The Summer 2015 Preseason Show

I've been doing stuff lately. I totally have.

Life is short and it's too easy to get caught up in monotonous vanilla...you know: sleep, go to work, watch Veronica Mars, maybe do chores, more sleep, lather, rinse, repeat. I generally have a good smattering of social stuff balanced in there too, but I also like to be deliberate about having ADVENTURES and MISCELLANEOUS SPONTANEOUS STUFF. Mixing it up, you know? You feel me.

Summer is practically upon us and I realized a couple weeks ago that I needed to start throwing some stuff on the calendar before I suddenly blinked and found myself in October. I've been making plans with friends, set things in motion for a couple small trips, and perused local city parks & rec websites (moment of silence for the chaotic hell that is city websites) for some summer classes I can take to improve myself. (Ice skating, anyone? Maybe tennis? Or swimming? Jiu-jitsu? Pottery? I'll keep you posted on my selection(s)!) All part of my ongoing quest to be a renaissance woman. A jacklyn of many trades! A curious modern-day Magellan! I don't know. #Ramblesz

Mostly please note that I discovered a local culinary class titled "Celebration of Corn" on one of those city websites. I KNOW RIGHT

Anyway, adult life doesn't make for much of a summer BREAK, but here are the first few dabblings of summer flavor I've been sprinkling in around my work schedule. Enjoy and stay tuned for more delicious stuff to come :)

First there was a weekend trip to Arizona, that involved dinner and impromptu karaoke (see: I somehow ended up singing with the band) with old friends, mani/pedi appt with my niece (and momsie and sister, not pictured) and various other home-cooked good-for-the-soul kind of activities.

And then there was a painting class in SF with my friend Carrie! Inspired by my friend Emi's post here. My painting looks like a cartoon but IT HAS SAILBOATS SO THAT'S A THING

And guess what? June Cooper and I celebrated our one-year anniversary! She is such a babe. I love that I decided she was worth learning to drive a manual. And believe me, IT'S WORTH IT! I once went on a semi-blind date with a guy who didn't know anything about me except that "you drive a hot car." I call that a win in my book. Thanks for keeping my mojo alive, Junie! Here's to 50 more years!

I also ate fondue at a bachelorette party. It was lovely. I like the part where it was on fire.

Oh and last weekend I went to the beach and the company was swell but the weather was chilly and the wind was brutal. #norcalproblems Here I am wrapped up like a burrito, fishing around for a Dorito snack. Nothing to see here, folks.

...hopefully I'll have WARMER beach pictures to post soon. Actually, something in my day planner tells me I definitely will...and I'm sure you'll hear about it soon enough ;)

Clear eyes, full hearts...and building a resume I can be proud of

I read an article recently that struck a chord with me: The Moral Bucket List

If you don't have time (or a desire -- no judgies here) to read it, here's an excerpt that sums up the general idea:

"It occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral — whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love? 

"...at moments of rare joy, career ambitions pause, the ego rests, the stumbler looks out at a picnic or dinner or a valley and is overwhelmed by a feeling of limitless gratitude, and an acceptance of the fact that life has treated her much better than she deserves. 

"Those are the people we want to be."

The article basically digs into various virtues that people acquire via good living (humility, dependency, love and following your "calling," to name a few). I slapped the article on Facebook and went on my merry way.

But later, I got to thinking about one idea from that quote above...the part about resume virtues being the skills you bring to the marketplace, and the eulogy virtues primarily manifesting elsewhere in life. I realized, I disagree with that idea.

I've got some resume skills that I can list out....various tasks I can handle, programs I can run, and so on and so forth. But the parts of my resume I'm proudest of are more of what David Brooks (the author of that article) referred to as the eulogy virtues.

Sometimes I think we delineate too much between the skills we bring to our interpersonal relationships and the skills we bring to the conference room table. I prefer those lines to be blurred, or even nonexistent.

It matters less to me that I've figured out this software or that software, and more that I'm being sensitive to the needs of my coworkers, how their days are going, and what we can do to boost each other up. Obviously the technical skills are important too (can't live without 'em), but the soft skills feel just as crucial to me. I want my squishy heart and desire to be a friend to flow into my career as pervasively as how many words I can type per minute or how well I can word my emails. I want my resume to be chock full of eulogy virtues. I want that part of me to shine through in the workplace as much as (if not more than) anything else about me.

I took the StrengthsFinder 2.0 test a few years ago as part of a work exercise at a previous job, and the top 5 strengths it pointed out about me had nada to do with any of my technical skills and everything to do with my relational skills (which is funny, because I actually tend to get somewhat people-shy in a professional setting). All the skills that the test ascribed as my greatest strengths centered on empathizing with other people, developing their talents and making sure everyone feels included and involved. Maybe it's no surprise that I ultimately traded in my content writing title for a career switch to HR a couple years after that :)

Those things that I want people to say about me at my funeral someday -- I want my coworkers to be able to say them about me throughout my career, as I move between jobs here and there and have mini eulogies, if you will, along the way. I want to leave that legacy in my career as much as I want to leave it in my personal life. I guess you could say the career is personal, for me.

I don't think we should be afraid to let a soft personality and bleeding heart bleed right into our careers. A lot of things about career life can call for thick skin along the way, but I hope I always find a way to stay soft. Regardless of the hard exteriors we encounter, even in places of influence and power, I'm all for leading with warmth whenever possible.

I do (and will likely) spend a higher percentage of my adult life working than doing anything else -- why not live the kind of resume that can double as a eulogy I'd be proud of someday? Why not couple my interpersonal ambitions with my career ambitions? Why NOT bring a warm heart to the marketplace?

(Regardless, I think Brooks' article is fantastic -- I just prefer to read it while thinking about applying those eulogy virtues to my 9 to 5/6/7/etc. as much as anywhere else.)

And now a picture that's super relevant because I took it with some of the office decor at work, and because Buffy can be an inspiration to us all, amen:

p.s. 10 points to Gryffindor if you caught the reference in this post's title!