Why Failure is Sometimes Okay

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Last year I set out to be awesome by accomplishing 30 things before I turned 30. For some reason, likely a lack of psychotherapy and a need to set arbitrary quantifiers of success, I set these goals for myself. But I essentially set myself up for disappointment by coming up with a list of 30 things I thought I should do in a year, on a limited budget with respect to both time and money.

I turned 30 on Sunday and accomplished just over 60% of my goals. That’s a “D” if you’re grading me. But it doesn’t mean I failed.

Photo credit for my motivational poster: Trek Earth

It just means that my definition of success was too arbitrary.  While I may not have completed the 30 things I set forth to do a year ago, that doesn’t make me a failure. It makes me someone who was too busy living life to be completing things on a list I wrote a year ago that don’t matter to me now.

The next time you don’t succeed at something, ask yourself if it matters. It is something that will make you happy, more fulfilled, or better at life? Failing at anything less than that, isn’t failing at all.

weekend wrapup: surprise!

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I hate surprises. Hate, hate, hate surprises…unless I’m surprising someone else.  Then I love them.
As I mentioned in my last post, last week was my Mom’s birthday.  This past year has been tough.  Between injuries and job stress and sickness and me moving away, my poor Mom has been put through the wringer.  Naturally, I wanted her to have the best birthday ever so I conspired with my father, brother, and sister-in-law for me to fly back to New Jersey and surprise my Mom!
We had to be super secretive about it though.  My Mom is one of those people who can smell a lie from miles away. That, coupled with our close relationship, made it nearly impossible to keep this from her. In the weeks leading up to the surprise I’d find myself silently freaking out.
Every time she told me of her birthday plans, I died a little inside.  It was killing me not to be able to tell her that I would be there for the weekend.
Until I realized how much fun it could be.  The last week, I spent time on the phone with my Mom lamenting about how sad I was that I couldn’t be there.  I sent her a birthday card to get there on her birthday and told her that her present was on the way.  I begged her to have a bite of my brothers veal parmesan for me during her birthday dinner and promise to FaceTime me in when she blew out her candles.
When my dad picked me up at the airport, he called her to tell her he was on the way home from his meeting.  Then, 5 minutes later I called to tell her I was out of work and going home.  At this point my Mom was at a friends house so we hightailed it there and rang the doorbell.  My Mom was on the phone in the kitchen so I went in, with a stick on bow on my forehead and said,
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”
If you heard what you thought was a hyena screech at around 5:15pm on Friday, that was my Mom, getting an awesome surprise.
The rest of the weekend was full of retelling the story to anyone within earshot, relaxing with family, eating way too much food, and cuddling with the Birthday Girl.  
How was your weekend?

happy anniversary to me (and boston)!

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Today marks 4 weeks since I’ve moved to Boston, which to me is the same thing as a month anniversary.
Since moving here I’ve fallen in love…with the city.  Although I loved Boston before, this time it’s different.  This time it’s mine.  I’ve been super busy from celebrating my 29th birthday to making new blogger buddies and partying on the water.  I managed to make friends with a cop and then had him send two squad cars over to what ended up not being a terrorist cell.
I determined that I’m not a sociopath during my job search and even landed a part time job to keep me from calling the cops on any more neighbors! I also narrowly escaped death and got the worst manicure ever.
Due to the fact that I’ve been so busy, I’ve been slacking at the whole blogging thing which has resulted in this post in which I do nothing but link you to other things I’ve done.  On that note, I’m going away next week for 10 days so if anyone has anything amazing to say, feel free to email me about a guest post so that I don’t have to spend the weekend writing blog posts to schedule while I’m gone!
In the meantime, it’s Friday which can only mean one thing #backthatassup with Whitney!