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Crystal Balls and Tarot Cards

A lot of people turn to psychics for insight and advice when they are at a crossroads in their lives.  The psychic looks into a crystal ball, reads their palms or lays tarot cards out on the table and spews out “facts” that are, to many nonbelievers, a string of nonsensical bullshit.  Still, for some reason many people swear by psychics.

I used to fall into the category of nonbelievers, but now I’m not so sure.  A few years back, in January of 2004, I went to New York City to visit a friend.  I was walking through a flea market, browsing, when a woman with a baby carriage came up to me.  “I’m a psychic,” she told me.  “I’m shopping now and I have my baby with me but there is something about your aura which is just screaming at me, telling me that I have to talk to you and I have things to tell you!  Please take my number and call me so that we can set up a time to talk.”  She gave me a little piece of paper with her phone number and her name, Christina, on it.  I figured that this was just her shtick that she used on every person that she passed that looked naive enough to fall for it.  After all, everyone needs clients.  I thanked her, took the piece of paper and threw it into the next trashcan that I passed.

I barely thought about the woman at all for the next year.  In the meantime I graduated from college and moved to New York City in May of 2004.  Then, in January of 2005 on what I am pretty certain was 1 year to the day that “Christina the psychic” had approached me I was walking down Broadway, listening to my iPod with my huge headphones and thinking about how working in television was not what I had expected and that I wished I could do something more creative when a crazed woman started chasing after me yelling “Your aura!  Your aura is speaking to me!!”  I immediately recognized the woman as “Christina the psychic.”  “I can see that you are a creative person but you are frustrated because you can’t express your creativity the way that you want to in your job, but that’s not all!  I have to speak to you!!”

I was intrigued– after all I was sure that this was the same woman from the year before and what she told me was something that I had just been thinking about.  I thought it would be fun to get a reading– after all, even if it was all bullshit it would still make a good story later.  I asked her how much she charged and she told me that a tarot reading was $60.  I told her “sorry, I can’t afford that” and started walking away but she came after me and told me that she had such a “strong communication with my aura” that she couldn’t let me go and she agreed to do a reading for $15.

To make a long story short, “Christina the psychic” told me a lot of things about myself that really hit home– about my personality, my family, my relationships, hopes and dreams.  Still, I was skeptical because that’s what psychics do– they give you just enough information that anyone could skew a reading to fit their own life perfectly.  However, she also told me a lot of very specific things that would happen in the future.  Though many of them didn’t make any sense to me at the time I wrote them all down in a notebook.  However, I quickly forgot about the notebook as well as my meeting with the psychic.  Recently I found the notebook and when I looked back at what I had written I was shocked.  Basically, she has predicted that I would leave my job and move to the desert in a faraway place (Israel) as well as a lot of other personal events that have occurred in the time since I spoke with her.  All of these were things that I had had no inkling about or understanding of at the time, but they all ended up happening.

I still don’t know if I believe that there’s something to all of this psychic stuff, but it really does make you think.  Anyhow, I look forward to paying another visit to “Christina the psychic” when I return to New York City.  You know, just for fun…

Figuring Out Life the Israeli Way

In the United States we are raised knowing that as soon as we graduate from high school we will go to college and after four years of college (or 8 if we go to grad school) we will be spit out into the work force where we will work hard earning money until our retirement.  Growing up with this knowledge I had just assumed that this is the way things work everywhere in the world.  I was wrong.

In Israel every citizen is drafted into the army when they finish high school and turn 18.  Girls serve for 2 years; boys serve for at least 3 years.  By the time that they get out of the army most Israelis are, on average, just a little younger than we Americans are when we graduate from college.  However, when Israelis are released from the army college is usually the last thing on their minds.  Many post-army Israelis travel the world– the United States, South America, India, Thialand, Australia.  They travel to “find themselves” and to spend time figuring out what they want out of life.  Only when they are 22, 23, 24 or 25 do they even begin to think about going to college.

When I first moved to Israel I was blown away by this phenomenon.  The fact that I had already been out of college and working for two years and that most Israelis my age were just starting to study for their college entrance exams was shocking!  However, the more that I’ve thought about it the more i think that the Israeli way is brilliant.

In my opinion, 18 years olds are way too young to decide what they want to do with their lives.  18 year old freshmen college students are so excited to be away from their parents that they concentrate more on their new independence and social life then they do on their classes.  Such a large percentage of American college students graduate and still have no idea in which direction they want to take their lives.

I don’t think it’s such a bad idea for students to take a little time out after high school to get to know themselves, get used to their new independence and figure out what they really want to learn about.

I studied television production in college and worked in the field for a year and a half before I decided that it wasn’t for me.  I’ve spent the last 2 years living in Israel, “finding myself” and only now am I finally starting to get a faint idea of which direction I want to take my life in at the age of 25– the same age that most Israelis are when they are starting to get their first degree in something that they are certain that they are truly interested in.

American Work Mentality or I’ll Rest When I’m Dead

I was brought up in the good old U.S. of A.– the land of the free and the home of the brave, where opportunity runs rampant, the streets are paved with gold, money grows on trees and everyone is a workaholic.

It’s true.  The United States is home to more workaholics than any other country in the world.  Most Americans work more than 40 hours a week and spend most of their time thinking about work, even when they’re not working.  Evenings and weekends are spent running errands, paying bills and dreading the return to work.

On average, Americans work about 9 weeks more each year, per capita, than Europeans (source: Felicia Benamon, Renew America).  Many Europeans take out a couple of months each year to relax and spend time with their family and friends.  Many Americans, on the other hand, go years without taking any real vacation time.  In fact, even employees who receive paid vacation time often don’t take advantage of it and give up, on average, three paid vacation days each year!  Even when Americans do take vacation time it is frequently spent on non-vacation activities such as running errands and going to appointments.

The American work schedule is one of the largest sources of stress and anxiety as well as having a negative effect on family life and on our mental wellbeing.  In my opinion this is not a healthy or enjoyable way to live!

I think that many Americans live by the principal of “work hard now and play later.”  They believe that if they work hard today they will have time to relax in a few years, but then a few years becomes 10 years and then 20.  They’ve missed their kids’ childhood, their youth is gone and they are too tired and burned out from working to have fun and be adventurous.  I simply can’t imagine living like this!

I’m adopting the European lifestyle.  I want to work hard and play harder.  I want to work just hard enough that I can travel, spend time with my family and friends, do everything that I’ve always wanted and live my life to the fullest.  Maybe this is an idealist or overly optimistic point of view but I don’t care, I’ll make it work!  Who’s with me?

I Just Can’t Keep a Secret

About six months ago I received an email from a friend.  The email consisted of a link and the words ”This will change your life.”  I clicked on the link and it directed me to a video clip.  An Australian woman spoke:

“A year ago my life had collapsed around me.  I’d worked myself into exhaustion; my father died suddenly and my relationships were in turmoil.  Little did i know at the time, out of my greatest despair was to come the greatest gift…”

The woman continued by saying, in her lovely Australian accent, that her life had changed when she discovered a book with some sort of mysterious “secret” and that she was going to change my life by sharing this secret with me and the rest of the world.

Thinking that this was some sort of lame self help thing, I stopped watching within the first two minutes.  I’ve never really cared for all of that “Who Stole My Cheese?” “How to Win Friends and Influence People” sort of thing…

Well, as the months passed I started to hear more and more about Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret.  My brother told me to watch it; my mom told me to watch it; several friends told me to watch it.  Still, I declined with “that lame self help sort of thing isn’t for me.”

About two weeks ago a friend of mine finally convinced me to check it out.  “It’ll change your life,” she told me.  Instead of watching the movie I purchased the audio book from the iTunes music store and started listening and you know what?  It did change my life!

The basic principal behind The Secret is that if you really want something and truly believe that it is yours then you will receive it.  It’s called the Law of Attraction.  It sounds crazy, but I really think that there’s something to this wild theory and maybe even to all of those “lame” self help books out there.  Who knows, I may even start reading books like “Who Stole My Cheese?” and “How to Win Friends and Influence People!”

Here is the first 20 minutes of the movie that I found on YouTube.  Check it out and see what you think– maybe it will change your life too…

*This clip is only the first 20 minutes of The Secret.  All of The Secret can be purchased and viewed on The Secret Website.

A Mosquito in a Nudist Colony

Tonight was part 2 of the teleconference introduction to the life coach training program at the Coach Training Alliance.  For those of you who don’t know what a teleconference is, it’s sort of like a chat room on the telephone.  You call in, enter a pin number and are admitted into a “room” where you can talk with other people– in other words, a huge conference call.  It can get a little confusing if five people try to talk at once, but all in all it’s pretty fun.  Pretty fun, that is, until you get disconnected!

They had directed us that “if there is a disturbance in the background on your line press *6 to mute yourself and when you want to un-mute press *6 again.”  My dog started barking to I pressed *6, yelled to him to “stop your yapping!” and pressed *6 again.  I was immediately disconnected.  Because I was calling from Israel to the States with a calling card it took me nearly half an hour to get back on the line, meaning that I missed half of the discussion.

Fortunately there is one highlight that I did not miss!  During a sample coaching session, “Mike from Pittsburg” referred to choosing a niche in life coaching as “it’s like being a mosquito in a nudist colony.”  You can see everything and it all looks pretty interesting, so how do you choose?

Five minutes later, as I struggled with my calling card, trying to get back in on the teleconference I reflected on Mike’s quote.  Indeed, I do feel a bit like a mosquito in a nudist colony.  There are so many options and directions that I can take in my life but which one should I bite?

Anyhow, all I can do is hope that the nudist colony is filled with tons of beautiful men that work out, like long walks on the beach and have a good-sized stash of calamine lotion!

Life Coaching 101

Life coaching is something that has struck my interest for awhile.

For those who don’t know, a life coach is someone that helps clients to determine personal goals and to achieve them.  A life coach may coach a person in many aspects of their life– career transition, relationships, health and wellness, parenting, divorce, moving and more.  A life coach is not a therapist or a psychologist, rather a helping hand or partner in the process of getting their clients on the right track in life.

I heard about this field a couple of years ago and it sounded like an interesting career choice.  But it wasn’t until recently that i realized that it may be something that I would like to pursue.  The catalyst for my realization was my mom.

A few years ago my mom, who has worked in a range of careers from flight attendant to lawyer and now middle school drama teacher, told me that she still felt that something was missing from her life.  She told me that she had always wanted to write but didn’t know where to start.  I suggested that she sign up for a local writing class.  She signed up and has continued to take writing classes since.  She was recently published and just finished the first draft of her first novel!  A couple of weeks ago she told me that my telling her to sign up for a writing class was the best advice that anyone has ever given her.  When she told me this I felt so amazing– I had helped my mom to make one of the best decisions of her life!  I want to do this for people all the time!

I just participated in part one of a teleconference introduction to life coach training from the Coach Training Alliance and now I am feeling so excited about this whole life coaching thing.  Part two is tomorrow, so i’ll let you all know how it goes!

My 1st Blog.

Hi! This blog is about me, Megan.  I am a 25 year old “woman” that has no idea what she wants to do with her life.
I have been a lifeguard, an icecream scooper, a gap girl, a temp, an artist, a video editor, a graphic designer, a writer…
Still, I have no idea what I want to be when i “grow up”.

This blog will serve as my diary as I search for meaning, find myself and basically figure out what I want to do with my life.

Feel free to come with me on my journey, leave any comments or advice and enjoy the ride!