Monday, July 14, 2008

1 magazine you think will make you happy... but won't

I finally feel like writing, but I am not sure if I have anything to blog about... That means it is time for THE LIST!

8. Magazine Obsession
The Fourth of July marked our one year anniversary with My Coke Rewards. Last year, MCR had better prizes than they do now. Jips would get video games and we could get free Blockbuster movie rentals. But now, they have run out of all of the good prizes. Even the Women's Diet Coke tank top! I ordered one tank top to see how it would fit and I LOVED it. But then when I went back to get more, they were sold out! So Sad.

Just about the only thing that is left to get are free magazine subscriptions. So I started getting those. If we add the free magazine subscriptions to the fact that my sister gave Jips a script to GOLF, Jip's aunt gave me a script to Southern Living, and Jip's mom for an unknown reason gets Rolling Stone so she sends them to me, we now receive the following magazines:

1. Golf
2. Southern Living
3. Rolling Stone
4. Cosmo
5. Fitness
6. Redbook
7. Wired*
8. Self*
9. O, The Oprah Magazine*

Wired, Self, and O haven't come yet, but I have gotten at least one magazine from all of the others.

FUN FEARLESS FEMALE
I got a cosmo mag first. That was a huge disappointment. The first one I got was July 08, with Carrie Underwood on the cover. I had never seen her before in my life. The cover says "7 NEW ways to be happy" so I flipped to page 142. And the title of the article is actually: "7 Things You Think Will Make You Happy...but Won't." I think: I already know what does not make me happy, and I feel like there was some false advertising on the cover. I already feel like I have gotten better *happiness* advice from Penelope Trunk: Having sex more often makes you happier than having more money. This was good news for me as I have a willing husband but not alot of income. Ahem. Let's get back to cosmo, Here is the list with my comments:

1. A Ton of Cash and Luxe Stuff In the small print they tell us we need to appreciate what we have. Yes, but I knew that already. Maybe gold-diggers read cosmo and don't know that. But still if you look at a previous post, I say that I want to be rich. That is because, in our current society, money helps you get out of sticky situations. In many cases having a monumental sum in the bank gives you choices that you wouldn't have otherwise had. For me Money *grants* Freedom, and Freedom tops my list. To clarify, I want to be rich, but I don't want to live rich. I don't want anyone to know of my future money that I will have in the bank.

2. Blowout Celebrations for Major Milestones At the end of this section they tell us that routines make us happy. I am a living example of this one. I did not attend my high school graduation, needless to say I didn't have a graduation party either. Under 30 people witnessed my wedding. That includes the judge and photographer. It was romantic and casual, on our beach. I had a short dress and jips wore shorts. We ate together at a restaurant afterwards. It was great. Routines make us happy. Personally, I need so much structure I don't know if I could survive without my routines.

3. Being Upbeat 24/7 Wait, you mean having a fake bubbly personality (and pretending everything is awesome all the time) isn't actually going to make us happy on the inside? SHOCKING!

4. Reading Cosmo Right, so let's stop even talking about Cosmo.

While I was blogging about (8 Magazine Obsession) I mentioned 14. Penelope Trunk's Writing. Penelope Trunk (links above) seems like a normal person, not terribly educated, not terribly wise, but sometimes she gives good advice. Like this: close friends and family make us happier than being alone. This is true even if you get paid tons of money to be alone. She also says that we have to find out who we are and what we want and then make career choices off of that. It seems obvious, right? But it gets confusing when you get advice from people you respect but that have very different desires in life.

A professor who desires to have a successful academic career, who obviously puts her job first told me that taking off of work to stay home with my kids (for 5 plus) years is a very bad idea. The truth is that it is possible to work with a company and work part time or even full time if you are a mom. But I don't want to do that. It is incredibly hard to be a working mom when your kids are young. And I believe that I can be a better mom if I just focus on my kids.

So why am I getting a PhD in chemistry? Because I want one. Is it a waste for such an educated person to stay at home and take care of kids? Is it a waste for me to clean up poop, and make dinner for my family? No, it isn't. Because even though someone else *could* do the same job that I would do, they won't do it in the same way that I will do it.


The List

6. Black boys catcalls
7. Harlem Shakes Vampire Weekend vs Bonaroo Music Festival
9. Cake Therapy
15. Things that make me happy
16. Feeling happy vs Feeling Powerful vs Feeling Superior
17. Jips comes home
18. Flowers and Presents

5 comments:

Clay Perry said...

you do what you feel is right, why let others opinions mean anything to you, we make a decision & should be happy with it. but we seldom are. hind sight being what it is, i see a multitude of things i shouldve done differently, but then who would i be now? i have found that if i make my "foundation" solid first then everything else seems to fall into place, is it karma or some other applicable phraseology, who knows... but when things get crappy i usually just make sure the house is clean & the bills are paid & get off my ass & move around & then things start to happen in the positive... maybe its because im being proactive...

Rikki said...

Fermi, please explain this list that you do. Not the cosmo one, but your personal one.

Fermi said...

The List (here) is a list of things that I have been thinking about that I want to blog about. Just topics that I have opinions on. Basically I have a limited time to write and I can't write it all at once so I am working down my list slowly.

Also, it is a good habit to write every day in preparation for my thesis writing to come, and sometimes i forget that I have things to write about. The list helps in those times.

What else?
I started ANOTHER list of things to blog about in my "notebook of creativity." I am so behind! ;)

Rikki said...

What do you think of O magazine? I get it too.

Fermi said...

I actually haven't gotten my first O Mag yet but I will be sure to let you know when it arrives.

I ordered it because Penelope Trunk said to, and it was free on My Coke Rewards.