LOVE LIST
And changing the narrative...
Fall has always been one of my favorite times of year.
When we lived in Indiana, I loved driving through Brown County’s winding back roads to look at the leaves. We made a day of driving up and down the rolling hills and oohing and aahing as we drove past the brilliant orange, red, and yellow trees.
In Florida, fall is quite a bit different. Not just because of the eighty-degree weather in November, but there are no rolling hills covered with brightly colored trees. As I look out the window from inside my coolly air-conditioned home, I see only a few red leaves. Or is it a weed that has grown up one of the tall palm trees in our neglected backyard? Note to self, ask my husband … again … to tackle that overgrown backyard!
Even so, autumn in Florida is still a time of giving thanks and coming together with family and friends. It’s also a time for soup and boots—two things that I love! On the flip side, fall is also the time when I begin my annual ritual of beating myself up for not accomplishing the things I said I would do that are a little lower on my “things that I love” list.
Last year, I launched into several new “opportunities”—that’s what we call new things when they cost a lot of money. Lured by cool graphics and the promise that anyone can learn AI, I jumped in with both feet. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to grow my Substack subscribers and turn my content into cash! But secretly, I thought that if it cost a lot of money, someone else should be doing the heavy lifting.
I’ve had to learn and re-learn this lesson many times—nobody can do it for me. I know this is the case, and yet wouldn’t it be nice if someone could. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone else took care of the “messy” bits of life.
A friend and I were venting recently about how busy we both were, and how we were both struggling to keep up with our life choices. She suggested that I get a virtual assistant. She had just engaged one and was optimistic that it would solve her problems. In my mind, this “assistant” would keep me informed of everything going on around me and advise the right things to do and curb my FOMO while keeping me better engaged and positioned in the community.
Feeling invigorated with this new plan, I rushed home to jump on the computer and research “How to Find a Virtual Assistant.” As you know, I love naming inanimate objects. I named our Roomba vacuum Ritchie and my truck Frank, so I decided to name my future virtual assistant Tess after the Melanie Griffiths character in the movie Working Girl. Perhaps the fantasy of the perfect assistant has come true for some. My problem is that I have to tell Tess what I want her to do. And that is the age-old circular conundrum of garbage in—garbage out.
If I knew what to do, I wouldn’t need Tess!
The conversation with my friend reminded me of another truism … venting doesn’t release the emotion, venting RE-LOADS the emotion. While at first, I was feeling invigorated with a plan to control feeling overwhelmed, venting only increased the chaos swirling inside my brain.
This time last year, I gave a presentation at a ladies luncheon titled “Finding Joy and the Answer to Every Problem,” ignoring the irony of that title and my current struggles. I’d now like to propose that there is something only you can do in the unique way you do it—you are the expert in you … and nobody can do it for you.
And that is my new love list.
