my problem with twitter

I enjoy twitter.  I really really do.  I enjoy the time I waste reading all the articles that are teased by snappy 140 character-long introductions.  I love that it gives me something to do while I wait in a restaurant for my friends who are always late.  In the evenings, it gives me yet another thing to do besides clean my house. I laugh at all the funny hashtags that bring people together (remember #tellviceverything? - awesome) and subsequently mock people who don't understand what a hashtag is.  But what I've come to realize is that twitter is also a way for all the cool kids to tell you what they are doing and make you feel left out for not doing it too.  It's worse than just not knowing what's going on - with twitter, if you follow a certain type of person and watch what they are doing, you can be part of the zeitgeist (i.e. cool because you know what's happening) but be left out of it at the same time (i.e. loser because you're not there).  If I'm sitting at home I can basically see what all the hip and connected people in Calgary are doing and then feel bad for missing out on it.  It's FOMO (fear of missing out) at it's worst because it's self-inflicted.  I guess I could just get off my ass and become more involved but sitting at home complaining about it is more my style.

PS - When I went to find a link to define FOMO, I found this NY Times article: How Social Media Can Induce Feelings of "Missing Out"  It does a much better job of articulating every thought I posted above, so I apologize for making you read my rant, when I could have posted the article and been done with it.

PPS - For a long time I thought that FOMO was something my friends and I coined, as we've been using it for many years.  Turns out, not so much.  I actually can't believe that I haven't posted about it before.  It's long been a symptom in my life and plays a big role in helping me decide to do the things I do, generally to very happy results.  For the most part I've always thought of it as a positive, but when it comes to twitter, I've decided it is causing me much angst.

a list for a sunday

I have been known to post a variety of lists - lists of things I've done, things not to do, things to be thankful for, books to read, music to listen to, and top moments from various events.  This time I'm gonna post somebody else's list.  It comes from the Lists of Note blog. It's taken from a letter that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote to his 11 year old daughter in 1933.  Here's an excerpts - I gotta say, I think it's a pretty good list of things to consider when going through life.


Things to worry about:
Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship

Things not to worry about: 
Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions


I'm not sure why it struck me at this particular moment in time ... but it's a beautiful sunny Sunday morning in February, I'm packing to go away for a week of work and friend time, and I'm feeling somewhat reflective.  I don't know that I'll ever worry about horsemanship or not worry about boys, but I feel like this is a good list to remind me what's important in life.  

guilty feeling got no rhythm

Guilt - it's a tricky feeling. And one I find myself struggling with constantly. About lots of things and to varying degrees.

There are of course many different kinds of guilt. There’s harmless guilt, like the name of this blog, referring to songs that are so lame they’re good. There’s nagging guilt, as in “I shouldn’t have eaten that cookie” or “I should really go to the gym.” There’s guilt in a court of law, as in “we the jury find you guilty of murder.” There’s moral guilt, as in cheating on your spouse or plagiarizing an essay. And then there’s psychological guilt, which according to Freud (and Wikipedia), is "an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something that one believes one should not have done (or conversely, having not done something one believes one should have done)."

It’s this last one that is haunting me these days. For women my age, this type of guilt is most often associated with working mothers - when they're with their kids they feel guilty for not working and when they're at work they feel guilty about not spending enough time with their kids. Well I have no children, but I still feel guilty when I make decisions that I think might disappoint or negatively impact others. I easily forget the mantra “you can’t please all people all the time” and so when I try to in fact do this, I end up overextending myself, having to back out of a plan and then feeling guilty about reneging. So in this way it’s my own fault.

But in another way, it’s something I have no control over. As a single childless woman with a good but not overly cumbersome job, living in a perfectly manageable 800 sq foot condo, I don’t really have any responsibilities beyond myself. So sometimes it makes it tough to figure out what my main priorities should be – Friends? Family? Job? Favourite activities? Decorating? The gym? Fashion? Food? Myself? When I choose one over the other why does it feel so bad? And then, when my friends’ and family's priorities are ordered differently than mine, and I choose one of mine over one of theirs, which I know might disappoint them, once again I end up feeling shitty.

One of the easiest ways to answer this of course should be - do what makes you happy. Life is too short … (fill in the blank here – to drink cheap wine, to read a bad book, to watch from the sidelines, and so on and so forth). Sadly it’s hard to live that way. In fact, living without guilt effectively means that you are a psychopath, something I don’t think anyone should really be aiming for. But a blog post like this one from Derek Miller does help to put things into perspective. I think what I should try to do is whenever I feel guilty (like really guilty, not the eating a cookie guilty) is to re-read the “Here it is, I’m dead” post and work on letting go of the guilt. It's really the least I can do. Check back with me soon and I’ll let you know how it goes.

And yes, the title of this post does refer to the classic Wham! song "Careless Whisper." When I googled the term "guilty feeling got no rhythm," imagine my surprise when I found out the actual words are "guilty feet have got no rhythm." Turns out I have been signing this song incorrectly for 25 years. This of course only adds to my enjoyment of it! In case you forgot how awesome George Michael was back in the day, I implore you to take a look:

Spansede!

Stampede, also known as "Christmas in July," is upon us. Down on the grounds, there is the rodeo, the chuckwagons, actual cowboys, the agricultural building, the super dogs, the midway, random concerts and of course the various foods on sticks. Away from the grounds, there is general debauchery. The title of this post refers to a text message/booty call a certain friend received last year - we're pretty sure he meant to say "stampede" but his thumbs were obviously impaired by copious amounts of alcohol. This time of year is known for random hookups ... some might form into everlasting love, others stretch out for a few months, eventually losing their lustre as the days get shorter and the weather cools down (or the guy turns out to have a recreational cocaine problem, but that's another story). But most really only last one night.

And so we arrive at the very important question we have been pondering of late - what is the true definition of a one night stand? It seems like it would be a simple answer, but really it's not. Is it a one night stand because it lasted only one night? But what if you stay "friends?" Is it a one night stand if you don't remember their name and never see them again? But what if you have known them for a long time, will inevitably see them again, but it still only lasts one night, because of a variety of exigent circumstances? Or is a one night stand really defined by intent? As in, you intend to see them again, but he is a douche, and so you don't, so that means it's not a one night stand. But if you go into it intending it to only happen once and it only happens once, is that a one-night stand. Regardless of whether or not you know their name? This is what we have landed on. Just like possession is nine-tenths of the law, intention is nine-tenths of a one night stand. The other tenth of course is alcohol. Or maybe it's the other way around?

That said, this time of year is dangerous. All bets are off during Stampede ... men in cowboy hats inevitably look hot and good intentions are as good as gone. Happy Spansede everyone!