I keep hearing this phrase (or variants of it) in a few different places. Last night, in a conversation with my husband (a very bright, geeky, info-junkie, mechanical engineer), I realized how much that affected him. I have a lot of very complex thoughts that run through my head from the minute I wake up to the minute I go to sleep.
Sometimes it’s just one big stream of consciousness type of narration that goes through my head, one thought triggering a whole cascade of other thoughts. I wish I could channel some of that thought process into something actually useful, like developing a new career path for myself.
I hold imaginary conversations in my head with certain people I wish to talk things over with (some of them are just internet friends). There are specific people whose perspectives I trust that I know would help me gnaw things out with…showing me a side of things I didn’t think about before, helping me to understand why I’m feeling the way I do, and why I think about things the way I do. I have these dialogues in my head with what I present to them, and my guess as to what they might say in return (based on prior responses to me in certain matters).
Bits and pieces of songs, books, famous (and not so famous) quotations, and movie lines pop in my head during the day – some that are things I haven’t heard in a while that make me reminisce about someone I miss or that make me have an “a-ha” moment to something I’m wrestling with. They are often very relevant to the topic I’m contemplating. They often help me to make sense of something, or trigger another thought process. It continues to amaze me that something long forgotten gets called up again when I need it.
I realized last night that my husband couldn’t keep up with the fast changes of thought I have, that builds momentum when I am trailing one thought after another. He realized that he wasn’t the only one that couldn’t (when I told him that’s not the first time I’ve heard that).
One of the things that I explained to him was my intense need for mental stimulation. We both had a revelation when he asked me if I needed stimulation all day long and I said, “yes, I do”. It was a revelation to us both because he didn’t realize what I need and I didn’t realize he didn’t know it. He didn’t realize I needed so much stimulation because I derived a lot of it from my career. Prior to quitting my job, the work I did before challenged me, and so did talking with my colleagues and friends at work, so, by the time I came home, I was ready to mentally slow down and kick back a little. He was also MORE than a little bit relieved to know he wasn’t the only one who had struggled to keep up with me.
The lab work I did was engaging enough to keep one level of my mind busy (and definitely kept my hands busy), but I still needed to talk to other people throughout the day. I had post-docs and resident doctors come through the lab that I had to train, I talked to genetic counselors about results, I talked with my lab director about efficiency in the lab and communicated with technicians to trouble-shoot problems. I had to write standard operating procedures and I had to oversee the lab, ensuring consumable materials were ordered and quality control was documented. I had to run some genetic tests as well and I had deadlines to consider and I enjoyed the tension of it to a point.
Until I actually had my second daughter, I actually thrived in that kind of highly stimulating environment. I tried to make him understand that while I love being here for my kids, I am suffering from the lack of challenge in this role.
Now that I’m re-discovering some abilities I thought I lost, I am chafing at the bit to do something with them.
I fight hard against the feelings of bitterness and disappointment in myself. I fight hard against feeling I am “entitled” to more. I fight hard against the worry that I’m going to cause friction with my husband if I decide to go back to work. Not that he’s against it, but that I tend to be a workaholic and throw myself into it at times. I am a tiny bit afraid (as he is) that I just might enjoy work so much that I will find reasons to stay at work.
This is why I’ve been having some weird posts of late. I have to find ways to keep myself challenged, and sometimes I get discouraged when I can’t find enough satisfaction. I’m incredibly frustrated because I know I have skills and talents that are being grossly underutilized.
So…and this has been on my mind of late…if my blogging has been alternately weird, and probing and silly (like the cabbage post), understand that my mind is simply going a bit loopy with all the things I’m contemplating. I wonder what the heck you all think when you stop by my blog.
I get a lot of reads, and few comments, and that’s okay. If you get the sense that I’m weird, and pathetic, and lonely, and a bored housewife in need of a swift kick in the pants but won’t say so because I asked you not to, that’s okay. I am all that.
If I’m a little “out of touch” as a commenter said of me before, I would have to agree. I am “out of touch” with most folks. I am very different than most folks around here and it is very discouraging to know you are way out-of-step. It’s awkward and it’s a bit embarrassing. So you decide to withdraw a little bit, which leads to isolation which makes your self-esteem plummet, which makes you blue, which makes you depressed, which makes you not care, which makes you consider medicating yourself (can we say maladaptive coping strategies anyone?). All of which makes you nuts.
Life becomes very different when you take an intelligent person out of their highly stimulating environment and with others that challenge them. There is more than a bit of frustration when you know what you’ve lost in terms of professional support. I’m really saddened to know I’ve become dependent on a “virtual village” of internet community when I desperately wish I could have that in real life.
I don’t know what this means. I might take a bit of a computer break. I don’t know. I mean, I SHOULD, but I don’t know if I can. I’m so dependent on it for affirmation (not just on my blogs, but on gifted message boards – dispensing advice as well as receiving it, and through emails). Yeah, even if I do try, we’ll see how long that lasts. Not blogging/journaling/communicating with others is like not breathing.
****
Must reads from High Ability.org and Talent Development Resources.
The mind of gifted adults: Difference is not deficit
Discovering our unusual mind
For many, however, a complete honoring of the self must begin with discovering what sort of consciousness, what sort of mind they possess. That their own perceptions and judgments are unusual may have been obvious since childhood, but they may have spent their lives assuming that this difference was a deficit, a fault, even a defect of character or a sign of mental illness (Lovecky, 1986; Alvarado, 1989). Thinking independently may seem foolhardy or antisocial.
~ Stephanie S. Tolan
Self-Knowledge, Self-Esteem and the Gifted Adult
Many gifted adults seem to know very little about their minds and how they differ from more “ordinary” minds. The result of this lack of self-knowledge is often low, sometimes cripplingly low self esteem.
~ Stephanie S. Tolan
While the fundamental characteristics of gifted adults are the same regardless of whether or not they were identified earlier in life, those who were not identified face the challenge of making sense of their gifted characteristics without the gifted label to guide them in any way
~ Cheryl M. Ackerman, PhD
Gifted, talented and still hiding out
But for the adult whose life circumstances do not readily provide an arena for the positive use of these abilities the result may be a feeling of frustration, lack of fulfillment, a nagging sense of being tied down, imprisoned, thwarted (Roeper, 1991; Smith, 1992).
Raising Smart Girls 
I think that you’re courageous in the way you’re facing your challenges, and I admire your honesty. When I read your posts, I see myself. It has been a very difficult thing, to find a place, to be okay with being different, to feel comfortable with the realization that I will always feel like an outsider when I’m with most people.
I think that I’m a little farther down this path than you are, as I am no longer struggling so intensely with these issues, but I wanted to let you know that I share your pain.
El burro (goodness, I wish I knew your name),
Thank you for your thoughts, and for sharing with me.
I was thinking of you this morning. Well…your blog anyway. I was thinking of how sometimes you just have some lovely pictures posted, or an inspiring quotation, or a few words. Maybe I should try more of that.
I’ve been throwing too much of myself into my posts lately, and I need to step back. There’s much that’s falling down around me in my home, as I sort out my mental head-space. I spent 2 days in a bit of a tail-spin and then the third day in a bit of a daze – to the point I nearly hit a car on the way to picking up my kindergartner from school, because I was paying attention to a bird that flew in front of my car as I turned a corner, instead of paying attention to the road ahead.
The strange part about that was that I was feeling very removed from it – like “oh, interesting, I almost hit that car”. It was a bit surreal. That’s when I realized I have to pull myself together a little bit.
The girls went to grandma’s this weekend, and I spent some much needed time with my husband (and that accumulated laundry – boy, I hate folding clothes).
I think I’m going to spend some time figuring out just where I want to go from here. I will be limiting my time on the computer, that is for sure. I’m on right now, because I wanted to print out a few of my recent posts to have a hard copy of them for my journal binder I keep.
Anyway, thanks again so much for sharing. It helps (quite a bit) to know I’m not the only one who feels this way.
I think perhaps everyone, or at least many people, who have chosen or somehow ended up being stay-at-home mums, feel or have felt or will feel the way you do at some point. Even those not quite as intelligent as you :-). I know I have, and probably will again. I used to be a simultaneous interpreter for the European Union for goodness sake – and now here I am at home all day, in a place where I amazingly do not speak the language and am struggling to learn it. (While a friend I still keep up with is progressing rapidly through the ranks of the interpreters… yeah that hurts a bit too. Happy, even thrilled, for him, and yet knowing that every day that goes by takes away a bit more of my own interpreting skill, rusts away my own understanding of the languages I used to work with easily).
Anyway that was my life in a nutshell. Just to say, yes I understand a bit and hope your break, if you manage to take one, will help you work some things out.
Yes, I realize the struggle is for all stay at home moms. Thank you for reminding me that it’s just as painful for other moms too.
I am breaking from blogging, but not from replying to comments. I had a really weird few days a while back when I was slipping back into a slightly depressed mode.
I’ve been feeling so needy for…something in real life. My internet life has been almost better than the real one, and that’s when I realized, I am too dependent on it.
I will be back posting when I get this back in balance again.
So, you hold imaginary conversations with people who aren’t actually there and even answer for them. GOSH! I thought I was the only one!!!! Whew!!!!
So…. uhm…. ever do part of it aloud? (please say yes, please say yes…)
J-viere
Yes, I do. I didn’t realize that anyone else ever did that! Whew, what a relief!
Part of it aloud? Yes, sometimes. And I suppose I have done it more so if you consider I’ve been talking to my dog lately when we go outside.
Also, ideas get me really euphoric. I didn’t realize how much so until the other day, after reading someone’s blog, and considering all the ideas that were resonating with me, I was literally jumping up and down like a goof ball while playing with my dog outside in the sunshine (very few days of sunshine left up here in Midwest USA) and I was just so ecstatic about the synergy that was created in sharing ideas. So I was giggling and twirling and being generally ebullient (something uncharacteristic of me the past 5 years or so).
It’s been SOOOO long since I’d been THAT energized by ideas.
OH THANK GOD.
And I thought I was insane for talking to myself outloud. For once I’m glad to see this is normal behavior.
As usual, I’m a long time reader, second time commentor.
I’ve been there with the malnourished mind thing going on in my head. Being unemployed and in housewife training doesn’t entirely challenge me. I grew up without the gifted label attached, but I always knew I had an amazing amount of potential to do anything that I wanted to. I still do. My fear of failure though seems to undercut all the things I want to try.
I come here to your blog for a mother’s perspective, but I can’t help but think now that it’s because we have more in common than I expected there to be.
Keep getting excited about new ideas! It doesn’t matter how small the idea is. I get to be excited with you when you post a blog. I’ll look forward to more like this one in the future.
Meagan –
My daughter, the one who is overcoming the selective mutism, still does this a lot. I think this is very typical of certain individuals. I’m wondering if it’s not a way to either help crystallize thoughts or to add another dimension to sensory input. She has always generated a lot of ideas and tries them out by talking out loud about them.
She’s a very smart child and I think this is part of her unique makeup. I think, if I’m not mistaken, there are many other very intelligent historical figures that spoke out loud to themselves. Sure, perhaps it helped earn them the title “mad genius”, but really, those labels were applied by people who really don’t understand the genius mind and how it operates.
I think talking out loud to oneself definitely serves a purpose – it reinforces memory and helps one process thoughts and feelings and experiences. It’s a more active approach to processing input. While some might think it’s strange, it’s really not at all strange. Most people want to pathologize it, saying it’s weird or a sign of mental illness. I think they say that because it annoys them more than anything.
Think about it. When is it socially acceptable to talk out loud to oneself. I can think of a few ways:
1. When you are rehearsing for a play.
2. When you are memorizing math facts or spelling words or studying for a test (lets say a biology test for classification).
3. When you are rehearsing what you want to say in front of a crowd, or to a particular individual.
I’m sure there are more ways.
Hearing the words as you study them increases the avenues by which your mind takes in the information, thereby increases the chances of retaining information.
So…why would other instances be much different? If it helps you to process something, so what? I think as long as you KNOW why you are doing it, it relieves some of the pressure on yourself to conform to others expectations that talking to oneself is bad.
It isn’t. It’s just different.
I actually wish that I could write about some of the more personal issues going on for me right now, but I can’t because they’re all related to my ongoing divorce, which, unfortunately is likely to go to trial and so off limits.
Sounds like you know that you have stuff to figure out, and that’s the first step in getting it figured out. Trust yourself, you’ll get there. And be kind to yourself…it’s not you that has the problem, it’s the structure of our society, it’s being a smart woman in a culture that is not designed to accomodate the biological realities of having and raising children. You want to do things right, and it’s hard to know how to do that in a way that works best for everyone. You’re coming out of the hardest bit, it’ll get easier as the kids get older…
El burro –
Would is surprise you to know I’d been thinking more about you, and in particular the very circumstances of what brought about the divorce, today. I am not sure why you were on my mind in that specific way. Perhaps it’s because you are in a slightly more advanced stage in child-rearing and because when I look around your blog, and I wonder how you have handled the changes in your life, and most importantly, what precipitated those changes. I didn’t realize your divorce was still in process. I’m sorry. That has to hurt so much.
I do agree it’s partly the structure of society that doesn’t accommodate the realities of raising children. But part of it is also simply there is limited places I can work. The medical genetics labs are in the city, too far from home. Husband worked in the other direction, so we had to find a point mid-way between the jobs.
Those women that successfully combined a family and work responsibilities (such as my female lab director and other researcher for our lab) worked and lived on campus of the university hospital, whereas I had a 45 minute to 1.5 hour commute (depending if I took the train or not). The location of the university was located within a very crime-riddled area, so I didn’t drive to work much but took the train in.
The children’s schools were the university lab schools, just a few blocks away. If a child got sick, my boss or the other researcher would take a few hours off and come back later in the evening or on weekends to make up for lost time.
But since I was on the clinical side of things, I had to be there 8:30-5:00, to supervise the lab and to field phone calls if needed. I got reprimanded quite harshly once when I was getting into the lab about 15 minutes late for about couple of weeks after I returned from maternity leave because I’d be so exhausted after daughter #2 was born. My boss (the same woman as above) got so irritated about it because I missed one phone call that called early that she even put it into my review. I decided I really didn’t like the double standard (amongst other things indicating to me she placed more of a priority on the laboratory rather than the individuals who worked in it – a few people quit on her because she refused to promote them) and put my resignation shortly thereafter.
Wow. I didn’t realize that…she had a fairly high turnover rate – 4 people left her lab in a 3 year period (one who was a supervisor who left to have a baby, 2 because she wouldn’t promote them to my position, and me because she wasn’t providing flexibility and opportunity for advanced training). That doesn’t say much for her does it now?
Interesting. The things that come out after re-visiting this idea.
The other thing of why I came to this weird place was that my mother (yes the same one I complained about a few posts back) told me that she talked to someone at my old university (different lab though) that I used to work there and they said, “tell her to come back”. My mother has volunteered for one of their research programs because she and my sister and most of us went there for family studies on a particular disease. I started getting my hopes up and it both is exciting and daunting at the same time.
It’s been weird and unsettling. I do want to come back, but I don’t if that makes any sense (too far, worries of flexibility).
And while I will probably look like a hypocrite if I use my mother for any kind of net-working after all I’ve said about her, I would seriously consider doing so if they’d offer job re-training. I would consider my mom’s involvement sort of as restitution for all the pain she caused me.
That is interesting. Interesting to me because I ended up quitting my pediatrics residency program for similar (kinda) reasons. After having the audacity to get pregnant when I was a star resident in a highly competitive program I was taken off “the fast track” and my competency was constantly challenged. The clincher for me was when I was told that it would not be possible for me to pump milk at work, this in a teaching hospital that mandated the residents teach patients the health benefits of nursing babies for a full year. I was outraged and did try to fight it, but not for very long….it was a very disillusioning experience.
I would be immensely outraged too about that. I wonder how it will be for my sister in law then, who is going through her residency and is 5 months pregnant. The medical residency can be brutal – they still “old school” the residency program, expecting 80 hour weeks from the residents. I never did figure out the sense in that. My SIL decided to choose her specialty in allergies or something – something that wouldn’t suck up a lot of her time after she was through with residency, would be relatively low-stress and she would not have a long list of patients to see.
That reminds me about the pumping situation…I had to use a dusty old darkroom to pump milk for my first born because there was literally no where else to do it. I had to share the office with the people I worked with when they needed to use the computer. I could not take up 20 minutes of time 3x a day in case they needed it. After about 6 months, my boss asked me how long I was planning on doing that. I got the hint and shortly thereafter stopped.
My hospital was a teaching hospital too and they actually had a PUMPING STATION for working mothers – sadly way too far away for me to use it (we were at one end of the building and the pumping station was 2 floors up in another part of the building). It would take me 15 minutes just to walk there. My boss was already bothered that I took 20 minutes to pump 3x a day.
Actually…I was thinking more about this, and about how the situation (walking away from the work situation, and your divorce). I can imagine, at one point or another, you saying to yourself…”But this is not AT ALL what I envisioned my life would turn out. This is NOT what I signed up for.” You went through a pretty rigorous preparatory training for what…to have the rug pulled out from underneath. I’m even more outraged about that now that I got to thinking about it. So much lost potential….it’s not fair.
I don’t know about you, but I find it very painful to read stories of successful women who are mothers, particularly high achieving women, who are convinced that it can be done with children.
I try to take a look at what sacrifices are made in order to have that happen. I try to see the number of children they have (the more you have, the more difficult the juggling act), and I wonder how much outsourcing of their housekeeping and child-care have they done in order to pursue their goals. Some parents swear that their child’s day-cares are wonderful, but then they tell me their children have been in day-care since 6 weeks of age. That’s mind-boggling. Even when I did return to work (not simply that I wanted to, but because my husband was laid off), I had my husband take care of my first born when he was laid off for a year, then my mother in law.
I wonder what, if anything suffers – connection with their children, with their husbands, with themselves as they try to fill all their roles.
What’s more the feminist movement in America didn’t cover all the needs of women. Sure, they got women out of the kitchen and to compete with men, but didn’t make any attempts to accommodate families.
I read in Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children by Sylvia Ann Hewlitt the feminist movement in America was too limiting. By choosing simply equal rights to men, women essentially ignored the basic fact of who was to raise the children. By contrast, European feminists (who were essentially social feminists) focused on women’s dual roles and therefore fought for more “systematic support to women in their dual roles as mothers and workers” (p. 148). Consequently, there is a huge discrepancy in what women workers get in terms of maternity/parental leave (at most 3 months maternity leave in the US, vs up to 18 months of parental leave shared by both mothers and fathers in some European countries).
The answer isn’t more institutional day-care, but flexible scheduling, more parental leave, job re-training when the kids are older, and simply plain old sympathy for families. I mean, really, if the highly intelligent women are discouraged from becoming a mother (with the likelihood of producing intelligent progeny), or they are being punished on the job for being mothers so that they are forced out of the workforce, what does this say about our societal values? What, only average people should reproduce? Or that employers don’t value your intelligence and worth enough to accommodate your needs, and essentially are turning the clock back by forcing out highly talented women who become mothers? Sounds like they are working hard at reversing the hard earned feminism that we do have. It’s insane!
Sigh…
There is a really bad movie out there called Idiocracy hubby and I tried to watch the other day. Intelligent people ended up choosing not to have children and by the year 2025, only stupid people existed on the planet. It was supposed to be a comedy, but I really didn’t find it funny. It was painful to watch. The point being that society doesn’t reward intelligence and doesn’t seek to accommodate the needs of women, and in particularly high-achieving, smart women who just so happen to get pregnant.
Aarrrgggghhhhh.
Oh, and as for the so-far-almost-five-year-long divorce process? Two words: neurosurgeon and narcissist. I do not recommend marrying an alpha male.
I would have to agree on that. With doctors, the more successful they are and the more complicated the nature of their work (like surgeons), the more dreadful their interpersonal skills are. They sometimes (too often?) get that “God complex”. In a way, I suppose I understand that they need the supreme confidence in themselves to do what they do. But I think it becomes hard to separate what they do from who they are.
I do thank the stars I found someone who does give me the room to grow. My husband usually is pretty low key about things. Except, I know from before, I tend to hyper-focus on things to the exclusion of others, like my job, which is sometimes a lot easier than raising kids.
Hi Casey…just popped in, and couldn’t NOT reply!
I totally have all those conversations in my head, and I am SO happy to hear that I’m not the only one! And your entire paragraph about being “out of touch” really resonates with me. I so wish that I could find real life people like the interesting friends I find online!
I pray for you that you will find some peace about your career decisions. I can feel your hurt and resentment as you write about what used to be and what might come of your future. Remember that God has a plan for your future, and it is better than anything you can imagine. Just believe it!
Sorry to hear that you won’t be blogging as much. My new computer comes tomorrow and I was looking forward to hearing more from you! I’m sure you’ll be back. 🙂
Until then…
Heather
Heather –
It’s not that I won’t be blogging as much, it’s just that I need breaks from it for a while. Especially since this week was Halloween party week for the girls, and I had to devote time to thinking up crafts and getting treat bags and costumes ready.
I get too caught up in my own thoughts that it really starts making me go loopy. And the extra time has given me the ability to read an interesting story, that I plan on blogging about, once I get my thoughts sorted out about it.
I do know, that I have to stop using the computer before bed…it tends to crank up my thought processes WAY too much so that I’m agitated for bedtime and then can’t sleep because I’m thinking too much.
And, even if I’m not blogging as much, that doesn’t mean I’m not reading others blogs. So, I might be inspired to write more after my hiatus.
Heather –
It’s not that I won’t be blogging as much, it’s just that I need breaks from it for a while. Especially since this week was Halloween party week for the girls, and I had to devote time to thinking up crafts and getting treat bags and costumes ready.
I get too caught up in my own thoughts that it really starts making me go loopy. And the extra time has given me the ability to read an interesting story, that I plan on blogging about, once I get my thoughts sorted out about it.
I do know, that I have to stop using the computer before bed…it tends to crank up my thought processes WAY too much so that I’m agitated for bedtime and then can’t sleep because I’m thinking too much.
And, even if I’m not blogging as much, that doesn’t mean I’m not reading others blogs. So, and, I have responded a few times on message boards, and an email or two. So, there’s no way I have gone cold turkey on this.
I am looking forward to reading your thoughts Heather and will be putting you on my blogroll.
Let me know when you are up and running again. 🙂
Aha Casey. Once again you put your finger on it. ‘I can’t keep up with you’ – have heard in all corners all my life: whether it be in response my thought process or my emotional state of being.
Being a stay at home mom wasn’t a financial option for me but I wouldn’t have chosen it anyway simply because I was afraid if my focus was solely on my children, it would be too much for them and make them totally crazy…(please do not misunderstand this statement as a judgment about ANY woman who chooses to stay at home with their kids!! I know how difficult any choice a mom makes is – but I really was afraid I would be “too much” as a stay at home mom).
So I took a job that was less than I’m capable of (and even still was told yesterday that I put more into that anyone else – when I know that it’s been MUCH less than I could). At the same time, like you, I know that I never do anything by half. And I have worried that if I actually had a job that matched my capabilities I would lose myself in it and that it would potentially compromise the relationships in my life, particularly with my children.
Nevertheless, I’m an optimist :). And my kids are now older than yours 🙂 and less prone to illness 🙂 :). Even though my perpetually racing brain often doesn’t always ‘fit’ with those around me, I wouldn’t change it – sometimes it works against me but it also brings me a lot and I really do believe that for seeking, I will find some of what I’m looking for. Anyway, I’m less likely to find it if I don’t look :).
Can’t say I have any advice but please know that while you may be unusual that you’re not alone.
Gifted Universe –
Thanks for commiserating. It does help to know I’m not alone. 🙂
After having done both – working out of the home with kids for a couple of years and staying at home with kids, I really am at a loss to decide which one is the harder of the two.
They definitely both have their challenges. But, as I was thinking about this last night, I am glad I can support their education as they are turning out to be gifted as well, and the public school system, while someone accommodating, still isn’t accommodating enough, so I work with them at home.
For instance, just last night, while my oldest daughter was “playing school” at the chalkboard/easel we have, I gave her 5 digit addition problems to do with carrying. She’d asked me numerous times before to do more math at home, so from time to time we play around with it.
And I know I’m very picky about what I do for a living. I have considered even working at a bookstore, or volunteering at a library, or very occasionally at a resale shop or consignment/antique store (mostly because I’m fond of older, well made things and bargains).
Sometimes I can’t even keep up with all I want to because I am at a point in my life I’m having trouble deciding what I want to pursue.
All the while I’m not deciding….time is wasting. I wish I had a flash of insight as to what I MUST be doing next.
Hey – this isn’t a plug for my site, you don’t need to post the comment but check out my lastest post on my site. I came across this career approach that I liked – since I’m the kind of person who wants to do EVERYTHING but of course there’s just not enough time in this life. Plus, all the career stuff I’ve always read was about knowing where you wanted to go…which I never really do. I liked it because I think it offers a way out of the downward spiral of always seeing what we’re not doing and the negative feelings that accompany it. I’m not sure I did Buckingham justice – no doubt his own writing describes his ideas better so if it grabs you even a little, I suggest reading it firsthand. Regardless, would love to know what your thoughts are!
Gifted Universe – I’m not against a plug once in a while for something that might be useful to someone. I think there are those who are genuinely trying to help others, and there are others who simply plug their wares for selfish purposes. I place you definitely in the former category.
Thanks for that.