#23 - What's the Right Metaphor for Your Life
Welcome back to issue #23 of my newsletter. We’re coming up on half a year of weekly newsletters. I’d love to do an “AMA” (ask me anything) edition for #26. Have a question you want to know about me? Just hit reply and I’ll see if there are enough questions to make a full newsletter.
Photo of the Week
It was a toss up this week between a photo of a Mocha from Rabble Coffee here in Indy and this photo of the full moon from earlier this week. I decided on this one because this was a really peaceful moment this week as I watered the patio garden and Kona played in the yard with me.
Metaphor for Life
Metaphors are powerful tools to help us convey meaning. All metaphors also fall apart at some point. Metaphors call for us to regularly reexamine their power and appropriateness.
On the most recent podcast episode of Happier with Gretchen Rubin, Gretchen discussed how the idea of “balance” as a metaphor for life had never really worked for her. While I’ve said the phrase work/life balance many times - I’d never really taken the time to think about whether or not this metaphor held meaning for me. It had simply been a cliché phrase that people say and I picked it up without giving it much thought.
So, I decided to explore it for a bit - particularly now as a small business owner. Here are the places where the metaphor fell apart for me.
A balance means there are two parts of our life - typically work and personal. I have many, many more parts to my life. Volunteering, faith, creative endeavors, etc.
Having only two parts to fit everything in means we’re drawing binary conclusions about where things fit all the time. I am a person who has never been comfortable with binary decisions or options. It’s not right and wrong, black and white, straight and gay. These things are all a continuum. Don’t believe me? Visit a paint store and try to pick the “right” shade of white.
Balancing two things means making them equal. I don’t want these two parts to be equal. As I’ve written about previously, work is about making a living - it’s not how you make a life. And, if anything, my balance has been skewed far more towards work for years.
If work/life balance is a metaphor for life, what happens as life changes and a two sided holder no longer makes sense? What happens when you retire or if you have the opportunity to stop working and living on your investments in a simpler manner?
In the podcast episode, Rubin explored a few other potential metaphors that she liked better. Gayle and I were discussing this over the weekend and Gayle came up with the idea of a make-up case/toiletry bag. This was a build off of Rubin’s idea of a tackle box or a sewing notions box. For both Gayle and I, the perfect make-up case/toiletry bag for travel is a regular conversation so I thought this was the perfect metaphor for life for me. Here are a few reasons why it works for me.
I don’t have to make a this or that choice about where things go. There are many compartments - not just two.
Not everything in my life needs the same amount of space. The compartments of my travel bag are of varying sizes to accommodate specific shapes and sizes and types of items. My current travel case has three loops where my roll on perfume, tide stick, and chapstick live. Every time I pull one of those out and then put it back I get this little thrill of excitement because they are exactly where they are supposed to be. (And, yes, I am weird like that.)
As my life changes, I can leave some things out and put other things in. While some things are always in my travel bag (perfume, tide stick, and chapstick), other things come and go as my needs change. In May, I went to the Caribbean - extra sunscreen went in. In June, I was in Glacier National Park where it was chillier - out with the sunscreen and in with extra lotion.
And, perhaps most importantly, a balance doesn’t present us with an easy understanding of when there is simply too much on the scale. My travel bag easily gets too full. There have been times when the zippers wouldn’t close on it easily. If we think of a balance scale, we can just keep stacking things in and on top of other things on either side and - as long as they stay in balance - it’s okay. But the travel bag metaphor means you’ve got to stop and assess what’s really important from time to time and some things just don’t make the cut. You can always reassess later, but you also have to be decisive about what stays and what goes.
What metaphor do you use to describe your life? Does it ever help you in meaningful ways? Do you need to spend some time thinking about this? Hit reply and let me know what you think.
Tools, Tips, & Tricks
Things You’re Allowed to Do
I recently discovered this massive list of Things You’re Allowed To Do. After reading through these, I added to my writing list to write something like this for coaching clients. Until I get the full thing written, here are the top three things I tell clients you’re allowed to do:
Ask a new potential supervisor to coffee before you apply for/while you’re applying for a job where they would be your boss.
Ask friends who have connections at a company you are applying for to introduce you to those connections so you can ask questions about culture, environment, initiatives, and more.
Start making money at something you’re great at without any further degrees or certifications. We all know how to do something someone else doesn’t know how to do. Hire yourself out as a “professional x” in whatever it is that you’re better at than others around you.
Use discounts like GoodRx even with employer provided insurance
Maybe I’m the only person who didn’t know this one but I’ve learned since having to get my own insurance that I can ALSO use discount programs for prescriptions with my prescriptions. I do think this depends on your pharmacy and it takes time. I have learned that there is one Pharmacy Technician at my local pharmacy who is willing to take the time to figure out how to ring things up at the absolute best price and she’ll try all the different codes to figure out which is best. I’ve gone from spending about $30 every 90 days on my four medications to spending $4 every 90 days. The programs I’ve given this Pharmacy Technician codes from are GoodRx, SingleCare and WellRx. My ProTip: This is not something you can easily do through the drive through in a hurry. Take a few minutes to go into the pharmacy and try to do at least your initial conversation at a less high traffic time.
What I published this week?
It’s been a busy writing week. I’ve written three pieces for clients that aren’t published yet (so I can’t share them yet) and I’ve been in full-on rough draft mode of a big project - an email based course about my favorite app - Obsidian. I need your help in making one of these posts a bit better - my “list of lists”.
I’m working on an email based course about Obsidian. In the course, I plan to drop in bonus content. One of the first pieces of bonus content is a “list of lists”. What are the reference lists you use or look at often? Here are links to the Medium and Hive versions of this same post. What would you add? Comment on one of those or just hit reply on this email and let me know.
Want to write/photograph/create more? Here is a handy list of prompt sources that are on Hive. This was a fun one to research and write.
If Sunday goes as planned, I’ll get at least one post up from our Amtrak adventure on my website -
http://www.iwannabemewhenigrowup.com. Just click the link and scroll down.
I had to replace my microphone this week which meant a few video projects got pushed back. Hopefully I’ll finally get the new one hooked up and figure out how to use it effectively so I can get back to video recording.
What I’m reading this week?
I’m still deep in that client project about curiosity but I have started reading/re-reading a few other things this week:
Book 2 in “The American Royals” series by Katharine McGee - “Majesty”.
Book 2 in the Abby Jimenez “The Friend Zone” series I started earlier this year. This one is entitled “The Happy Ever After Playlist”
I got my library hold “I Take My Coffee Black” by Tyler Merritt this weekend. Looking forward to digging into this.
I’m re-reading Work Clean by Dan Charnas. This is a “productivity” book but if you’re looking for “work/life balance” or to better manage whatever you put in your favorite metaphor - it’s a great book.
Diversion
A friend posted a photo on Facebook of his completed build of the Lego version of van Gogh’s “Starry Night”. I had NO idea this was a possible Lego build - but sure enough it is. This started me down a rabbit hole on YouTube of watching Lego Builds and I came across this one of the Starry Night build.
Pro Tip: A video like this one is PERFECT to keep muted AND watch at 2x speed. To Mute a video, just hover over the video’s image while it’s playing and click the speaker icon until it has a slash through it. To change speed, hover over the video image and click the cog icon (lower right) and then select Playback speed. I do wish it had something faster than 2x for videos like this but it was good enough.
The actual build starts at around 3 minutes in so I’ve set the clip to start right at that point. You’ll have to go to YouTube if you want to watch all his intro stuff too.
Ways You Can Support Me
Share and Subscribe to My Newsletter
If someone forwarded this to you or if you’re reading online, hit subscribe so you get my newest newsletter delivered right to your inbox every Monday morning at 8 a.m. eastern time.
And, remember to forward this to a friend if you read something in here they might find valuable.
Buy Me A Coffee
You can buy me a virtual coffee if you feel my work has added monetary value to your life in some way. Just visit https://www.buymeacoffee.com/iwannabeme and follow the on screen instructions.
Subscribe to Medium
I publish much of my writing on Medium. To read all of the content there, you need to have a subscription which gives you access to the entire library of Medium content. It’s a great place where I start nearly every day. If you want to subscribe, consider doing so through my referral link: https://iwannabemewhenigrowup.medium.com/membership