Reality television...with real people, without media training or experience in politics, real estate or funeral homes ... being their normal human selves in extreme circumstances because they have their eye on the prize.
Is it entertainment or feeding the ugly negative that society needs to flick toute suite?
I read a news article over the weekend that apparently the nastier a personality, the better the ratings.
Humanity, it appears, if you believe the newspapers, still prefers a bit of cranky over warm and fluffy.
Master Chef lost viewers because the Block had advertised spits and spats, but how many viewers had Master Chef gained as a result of the cranky, I know everything but I truly suck at cooking on a cooking program Queensland (sigh) lawyer.
I recall leaving a tweet wondering how an intelligent man could not contain his tongue given what television editing and people who love to hate bad guys can do for someone's self esteem.
So tonight on the Block, Danielle adds to the mounting 'YUK' and I thought editing again, until I realised that no amount of editing was going to remove the sentences, the blame, the ridicule, the moving off topic behaviour.
Then I got cranky, because her behaviour buys into so many 'typical woman' mentalities - even though there's two other women on the block who are not like that.
Please note, I got just as cranky when Dale made a comment about not letting his missus get away with being outspoken ...cough ...neanderthal .... cough....
Anyway, as always what's my point?
If you can't say anything nice (positive) then shut the f-bomb up....
Last weekend I whinged about two things verbally in two separate situations, and the response back and the energy exchange with that was awful. I realised I had fallen into a whinger trap and must have been bitten by a happiless bug.
Whinging, misery guts energy is like a magnet and if you aren't careful, it'll reach out like static electricity and latch on. Most of all, it's like a specimen in a petrie dish in a humid environment, it grows out of control without bleach.
See what happened for me though, I recognised it and realised I had to grab the gratitude bucket and focus on stuff that negated the whinges.
Could you imagine living in a constant state of negative?
Could you imagine the energy exchange of living in a situation, working in a situation, or being present in a situation that was constantly negative?
URGH...
If this is you, find you happiest, most loving, most joyful person in and around you and sit, watch and LISTEN... hopefully some of their happiness will transfer and you'll get yourself out of your negative.
Oh, and unless you are the Dalai Lama, don't go on a reality television show where you might win something that will change your life forever.... in so many ways.....
The Universe gives you the best messages when you are finally ready to hear them. Better yet, when you are ready to hear them, they are the biggest yet most gentle, smack in the forehead you'll ever get.
What was my smack in the forehead this week?
It was why I am giving up on giving away my time, energy and intellectual property.
I am neither rich, nor old, and therefore do not have the time nor means to do it.
My new goal in my intentions for my career and life:
"I work that hard and effectively to attain a level of financial abundance that I no longer have to budget to ensure I have money to cover the cost of running a business, family and home, so that when I am comfortable enough, I will then be able to step into a life of donating my time, energy and expertise to those who really truly desire it and feel awesome in doing that."
Twice this week I've read articles about people who in the twilight of their life and working career, who no longer needed to work and be paid to ensure a standard of living for themselves or their children, set about dedicating their rest of their life to serving those less fortunate in whatever their profession was.
So, that's the new me.
I will now work with vitality and happiness, working solidly until the time I can comfortably and happily donate my time and energy to helping those that truly desire it. I know that this being my end goal to get to a point in my life where I can give without condition is my greatest life dream and the passion I have to be able to do that, will ensure that my working life of being paid will facilitate that. More, if everything is on track, I won't have to wait until I'm 60 before I do get to that place in my life.
The old resentment bunny paid a visit to my brain the other day with the expectation that I be available at beck and call to a social enterprise that will benefit from my expertise but are in 'no position' to pay me anything let alone what I am worth.
The upbringing of helping those less fortunate than you kicked in, but then the "I am putting my whole family in financial distress" if I allocate anymore time to freebies also kicked in. The funniest thing I realised too, at some point, in any event or outcome where I have donated my time, someone always got paid, and it was never me.
Note to self....find experts in my field who do donate their time free of charge to help those who are in 'no position' to pay for a service.
If you are a small business owner reading this and you, like me, have given countless hours of your time and IP away since you started in business, you can now comfortably step away from doing that and go into the mindset of working to ensure that your life is abundant enough to donate and volunteer at some point. There are people in your given industry doing the volunteering and donating, so be kind to their legacy and let them do that while you continue your business in a successful manner.
If you need to, for whatever reason, give away anything, then choose a day of the week, like Pro-bono Friday or choose one cause a year or one cause a half and commit to donating your time to that. Just have boundaries.
Did your planets align this week for an aha moment you never expected?
Four things happened to me this week....
1. I had it out with a Catholic Priest on twitter about beliefs
2. I had a realisation about someone's capacity to blame and tried not to take it personally and think everything would be ok
3. Had my Android upgrade the facebook app on it, and learned how many and who had unfriended me from facebook over whatever period of time.
4. I decided to search through SEEK to see how much the going rate for a Social Media Manager was in the market place.
You know what I think I might just be that f#cking retard.... four incidents, being a little bit crook with a concrete based head cold for the first time in 7 years, and my life started to look like it was moving into the too hard basket. Hence point number 4.
So the outcomes were:
1. I'm human. Having had my feelings hurt, I was grateful to have had coffee with the Catholic Priest, who ended up being truly one of the nicest, most interesting people I have ever met. He and I sat like rational grown ups face to face and went through what went down with us on twitter and early in the conversation he said, "listen, essentially, it had absolutely nothing to do with you..." and he explained what brought him to tweet what he did.
Do you know it made complete sense, and when that information became apparent, it was sooooo easy to take (what I believed was a personal attack at the time) away my grrr bunny about the whole thing and was able to reach a compelling level of compassion and then found common ground in the situation as well, validating said Catholic Priests feelings and reaction.
In essence... while I called him dude on twitter.... we carried that level of familiarity through and now everything IS completely COOL between us and I truly hope that I have made a quality friend for life. We spoke for close on 2 hours and could have kept talking the afternoon away if it wasn't for a wedding rehearsal....the life a Catholic Priest is a busy one.
2. I'm human. Having had my feelings hurt, I decided that I would still not take the blame personally, but did decide to put myself first and decided to remove myself from the friendship fully - without malice or distress. I just know that by even giving any time to that friendship from now on is pointless given the level of blame and inability to take responsibility for their own life. Not my gig... the end.
3. I'm human. Having had my feelings hurt, sometimes I forget my own counsel when I say, "that's your shit, not mine". I had my feelings hurt around 6 times over when I realised who had unfriended me for reasons I had no idea of. I even sent a PM asking why on one of them I was so dumbfounded, and then 5 minutes later went "pfft....none of my business".
4. I'm human. Working my ring out, being that busy and all the responsibilities of being a solo trader offering a service, not a product that everyone wants 100 times a day and has money then and there has been a hard gig. I have been trying to focus and really step into what I am GREAT at with the social media, and came to a realisation that what I am GREAT at, is not something that a large firm is going to employ me to do as a contractor. I also realised that I have become the go-to person for sooooo many people. The same as whenever I've been employed by someone. I listen and learn and retain things. This however is not ideal in a solo traders life where you have to do everything and have to focus and blah blah blah..... anyway.... this point 4 is too be continued.
Point is....I took all of these four points personally and look where it got me. Sick and into a bit of a pity party. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
Positives:
1. I have a great new relationship possibility with someone who is interesting, well travelled, well educated and dedicated to his beliefs.... just like me. Non posso aspettare il prossimo caffè.
2. I have freed myself and learned that I need to speak up regardless of how someone might react if it's putting myself first by speaking up. I do not need to suffer if something is not right for me.
3. The Universe is teaching me that when people leave your life, it's actually a massive gift and new people will come in who are more interesting, more well travelled, more well educated and more dedicated to their beliefs....
4. It's helped me take stock of what I want to do with my working life and where I want to put my energies.
NOTE TO THE READER
Your feelings are your feelings. You are responsible for them, so if they are hurt, it's because you've allowed them to be hurt. That's not to say don't allow it....remember, we are human.
It's going to happen.
The trick is...always, always, always know that there is a story behind everything and anything that comes into your life, and 98% of the time, it's actually got nothing to do with you... so don't put yourself in the place I did this week, and tell yourself to stay walking your truth and the hurt will land but slide off pretty quickly.
Ciao
Because he could....and at the time it was fashionable.
Well, humanity has come a long way since Moses wore a dress, Jesus played Fullback for Jerusalem and Pontius was a Pilot.
Where am I going with this?
This week I have been invited to speak at a regional Clergy gathering about social media and how it could work for the Church. When I had the initial meeting with Fr Fred I was very open and honest about my thoughts on God and that we as a human race have no right or place to say which Religion is right and which Religion is wrong. Thankfully he did not run from the coffee shop screaming 'devil spawn'.
So, I have had Fr Paul reach out on Twitter to say hi, and then he must have scrolled through my tweets, because now there's tweeting about me being good with same sex marriage and that love isn't enough and if it was about love then what's my thoughts on polygamy; I expect the next question would be about people marrying their dogs...
What did I do, went straight to anger and yes, judgement. He's a Catholic Priest. Did I have every inconsistency and unnatural way of a Catholic Priests life scream through my head in a nano-second? Yes. Did I have the statistic that the highest cases of breast, ovarian and uterine cancer are in nuns? Yes.
So, in essence, he won. He got his fight, albiet only for a few tweets, but now I am here having to get something out of my head, because it's given me a headache.
I have gay friends, who incidentally are just friends, but for today's lesson, they have an adjective placed in the descriptive sense, but it's just an extra word... you know.... they don't have a gay car or a gay job and they don't eat a gay lunch etc...
To continue, I have gay friends who still describe themselves as "good catholics" and this is what lead me to the grrr bunny on Fr Paul.
My loyalty will always lay with my friends over any religion any day of the week and twice on Sunday. I admire these men, who under the religion they follow would SMITE THEE with stones given the way they were born. Could God really be so cruel?
Of course not!
Here's a bit of truth: if you find it in nature, then you will find it in humanity.
On putting out a post on my facebook page, I was relieved to have been given so much validation from the awesome people I attract into my life that involved authenticity, just send them love. I even had a concept put to me by my friend and Goddess business partner Juli:
"As for those that still find the s-t-r-e-n-g-t-h to follow a religion that puts it's own rules above God's rule of "Free Will" - God love 'em!!!"
Ian, a dedicated family man and business man in my region who walks his talk everyday, giving me the big penny dropping with "he is absolutely not interested in your opinion on this...he is a fixed piece..."
Katie giving me a document on 10 reasons to ban gay marriage and then Juli kicking in again with a compelling document referencing Leviticus.
When I took stock of what happened with me posting and even responding to Fr Paul on Twitter, I realised that I was fearful of going into this workshop surrounded by people whose job is religion and having them vilify me because I believe in God outside of a religious structure.
I was fearful of having Fr Paul question my credentials on speaking on social media because of my heart felt beliefs about same sex marriage.
That's a bit silly isn't it?
What did the Universe or God provide me with? 20+ people who have effectively became a cheer squad of Arnold Schwarzenegger voices yelling "YOU CAN DO IT...we believe in you" and a truck load of printed evidence to help me go, "yeah but what about this..." if I need it.
So, the lesson for me is:
I am Amanda Foy.
I am a believer of the concept that God = Love.
The End.
