Readers, I have avoided the "About" page for, well, for as long as I've had this blog, which is over 3 years, but since it's a page I always look at on others' blogs, I thought I ought to put one on mine. So here goes.
Why “unmapped country?” Aside from the obvious analogy that the blog contains ideas I haven't explored, I liked the irony of the phrase. You see, initially,
this blog was about my (extremely) reluctant transition from city life to
suburban homeownership. Now, there’s not much that’s more familiar to most Americans than suburban
family life, but it was kind of exotic to me and my NYC friends, thus the hint of irony.
After a while, though, the blog morphed. It became an
exploration of my travels in search of success. The trace of irony lingered – as
in, success is unmapped country for me, but plenty of people had been there
before me. Have you any idea how many books about success there are? But none
of them were what I needed. The good news is that now the territory is a little
more familiar, and I’ve mapped a few noticeable successes. I’ve been published
in the New York Times Motherlode blog, and I blog regularly for Psychology
Today and The Huffington Post. Along the way, I’ve learned a few things, and I share ‘em here.
Why “the flip side of
failure?” It’s to indicate that this blog is about the opposite of
failure, except that the opposite of failure isn’t actually surefire success. Because
I am not offering you the key to surefire success. I don’t have it. I don’t
know what surefire success is. I’d been ruminating on the myriad ways I had failed, until I reached a
moment when I felt a little switch in me flick on, and I thought, I am sick of
analyzing why I feel like a failure. What I want to do is figure out how NOT to
feel like one. Thus, my travels began, on the flip side. You know that old (and
exceedingly annoying) jolly phrase, “Turn your frown upside down?” Well, it was
kind of like doing that to my sense of failure. Just turn it upside down.
Reconsider life from a different mindset, and grope forward. With humor. Thus,
the flip. An attitude flip AND a flip attitude.
Why did I feel like a
failure? Well, from where I started, my ideas were strictly black and
white. I had a real zero sum attitude about success. I love that term zero sum.
It means that the solution is either/or. Either you’re a success, or you’re a
failure. Basically, my definition of success was getting my novels published,
and anything other than that was failure. It became necessary for me, for my
sanity, for my family, to reconsider my definition of success – and of failure.
Otherwise I risked living my life without appreciating all the good that was in
it. The flip side of failure gives me a lot of gray space to think about
alternatives.
“You know that
success is not the most important thing in life, don’t you, Mommy?” The 9th
grader said the other day. “Happiness is the most important.” She’s been
reading about Aristotle and Epicurus in her Global History class, and they had
a lot to say about happiness.
“Of course,” I said. “Of course I know that happiness is
most important.” However, let’s face it, sometimes succeeding at something is
important to our happiness, and no amount of feel-good hoody-haw will change
that. So for those of us who have a goal, I am searching out ways to get it
accomplished, without feeling miserable until then. After all, as I’ve
learned, happiness arrives when we’re engrossed in meaningful work, and
all meaningful work has goals.
So what do I blog
about here? About pretty much anything related to success, either directly
or tangentially – very tangentially sometimes – that appeals to me. I love that
word, tangential. Since I am a woman, a writer, a wife, a mother, a feminist, a
citizen, an urban expatriate in the suburbs, a secular Jew, a liberal, a
worrier, and something of an exhibitionist, and I write about success in
connection to each of these descriptors, topics range. I’ve discovered some
pearls, and I’ve made fun of some duds.
Of course I am
writing a book, too. Since I began this blog, and the book, which is in
proposal stage and has only been rejected by four agents so far, a new category
of non fiction has been named, and it applies to my writing: self help memoir.
Which is a shorthand way of saying I write about what I do to try to self help myself,
with the intention to help you, Readers, self help yourselves. Possibly by
running as far away as fast as you can from any suggestions I give. But also
possibly, by following my example. You choose.
In case you care
about my credentials, let me be clear: I have none. But I have had a lot of
therapy. Also, I have read a bajillion books and articles about success. I grew up in Washington, DC, majored in English Literature at
Wellesley College, worked as a teacher, wrote two-and-a-half novels and a bunch of short stories, and am now a mom and a freelance
writer (available for hire.) I live in a neo-colonial revival house but wish it were a
Not-So-Big House, with the husband, two daughters, and a very large Australian
Labradoodle.
