Tag Archives: rant

And Whatever

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Yes You Do

God knows I love a good rant. A good rant is spewed from righteous indignation, full of snappy repartee, hard to argue points, and substance. It’s fast, almost impossible to interrupt and it can have you standing on your feet if you agree, or slinking away if you’ve been proven wrong.   Think Aaron Sorkin, who can spin several different political points of view into one oh yeah we can all agree on that tiny thing. Think George Carlin, linguist extraordinaire going off about his post-modern manhood. Think Anne LaMotte who I call the world’s most amazing spiritual rantist. She has a way of looking at things that transcends the conventional but gets us all on the same page. Rantist is not yet a word, I’m working on that, there are days I truly aspire to be one… You see the common thread here? There is always one tiny thing that anyone listening can take away as their own.

Unless you rant for a living it’s usually a one time, get it off your chest; say what you have to say kind of thing. It’s hard to repeat if it comes from way down inside and really means something. What it is NOT is bitching. Bitching is excruciatingly slow, whiney, poor me, oh this and oh that and usually someone else’s fault and ends with “and whatever”!!!   I get people have something to bitch about but there’s a change that could be made somewhere in there and after hearing the same bitch over and over it’s enough. Just change one thing, just one, please. Then you’ll have something different to bitch about or shut up already. Can you tell I’ve heard more than a few of these this week?

I try not to bitch because I recognize the things I’m tempted to really bitch about have several very good solutions, none of which I’ve gotten off my ass to implement.   Yet, I mean I haven’t gotten off my ass to implement them yet. Right, don’t want to send that down on myself blah blah into the universe.  I can assure you I don’t live in a Que Sera Sera world and that shit travels…fast… Just sayin.

NJ Botanical Gardens (28)

That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be an outlet for everyone who has that “thing” they’re stuck on. I’m not sure what that outlet should be because it’s personal. Mutual bitching partners? Pity parties? Racquetball? That used to work for me but my joints are long past bouncing off the walls. No it’s more like a photo walk for me now. I say I haven’t found my bitch and purge outlet yet but here I am bitching and purging.

If you can learn how to rant, do. It’s amazing and cathartic. You don’t have to do it out loud if that’s not your thing. I recently met a wonderful woman who posted her rant on Facebook. Just the other day I made an alternate response to an email that made me feel much better about the ridiculousness of the original request from someone who had no business speaking on behalf of….well anyone. There is a wonderful finality in the Whewwwww.

You’ll feel much better. I rant therefore I am…Dennis Miller

Yes?

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What about you, they said, would you jump out of a plane.  Uh, no.  Skiing?  You mean where you look out over the top of a mountain and then throw yourself over on the equivalent of two sticks?  Uh, no.  Sounds like I’m starting from no but, in fact, quite a bit of thought has gone into these decisions.

Really I start from yes most of the time and I’d really like to see more people do that.  When posed the statement:  I want to live in a world _____.  I said I want to live in a world where people start from yes.  I get that that isn’t going to happen all the time but this week it didn’t happen at all.

I’m backing out of a parking space on Stowe Lane last week and my overly cautious, not want to scrape up my tires and rims, watch the mirrors, and the camera way of doing that pissed off one of my neighbors.  I didn’t cut her off but she did have to wait and she was in my face about that.  Really?  You’ve heard me mention the Mayor of the Pool and her hard ass, gravelly voice, don’t come to my end of the pool, incensed because she has to go outside the fence to smoke personality.  Well there she was giving me the face and the head shake as I’m apologizing.  Wait.  I’m apologizing.  She didn’t stop, she didn’t care so you can imagine me going all triple dog dare and calling her bitch.  I’m not proud of it but it needed to be done.

Why was that necessary in a darling little neighborhood like ours?  Why is it ever necessary to always start from no without a second’s hesitation?

Enter the Starbucks one morning and it’s jammin…no surprise it’s 8:30am.  Waiting in line, smiling and chatting with the people.  Place my order, venti skim no foam one Splenda latte please.  Your name she says. Sandi.  What?  It’s not an uncommon name but for an Ashley or a Jessica or a Kiley…who knows, maybe?  I repeat it and ask her to check if my free drink is in the computer.  Well we’ve been having problems checking against the cards (I see, the app would indeed be better) and the Starbucks computer hasn’t been responding and….oh…it went through.   I didn’t actually say it this time but she was indeed…

Continue through last week in anticipation of what I call the periodic justify your existence meeting this week.  Provide the information the project leaders were looking for only to find out it was being used at a conference call I only off handedly heard about.  You know I’m all for the next generation coming up and making a difference and I really worry about being labeled the old woman when I try and hint that they may not be entirely on track in their thinking.  Well this dinosaur knows like she knows that some people are plunging head first into fixing an anomaly by changing policy and they don’t know what they don’t know.  Point is they are starting from no.  After struggling with a spreadsheet that would provide the much needed reality check over the weekend I closed it and I’ll be damned if I know where it went.  Note to self….trying to justify your existence over the weekend with an I’ll show those spiky haired, skinny jeans kids sucking up to the guy on the ledge with one foot on a banana peel attitude might not have been the right motivation.  Sometimes the universe provides a motivation check on my behalf; thank God I printed the file.

Why is it necessary in a world renowned company to power grab instead of practice the art of consensus?

I was going to plunge right back in this morning on gathering the reality check material but I decided to start from yes instead.  Not my idea exactly, more like Evi and I sharing a glass of wine over our previous night’s texting where she reminded me to take today off, it will wait.  And our ever present mantra, it’s just cars.   So I did, today I started from yes.  Took a walk with two sets of dogs, took myself around my dear Stowe Lane, camera in hand to capture what is surely the last of the turning leaves.  Rearranged my office to be MY office, not my other work office.  Spruced up my home, took out something fabulous for dinner with my friend Sandra and let it go.

So many signs handed to me this week to start again.  When I started this post with:

Legacy Lesson: Start from Yes

Start from YesAnd then: Ordinary Wisdom from Tina Fey

tiny fey

And finally: Ordinary Food for Thought

when you say yesI never thought it would turn into a rant about NO.  The fact is I should have heeded the hints, actually more like the bricks, thrown at me and stayed on course with my original thoughts on saying yes to more and more invitations, more and more tiny community adventures and more and more positive interaction.  Thankfully I’m doing that but as with anything else you can never really see the power of one thing unless you’ve experience it’s direct opposite.  I believed before in the power of yes I certainly have confirmed that this week.