I have been thinking a lot lately about my life and how I want to make it more meaningful for me. This is a process of self-discovery as well. Tuning in and turning inward to myself.
For many years it was about the outer world and what was demanded of me, in work, marriage and motherhood. I had to fulfill certain roles, meet expectations, requirements, and others’ needs. Now I find I have more time to think, and to think more about myself. This is a new experience because for so long so much of me was given away. It’s like here I am, still here after everything.
My journey now is tuning into what feels right, in what I believe, where I want to focus my energies, to be aware of what energizes me, and what drains my energy. I want to devote more and more time to what energizes me, what I love. I want to be sure to spend more time on the relationships I really care about as well.
Even if you are in an earlier stage of life, I think it is important to carve out time for your own self discovery and enrichment. What do you think?
I spotted an uplifting post on the front page of the Huffington Post that was written by a Yogi, V.K. Harber, who has her own studio in Tacoma, Washington. She brought up so many good points about how we all have these unrealistic ideas about the ideal body. And we all do not have to have the perfect body to benefit from yoga. She says it is just the opposite. That most of us do not have the perfect body and that is ok.
I relate to what she is saying. I have been looking for a yoga class that is not “aerobic yoga”, which is my label for competitive, highly challenging and painful. Part of me wants to say, ” no pain, no gain” and tell myself go ahead and aim for that perfect body image. Whip myself into a thin, muscular me. But I think that it just not realistic and I do need to accept that I am not going to look like the popular, health magazine image. (I love the photos, shared by Ms. Harber, of everyday folks doing yoga.)
But that should not stop me from doing some gentle, restorative yoga. I used to do a pretty mean warrior pose.
As someone who is an Education Specialist and works with kids with learning differences, one of my favorite sources for information is ADDitude Magazine online. I love this post written by an adult with ADD looking back on her childhood. She talks about 10 things she wishes she had known and wants us to know about ADD. She talks about how people with ADD do not have an attention deficit but their attention is diverted. She was often told in school that she was not working up to her potential. She has discovered that “the catalyst for potential is passion not just hard work.”
The LA Times reported today that a bipartisan US Senate Committee, made up of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, has requested an investigation into H-1B Visa abuses by Southern California Edison and other companies in the US. According to the report there have been massive layoffs at SCE and outsourcing of jobs. The senators have asked the Justice, Homeland Security, and Labor Departments to investigate. I was encouraged to read this but I wonder why now? Why has it taken so long?
I remember waiting in a line at LAX several years ago and striking up a conversation with a woman there. She told me that at a Bank of America branch in Los Angeles where she worked, the bank was replacing all the American tellers with workers from other countries and she and her fellow employees were being forced to train them before losing their jobs. I have noticed that Citibank has had tellers from other countries working at my local branch for years. And I have read many times about tech companies like Microsoft employing this practice of hiring engineers on this program. “The Los Angeles Times has reported that Southern California Edison’s workers have found themselves in the position of training their foreign replacements as the company sheds hundreds of employees in favor of workers from India.” Hmm, sounds familiar.
The way I understand the H-1B Visa system works is that companies have to show they are not able to find qualified American workers for their jobs and then they are allowed to hire people from outside the country. I am not against immigrants getting jobs but just not being hired to replace American workers who arewilling and able to do the jobs.
The real reason companies do this is to hire people at a cheaper wage. I am glad our government is finally showing some interest in standing up for the American worker.
It has got to be a very hard thing to be forced to train your replacement when you are being ” involuntarily unemployed,” ( one of my favorite euphemisms for being fired or layed off). Have you had an experience of losing your job from a company using the H-1B Visa program, and having to train your replacement?
Updated: One of my readers brought up the point how the H-1B Visa has been used legitimately. Here is another article from the LA Times explaining how the H1-B Visa program is abused and how SCE is manipulating it to get rid of their older experienced IT workers. Apparently, the way these companies are manipulating the regulations is by going through middle men companies and using loopholes in the law. The LA Times article states: ” It has long been an open secret that the H-1B Program has gone off the rails. The SCE situation is the most common usage..” It states last year Cargill announced they would outsource 900 IT jobs in this manner.
More reading from:
Mother Jones: “How H-1B Visas are Screwing Tech Workers” (2013)
NPR: “Who’s Hiring H-1B Visa Workers? It’s Not Who You Might Think” (April 2013)
Computerworld: “H-1B Loophole May Help California Utility Offshore IT Jobs” (2014)
LA Times: “How Congress Connives in the Offshoring of American Jobs” (February 2014)
Computerworld: ” H-1B Battle to Take Center Stage in Senate on Tuesday” ( March 16, 2015)
“I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.” ― Rita Mae Brown
Rita Mae Brown is the author of Rubyfruit Jungle and several Mrs. Murphy mystery books co-authored with her cat Sneaky Pie. She wrote another series called Sister Jane about fox hunting and has other published novels and screenplays. I have not had the good fortune of reading any of her books. Since I really love mysteries I think I want to remedy this. The Mrs. Murphy series are in the category of “cozy mysteries.” These are crime fiction where the detective is usually an amateur and an older woman who is not taken seriously by the authorities. They are not super violent. An example would be Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple.
I like this quote because it says to me that we give up a lot when we go along with other people at the expense of our true selves.
Here’s an interview with the author from Bantam Dell Publishing via You Tube:
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
–George Santayana
I have been discouraged at times when I read that some women today think it is a negative thing to be a feminist. I have thought about writing more about it. Just recently my husband’s aunt sent me some historical photos that inspired me to write this post.
It is important for young women today to be aware of the history of women’s rights in the United States. We didn’t have the right to vote until 1920. Women struggled for many years to win that right. When our country was founded women did not have the right to own property.
When the Women’s Liberation Movement started women were blocked from all kinds of jobs considered only suitable for men. There were very few women doctors or lawyers. Women were not even allowed to run in the Boston Marathon. Here is some biographical info, from her website, on Kathrine Switzer the first woman to run in the Boston Marathon who the officials at that time tried to drag off the race course. “ Kathrine Switzer will always be best known as the woman who, in 1967, challenged the all-male tradition of the Boston Marathon and became the first woman to officially enter and run the event. Her entry created an uproar and worldwide notoriety when a race official tried to forcibly remove her from the competition. The photo of this confrontation flashed around the world.” Can you imagine that, it makes me nauseated, an official tried to drag her off the race course. It was during and after the 70s that we had the first women astronauts, more women in medical and law school, and women in leadership positions in business and politics. None of this would have happened without this struggle.
During this time of the Women’s Lib Movement, some women refused to wear bras and would burn bras during demonstrations. This was because bras were thought of as uncomfortable male inventions to make women’s breasts attractive to men. That is how the feminists were labeled “bra burners.” Women started to learn about their own bodies, some learned to do their own pelvic exams, and to request plastic speculums which were not as hard and cold as metal ones. Women asked to keep their feet down on the exam table instead of propped high up in uncomfortable metal stirrups. Women wanted to give birth on comfortable beds, or in water instead of in a surgical style delivery room with their feet in those metal stirrups.
I read about women’s history in my American History class in college and remember what an eye opener it was and how I admired so much the suffragettes and other women pioneers for freedom. One was Elizabeth Blackwell who was the first American woman MD. When she applied to medical school the dean and faculty put her application up to a vote by the other 150 male students. They thought it was joke and voted to accept her.
I read the book Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan and Sexual Politics by Germaine Greer. Betty Friedan talked about how women in the 50s who, although college educated, were encouraged to stay at home in the suburbs and were finding something missing from their lives, (like intellectual stimulation). Women started to question these prescribed roles they were assigned to.
I am grateful that as a young woman I was exposed to these ideas and had women leaders to look up to like Gloria Steinem. Many people may not know that Gloria Steinem once had a job as a Playboy Bunny. She did an undercover assignment, as a reporter, at a Playboy Club in New York. There was later a movie made about this episode in her life. She is quoted in an article in the New York Times that at that time, when she did this reporting, she was not yet aware of her feminism. Playboy was a popular magazine for young men and the Playboy Club was very popular. The “bunnies” ,(waitresses), wore these low cut costumes, high cut at the bottom, with bunny ears, a puffy white tail and high heels. These were some of the role models women had then. Films usually portrayed women in very confined roles as well. A popular film in the 60s was Goldfinger which introduced the “The Bond Girls.” It is now known that the writer, Ian Fleming , of the James Bond series was a misogynist. But when the first movies came out the James Bond character was very popular. James Bond is portrayed as less sexist in recent years. I remember seeing the movie Goldfinger as a teenager. The leading female role was a character named Pussy Galore. I remember thinking that I did not want to identify with her or be like her. I think many young guys did want to be like James Bond. I always liked strong, independent women characters. I recommend that if you are not knowledgeable about your history that you read up on it. When Women’s History courses were first introduced many feminists wanted them to be called “herstory.”
Bessie Coleman, First African American Woman Pilot
Shannon Lucid Astronaut 1978
Sally Ride Astronaut
Betty Friedan 1960
Susan B. Anthony 1855
Gloria Steinem 2011
Katherine Switzer Boston Marathon
Annette Kellerman Swimsuit she designed was considered indecent
Bella Abzug Congresswoman from New York 1970s
Amelia Earhart
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Blackwell MD Stamp
Jacqueline Cochran Pioneer of Aviation
Patsy Mink Congresswoman from Hawaii
US Representative Barbara Jordan Texas 1973
Lucy Stone
Gloria Steinem on being a Playboy Bunny via You Tube by hudsonunionsociety:
“Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the ‘Titanic’ who waved off the dessert cart.” –Erma Bombeck
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) was an author, newspaper columnist, humorist, and funny lady. I came across this quote recently and thought about Erma and how I enjoyed reading her books about being a stay at home mother. This was when I was a young adult and not a mother yet myself. She was not a Martha Stewart where everything had to be perfect. I remember her writing about making Halloween costumes for her kids saying that some mothers make elaborate home made costumes. Erma said her kids’ costumes consisted of a sheet with holes cut out for the eyes. I felt she was saying it was ok to not be perfect. She was an advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment for Women.
This is her famous quote via Goodreads:
“If I had my life to live over”
Someone asked me the other day if I had my life to live over would I change anything.
My answer was no, but then I thought about it and changed my mind.
If I had my life to live over again I would have waxed less and listened more.
Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy and complaining about the shadow over my feet, I’d have cherished every minute of it and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was to be my only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.
I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.
I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.
I would have eaten popcorn in the “good” living room and worried less about the dirt when you lit the fireplace.
I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.
I would have burnt the pink candle that was sculptured like a rose before it melted while being stored.
I would have sat cross-legged on the lawn with my children and never worried about grass stains.
I would have cried and laughed less while watching television … and more while watching real life.
I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband which I took for granted.
I would have eaten less cottage cheese and more ice cream.
I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the Earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren’t there for a day.
I would never have bought ANYTHING just because it was practical/wouldn’t show soil/ guaranteed to last a lifetime.
When my child kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, “Later. Now, go get washed up for dinner.”
There would have been more I love yous … more I’m sorrys … more I’m listenings … but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute of it … look at it and really see it … try it on … live it … exhaust it … and never give that minute back until there was nothing left of it.”
― Erma Bombeck, Eat Less Cottage Cheese and More Ice Cream: Thoughts on Life from Erma Bombeck
So listen to Erma and “eat less cottage cheese and more ice cream!”
Notes Tied On The Sagebrush 