I have been having so much fun breaking the rules. Not the big ones. Haven’t killed a man lately. But I am pushing the boundaries on the rules I normally follow.
Last night I ran the dishwasher before it was full.
I am such a rebel.
When the kids were born, I felt suffocated… bound by all the “rules” about having kids and being a good parent.
I felt like I couldn’t curse.
I never used to curse, but feeling like I shouldn’t curse made me want to swear up a storm.
I didn’t think I should have adult television on in front of the children.
And our house is small… there isn’t a place where the kids can’t hear.
So no television.
Add in all the other “shoulds” I was telling myself and I finally broke.
I rebelled.
That’s right.
I threw an aluminum can in the REGULAR trash.
My husband later came along and pointed the can out to me, but it was not pretty as I snarled, “LEAVE THAT IN THE TRASH!”
I’m not so much a badass rebel, but a pitiful, snarling rebel.
A rebel in training.
But I got better at breaking the rules.
Sometimes I let the kids get away with not doing their chores.
I don’t shower just because it’s morning.
I don’t encourage my kids to take the most challenging classes at school.
I have stopped walking for exercise.
I have stopped going to the gym for exercise.
I have been practicing breaking rules.
And writing new rules.
They don’t sound like big rules, but it feels like freedom to me.
The best part is making up the new rules that work for me.
I now only exercise while having fun… like recess in elementary school used to feel.
That’s right. I don’t exercise because it’s good for me.
Ha!
Now I don’t (usually) care what other people think.
And that makes all the difference.
P.S. – Don’t you just love the magnet on our dishwasher? (It’s in the photo at the top.) Whitney gave me the slide to unlock magnet for my birthday. It’s been on my car and everything metal in our house. The kids’ friends think it’s real!
It’s always hard to explain what Whitney does for a living. Maybe the best way is to say that it’s what every boy would do if you put all the things boys thinks are cool together, and made it into a job.
He makes things.
For movies and commercials.
Like a severed head. (It scares the neighborhood children in our basement.)
A bed that will sway down when someone sits on it, but not kill Whoopie Goldberg who is lying under the bed.
He built and rigged a book to shake and burst into flames for Angels in America.
He operated fake elevator doors to open for Damien Lewis and Mandy Patinkin for a Homeland promo.
He weakened a barn enough so that a stunt driver could crash a car through the barn wall but not so weak that the barn would fall down and kill him.
He sculpted three large dolphins and repaired a six-foot tall eyeball at the science museum.
He made a grill out of a beer keg.
He makes guns that flash and pop but don’t kill.
He fabricated a 20-foot cornucopia for the Thanksgiving parade.
He sculpted chessboard pieces in the shape of the UNC Chapel Hill buildings.
To name a few.
I can hear all the 13-year-old boys now…
“Where can you go to get that sort of job?”
You don’t.
You create it.
He learned to solder various metals, work with wood, suction-mold plastic, handle pyrotechnics and work with electricity and electronics just because it was interesting and fun.
With the world-changing so rapidly, many of the jobs my kids know about now will not be around when they graduate from college.
In these fast-moving times, you have to surf the waves of change and create the job and the life you want.
I used to think you looked at what jobs there are out there, like a menu, and picked one to pursue.
I also used to think that you should work extra hard at the things you aren’t good at so you are a well-rounded person.
My thoughts have changed.
Here’s the new model:
Look at what you like to do.
What you really have a passion for.
What you can’t imagine getting paid for because it’s so fun and comes so easily.
Then look at what you are good at.
Look at where those two things intersect and then do it.
A lot.
If you are in your zone of genius (which you should be if you would do it for no money and you are good at it), talk to everyone about it (you probably can’t stop yourself from talking about it anyway) and people will pay you.
In the link to the Jeff Gordon commercial above, Whitney is the one rigging the taxi with mini hidden cameras and installing the Plexiglas divider to turn this Chevy Caprice into a taxi. He’s in there around the 30-second mark. For a second. Don’t blink.
What does my husband do for a living?
Play.
(BTW – This prank is really real. How rare when you get to know for sure. And Jeff Gordon had an absolute blast.)