What Am I Doing Here?

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Or maybe you don’t feel unhappy or lost, but you wake up and realize you want something more, new, or different. You may have accomplished many of the things you’d imagined for your life, and now you’re trying to figure out what to do next. She was trying to figure out what she was doing with her life. For her, this meant realizing she had lost her sense of self. While no one would know from the outside, she was feeling overwhelmed, lost, and unsure of herself. She was doing all the “right” things for everyone around her, but she wasn’t doing all the right things for her. Cohen makes use of half or slant rhymes in these endings as well. Lines six, seven, eight, and twelve are all half-rhymes due to their similarity in consonant endings. There are also other examples of consonance, or the repetition of consonant sounds, and assonance, or the repetition of vowel sounds, in the text. For example, the words “comfort” and “torture” in lines five and six make use of the same “o” and “r” sounds. The same can be said about the vowel sounds in “cloud” and “without” in line seven. Il titolo, quella domanda Chatwin se la pone sul letto d’ospedale, è riferita al suo stato di malato, non ai luoghi che ha viaggiato. D’altronde non deve stupire visto che di sé diceva: Werner [Herzog] condensa le sue idee in un'asserzione perentoria: "Camminare è una virtù, il turismo è un peccato mortale". (...) Werner, a quel che mi dicono, era il beniamino della Eisner. E nel 1974, quando seppe che lei era in fin di vita, si mise in marcia, in mezzo al ghiaccio e alla neve, da Monaco a Parigi, convinto che in qualche modo, a forza di camminare, sarebbe riuscito a farla guarire. Quando arrivò a destinazione, Lotte Eisner si era ristabilita; e tirò avanti per altri dieci anni."

In the last three lines, the speaker declares that he is not going to accept the “universal alibi”. This is likely a reference to humanity’s habit of attributing their actions to a larger human sense of being. It is related to saying something like, “I’m only human, I can’t help it”. Stanza Two Letting life happen is part of my frustrations at the moment. I have a busy, full life, just like many of us do. I get up and have things and people to tend to immediately until I finally can’t stay awake anymore and fall asleep some time past midnight.

I’m feeling that way now. I’m overscheduled, overwhelmed, and in need of a real vacation that I’m not gonna get. Ora si tende a dire che è stato sopravvalutato, che è stato un fenomeno, una moda. Non credo, i suoi libri restano e non scadono. Now, if you’re serious about moving forward, it’s time to take the time and put in the effort and answer the questions above. Then, like Sabine and Max, be willing to take action, even if you’re not exactly sure how it’s going to play out. If you’re asking “What am I doing with my life?” you’re clearly not happy where you are. You know you want something else. But what is that “something”? This question allows you to explore your potential options.

One, you wake up one morning and find yourself in a job you hate, a relationship you don’t want to be in, or a life that has little resemblance to the one you had imagined. You might be feeling low, filled with frustration, shame, or regret. This is not where you wanted to be at this time in your life…it’s not the life you wanted to live. You’ve narrowed down and explored your options, and now it’s time to take action to get past asking yourself “What am I doing with my life?” I know this part is hard. If you hate your career, what new potential careers are on your mind? If you’re unhappy in your relationship, what can you do? If you’re feeling like you need change or an adventure, what could those possibly be? Write everything down. Then, review what you wrote and highlight or circle what stands out or resonates the most. These are what you want to pay attention to as you move forward and think about what you’re doing next with your life.

What’s Wrong With Your Life?

Here’s the process and the questions I walked through with Sabine and Max. Following these will help you make progress towards identifying what you’re doing with your life too: Step 1: What Do You Want? What is your wish list? What do you want and need in your life/career/relationship? This might include the type of environment you thrive in, people you want to be surrounded by, or something you want in a role. He adds that he “would have done the same things / even if there were no death”. The poem concludes with the speaker saying that he knows the rest of the world is going to come to the same conclusion he has. He just has to wait. Poetic Techniques

Then, there’s Max*. Incredibly smart, fun and motivated, Max had successfully climbed up through his career ladder and was happily married with his first child. Life was good. A fantastic way to do this is to envision your life “as if” you were in that new role/situation/relationship. But the next question was even more important. I asked him how he felt. He said while he was excited to be outdoors more, he realized he wouldn’t be fulfilled in that role. He definitely didn’t feel “jazzed.” Sabine originally thought she wanted to “take her business to the next level,” but when she dug deeper, she realized there was so much more. She ultimately found that she wanted to feel like herself again; to feel secure, trust and assert herself, and regain her sense of self. What is the impact or difference you want to make? How do you want to serve, contribute or add value?

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If you missed it, here it is: Fleur-de-lis intersection blooms again as Lafayette prepares artist tribute at 10th and Main. Once you have a short list, imagine your life as if you took that as your next step. What would you think, feel, hear, and see? Does it feel good? You can also do some research at this point to learn more about each of your options. Having said all that negative about Chatwin, I did really like this book! I read his Bio before I read any of his other books and this work with it's vast array of ecclectic travels and subjects does an awesome job of displaying the interests and adventures of his short life. He also says that living in an “ atmosphere of torture” does not excuse the fact that he has “tortured”. The speaker is unable to take comfort in the fact that other people have tortured as well. He also says that he does not blame the hateful nature of the world for his own hate. He says that “without the mushroom cloud” he “still…would have hated”. The next lines continue the same way of thinking. Naturalmente non vedevo l'ora di conoscere il Maestro [Noel Coward] - e lo conobbi. Era il suo ultimo pranzo a Londra prima che si trascinasse a morire in Giamaica. La padrona di casa era Anne Fleming, vedova di Ian. Gli altri membri del cast erano Merle Oberon, Lady Diana Cooper, io e lui. Risi fino alle lacrime, e la pernice mi andò di traverso. (...) Mentre andavamo via mi disse: "Se accetta un piccolo consiglio a mo' di commiato, non si lasci mai intralciare da preoccupazioni artistiche". E' un consiglio che ho sempre seguito. "

This book has left me astonished if Chatwin really lived this amazing life. Just like parents tell their kids stories, the book tells us about people and their lives. It is amazing how he can write about anything, even the smallest of things in a manner which makes you smile to yourself. What if it isn’t right? What if there is something else out there? What if it’s the worst decision I ever make? Lines five and six make this way of looking at his own life all the clearer. He says that living in an “atmosphere of torture” does not excuse the fact that he has “tortured”. The speaker is unable to take comfort in the fact that other people have tortured as well. It doesn’t make any difference. Lines 7-14 Once Max had a complete list of potential career options (including advancing in his current role), he narrowed the list down to the top most interesting and compelling opportunities. We then worked through each of those in greater depth. Another chapter follows an impetuous journey (impetuosity is something of a Chatwinian motif) to Sultanpur, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, in search of that wolf-boy. And, in Maria Reiche: The Riddle of the Pampa, we journey to the Peruvian plains to learn about the Nazca Lines — the extraordinary zoomorphic geoglyphs created two millennia ago by peasants and warriors “assured the anonymity of oblivion” by Spanish invaders — through the eyes of an obsessive German geographer whom Chatwin meets.

What am I doing with my life?” As a life coach and business consultant, I hear this question – or some version of it – all the time. Those asking the question are likely facing one of a couple scenarios.