my thoughts

i know i’m blonde, but i do have thoughts. so here they are!

4 Aug 2011
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the daily grind

Daily Grind Cartoon

Yep... remind you of life?

So sometimes we get stuck. In rush hour traffic… in grocery checkout lines… in mud.

Those are all pretty frustrating, but the stuck I’m thinking about is a little deeper. (No, not deeper in the mud…)

All of us sometimes get stuck in the dreaded daily grind. Now, what exactly is the daily grind? And why do we get stuck in it?

Well, everyone has their own version of a daily grind. In fact, most people have more than one type of daily grind (that includes me!). It could be a particular project or maybe your entire job. It could be your commute or your workouts or your home routine. It could even be your personal activities that started out fun.

It doesn’t matter WHAT it is… but we all know when it happens. When something that started as fun or interesting becomes overwhelmingly blah, it has made the transformation from routine to grind.

Why does that happen? Why does something we enjoy doing become a chore?

In part, the obvious answer is that it gets repetitive. We do it too much and it doesn’t change enough to keep us interested. After all, even without modern attention span deficits, humans like/need variety. Take my commute… every day I get up at 5:15 to catch the 6:40 to get to Union by 7:30 to take the subway to Bay and into work by 7:50. Then at 4 (if I’m lucky), I rush out of work, run to the subway, back to union to catch the 5:10 or 5:25 to get home by 6:45. That wears anyone down after weeks, months, years of doing it daily. Its like that callous that happens on your middle finger when you’ve written too many essays by hand! (I still have mine from university…)

So we’ve got repetition as a source of grind, but we can add to that lack of challenge or lack of intellectual stimulation. Work is a prime example, especially at many cubicle, 9-5 jobs (just ask my hubby… he lives it daily). For many unlucky people, their work takes little real thought or dynamic problem solving. Combine that with the repetition and you’ve got boredom overload!

Wait! There’s more… what about the opposite end?? Sometimes we are weighed down by an overabundance of stress, daunting workloads, unreasonable timelines, or multitudes of problems that we can’t control. Even when we try to meet these as challenges, over time these work the same way: bringing us down slowly by wearing away at our mental health.

This happens to the best of us and sometimes we have no way to counteract it. I mean sure, we can get a new job or move, but in most cases these are not easy things to do just because we feel a little worn down. But to be honest, neither of those reasons are the real reason something becomes a grind.

The real reason is you and me. Our perception. Our attitude.  We allow ourselves to be worn down or stay in a rut. No, we don’t do this on purpose, but we do. Over time, we stop feeling positive attitudes towards those repetitive, mundane tasks which allows them to wear us down into a grind.

  • Life is all attitude. Attitude creates perception. Perception creates reality.

If instead, every morning we wake up and find something (or many things) to be thankful for and go through the day purposely trying to find something positive in all the negativity, we may find fulfillment in that daily grind.

“Woah Lydia… you’re getting a little new-agey on me here.” Ok, I’m not big on the ‘manifest reality’ ideas that I hear everywhere now. HOWEVER, I do see their point, even from a psychological perspective. The first rule of cognitive behaviour therapy is that you must change your mind to change yourself. That is all I’m saying here…

If you want to stop feeling ‘the daily grind’ you have to stop feeling the daily grind. Change your attitude to ‘feel’ positivity instead of dread. Thankfulness instead of anger. Happiness instead of boredom.

Who knows, it may just work!

  • Side note: The Grind is the coffee shop I’ve recently been stopping at in the mornings. Every time I see the sign now I try to remind myself of this and force positivity into my day. Although, it helps that there’s coffee!
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13 Oct 2010
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creative on demand

Almost without question, the most challenging part of being a designer is having to be creative on-demand. I mean, sure, clients are sometimes hard to swallow (not literally… rule #1, don’t eat your clients)… but everything that clients throw at us is only difficult because it requires us to be creative on-demand.

It is even more difficult when they throw the same problem at as multiple times, forcing us to rehash a creative solution over and over. At some point, it often feels like there is no more creative juice left to squeeze out of that lemon. Just looking at it makes your mouth dry and your palms sweaty, putting you in a bad mood out of frustration. Yet somehow, at least at my office, we always manage to pull through and make the client happy. Sometimes we even hit the jackpot and make ourselves happy and our clients over-the-moon happy!

Those are the days we live for as designers. I mean sure, it would be fun if I could just be creative in my own way, without people telling me what to do or what they need or the purpose… but that makes me an artist, not a DESIGNER. A designer, by definition, is creative for a purpose. Of course art can be a purpose all on its own, but what makes design harder than art is that we have a goal, a purpose, a problem to solve.

We are creative problem solvers. People come to us for a multitude of reasons, but all of those have one thing in common: They need our creativity. They need us to think the way they can’t. Many times they think they simply need us to be pixel pushers, making the visuals because they can’t… but whether they realize it or not, they need us to take their ideas, their goals, their problem and create a solution to make it better.

This is what I live for: thinking differently, solving problems, and making creative solutions. That is why I love my job.

I just wish being creative on-demand was as easy as using my cable on-demand… could you imagine having a menu in your brain where you can select: Logo, Web, Print, Miscellaneous.. then simply load what you need in an instant! Problems solved!

Man… if only. But I guess that’s what they pay us the big bucks (*cough*) for… ;)

Now, if I could only be funny on-demand. We tried yesterday at work… attempting to come up with some funny ideas for a video skit discussing our web design process… let’s just say, my brain was pretty dead. But alas, I guess that’s why I’m a designer and not a comedian! (and don’t you dare say Amen to that!)

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12 Sep 2010
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aspired inspiration

This is an excerpt from a story/editorial that I wrote in my last year of university. I was thinking about it the other day and decided I would post it on my site to share. It was written as a result of an assignment for my illustration class. In the end, I combined the illustrations and the story into a magazine style layout.

Illustration from the article

Illustration from Aspired Inspiration

Every morning I pass by a church with a sign in front that says, “Aspire to inspire before you expire.” Church board messages are always a source of amusement for me, but this one I have taken a liking to. It is so simple, yet sums up my entire existence. That is what I hope to do to everyone I meet, to be some form of inspiration even if it is as small as a smile during a bad day. It may seem quaint and cheesy, but most good things in life do, especially in today’s cynical mindset. We scoff at good deeds and random acts of kindness—so much for Mother Theresa and Gandhi.

This weekend I was in my special place: Borders. I know it is a big, bad, chain bookstore with its five dollar lattes and overpriced stock, but there is something about sitting in a comfy chair, surrounded by aisles of written inspiration with a hot chai tea on a rainy day, that draws me in. Maybe it is the pretend air of intelligence and order. Or possibly the selection of music and movies that are hard to find elsewhere, like old cult classics. Not to mention if at any point during my day I feel bored/lost/uninspired I have rows of books on all different subjects to spark my mind and fuel my creativity.

However, the problem with public places is that other people are allowed in them. Whereas people can be very intriguing and entertaining to watch or overhear as you sit, minding your own business in your comfy chair drinking your tea, some can be the direct opposite. Worse yet is believing that someone is a genuine, enjoyable person only to find they are not so considerate of others as one should be.

So this weekend I sat in the Border’s café, sketching people and objects that came into my view. [...]

As I sat in the same comfy chair and drank my skinny latte, I sketched a few people nearby. The gentleman diagonal from me seemed rather upset with his laptop, as he continually huffed and puffed, shaking his head to the sound of Windows rebooting. I felt bad for him because I hate that feeling, when technology is beating you miserably. Not long after I had arrived, the same gentleman from Wednesday and his wife walked in. I smiled to myself as I wondered if he would recognize me. They ordered their coffees and took their seats, the gentleman next to me and his wife across from him (the laptop man had moved to a seat with an outlet). The gentleman looked over to me and said, “Didn’t I leave you here the other night?” “Yes you did,” I replied with a laugh and continued to look around for something to draw. As they settled in, I thought it would be sweet to have a sketch of his wife to accompany my memory of this gentleman. So I began to sketch.

As I was sketching, I overheard her telling her husband about a man who almost knocked her down on her way in and did not even apologize. I thought, “That is terrible, who would do that to an old lady. That is so rude.” As I shook my head silently in sympathy for the lady, I continued to sketch her face. She had a cute little nose and a small face, very round like you would imagine Mrs. Clause. Suddenly, the gentleman next to me folds up his paper and leans forward saying, “I’m going to go sit somewhere else.” His wife looks at him funny and he sort of whispers, “She’s sketching you.” The wife does not understand what he is saying, so he gets up and goes over to her, telling her something before walking off. Totally unexpectedly, the woman comes up to me and yells, “Don’t you have to have permission to draw someone?” It wasn’t a question. She continued, “Yea, you do. It’s just like taking a picture, you have to have permission.”

Stunned, I looked at her and said, “I’m sorry, I don’t think…” Too late, she didn’t even stop to hear it.

Wow. Yelled at. In public. By a strange old lady. For no reason.

(I say ‘no reason’ because it is nowhere near illegal to draw someone in a public place. It is not even illegal to photograph someone in public, unless you are publishing it.)

Why would someone get so upset about a sketch? Even if they were upset, why would they not simply ask me to stop? It really hit me hard. I couldn’t sketch anymore and as I walked out I started to cry. I called my mother to relay the incident while gushing tears and anger.

[...]

After about an hour I was fine and resigned that she is just a bitter old lady. It is always older people like her who say that young people today have no manners. Funny, because I would never yell at another person out of the blue like that. I would first ask politely. Sadly, that lady and her husband are regulars at my special place, tainting it with their callous presence.

My boyfriend always says I have too much faith in people. That no one cares about anybody but themselves, so why should I care about them? I don’t know. Because it is the right thing to do? Not in a religious sense, but in a humanitarian sense. If everyone just treated others respectfully, the world would be a much better place. The only way to start is by example. But I warn you, if you decide to be a better person and work toward a kinder world, you will get hurt. People are mean and careless, just like this old lady. However, if I let them outweigh the good people in the world, they win and the world stays bad.

I go to Borders to be inspired. This lady did the complete opposite to me. In fact, she discouraged me. If I was a Bible-belter I would love to amend the church’s quotation to say, “Aspire to Inspire before you Expire or you will Perspire in Hell.” But alas, threats aren’t inspirational so that would defeat the purpose. So think about inspiring others on a daily basis by simply holding a door or smiling, it will mean a lot more that you think. And who knows, it could catch on and make old ladies that yell at art students in Borders feel really bad for being so rude.

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9 Sep 2010
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keep calm and carry on

Ya ever have that feeling like there is an inside joke going on and you’re just not privy to it? Well that’s how I feel when I see these posters.

Keep Calm and Carry On

Do you get it?

In case you’re not up on the fad, this poster is all over the place all the sudden. I’ve seen it, and variations on the theme, at Chapters and other stores like Winners, etc. It all seemed rather random to me; like it was something I was supposed to know or understand, but no one gave me a heads up.

Now, to be fair to the poster, this feeling is not really unusual for me. I’m not always the most up-to-date on my pop culture references.

I mean, I’m better than my mom—who, bless her heart, sends me forwards of memes that I saw on Mashable or Facebook MONTHS ago… but I don’t watch much TV (aside from sidelining my hubby’s sports watching) and I don’t use StumbleUpon much anymore. Combine that with the fact I’m no longer in university or high school, I just don’t ‘get out much’ into pop culture land. *sigh* And suddenly I feel really old.

But I digress (as usual). I’ve had quite a stressful last two or three weeks, both at work and at home. Stress was getting the better of me, and I’m sure quite a few of the people around me were not enjoying the rough ride. Looking back, I think of how hard it is to see the effects of your moods on others, when you’re so immersed in your own life…but being the emotional person I am, I feel like making a public apology. So, I’m sorry and I love you all.

So back to the poster…It just keeps popping up in my life, visually and conversationally, so I feel like it is a sign.

  • If work asks too much and home gives too little, Keep Calm and Carry On.
  • If you get in a creative drought and feel helpless to fix things, Keep Calm and Carry On.
  • When life gets the crazies and it takes you with it, Keep Calm and Carry On.

The lesson we should take from the poster is obvious. This too shall pass, if we just hold on, keep our cool, and push forward. Life is often stressful and hard, but every challenge offers new opportunity for growth. How we address that challenge defines us as an individual.

My goal is to Keep Calm and Carry On, pushing my way through the muck to come out on the other side a stronger, confident, and happy individual. I’m sure I won’t be as classy about it as the British, but I’ll do my best at Southern charm, give a big smile, and make it work!

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5 Sep 2010
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are you whelmed?

“So, I know you can be overwhelmed and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?” – 10 Things I hate About You

Ok, so I’m not THAT blonde, but if you asked me this question, I would have to say yes.

In fact, Webster agrees that you can indeed be whelmed; but to my dismay, it actually just means the same thing as overwhelm.

Let’s imagine for a moment that we didn’t check with Webster and we took the words at their face value. Here, the prefix over- means excessively or completely, whereas under- means not enough or lacking in. We know the definitions here are:

  • Overwhelmed: to be excess in emotion; to be completely engulfed in emotion; intense;
  • Underwhelmed: to be lacking in emotion; to not have enough emotion; apathetic.

By any normal train of logic, the root of a word containing one of these prefixes must be a more or less normal state of being. Thus, whelmed in my world would mean a balanced or content emotional state. Not too excited or upset, but not bored or uninterested.

Being whelmed would then be the ideal. You would be happy with your life. You would enjoy your job, relaxing in the monotony, while relishing the challenges as an opportunity to grow. This would be a life of 50/50; half ‘good’, half ‘bad’, but it evens out in the end to be a balanced life.

If you have too much ‘bad’, be it frustrations at work or unfortunate health or relationship problems, you become overwhelmed.  Being overwhelmed for an extended period of time leads to stress, burn out, irritation, and a general feeling of losing control.

If you have too much ‘good’, with everything going your way with little effort on your part, you become underwhelmed. I know, you say there is no such thing as ‘too much good’, but you’re wrong. As the saying goes, “You can’t appreciate the good, without the bad.” If you are underwhelmed for too long, you can loose your drive, your motivation, leaving you ambivalent and static.

Without a challenge (underwhelmed), we can’t grow; With too much stress (overwhelmed), we can’t flourish.

In my work, I am often overwhelmed and seldom underwhelmed. There is always something to be done and a deadline to meet, but I enjoy what I do and am a natural busy-body, so it keeps me motivated rather than burdened. There is a fine line between overwhelmed and underwhelmed, but I walk it like a tight-rope trapeze artist, doing my best to keep myself whelmed.

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4 Sep 2010
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i think, therefore i am…

I think, therefore I am, right? So, if I have many thoughts, does that make me many people? Just wait, I’ll explain…

But first, a little background: I took philosophy and psychology in university and still have a passion for both. I studied a variety of philosophical schools, including Existentialism, Rationalism, Narcissism, etc. and enjoyed everything about cognitive, social, and abnormal psychology.

Although I didn’t persue these subjects in the workplace, I find that having a basic understanding and background in them helps me in my job as a designer. With creative problem-solving, you need to be able to think ‘outside the box’, even so far as to question the existence of the box sometimes. These subjects give me a kaleidoscope of lenses to view the world and thus, my projects, allowing me to see differently.

That said…this thought really has nothing to do with work or even rational thought, but it was a random thought that popped into my brain one day, so I thought I would share. Continue…

  • Descartes “argued that although dreams appear as real as sense experience, these dreams cannot provide persons with knowledge. Also, since conscious sense experience can be the cause of illusions, then sense experience itself can be doubtable. As a result, Descartes deduced that a rational pursuit of truth should doubt every belief about reality.” (wikipedia)

  • So, the only thing I can truly know, is that I think and must, therefore, be.

If we look at Descartes statement in relationship to psychology, we have a whole other perspective and variable interpretations possible. For example, a person suffering from Disassociated Identity Disorder (a.k.a. Multiple Personality Disorder) can have a number of ‘individuals’ inhabiting the same body.

Now, as a psychologist, we know that these are in fact the result of a defense mechanism triggered by extreme trauma. However, as a philosopher, one has to wonder what constitutes and validates an individual. These ‘identities’ often have very different thoughts from one another. If thinking is indeed a prerequisite for being, who are we to say these ‘identities’ are not truly their own beings then? Ok, I may be taking that too far, but the thought is there.

On a less psychotic scale, every person on Earth has multiple ‘personalities’. That is, everyone has the ability to take on different roles and in turn, adapt to the social norms of that role. I am a designer, and when in that role, I think creatively, have opinions and styles, and act appropriately professional. However, I am also a self-proclaimed ditzy klutz, and when on my personal time, I often say things that sound dumb even to me, occasionally fall down stairs, and knock stuff over.

On top of those basic traits, depending on what social group I am with, I may speak or act differently. All this is normal and known as social cognition; knowing how to adapt to different roles in different social groups. So, when I say that I have many thoughts, making me many people, I’m not really far off. There are quite a few different Lydias to experience.

Of course, I know that is not the point Descartes was making, but just think about it…It’s possible. After all, Descartes was a  Rationalist, so I am allowed to doubt everything and follow my logic where it takes me!

P.S. If you’re ever bored, try watching Blade Runner or AI and then musing over Descartes. Your brain will spin!

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