YOU Point of View

How many times have you read the same list of, “10 Signs You’re in Love, For Real” from different websites? Or how about, “15 Ways a Friendship Changes When You Live Together”? There’s repetition of content all over the Internet. While plagiarism is a problem, it’s hard to not write about an idea that SOMEONE else in the world has already thought about and shared.

Write from YOU point of view.

Every person delivers and receives information differently. Content can be delivered with humor, intellect, sarcasm or any other extreme adjective.

Don’t hesitate to share information you’ve heard or read somewhere else, just make sure to add to it, include your own personal references, experiences and reactions.

How do you speak to others in person? Write that way! Are you the class (err office) clown? Add some humor to the content. Do you imagine images when you describe things? Add complementary graphics and photos. Do you tend to talk like a sailor? Add your own unique and colorful language to make that $h!t YOURS!

We follow an online community that gives design advice: goodfuckingdesignadvice.com

There are a ton of sites with design advice, but they found a way to do it differently.

You’re different. You’re YOU. Share information from the YOU point of view.

The Gist of The Matter

We may not have met in person. We may not have shook hands – and if we ever do, I like a good firm, handshake. If we haven’t high-five'd, I like them just like that. High. No low fives and definitely no you’re-too-slow-fives that the youths of America jokingly initiate. 

However, we have met here before. Therefore, I think it’s a safe platform that I can bypass the weather and go straight into a heart-to-heart (or fist-bump to fist-bump if you prefer) discussion and delve into a not-so-secret secret. Ready?

I like to paint. I like to create beautiful imagery. Sometimes I use pens. Sometimes I use pencils. But in circumstances such as this, I depend on a keyboard and upon the connectivity between two screens.

You see, I like to paint pictures for people where the medium is words, not acrylics or watercolors.

But after pouring my attention, my spine and sometimes my water over the keyboard to develop every detail into bringing to life the pepperonis of a pizza shop, restoring the chipped paint of a dilapidated warehouse, or helping fill the cavity of a toddler’s on his first visit to the dentist, I need a break.

I need to lift my head slowly (so as to avoid whiplash), and for all those in with any physiological background, I do indeed crack my knuckles at this juncture.

When I come up to breathe from this self-induced, word-constricting comma, when I look up from my own Wonderland, I acknowledge April’s thunderstorms and the thunderclouds. I see the leafless trees, the muddy walkways, and I see the soggy grounds. Also, all of this has a major impact on my soles; the soles of my shoes. Subsequently this impacts my wallet.

Because I am a realist.

Here’s the gist of the matter:

Suppose I shove away from my desk on my wheeled chair when work ends and head out on a gray, stormy day.

Then, like an incompetent baker who can’t crack eggs, the clouds break open and the water sloshes on me. And what appears to be only me. Even though this isn’t really true. I am wet, but onward I walk.

Ahead a gentleman is getting in his car, shaking out his umbrella as he begins to collapse it and back into his sedan. (How does the general population accomplish that feat so elegantly? So inconspicuously?)

As I approach closer, he calls out, “Hey, I don’t need this anymore! I’m obviously heading out. You can have this-”

“Oh thanks, but I couldn’t. Are you sur-”

“…for 20 bucks. Even.”

“Oh, um, I only have $15 on me.”

“I’ll take it.”

Sold.

And that my friends is the gist of the matter.

• As a realist, I acknowledge that this person is taking advantage of an opportune moment. It’s very economically advantageous of him.

• An optimist individual might give him the benefit of the doubt thinking this person is attempting to make some much-needed money for his family, even pulling out the emergency $50 from his or her wallet.

• A pessimist doesn’t buy the umbrella because he or she assumes it doesn’t work. Actually, a pessimist may never have left the office because, “Chicken Little: The sky is falling!”

The gist of the matter is we’re going to encounter rainy days. (Quite literally, now that it is April!) The clouds will crack open from above us. There will be puddles. So eventually we will have to go through them.

It’s how we go through them that matters most.

The gist of the matter is we’re going to get muddy. It’s a fact. But even mud is good for our skin, right?

Glasses Of Life

It all starts because we have a vision impairment.

We get asked if we have really have vision impairments or if the glasses on our faces are a fashion statement or accessory.

No, they are a necessity.

And when we wear them:

• We have to wipe the fog off when it’s warm or wet

• We get lost behind a veil of smudge. Don’t let any sales rep tell you differently- they are not smudge proof.

• Once we wear them, we have to stay committed to them all day since they ruin our makeup.

• We suffer injury on the bridge of our nose

• We can’t lie in bed on our sides to read

• We have a constant, pinching pain behind our ears

• We feel them slide down when we bend over

• We feel them slide up when you lean back

• We learn the hard way they are not foot or butt resistant

• We are expected to let everyone try them on

• We give ourselves whiplash as soon as children are placed in our arms so they can’t grab them

• We lose them and then sometimes we have to replace them even when they aren’t lost at this little inconvenient thing called an annual check-up.

But when we wear them all these things matter not, because we can read, walk without tripping; we can stop (we may choose not to) at red lights and we can experience life with our vital fifth sense.

And so goes the same with the glasses of life.

When we wear the metaphoric glasses of life, we are enabled to see things clearly. It may be through listening to a friend, slowing down, speeding up, traveling abroad, staying at home, thinking outside the box.

The pain that comes along with it, like the smudges, are worth it when what we envision from afar is suddenly close. When what was near or far sighted suddenly becomes a tangible success.

It’s just a matter of if you’re willing to wear the glasses. You see, when a vision impaired individual slips on their glasses, they do so knowing they are being compared to the trendsetters.

When the envisioned impaired decide to challenge themselves and wear the glasses of life, they might be compared to the trendsetters of life.

Speed up, slow down, travel abroad, stay at home, think outside the box: Others may be doing the same, and you may be called a copycat. It doesn’t matter because we can all look at the same thing, but what we see won’t be the same thing.

So, no matter what people think of you or say, never let the smudge keep you from wearing your glasses. Never let a vision impairment keep you from seeing. From living.

I Give it a Year

I give it a year.

To many people this would seem like a negative thing; a phrase of most epically discouraging and disrespectful proportions; a cocky bet against a relationship, business – just a bad omen against any success.

To me it was five of the most encouraging words I could have heard while in my work place.

You see, being the new girl or guy is hard no matter what you know, where you are or whom you work for – even though I work for and with amazing people: Dynamic visionaries, acceptant of my quirks and qualms. Yes, I’m getting paid while I write this blog, but I’m not getting paid to write this blog. (See what I did there?)

So there I was, initiating a performance review – a stuffy, archaic choice of words compared to how Worx works, but that is how the corporate world recognizes this concept…

So I asked, how am I doing? I really wanted to know if, in over-dramatizing my resumé, was I also over promising my work? Sure, I didn’t say I could speak seven languages, was ambidextrous with my feet or I had the ability to levitate. However, I’m a writer, and that one sheet of paper was my chance to prove my creative linguistic abilities. So way back in October of 2013 I took the liberty of being creative.

Every day since Laura and I have been learning to understand and cultivate my written language, so it reflects the custom work and strategies Amber and Kassie establish. Thereafter I realized I got one thing right on my resume: A picture speaks a thousand words; a writer’s job is to find them. When I penned that I had not realized just how prophetic it would be, because now it was time to put that into effect.

I give it a year, she replied at that performance review. A year? I can do a year. I have plenty of those, I hope.

Here’s the gist of the conversation:

You’re getting there. Ask any of the girls, and they’ll tell you that it takes a good year to get to know the clients and to communicate with them, to communicate for them and to understand them and their brand. And to feel confident doing it.

According to my LinkedIn Profile, (my poor calculation capabilities are not to be trusted), I’m coming up on that year and as I look back, Laura’s right. Although I’m not surprised. I’m a self-deprecating woman, so I admit that I was hesitant to believe I’d have the gutsy (proud Green Couch product placement) to get to know the clients, communicate on their behalf and feel confident during the entire process.

Most importantly I’ve learned to refer to Worx in the first person, taking ownership of my identity among the Worx team.

Where I work, “Your big idea means as much to us as it does to you, which is why we create Visual Branding for Big Ideas…so, how can we make it Write For You?”

Well, here’s to many more years. Y’all are stuck with me now!