Author: Eve Crabapple

Climbing out of “Idea Debt”

Published on by Eve CrabappleLeave a comment

Do you know what idea debt is?

If you’ve started different blogs, spent several days to get them to look exactly how you want them and then after a post or two, inexplicably seen the initial enthusiasm for your grand new idea wane away — then you have experienced idea debt first hand.

If you’ve become so enthralled about a new subject and decided from then on to invest all of your energies to learning about it and becoming the leading expert in that area and perhaps publish a few books, only to see your devotion disappear the next weekend — then you know what I am talking about.

The examples above are personal to me but idea debt is summed up as the accumulation of ideas that have seen this progression from ignited enthusiasm to sputtering ember until you are surrounded by all of the cold lumps of ashes that lay around reminding you of your inability to see a project through.

I’ve been struggling with this for years now and I don’t think I’ve completely climbed my way out of my idea debt, but I have a much better awareness of why I fall into it and I know where to start.

The first thing to realize about any project is that not all of it is going to be enjoyable, all of the time. Even if the main work is something you have a passion for, you are going to need to develop new skills and challenge yourself in ways that you didn’t realize going into it. I don’t care if your goal is to become a professional cake taster and all you want to do is get invited to judge cake baking competitions and travel around the world eating the best cake there is — there are going to be days when you are sick of cake, days when you have to judge and taste a cake where the baker felt that the broccoli and asparagus based frosting really elevated the filet mignon infused cake to a whole new level, days when you are asked to be the keynote speaker at the International Convention of Cupcakes when you are terrified of public speaking. You see where I’m going with this? Even if you find the “perfect” passion that encapsulates all of your strengths and combines all of your interests (which is impossible) you will need to do things that you had not planned on. Now, if it gets to the point that all you are doing is tasting disgusting cake, you need to start being more selective about which competitions you agree to judge. However, don’t expect your life to be a daily parade of joyful and inspiring experiences — because that is not life, that is no one’s life.

It has helped me to understand that nothing I choose to do will be easy. It is normal to experience fear, boredom, hesitation, and stagnation, but as long as I choose to do something that I like and something I am good at, it is impossible to go wrong.

P.S. For more (and better) writing on idea debt, take a look at this post at jessicaabel.com (http://jessicaabel.com/2016/01/27/idea-debt/)

signature

 

Make A Choice!

Published on by Eve CrabappleLeave a comment

I am sitting here drinking my home-made hot chocolate and enjoying a slice of strawberry cheesecake. And I am thinking about the change that has overcome me at work. I had a great week at work. Not necessarily from a production standpoint, but from a process perspective. There were so many new roles that I needed to perform and I had some trouble getting down my process and mustering the confidence to stick to that process no matter how stupid I felt doing it.

 

Home-made hot chocolate is so much better than store bought!

But then I had this realization that…no one is a success overnight and everyone had to start somewhere. That even those who were the most successful in my role had to have failed before and that the only difference between them and the others is that they chose to believe that they wouldn’t let anything hinder them from doing as well as they believed they could. Everyone gets scared, feels stupid, gets rejected, gets told “no”, but stopping at those moments means you become like everyone else. Everyone else who makes excuses about the client, about the job, about the market, about the expectations, about everybody and everything else besides themselves. Pointing fingers and justifying their failures in a way that absolves them of the blame when the truth is that no one else but themselves are to blame. You know, it’s so easy to deflect. It feels good to not be the reason why you can’t do something. It means that you don’t need to change. That you have done everything that you need to do and it is out of your hands — it’s not your fault. But what goes unsaid, is that when you do this to yourself, it also means that you don’t get better. That you don’t get to see what you are actually capable of. That you don’t learn. That you don’t surprise yourself anymore.

So you need to make a choice. A choice to get back up, get out, get better, do better, keep going, explore your abilities, surprise others. Make a choice to be the stuff of wonder and possibility that sparks others to do the same.

signature

Book Haul: Ghosts, Finance, and the Art of War

Published on by Eve CrabappleLeave a comment

I stopped by my neighborhood secondhand book shop to see if I could find something interesting to read. All of the books I have right now have already been read or I was just not in the mood for. At first it took me a while to find anything of interest, but I kept browsing mainly as an excuse to stay warm from the wind and the rain outside. Unexpectedly, I came across a tattered, bright blue book in the clearance section of the collectibles. The title on the front had long been worn off, but I could still make out “Haunted Homes and Family Legends” in the top left hand corner. The spine gleamed with those same word in gold lettering. The publication date on the first page of the book read April 3, 1911. That pretty much sealed the deal for me. A beautiful book dating from the early 20th century full of scary stories and it’s only $10? I’ll take it.

image3 [88581]

After that, I found a couple of finance books that I had been looking to read, “Why ‘A’ Students Work for ‘C’ Students” by Robert T. Kiyosaki and “The Millionaire Mind” by Thomas J. Stanley. In the same finance section I discovered an interesting take on Sun Tzu’s “Art of War” — “The Art of War for Women” by Chin-Ning Chu.

image1 [88579]

I can’t wait to dive into these reads and share my thoughts with you.

signature

Peaceful Saturday Night…

Published on by Eve CrabappleLeave a comment

I’m sitting here after having enjoyed a spaghetti dinner that was made from scratch with sourdough garlic bread (not from scratch). It took the sauce about 2 hours to fully simmer together, but it was worth it and I now have enough marinara sauce for the next 2 weeks (ha). I wish had this much time to invest into cooking our meals during the week day, but I am just so tired when I get back from work that sometimes I just want to pass out in my bed as soon as I walk in the door. Now that the weather has gotten rainier, windier and darker, I find it more difficult to get my energy up for those everyday things. I can’t wait to be able to set my own schedule and work my own hours!

image1 [42886]_edited
Yummy!! We all deserve indulgences from time to time!

Anyway, I’m going to finish up my hot chocolate with marshmallows and head to bed. I’m sitting next to the window listening to the wind blow through the trees and I am so grateful for what I have. I often think about how things can be different which can be a good motivator to change, however, I don’t reflect often enough on how far I’ve come and truly see what I have.

signature

Desert Queen, by Janet Wallach

Published on by Eve CrabappleLeave a comment

This book holds the balance between an informational, historical, romantic, and suspenseful story so effortlessly that you forget that it is a biography. Now, I rarely read biographies — I can’t even remember the last time I read one — but if they read anything like this one, I need to start making it a more common occurrence. The book chronicles the life of Miss Gertrude Bell, a fiercely intelligent and unabashedly gutsy Englishwoman who “explored, mapped, and excavated the world of the Arabs.” She lived in tents, crossed the desert on camel back with Bedouins, negotiated talks between dangerous warlords, got captured as a prisoner in the process, but also left time to update her wardrobe with the latest fashions from Europe. She basically drew the borders for Iraq and Jordan and helped nurture the governmental foundations of those two countries in the 1920s. The National Museum of Iraq, known in her time as the Baghdad Archaeological Museum, was formed due to her love of archaeology and passion for Iraqi culture and history. It houses artifacts of one of the earliest known civilizations in the world — the Mesopotamian culture and Babylonian Empire — and while the museum was looted during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it reopened this year after much refurbishment.

I chose to highlight just a couple out of her many and impressive achievements, but I think they give you a taste for the adventure, passion and influence Bell brought into the world. The story is so skillfully written, that it’s hard to believe that Wallach so seamlessly connected Bell’s life by little more than her letters and diary entries. Of course, as a voracious writer who was acutely aware that her words were recording history as it happened, Bell had left behind thousands of pages of material, but nevertheless, it was no simple undertaking for Wallach to flawlessly meld such a rich and tangled history into this unified book. I highly recommend you to read about this marvelous lady who is now my personal icon. I share so much in common with her: our love of languages, history, Sumerian archaeology, fashion, and we even have the same birthday! *Sigh* Of course, I have yet to create the political framework of a country or head a national library — but there’s still time while I’m alive!

signature