Surviving the Quarter Life Crisis

I’m just trying to survive my Quarter Life Crisis.  

I have 8 months before I hit 30, and I’m pretty sure I was supposed to have it all together by now.  But let’s be honest, I have no idea what I’m doing.  I am basically a 12-year-old child trapped in this 29-year-old, cubicle-working, no passion, no direction life.  

In reality, I’m just trying to figure it all out.  

Where do I want to live?

Where do I want to work?

Am I really a repressed minimalist living among too much stuff?

What is my passion?  (Uh...is “passion” really a thing??)

Why can’t I stop biting my nails?

How do I define success?  And how am I working towards this?

So, in true form, I decided I need a plan.  Without a plan, I don’t act.  I think and stew and wallow.  Having a plan is much better.

This is my plan to persevere through my Quarter Life Crisis:

1.  Define my goals.

Without a clear set of goals, you have no idea what you are working towards.  You’ll just roam through life without a clear sense of direction.  You don’t have to be on the right path, but you should have an idea of where you are are going.  

Someone once had me make a life plan.  This was a daunting task, but it did open my eyes to begin mapping out how I want my future to look.

2.  Save money.

No one likes feeling poor.  No one likes feeling like they can’t pay their bills or that they can’t do the things they want.  You probably aren’t going to have your dream job at this point - let’s not even talk about our dream salary - but there is always room to save money.  

And I highly suggest watching Suze!

3.  Do something creative.

Take an art class.  Rearrange your living room.  Only buy things that are pretty AND functional.  Buy snappy shoes.  Get a haircut.  Get hot pink hair extensions.  

Doing something creative will only open your eyes to the beauty in the world.  Only then will you see the beauty in yourself and the beauty in the things that may have once appeared ugly and terrible.  

4.  Get outside.

Some people like running.  I might not be one of those people, but I highly suggest you going out for a run.  Or a brisk walk.  Or a slow walk.  

I have recently discovered joy and peace in hiking.  Maybe there is some new activity in which you could partake....who knows....maybe you’ll discover a new love.  

5.  DO SOMETHING!!!!

Write down your plan; then, put it into action.  Take a class at the community college or enroll in grad school.  Start a journal.  Use a planner.  Go to a MeetUp event.  Get outside of your comfort zone.  Take a different route to work tomorrow.  

Taking a baby step is better than stagnation.  

A Woman to Admire

As a woman in my late, late, late 20’s, I’m on the hunt for a good woman to admire.

But how to you pick someone? 

What are the characteristics you look for?

                Successful.

                Poised.

                Educated.

                Confident.

                Eloquent.

It’s easy to think of men to admire: Colin Powell - before he basically became a Democrat, Mark Zuckerberg, John Roberts, Bill Gates.  

It’s easy to think of older women to admire: Madeline Albright, duh!!!  The Queen.  Condoleezza Rice.  Sandra Day O’Connor.  Oprah. 

And it’s VERY easy to think of dead people to admire: George Washington, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Victoria, Steve Jobs.  Although sometimes I think dead people getting a better name for themselves just because they are dead.  Hello JFK! 

But I’m looking for a woman who isn’t too much out of my age range to look up to.

So who are my options?  Sheryl Sandberg.  Marissa Mayer.

But I’ve very different from these women.  I don’t have a wealthy family that gave me awesome opportunities.  I didn’t go to prestigious schools.  I make less than $100,000 a year.  I’m in a job with no growth opportunities.  And I don’t even have a window anywhere near my desk.  (Desk = cubicle). 

I suppose I could look up to women I actually know.  Women in my family.  Women at work.  My favorite authors. 

I feel like the first criteria a woman must have is that she must have done something amazing!  I’m not sure that I know anyone who has done anything amazing!  But what does ‘amazing’ mean? 

I used to know a guy who admired his mother more than anyone.  His father died suddenly, without life insurance, when he was around 7, and he had three other younger siblings.  Now, this guy admired his mother because she stepped up and raised four children, successfully ran the business the father started, and never complained.  I could never understand why he looked up to her so much.  Isn’t that what any mother would do?  How is she special?  Is she special just because she survived the situation and raised 4 children?

Maybe that’s the thing….this woman did something special for her family and maybe that’s the only thing that matters.

But I want to look up to a woman who did more than raise a family and had a mediocre job.   

Now, in my research,* I got a couple different answers.  From Google, the most frequent names I found were Hillary Clinton, Oprah, and European leaders.  From my friends, I heard answers such as teachers, bosses, parents, pastor’s wife, movie stars, and friends. 

Now, I’m not sure what the answer is.  I’m not sure how to pick someone to admire and I’m not sure that I admire anyone.  I wonder if it’s good to admire someone.  If you look up to someone so much, you might miss out on an awesome opportunity because the person you admire probably didn’t take that same path.  

And, if you admire someone, does that mean that you aspire to follow in their path?  Or does it mean that you pick and choose a few characteristics to mimic?

I don’t have the answer, but I know that I’m on the outlook for a woman to admire.  

Any suggestions????

*My research consisted of Google searches on “most powerful women,” “most admirable women,” and “most successful women.”  I also (unscientifically) polled my friends via text message and IM.

Winter Adventure.....Part 2

You know that feeling when you are laying in bed, awake, and you know your alarm is about to go off.  You don’t want to look at your phone because you don’t really want to know what time it is.  And, you know that if you hit the button, the phone will light up and you’ll instantly be stimulated when you should be resting.  And it’s not just about looking at the time.  You have to read that one email that came in at 2:47am.  Once you have deleted that piece of junk mail, you might as well check FaceBook too.  Then, the second you put the phone down, the light fades, you finally close your eyes and you become fully relaxed.  

That’s the moment the alarm goes off.  

By the time, layered myself up with proper clothing, my friend and I went downstairs for the hotel’s (crappy) breakfast.  My hike leader and the rest of the group showed up, and we went over proper equipment, which of course I spent half a fortune to purchase.  The group packed the cars and we set out for our “acclimation hike.”  We drove a few exits down the highway and hiked Mounts Dickey and Welch.  It was a total of about 4 1/2 miles.  We got a slight idea of the snow we would face and learned how to use crampons.  Although this was called our “acclimation hike,”   

Mt. Washington was vastly different than these smaller mountains. We began our hike on the mountain at 7am on Sunday morning.

Mt. Washington was like nothing I’ve ever seen before.  Everything I thought about snow and serenity was put to shame before I started on the Mt. Washington trail.  

Mt. Washington was the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen.  

Although the fog was a little thick, the snow-covered trees created the perfect motivation for me to keep hiking up the steep trail.  

The trail was not packed as well as the trails I had been on the previous two days.  I followed the trail leader’s steps almost exactly as I made my way up.  

We made it to a large hut, about 1.5 miles from the summit.  That was when my hike leader told us we would not make it.  It was almost noon, and it would take us about 2 more hours to make it the rest of the way.  That means that we would not have had enough time to get back down the mountain before sunset.  It would have been unsafe.  

Going down the mountain was my favorite part of the trip.  This was my chance to fully enjoy the environment around me.  I got to see the snow in it’s most true and pure form.  I got to slide on my butt down the steepest parts, which my knees and ankles really appreciated.  I now know that feeling of making a misstep and ending up waist deep in snow.

And I know the feeling of trying to get out of waist deep snow.

I also learned what it felt like to take hold of my fears and turn that energy into achieving something awesome.  

Maybe I didn’t make it to the top of Mount Washington, but I still accomplished something great.  I put myself out there to physically fail, and I succeeded.  

This may be the most challenging adventure I’d ever been on.  The hike was equally mentally challenging as it was physically.  

I made it safely to the bottom with the greatest feeling of accomplishment that I have ever felt.  

I left New Hampshire the very next day, after a wonderful night’s sleep.  

And no, I never saw a moose.

95 goals left......962 days left.

Winter Adventure.....Part 1

Last week.....around this time....I was climbing Mt. Washington.

A few months ago, I came up with this crazy idea.  I would try to do get out of my box and try new things.  I wanted to challenge myself, mentally and physically.  Something was telling me that I needed to prove to myself that I can do things that are completely foreign to me.

Looking around online, I saw that REI had travel options.  They have a ton of options too - anything from African Safaris to bike rides across Asia.  I figured that I should I should probably stay in America, especially since I just got back from Italy.  So, I was looking at the options in North America, and saw that they had winter adventures.  Then I saw the Mt. Washington climb, and I was sold.  I convinced a friend to go with me, and we booked our trip.  I had three months to prepare.

Preparation (logistical preparation at least) comes pretty naturally to me.  I am innately organized.  I love planning and packing.  I spent hundreds of dollars buying gear to keep me warm.  I weighed down Pack and took him on a few hikes with me.

Physical preparation, on the other hand, does not come quite so naturally.  That's all I have to say about that.

When the time finally came, my friend and I trekked up to New Hampshire to begin this crazy adventure.  We drove 11 hours to Vermont and toured the Ben and Jerry's factory.   Hey, if I'm going to drive all that way, I'm going to do some fun stuff too!

The next day, we drove over to New Hampshire (goal #13).  We took the extra long route to maximize the possibility of seeing a moose.

We checked into the (crappy) hotel room and promptly left to find something fun to do.  We went to the Visitor Center and the nice woman told us where we could go snowshoeing on a nearby trail, Georgiana Falls.

We strapped on snowshoes (goal #35) and explored this little trail.  It was beautiful and snowy.  This was the first time in my life that I had ever saw this type of snow.  Now, I'm from the Midwest, so I grew up with snow.  But this was different.  This snow was pure and serene.  And there was so much of it.  The trail was pretty well packed, but the surrounding snow was probably about 6 inches deep.  We were out for about 2 hours, and decided to head back when we realized that we had no idea where we were....or how much longer the trail ran.  

After our snowshoeing trek, we had dinner and went back to the hotel to get ready for the next day.  We would meet our guides and group.

Anxiety was setting in pretty well by this point.  I couldn't believe that I was there, or that I had traveled all this way.  I was nervous that I couldn't do it, even after buying all the gear, taking time off work, and packing so well.  I hadn't slept well in days either.  I didn't know what to expect, which is always difficult.

I went to bed.  I didn't sleep.  I simply waited for alarm to ring.

#52 - Go to a concert

I completed my first goal!!!

On Friday night, I went to a concert with a couple of girlfriends at The Filmore Silver Spring.  

My friend, Lineka, found this awesome band called Blackberry Smoke.  Now, this was the first time I had ever heard this band, but I would say they were somehow a cross between a hairband and Lynyrd Skynyrd and country rock.  It was an intense show.  Just because I had never heard of them before doesn't mean that their followers weren't devoted.  You could tell the crowd really loved the band.  Everyone there was singing along to the lyrics and the line for the merchandise table was extremely long.  

Drake White opened for Blackberry Smoke.  He was pretty awesome.  I'll be buying his album off of iTunes in the very near future.  

Thanks Lineka and Jen for helping me complete my first goal.

100 to go.....988 days!

A Chilly Hike

Yesterday’s hike was one of the most interesting for me!  I’ve only been hiking for about 9 months, but this was the most demanding - and not because the trail itself was (too) difficult.

Pack and I made the trip to the Gambrill State Park in northwestern Maryland.  We hiked the Catoctin Trail for about 6 miles.  (I accidentally hit the wrong button on my new, fancy GPS watch so I’m not sure about actual milage.  OOPS!)

Not only was it 18 degrees, but there were some challenging obstacles I was forced to deal with.  In preparation for my Mt. Washington climb, I knew that going on yesterday’s hike was important to acclimating.  We have had unusually wonderful weather this winter, but I need to get ready for my winter hike.

I did not, however, anticipate my camelback’s hose freezing.  (I’m such an amateur!!!) A frozen hose means NO water for the entirety of my hike.

We came across about a half-dozen streams on this trail.  They were so beautiful.  I love the sound of a creek in the distance as I hike through a snowy forest.  

Yep, I had to cross both of these streams!!!

One thing I don’t love about streams, though, is how easy it is to slip and submerge your left foot into the ice cold water.  Of course....that happened to me!  And yes, it happen pretty early on in the hike.

Pack and I are really starting to get along.  This was our second time out together.  I stuffed him full of boots, clothes, and books to make him heavy.  I put him on the scale and he weighed about 20 pounds.  Let me tell you, it is MUCH different (read: exhausting) hiking with a day pack and hiking with a huge, heavy pack.  After Mt. Washington, Pack is going on a diet.

And mayyyyybe I could have also used an extra layer of pants.  (I only wore two layers under my hiking pants.)  My bottom half was a little chilly.  But I kept going.  As you can tell from a few of the pictures, I’m almost always the last hiker.  But that’s ok.  I don’t go hiking to race.  I don’t go hiking to be a hike leader.  I hike because it’s serene.  I hike for me.  I hike because it’s wonderful to be outside and to embrace nature.   That’s it.  Who cares if I’m last.....just as long as the bus doesn’t leave me stranded in a random forest!

All-in-all, it was a beautiful snowy day.  So what if things didn’t go perfectly.  Who cares that my foot was wet for a few miles.  And I was able to fully hydrate once I got back on the bus when my camelback (FINALLY!) unfroze.  

It was an amazing day on the trail.  

101 in 1001

Oh hello.  Remember me, my dear reader???  

I know I've been out of the game for a few weeks, but I am back!  

Lately, I've been feeling a little blah.  I think the winter, lack of sunlight, and my upcoming 30th birthday have taken a toll on me.  I haven't done too much since my last post.  And no, I never finished the novel I started in November.  

So, here's the thing......I gotta get my personal life back on track.  I need to start attending more cultural events, attaining my goals, and focusing on where I want to be in life.  I'm embarrassed to say that I have watched A LOT of television over the past 8 weeks, which is exactly how I do NOT want to spend my life.  So, when I started (re)thinking about how I want to use my time, I found an awesome website that facilitates working through and achieving goals.  

Here's the catch though, it's not just picking a handful of goals and working on them throughout my entire life.  No, no.  I am going to (try to) complete 101 goals in 1001 days!  

This website -  Day Zero Project - gave me a lot of awesome ideas.  'Cause let me tell you, it is no easy task to think of 101 goals.  Trust me on this.  You'll get to about #35 and get stuck.

I finalized my list a few days ago.  Then, I had to get mentally prepared.  It's a big task to complete 101 goals.  And yes, 1001 days is a long time, but I know that it'll be here before I know it.  

So???  Are you ready for it?  Are you ready to see my goals?  I spent about a month creating the list, so it's a little special for me.  

Enjoy!

1. Leave the country
2. Go skydiving
3. Try Stand-up Paddleboarding
4. Donate my hair to Locks of Love
5. Apply to Grad School
6. Move
7. Get a new job
8. Stop biting my nails
9. Read a biography about a (dead) historical figure
10. Read a biography about an (alive) historical figure
11. Visit two new National Parks
12. Climb Mt. Washington
13. Visit two new states
14. Read five classic novels
15. Write a novel
16. Knit a scarf
17. Lose 15% of my body weight
18. Have $25,000 in my Emergency Fund
19. Turn my blog into a real website
20. Run 15 minutes a day for 15 consecutive days
21. Create 3 recipes from my own imagination
22. Submit a piece of writing to be published
23. Write an essay
24. Write a poem
25. Write a piece of non-fiction
26. Run a mile in 10 minutes
27. Buy dinner for a stranger
28. Have an electronic-free weekend
29. Go camping
30. Leave a 100% tip
31. Go vegetarian for one month
32. Take a writing/blogging class
33. Get a pet
34. Go skiing
35. Go snowshoeing
36. Finish my Italy scrapbook
37. Finish Noni’s Ireland scrapbook
38. Finish Noni’s Italy scrapbook
39. Read 30 books
40. See a Broadway play
41. Visit a famous museum
42. Go to a professional hockey game
43. Do a random act of kindness
44. Go zip-lining
45. Run a 5K
46. Watch the John Adams HBO documentary series
47. Visit a new Presidential home/museum   
48. See a musical
49. Visit an elephant sanctuary
50. Go one week with no TV
51. Make a bucket list (at least 15 items)
52. Go to a concert
53. Create an inspiration board
54. Take a pottery class
55. Have 15 followers on my blog
56. Go snow-tubing
57. Go sailing
58. Visit Las Vegas
59. Build a gingerbread house
60. Finish my novel from NaNoWriMo 2012
61. Learn something I never learned as a child
62. Find a new volunteer project
63. Go through a hay-bale maze
64. Donate blood
65. Go geocaching
66. Complete a 1,000 piece puzzle
67. Go kayaking
68. Eat a piece of fruit every day for a week
69. Go on a picnic
70. Go rafting
71. Bake bread
72. Bake a cheesecake
73. Write a handwritten letter
74. Send a secret to PostSecret
75. Read 5 short stories
76. Build something
77. Redo my shadow box
78. Participate in The Color Run
79. Watch 5 “classic” movies
80. Participate in The Sketchbook Project
81. Comment on 10 random blogs
82. Volunteer for Habitat for Humanity
83. Buy personal business cards
84. Go running with Pacers
85. Grow something from a seed
86. Make homemade pasta
87. Donate money to a charity
88. Go on a backpacking trip
89. Post on my blog each week for 3 months
90. Buy a new computer
91. Participate in an obstacle course race
92. Give a “just because” gift
93. Go on a silent retreat
94. Write a letter to my parents
95. Drink nothing but water for one month
96. Go to Jazz in the Park
97. Find something to be passionate about
98. Buy diamond earrings
99. Inspire someone to make a 101 in 1001 list
100. Make a book for this project
101. Save $10 for every task I complete