All Good Things Come to An End, or Shift Happens

I couldn't have anticipated that my conversation with Dave Balter, CEO of BzzAgent, the sinking in of a metaphorical winter, Take Back Your Time Day, and a good chunk of uninterrupted time with my journal inside my stranded car at the Colma BART Station (later I towed it all the way to San Jose) would have caused so much clearing in my life.

"All good things come to an end," Dave Balter shared. Those words ring true.

We discussed how sometimes blogs can get stale. I nodded in affiirmation even though this was a phone conversation. Maybe the topic has run its course for the author and audience.

I think the trick in business, in life, is keeping things fresh. And so, the long-standing Inside BzzAgent blog, goes quiet while a new ephemeral limited-edition art installation blog launches. (I'll be sharing snippets of my conversation with Dave Balter in a series over the next week or so.)

Yet it can be tumultous shaking things up when it's you, or your business, not your interview subject's at stake.

At a local Take Back Your Time Day dialogue circle, I share I'm currently saying NO more often, eliminating MAYBEs entirely, and my YESes are wholehearted committed YESes.

The good news is this is the most focused time of my life.

The bad news is it's not so easy even if one initiates the closing of doors. I felt unanticipated waves of emotion reminiscent of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' stages of grief including anger, depression, and finally acceptance. In a short space of time, I've pruned back from everything that doesn't resonate with a resounding jubilent YES to whom I am today...which emcompasses letting go...which was hardest of all when it involves people. One of the toughest was walkng away from a long-standing discussion group "Daring to Live an Authentic Life" that I co-founded.

But I'm just not the same person I was two years ago, one year ago, five month ago, five weeks ago, five minutes ago. And that's a good thing. It means I'm still alive. I'm growing. Things that worked a year ago, may not work so good right now. Heck, even these online photos (llast 3 are my blog photos) shown here 2003-2006 reflects the evolution: suit -> suit -> casual geek -> comfortable-in-her-own-skin hanging out at beach and maybe write some - by hand.

I'd shed the celibate, unemployed monk in search of enlightenment chapter of my life earlier this year, but not all its accoutrements. And I cannot even classify as a bohemian any longer as I fail the Are You A Bohemian quiz:

"The following question has been asked to determine whether one is a Bohemian: You have enough money to buy either art supplies or a meal, but not enough money to buy both. Which would you buy? If you chose art supplies, you qualify as a Bohemian."

Either/or questions are banal to me. Both/and: "A first-rate soup is better than a second-rate painting", said Abraham Maslow. Why not a lavish meal you create yourself with a palette of winter squash, carrot, ginger...? AND the art supplies too?

So in case you thought I had blog fatigue, no worries. I sent this GapingVoid.com cartoon to a friend today and later noted the post itself:

"I usually come down with a heavy dose of blog fatigue every couple of months or so. It usually lasts a week or two. I think it's normal.

Sometimes all you want from life is a cup of coffee and to hold the hand of a certain special someone." - Hugh MacLeod, GapingVoid.com

Nope, not blog fatigue this time around. Mega-clearing grief is all.

Anyway, I'm back. Yep the blog was up for grabs in the mass clearing too. This blog started after nearly two years of deliberation (er, hemming and hawing) since I knew it'd be pretty much a second job. (And I was right, it is.) But it also was the outcome of true inspiration, which when I mine that space, those nuggets always outlast any and all of my ideas du jour.

I'm with Hugh: "Sometimes all you want from life is a cup of coffee and to hold the hand of a certain special someone." 'Cept make mine a cup of tea. Anyway, that line is a great segueway into what I'm saying a wholehearted committed YES to these days.

p.s.  I think Web 2.0 ennui captures the affliction better than Web 2.0 fatigue. (Plus it's tres cuter in French.) Ennui: "The best definition would be something like 'a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest'." Alas, Web 2.0 could use a dose of fresh thinking. Earlier this year I termed the whole kaboodle (yeah, that's the name of another Gaggoo) of me-toos as Gaggoo companies since their object for existence is to get swallowed up by Yahoo or Google for a gazillion. Proper usage: "Yeah, they're another Gaggoo."

Bonus: "Large companies are incapable of ongoing innovation, of ongoing flexibility. Increasingly, successful businesses will be ephemeral. They will be built to yield something of value, and once that value has been exhausted, they will vanish...The ultimate aim of a business organization, an artist, an athlete, or a stockbroker may be to explode in the dramatic frenzy of value creation during a short space of time, rather than to live forever...Everywhere you look the model of greatness comes down to this...Make a Big Impact...then a Quick Exit." - Tom Peters, Re-Imagine!

images Phil Windley's 2003 photo from his blog; my 2004 blog photo, 2005 blog photo, and current blog photo taken in Pacifica, CA by David Chamberlain.

Comments

[Ric]

I'm glad the blog made the cut!

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Thanks Ric. Some day somewhere in future it won't and that's okay too. Usually it's not so deliberate, but there will be a sense of completion and that will be the curtain call. It's healthy for me to know I can survive fine without a blog too, which one realizes is very true on these long protacted breaks.

This post is more about that sense of completion, that accompanying sadness, and new doors and vistas opening.

A friend writes today:
"The world feels a bit lonely today,
tho the sun shines. I find sometimes that I cant go far with people, that
after a while their expectations of what people are, how they are, limit my
own ability to be and to grow. It's sad. I hope you're well, and thinking of
you."

I reply: "It really *is* a beautiful day, I got the extension cord out to the yard. So I'm here outdoors writing to you.

I think I understand...Kinda wrote about that yesterday in blog. Really out of practice writing, and it shows.

I have come to accept that some groups, some people, drift out of my life as I grow - and new ones appear. A few friends stay with me because they're growing more or less with me, but my fidelity is ultimately to the process, to life, to the whole, and thus to growth in the end, rather than any individual."

[Marilyn]

I really love this post, Evelyn. I've been blogging a little over 3 years, and occasionally I just want to never write another post or read another blog. So I pull back a bit and cut myself some slack and try to remember that I have a 'real' life. But the past few months have felt not so either/or as they have in the past. I think I have the soul of a Luddite and have sometimes struggled with how to seamlessly merge my virtual cravings with my simultaneous desire to unplug. I've greatly enjoyed what you've shared on this blog in the time I've been reading here (and it's been awhile now). And when the day comes that you'll step away from it, I'll wish you well...knowing that wherever your passion inspires you to go will be right where you need to be.