DiY Learning, "Just Because"

You don't have to be a registered student to go back to school if you just want to keep learning for its own sake. To start, here's a short list of websites that function as clearinghouses for online learning tools, wiki sites & open courses/lectures:

• Open Culture is the site I'll go to first. It has an enormous array of online resources in many topics, and the site itself is easy on the eyes.
• Free video Lectures features academic lectures delivered by university professors.
• MIT's open course ware site contains a mind-boggling list of options in humanities and sciences.
• Open Learn is a British open university site with much of the same comprehensive content.
• Stanford offers courses via iTunes and Berkeley's webcast service enable students to subscribe to regular feeds.
• Wikiversity allows users to contribute content as well as study it.

If you prefer offline options, check out the Great Courses series. Most library systems carry at least some of their offerings.

Work & Life Balance: One Step at a Time

Once upon a time, I wasn't looking forward to the week ahead. This wasn't because I had a feeling of impending doom, the kind you get when you're dreading an upcoming event such as a biopsy or call to a creditor. It felt more like slogging through a morass. The bog didn't contain anything unusual, just extra helpings of the normal stuff: more work hours, projects coming due, long days and a number of social events that should have sounded fun but felt like obligations. Sound familiar? I think we've all had times like this.

This time around, though, I decided to try something new to me. I'd been reading several books, including How to Want What you Have by Timothy Miller (1996) and Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat Zinn (2005). Although I'd been dabbling in the practice of Mindfulness for some time, I still had difficulty staying "in the moment" for more than five minutes, and remained skeptical about its ability to address boredom and other low-grade irritations.

But I'd have to get through the week anyway, whether I took a new approach or not. I liked Miller's triad of practices - attention, compassion & gratitude. I made a mental note to check in with myself every hour of each day that week and do the suggested activities. In addition, I decided to try focusing solely on the day I happened to be in, rather than mentally bolting toward the end of the week or the next day off. Again, a challenge.

But something strange began happening when I started to practice the difficult art of staying in the moment. Time (and unpleasant tasks) didn't pass any more quickly; time itself, however, became less important. I stopped noticing so much whether it passed quickly or slowly. When I consciously refrained from attaching an emotional value ("boring" or "hard") to an unpleasant task and just did it, it became, if not easier, at least less stressful.

Mindfulness doesn't guarantee a happily-ever-after, but it can create a more contented now.

The Road Already Taken

Since I work in a library, I notice trends in reading. Since I also write, I monitor which trends seemed to be tapped out and therefore inaccessible to those of us who didn't get our manuscripts, proposals or blogs finished in time. This is a summary of what I've noticed - the good, the bad and the Gone:

• The Intrepid Woman Traveler genre of "creative non-fiction." I noticed the rising energy of this particular niche ten years ago, when publishers such as Travelers Tales were in business. This genre encompasses first-person stories that are probably best known today as Eat, Love, Pray stories. They're largely travel memoirs written by women who took off on a particular adventure on their own and lived to tell about it. If you're a female Boomer who recently hitchhiked through Bali with all your worldly possessions in a 5-lb backpack, forget about the book contract. It's already been done.
• The Chick Lit for Midlifers sub-genre of fiction (my husband calls it Hen Lit). I shelve so many of these, I've lost count. Fifteen years ago, Elizabeth Berg began writing novels that highlighted the experiences of midlife women. I've read many of her novels; they're spot-on. Since then, however, the field has been overrun by novels that feature women with soggy marriages and grown kids who spontaneously take off on an adventure that leads to self-discovery, a new career and a renewed marriage (never a completely new partnership, as opposed to midlife guy novels).
• Memoirs that spotlight food in any way, i.e. Julie and Julia. We all have our favorite gustatory experiences but the idea that every one of them deserves to be written up and disseminated is new. Personally, I love the idea of the Web & social media as one big idea-sharing orgy. But expecting to make money from it is different. This field has been trampled over like a garden of too many tomato plants.
• Cozy mysteries whose appeal is based not on plot but upon the historical, geographical or professional setting...especially if they include recipes. I can't count the number of fiction paperbacks I shelve that fit this description. If you're submitting a synopsis of a regional or historical novel (and it highlights food!), you'll have to make it really special.

The point of all this isn't to discourage you - it's to let you know what you're up against. If you have a message or experience that you really want to get out, consider just setting up a blog. If you've had a unique travel experience that might benefit other 40+ women, consider self-publishing. And if you write fiction, which falls under different rules than non-fiction, realize that you need to define your niche before you start marketing your work.

Where Work and Art Meet

Several years ago I read an account of one man's experiment in reality-bending. He decided to spend a week living as if he was already the artist he was aspiring to be. No more "I will be" or "I want to" - strictly "I am." For this guy the experiment was a real stretch; he was working graveyard shift in a job he hated, couldn't sleep during the day and had lost even the will to paint, let alone the inspiration.

He still wanted to find more congenial work and start painting again but suspected that, just possibly, his luck in these areas wouldn't turn until something inside him did. During the course of his week as a portrait painter who happened to earn his living as a custodian, he began to see his world with new eyes. By the end of the week he was ready to actually move forward with concrete plans. His story didn't imply that bad jobs don't exist or that you can wish yourself into a new situation. Rather, it pointed out that change starts with how we think about ourselves and our own possibilities.

Even if you, like me, basically enjoy what you do for a living, it still helps to examine how you're seeing yourself whenever you're mired in a creative slump. I've decided to try the author's experiment for myself during times where something feels stuck or not "in the flow."

Maybe his idea is like the "parallel worlds" convention used in fantasy & sci fi fiction - multiple possibilities exist and to an extent, we get to choose which ones we bring to life.

Tips for Getting Satisfactory Service

Here are a few suggestions based on experience (mine & several friends) in various customer service jobs. I didn't conduct an exhaustive study or interview any "experts," but the people I polled had a number of similar comments & ideas:

• If you're calling or going in person in order to resolve a problem, gather any necessary papers, invoices, documentation, membership cards or account numbers before calling/coming. Some places can't look your record up without a member or account number.
• If the history of the problem is complicated, jot down the steps you've already taken, with dates if possible. If you're dealing with a large institution, you might never get the same customer service rep twice. Even if everyone with whom you speak has taken meticulous notes, you might still have to repeat information you've already given.
• Realize that customer service professionals want to help you resolve problems or issues. A satisfactory resolution is win-win. It helps to approach staff with an expectation that a mutually acceptable solution will be reached, rather than in a me-versus-them frame of mind. This might sound obvious but everywhere I've worked, it has always surprised me how often customers seem to be in fighting mode when they enter a dialogue.
  
• This applies to all of us - staff and customers: develop the habit of seeing people as individuals, not primarily as parts of an organization. This prevents the us-versus-them mindset that gets in the way of good relationships and transactions.