign language to me (what is TOFU/MOFU/BOFU?) and that the hardest part of my job would be taking their questions, interpreting them, and mapping them to actual technology. Upon having this realization, I started to show up to every single sales call and write down, verbatim, every question that marketers asked, then read and re-read them until I understood them and could respond. I may not have been the most social co-worker during this time period, but I was playing full out as I ramped up in my role.

3. Find Some Friends

Don’t worry, I didn’t stay anti-social forever. I was just focused! Once I started joining sales calls and had some repetitions under my belt, I balanced my focus and growth with a truly extraordinary group of friends at Marketo. I firmly believe that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with—a philosophy often attributed to personal development expert Jim Rohn, but paraphrased and repeated by others in similar fields.

At Marketo, I have the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated, smart, fun-loving people I have ever met. My iPhone camera roll and Snapchat stories are full of pictures of Marketo people—at dinner, at company events, and at events of our own invention, such as paint night and Giants games. As a team, we genuinely love spending time together and it has a huge positive influence on the quality of work that we produce. Marketo is an incredibly special place, and I’m grateful to have found my tribe.

4. Practice Self-Care

In this arena, something clicked for me in the past year. I used to eat well and exercise purely for optics—to fit into my clothes. Eventually, I realized that was a perfectly fine result of my efforts but certainly wasn’t my goal—I like to feel physically strong and energetic. When my nutrition and exercise schedule are locked down, I feel sharp, clear-headed, and less susceptible to outside influences changing my mood and focus. This tiny, 2mm, change shifted my internal conversation from “Get up and go work out so you’ll look good” to “Get up and go workout so you can be on your ‘A’ game and have the absolute best day at work”.

5. Pay It Forward

Arnold Schwarzenegger recently wrote a compelling foreword to Tim Ferriss’s latest book, Tools of Titans. In it, he talks about the myth of the self-made man. It is so easy to look at a successful person and give them all the credit for their status and accomplishments while glossing over every roadblock, failure, and frustration. However, no one is truly self-made. Each and every one of us, no matter where we are in our lives, have stood on many shoulders to get there. Every incredible athlete, executive, and top performer have had mentors, heroes, and coaches. It is impossible for one person to do everything. But each and every one of us can do a little bit to extend a hand and give someone a leg up. Look around your workplace. Find someone who reminds you of yourself or ever better someone who doesn’t, and go out of your way to serve as a sounding board, teacher, and champion. Ask just one thing of them: that they one day turn around and do the same for someone else.

So what should you do now? Surviving and thriving at work doesn’t have to be a daunting road. If it all feels like too much, you could always just go to Taco Bell.

OR…

Pour your favorite beverage, grab a bowl of popcorn, and settle in on the couch to watch Mean Girls for the first, tenth, or 30th time. Then come back and let me know what parallels you’ve found between the movie and real life. I’d love to hear from you!

The post 5 Ways to Survive and Thrive in a New Job appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/modernb2bmarketing/~3/oHq8cQGh1Y4/5-ways-survive-thrive-new-job.html

[nothingman]

In turbulent times there is something emotionally powerful about reliability in and of itself. Facebook, for all its faults, is reliable. I can bet on Facebook being up and available more often than the Internet connection I rely on to access it. Hell, it works more reliably than my toilet. Changes to the site trigger cascades of stories and opinions about user experience which, really, goes to show how infrequently Facebook makes major alterations to core functions. You don’t have to like Facebook as a company or as a product to acknowledge that it is stable and works as intended more often that most other things. This transcendent reliability—a steadfast infrastructure of emotive communication and identity construction—has become Facebook’s core service. You may not like what you see in your timeline, but the timeline will be there.

Watching an organization embed itself into the lives of nearly a third of the global population is a strange thing. To be a common tread across all of those lives is to be as unthreatening or uncontroversial as possible. Conversely, it was only a matter of time before Facebook played host to something deeply disturbing like a murder, or even world-changing like a reactionary election. This tension between striving for unassuming background service and inevitable host to calamity goes a long way towards explaining why Mark Zuckerberg is traveling across the U.S and writing 6,000-word manifestos about community, despite the fact that most Facebook users aren’t Americans and Facebook is not a community. Shoring up good will in the most powerful nation on the planet is not only good business, it is tapping into a tradition of American progressivism that is so embedded in our daily lives we can’t recognize it when we see it enacted. It is the water we swim in and Mark Zuckerberg wants to tint it Facebook blue.

It is no secret that Facebook would like to be the mediator of most people’s everyday life, American or not. A video of an anti-immigration protest on Facebook Live is meant to sit next to a Pepe meme, just above a photo of a high school friend’s second baby, and a status update about your cousin’s new job. This is the ultimate goal of a platform: to be an essential enabling technology but not the star of the show. It is the stage, not the performer. The road, not the car. Reliability is necessary for such a technology but it also needs to project an air of objectivity or impartiality: a fading into the background and a foregrounding of everything else.

Such a move—being the mediator or affording mechanism for behavior rather than its explicit progenitor or advocate—is a familiar governing strategy with a good success rate. When the World Bank found itself beset on all sides by growing social movements they completely changed their strategy, acting less like a bank that was aggressively perusing international loan agreements, and started acting like a think tank. The sociologist Michael Goldman in his book Imperial Nature describes today’s World Bank as “the world’s main producer of concepts, data, analytic frameworks, and policies on the environment” and is actively cultivating an image as “the world’s most powerful environmentalist, teaming up with prominent NGOs, scientific institutions, borrowing states, and Northern aid agencies.”

Instead of being a political actor with its own identifiable sets of interests and goals, the World Bank rightly saw an easier path as a promoter (and subsequent beneficiary) of neoliberal ideas and policy. Why convince a single deposable dictator to take out a loan when you can be invited by a parliament to rewrite environmental protection laws? Facebook and its CEO-avatar Mark Zuckerberg are in the process of doing something very similar. Facebook is a monopolistic media agglomeration whose hunger for personal data is enough to swallow the world, but it would rather be seen as a cultural force for living publicly in a metropolitan world.

Back in 2010, before he wanted everyone to know he slaughtered his own meat, and well before Zuckerberg had hired a cadre of presidential campaign staffers, he told an audience at the Crunchie Awards that social norms were moving away from privacy and towards more open sharing. He was right that ideas of privacy and publicity are historically contingent and constantly changing, but he described Facebook’s role as “reflecting” rather than shaping those values. Predictably, few people outside of those that go to events with “Crunchie” in the title were convinced. Some pointed to the obvious fact that Facebook benefits from more promiscuous sharing while others like dana boyd reminded readers that notions of privacy and publicity not only change over time, but they are radically different for different kinds of people.

Regardless of whether you thought Zuckerberg was right, wrong, or thinking too simply about the subject, it was clear that commenting on sharing habits directly caused too many people to be cognizant of privacy in the first place. Just as Nixon’s “I am not a crook” made him seem guilty, Zuckerberg came off as someone who wanted to change your privacy habits, not passively respond to them. Conferences, blogs, news segments, and entire books about social media’s privacy invasion were being produced at a steady clip between 2010 and 2015. Still though, Facebook’s active user base ballooned from 600 million to over a billion.

Privacy concerns were obviously not enough to keep people off of Facebook, but it did take a toll on what got shared and individuals’ emotional relationship to the platform. There were stories and studies about why and how Facebook makes you unhappy and while causation is unclear, it was also about this time that it was revealed that, people were giving Facebook less personal data. (At least Facebook thought that news sharing habits weren’t a means of sharing personal feelings, and maybe still doesn’t, but that’s another story.) The company’s biggest challenge shifted from expanding territory, to governing the population it had amassed in 15 short years.

Facebook is so big that it actually makes sense to intervene in society to keep it compatible with the service. It is the same logic of powerful actors that Henry Kissinger was referring to when he infamously told the author Dinesh D’Souza that “America has no permanent friends, only interests.” Despite being constitutive of “friends” Facebook is animated by the interests of the platform. Those interests are less about material conditions necessary for its survival (though perhaps this is only the case because those conditions are not under threat) and more about the perception of its brand as a non-ideological container for life’s events. If Americans are divided, so are the 79 percent of them that use Facebook. And if Americans see Facebook as a partisan in any of our major debates, they stand to lose a great deal. Facebook wants to host happy people sharing likeable things, not waring factions pumping out propaganda. To be clear, it is good at doing both, but there is much more money to be made in polite, mediated conversation than political screeds. (The latter rarely divulges your favorite place to brunch.)

While Facebook’s interests clearly lie in a globalized society of happy people sharing their lives with one another in a machine-readable format purchasable to advertisers, they cannot say that or openly advocate for such a world. That is probably why Zuckerberg, as Obama and Hilary Clinton speech writer Joe Lovett observed in a recent Buzzfeed article, “sounds like a senator in his fourth term.” His comments are anodyne, crafted to not offend nor arouse anyone. Zuckerberg cannot effectively advocate for a progressive society or he’ll run into the same problems he had in 2010. Instead, he must enact his politics thereby making it seem as though you are buying into a calm, happy life when using Facebook, without all of the globalist baggage. Zuckerberg must, paradoxically, campaign for an ideology so as to keep his company seeming non-ideological. To date no ideology is as good at denying its own existence than good old fashioned liberalism forged in the Progressive Era.

If you took a history course in an American high school you probably read about the Progressive Era. For about a generation, beginning in 1890 America saw massive changes in civil society, among them the brief prohibition of alcohol, women’s suffrage, antitrust laws, the rise of labor unions, and public health initiatives. It was a moment, not unlike this one, where data and the scientific method were being applied to brand new sectors of society. Economics, political science, and sociology vied for top posts in advising government officials, businesses were seeking out new means of organization through scientific management (aka Taylorism), and governments would list eugenics along with vaccines and public baths as means of making their populations healthier and more productive.

By far the least exciting but perhaps longest-lasting reform of the Progressive Era was a push toward the professionalization and bureaucratization of government. Today, it is near-impossible to imagine anyone getting excited about managers. It is even harder to conceive of a political movement centered on the idea that the world needs more management, credentialing, and certification. Quite often we see the opposite: a talking head on TV or someone at the end of the bar complaining about the stifling restrictions brought on by bureaucracy, regulation, and paper-pushers. It is notable then, that in America, with all its pretentions of individuality and ruggedness we would find a social movement dedicated to installing managers in all aspects of our lives.

If your local government has a city manager or if your city council members run without endorsement from a political party, you are living in a community that was deeply influenced by the Progressive Era. Managers and professionals were seen as the antidote to corrupt party bosses that played favorites and took bribes. If your job needed a credential, and the office you held had clearly defined rules that were written down, you could be objectively evaluated and conceivably be fired if you did not perform your duties. “The ‘objective’ discharge of business” wrote Max Weber in his Politics as a Vocation “primarily means a discharge of business according to calculable rules and ‘without regard for persons.’”

Weber, writing in Germany at the very beginning of the bureaucratization of western governments, also knew that the shift from overtly political governance to professionalized administration could create power centers. Bureaucracies’ tendency toward secrecy and consolation of power were a part of their “material nature.” To carry out their missions, whether that is to issue drivers’ licenses or keep Facebook’s uptime at 99.9%, means amassing as much resources to carry out that mission while in competition with other organizations within a state system or market. Their most prized possession and only leverage in this competition is the accumulated skill and information they possess. Weber even went so far as to say that ‘The absolute monarch is powerless opposite the superior knowledge of the bureaucratic expert.”

Thinking of Zuckerberg as the head of a functioning bureaucratic system, indeed the only one that seems to be working at the moment, makes a lot of inexplicable things fall into place. Is he running for President? Conducting a PR campaign for his company? Nothing quite seems to explain all of his actions because, as Nitasha Tiku wrote in the same Buzzfeed article that compares him to a seasoned senator, “There are easier ways to appear woke than traveling across the country to talk about Facebook’s weak spots.” Tiku puts her money on a third option: “He wants to win over the world to help his philanthropic interests.” This makes sense since it requires exactly what he is doing on his trip around the U.S.: appeals to the material interests of the rich and the sentiments of everyone else.

What exactly those philanthropic interests are though, seem vague. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (named after Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan) is an LLC, not a non-profit, and has been acquiring companies as it seeks to “advance human potential and promote equality.” It is certainly possible that Zuckerberg could run for president in 2020 on a platform of creative destruction making way for reliable technocratic systems like Facebook, but if the history of the Progressive Era has taught us anything, it is that the big winners stay out of politics all-together and make fiefdoms of bureaucratic control. No one exemplifies that lesson like the brash believer in meritocracy that built modern New York City: Robert Moses.

Mark Zuckerberg will be our generation’s Robert Moses. Fueled by a deep belief in rational systems’ ability to reward the best with power over the rest, Moses commanded massive budgets, built enormous public works projects, and never ran for a single elected office. Instead, he was able to amass funds through the authority to levy tolls on his many bridges and gained populist appeal through the hundreds of parks he had built across New York State. A child of the Progressive Era who lived long enough to become its antithesis—a powerful bureaucrat accountable to no one who championed the white well-off families of Long Island over the poor immigrant families in the city—Moses wielded bureaucracy and technocratic authority the way Obama could use rhetorical flourish and moral authority. He was a master of the craft and changed what it meant to use it.

Zuckerberg could carve out a similar role for himself on a bigger scale. CZI could morph into a dual power organization: something as powerful as a government and capable of providing similar services using a parallel set of bureaucratic tools and procedures. Through the acquisition of companies in different sectors and the establishment of public-private partnerships, Zuckerberg could rival the power of a president with the added benefit of choosing his jurisdiction. If protracted war in the Middle East has no foreseeable benefit to CZI’s social mission, then it simply opts out of the discussion.

What is less speculative and more likely though, is that CZI and Zuckerberg himself are deployed by existing political actors as the last best example of what the Progressive Era promised and what today’s Democratic Party wants to be seen as: stewards of a rational, meritocratic society capable of administrating grand projects for large populations. The danger in either scenario is that Zuckerberg follows Moses’  career trajectory too closely. If that happens he would be someone that, as Jane Jacobs wrote in Fortune Magazine, “loves the public but hates the people.”

David is on Twitter: @da_banks. 

via Cyborgology