The sweltering heat has a tendency to thoroghly turn my little deck garden into a salad sauté but this year I was smart and picked some hardier, thicker leafed plants. They’re blooming, even if only a little, and it causes happy! :D
You can learn a lot from video games. They teach you how to produce strategy even when you start playing with no idea how a system works yet. From the first cheap equipment you purchase, you’re already calculating damage, defense and your party’s strengths and weaknesses.
You also learn not to run with the hype. Say hello to Samvati, the character I’m playing in Diablo III.
Samavati is special. She’s the second incarnation of who I wanted to be in this game. I had bought heavily into the hype that the Wizard was the best class to play. With high DPS and swift movement, she was supposed to be the winner of all the classes, much like in Diablo II. Why wouldn’t I be a wizard? So I actually started out with ‘Sunira’ (original, right?) the wizard. I was alright as a wizard. I spent time researching and configuring her weapons and armor and making sure her build would work for me as well as for a team.
But by the time I was nearing the end of Hell difficulty, I was just dying all over the place. I kept getting killed by monsters that got close and just destroyed me. The wizard automatically takes almost 30% more damage than the monk simply because they also do more damage than the monk. They’re supposed to be powerful and swift from afar and my playing style just didn’t match. I found myself in the middle of battle freezing enemies and doing major damage but the weakness of defense for the wizard, regardless of how much I focused on vitality as a second focus to intelligence, made me a bad player for her.
I died. A lot.
There was nothing wrong with the wizard. There was something wrong with how I played her. She didn’t reflect my style and I was trying to box myself into a character that wasn’t fit for me.
For fun, I decided to try the “underpowered” monk which after a little analysis appeared to lend itself my playing style. The monk is more of a team player with team-affecting mantras and healing but also a heavily physical character. The monk belongs in heat of battle, distracting and destroying the enemies up close so characters like the wizard or witch doctor can do their damage from afar.
I. Loved. Her.
Now everything around me died. A lot.
Samavati was the foremost disciple in loving kindness and compassion to Buddha. I found it an appropriate name for a monk. Plus it amuses me to think I kill things with flourishes of kindness and compassion.
With Samavati, I didn’t care that I had logged like 60 hours with the wizard already. The monk was such a natural fit that it was a pleasure to play her. Undepowered? That’s a joke when you play with me. I am taking this character to Inferno with no regrets.
It’s a bit of a lesson that I’ve discovered is true of all life. Your abilities don’t always translate to the current social opinion of success. Don’t try to be CEO of your company unless your strengths lie there. Don’t try to go all freelance to free yourself from the man unless your natural talents will ease you into that kind of life. You have to take a good hard look at yourself and play the game that makes the most sense to you. You’ll be a hell of a lot happier, make a lot more progress, breathe a little easier, and most importantly, be successful in a way that resonates within you.
“Everybody” knows the hottest profession and the latest success stories.
But you know something about yourself and when you act on your strengths, and delegate your weaknesses, you’re only setting yourself up for the success that matters. :)
Plus you’ll probably look sexier. Just like my monk. ;)
It feels like I’ve been unhappy with my face, my nose, my weight, my eyebrows, the tone of my skin, the blackness of my hair my whole life. Last year, I started to think of myself differently. All the voices around me telling me that I don’t meet a standard of beauty and that I should prioritize how I look to others over things like respecting myself started to sound stupid.
They are stupid.
So in an effort to not allow myself to be mentally trampled, I started to look at what would I do for my body if i loved it? What if I thought it was already beautiful, what if I loved it AND respected it? What if I thought that I wasn’t some flawed version of what I could be?
Things got better. I significantly reduced how much I looked at other people and made a snarky judgement in my head. I took care of myself better. I got more involved in exercise, I dieted to feel good, and I lost weight to get faster at running, not to fit into something to please someone else.
It was, it is glorious. Of course, you don’t undo 18 years of feeling like you don’t look good enough in 12 months. I still have my moments when I think something negative about myself or someone else. But now I recognize it as it happens and I shift mentally to thinking about who that person is, not what they are. I think about that to myself too. Who I am so far outshines what I am that just that shift in thought redefines how I feel about myself.
Anyway, part of that self acceptance comes from taking photos of myself. I find people who are comfortable in front of a camera and believe they look great in the photo are usually self-assured people. I still don’t feel safe in front of a camera lens.
Fake it til you make it.
So here’s a photo. No makeup. No done hair. I don’t care that it’s my profile, which I have the tendency to think that I look unflattering from.
Its me. Plain and simple.
I’ve heard a lot of ‘do it daily’ opinions across the blogs I read lately. Essentially, the challenge is to produce something of quality to push your talent and skill forward incrementally as opposed to the leaps and jumps in quality and ‘wow’ we want to make.
I’m going to give it a shot. Lets see where that philosophy takes me. Post something daily, something good, something imperfect, but something on the path to somewhere else.
This photo is not technically satisfactory (to me) but I’ve used that excuse now for days, posting phone photos or not at all instead of an image that may only be 80% of what I think is good.
Critique is always welcome. These flowers were about 2-3mm or so in radius: quite tiny. I used flash to isolate them from their surroundings.
Seasons aren’t so well defined here in the southeast. I find myself looking at a photo and not knowing when I took it without looking at the date taken. This one was from just a few weeks ago, well into spring but I bet I could have convinced you it was a fall photo.
I love the way the light glints off everything during the evening magic hour. It really is a beautiful time.
I found myself downtown again. The architecture. Is amazing.
Jeremy and I got to babysit Gabby a couple weeks ago. There is not much that makes this child happy like a slide.
:) Another week has flown by. Here are the moments that made me happy this week.
The weather at the park has been fantastic in the evenings. The people are all out and enjoying the weather and making the local geese fat.
It’s interesting to see the mix of geese in this pond. Typical English geese have mixed with these Canadian geese to make a grey-white combo of geese. I bet they all speak atrocious french too.
Blackberry season is in and I have been stuffing my face with fresh blackberries pretty much everyday after boot camp. Knowing there’s only one more mile of running until I get to run like a hippie through the brambles for berries is pretty killer motivation to finish strong.
The pre-sunset flares have been pretty intense. I spend the 2nd hour of my exercise regimen sprinting/walking around the park and I always have to stop near the lake.
Another one that was even more stunning:
The rains had the park creeks and waterways flowing heavily this week. This meant more bugs. :/
Like this guy…
A friend from work brought me back a souvenir from her two week trip to Hawaii. I put it up somewhere to remind me of what in life brings me inspiration and energy: travel!
I’m going to own a Lotus one day. I don’t care if it’s the stupidest investment ever. I am buying it because it is sexy.
Life’s great when your bank is full, you’re making smart investments and you’re getting smart deals and getting promotions and doing business… but sometimes you just have to throw some money at something stupid that you’ll enjoy before you’re too old to appreciate it. Age changes our attitudes, and what makes us happy and how we prioritize. I got to get this in before I wind up 40 and too frugal and practical to hug one of these in my garage before I leave for work in the morning. ;) I know me.
Every time I see a Lotus drive by I remember to indulge in something silly that gives me a fleeting sense of happy-thrill that day.
Good thing Ami has agreed to buy one with me. :) Hahaha. BROWN WOMEN ON THE ROAD YUH
Running into the sunset can give me the same feeling sometimes. :) Also chasing bunnies in the forests around every park. I saw a huge Owl out here once.. it was amazing.
Hope your weekend is awesome.