Ok, so I made the necessary phone call and am feeling marginally better about the future of my project. I have decided not to think about my big picture future too seriously until after my draft is turned in on July seventh. So that was one area in which my crappy attitude was productive-- it got me to the breaking point that inspired proactivity. Maybe I am just being negative because it's hard? Somebody was quoting JFK recently... something to the effect of, "Why do we want to land on the moon? Because it is hard." Well ok then, I'll buck up and do this shit because it is hard, and that can be reason enough. I've got to stop over thinking this.
Incidentally, I was following this discussion on Jezebel today and somebody suggested a particular book of interest with regards to my whole little career Chernobyl I was having earlier. While it wasn't on the shelf where it should be at the library, I did find a book that caught my eye and have started reading it. It is called Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women's Changing Lives by Anna Fels. It appears to be a slightly refined pop psychology book, but the author seeks to look at how women relate to their ambitions and argues that it is so important for women to have dreams and goals and ideas about their futures, and to really think about it.* I had forgotten that positive psychology is one of my favorite things (Sports Psychology was the best, most influential class I took at PLU, hands down) and Fels starts right out by saying that too much psychology is about the past and should really move towards looking at how people see their futures. I feel the same way about history!**
I have only read a teensy bit of it as I am a little caught up in a work project (for once! I am helping the interviewer meet a deadline and as the song goes, "When we're helping, we're happy...") but I think it will be a really good book for me to read. I am better at seeing myself as apart of other people's lives than as a part of my own distinct, self-determined future. Not that the former is necessarily a bad thing, but you know, I've got to be happy with what I'm doing and the circles within which I move and who I am etc., regardless of the other people in my life and, as Dr. Fels argues, if we are willing to try things out in our head then we can get a better sense of how they can become realities and ultimately, how to make them realities without seeing our aspirations as a burden. Even if this book does reek of Betty Friedan's influence*** I think it will be a nice little diversion for the weekend.
*Not that men don't, but it's different for women, Fels asserts.
**just kidding :P
***have I ever said on this blog how much I hate The Feminine Mystique? How terrible it is despite all it's influential power?! Well there, I said it. That book actually gave me a meltdown when I had to write about it objectively. The result of course, was that I did not write about it objectively. I got a very bad grade and had to rewrite it. It required a lot more self-control than I thought I had.
The title heading comes from a quote in the book-- Fels, 8. I think it is the most beautiful sentence.
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