Tag Archives: picco

Scenes from Saturday + A.Blog

Cecilia has to pick her high school classes this week. Yeah, it took a hot minute for that to sink in initially.

If I could go back to my eighth grade self and give him one bit of advice it would be to dial back the stress and subsequent anxiety by a factor of 10. The “right” classes and the “right” school matter far less than the everyday habits that you develop during this time.

Those are far better indicators, and far better tools, to navigate through life.

Don’t believe me, eight grade self? Maybe you’ll listen to Leonard Cohen. Adolescents seem to gel with his vibe:

Sometimes when you no longer see yourself as the hero of your own drama, you know, expecting victory after victory, and you understand deeply that this is not paradise and you’re not gonna get it all straight.

I found that things got a lot easier when I no longer expected to win.

You understand that, you abandon your masterpiece, and you sink into the real masterpiece…

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Scenes from Saturday + Crepes & Marshmallows

One of my favorite things about being a member of my local running group is the various ages of people that it brings me in contact with each week. My experience is no longer defined just by the parents from daycare or from fourth grade or from the cul de sac. It opens me up to a wider range of opinions, experiences, and…knowledge of whiskey brands. Love of beer and bar trivia were just a happy accident, I swear.

So, I found myself nodding along and recognizing some of myself in this article that circumvents those calendar-based designations designed to divide us into marketable groups in favor of a mindset.

“A Perennial is a self-selecting, positive term for curious people who resist being defined by any one characteristic, especially age. Perennials get involved, stay curious, mentor others, are passionate, compassionate, creative, confident, collaborative, global-minded, risk-takers who continue to push up against our growing edge and know how to hustle.”

Those characteristics all sound like things that would be good for me, my kids, and my friends. Relevance for all ages.

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Scenes from Saturday + Food & Freedom

Parents of teenagers, what is it about the age (hormones, a glimpse of the ‘real’ world) that so often poisons the resiliency and willingness to just try of their younger selves?

For most, this is just a temporary fog, but here is a life lesson, or life approach, that I’d like to inject directly into my kids brains as an antidote to overly negative thinking: How can I make this work?

It’s not a life hack (hate those) but a mindset. Don’t be the type of person that approaches a situation and think, “What are all the ways this might go wrong?

This is not to say I want the girls to be naive or overly optimistic. Just the opposite. I want them to be realistic and believe that they’ll find a way through no matter what and not to depend on things outside their control.

Both types of mindsets need to deal with reality, but the first person will only have to solve problems that actually occur while the second person may never get started because they’ve scuttled themselves with potential (or even imaginary) problems before they even start.

There will always be reasons to not do something. It’s how you start anyway that makes a difference.

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