#work is taking about all of my Negative Experiences effort. i got none to spare for Anything else!

[orcelito]

ive got an exam in a bit over an hour and im cramming for it bc i spent all of yesterday thinking about trigun instead of studying. whatup

[la5t-res0rt]

this was written several weeks ago in response to asks i was receiving i am posting it now it is very long the longest i have ever made and it is not very well edited but here it is in this final essay i talk about how shitty rae is about black people in her writing as well as just me talking about how her writing sucks in general lets begin

hello everyone 

as you may know i have received a lot of anons in the last week or so about issues of racism in the beetlejuice community both just generally speaking and also within specific spaces 

i was very frustrated to not be getting the answers i wanted because i typically do not talk about what i do not see but in an effort to be better about discourse i went looking through discourse from before my time in the fandom and i also received some receipts and information from my followers and from some friends

keep in mind that the voices and thoughts of bipoc are not only incredibly important at all times but in this circumstance it is important that if a bipoc has something to add you listen and learn and be better

i admit that when this happened i wasnt aware of the extent of what occurred and im angry at myself for not doing more at that time and i want to work harder to make sure something like this doesnt go unnoticed again

im a hesitant to talk about months old discourse because i have been criticized for bringing up quote old new unquote but this is very important and i am willing to face whatever comes from to me

lets talk about this

content from our local racist idiot that may be months old but its important

putting my thoughts under a cut to spare the dash but before i begin obviously this is awful

lets fucking unpack this folks

right out the gate op states that she supports artistic freedom but then within a couple words she goes against that statement

being entirely canon compliant isnt artistic freedom and even so if this person has so much respect for canon they wouldnt be out here erasing lydias obvious disgust for beetlejuice in the movie or ignoring lydias age for the sake of shipping that shit isnt canon either 

also we love the quick jab at the musical there hilarious we love it dont we because god forbid a licensed and successful branch on a media have any standing in this conversation but whatever

now lets scroll down and talk about the term racebending

the term racebending was coined around 2009 in response to the avatar the last airbender movie a film in which the east asian races of the characters were erased by casting white actors in the three leading roles of aang sokka and katara 

whenever the term racebending is used in a negative light it is almost always a case of whitewashing like casting scarlett johansen in ghost in the shell or the casting of white actors of the prince of persia sands of time instead of iranian ones

this kind of racebending erases minorities from beeing seen in media and is wrong

all that being said however racebending has also been noted to have very positive after effects like the 1997 adaptation of cinderella or casting samuel jackson as nick fury in the marvel movies nick fury was originally a white guy can you even imagine

i read this piece from an academic that said quote writers can change the race and cultural specificity of central characters or pull a secondary character of color from the margins transforming them into the central protagonist unquote

racebending like the kind that rae is so heated about is the kind of creative freedom that leads to more representation of bipoc in media which will never be a bad thing ever no matter how pissy you get about it

designing a version of a character as a poc isnt serving to make them necessarily better it serves to give new perspective and perhaps the opportunity to connect even more deeply with a character it doesnt marginalize or erase white people it can uplift poc and if you think uplifting poc is wrong because it tears down white people or whatever youre a fucking moron and you need to get out of your podunk white folk town and see the real world

the numbers of times a bipoc particularly a bipoc that is also lgbt+ has been represented in media are dwarfed by what i as a white dude have seen myself represented in media is and that isnt okay that isnt equality and its something that should change not only in mainstream media but in fandom spaces as well

lets move down a bit further to the part about bullying straight people which is hilarious and lets also talk about the term fetishistic as well lets start with that

this person literally writes explicit pornography of a minor and an adult are we really going to let someone like that dictate what is and what isnt fetishistic

similarly to doing a positive racebend situation people may project lgbt+ headcanons on a character because its part of who they are and it helps them feel closer to the character and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that

depicting lgbt+ subject matter on existing characters isnt an inherently fetishistic action generally things only really become fetishistic when the media is being crafted and hyped by people who are outside of lgbt+ community for example how young teens used to flip a tit about yaoi or how chasers fetishize trans people

but drawing a character with top surgery scars or headcanoning them as trans is harmless and its just another way to interpret a character literally anone could be trans unless if their character bio says theyre cis and most of them dont go that deep so it really is open to interpretation and on the whole most creators encourage this sort of exploration because it is a good thing to get healthy representation out in the world

as for it being used to bully straights thats just funny i dont have anything else on that like if youre straight and you feel threatened and bullied because of someone headcanoning someone as anything that isnt cishet youre a fucking idiot and a weak baby idiot at that like the real world must fucking suck for you because lgbt+ people are everywhere and statistically a big chunk of your favorite characters arent cishet sorry be mad about it

lets roll down a bit further about the big meat of the issue which was when several artists were drawing interpretations of lydia as a black girl which i loved but clearly this person didnt love it because they have a very narrow and very racist and problematic view of what it means to be a black person

and before i move forward i must reiderate that i am a white person and you should listen to the thoughts of poc people like @fright-of-their-lives​ or @gender-chaotic it is not my place to explain what the black experience is like and it certainly isnt this persons either

implying that the story of a black person isnt worth telling unless if the character faces struggles like racism and prejudice is downright moronic 

why use the word kissable to describe a black persons lips now thats what i call fetishistic and its to another extreme if youre talking about a black version of lydia on top of that

the author of this post says herself that shes white so clearly shes the person whos an authority on the black experience and what it means to be a black person right am i reading that right or am i having a fucking conniption

how about allowing black characters to exist without having to struggle why cant a black version of lydia just be a goth teenager with a ghost problem who likes photography and is also black like she doesnt have to move to a hick town and get abused by racist folks she doesnt have to go through any more shit than she already goes through and if you honestly think thats the only way to tell a black persons story you need to get your brain cleaned

you know nothing about the complexities about being a black person and i dont either but you know wh odo black people who are doing black versions of canon characters they fucking know 

lets squiggle down just a bit further 

so the writer has issues with giving characters traits like a broad nose or larger lips if theyre a woman but if theyre a man suddenly its totally okay to go all ryan murphy ahs coven papa legba appropriation when approaching character design like are you fucking stupid do you hear yourself is that really how you see black men like what the fuck is wrong with you

none of the shit youre spewing takes bravery it takes ignorance and supreme levels of stupidity

do you really think you with your fic where a black lgbt+ woman is tortured and abused where you use the n word with a hard r to refer to her like that shits not okay its fucking depraved and yeah we know you love being shitty but like christ on a bike thats so much 

can we also talk about this

what the fuck is this fetishistic bull roar garbage calling this black character beyonce dressing her up in quote fuck me heels unquote are you are you seriously gonna write this and say its a shining example of how to write a black character youre basically saying ope here she is shes a sex icon haha im so progressive and i clealry understand the black experience hahahaha fuck you oh my god

on top of that theres a point where this character is only referred to as curly hair or the fact that the n word is used in the fic with the hard r like thats hands down not okay for you to use especially not in a manner like this jesus christ

oop heres a little more a sampling for you of the hell i am enduring in reading this drivel

oh boy lets put a leash on the angry black woman character lets put her in a leash and have the man imply hes a master like are you kidding me are you for real and what the fuck is with calling her shit like j lo and beyonce do you actually think thats clever at all are you just thinking of any poc that comes into your head for this 

also lydia fucking tells this girl that she shouldnt have lost her temper like she got fucking leashed im so tired why is this writing so problematic and also so bad

hold up before i lose my head lets look at some of her own comments on the matter of this character and what happens to her

hi hello youre just casually tossing the word lynch out there in the wide open world as if thats not a problem that is still real like are you fucking unhinged there have been multiple cases of this exact thing happening in our firepit of a country in the last five months alone like how can you still have shit like this up for people to read how can you be proud of work like this in this climate

and also what the fuck is that last bit 

what the actual fuck

i dont speak for black people as a white person but you do!? im sorry i had to get my punctuation out for that because wow thats fucking asinine just because one black person read your fic and didnt find the torture and abuse of your one black character abhorrant doesnt mean that the vast majority of people not only in the fandom but in the human population with decency are going to think its okay because its not 

i started this post hoping to be level headed and professional but jesus fucking christ this woman is something else white nationalism is alive and well folks and its name is rae

if you defend this woman you defend some truly abhorrant raecism

editors notes 

in order to get some perspective on these issues more fully some of the writing by the author was examined and on the whole it was pretty unreadable but i want to just call back to the very beginning of this essay where the person in question talked about holding canon in high regard but then in their writing they just go around giving people magic and shit and ignoring the end of the movie entirely like are you canon compliant or nah 

the writing doesnt even read like beetlejuice fanfic it reads as self indulgent fiction you could easily change the names and its just a bad fanfic from 2007

also can we talk about writing the lesbian character as an angry man hater like its 2020 dude and als olets touch on that girl on girl pandering while beetlejuice is just there like here we go fetishizing again wee

i cant find a way to work this into this already massive post but

im going to throw up

okay so thats a lot we have covered a lot today and im sure my ask box will regret it but this definitely should have been more picked apart when it happened

please feel free to add more to this i would love more perspectives than just my own.

[impossible-rat-babies]

For the @dadrunkwriting monthly prompt “oh no we’re stuck here!” Funny enough most of this came from some very old writing I did back in 2016 that I’ve held onto for several years now. I changed a great deal of it around, but it’s still very interesting to compare between my writing skill then and now.

Pavellan | 2445 words | some character introspection really + pining

--

Elven ruins would be fun, he had said. On top of the searching for any references as to why Corphyeus was ransacking them all over Thedas, it would be fun to see a slice of history and ancient magic. Hopefully without any negative side effects, but luck was rarely if ever on their side. Dorian was kidding himself; luck was rarely on their sides, especially taking Darva anywhere. He was a magnet for anything and everything going wrong. It shouldn't have surprised him that much when they stepped into some little alcove--at his behest--that some magical switch or another would trigger and drop a rather large stone door over the entrance.

Sera had yelled, let out some ungodly sound with the cacophonous crash. Both Cassandra had tried to grab to lift it open, but it was a futile effort in the face of thousands of pounds of rock. He should have seen it coming, but hindsight was only kind in the pitch black dark and the sure feeling that they were completely and utterly stuck.

"This is the most excitement we've ever gotten out of these old ruins." Dorian grumbled, listening to Darva still fussing about the door, cursing under his breath. Dorian ran his hands down his face, a heavy sigh escaping him.

"Could be more exciting if you could make some light to see how much fun my face is having." Darva mumbled, abandoning the door to yank his helmet off. He shook his head, pulling down the wrap around his hair.

"Oh I'm sure it is utterly delightful." Dorian replied and Darva squinted at the sudden spot of flame in Dorian’s hand. It casted shadows across the whole of the small enclosed room and onto Darva’s scrunched up face.

"You look more like you're going to sneeze. And your hair is a mess." He noted and Darva huffed, tucking his helmet under his arm to ruffle his hair. It only served to make the curls poofier, which looked not unlike a strange bird nest on top of Darva’s head.

"You're impossible..." He muttered under his breath, turning back to the door. “At least Sera and Cass saw it happen, so hopefully they'll figure something out." He heaved and sigh and ran his fingers down his face.

"It was the magic that affected it, I’d wager...do we still have that bet going? On how your extraordinary bad luck is magical?" Dorian asked, a hint of cheekiness in his tone.

"My bad luck isn’t magical; it’s as you put once: you're simply a complete and utter fool a great deal of the time." Darva replied with a wave of his hand and Dorian rolled his eyes.

“You’re far too charming with your ability to make friends and be...friendly with everyone to be that much of a fool.” Dorian spoke and Darva chuckled, glancing over at him with his green eyes reflecting in the dim light.

“Do I have you all fooled then? Because it rather feels like the blind leading the blind.” Darva mocked him and Dorian scoffed.

They'd been traveling all across Thedas for months now, following threads of rumors on who was planning to kill the Empress and what was going on with the Wardens. Only slivers of leads, but a small lead was better than nothing, even if it took them to the strangest places. Deserts had left Sera with a terrible sunburn she whined about for weeks and sand still in the pockets and crevices of old gear. Many pairs of boots had been ruined by rain and mud seeping into the leather, others worn to the barest sole from sliding and skidding across rocky ground and putting one foot in front of the other. Countless whetstones and spare cloth had been used to sharpen daggers and swords alike; hundreds of broken bow strings had nearly costed Sera her eye, but each time it happened she laughed and got to work restringing her bow. There was little around but the four of them on the long treks, only the four of them to talk to, to keep entertained. There was only so much “sightseeing” one could do before it as mind numbing. Camps in the wilderness left little to entertain them beyond talking to each other or making a game to pass the time; none of them quite had Varric’s talent for stories, but Sera still tried and they were all plenty good enough at cards even with Darva cheating. Even more so after he had taught Sera how to cheat too.

It was a strange collection they had, the company that was presented as the Inquisition, but they were trying their best. It was all anyone could ask of them, all that could be asked of Darva.

“Best not let them hear you say that, or the facade of their great leader in shining armor would be ruined.” Dorian jested and Darva laughed.

“Yes, the wicked skill and integrity of a dalish elf with zero leadership experiences. They should all be disappointed.” Darva remarked, his tone skirting the line between jest and genuine self deprecation. A narrow line.

“You’re selling yourself awful short. I’ve never quite met a man so set on exploring ruins, even if they might kill you. A wondrous shame to die alongside you in a horrid ruin." Dorian spoke, letting the flame go. It rose up to the ceiling, casting a pale orange light all across the small alcove.

“At least dying would be for a good cause. You could be a martyr, Dorian! Even if your magic is the one to blame.” Darva joked, plopping down among the dirt and grime, examining and picking his nails.

"Hardly my fault if the ruins decide that magic isn’t their forte." He resigned himself and grimaced at the ground. He would rather sit than stand, even if the ground was rather...ghastly. He sat himself down beside Darva, almost close enough to touch--to reach out and brush fingers against skin.

“Oh? Where is all that pride in your great and wondrous skill in magic?” Darva smirked and Dorian rolled his eyes, tucking his staff against his neck, resting his hands on the haft.

"Now you're just making fun of me." He huffed.

"I am not." Darva insisted and Dorian’s face curled, mustache raising in indignation. "Well, only half making fun of you, but I’m being honest." Darva patted Dorian's thigh, his hand drifting away before the shock of the simple touch wore off. Dorian cursed his reaction, how it felt like electricity on his skin with just the simplest touch; it was a simple reassurance, nothing more. A touch from...a friend to a friend, nothing more. Not all it took to break the thought from his head, but enough for his reaction to quiet.

"You flatter with reckless abandon, I’ll have you know.” Dorian replied quickly and Darva snorted.

“It only means something if you’re honest about it.” Darva pointed out. “Which I was in this case. And I do learn from the best.”

"You know you do have a tone for that and it’s a sickeningly sweet flattering tone. Perfect for the ladies who flirt with you with reckless abandon." Dorian remarked and Darva laughed, bright and warm, like sunlight in the depths of summer. It never failed to color Dorian’s cheeks, light up the little places in his chest.

"Never going to get anything past you, hm?” Darva raised a brow and his lips curved to a grin just so. Dorian casted his eyes away, ears burning. Always and forever foolish notions bubbling in his head.

“Maybe, if we ever get out of here.” Dorian leaned his head back against the stone, neither warm nor cool to the touch, almost tingling against his skin. Old elvish places were full of magic, just crackling below the surface.

"You think they forgot?" Darva wondered, lips quirking. He had no clue how long they had been sitting in the dark, alcove room. His butt was numb and Dorian fussed with his mustache, tweaking the ends over and over in a nervous tick.

"I would hope not.” Dorian sighed, drumming his fingers against his staff haft. The flame bobbed steadily above them, carried by the air still flowing into the chamber. It hardly seemed designed to choke them, but dying in other ways was much less enjoyable.

"You don't have to keep the light on, you know. I can imagine it gets exhausting..." Darva told him and he put his hands on his knees, willing his legs to stand. He shook out his ankles, gingerly rubbing the numb out of his butt.

"It makes it feel less like the temple is going to trap us here forever and kill us." Dorian droned and Darva sighed, rocking from one foot to the other, hip to hip.

"Cheery thought..." He brushed himself off and looked back at the imposing block of stone that had blocked their way.

"Maybe it's a puzzle or something." He added, looking at the stones. "Not like any of the temples give you their secrets readily, but the ancient elves were fond of puzzles." He mused, biting his finger as he scanned the patterns of the stone. A nervous habit of his own.

"Might as well give it a try." Dorian blew a sigh out of his nose, watching as Darva’s foot tapped on the ground, fingers fidgeting.

How he was going to figure it out was beyond Dorian; he didn’t necessarily doubt Darva's abilities, but skepticism wasn't unwarranted. Darva could be foolish, but many would be fools to think he was stupid. He had a head on his shoulders, one capable of frightening amounts of determination. Dorian had witnessed it when he took the burden of leading the Inquisition, taking the struggles of it in stride with a half grin on his face, saying it was another adventure along the way. Or even back when Haven was destroyed when Cassandra and Cullen carried him half frozen into the camp, lips and ears a deep blue, shivering all over, but eyes still open. Struggling to stay open, but still open.

"Indulge me, will you Darva?" Dorian questioned and Darva took a moment, foot still tapping on the floor.

"What'cha got?" He replied, eyes still on the stonework.

"You didn’t want to be Inquisitor, but you took it up anyway. You didn’t go running, or leave when you could have. You kept going. Why?" Dorian asked, watching as Darva looked all around the stonework. The silence stretched on and on between them until Darva finally spoke up.

"Combination: conscience, and making it up along the way. No one else was going to do it, so I decided I was going to do it. I don’t want to be a savior. I’m just helping people." He spoke surprisingly sincerely, his focus still on the stones as he mouthed numbers and pressed against them.

Dorian chuckled in disbelief. "Just like that then? You make choices that influence the whole world and the future of it by making it up along the way and doing it because no one else will?" He pressed and Darva shrugged, putting his hands on his hips.

"I may be oversimplifying it. There are people around whom I rely on to help make choices. Informed ones hopefully. Leliana gives me reports, plus Josephine does a lot of the heavy lifting. Plus you. You do read to me in fact.”

"Giving me as much credit as them? What will people think?” Dorian snickered and Darva laughed quietly.

"Right? Mother Giselle would have a heart attack." Darva shook his head, his grin lopsided--his big tell on his genuine enjoyment.

"But, still," Darva cleared his throat, "you are a mage, which I am not, and you have insight and abilities the other Mages in the Inquisition do not have. You are also from Tevinter, and there is a rather large lack of such opinions in the Inquisition.” Darva explained.

“An opinion many would not want.” Dorian reminded him and Darva gave a casual shrug as if the weight of the statement ran right off of him.

“You are Tevene, but not all Tevene people are you.” Darva reminded him, giving him a pointed look. “You hardly meet the expectation of the horrifying legend the south has built up. You want to do good and to help the people you care about. You have faith in them--in how they can be better. You haven’t sat idly by. You’ve risked everything to help people who don’t even like you, Dorian.” Darva spoke quietly, keen eyes watching Dorian the whole time.

“I value your opinion highly.” He concluded, looking back at the stones. Quiet filed the space between them and Dorian sat in it, unsure of what to say next. Genuine praise from a man who was rarely genuine, who hid much of that behind a mask of niceties, of strained happy looks. He bore the burdens as well, but underneath Dorian saw the cracks--the strain. 

It was easy to see, seeing how they shared that much between them.

“You are selling yourself awfully short as well, Darva.”

Darva turned back, brow raising with a question on his lips.

“Playing the paying a compliment back game?” Darva asked, something in his tone, something in his eyes: skepticism, frustration.

“No.” Dorian spoke plainly, meeting Darva’s eyes. He pushed himself up, only a few short steps to reach him. “I am being honest and genuine. Not many could do what you are doing, and you are doing it well. You’ve been trusted to this position and you’ve worn it well. It’s...brave.” Dorian spoke plainly--plainer than Darva had ever heard him speak before. No gimmicks hiding behind his teeth, or testing the boundaries of it in his eyes.

Darva managed a half chuckle, looking away from Dorian. “I keep expecting a joke. Genuine honesty in hard to come by, I’ll have you know.” Darva half grinned and Dorian snickered.

“It’s strange to say, I’ll have you know.” A faint smile twisted Dorian’s face and Darva chuckled.

“Well I do rather appreciate genuine Dorian honesty.” Darva gently reached out, lightly patting his hand against Dorian’s chest, fingers lingering longer than they needed to--longer than appropriate.

But it only took a second for Darva to pull his hand away, for the touch to end and the intimacy that came with it. The warmth snuffed out, as quick as flame with a cover pulled over it. Only smoke remained, the touch still felt.

“We’re going to get out of here.” Darva spoke to clear the smoke, the embers dying back to nothing once more. 

[cameronomicon]

Year One

On a hot Saturday in May of 2012, my ex and I found ourselves in sudden, standstill traffic. We were on our way out to West Covina to meet a dog named Hank who we were considering for adoption, but as the minutes passed and the horns blared it became increasingly likely that we might not make it there at all.

“Do you just want to go home? We can cancel,” I said, irritated.

“No, let’s go. We should meet him.” 

Traffic eventually eased and we made our way east, where we met Hank in the parking lot of a Petco. Erin fell in love with him immediately. I was less charmed but I thought he would make a good addition to our family. We brought him home later that day, renamed him Bodie, and he’s been my pal ever since.

In the summer of 2018, six incredibly long years later, I was in a free fall. Erin and I had divorced and I was living with Bodie in a small studio apartment. Work was chaos, and negativity and self-hatred ruled me absolutely. Alcoholism, combined with weed smoking and burgeoning Xanax abuse, had taken control of my waking life. I had begun to drink in the morning and spent nearly every minute of each weekend completely fucked up. The darkness and despair that I felt was inescapable, like I was trying to outrun the shadow of a sunset.

If it hadn’t been for Bodie, I would have tried to kill myself. The obligation to stick around to take care of him was very powerful, even though I thought about dying every single day. I actually messaged my ex to ask if she would promise to take care of him if anything ever happened to me, since that wasn’t written out anywhere in our divorce. Though I tried to word this as casually as possible, I can’t imagine how bizarre the message must have read.

I mention all of this because that one decision in May 2012, to not turn back despite sudden and unexpected obstacles, likely saved my life. Funny how things work out.

*

When you’re reading this, I’ve been sober for one year. I’m writing it beforehand, which might seem like tempting fate for anyone who has experience with addiction. I believe I will get there, but if you never see this, I guess I didn’t make it.

The past 365 days mark the longest period of continuous sobriety I have managed since I first tried to clean up about 14 years ago. I was able to stay sober for one or two years from 2006-2007, but I will admit that there were times I got drunk during those periods even though I claimed continuous sobriety. I think that’s the first time I’ve ever admitted this.

To say that alcoholism blindsided me would be a lie. I knew from the first buzz that something was different, because alcohol felt like the most incredible gift I’d ever received. Something inside my brain exploded, sending brilliance and beauty and confidence all throughout me. I was, as I’ve said many times before, finally comfortable in my own skin. I would spend the next 16 years trying to get this feeling back. I never did. No one ever does.

I would like to tell you that getting sober is a ticket to happiness for an alcoholic or addict, but unfortunately it is not. One reason that sobriety is so hard and why so many people fail is because life continues on regardless of us. When we take away the things that we relied on to kill the fear, anxiety, or pain we would have experienced otherwise, we are left feeling utterly defenseless. It is much easier for me to obliterate my feelings with alcohol than to process what it means to live and succeed and fail and fuck up and love and lose and simply exist in the world. To paraphrase what many have said: quitting drinking is easy, living life is the hard part. This is my way of saying that the past year has been very difficult.

I’ve thought about drinking many times, especially during bouts of severe depression, which have mercifully been in short supply. But the urge to destroy is real, and I’ve thought that if I do go back to drinking I should make sure to get enough so that it will kill me. It scares me to think how easy it would be. 

These thoughts always pass, which is the best kept secret in the world for an alcoholic. In the moment, the thought extends forever in front of you, an endless ribbon of road that is impossible to reckon with let alone travel, and the only thing to do--the inevitable thing to do--is to drink. But I am always wrong. The thought, the urge, passes. The traffic eases. The mirage dissolves before my eyes, always. It will for you, too, if you’re struggling.

What sobriety has given me is freedom. Unless you’ve experienced it firsthand either in your own struggle or in that of a loved one, it can be hard to understand just how much of an alcoholic’s life is devoted to the stuff. The act of drinking consumes only a small fraction of the energy expended in this pursuit; far more intensive are the efforts to acquire booze in sufficient amounts (and at different locations if you’re trying to preserve your dignity), the internal battle with feelings of guilt and shame, and the absolutely titanic task of hiding it all from the rest of the world. It is fucking stressful. I am free of all of that now, and it is an incredible gift. Even on the worst days I am able to live my life unshackled to alcohol. I carry no plastic shopping bags chirping with empty bottles to the recycling bin anymore. I do not double over in panic when faced with simple challenges. The successes, the failures, the highs and lows--they all belong to me now. 

For whoever needs to hear this, freedom is also possible for you. You deserve that life, even if you think you don’t. You deserve to be free. 

*

I remain deeply flawed. I still act unthinkingly and spend my time more selfishly than I should. I’m still impatient, petty, and I cling to a few resentments which do nothing but poison my soul. I’m crass and lazy. Most days I find myself feeling shattered and disoriented, like I’ve been in hibernation for the past decade and have just emerged to a life where I feel completely out of place. But I’m trying to be better. Even if I fail, I will continue to try to become myself. I will redefine or rediscover what it means to be a person who exists with this world, not despite it.

Year one is just the beginning, and god willing I have a long journey ahead of me. My body is healed, my mind is sharper, my spirit is strong, but none of this is guaranteed beyond the boundary of any given day. Sometimes I take that for granted. But I am grateful for the gift of a free life. I hope I don’t blow it.

As I’m writing this, the windows are open and a warm summer breeze fills the apartment. It’s quiet outside, which is a welcome change from the usual. There is a calmness to everything around me. This time last year, the blinds would have been tightly drawn, the lights turned out, and even though the air conditioner was running constantly, I was likely drenched in sweat. I often vomited what I solid food I did eat, my hands quaked, and my heart raced. I felt like the incarnation of doom.

But now, Bodie is asleep at the foot of my bed, and on her condo slumbers Church, the alleycat I’ve adopted. She lived under the building and used to play with me and Bodie when we’d go outside, and for about a year several of my neighbors would take turns feeding and caring for her. Last November, three neighborhood cats were killed when my leasing company failed to properly evacuate them from under the building during a fumigation. It was ghastly and horrible and sad. Church was spared, so I decided to bring her into my home. She deserved better than a life on the street where she could be so easily and thoughtlessly killed, and now she is a part of the family.

That one decision, to bring her indoors and share my life with her, has brought me so much joy. I love to watch Church just being herself. I delight in the alternating cool and frenetic energy she brings, and to see how she plays with Bodie in the safety of the apartment. When I take him outside, Church will sit by the door and cry until we come back. 

I do not have much, but what I do have is incredibly precious. The three of us live simply, and we are safe and healthy and we have each other. Right now, that is more than I could have ever dreamed of, and quite possibly a life that might never have happened at all. And, even though I often get sidetracked thinking about what I still don’t have or what I’ve lost, I can’t deny how miraculous all of this truly is.

Funny how things work out.

[unsuccesscr]

Good afternoon folks i’m feeling particularly shitty today so let’s talk about Luck; more specifically the fact that Izuku doesn’t have any.

under read more for length (my sincerest apologies to anyone on mobile)

Now, I know what you’re thinking; Of course Izuku’s lucky! He’s a shounen protag, he’s got plot armor and whatnot. And the only reason he has One For All is because he was lucky enough to bump into All Might!

Wrong, wrong, wrong

You’ve been fooled, fooled by an unreliable narrator. By none other than mister Izuku Midoriya himself. After every single good thing that happens to Izuku, every accomplishment, he immediately undercuts himself by saying he was lucky, or blessed, or he only could do it because someone helped him.

(and yeah a lot of people help him and we’ll get to that in a moment I promise)

And this in itself is only proven wrong by the narrative a couple of times. The only times I can think of off the top of my head is right before Izuku enters UA when Izuku says he’s “too blessed” and All Might thinks this;

And then , much later in the manga when Izuku becomes convinced that All Might chose him over Mirio because he met him first. And again, it’s All Might who corrects him.

Honestly I could write a whole ‘nother essay about why this is. But i’ll spare you and summarize; While Izuku does think of himself as lucky/blessed he very rarely vocalizes it. 

The only reason we as an audience know is because we can read his thoughts. And when he does vocalize it, it’s not in a way that makes his view of himself obvious. Rather than focusing on how he views himself he focuses outward on other people. To those who don’t know him well enough it can easily come across as praise or gratitude rather than self-criticism. 

That, and most of the other main characters are also teenagers and teenagers can be a little self involved from lack of experience. And, it’s not as if they don’t have good reason to be. Tenya almost loses his brother. Shouto has an abusive parent. Ochako wants to help her parents. They all have their own shit to deal with, so you can’t exactly blame them for not putting Izuku under the microscope especially when he never gives off an obvious cries for help.

And, honestly, even without knowing the extent of it they help him anyway. This can be seen from the change in Izuku from the beginning of the story to where he is now. He’s much more confident and happy and that’s because of the people around him.

And even if they don’t get the full extent of how deep his insecurities run they still have a good read on when he’s uncomfortable or upset and try to reach out. (they’re all such Good Kids)

But, I digress. Back to luck.

Basically any good thing that happens to Izuku isn’t luck, it’s skill, intellect, determination, and hard work.

The one (1) thing I may concede was luck was All Might saving him from the sludge villain (the first time, the second time it was because Izuku inspired him to act so—) and you know what? Even then I’m not 100% sure he wouldn’t have eventually gotten out of it on his own. This kid is resourceful as fuck.

Even if he hadn’t found that sheet of metal during the sports festival he would have just found another way to win. ‘Luck’ my ass no one else could have won that race with a chunk of metal. Hell; none of the others won that race having quirks and the time to master them. Tenya has gd engines on his legs ffs.

If anything; Izuku is an extraordinarily Unlucky individual.

He is born quirkless, in a world that sees that as a crime (and punishes him for it) he gets attacked by the sludge villain in the first place, he sees All Might deflate in front of him and then gets told by His Hero that he can’t become a hero (which is like 90% the situation and thus...bad luck) he ends up in Aizawa’s home room and almost gets expelled. And the reason he doesn’t isn’t because he’s lucky, it’s because he proves himself.

Pretty much everything that could go wrong for Izuku does go wrong and everything that goes right isn’t by random chance. It’s always because of something he’s done or because of who he is.

Izuku inherits All Might’s quirk not because he’s lucky enough to bump into him (again, i’d argue that was a decidedly Unlucky encounter until Izuku turned it around) but because he is willing to risk his life to save Bakugo. Because he doesn’t even think about it. Because he spends the next ten months training his ass off. Because when All Might, the number one hero, gives him a training regimen not only does he do it without complaint but he does more than what he is told to do.

Like All Might says, that isn’t luck, that is because of Izuku’s own efforts.

Which brings me back to everyone who helps Izuku and why they do it. Because, don’t get me wrong, they’re all good people! I love basically everyone in this series and how amazing they are but! that’s not why they do it! and it’s not because Izuku’s lucky, either!

Consistently, we see characters have an adverse reaction to Izuku and then only help him once they get to know him, once he has proven himself. When All Might first meets Izuku he tells him he can’t be a hero, a few hours later he’s willing to give him OFA. Why? because Izuku not only acted in a situation where the odds were stacked against him, but inspired All Might to act as well.

When starting at UA, Tenya has a very negative opinion of Izuku. He thinks that Izuku isn’t taking things seriously enough, and that he doesn’t belong there. After seeing him rescue Ochako in the entrance exam, however, he is willing to give up his vote so that Izuku can become class representative. And Ochako is willing to give up her points for Izuku, despite it meaning that she possibly could not get in to UA (she didn’t have all that many to spare)

Prior to the sports festival, Shouto shows open animosity towards Izuku but afterwards he comes to his aid when Izuku is facing off against Stain. Kouta hates heroes until Izuku saves him. And even Nighteye is moved by his ability to change fate.

None of these are luck, they are all because Izuku is an incredibly kind, incredibly driven person who motivates those around him. And this is all without having mastered OFA. Izuku isn’t All Might yet, he doesn’t have the sheer power to rally behind.

But it doesn’t matter. Because OFA isn’t what makes Izuku a hero.

This has been “if you think Izuku is just lucky or is only where he is today because of OFA you can fight me behind a fucking wendy’s” with HD

[mikelogan]

Since several of you seemed interested in a sneak peek of my jdox vampire!AU, here you go! @punkrockzero @drelliotreidmd @john-dorkian @musicalgiraffeindistress :) fair warning: it’s still in very early stages and all this is subject to change (and seriously, this is just about all i have written so far so it’s not very exciting), but please feel free to give me any feedback you might have!!

             JD had been looking forward to this night for a week and a half.  Somehow, the stars had aligned and he, Turk, Carla, and Elliot all managed to have the same evening off.  Life as an intern was proving to be far more hectic than JD had ever thought possible, and he knew Turk and Elliot were feeling just as burnt out.  Carla always had their backs, even if she and Elliot didn’t always get along, but what they all needed was a night where they could simply relax and be friends without the weight of the hospital resting on their shoulders.

             It wasn’t until JD was three drinks in – he’d forced himself to stomach the beer Turk had picked up – that his inhibitions lowered and he felt comfortable asking the rest of the group about something he’d noticed over the last few months.

             “Hey, Carla,” he said, an edge of laughter in his voice, which was most certainly the alcohol’s doing, “you’ve worked at the hospital for years now.  Have you ever noticed anything… off about Dr. Cox?”

             “Off?” Carla repeated, her brows furrowing. “What do you mean?  I know he’s private and a little closed off, but –”

             “Woman, please,” Turk snorted as he rolled his eyes. “That dude is the most closed off person I’ve ever seen.  Forget about how he talks to his patients, he can’t even relate to his coworkers, man!  I don’t know why you care so much about him.”

             JD sighed and took another swig from his bottle. “Spare me the speech, Turk,” he grumbled.  “No, I meant like, have you ever noticed how sometimes his eyes go all dark and he, like, sucks on his gums like he’s anxious about something?  It’s like he’s seconds away from snapping, but he always pulls himself back.”

             “If I didn’t know any better,” Elliot giggled, “I’d say someone spends a little too much time observing Dr. Cox, if you know what I mean.”

             “What’s so funny?” JD asked, quickly growing annoyed with his friends.  “I’m being serious.”

             “Bambi, it’s pretty obvious, I’m afraid,” Carla said between titters.  “You’ve got a crush on Dr. Cox.”

             “I do not,” JD said, his voice rising.  “You guys, come on.  Just because I think he’s a brilliant doctor doesn’t automatically mean I have a crush on him.  I’m just naturally observant.”

             “Whatever you say, dude,” Turk chuckles, making it clear that none of them are buying it.  

             JD grumbled under his breath and sank down in his chair, listening as the others changed the subject to a movie Turk and Carla had gone to see the previous week.  He was content to be left to his thoughts, which, as usual, drifted toward Perry. It wasn’t as though he’d kept a journal – though that was an idea – but over the last few months since he’d started at Sacred Heart, JD had been paying close attention to Perry.  He’d committed each occurrence to memory, each time Perry’s pupils dilated, his eyes growing dark with… well, JD wasn’t sure if it was anger or want or what it was, but if anyone else had paid enough attention to notice it, they’d think something was up, too. He didn’t know what to make of the way Perry ran his tongue over his teeth and his gums either, but it seemed to go hand-in-hand with the pupil dilation.  When those things happened, Perry seemed to have to step back from whatever situation he was in – JD had yet to find a common denominator between them, because there was usually such a flurry of activity, a code or a new admit, that JD couldn’t watch him for long enough.  The next chance he got to look at Perry would show him that the older doctor had composed himself and was back to his usual bristling self.

             JD found it hard to concentrate for the rest of the evening.  He knew he should put more effort in, having organized their get-together in the first place, but it was their own fault for teasing him.  Even after Elliot and Carla left and Turk went to bed, JD couldn’t help but dwell on the fact that his friends thought he had the hots for his attending.  Was it true that he found Perry objectively attractive?  Well, yes, if he was being honest with himself.  Did he think Perry’d be phenomenal in the sack? Absolutely – if he’d thought about those things, which he most certainly had not.  At all. Not even in his dreams. Especially not that one time he’d woken up hard as a – never mind.  But that didn’t change the fact that he did not have a crush on Perry Cox.

             JD rolled over in his bed and punched his pillow in frustration.  He doubted that even after bringing it up that any of his friends would care enough to observe Perry as much as he did.  Closing his eyes, he let sleep come for him, resolving to paying even closer attention to get to the bottom of Perry’s odd characteristics.  All his dreams were of his attending’s dark eyes.

               JD stuck close to Perry’s side the next day, shrugging off the girls’ names and verbal abuse he’d grown so accustomed to.  If annoying Perry more than usual was a risk he had to take, well, he was damn sure going to take it.  He convinced himself – which didn’t take much effort – that he was shadowing Perry so closely because he was such a good doctor. It would be nice to learn from his process, see how his mind worked, even if his eyes didn’t darken at all that day. Plus, he enjoyed the older man’s company, even if the feeling wasn’t mutual.  He ignored Carla’s pointed looks throughout the day, and thankfully, he was just busy enough that she couldn’t pull him aside and tease him – or worse, do that thing where she seemed to be able to read his mind.

             Late in the day, just as the sun had begun to set, a new admission was brought up to the ICU and Perry called JD over just as they wheeled in the patient.  It was a gunshot victim who’d barely been stabilized in the emergency room and was barely clinging to life.  JD could hardly recall a time when he’d seen more blood leaving a single person’s body. He stood back, letting Perry run the room as nurses fluttered about, abiding by Perry’s every word.  At first, JD thought only to use this as a learning experience, but then he realized Perry’s pupils looked blown out once again, leaving hardly any trace of the vivid blue irises around them.  Perry’s jaw was set tightly as he worked to stop the bleeding.

             “Dammit, people, let’s get moving!” Perry shouted. “Carla, call the O.R. and get him in a room immediately.  If any of this bleeding’s internal, he’ll be a goner in no time flat.  You, I want three units of O-neg in here now.”

             JD surged forward at Perry’s gesturing, snapping gloves onto his hands and applying pressure to the gunshot wound on the victim’s left side.  He didn’t think about Perry’s eyes, not when a patient’s life was hanging in the balance. He had his priorities, and as badly as he wanted to know what caused Perry’s symptoms, his patients came first. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the patient was stabilized and heading up to surgery.  JD was certain he’d need several transfusions, but now all they could do was hope that he’d pull through.

             When he looked up from the mess in the room, rubber gloves and gauze and towels scattered all over the floor, Perry was across from him, sucking on his gums once again, his arms crossed in front of his chest.  “Dr. Cox, are you okay?” JD asked, his determination to get an answer for Perry’s behavior overruling his instinct for self-preservation.  “Your eyes…”

             Perry’s dark eyes flashed dangerously, and for the first time, JD felt genuinely afraid of Perry.  “I know your little heart just goes pitter-patter when I’m around, Newbie, but if you don’t stop talking about my eyes, I’ll make damn sure you regret it.”

             JD raised his gloved hands in surrender.  “Sorry,” he muttered, but watched curiously as Perry’s eyes darkened further.  His gaze seemed to be locked on JD’s gloves and he ran his tongue over his teeth. Intrigued, JD took a step toward Perry, his hands still raised.  “Is something wrong, Dr. Cox?” he pressed, watching as Perry held his ground, though he looked uncertain.

             “Nothing’s wrong, Daphne,” Perry snapped, glaring down at JD.  “Get out of here and get yourself cleaned up.  You’ve still got a couple hours left.”

             Slowly and deliberately, JD took his gloves off and tossed them in the hazardous waste bin just outside the door.  He watched Perry’s eyes go back to normal once he was out of sight, leaving JD no closer to understanding what was going on with his mentor.

               That evening when JD got home, he went straight to his room, grateful to have the apartment to himself for once.  He fished around under his bed and emerged with a previously unused journal and opened it to the first page.  Part of him felt crazy, but he knew he wasn’t just imagining Perry’s symptoms.  With great care, he made a bullet-pointed list, beginning with Perry’s eyes.  It was the most noticeable symptom, at least for him, and the strangest.  Normal eyes didn’t just dilate, especially not under harsh fluorescent hospital lighting.  He described Perry’s eyes in great detail, noting that it seemed as though his pupils were widening rather than the icy blue of his eyes changing color. Following that, he transcribed the way Perry sucked on his teeth or run his tongue over his gums.  Of the symptoms JD had noticed, that one perplexed him the least.  Perhaps it was Perry’s way of calming himself during fast-paced trauma situations, or a nervous tick.  But then again, Perry never seemed so in-control as he did during codes, when he ran the room flawlessly.  JD debated adding Perry’s tense and terse attitude as a symptom, but Perry seemed to be that way all the time, so he scratched the idea.  Unable to think of anything else just then, JD closed the journal and shoved it between his mattress and box spring – it was one less thing he needed Turk to find and then tease him about.  Before drifting off to sleep, JD promised himself that he’d pay extra close attention to Perry in the following weeks.

                 Typical, JD thought to himself.  Turk had bailed on him again for some of his surgery buddies and a game of basketball. They’d agreed to meet up for drinks at the bar just down the street from the hospital, but now JD was sitting on a stool all by himself and there were hardly any attractive people there.  Turk had always been a decent wingman, at least when it came to the ladies, and guys seemed to like JD naturally without much effort on his part.  He’d been told on more than one occasion that it was those nice, full lips of his.  He giggled to himself as he took a sip of his appletini – his fourth one of the night – and wondered absently if Dr. Cox liked his lips.

[raendown]

@letliv3 chapter 4!

Pairing: none Word count: 3035 Summary: A coup hidden in the shadows for decades, a scroll with a seal he didn't mean to activate; Naruto finds himself whisked away from Konoha to a destination unknown and meets a little girl who appears to be - his mom?

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

Chapter 4

Shizuko found him an hour later, still plastered to Kushina’s side. The Uzukage came to find him herself rather than sending someone to fetch him, which was rather surprising, and her face was more serious than its usual pinched expression. Naruto followed her back to her surprisingly spacious office, built in to the same rocky knoll from which she addressed the public whenever necessary. Kushina trotted at his heels with a smug smile for being included.

Once they were all tucked away in the office, however, it was obvious that she became bored rather quickly as the two adults immediately began to speak about ‘boring adult stuff’. They talked about casualties and village defenses, property damage and body disposal, funeral costs and the implications of war. All very important things but nothing that seemed cool or fun to a child who didn’t yet understand their true weight.

Until he was allowed to fall back in to it, Naruto hadn’t realized how much he missed his role as Hokage. After spending his entire life chasing the dream it had felt so good to finally achieve his goal. Then before he could blink he was here in the past and there had been too many things to adjust to for him to spare a thought for the responsibilities that came with running a village. It felt good to speak with Shizuko as one Kage to another; it felt like getting back to who he knew he was supposed to be. He couldn’t say he had slacked off in his efforts to find his way back home but Naruto had to admit that the longer he spent in Uzushio, the more reluctant he was to leave.

Just as it seemed Kushina was about to fall asleep in her chair, Shizuko finally got around to the point she had actually brought him here to talk about.

“Uzushio owes you a great debt. When you first arrived here you spoke of the destruction of our village; without your presence with us today those events would surely have come to pass yet again. However, this creates a new problem.”

“Huh?” Naruto scratched at his head. “What new problem?”

“I’m aware of how uneducated you are about the nature of fūinjutsu, let alone time travel and it’s wide ranging effects on the continuum, so I will keep this as simple as possible.”

“Good ‘cause you’re already losing me here.”

Shizuko gaze him a withering stare before continuing. “By stopping the destruction of our village you have impacted the events of your own history in a rather exceptional manner. It is imperative that we send you back to your own time as quickly as possible to avoid any further changes. We have no way of knowing whether the impact of your influence will be positive or negative. You must go, and soon.”

Her words were like sharp pins callously popping the bubble he had allowed himself to sink in to over the past month. Of course he knew that he had to go home. When he left his entire home had been in danger, the lives of everyone he loved at risk, but over the past few weeks he hadn’t allowed the panic to get to him because he figured he could traipse back through the ‘time channels’ whenever he wanted and be right back where he started. It hadn’t occurred to him that it would ever matter how long he stayed or even why. As much as he knew he had to go-

Looking to the side, Naruto met Kushina’s curious eyes. He didn’t want to go. In his own time he had a wife and children and an entire village of people to take care of. But here, in the past, he had a mother.

“So, what then?” he asked eventually, dragging his eyes away from the redhead beside him to look at the one across instead. “We step up the training or something?”

“Actually, I’ve thought of a faster way but it will take time for the woman I have contacted to arrive here. You have one week to wrap up any business you have entangled yourself in here. If everything goes as planned you shall be gone seven days from now.”

“Seven days!?” Naruto’s jaw nearly unhinged it dropped so fast. “How am I supposed to learn how to use high-level sealing techniques in seven days!? Who did you contact, some super awesome master sage?”

Shizuko sniffed and waved him towards the door, a clear dismissal. “Of course not. I called upon an old friend of mine from another clan. Don’t fret too much about it.”

“You don’t really have any good reason for not telling me do you? I’m not a child whether I’ve gone through your rite of whatever or not and you told me everything else. You’re just being stingy now, aren’t you?” Naruto narrowed his eyes as her, grinning a little as he felt Kushina giggle in to his side. Shizuko huffed and turned up her nose and that was all the answer he needed to that.

Then a new thought occurred to him which hadn’t before and Naruto leaned forward, both hands planted on the Uzukage’s desk.

“Hey! If I changed the past then that means when I go back to the future then I’ll still have my mom right? Yeah! Yeah! Because I saved Uzushio and made everything different! Right?”

“Wrong.” One sharply spoken word from her froze him in place. “I’ve already told you: you understand nothing about the time channels or what it means to use them. What you did when you changed a major event was create an entirely separate timeline and when you return to when you came from you will be returning to your original timeline. Nothing will have changed in your world, just as we shall never know what would have been different in ours.”

“Oh.”

Naruto sank back down in to his chair feeling as though his entire body had been submerged in ice cold water, dreams he’d only just conceived of already swirling down the drain before he’d even had a chance to really reach for them. White noise filled his thoughts until all he was left with was a sense of loss and longing he thought he’d put behind him many years ago.

Small fingers slipped in to his own and he looked up to find Kushina staring back at him, more understanding in those eyes than any six year old should be capable of. No one so young should be able to look up at him with such sadness. He half thought she should be throwing a tantrum, screaming and crying about how unfair it all was. Or maybe that was just what he wanted to do despite knowing he was just a little too old for such antics.

But it was all so unfair! He’d fallen through time and fixed something bad! Shouldn’t he get some kind of reward for it all?

Leaning forward to bow his head down low, Naruto clutched at a fistful of hair with his free hand and gave himself a few moments to just breathe through it all. He wished he could think of a way to put his feelings in to words but they were just so jumbled up inside his chest that it all became one big ball of confusion he had no idea how to sort through.

“Damn,” was all he came up with eventually. “I don’t know what to say. Shikamaru would though. My friend, he’s a Nara and he’s really smart. He’d say something really brainy like…’all we are is dust in the wind’. I remember him saying that once.”

“What does it mean?” Kushina tugged on his fingers and gave him that look she always gave him when she thought he’d said something stupid. It brought a smile to his face for a moment as he admitted his own folly.

“I don’t know but it sounded cool when he said it.”

“It means,” Shizuko spoke up again at last, “that no matter what we do, nothing ever really matters. That our dreams and passions are as meaningless as the dust that floats upon the wind. You may chase after them as long as you like and in the end you will have accomplished nothing.” Naruto shuddered at the chill in her words, wondering if the Uzukage had ever had her own dreams shattered to speak so coldly.

“That’s stupid!”

Both of the adults startled and looked over to find Kushina rolling her eyes, taking back her hand so she could prop both of them on her hips with all the tiny irritation a kid her age could muster.

“You didn’t do nothing! You saved the whole village! Your mom – me – I’m already gone where you come from so you don’t lose anything. Isn’t it good that this me from now gets to live? You did something! So whatever to your stupid dust thing. If dust on the wind means it’s pointless then…then…then we burn the dust!”

“Uh…burn it?” Naruto asked. Kushina flushed a little.

“I don’t know. I thought it would sound cooler.”

He stared at her for a long moment before bursting in to unrestrained laughter, truly not having expected any of that. Suddenly he had a lot more respect for Kakashi-sensei and all that poor man had to deal with when Team 7 were young little sprites feeding him exactly that same kind of nonsense. Yet he couldn’t deny that he felt oddly uplifted after her ridiculous little speech. She barely even knew what she was talking about, all she had to keep her going was a will to fight and the refusal to take a hit lying down, and Naruto wondered when he would stop being amazed at how much of himself he saw in her.

She was definitely right about one thing though. He had gotten some amazing gifts out of this experience, memories he would keep with him for the rest of his days. Even if nothing changed when he returned home nothing could ever take these moments away from him when he had laughed with his mother, cried with his mother, held her in his arms and loved her almost more than his heart knew how to.

“Alright.” Rubbing his right side as the laughter faded, Naruto threw his other arm over Kushina’s shoulders and pulled her in close. “We burn the dust,” he declared. “Whatever that means!”

Kushina laughed and leaned in to him and really that was all he could ask for.

-

Later, once they’d finally vacated Shizuko’s office as they’d been asked to and squirreled themselves away in one of the small coves ringing the island’s edges, she asked him a question he’d been waiting for – and dreading – since the day that he arrived here. She asked him about how she died.

Digging his toes in to the sand, Naruto tilted his head back to stare at the stars just starting to come out above them. Peeking out the corner of his eye, he could see Kushina watching him with her thumbnail caught between her teeth and her long hair pulled in all sorts of directions by the wind. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply before answering. Strange, how so many pains from so long ago kept opening after he thought they had already healed over.

Over the past month he had gone back and forth between so many different plans on how he was going to answer this question when she asked him but after the meeting in Shizuko’s office he had finally come to a solid decision. Even if it changed the course of events, even if he wasn’t supposed to, there was no way he could send his mother to her death a second time without any sort of warning. And that was supposing she even went to Konoha at all now that her home hadn’t been demolished, leaving her with nowhere to go. Hopefully the truth wouldn’t keep her away. Naruto couldn’t imagine a world in which his mom and dad didn’t get married; they belonged together!

“When Uzushio was destroyed,” he began in a steady voice, “you came to live in Konoha and after a few years you became the new jinchūriki of the nine-tailed fox, the one I have inside me right now. You married my dad and eventually you guys got pregnant with me. Only, it’s dangerous for a jinchūriki to get pregnant and there was someone that wanted to hurt my dad and the village.”

“But who?”

“Are you sure you want me to go in to everything? It gets kind of complicated.”

“Everything, Naruto-kun.”

She gave him a decisive nod and Naruto nodded slowly. Then he backed up and began with a story he had first heard from a woman with bright red hair who had helped him take the first steps towards taming the beast inside his belly. It was heavy stuff to put on someone so young, heavy enough that he was sure it would have scarred a civilian child of double her age for life. Kushina, however, was descended from shinobi and already begun her training to follow in those same footsteps, had snuck away from safety to witness a battle just that afternoon. As much as he wanted her to be able to enjoy her childhood for as long as she could it was sort of impossible for the children of warriors to enjoy the same innocence that the children of civilians did.

Things in the time she lived in were different from where he was from. In the Konoha Naruto presided over there were already many changes to the shinobi system that he’d begun to challenge. As he went through the complicated events leading up to his own mother’s death, a terribly laundry list of one system failure after another, example after example of the way that shinobi were raised only to be broken, Naruto could feel a fire rekindling in his gut which hadn’t burned so brightly since the day he put on his very first shinobi headband.

At the end of his tale Kushina remained silent, hugging her knees to her chest and watching the tumultuous waves crashing against the rocks below without really appearing the see them. Instead her eyes seemed distant, almost as though if she looked hard enough she could see in to her own future and witness the events of which she’d been told.

Rather than sit there in silence and let her work through her thoughts – although he knew that would probably have been the nicer thing to do – Naruto dealt with the awkward silence the same way he always had. He talked. With no clear theme in mind he yammered on about whatever came to mind first until he found himself stuck on the topic of his father. Naruto didn’t know anywhere near as much as he would have liked to about either of his parents but he knew enough to describe what he looked like and what kind of good man he was, how willingly he sacrificed himself for the good of the village. He talked about how strong Namikaze Minato was and how much the man had loved his wife and everyone around him.

“Stop.” Naruto’s jaw snapped shut at one quiet word from Kushina. He peeked at her a second time and found her sniffling but with a very small, wistful kind of smile. “He sounds really nice, so you can stop selling him now.”

“He’s not a horse,” Naruto chuckled weakly.

“Did he really love me? You promise?”

“More than anything in the whole world.” Reaching over, he chucked Kushina under the chin. “Except me of course. I’m pretty awesome, you know?”

Her smile widened and she smothered a giggle in her knees before scrambling to her feet and making her way to the edge of their little cove. When her bare toes stood just out of reach of the tumbling waves, she balled her fists and shook one of them at the sky as she hurled her surprisingly loud voice up towards the stars.

“I’m gonna marry Namikaze Minato and he’s gonna love me, dattebane!”

Naruto almost fell over backwards, unsure if he was shocked or amused.

“What are you doing?” he called over to her. When she spun around to look at him she was wearing such a look of determination he thought for a moment he’d seen a ghost, a woman grown standing on the rocks and weary from battle. Then he blinked and she was only a little girl again.

“I’m telling the universe what’s gonna happen. And the universe is gonna listen! You’ve gotta put it out there, ‘ttebane!”

“Well if that’s what we’re supposed to be doing.” Springing to his feet, he hopped down to stand beside her and cupped both hands around his mouth, raising his voice to scream up in to the night. “I’m gonna be the best Hokage EVER!”

“Hey! We’re supposed to be telling the universe to do good things for me!” Kushina reached over to shove his hip, probably hoping to knock him over sideways although she didn’t manage to so much as budge his stance.

Naruto chuckled and ruffled her hair.

“Alright then. Only good things for you.”

Her self-satisfied grin was so smug he very nearly lost his composure but he managed to keep it together long enough for her to spin back to the water and shriek her dreams out across the ocean. Then his mirth tapered off in to a fond, gentle smile.

It might have sounded like a placating sentence to her but Naruto had meant those words more than any he had ever spoken in his entire life. They were his one true wish for her and for her future, the one dream he hoped the universe would hear from him. Because as much as he loved her simply because she was his mother, Naruto was certain that no one could spend a month at this little girl’s side and not learn to love her just for herself.

And he wanted only good things for her always.

[samuelfields]

[Video] 80/20 Rule: Making Your Dream Job a Reality

Imagine landing your dream job with all the unnecessary doubt, indecision, and effort removed from the process. 

Imagine making it happen in just one-fifth of the time it might normally take.

Nope, we’re not suggesting a miracle cognition drug, cybernetic brain implants, or an aggressive juice cleanse. Instead, we want to draw your attention to a simple idea known as the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule. This odd quirk of human experience posits that roughly 80% of a given activity’s meaningful consequences come from just 20% of the causes. 

So, imagine sitting in a movie theater (remember when that was a thing?). The 80/20 Rule suggests that around four-fifths of your enjoyment will come from just one-fifth of the movie — all those climactic scenes most of the story builds up to. The rule applies to bad stuff too. Think of all those annoying candy wrapper crinklers chowing down on Junior Mints during those same memorable scenes. Again, this rule would tell us that around 80% of that annoying noise was caused by just 20% of the movie-watchers.  

It’s a generalization of course, but it sounds about right doesn’t it? 

We don’t live in a neat universe where results always happen in a straight line. More often than not, just a few critical factors make all the difference, whether for good or bad. If you geek out on efficiency theory you can grab a coffee along with your cookie of choice and learn all about the 80/20 rule here and how it applies to all manner of corners of industry and productivity science.

In Ramit’s video, ‘The 80/20 Guide to Finding a Job You Love,’ he’ll grab on to this concept and zero in on you, your career, and one pointily practical question… 

Can the 80/20 rule help you land your dream job?

Or let’s put it another way. Can we just get rid of the 80% of largely unimportant stuff, and focus right in on those few critical turning points that can land you a richer working life? 

We’re convinced the answer is yes … if you’re willing to ditch unhelpful mindsets that lurk in the 80% unproductive zone. Let’s look at a few examples of how just a few changes can make a huge difference as you look for your dream job. 

1. Ignore broad and vague career advice: Get specific

We’ve all had that person in our lives who offers pointless encouragement because they’re trying to help. 

“You can do it!” Gee, thanks. How?

“Get well soon!” Great idea! My plan was to get well slowly.

These people mean well, but platitudes like this come from those who want to help but have no clue how. Unfortunately, conventional career guidance is littered with the same vague solutions. These fuzzy directions mean next to nothing and get you next to nowhere. 

You know the deal: 

Find your passion! Cool. But what does that process actually look like?

Renegotiate your salary! Genius plan. How?

These are time-wasters that’ll consign your approach to the unproductive 80% of the 80/20 equation. 

Watch for these broad statements, and recognize them for what they are: a well-meaning impulse. What they’re decidedly not is a blueprint. You can waste a lot of time flailing about, trying to interpret, and act on these career advice equivalents of a “get well soon” card or an awkwardly executed fist bump. 

Here’s the important part though. Don’t just reject broad and unhelpful advice when it comes from someone else. That’s the easy part. The tricky part is to systematically reject a cookie-cutter mindset. 

So, how do you approach career-hunting focusing on the critical 20%?

Commit to defining exactly what you want

Conventional career-hunting advice is to send your resume to every job opportunity you see — and that might actually make sense if you’d be happy taking any job. But that’s not your goal. Your goal is to get up in the morning eager to clock-in and do your thing.

To find your dream job you’ll need to get specific: 

What job do you want? Name it. Have the courage to exclude the ones you don’t.

What size company? Where is it located? Be grittily granular.

… And here’s the really important one … 

What kinds of skills and experience do you need to land it? Quantify how you get there.

Everything in your resume and pitch should be hyper-focused on the answers you give to these questions. If you can do that, two things happen. First, you save time by no longer applying for dodgy jobs you don’t want anyway. Second, you make yourself look like a better employment prospect to the companies that actually count.

Get started in 15 minutes or less

Here are a couple of things you can do right now to get specific:

Grab a sheet of paper and split it into 2 columns. In the first column list everything you know about what your dream job looks like. In column 2, bullet out the key characteristics of the kinds of jobs you don’t want. Stick this paper somewhere prominent as a daily reminder. 

Grab a red pen (OK purple will do if red ink is scary). Go through every line of your current resume and scratch out generic, hedging, or vague statements. If it isn’t about the job you actually want, ditch it. 

Congratulations. You just shifted your energy to that critical 20%. 

2. Discard self-sabotage: Believe you’re right for the role

This might sound a bit “Dr. Phil” at first glance, but hear us out. We’re not suggesting something quite so asinine and patronizing as the idea that great self-esteem and chutzpah is all you need to land you a dream job. That’s dumb. Also, see point 1.

What we are saying though is that many job-seekers accidentally absorb a defeatist mindset. In fact, it happens to the best of us. Here’s the kind of self-sabotaging thoughts we’re talking about:

“I’m not qualified. Before I can even think about a new job I need to go back to school.”

“I’m lucky to have any job in this economy.”

“I should wait until COVID-19 and murder hornets go away before any big life changes.”

Don’t get us wrong. These thoughts aren’t stupid.

Skilling up is good! And of course, macroeconomics and other unpredictable variables are all real things that affect how your dream job search will play out. But none of these considerations (along with the myriad other excuses out there) need stop you from taking meaningful steps in the right direction … right now.

These ideas all have one thing in common. They push you to reflect on all the reasons why now isn’t a good time; why you’re not ready yet; why the world is just too scary a place to do something bold and daring like pursuing your dream.

Believe change is possible

OK, OK, we’ll throw the obvious mind shift out there first. 

You do need to believe in yourself to make good stuff happen. There. Satisfied, Dr. Phil? It’s on a billion fridge magnets for good reason. Whatever you need to do to get inspired that you can and should pursue a career that’d make you happy and enriched, go out and get that thing, stick a magnet on it, and slap it on your fridge. 

Life’s too short. 

But don’t just get inspired; get aspirational. 

Time constraints, economic downturns, and yes, even venom-spitting murder hornets will always be out there. Either you aspire to find a job you love despite these and a plethora of equally sucky things, or you resign yourself to a permanent state of waiting. 

At least door one goes somewhere. Door two leads to the eternal thought-muzak of life’s waiting room. That serendipitous 20% zone can only happen when you abandon a resignation mindset.

Get started in 15 minutes or less

So you want to stop polluting your brain and your approach with self-defeating ideas? Got any spare paper lying around? Grab it!

Jot down every excuse or statement of resignation the self-defeatist side of your psyche (we all have one!) can muster. 

Now write a response to each of these naysaying urges. Where you feel an obstacle is real, write down how you can overcome it. Start making tangible plans.  

3. Reject passivity: Pursue crucial situations and people

This all circles around to the absolute importance of kicking passivity to the curb. 

Think back to the 80/20 Rule for a moment: The idea that most of the biggest changes that’ll happen in your life boil down to a relatively slim sliver of critical crux points. 

If you buy into this particular quirk of the universe, being awake for those moments suddenly becomes vitally important, right? 

Yet the vast majority of people that are searching for their dream job hand the responsibility for delivering those all-or-nothing flash-points to someone else. Career-hunting passivity is everywhere, and takes many forms, like:

Trusting a job search algorithm to guide your job search.

Sending out a resume and desperately hoping the HR team gets back to you one day.

Relying on a recruiter to convince your dream company to give you a shot.

Laziness of this ilk squanders not one, but two of your most valuable resources. 

One: Obviously, you’re wasting your time. We probably don’t need to offer too much exposition here on why metaphorically cramming filet mignon into a Mcdonald’s meat-grinder is unlikely to produce optimal results.

But you can’t overlook the negative knock-on effects on your motivation. You’re spinning headlong into a negative spiral here — where a perfect storm of rejection emails, lack of actionable data, and no real clue about what to do differently next time robs you of any desire to continue.

Why do this to yourself?

Passivity breeds failure, which in turn leads to the slow and abysmal process of … well … just giving up. The “80-percenter-zone” is a gray realm of mental laziness — of endlessly doing the same thing while expecting suddenly different results to miraculously manifest from miasmic mundanity. No.

So, what does “different” look like?

Zig when they zag

An active and engaged process of finding your dream job isn’t just about being smart — although, no big surprises here — smart people are generally better at finding useful shortcuts. It’s also about using your creativity and your passion to zig when other folks zag. 

What do we mean by that?

Testing your approach: So you threw your metaphorical filet mignon into the algorithmic meat grinder and you got a dry and tasteless meat patty and an unconvincing dill pickle for your pains. If you’re switched on, you’ll chalk that up as a failed experiment and learn from it. Testing your approaches and efficiently learning from mistakes will help you avoid wasting a “rare” opportunity. 

Looking beyond the low hanging fruit: The best jobs aren’t advertised. They’re made and won behind the scenes, far beyond your reach if you’re confining your hunt to generic online search tools. Like Poirot (or Angela Lansbury if you’re seeking employment in the Cabot Cove metropolitan area), dig deeper. Keen detective work may be in order. 

Get started in 15 minutes or less

Recognize you have a bit of a passive streak as a job hunter? Good news: no red pens are required for this one.

Can you find employees and HR managers of places you’d love to work on LinkedIn? The best time to begin assembling information about how your dream employer operates is right now — yep, before an interview is even a glimmer on the horizon. 

Think of three companies where you’d love to work and follow them on social media. Do some online detective work to learn their lingo and build a clear picture of who they’re recruiting for and why. Make Angela proud. 

“Why should we hire you?”

That’s exactly the question we intend to help you answer when you find yourself sitting in the interview hot seat for your shot at the career you’ve always wanted. 

At this moment, when that crucial question hits, the next few words out of your mouth will need to show (not tell) your interviewer why you’re ideal for their company. These words will need to prove (not plead) your case. These words have to be steeped in the company’s language and be rich with strategy, foresight, and seasoned introspection. 

Imagine feeling calm, the perfect answer spilling out of your mouth as you seal the deal on a career path you were made for. 

We can help you shine in that pivotal, all-or-nothing moment.   

        [Video] 80/20 Rule: Making Your Dream Job a Reality is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/80-20-rule-for-finding-your-dream-job/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[mcjoelcain]

[Video] 80/20 Rule: Making Your Dream Job a Reality

Imagine landing your dream job with all the unnecessary doubt, indecision, and effort removed from the process. 

Imagine making it happen in just one-fifth of the time it might normally take.

Nope, we’re not suggesting a miracle cognition drug, cybernetic brain implants, or an aggressive juice cleanse. Instead, we want to draw your attention to a simple idea known as the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule. This odd quirk of human experience posits that roughly 80% of a given activity’s meaningful consequences come from just 20% of the causes. 

So, imagine sitting in a movie theater (remember when that was a thing?). The 80/20 Rule suggests that around four-fifths of your enjoyment will come from just one-fifth of the movie — all those climactic scenes most of the story builds up to. The rule applies to bad stuff too. Think of all those annoying candy wrapper crinklers chowing down on Junior Mints during those same memorable scenes. Again, this rule would tell us that around 80% of that annoying noise was caused by just 20% of the movie-watchers.  

It’s a generalization of course, but it sounds about right doesn’t it? 

We don’t live in a neat universe where results always happen in a straight line. More often than not, just a few critical factors make all the difference, whether for good or bad. If you geek out on efficiency theory you can grab a coffee along with your cookie of choice and learn all about the 80/20 rule here and how it applies to all manner of corners of industry and productivity science.

In Ramit’s video, ‘The 80/20 Guide to Finding a Job You Love,’ he’ll grab on to this concept and zero in on you, your career, and one pointily practical question… 

Can the 80/20 rule help you land your dream job?

Or let’s put it another way. Can we just get rid of the 80% of largely unimportant stuff, and focus right in on those few critical turning points that can land you a richer working life? 

We’re convinced the answer is yes … if you’re willing to ditch unhelpful mindsets that lurk in the 80% unproductive zone. Let’s look at a few examples of how just a few changes can make a huge difference as you look for your dream job. 

1. Ignore broad and vague career advice: Get specific

We’ve all had that person in our lives who offers pointless encouragement because they’re trying to help. 

“You can do it!” Gee, thanks. How?

“Get well soon!” Great idea! My plan was to get well slowly.

These people mean well, but platitudes like this come from those who want to help but have no clue how. Unfortunately, conventional career guidance is littered with the same vague solutions. These fuzzy directions mean next to nothing and get you next to nowhere. 

You know the deal: 

Find your passion! Cool. But what does that process actually look like?

Renegotiate your salary! Genius plan. How?

These are time-wasters that’ll consign your approach to the unproductive 80% of the 80/20 equation. 

Watch for these broad statements, and recognize them for what they are: a well-meaning impulse. What they’re decidedly not is a blueprint. You can waste a lot of time flailing about, trying to interpret, and act on these career advice equivalents of a “get well soon” card or an awkwardly executed fist bump. 

Here’s the important part though. Don’t just reject broad and unhelpful advice when it comes from someone else. That’s the easy part. The tricky part is to systematically reject a cookie-cutter mindset. 

So, how do you approach career-hunting focusing on the critical 20%?

Commit to defining exactly what you want

Conventional career-hunting advice is to send your resume to every job opportunity you see — and that might actually make sense if you’d be happy taking any job. But that’s not your goal. Your goal is to get up in the morning eager to clock-in and do your thing.

To find your dream job you’ll need to get specific: 

What job do you want? Name it. Have the courage to exclude the ones you don’t.

What size company? Where is it located? Be grittily granular.

… And here’s the really important one … 

What kinds of skills and experience do you need to land it? Quantify how you get there.

Everything in your resume and pitch should be hyper-focused on the answers you give to these questions. If you can do that, two things happen. First, you save time by no longer applying for dodgy jobs you don’t want anyway. Second, you make yourself look like a better employment prospect to the companies that actually count.

Get started in 15 minutes or less

Here are a couple of things you can do right now to get specific:

Grab a sheet of paper and split it into 2 columns. In the first column list everything you know about what your dream job looks like. In column 2, bullet out the key characteristics of the kinds of jobs you don’t want. Stick this paper somewhere prominent as a daily reminder. 

Grab a red pen (OK purple will do if red ink is scary). Go through every line of your current resume and scratch out generic, hedging, or vague statements. If it isn’t about the job you actually want, ditch it. 

Congratulations. You just shifted your energy to that critical 20%. 

2. Discard self-sabotage: Believe you’re right for the role

This might sound a bit “Dr. Phil” at first glance, but hear us out. We’re not suggesting something quite so asinine and patronizing as the idea that great self-esteem and chutzpah is all you need to land you a dream job. That’s dumb. Also, see point 1.

What we are saying though is that many job-seekers accidentally absorb a defeatist mindset. In fact, it happens to the best of us. Here’s the kind of self-sabotaging thoughts we’re talking about:

“I’m not qualified. Before I can even think about a new job I need to go back to school.”

“I’m lucky to have any job in this economy.”

“I should wait until COVID-19 and murder hornets go away before any big life changes.”

Don’t get us wrong. These thoughts aren’t stupid.

Skilling up is good! And of course, macroeconomics and other unpredictable variables are all real things that affect how your dream job search will play out. But none of these considerations (along with the myriad other excuses out there) need stop you from taking meaningful steps in the right direction … right now.

These ideas all have one thing in common. They push you to reflect on all the reasons why now isn’t a good time; why you’re not ready yet; why the world is just too scary a place to do something bold and daring like pursuing your dream.

Believe change is possible

OK, OK, we’ll throw the obvious mind shift out there first. 

You do need to believe in yourself to make good stuff happen. There. Satisfied, Dr. Phil? It’s on a billion fridge magnets for good reason. Whatever you need to do to get inspired that you can and should pursue a career that’d make you happy and enriched, go out and get that thing, stick a magnet on it, and slap it on your fridge. 

Life’s too short. 

But don’t just get inspired; get aspirational. 

Time constraints, economic downturns, and yes, even venom-spitting murder hornets will always be out there. Either you aspire to find a job you love despite these and a plethora of equally sucky things, or you resign yourself to a permanent state of waiting. 

At least door one goes somewhere. Door two leads to the eternal thought-muzak of life’s waiting room. That serendipitous 20% zone can only happen when you abandon a resignation mindset.

Get started in 15 minutes or less

So you want to stop polluting your brain and your approach with self-defeating ideas? Got any spare paper lying around? Grab it!

Jot down every excuse or statement of resignation the self-defeatist side of your psyche (we all have one!) can muster. 

Now write a response to each of these naysaying urges. Where you feel an obstacle is real, write down how you can overcome it. Start making tangible plans.  

3. Reject passivity: Pursue crucial situations and people

This all circles around to the absolute importance of kicking passivity to the curb. 

Think back to the 80/20 Rule for a moment: The idea that most of the biggest changes that’ll happen in your life boil down to a relatively slim sliver of critical crux points. 

If you buy into this particular quirk of the universe, being awake for those moments suddenly becomes vitally important, right? 

Yet the vast majority of people that are searching for their dream job hand the responsibility for delivering those all-or-nothing flash-points to someone else. Career-hunting passivity is everywhere, and takes many forms, like:

Trusting a job search algorithm to guide your job search.

Sending out a resume and desperately hoping the HR team gets back to you one day.

Relying on a recruiter to convince your dream company to give you a shot.

Laziness of this ilk squanders not one, but two of your most valuable resources. 

One: Obviously, you’re wasting your time. We probably don’t need to offer too much exposition here on why metaphorically cramming filet mignon into a Mcdonald’s meat-grinder is unlikely to produce optimal results.

But you can’t overlook the negative knock-on effects on your motivation. You’re spinning headlong into a negative spiral here — where a perfect storm of rejection emails, lack of actionable data, and no real clue about what to do differently next time robs you of any desire to continue.

Why do this to yourself?

Passivity breeds failure, which in turn leads to the slow and abysmal process of … well … just giving up. The “80-percenter-zone” is a gray realm of mental laziness — of endlessly doing the same thing while expecting suddenly different results to miraculously manifest from miasmic mundanity. No.

So, what does “different” look like?

Zig when they zag

An active and engaged process of finding your dream job isn’t just about being smart — although, no big surprises here — smart people are generally better at finding useful shortcuts. It’s also about using your creativity and your passion to zig when other folks zag. 

What do we mean by that?

Testing your approach: So you threw your metaphorical filet mignon into the algorithmic meat grinder and you got a dry and tasteless meat patty and an unconvincing dill pickle for your pains. If you’re switched on, you’ll chalk that up as a failed experiment and learn from it. Testing your approaches and efficiently learning from mistakes will help you avoid wasting a “rare” opportunity. 

Looking beyond the low hanging fruit: The best jobs aren’t advertised. They’re made and won behind the scenes, far beyond your reach if you’re confining your hunt to generic online search tools. Like Poirot (or Angela Lansbury if you’re seeking employment in the Cabot Cove metropolitan area), dig deeper. Keen detective work may be in order. 

Get started in 15 minutes or less

Recognize you have a bit of a passive streak as a job hunter? Good news: no red pens are required for this one.

Can you find employees and HR managers of places you’d love to work on LinkedIn? The best time to begin assembling information about how your dream employer operates is right now — yep, before an interview is even a glimmer on the horizon. 

Think of three companies where you’d love to work and follow them on social media. Do some online detective work to learn their lingo and build a clear picture of who they’re recruiting for and why. Make Angela proud. 

“Why should we hire you?”

That’s exactly the question we intend to help you answer when you find yourself sitting in the interview hot seat for your shot at the career you’ve always wanted. 

At this moment, when that crucial question hits, the next few words out of your mouth will need to show (not tell) your interviewer why you’re ideal for their company. These words will need to prove (not plead) your case. These words have to be steeped in the company’s language and be rich with strategy, foresight, and seasoned introspection. 

Imagine feeling calm, the perfect answer spilling out of your mouth as you seal the deal on a career path you were made for. 

We can help you shine in that pivotal, all-or-nothing moment.   

        [Video] 80/20 Rule: Making Your Dream Job a Reality is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Money https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/80-20-rule-for-finding-your-dream-job/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[kennethherrerablog]

[Video] 80/20 Rule: Making Your Dream Job a Reality

Imagine landing your dream job with all the unnecessary doubt, indecision, and effort removed from the process. 

Imagine making it happen in just one-fifth of the time it might normally take.

Nope, we’re not suggesting a miracle cognition drug, cybernetic brain implants, or an aggressive juice cleanse. Instead, we want to draw your attention to a simple idea known as the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule. This odd quirk of human experience posits that roughly 80% of a given activity’s meaningful consequences come from just 20% of the causes. 

So, imagine sitting in a movie theater (remember when that was a thing?). The 80/20 Rule suggests that around four-fifths of your enjoyment will come from just one-fifth of the movie — all those climactic scenes most of the story builds up to. The rule applies to bad stuff too. Think of all those annoying candy wrapper crinklers chowing down on Junior Mints during those same memorable scenes. Again, this rule would tell us that around 80% of that annoying noise was caused by just 20% of the movie-watchers.  

It’s a generalization of course, but it sounds about right doesn’t it? 

We don’t live in a neat universe where results always happen in a straight line. More often than not, just a few critical factors make all the difference, whether for good or bad. If you geek out on efficiency theory you can grab a coffee along with your cookie of choice and learn all about the 80/20 rule here and how it applies to all manner of corners of industry and productivity science.

In Ramit’s video, ‘The 80/20 Guide to Finding a Job You Love,’ he’ll grab on to this concept and zero in on you, your career, and one pointily practical question… 

Can the 80/20 rule help you land your dream job?

Or let’s put it another way. Can we just get rid of the 80% of largely unimportant stuff, and focus right in on those few critical turning points that can land you a richer working life? 

We’re convinced the answer is yes … if you’re willing to ditch unhelpful mindsets that lurk in the 80% unproductive zone. Let’s look at a few examples of how just a few changes can make a huge difference as you look for your dream job. 

1. Ignore broad and vague career advice: Get specific

We’ve all had that person in our lives who offers pointless encouragement because they’re trying to help. 

“You can do it!” Gee, thanks. How?

“Get well soon!” Great idea! My plan was to get well slowly.

These people mean well, but platitudes like this come from those who want to help but have no clue how. Unfortunately, conventional career guidance is littered with the same vague solutions. These fuzzy directions mean next to nothing and get you next to nowhere. 

You know the deal: 

Find your passion! Cool. But what does that process actually look like?

Renegotiate your salary! Genius plan. How?

These are time-wasters that’ll consign your approach to the unproductive 80% of the 80/20 equation. 

Watch for these broad statements, and recognize them for what they are: a well-meaning impulse. What they’re decidedly not is a blueprint. You can waste a lot of time flailing about, trying to interpret, and act on these career advice equivalents of a “get well soon” card or an awkwardly executed fist bump. 

Here’s the important part though. Don’t just reject broad and unhelpful advice when it comes from someone else. That’s the easy part. The tricky part is to systematically reject a cookie-cutter mindset. 

So, how do you approach career-hunting focusing on the critical 20%?

Commit to defining exactly what you want

Conventional career-hunting advice is to send your resume to every job opportunity you see — and that might actually make sense if you’d be happy taking any job. But that’s not your goal. Your goal is to get up in the morning eager to clock-in and do your thing.

To find your dream job you’ll need to get specific: 

What job do you want? Name it. Have the courage to exclude the ones you don’t.

What size company? Where is it located? Be grittily granular.

… And here’s the really important one … 

What kinds of skills and experience do you need to land it? Quantify how you get there.

Everything in your resume and pitch should be hyper-focused on the answers you give to these questions. If you can do that, two things happen. First, you save time by no longer applying for dodgy jobs you don’t want anyway. Second, you make yourself look like a better employment prospect to the companies that actually count.

Get started in 15 minutes or less

Here are a couple of things you can do right now to get specific:

Grab a sheet of paper and split it into 2 columns. In the first column list everything you know about what your dream job looks like. In column 2, bullet out the key characteristics of the kinds of jobs you don’t want. Stick this paper somewhere prominent as a daily reminder. 

Grab a red pen (OK purple will do if red ink is scary). Go through every line of your current resume and scratch out generic, hedging, or vague statements. If it isn’t about the job you actually want, ditch it. 

Congratulations. You just shifted your energy to that critical 20%. 

2. Discard self-sabotage: Believe you’re right for the role

This might sound a bit “Dr. Phil” at first glance, but hear us out. We’re not suggesting something quite so asinine and patronizing as the idea that great self-esteem and chutzpah is all you need to land you a dream job. That’s dumb. Also, see point 1.

What we are saying though is that many job-seekers accidentally absorb a defeatist mindset. In fact, it happens to the best of us. Here’s the kind of self-sabotaging thoughts we’re talking about:

“I’m not qualified. Before I can even think about a new job I need to go back to school.”

“I’m lucky to have any job in this economy.”

“I should wait until COVID-19 and murder hornets go away before any big life changes.”

Don’t get us wrong. These thoughts aren’t stupid.

Skilling up is good! And of course, macroeconomics and other unpredictable variables are all real things that affect how your dream job search will play out. But none of these considerations (along with the myriad other excuses out there) need stop you from taking meaningful steps in the right direction … right now.

These ideas all have one thing in common. They push you to reflect on all the reasons why now isn’t a good time; why you’re not ready yet; why the world is just too scary a place to do something bold and daring like pursuing your dream.

Believe change is possible

OK, OK, we’ll throw the obvious mind shift out there first. 

You do need to believe in yourself to make good stuff happen. There. Satisfied, Dr. Phil? It’s on a billion fridge magnets for good reason. Whatever you need to do to get inspired that you can and should pursue a career that’d make you happy and enriched, go out and get that thing, stick a magnet on it, and slap it on your fridge. 

Life’s too short. 

But don’t just get inspired; get aspirational. 

Time constraints, economic downturns, and yes, even venom-spitting murder hornets will always be out there. Either you aspire to find a job you love despite these and a plethora of equally sucky things, or you resign yourself to a permanent state of waiting. 

At least door one goes somewhere. Door two leads to the eternal thought-muzak of life’s waiting room. That serendipitous 20% zone can only happen when you abandon a resignation mindset.

Get started in 15 minutes or less

So you want to stop polluting your brain and your approach with self-defeating ideas? Got any spare paper lying around? Grab it!

Jot down every excuse or statement of resignation the self-defeatist side of your psyche (we all have one!) can muster. 

Now write a response to each of these naysaying urges. Where you feel an obstacle is real, write down how you can overcome it. Start making tangible plans.  

3. Reject passivity: Pursue crucial situations and people

This all circles around to the absolute importance of kicking passivity to the curb. 

Think back to the 80/20 Rule for a moment: The idea that most of the biggest changes that’ll happen in your life boil down to a relatively slim sliver of critical crux points. 

If you buy into this particular quirk of the universe, being awake for those moments suddenly becomes vitally important, right? 

Yet the vast majority of people that are searching for their dream job hand the responsibility for delivering those all-or-nothing flash-points to someone else. Career-hunting passivity is everywhere, and takes many forms, like:

Trusting a job search algorithm to guide your job search.

Sending out a resume and desperately hoping the HR team gets back to you one day.

Relying on a recruiter to convince your dream company to give you a shot.

Laziness of this ilk squanders not one, but two of your most valuable resources. 

One: Obviously, you’re wasting your time. We probably don’t need to offer too much exposition here on why metaphorically cramming filet mignon into a Mcdonald’s meat-grinder is unlikely to produce optimal results.

But you can’t overlook the negative knock-on effects on your motivation. You’re spinning headlong into a negative spiral here — where a perfect storm of rejection emails, lack of actionable data, and no real clue about what to do differently next time robs you of any desire to continue.

Why do this to yourself?

Passivity breeds failure, which in turn leads to the slow and abysmal process of … well … just giving up. The “80-percenter-zone” is a gray realm of mental laziness — of endlessly doing the same thing while expecting suddenly different results to miraculously manifest from miasmic mundanity. No.

So, what does “different” look like?

Zig when they zag

An active and engaged process of finding your dream job isn’t just about being smart — although, no big surprises here — smart people are generally better at finding useful shortcuts. It’s also about using your creativity and your passion to zig when other folks zag. 

What do we mean by that?

Testing your approach: So you threw your metaphorical filet mignon into the algorithmic meat grinder and you got a dry and tasteless meat patty and an unconvincing dill pickle for your pains. If you’re switched on, you’ll chalk that up as a failed experiment and learn from it. Testing your approaches and efficiently learning from mistakes will help you avoid wasting a “rare” opportunity. 

Looking beyond the low hanging fruit: The best jobs aren’t advertised. They’re made and won behind the scenes, far beyond your reach if you’re confining your hunt to generic online search tools. Like Poirot (or Angela Lansbury if you’re seeking employment in the Cabot Cove metropolitan area), dig deeper. Keen detective work may be in order. 

Get started in 15 minutes or less

Recognize you have a bit of a passive streak as a job hunter? Good news: no red pens are required for this one.

Can you find employees and HR managers of places you’d love to work on LinkedIn? The best time to begin assembling information about how your dream employer operates is right now — yep, before an interview is even a glimmer on the horizon. 

Think of three companies where you’d love to work and follow them on social media. Do some online detective work to learn their lingo and build a clear picture of who they’re recruiting for and why. Make Angela proud. 

“Why should we hire you?”

That’s exactly the question we intend to help you answer when you find yourself sitting in the interview hot seat for your shot at the career you’ve always wanted. 

At this moment, when that crucial question hits, the next few words out of your mouth will need to show (not tell) your interviewer why you’re ideal for their company. These words will need to prove (not plead) your case. These words have to be steeped in the company’s language and be rich with strategy, foresight, and seasoned introspection. 

Imagine feeling calm, the perfect answer spilling out of your mouth as you seal the deal on a career path you were made for. 

We can help you shine in that pivotal, all-or-nothing moment.   

        [Video] 80/20 Rule: Making Your Dream Job a Reality is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

[Video] 80/20 Rule: Making Your Dream Job a Reality published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

[andrewdburton]

[Video] 80/20 Rule: Making Your Dream Job a Reality

Imagine landing your dream job with all the unnecessary doubt, indecision, and effort removed from the process. 

Imagine making it happen in just one-fifth of the time it might normally take.

Nope, we’re not suggesting a miracle cognition drug, cybernetic brain implants, or an aggressive juice cleanse. Instead, we want to draw your attention to a simple idea known as the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule. This odd quirk of human experience posits that roughly 80% of a given activity’s meaningful consequences come from just 20% of the causes. 

So, imagine sitting in a movie theater (remember when that was a thing?). The 80/20 Rule suggests that around four-fifths of your enjoyment will come from just one-fifth of the movie — all those climactic scenes most of the story builds up to. The rule applies to bad stuff too. Think of all those annoying candy wrapper crinklers chowing down on Junior Mints during those same memorable scenes. Again, this rule would tell us that around 80% of that annoying noise was caused by just 20% of the movie-watchers.  

It’s a generalization of course, but it sounds about right doesn’t it? 

We don’t live in a neat universe where results always happen in a straight line. More often than not, just a few critical factors make all the difference, whether for good or bad. If you geek out on efficiency theory you can grab a coffee along with your cookie of choice and learn all about the 80/20 rule here and how it applies to all manner of corners of industry and productivity science.

In Ramit’s video, ‘The 80/20 Guide to Finding a Job You Love,’ he’ll grab on to this concept and zero in on you, your career, and one pointily practical question… 

Can the 80/20 rule help you land your dream job?

Or let’s put it another way. Can we just get rid of the 80% of largely unimportant stuff, and focus right in on those few critical turning points that can land you a richer working life? 

We’re convinced the answer is yes … if you’re willing to ditch unhelpful mindsets that lurk in the 80% unproductive zone. Let’s look at a few examples of how just a few changes can make a huge difference as you look for your dream job. 

1. Ignore broad and vague career advice: Get specific

We’ve all had that person in our lives who offers pointless encouragement because they’re trying to help. 

“You can do it!” Gee, thanks. How?

“Get well soon!” Great idea! My plan was to get well slowly.

These people mean well, but platitudes like this come from those who want to help but have no clue how. Unfortunately, conventional career guidance is littered with the same vague solutions. These fuzzy directions mean next to nothing and get you next to nowhere. 

You know the deal: 

Find your passion! Cool. But what does that process actually look like?

Renegotiate your salary! Genius plan. How?

These are time-wasters that’ll consign your approach to the unproductive 80% of the 80/20 equation. 

Watch for these broad statements, and recognize them for what they are: a well-meaning impulse. What they’re decidedly not is a blueprint. You can waste a lot of time flailing about, trying to interpret, and act on these career advice equivalents of a “get well soon” card or an awkwardly executed fist bump. 

Here’s the important part though. Don’t just reject broad and unhelpful advice when it comes from someone else. That’s the easy part. The tricky part is to systematically reject a cookie-cutter mindset. 

So, how do you approach career-hunting focusing on the critical 20%?

Commit to defining exactly what you want

Conventional career-hunting advice is to send your resume to every job opportunity you see — and that might actually make sense if you’d be happy taking any job. But that’s not your goal. Your goal is to get up in the morning eager to clock-in and do your thing.

To find your dream job you’ll need to get specific: 

What job do you want? Name it. Have the courage to exclude the ones you don’t.

What size company? Where is it located? Be grittily granular.

… And here’s the really important one … 

What kinds of skills and experience do you need to land it? Quantify how you get there.

Everything in your resume and pitch should be hyper-focused on the answers you give to these questions. If you can do that, two things happen. First, you save time by no longer applying for dodgy jobs you don’t want anyway. Second, you make yourself look like a better employment prospect to the companies that actually count.

Get started in 15 minutes or less

Here are a couple of things you can do right now to get specific:

Grab a sheet of paper and split it into 2 columns. In the first column list everything you know about what your dream job looks like. In column 2, bullet out the key characteristics of the kinds of jobs you don’t want. Stick this paper somewhere prominent as a daily reminder. 

Grab a red pen (OK purple will do if red ink is scary). Go through every line of your current resume and scratch out generic, hedging, or vague statements. If it isn’t about the job you actually want, ditch it. 

Congratulations. You just shifted your energy to that critical 20%. 

2. Discard self-sabotage: Believe you’re right for the role

This might sound a bit “Dr. Phil” at first glance, but hear us out. We’re not suggesting something quite so asinine and patronizing as the idea that great self-esteem and chutzpah is all you need to land you a dream job. That’s dumb. Also, see point 1.

What we are saying though is that many job-seekers accidentally absorb a defeatist mindset. In fact, it happens to the best of us. Here’s the kind of self-sabotaging thoughts we’re talking about:

“I’m not qualified. Before I can even think about a new job I need to go back to school.”

“I’m lucky to have any job in this economy.”

“I should wait until COVID-19 and murder hornets go away before any big life changes.”

Don’t get us wrong. These thoughts aren’t stupid.

Skilling up is good! And of course, macroeconomics and other unpredictable variables are all real things that affect how your dream job search will play out. But none of these considerations (along with the myriad other excuses out there) need stop you from taking meaningful steps in the right direction … right now.

These ideas all have one thing in common. They push you to reflect on all the reasons why now isn’t a good time; why you’re not ready yet; why the world is just too scary a place to do something bold and daring like pursuing your dream.

Believe change is possible

OK, OK, we’ll throw the obvious mind shift out there first. 

You do need to believe in yourself to make good stuff happen. There. Satisfied, Dr. Phil? It’s on a billion fridge magnets for good reason. Whatever you need to do to get inspired that you can and should pursue a career that’d make you happy and enriched, go out and get that thing, stick a magnet on it, and slap it on your fridge. 

Life’s too short. 

But don’t just get inspired; get aspirational. 

Time constraints, economic downturns, and yes, even venom-spitting murder hornets will always be out there. Either you aspire to find a job you love despite these and a plethora of equally sucky things, or you resign yourself to a permanent state of waiting. 

At least door one goes somewhere. Door two leads to the eternal thought-muzak of life’s waiting room. That serendipitous 20% zone can only happen when you abandon a resignation mindset.

Get started in 15 minutes or less

So you want to stop polluting your brain and your approach with self-defeating ideas? Got any spare paper lying around? Grab it!

Jot down every excuse or statement of resignation the self-defeatist side of your psyche (we all have one!) can muster. 

Now write a response to each of these naysaying urges. Where you feel an obstacle is real, write down how you can overcome it. Start making tangible plans.  

3. Reject passivity: Pursue crucial situations and people

This all circles around to the absolute importance of kicking passivity to the curb. 

Think back to the 80/20 Rule for a moment: The idea that most of the biggest changes that’ll happen in your life boil down to a relatively slim sliver of critical crux points. 

If you buy into this particular quirk of the universe, being awake for those moments suddenly becomes vitally important, right? 

Yet the vast majority of people that are searching for their dream job hand the responsibility for delivering those all-or-nothing flash-points to someone else. Career-hunting passivity is everywhere, and takes many forms, like:

Trusting a job search algorithm to guide your job search.

Sending out a resume and desperately hoping the HR team gets back to you one day.

Relying on a recruiter to convince your dream company to give you a shot.

Laziness of this ilk squanders not one, but two of your most valuable resources. 

One: Obviously, you’re wasting your time. We probably don’t need to offer too much exposition here on why metaphorically cramming filet mignon into a Mcdonald’s meat-grinder is unlikely to produce optimal results.

But you can’t overlook the negative knock-on effects on your motivation. You’re spinning headlong into a negative spiral here — where a perfect storm of rejection emails, lack of actionable data, and no real clue about what to do differently next time robs you of any desire to continue.

Why do this to yourself?

Passivity breeds failure, which in turn leads to the slow and abysmal process of … well … just giving up. The “80-percenter-zone” is a gray realm of mental laziness — of endlessly doing the same thing while expecting suddenly different results to miraculously manifest from miasmic mundanity. No.

So, what does “different” look like?

Zig when they zag

An active and engaged process of finding your dream job isn’t just about being smart — although, no big surprises here — smart people are generally better at finding useful shortcuts. It’s also about using your creativity and your passion to zig when other folks zag. 

What do we mean by that?

Testing your approach: So you threw your metaphorical filet mignon into the algorithmic meat grinder and you got a dry and tasteless meat patty and an unconvincing dill pickle for your pains. If you’re switched on, you’ll chalk that up as a failed experiment and learn from it. Testing your approaches and efficiently learning from mistakes will help you avoid wasting a “rare” opportunity. 

Looking beyond the low hanging fruit: The best jobs aren’t advertised. They’re made and won behind the scenes, far beyond your reach if you’re confining your hunt to generic online search tools. Like Poirot (or Angela Lansbury if you’re seeking employment in the Cabot Cove metropolitan area), dig deeper. Keen detective work may be in order. 

Get started in 15 minutes or less

Recognize you have a bit of a passive streak as a job hunter? Good news: no red pens are required for this one.

Can you find employees and HR managers of places you’d love to work on LinkedIn? The best time to begin assembling information about how your dream employer operates is right now — yep, before an interview is even a glimmer on the horizon. 

Think of three companies where you’d love to work and follow them on social media. Do some online detective work to learn their lingo and build a clear picture of who they’re recruiting for and why. Make Angela proud. 

“Why should we hire you?”

That’s exactly the question we intend to help you answer when you find yourself sitting in the interview hot seat for your shot at the career you’ve always wanted. 

At this moment, when that crucial question hits, the next few words out of your mouth will need to show (not tell) your interviewer why you’re ideal for their company. These words will need to prove (not plead) your case. These words have to be steeped in the company’s language and be rich with strategy, foresight, and seasoned introspection. 

Imagine feeling calm, the perfect answer spilling out of your mouth as you seal the deal on a career path you were made for. 

We can help you shine in that pivotal, all-or-nothing moment.   

        [Video] 80/20 Rule: Making Your Dream Job a Reality is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/80-20-rule-for-finding-your-dream-job/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[paulckrueger]

[Video] 80/20 Rule: Making Your Dream Job a Reality

Imagine landing your dream job with all the unnecessary doubt, indecision, and effort removed from the process. 

Imagine making it happen in just one-fifth of the time it might normally take.

Nope, we’re not suggesting a miracle cognition drug, cybernetic brain implants, or an aggressive juice cleanse. Instead, we want to draw your attention to a simple idea known as the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule. This odd quirk of human experience posits that roughly 80% of a given activity’s meaningful consequences come from just 20% of the causes. 

So, imagine sitting in a movie theater (remember when that was a thing?). The 80/20 Rule suggests that around four-fifths of your enjoyment will come from just one-fifth of the movie — all those climactic scenes most of the story builds up to. The rule applies to bad stuff too. Think of all those annoying candy wrapper crinklers chowing down on Junior Mints during those same memorable scenes. Again, this rule would tell us that around 80% of that annoying noise was caused by just 20% of the movie-watchers.  

It’s a generalization of course, but it sounds about right doesn’t it? 

We don’t live in a neat universe where results always happen in a straight line. More often than not, just a few critical factors make all the difference, whether for good or bad. If you geek out on efficiency theory you can grab a coffee along with your cookie of choice and learn all about the 80/20 rule here and how it applies to all manner of corners of industry and productivity science.

In Ramit’s video, ‘The 80/20 Guide to Finding a Job You Love,’ he’ll grab on to this concept and zero in on you, your career, and one pointily practical question… 

Can the 80/20 rule help you land your dream job?

Or let’s put it another way. Can we just get rid of the 80% of largely unimportant stuff, and focus right in on those few critical turning points that can land you a richer working life? 

We’re convinced the answer is yes … if you’re willing to ditch unhelpful mindsets that lurk in the 80% unproductive zone. Let’s look at a few examples of how just a few changes can make a huge difference as you look for your dream job. 

1. Ignore broad and vague career advice: Get specific

We’ve all had that person in our lives who offers pointless encouragement because they’re trying to help. 

“You can do it!” Gee, thanks. How?

“Get well soon!” Great idea! My plan was to get well slowly.

These people mean well, but platitudes like this come from those who want to help but have no clue how. Unfortunately, conventional career guidance is littered with the same vague solutions. These fuzzy directions mean next to nothing and get you next to nowhere. 

You know the deal: 

Find your passion! Cool. But what does that process actually look like?

Renegotiate your salary! Genius plan. How?

These are time-wasters that’ll consign your approach to the unproductive 80% of the 80/20 equation. 

Watch for these broad statements, and recognize them for what they are: a well-meaning impulse. What they’re decidedly not is a blueprint. You can waste a lot of time flailing about, trying to interpret, and act on these career advice equivalents of a “get well soon” card or an awkwardly executed fist bump. 

Here’s the important part though. Don’t just reject broad and unhelpful advice when it comes from someone else. That’s the easy part. The tricky part is to systematically reject a cookie-cutter mindset. 

So, how do you approach career-hunting focusing on the critical 20%?

Commit to defining exactly what you want

Conventional career-hunting advice is to send your resume to every job opportunity you see — and that might actually make sense if you’d be happy taking any job. But that’s not your goal. Your goal is to get up in the morning eager to clock-in and do your thing.

To find your dream job you’ll need to get specific: 

What job do you want? Name it. Have the courage to exclude the ones you don’t.

What size company? Where is it located? Be grittily granular.

… And here’s the really important one … 

What kinds of skills and experience do you need to land it? Quantify how you get there.

Everything in your resume and pitch should be hyper-focused on the answers you give to these questions. If you can do that, two things happen. First, you save time by no longer applying for dodgy jobs you don’t want anyway. Second, you make yourself look like a better employment prospect to the companies that actually count.

Get started in 15 minutes or less

Here are a couple of things you can do right now to get specific:

Grab a sheet of paper and split it into 2 columns. In the first column list everything you know about what your dream job looks like. In column 2, bullet out the key characteristics of the kinds of jobs you don’t want. Stick this paper somewhere prominent as a daily reminder. 

Grab a red pen (OK purple will do if red ink is scary). Go through every line of your current resume and scratch out generic, hedging, or vague statements. If it isn’t about the job you actually want, ditch it. 

Congratulations. You just shifted your energy to that critical 20%. 

2. Discard self-sabotage: Believe you’re right for the role

This might sound a bit “Dr. Phil” at first glance, but hear us out. We’re not suggesting something quite so asinine and patronizing as the idea that great self-esteem and chutzpah is all you need to land you a dream job. That’s dumb. Also, see point 1.

What we are saying though is that many job-seekers accidentally absorb a defeatist mindset. In fact, it happens to the best of us. Here’s the kind of self-sabotaging thoughts we’re talking about:

“I’m not qualified. Before I can even think about a new job I need to go back to school.”

“I’m lucky to have any job in this economy.”

“I should wait until COVID-19 and murder hornets go away before any big life changes.”

Don’t get us wrong. These thoughts aren’t stupid.

Skilling up is good! And of course, macroeconomics and other unpredictable variables are all real things that affect how your dream job search will play out. But none of these considerations (along with the myriad other excuses out there) need stop you from taking meaningful steps in the right direction … right now.

These ideas all have one thing in common. They push you to reflect on all the reasons why now isn’t a good time; why you’re not ready yet; why the world is just too scary a place to do something bold and daring like pursuing your dream.

Believe change is possible

OK, OK, we’ll throw the obvious mind shift out there first. 

You do need to believe in yourself to make good stuff happen. There. Satisfied, Dr. Phil? It’s on a billion fridge magnets for good reason. Whatever you need to do to get inspired that you can and should pursue a career that’d make you happy and enriched, go out and get that thing, stick a magnet on it, and slap it on your fridge. 

Life’s too short. 

But don’t just get inspired; get aspirational. 

Time constraints, economic downturns, and yes, even venom-spitting murder hornets will always be out there. Either you aspire to find a job you love despite these and a plethora of equally sucky things, or you resign yourself to a permanent state of waiting. 

At least door one goes somewhere. Door two leads to the eternal thought-muzak of life’s waiting room. That serendipitous 20% zone can only happen when you abandon a resignation mindset.

Get started in 15 minutes or less

So you want to stop polluting your brain and your approach with self-defeating ideas? Got any spare paper lying around? Grab it!

Jot down every excuse or statement of resignation the self-defeatist side of your psyche (we all have one!) can muster. 

Now write a response to each of these naysaying urges. Where you feel an obstacle is real, write down how you can overcome it. Start making tangible plans.  

3. Reject passivity: Pursue crucial situations and people

This all circles around to the absolute importance of kicking passivity to the curb. 

Think back to the 80/20 Rule for a moment: The idea that most of the biggest changes that’ll happen in your life boil down to a relatively slim sliver of critical crux points. 

If you buy into this particular quirk of the universe, being awake for those moments suddenly becomes vitally important, right? 

Yet the vast majority of people that are searching for their dream job hand the responsibility for delivering those all-or-nothing flash-points to someone else. Career-hunting passivity is everywhere, and takes many forms, like:

Trusting a job search algorithm to guide your job search.

Sending out a resume and desperately hoping the HR team gets back to you one day.

Relying on a recruiter to convince your dream company to give you a shot.

Laziness of this ilk squanders not one, but two of your most valuable resources. 

One: Obviously, you’re wasting your time. We probably don’t need to offer too much exposition here on why metaphorically cramming filet mignon into a Mcdonald’s meat-grinder is unlikely to produce optimal results.

But you can’t overlook the negative knock-on effects on your motivation. You’re spinning headlong into a negative spiral here — where a perfect storm of rejection emails, lack of actionable data, and no real clue about what to do differently next time robs you of any desire to continue.

Why do this to yourself?

Passivity breeds failure, which in turn leads to the slow and abysmal process of … well … just giving up. The “80-percenter-zone” is a gray realm of mental laziness — of endlessly doing the same thing while expecting suddenly different results to miraculously manifest from miasmic mundanity. No.

So, what does “different” look like?

Zig when they zag

An active and engaged process of finding your dream job isn’t just about being smart — although, no big surprises here — smart people are generally better at finding useful shortcuts. It’s also about using your creativity and your passion to zig when other folks zag. 

What do we mean by that?

Testing your approach: So you threw your metaphorical filet mignon into the algorithmic meat grinder and you got a dry and tasteless meat patty and an unconvincing dill pickle for your pains. If you’re switched on, you’ll chalk that up as a failed experiment and learn from it. Testing your approaches and efficiently learning from mistakes will help you avoid wasting a “rare” opportunity. 

Looking beyond the low hanging fruit: The best jobs aren’t advertised. They’re made and won behind the scenes, far beyond your reach if you’re confining your hunt to generic online search tools. Like Poirot (or Angela Lansbury if you’re seeking employment in the Cabot Cove metropolitan area), dig deeper. Keen detective work may be in order. 

Get started in 15 minutes or less

Recognize you have a bit of a passive streak as a job hunter? Good news: no red pens are required for this one.

Can you find employees and HR managers of places you’d love to work on LinkedIn? The best time to begin assembling information about how your dream employer operates is right now — yep, before an interview is even a glimmer on the horizon. 

Think of three companies where you’d love to work and follow them on social media. Do some online detective work to learn their lingo and build a clear picture of who they’re recruiting for and why. Make Angela proud. 

“Why should we hire you?”

That’s exactly the question we intend to help you answer when you find yourself sitting in the interview hot seat for your shot at the career you’ve always wanted. 

At this moment, when that crucial question hits, the next few words out of your mouth will need to show (not tell) your interviewer why you’re ideal for their company. These words will need to prove (not plead) your case. These words have to be steeped in the company’s language and be rich with strategy, foresight, and seasoned introspection. 

Imagine feeling calm, the perfect answer spilling out of your mouth as you seal the deal on a career path you were made for. 

We can help you shine in that pivotal, all-or-nothing moment.   

        [Video] 80/20 Rule: Making Your Dream Job a Reality is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Surety Bond Brokers? Business https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/80-20-rule-for-finding-your-dream-job/

[warden-duskrunner]

Liability.

((Disclaimer:  This little fic is based upon a guild event held a couple weeks back, but due to my imperfect memory it does not perfectly recreate the action or dialogue.  It is also told from Iyenysae’s perspective, so events and intentions may be misinterpreted or skewed.  Still, the backbone of the narrative is largely intact.

The purpose of this is to expand a little on what was going through Iyenysae’s mind since the way the event happened to unfold really shook her, but I didn’t want to fully explore that at the time and end up diverting the focus of the group event onto my character unduly.))

The aspirants were lined up like perfect little ducklings, with Warden Talredon and Warden Venomspite standing stoically before them.  Each of the trainees held their umbra crescent in hand, awaiting instructions.

“Have any of you been instructed in the use of this weapon?” Warden Venomspite asked.  Iyen looked up and shook her head solemnly.  She had not had any formal training, but she had been practicing with the weapon at every opportunity.  If her free time was not spent studying for their upcoming exam, it was spent in the yard, swinging the crescent about, getting used to its weight, finding the balance between body and blade.

“As you have probably learned, the umbra crescent is a heavy weapon,” Venomspite continued, after the aspirants answered in the negative, “But you will become accustomed to its weight.  Fighting with this blade is about generating momentum, and using that weight to your advantage.”

Warden Talredon demonstrated the concept with a graceful maneuver, her bladed cloak flying out behind her as she moved.  Iyen loved to watch the commander fight, and this was no exception.  How she managed such grace in that suit of heavy armor was beyond Iyenysae, who was used to the light armor of the sentinels or the leather she wore when fighting in the Brawler’s Guild.

“Please pair off, so that Warden Talredon and I can watch you spar,” Venomspite announced, “We’d like to get an idea of your strengths and weaknesses.”

Iyenysae glanced at her fellow aspirants.  To her right was Aspirant Raventhorn, who had trained almost exclusively with her bow and likely had little experience in melee combat.  To her left was Aspirant Nelsathea Dawncrest, the druid, who had grown so weak with stress and malnutrition that she could hardly lift her weapon.  Iyenysae clenched her jaw tight, biting back frustration.  How would she learn anything if she was constantly forced to spar with those less experienced than her?

Iyen stood still as a statue while the other women paired off.  She didn't want to force herself upon anyone as a sparring partner, as more often than not her opponent ended up overwhelmed and injured.  And now they'd put a brand new, deadly umbra crescent in her hand and told her to swing it at one of her sisters.  Iyen dropped her gaze to the ground.

"Partners?"  Nelsathea had piped up beside her.  Ah, today's sacrificial lamb.  Iyen simply nodded, looking past the aspirant instead of at her.  Despite her reservations, she respected Nel a great deal for her healing ability - which had kept Iyen herself in combat more than once - and for the long, difficult vigil she'd kept over Warden Venomspite after the latter was taken prisoner by an inquisitor and found days later, gravely wounded.  Venomspite was now crippled thanks to a vicious mo'arg but she was alive, and Nelsathea was largely responsible for that.  It was that very vigil that had weakened the druid, and Iyenysae wasn’t sure she should be returning to full service just yet.  Of course, that was not her call to make.

“Why don’t you attack first, I need to work on my defense,” Nelsathea suggested as they found a plot of ground far enough away from the other aspirants.  Iyenysae nodded again, fingers tightening around the leather grip of her brand new weapon.  Take it easy, she told herself.

Iyenysae lifted the umbra crescent to swing, but her form was clumsy and sluggish.  If she was forced to take turns and fight only one opponent she would never be able to build any precious momentum.  She sneered as her opponent easily parried the blow, but Nelsathea nodded, encouraging Iyen to attack again.  Iyenysae spun, bringing the crescent around with a backhanded slash, only to be parried again.  But this time Iyen didn’t slow down.  She arced the blade diagonally across Nel’s midsection, and when their blades clashed the reverberation shook Iyenysae all the way up to her shoulders.  She could see her opponent was smiling, inviting, so Iyen smiled back and renewed her assault.

As she swung and spun and slashed, the rest of the world seemed to fall away, and her target became her sole focus.  Around her, the sound of the other aspirants’ blades clashing rhythmically transported her to the field of battle.  Her blood roared, and with each parried attack, Iyen thirsted ever more for a landed blow.

Iyen spun clockwise and feinted, switching her crescent from her right to left hand at the last moment.  As Nelsathea raised her weapon to deflect a blow that wasn’t coming, Iyenysae dipped into a crouch and swept the crescent across her opponent’s shins.  Nel leapt backward out of reach, but the attack had left her off balance.  Iyen saw the opening and took it instinctively, leaping forward with a victorious shout.  She planted her boot on the druid’s chest and tucked herself into a flip.  As she spun through the air, she sprung open behind Nelsathea and struck a two-handed blow.

The umbra crescent bit deep into Nel’s training armor and knocked the druid to her knees.  Iyen hit the ground and whirled, blade raised and in motion for the final blow.

“Dawncrest!  Duskrunner!”  Warden Venomspite’s hoarse voice rang out across the training ground.  Iyenysae brought herself to a jerking halt, looking first to her superior, and then to her opponent.  Nelsathea was crouched on the ground, staring ahead blankly, mouth hanging slightly open.  It seemed as though she was trying to speak, but Iyenysae couldn’t hear any words.  Heal yourself, Iyenysae thought, heal yourself and stand.  But Nelsathea only knelt motionless as dark blood began to soak rapidly through her tunic.

Warden Talredon seemed to appear suddenly at Nelsathea’s side, cradling the girl in her arms as she inspected the wound.  Venomspite shouted for the other aspirants to step back, and someone appeared with a satchel of medical supplies from the nearby infirmary.  All the while, Iyenysae stood with fists clenched to keep her hands from shaking.  She pushed away that clawing sense of guilt; swallowed it, and buried it beneath her anger.  What did they expect?  She told herself, I shouldn’t be fighting these fledglings.

“Duskrunner, assist me,” Warden Talredon commanded, jerking her head toward the bag.  Iyenysae approached the pair and knelt beside them, but as she began to unfurl the bandages she became aware of the tremors in her hands.  Glancing furtively at Warden Talredon, Iyenysae was sure her superior would notice, but the warden seemed engrossed in her own task.

“Take your hand away, Dawncrest,” she said.  Nel slowly let her hand fall and Warden Talredon replaced it, pressing the wound firmly to stem the flow of blood.  Iyenysae sidled forward and started wrapping the shoulder tightly, but clumsily. Her hands were not meant for tenderness or care; they were meant for holding weapons and breaking noses.

And they wouldn’t stop shaking.

Iyen sat back on her heels and exhaled the breath she’d been holding for who knew how long, clenching and unclenching her fingers in a futile attempt to force them to behave.  The wound was wrapped, but she couldn’t manage to tie it off.  Such a simple task, and yet she floundered.

“Calm, Duskrunner,” Warden Talredon said quietly, sparing Iyen the embarrassment of her sisters hearing, “Don’t dwell on the past, move forward.”

Iyenysae nodded.  Don’t dwell on the past.  It wasn’t her past that caused her to shake so, it was her own damned weakness and the ugly habits she had developed over the last few years; habits that were not so easily dropped.  With some effort, Iyenysae finished securing the bandage, though she was hardly paying attention to what she was doing.  Instead, her mind raced, and fury simmered just below the surface.  Distantly, she was aware that Warden Venomspite was delivering orders to the others – some sort of hunt, to hone their skills in tracking and combat.  But, she said, after what had happened today…

“We’ll be fine, Shan’do,” Aspirant Raventhorn, the archer, spoke up, “We just had an accident.”

Something seemed to give, and like an avalanche, Iyenysae’s bitter thoughts crashed out of her.  “We didn’t do anything,” she snapped, “And it was not an accident.  I did not slip, or miss my mark.  My blade landed precisely where I meant it to.”

The yard fell silent for a few moments, and an assortment of expressions crossed Warden Venomspite’s face.  None of them pleasant.

“Perhaps Duskrunner shall stay behind to learn some self-control, lest she demonstrate herself untrustworthy.” Venomspite growled, her furious gaze burning into Iyenysae, until it was all Iyen could do to meet the warden’s eyes.

“Enough,” Warden Talredon commanded.  Venomspite turned her attention back to the other aspirants immediately while Iyenysae continued glaring, teeth bared, “Duskrunner, enough.  Help me get her to her feet.”

“She’s right, Warden,” Iyenysae said, “What I mean to say is, I shouldn’t be here.  I’m a danger to them.”

“That isn’t what you mean to say,”  Talredon had hooked both her arms beneath Nelsathea to lift her, but Iyen made no move to assist.  Instead she blinked, and shook her head almost imperceptibly.  She didn’t understand.

“It was a training accident,” Warden Talredon said firmly, “It happens.”

“But it wasn’t an accident,” Iyenysae pleaded through a clenched jaw, “I made the choice.  I — “

Her voice cracked treacherously and she trailed off.  I got them all killed. No, no - she was confused.  This was not the first time her lust for battle had gotten her fellow soldiers cut down.  Perhaps she still wasn’t fit for service, even after all these years.  When she’d joined the wardens, Iyen had come to grips with the fact that she would undoubtedly get herself killed in battle, that she would die with a blade in her hand and a battle cry on her lips, but she had sworn not to take another soul with her when that time came.

“You injured Nelsathea intentionally, then?  You intended to put your glaive in your sister’s shoulder?” Warden Talredon said carefully.

Iyenysae tucked her chin against her breast and exhaled through her nose.  She hadn’t intended to hurt Nelsathea, but she had intended to hurt someone, and wasn’t that enough?  But this was not the time to have this discussion, not with Nel lying in their laps, clinging to consciousness.

"No," she said stiffly, hoping such brevity would conceal her dishonesty.  Surely the warden-commander had discovered the reason Iyenysae had left the sentinels in disgrace, so why didn’t she understand what a liability she was?  Why hadn’t Warden Talredon tossed her out of their ranks already?

“Good, now help me stand,” Talredon commanded again.  This time, Iyenysae assisted without hesitation.  If Warden Talredon trusted her, then she would have to accept that.  Perhaps even learn to trust herself.

[beatrice-otter]

Past Lives, Chapter 9/?

On AO3 Chapter 1 on Dreamwidth

Chapter Nine

The armor … took some doing.

"I'm sorry, we don't have the equipment to fabricate or modify armor here, Sergeant," said the armorer, a Specialist named Tripwire. "And even if we did, I wouldn't know how to use it. Clone armor comes standard, and it fits like a glove because our bodies are all the same." The armory was a tent with one of its sides rolled up, situated next to the mess tent at the center of camp, just where it would have been in a First Order camp. Easy to get to, no matter where you were, if there was an unexpected need to rearm or change weapons load.

"But what about your Jedi?" Finn asked. "They don't have full armor, but they've at least got something. Or Kenobi and Skywalker do, at any rate."

"The Jedi get their armor from the Temple, not from me," Tripwire said. "Not that they wear much of it."

"And what happens if you gain weight? Or lose it, on a long campaign with fewer supplies?" Finn asked. "What happens if you get switched to a different job and your muscle configuration changes because your activity profile does?" Basic Stormtrooper conditioning was always the same, of course, but many specialties had additional special training or duties, and that always affected things.

Tripwire and Kano exchanged glances. "We're all fed the same thing, so any changes tend to be battalion-wide," Tripwire said.

"But if you can't modify the armor, all that means is that everyone's armor fits wrong," Finn pointed out.

"And while you can get food on the black market special, or sometimes when we're on a planet with markets and people are willing to trade with us, they strongly discourage anyone from eating enough to alter your functioning to any degree."

"Fair enough," Finn said; one of the happinesses he hadn't anticipated about leaving the First Order was getting to choose what he ate and when he ate it. "But you can't tell me that ARC troopers and regular troopers have the same musculature, much less pilots and ARC troopers."

"So?" Kano said.

"You're telling me that you still wear the same armor?" Finn demanded. "Doesn't it chafe?"

"Yeah, but armor isn't supposed to be comfortable," Tripwire said. "And that's part of the point of mass-produced soldiers. You can mass-produce the gear, too, and do you think the bean-counters on Coruscant care if it chafes a bit?"

Finn shook his head. "But it impedes efficiency. Oh, well, it’s not like I’m going to be trying to fight in it anyway.”

“If you have to, we’re all screwed,” Kano said.

“The bodysuit is going to be the real problem,” Tripwire said. “It doesn’t have a lot of give in it … and you’re a full two centimeters taller than a brother. It’d be easier if you were two centimeters shorter, instead.”

“The bodysuit is crawling up my ass,” Finn said, shifting uncomfortably. And it was chafing his dick. Two centimeters didn’t sound like much, but it was the difference between fitting perfectly and … not.

“Could we just cut it in half so it’s pants and a shirt?” Jesse asked. “It’d kill the temperature controls and some of the blaster protection, but it’s pretty temperate here and if he’s not going to be fighting …”

"If we need temperature controls, or are going to be in combat, I can change bodysuits," Finn said.

“Here’s the armor,” Tripwire said, handing over a standard armor crate, just like the ones Finn had used all his life before defecting. He felt a lump in his throat, and he couldn’t tell whether it was positive or negative.

“And here’s the paint and brushes,” Tripwire continued, bringing out a container and a package.

“What?” Finn asked.

“Say, what’s your design, anyway?” Jesse asked.

“My what?”

“Your design,” Tripwire said. “Your paint? Armor-tat? Second face?”

“You know, the stuff you paint on your armor to show who’s in it?” Jesse said.

“Any sign of individuality got punished,” Finn said. “If they knew you had any designator other than a serial number, they would punish you for using it. We were only allowed to take off the buckets to eat, sleep, bathe, and for medical purposes.”

Jesse looked more horrified than he had when Finn had told them about the fall of the Republic. Tripwire sat down slowly on the armor crate behind him. It was, Finn realized, the heart of the difference between the Old Republic's clones and the First Order's troopers. Both were mass-produced and conditioned for battle, both were disposable in the service of their nations, both were designed to be interchangeable.

But for the Clone Troopers, that uniformity had limits. As long as they could fight interchangeably, their thoughts could be as individual as they wanted … and so could their armor. That was … he needed to think about that.

“Well,” Tripwire said, with a determined voice, “here you can put whatever you want on your armor.”

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin,” Finn said. “Can’t you just … do something apropriate? Ordinary? The whole point is to blend in, so, you guys know more about what type of paint would blend in than I do.”

“Of course not!” Jesse said, voice rising in horror. “It’s your armor. Your paint! Your second face! Kriff, Finn, you just—you just don’t mess with another man’s paint!”

“So, I’ll think about it, figure something out,” Finn said. “Once I get a design, can one of you paint it? I don’t know how to paint.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know how?” Tripwire said. “It’s just regular paint. I know curved surfaces and plastoid take a little bit of getting used to, but it’s not that bad.”

“I’ve never painted anything before.”

“Well, it’s not that different than drawing, then. Just draw the outlines and fill them in.”

“I’ve never drawn anything before, either.”

There was a silence, for a bit, as the two clones digested that, faces drawn. Finn stood there awkwardly, not sure why they were so profoundly shocked by this. He got why never being allowed to take your armor off was horrifying; even he had known it was bad, back when he’d never had any experiences outside of the First Order. And the Resistance members, the few he’d talked about it with, they’d all agreed with him. But none of them had ever even mentioned anything about art. None of them really made art, that he knew of. But to Tripwire and Jesse, no artistic experience was unthinkable.

“Tempera used to be part of the training cadre, he’d know how to teach art,” Jesse said at last.

“All I’ve got is paint and markers for the armor,” Tripwire replied, “but I think the quartermaster has more. I KNOW he’s got tablets and styluses that are fitted with a basic drawing program.”

“Okay,” Finn said slowly. Looks like he was getting art lessons. It wasn’t very practical, but on the other hand, what else was he going to do while they waited? It’s not like they could send him out on missions, the clones had the regular garrison duties taken care of, and there were only so many hours per day that he could debrief.

The first thing they had done, once reaching Coruscant, was to give Bail every file they had about the contract that had produced the clone army.

"That is all that you know?" Bail asked incredulously, looking over the reports. "I've always known there was more to the story than the bare-bones account that the Senate was told, but I assumed you knew it and just didn't want to share for some reason. Classified for the war effort, possibly. But you never investigated it at all, did you, once you'd discovered it. A mysterious army was dropped in your lap just as war breaks out, and you never asked any questions."

"The Force moves in mysterious ways," Master Windu said stiffly, "and we had rather more immediate problems at the time. You yourself voted for the bill that gave the Jedi authority over the clone army, and turned us into officers. Since then, we have had very little to spare for investigative work."

"Yes, but I assumed I could trust your competence," Bail said, matching his tone. "From this, that doesn't seem to have been the case."

"Oversight is the Senate's responsibility," Master Windu replied. "Even if it had been classified, you had a right to ask—either in person or on the Senate floor—to see that the investigation had been done, even if you were not cleared to see the results. And what do you think would have happened, if we had refused to take command of the troops until the investigation was complete? Or if we had admitted publicly that one of our members had gone rogue and ordered this without our knowledge or wish? Or diverted significant attention from the war to continuing the investigation? You're the Senator, you tell me."

Bail sat back, stroking his beard. He hated to admit it, but Windu had a point. After Geonosis, the whole Republic had been caught up in war fever, so focused on the need to punish the Separatists that any delay or foot-dragging was seen as treason. And that was just public opinion; if Finn was correct, and Palpatine was a traitor bent on destroying the Jedi, he would certainly have been able to use any reluctance to his advantage. "So you chose expediency and political considerations over doing your job fully."

"Yes," Windu said. "And how many times, Senator, have you and your colleagues done the same?"

Bail nodded unwillingly.

"In any case, what's done is done," Windu said. "Recriminations at this stage will get us nowhere. We need proof of Palpatine's treason—or loyalty—and we need to make contingency plans."

"What did you have in mind?" Bail asked.

Ahsoka stepped off her ship and locked it, clasping her cloak firmly against the wind. The problem with going incognito on her own was that anyone who knew anything about Togruta could see that she wasn't fully mature yet. As a Jedi, she had become a legal adult when she was apprenticed. Young, and still needing supervision as far as the Jedi were concerned, but an adult as far as anybody else was concerned.

Undercover, without Jedi status, nobody who knew what an adult Togruta looked like would believe she was one. Her montrals were too small and stubby.

She hoped that as long as she kept her cloak up, nobody would notice. Or maybe mistake her for an adult of another species.

Ship locked and docking fees paid, she got herself a room for the night and began looking up medical supply companies. There should be a fair number—this planet was known in the region for its medical supply companies—and hopefully she'd find one she could order from over the holonet and have it delivered to her ship, with no need to talk to a sentient being who might remark on her age.

She couldn't wait for her montrals to get their full growth. Missions like this would be so much easier.

"The first step," Tempera said, "is just to get you used to creating." They were sitting side-by-side at a table, thankfully with no one else in the tent with them.

Finn was getting really tired of being stared at. He'd been stared at when he first joined the Resistance; it wasn't like they got defectors from the First Empire every day. But they'd all been busy, and nothing he could tell them about the First Order and how it treated Stormptroopers was a surprise to them, not really, and if First Order defectors were rare it wasn't as if they'd never happened.

Time travel made him absolutely unique, and most of what he'd told people about his life experiences was a horrifying shock, and they didn't have much to do until Commander Tano returned with the specialized equipment and droids needed for neurosurgery. They had a lot of time to stare at him. Tempera hadn't, so far; Jesse had talked to him about art lessons out of Finn's presence, and Tempera had been nothing but matter-of-fact since he'd shown up. It was a nice change.

Finn sighed and turned his attention to the functions of the tablet Tempera was showing him, how he could produce lines of different thicknesses and colors, how he could erase what he didn't like, and so on.

"Good," Tempera said, after quizzing Finn to make sure he remembered what he'd been shown. "Now draw whatever you want to draw. Scribbles and doodles and random stuff is fine, don't worry about whether it's good or not. You don't have to show it to me if you don't want to." He turned to his own tablet and began … doing something on it.

Finn pondered the instructions for a bit. "Tempera?" he said. He had an awful feeling this was going to start another round of horrified stares.

"Yes, Finn?" Tempera said, looking up from his tablet.

"What's 'scribbles and doodles'?"

[comebeforegod]

Perception of Life: Pursuing Fame Is Not the Road to Happiness

By Ziyi, Italy

When I was in elementary school, every summer or winter vacation my cousins would come home in their cars, bringing back various presents.

 All the relatives, friends and neighbors would come over and our house would be full of people. Seeing how they all cast admiring gazes at my cousins, I felt very envious. At that time, I made a resolution to myself: “I must strive hard to achieve something in the future so that I can be outstanding like my cousins. I want to bring honor and glory to my ancestors, and lead an aristocratic lifestyle.”

After working hard, I achieved modest success.

After graduating from technical school, I was very lucky to find a job as an office clerk in a foreign company. In the beginning, I was secretly happy with myself: “No matter what, I now work in an office, so no one can deny that I’m a white-collar worker.” But I didn’t expect that because I had a low position and poor qualifications everyone else could boss me around in the office. My self-esteem was severely damaged, but my ambition was stimulated. I resolved to make other people look at me with new eyes through my own efforts. Therefore, I worked harder and spent all my spare time learning the company procedures and all about the products, and generally gaining professional proficiency. Every day, I worked from dawn to dusk, and I hardly took time off all year round. In five years, I practically went nowhere but the dormitory, canteen and office. Finally, my years of hard work paid off: I was promoted from ordinary office clerk to salesperson, then manufacturing manager, then purchasing supervisor, then imports and exports supervisor, and in the end I became an executive in the company and was admired and looked up to by others. Those who once despised me nodded and bowed in front of me. Such an achievement made me feel glorious and proud.

But as I came into contact with more and more people, I saw that there were a great number of successful people who were richer and more powerful than me. Thus, my sense of satisfaction gradually faded. I thought: “Although I have gained a high position and the support and admiration of my colleagues, I’m still working for other people. As they say: ‘You have to be crazy to be highly successful.’ I’m still young; why don’t I start a business by myself? As the old saying goes: ‘People struggle to go upward, but water flows downward.’ I shouldn’t be content with my current situation, but should seek to progress.” Several years of work experience had given me enough faith and courage, so I quit the high-paying job as an executive to start my own business.

Later on, I opened a store selling cosmetics of a famous brand. To fulfill the high performance targets I set for my company every month, I had to work out various marketing plans besides managing the store. No matter how many customers there were during the day, I always stayed in the store all the time and didn’t go home until very late at night. I had no holidays of my own. Sometimes I felt very tired, but at the thought of the success that was just around the corner, I would exert myself again and keep persisting. After a few years, I achieved a fair amount of success and made some money. Then I expanded my store, and bought a car and a house. All my relatives, classmates and neighbors around me cast gazes of admiration at me, and my parents were also proud of me.

Sudden diseases left me in unbearable pain.

Just when I was tirelessly busy with my business and enjoying a sense of achievement, I started to have some health problems. I often felt faint and had numbness in my hands. After having an examination in the hospital, I was surprised to learn that I actually had cervical spondylosis and periarthritis. The doctor said to me in a serious voice: “These diseases cannot be eradicated. The treatment can only help you relieve your pain. You must take good care of yourself, take more rest and avoid overworking. Otherwise, your diseases will get worse and worse. Though these diseases aren’t deadly, they will influence your quality of life if they get serious. You are still young, so you must pay more attention to your health. If your condition goes on like this, you might get muscular atrophy, or even quadriplegia.” The doctor’s words made me think of those people I knew who suffered from cervical spondylosis or lumbar diseases. Both their work and quality of life were negatively influenced; some of them even seemed to be half- paralyzed and could do nothing. Thinking of all this, I felt very disheartened. I had never expected that I, who was barely 30, could get diseases which occur mainly among people in their 50s or 60s.

When I was driving home, I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing down my face. Thinking back on all those years, I felt I was like a wound clock that ticked round and round and couldn’t stop.

In the following days, I went to the hospital for treatment every few days. I tried all kinds of treatments to treat my cervical spondylosis and periarthritis, such as physical therapy, massage, cupping, acupuncture, traction and small needle-scalpel therapy. These treatments cost me a lot of money, but were of no help to me. On the contrary, they left a shadow on my mind: The sound of the acupuncture needles going in kept echoing in my head. Every time I went into the hospital, my heart would start pounding; when I thought of the pain brought by traction and acupuncture, my legs felt weak. Many times I thought: “I’ve built up my career and gained money and reputation through hard work, but my health is now ruined. I spent nearly half of my life striving to fulfill my ambition of building a successful career. How come my hard effort has resulted in this?” I lived in extreme depression and pain, but I didn’t know how to get rid of them.

After believing in God, I reflected upon my life.

When my agony was at its greatest, God’s gospel of the kingdom came upon me. I saw these words of God: “Born into such a filthy land, man has been severely blighted by society, he has been influenced by feudal ethics, and he has been taught at ‘institutes of higher learning.’ The backward thinking, corrupt morality, mean view on life, despicable philosophy, utterly worthless existence, and depraved lifestyle and customs—all of these things have severely intruded upon man’s heart, and severely undermined and attacked his conscience.”

Through reading God’s words and listening to the fellowshiping of some brothers and sisters, I found the root of my pain. I remembered that when I was little I saw my cousins succeeding in their careers, and that all the relatives and friends admired them, so I secretly became determined to become an outstanding person. When I began my career, controlled by notions such as “rising above others,” “bringing honor to the ancestors,” “People struggle to go upward, but water flows downward,” I was not content with being an ordinary white-collar worker. In order to satisfy my desire to be outstanding and be admired by others, I worked like crazy. I got so absorbed in studying as to forget food and sleep. After I became an executive in the foreign company, I still wasn’t satisfied and so I worked hard to build up my own business. I didn’t cease to pursue fame and wealth until I’d ruined my health. In modern society, the majority of people admire the rich and powerful, and are eager to be one of them. They do their utmost to struggle for fame and wealth, but little do they know that fame and wealth are Satan’s tricks to tempt and harm mankind. Satan uses these erroneous ways of thinking to control us, and make us turn away from God; bound by fame, wealth and status, we live in pain. Many people have achieved success, won recognition and have great wealth, yet they actually feel even more empty and depressed than before. Some of them get depression because of their great mental suffering. Some of them indulge themselves in lives of pleasure and lust, and even get addicted to drugs to numb themselves and relieve their pain; some even choose suicide to end their lives. Through the revelation of God’s words and examining all these facts, I came to realize that pursuing being an outstanding person was not true happiness, and that success and fame couldn’t bring true satisfaction or sureness to me.

Ecclesiastes 1:14 in the Bible says: “I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” In Matthew 16:26, the Lord Jesus said: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” That’s true. No matter what we gain in the world, we cannot take anything with us when leaving the world, and in the end, everything is empty. If we struggle for money, fame and status and sacrifice our lives, then we are very ignorant and stupid. In those years, I strived hard in order to be outstanding and live an aristocratic life, but now I’ve ruined my health and live with the suffering of illness. Thinking of this, I realized I was so ignorant.

Later, I saw these God’s words: “From the moment you come crying into this world, you begin to perform your duty. You assume your role in the plan of God and in the ordination of God. You begin the journey of life. Whatever your background and whatever the journey ahead of you, none can escape the orchestration and arrangement that Heaven has in store, and none are in control of their destiny, for only He who rules over all things is capable of such work. Since the day man came into existence, God has been steady in His work, managing this universe and directing the change and movement of all things. Like all things, man quietly and unknowingly receives the nourishment of the sweetness and rain and dew from God. Like all things, man unknowingly lives under the orchestration of God’s hand.” “I believe that it is best for us to find the simplest way to satisfy Him, that is, to obey all of His arrangements, and if you can truly achieve this you will be perfected. Isn’t this an easy, joyful thing? Take the path that you should take without paying any mind to what others say or thinking too much. Do you have your future and your fate in your own hands?”

Through the guidance of God’s words, I came to realize that our fate is in God’s hands and only by obeying God’s ordination and arrangements can we gain the blessings of God and enjoy true happiness and ease. However, I originally didn’t see God’s sovereignty and so obstinately lived in accordance with Satan’s philosophy, regardless of how bitter or tired I felt. Not until I fell ill did I stop to reflect upon myself. I realized that all that I pursued brought me only pain, and that only when I come before God to obey His sovereignty and arrangements, let go of fame and status and no longer rush around for them, can I stay away from Satan’s temptation and harm and live freely without restraints. When I realized this, I knew how to walk my future path.

When my viewpoint was transformed, I regained my freedom.

Later on, the cosmetic company changed their marketing strategy and wanted to select some stores to be model stores. Those stores had to have good locations, a steady stream of customers and high sales volumes. When the executive told me about this plan in detail, I was kind of tempted to apply. I thought: “Once my store becomes one of the first group of model stores, not only can I derive a variety of support and good discounts from the company, but there will also be a constant stream of customers when my store is redecorated. Then the sales figures will surely keep improving.” Just when I was picturing this beautiful future, God’s words flashed into my mind: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36). “If you were asked to choose again, what then would be your position? Would it be the former still?” Pondering God’s words, I started reflecting upon myself: “What on earth should I choose? Money, fame, status, or my life? After hearing the company’s new strategy, I still want to take this opportunity to gain money, fame and status regardless of my health. Won’t I be repeating my former mistake? If I was to end up paralyzed in bed, then no matter how much wealth I possess and how much admiration I win, what use would they be? My life is the most important thing.” Thank God. Under the enlightenment and guidance of God, I knew how to choose the right way. Later, I went to the executive and told her: “I’m in poor health. If I expand my store, my health will break down. So I’ve decided, I don’t want to be selected.” The moment I made my decision, I felt as if I had rid myself of shackles that I had borne for a long time, and I gained relaxation, freedom and relief that I had never felt before.

After that, I no longer spent all my time managing my store. I started to fulfill my duties to the best of my abilities in the church. When it came time for meetings, I would go; and when it was time to work, I would go to my store. Surprisingly, sales didn’t decrease because of my attending gatherings and fulfilling duties. From this, I clearly saw that all of this wasn’t decided by my own efforts but depended on God’s blessings and control, as all things are in God’s hands.

I thank God for selecting and saving me. Through living the church life, reading God’s words with my brothers and sisters, and sharing our individual experiences, my depression was gradually alleviated and my condition took a favorable turn. Thank God. I’m willing to pursue the truth according to the direction God has pointed me in, and walk on the right path of life—obeying God and revering God. All the glory be to God.

[dxmedstudent]

Hi doc! I am really interested in getting into freelancing (perhaps in writing or coding). I know that you do freelance work in art; would you mind giving me some advice on where I could start and your experience and motivation into monetising your passion?

Hello! what an interesting question, I don’t think I’ve beenasked this before. I wrote half a reply (which tumblr ate, very helpful. This happens notinfrequently because I write long replies and always have a million tabs open.But I digress…) so it’s taken me a little while to complete it. I’d also liketo ask for anyone with relevant experience to chip in, because I think there’sa lot of variation and it might be nice to hear from more than one person. I’m not sure I’m the best person to answer this, but I’ll give it my best shot,then I’ll open the floor to all sorts of smart and busy people who have a loton their plates, and who will probably be able to add much more. Yup, I love to draw, it’s fun, but it’s time consuming, and mostly I prefer todo it for fun rather than to fulfil requests or commissions (which can bereally fun, too, but are also an obligation, and something you have toprioritise, and not something that’s fun to juggle around full-time work). I’mlucky that my day job is something I genuinely enjoy, even if it is tiring,emotionally draining, exhausting, makes me work all hours, overruns, issometimes depressing, takes up a lot of spare time, and ties me into doing alot of work outside of work to stay relevant and train up. Really, it’s morefun than I make it sound! But because I know what I like, and what I want, I’m happy with thecompromise I have. I can’t draw nearly as much as I like, but I have astable (if time-consuming and exhausting) job that I enjoy and that gives meexperiences I value. I’m OK with drawing sometimes, and picking my projectscarefully. Right now, my ploughing all my energy full time into being an artistwouldn’t work for me. If that changes, then I’ll re-evaluate what I want out ofmy life.What’s in a day job?So enough about me, I’m actually not very relevant XD I’m an outsider in theranks of tumblr artists, most of whom spend a lot more time drawing, probablyless time liking their non-drawing day jobs. So I’m not going to pretend whatworks for me works for everyone. You don’t actually specify your day job, so I guess might not be medicine;that’s not what your ask is about. But what your day job is, matters. You implythat your passion may lie outside of what you work/study (or were yousuggesting mine does?), and this in itself matters. Do you like what you aredoing as your day job now? Do you love it? Do you see yourself carryingon with it, or would you eventually like to leave altogether? Traditionally, some jobs or fields of interest have been less valued or lessfinancially stable on average, giving us the setup of ‘day job’ which providessome sort of financial stability whilst people pick up their passions on theside. Now, that doesn’t necessarily hold true for everyone; I know graphic designersand musicians etc making their day job and their passion one and the same. Buta lot of people don’t have the experience in the field they are passionateabout, (or perhaps the financial means) to go professional from the get-go. Andthat’s OK; what works is different for everyone. There’s nothing wrong withloving your day job and just wanting to do something you like on the side(which happens to make a lil money). And there’s equally nothing wrong withfinding your day job dreary but deciding that it’s OK, gives you time to dowhat you love, and pays the bills. When is a day job not a ‘day job’? When it’s medicine. As a job, it’s reasonable; it’s got some awesome bits andsome terrible bits, and if you read my blog then you’ll know that whether thegood is worth the bad depends a lot on the individual. But it’s not a ‘day job’in the classical sense. If your passion lies outside of work, you want a jobthat is unobtrusive, relatively untaxing, and provides reasonable stability andpay without expecting you to do a lot outside of the 9-5. Medicine is mostlylong, irregular hours and staying late. It’s studying for 5+ years atuniversity only to still be a complete noob, and have to do more scary exams afteryou graduate. It’s projects and audits and presentations and teaching youprepare outside of work hours, and hoops you have to jump through during theyear to prove you’re sufficiently doctor-y to keep doctoring. And that’swithout even mentioning that it’s emotionally draining (people shout at you,people die), stressful (see above), tiring and if you work in the UK theybasically make you move hospital every year, and move speciality every severalmonths. You might even have to move all over the country. It pays OK, but atthe junior level when you are starting out, it’s not much different to yourfriends in 9-5 jobs (and they actually get evenings, weekends, bank holidaysand time to write!!!). Sure, you’d earn more eventually, but that’s only assumingyou put in all the effort to get to the top, which you will probably not wantto do if you really, really want to focus on your passion. So the eventual ‘gain’ may not justify the negatives, if you don’t lovemedicine for itself. Unless you love it, then it’s ‘just a job’, and youshouldn’t feel forced to continue in medicine in the long run if you don’t likeit. If what you really want to do is something else like art or IT or writing,don’t forget to find a day job that makes it more manageable for you. What are the more flexible options withmedicine?Now, full-time medicine is time-consuming. And medicine is hierarchical; youusually can’t just jet a ‘normal’ doctor job and plug away at it 9-5 withoutworrying about training; there are a lot of hoops to jump through because everyyear they expect you know more, do more, be a more senior doctor. Now, thereare exceptions. Some people choose to leave training and just take on what wecall ‘trust/staff grade jobs. These are jobs at a junior or middle level whichdon’t offer you any chance to progress (you’ll NEVER be paid more) or train up,but you don’t have to worry about the stress that comes with that. These areusually offered in specialities or deprtments where they are short of trainingdoctors; they are like a longterm stopgap. Some people do it for a short time(I did, to help me work out what I want to do) and others do it for a longtime.  This usually still requires funky hours. Another option is locuming; you take on short-term, last-minute shifts indepartments that are short. It pays more, but there’s no consistency orgurantee of jobs; you may find yourself inundated with shifts that needfilling, or there may be none. The NHS being understaffed, usually has lots ofshifts going that need filling, so some people do this whilst they are tryingto work out what they want to do, and a few people do it longterm. It pays,it’s flexible, but you don’t really get to work in a team or have a regularroutine. And like taking on trust grade jobs, there’s a little stigma attachedto doing it in the longterm, if I’m honest. Medicine being heirarchical (knowledgeand experience is respected and valued, and your seniors tell YOU what to do),choosing not to advance is often seen as a little weird, or at least a littlevague and indecisive. Nowadays so many people do it that it’s much more normal,but medicine is full of lots of really competitive people. To go these routesyou’ll have to be the kind of person who isn’t eaten up by the idea of notbeing a top surgeon/neurologist/etc one day. There’s also the option of going into general practice and choosing to workpart time, as many do. In standard hospital medicine, you usually need a reasonto go part time (like kids or an illness) but going part-time in GP land ismuch easier, and the training is less long. So it’s a more flexible option, butthe job is not easy, and GP should never be the ‘I don’t want to do medicinebut I want to get paid’ choice. You’ll burn out. It’s really not a cakewalklike some hospital docs think.It might be that you don’t work in UK medicine, so this bit might all becompletely irrelevant for you, but I’m putting it out there because it’lllikely be relevant for someone. Where do you see your passion going? My parents are fond of a saying that goes something like ‘if you do somethingas a hobby, it pays as a hobby’. Which is actually pretty true.  If youdabble in something just a little bit, well, it’ll never pay as much as if youtook it seriously. Time, effort, expertise, research, they all matter. This is key. A lot depends on just what you want to do in life. Where do you see yourself in 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? Are you someone who ishappy to draw for fun and for your friends? Would doing a few commissions nowand again keep you happy? Do you want to be a full-time concept artist? Sameapplies to coding or writing. There are people who self-publish the odd bookand are happy. There are others who want to work with a publisher. Would you behappy freelance coding apps etc or would you want coding to eventually be yourday job? There are people who write pop science books while being full-timedoctors, there are people who leave medicine altogether to do what they want.And there are people who go part-time and balance things out somehow. Somepeople make webcomics, others want to work for DC. It’s not always an either-orsituation, but work out what is important to you, what you’re happy to leaveand see if it happens, and what you don’t really care for. If you’re not surewhat you want, it’ll be a lot harder for you to get it. Seek out your seniors.I really, really recommend just properly immersing yourself in your field ofinterest. Join forums and networks, network with people in that field and ask alot of questions from those who work in it full time, or have a lot moreexperience than you. They have already spent a lot of time doing the thing thatyou’ve just started.  They may havewritten books that might be useful for you to read, or have tutorials thatmight help, or they might just be really happy to offer advice; most people arepretty kind when it comes to fellows with similar interests. You’ve clearlytaken at least one step (by writing to me) which is excellent, because it’sreally scary to go out there into a new community, and start asking questionsand making a presence, but that tends to be exactly the thing that matters ifyou are freelancing. But, you don’t just have to stick to people doing medicine and X, the widercommunity of your field will have a lot of knowledge that may be useful. Youalso may need to network professionally or even in person, and know who allyour local employers are. Now, the kinds of participation, networking, andsupport you can get and receive may differ depending on your fields; I don’tknow what the coding communities are like. It might be that what people aremostly doing/talking about doesn’t interest you. But there will still be lotsyou can learn.

In order to monetisethings, you need to have a good idea of where that money is coming from in yourfield. Is it going to be from individuals, or a company? How are people goingto find out about your services so they can contract them? The process ofmonetising writing is probably very different from the process of monetisingcoding, but this is precisely why the points I mentioned earlier (about whatyou want to do) are important. You’ll have to do a fair bit of research aboutthe fields you want to go into, to work out what your options are, and what youmight do. Social networking remains important in freelancing, and yet it’s alsoincredibly time-consuming. As is managing your online presence and branding,etc. Freelancing or running your own show effectively means you have to beeverything that you need. Want a website? You’ll have to either code somethingserviceable or pay someone to do it. Online presence and advertising? You’llhave to manage it. The list goes on.  Youget to decide how much time and effort you can put into it.  I’l remind you of the saying I mentionedearlier, though. In order to make things work, it usually requires a lot ofextra effort. For example, I am not a particularly active member of many other communities,but I know a lot of places where webcomic artists share tips (or artists ingeneral, authors etc), and where I can begin to get advice and tips, fromtutorials, resources and people.  AndI’ve spent a fair amount of spare time reading up on things that interest me andweighing up how to do things, and deciding if it’s right for what I want rightnow. For example, my comic (and I) I don’t have a facebook page or publicInstagram, twitter, LineWetoons, Tapastic etc not because I don’t know thosethings exist, but because maintaining an online presence and interacting withpeople who enjoy your work is very time consuming so I pick and choose where Iwant to spend that energy. However, if you want to monetise your talents, youmight need to spend a lot more time and effort (and potentially money) on yourpassion before it can grow to be something that pays dividends. Lastly, I’d advise you to take one step at a time. Monetising things doesn’tcome easily; lots of people on Tumblr are open about the fact that theystruggle to make the thing they love earn enough money to support them.  It can take years for people to build upenough of a following, supporters, clients etc to really make way in theirfield. Does this mean you should stop doing it? Not necessarily, but you shouldkeep your eyes open and learn from everyone’s collective knowledge andmistakes.Good luck :D