granny smith to honey crisp

I want you to draw a Venn diagram.

I want you to compare and contrast yourself to the person you last communicated with.

Next, I want you to draw another Venn diagram.

I want you to compare and contrast the city you live in now to the city you grew up in.

Finally, draw another Venn diagram and put a big X through it.

Quit comparing, quit contrasting. Seriously, screw it.

K now listen “Nothing from Nothing” by Billy Preston just because it might make you feel like dancing.

 

While thorough analysis is a highly sought-after skill, I’ve found that when we compare and contrast our lives, it may keep us from giving our new experiences (people, places, things) a real chance.

Can’t you hear it? Your future experiences on hand and knee, begging you to “take a chance on me, take a chance on me”? Listen carefully.

People. We’re all different, yeah? And it’s a natural human tendency to compare and differentiate oneself from others. How are you different? Why should I hire you and not the last dude who walked through the door?

It’s also natural to high-five, say “OMGsh”, and jump around and squeal when you find out you have the same favorite color as a new acquaintance.  That’s perfectly lovely, but it’s the effort put towards differentiating and potentially isolating oneself from others that may get us into some trouble.

I used to believe I had a way of thinking about the world that was unique to others. So unique there was no way anybody had ever had the same thoughts as me; all these books in the library? Psh. No way they mention the things that go on in my head. No way have people felt what I felt. I am different. I am me.

Oh, young Jen, this isn’t so. 

Get off that high horse and quit doubting people.

I found that if I opened myself up to new people, remain humble and not impulsively raise myself above or below them, maybe I’ll do more jumping and squealing upon common thinking.

I’ve personified this thought with basic human emotions, so I can not only understand it, but feel it: it’s not fair to your new experiences if your past experiences are constantly lingering around. In a way, you’re not respecting the possibilities of new people, new places, new things (to be ambiguous).

 And yourself. Ohhhhhhh, you.

• You are not your 6-year old self.
• You will not fit into the same pants nor will you be able to relive the same memories.
• Camp one summer will be different the next summer (a tough, tough first world problem I had to learn).
• Your hair will get bigger with age, so quit the nostalgia trips of the tamed-hair years.
• Your first relationship will be different than the next, and the next, and the next after that. You don’t go into one and blend them together, isolate them, compare them, and spit them back out and decide you’re in the one you’re in because of x, y, and z. You don’t go into one because you lacked or had too much of something from the previous one. This isn’t fair to the current and futures ones.

And new places:

Yes it’s true that Tallinn, Estonia is not Lawrence, Kansas or Dallas, Texas. I’m glad it’s not. You think I would let the -20 degree weather along with hanging death icicles keep me from letting Tallinn shine in its’ own right? That wouldn’t be fair to Tallinn. (see, personifying?)

You think I would travel to Helsinki and walk around the half-cobbled streets and keep thinking Tallinn’s cobbles are better? No. Again, not fair.

World, I don’t care if you have a Starbucks or McDonald’s or Chipotle (well, maybe) or free public toilets. I will not think less of you don’t have my comforts from home. I intend to make new comforts, and when I get too comfortable with those comforts, I intend to make more comforts.

Quit the venn diagrams

Quit comparing yourself to people

Quit comparing people to people

Places to places

Apples to apples

Post-preach update:

I’m really loving work. The teens could not be more special. Seriously.

The first snow fell on Friday! Which obviously means it was time for my first frozen yogurt.

I took my new friends to Texas Bar & Cantina. The Russian philologists. I was crying laughing around these people to the point we had to get paper and pen to write down every funny. When I lifted up my cactus-for-a-stem margarita glass to cheers, I said “chairs” and my Russian tutor said “tables”. Oh, puns do exist across cultures.

And last night I hosted my first work-related gathering. My oven was also used for the first time. We (okay, they) made pizza and we sipped on Ukrainian prosecco. It was such a joy to see a handful of new friends comfortable and happy in my apartment.

We made moves to Old Town by sliding across the icy cobble-stoned streets; as a precautionary justification to any sudden face-planting, I whispered, “I’m from Texas, I’m from Texas”.

After a few hours of dancing I was basically gliding through the streets like a professional Russian ice-skater. I also had a cold water bottle in my hand. If that’s not adapting I don’t know what is…

OKAY, fine, I’ve also been sleeping in my wool socks and fleece jacket 🙂

Chairs and tables,

Jenstonia – so you can’t really jog on ice…

22 going on 22

I used to be a lot of things.

I used to be angry, I used to be quiet. I was tough, over-determined, and yearned to be perfect. At 4, I was a competitive soccer coach’s dream player, but I was my own worst enemy. That lasted another 14 years.

I was “13 going on 30”, so they used to say. An old soul, a wise owl, whatever metaphor floats your ferry. Truth be told, I was confused as hell.

I was mad at the world and didn’t understand destructive human behaviors and unfiltered speech. Of course I wasn’t a toddler saying “I don’t understand destructive human behavior”, but my soul quivered at the sight or sound of anything “evil”. The concept of “karma” was innate and I constantly thought about the world outside of Jen.

What I didn’t understand was that my thoughts and behaviors were, in fact, self-destructive. I became what I disliked the most.

Self-aware to a fault. Determined to a fault. Thought-provoking to a fault. Deep to a fault.

At 12 I had 30 year-olds coming to me with their relationship problems; At 13 I had peers asking me to wake them up at 6am so they could join me on a morning run and become overly health-conscious like I was. I got along better with adults than with kids my age. Teachers were my best friends and in effect, my pre-mature maturity provided me with more opportunities and responsibilities than “normal”.

I was. I was. I was.

I used to be a lot of things.

At 18, I made a conscious decision to stop trying to figure out life.

Quit analyzing so much, quit finding faults, quit fixing, quit searching, quit finding meaning.  

Start enjoying.

So I started enjoying.

Yep, that easy. No thinking, just doing.

My king-of-the-party brother definitely helped pave the way along with a boyfriend who was warm, open, spontaneous and the least “deliberate” person I know.

Now I choose to recognize constructive human behaviors and filter unfiltered speech. I know the world and people within it can’t be perfect and say the right things at the right time, but I can choose how it affects me.

I choose not to be mad at the world. I choose to embrace the good and say “nice try” to the bad. I’ve had enough practice to turn the bad into good to where finding good has become a natural reflex. I trained my brain at 18 and made a conscious change. So when people praise my positive attitude and my view on day-to-day life, not only is it a major compliment on the person I’ve BECOME, but it’s a testament to what we all can do.

This isn’t a post to pat who I’ve become on the back; it’s a post to show that my previous posts aren’t a crock of shit. I’m not embellishing my experiences to make you feel good about my adventures; I’m showing you the world inside my head that I took time to build.

 

I used to be a lot of things, but I’ve always been a word-person.

I believe in the power of words. I love the power of words. I adore the power of words. I respect the power of words. 99% of the time, I am careful, deliberate and sensitive with the words that come out of my mouth. I know saying something can make someone’s day or break someone’s day. Not saying something has the same power. What is said can never be unsaid.

I learned that when I think something negative and utter something negative, it essentially effects how I feel… negatively. The more I do it, the more it becomes habit. The more it becomes a part of everyday life, the less likely I am to skip around in a field of flowers and sing about how beautiful the world is. In fact, the image of happiness becomes aversive.

So I chose to think something positive, utter something positive, feel good, and make that a habit. In effect, that image of bumming around and being a cynic about the world becomes aversive.

And now, I am 22 going on 22. Comfortable with my age, comfortable with the world. I feel I’m right where I need to be, doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing.

“Life is too important to be taken seriously” a bundle of words very near and dear to my heart and what I’ll use to highlight the past few days:

Life is too important to be taken seriously, so I went to Helsinki for the day yesterday. Booked the tickets online at 10pm the night before and made the ferry 2-minutes before the gates closed.

Life is too important to be taken seriously, so I stayed up until 7am on Friday and Saturday to sing Russian karaoke and dance to Russian power ballads from the 60’s.

Life is too important to be taken seriously, so I sat in seminars at  Jahad, a weekend convention bringing together 500 Estonian Jews, and listened to intellectual discussions in Russian and had no idea what was going on.

Life is too important to be taken seriously, so I watch 90s v 80s music on vh1 instead of the debate on CNN.

I’ll close with this awesome conversation I had with my supervisor on the way to Parnu, where the convention was:

• A: “Jen, did you bring your bathing suit?”
• B: “No, it’s like winter outside”
• A: “They have spa, you can wear mine”
• B: “Uhh, no I can’t”
• A: “Yes, you can, it’s like gummy”

Dance the night away,

Jenstonia – it’s supposed to snow on Friday.