risk

Life Lesson #1789 — Trust The Process—2015 Reprise

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Dame Helen Mirren who turned 70 this week.


This is from back in 2015 when I was a Huffington Post contributor and my very existence seemed to rest on whether or not they ran something I wrote. Maybe you can relate?

I look back on this and marvel at how much I’ve changed in five years. No longer at HuffPo, and writing mostly books and screenplays, I’ve developed what I guess you could call a ‘submission callus’. I write, submit and go on with my life because what I’ve had proven to me over and over and over again that God, or the Divine, or whoever runs this show—she has a plan—and the details and timing involved are none of my business.

Carry on,

xoxJB


Hi, My Lovelies!
Here is my latest Huffington Post essay on rocking the years after your fifth decade, AND, there’s a cool, humiliating, humanizing, little life lesson attached.

I know there are a few over-fifties in this group and you guys will appreciate this post. So you get your glasses while I find mine…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janet-bertolus/turning-50_b_8282198.html


Anyway, the lesson was this: I gave this to the HuffPo over three weeks ago. Three. That’s like an eternity in dog years.

Anyway, cue the crickets…

I was well aware that the divorce pieces had gotten some legs, but come on! There’s more to my story than a divorce that happened thirty years ago—WAY more! Yet, the divorce pieces continued to run and my thought process went something like this:

Why didn’t they run the Over Fifty piece, it’s been a week? Clearly, they hated it and are rethinking their decision to make me a contributor. Shit. I’ll just lay low, fly under the radar.

Then…

It’s been two weeks, I can’t continue to just lay low, maybe they never received it. Should I risk seeming desperate and re-send it? I sent something else instead, an essay on unsolicited advice, you know, just to check the system for bugs (no bugs detected, the piece ran the next day).

Instead of making me feel better I was now convinced they HATED the Over Fifty piece. A plain and simple case of literary loathing. 
In my imagination, they all laughed over lunch about how stupid it was, “Can you believe that Janet Bertolus! She doesn’t know shit about being over fifty! Or writing for that matter!” Bahahahaha! (insert diabolical editor laughter here).

Fuck.

By week three I decided that for the sake of my mental health and to maintain any shred of self-confidence I had left (it was hiding somewhere in the vicinity of my big toe) —I had to just forget about it and go on with my life.

That was last week. Yesterday, they sent me the email that they were running the Over Fifty piece.

Oh, really…that piece? Remind me again which one? Oh, yes, hahahahaha (insert insipid, forced, and awkward laugh here) the one about being over fifty, Oh, well, I’d forgotten all about that one. (Insert somersault inducing eye roll here).

When I pulled up the link I literally gasped (and not for the reasons you think, like grammatical errors or blatant overuse of commas). There, at the end of the essay, was one beautiful photograph after another of spectacular women over fifty! What a great surprise!

Sometimes I can be incredibly batshit insecure.

They’ve obviously been busy the past three weeks compiling pictures to run in this sectionand here I thought it was all about me.

Lesson #1789–Trust the process. At a certain point, it has nothing AT ALL to do with you.

I’m beginning to think this applies to every situation in life!

Carry on,
xox

It’s About Time! Another Jason Silva Sunday

This is a new Shots of Awe where Jason rants on risk, creativity and failure.

Most people shy away from ranting on failure but I happen to believe, like my buddy Jason here, that it’s extremely rant worthy.

A while back I even wrote failure a love letter.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/my-love-letter-to-failure_b_8198096.html

I wrote it because I truly believe that failure has taught me SO much more than success—and sometimes late at night, after a glass of wine or four, I write love letters that are really only rants on paper.
I do.
Look for yours in the mail.

Carry on,
xox

Mark Manson – 10 Reasons Why You Fail

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Me love this BIG time! Me use bad grammar. Me need coffee.

Happy Sunday – because NOW you are Fail-Proof!

7. YOU DON’T TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WHAT HAPPENS IN YOUR LIFE

“Also known as having-an-excuse-for-everything disorder. To fix the problems in your life you must have power over them. You can’t have power over aspects of your life unless you take responsibility for them. Therefore if you don’t take responsibility for what happens to you, you fail.

There are numerous situations in life which may seem completely unfair and insurmountable, like God decided to piss in your Corn Flakes (R) unfair, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I know it’s tempting to blame your problems on some external factor, to insist that it was impossible, that it wasn’t your fault, that you couldn’t have done anything to help it, you see, it was Abu the taxi driver who accidentally ran over some little boy’s dog, and the guy actually pulled over to see if it was OK causing a more-than-unnecessary 30-minute delay, and the police came and questioned you until they realized you offered little Timmy some beer to make him feel better — i.e., to help him erase the impending decades of trauma and images of blood-splayed sidewalk that will surely haunt the first quarter of his life — and stop the crying, my god, the little brat could fucking cry, you were just trying to help, to clear his poor undeveloped psyche with some alcohol; but hey, then the cops came and the (drunk) little bastard told them about the beer, told them everything, ab-so-lute-ly everything EXCEPT that you were just being a nice guy, which you obviously never get credit for; and dude, it’s not your fault cops are so anal-fucking-retentive about child alcohol laws; it’s a fucking puritan, fascist state anyway; and hey man, I’m sorry I didn’t show up; it’s not my fault, I promise it will never happen again; there’s always the next wedding, right? I won’t be in jail for that one, I promise.

Yeah, fuck people like that.”

To read the rest:

http://markmanson.net/why-you-fail

xox

Who has YOUR Ear?

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Is it pride, experience, reason or heart? Who do you listen to most often? Is it serving you? Hmmmmmmm, too may hard questions for a Saturday? (Wink)

Food for thought.
Big Love,
Xox

Hi, I’m Janet

Mentor. Pirate. Dropper of F-bombs.

This is where I write about my version of life. My stories. Told in my own words.

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