Laura Zera

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One Person’s Mediocrity is Another’s Happy Place

By Laura Zera 10 Comments

I found a really compelling post from Danielle LaPorte in my inbox yesterday called “The Courageous Minority.” It talks about why settling for mediocrity over fulfillment is poison for your soul. I totally agree. Totally. Love love love Danielle LaPorte. I’m also LaPorte’s target audience. And as a person with a mood disorder who survived a traumatic childhood, I want to take a moment and do a few add-ons to what she says about mediocrity, and to consider the non-linear association between “safe” and “mediocre.”

Danielle’s post opens with this:

Most people will proceed as planned. They’ll stay quiet, suppress their doubts with rationality. They’ll make the choice to save money, save face, not rock the boat. Don’t want to disappoint people. There’s a lot on the line. I said I would, so I should.

Safe. The road to mediocre is always really…safe.

And in terms of fulfillment, ‘safe’ is really, really dangerous.

The vital rallying cry here is that if you feel like you’re not living your best life, then pay attention to that feeling and do something about it. Don’t play safe. Life’s too short to play safe. But, and, however!!! There are also times when you need to play safe, and so don’t beat yourself up about that, either. I say this as a person who is highly ambitious with a perfectionist drive, rooted in the message of “you’re not enough.” I have been through phases where I shat on myself for not being more courageous, even when I was as courageous as I could emotionally manage at the time. Yuck. As Tom Petty says, “don’t do me like that.”

One thing that strikes me as a large factor in courageous-move-making is TIMING. Sometimes it takes a while – three months, three years – to plan a big change. Sometimes you can only juggle one change at a time, and so other things get backburnered while you replant your feet and get steady (or steadier) again. The key is to keep what you want (to risk or change) on your radar. Don’t backburner it on your neighbor’s stove so that you lose sight of it, and start taking small steps toward it, even if you’re not ready to swing the whole deal.

Another thing is SUPPORT. Before you launch into change or risk-taking, line up your support structure, whether that be cash savings, or a back-up place to live, or engaging your posse of friends and family. Courageous people are rarely courageous all by themselves. I was reading how Mark Zuckerberg was recently awarded a Harvard degree, because as a student, he dropped out to run his new project, Facebook. It’s true that few groundbreaking things happen without big risks. It’s also easier to take big risks when you have a big support system. Obviously not everyone is going to have the resources Zuckerberg had when he opted to quit Harvard and roll the dice, but that doesn’t mean groundbreakers have to come from a place of privilege. Don’t forget about the side doors. Go around the gatekeepers. And if you don’t have obvious resources, be resourceful to find your resources. Ahhhhh. Gotcha.

Finally, whatever you decide to do, or not do, when it comes to risk-taking and change, BE TRUE TO YOU. Some people fly on the safe side, and will always do so, and if your feelings are telling you it’s all good, then it’s all good. I remember going through a DISC personality test about 22 years ago, where there are four types identified: Dominant (Active Task-Oriented), Influential (Active People-Oriented), Steady (Passive People-Oriented) and Conscientious (Passive Task-Oriented). None of those types are bad “ratings,” and people in the “conscientious” group may always be happiest in their safe zone. If that’s you, honor yourself. That’s not mediocrity! And think of this: if everyone was a “D” or an “I,” we’d be in a world of chaos! That said, if you are an “S” or “C” and your happy place starts to chafe, please don’t wait until you have a festering blister to explore what that chafing is about.

Finally, I’ll say that the one thing I don’t fully adore from Danielle’s post is the title. I don’t believe courageous people are in the minority. I think that a lot of things we do every day take immense courage and add to our fulfillment. Standing up to a bully. Trusting a stranger. Caring for an ailing child or parent. Parallel parking on a hill. Allowing someone into your heart. Big acts of courage are more obvious than small ones, but give yourself credit for both.

Danielle and I are both Canadian, so it’s only fitting that I leave you with one of Canada’s national treasures: The Tragically Hip, singing their song “Courage.”

Images via Creative Commons license, with “Courage” artwork by Wendy at the Create to Heal blog.

Why Your Canadian Music Friends Are A Lot Sad

By Laura Zera 12 Comments

Gord Downie & The Hip - 2015 - Seattle (4)“We have some very tough news to share with you today, and we wish it wasn’t so. A few months ago, in December, Gord Downie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.”

This was the opening for the email that fans of Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip found in their inbox on May 24. As the news spread through that country’s media outlets, an entire nation wished it wasn’t so.

The music world lost some greats in the past year—Scott Weiland, Glenn Frey, Phil Taylor and Lemmy Kilmister from Motörhead, David Bowie, Prince—and millions of global citizens mourned together. Canadian music lovers can at least take small solace in the fact that Downie, the band’s incomparable front man, is far from gone: on Wednesday, The Hip announced what will be an epic farewell tour for this summer.
Gord Downie & The Hip - 2015 - Seattle (2)
There’s another thing about Downie and The Hip that’s different, too: They belong to Canada, fully, completely. And Canadians like it that way.

While The Hip toured internationally over their 32 years together, their fame never grew to the depths of other acts from the Great White North. Think Neil Young. Bryan Adams. Rush. Alanis Morissette. Drake. Justin Bieber. But that doesn’t mean the band hasn’t won the unwavering loyalty of millions in its home country. It’s not so much cult-like as it is one big, happy Hip family. As Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau tweeted after yesterday’s cancer announcement, “Gord Downie is a true original who has been writing Canada’s soundtrack for more than 30 years.”

Gord Downie & The Hip - 2015 - Seattle (3)Downie has the genius creative knack for infusing The Hip’s songs with Canadian culture, which is what has made him both a national treasure and a beloved backyard-barbecue beer buddy, at least in spirit. There are lines like “in the forget-yer-skates dream” (from It’s a Good Life If You Don’t Weaken), something any Canuck who has ever figure skated or played hockey in the pre-dawn hours understands, and “Bill Barilko disappeared that summer” (from Fifty Mission Cap), a reference to the Toronto Maple Leaf player’s 1951 death in a floatplane crash. For a plucky country that rails against being lumped in with America, Canada finds cultural representation in The Hip, and its cultural archives at least partly in The Hip’s discography.

Gord Downie & The Hip - 2015 - Seattle (6)Then there’s the matter of seeing The Hip live. Who says Canadians are polite and buttoned up? Downie vibrates with energy on the stage while legions of Hip fans scream out lyrics with him. He sweats, a lot. The audience sweats, a lot. And it’s all-the-way-round love.

Full disclosure: I’m a die-hard fan, and have sweat love with The Hip on a number of truly memorable occasions. There was the time I hollered the lyrics to Fireworks with a guy wrapped in a Canadian flag at Seattle’s Paramount Theater.

If there’s a goal that everyone remembers
It was back in old seventy two
We all squeezed the stick and we all pulled the trigger
And all I remember is sitting beside you

Gord Downie & The Hip - 2015 - Seattle (1)There was the time I jumped up and down like I was on ecstasy (I wasn’t) to the song Poets at Burnaby’s Deer Lake Park.

And porn speaks to its splintered legions
To the pink amid the withered cornstalks in them winter regions
While aiming at the archetypal father
He said with such broad and tentative swipes why do you even bother?

And the time I belted out At The Hundredth Meridian with a six-foot-four giant in a Habs jersey (who was on ecstasy—he hugged my husband) at The Showbox in Seattle.

If I die of vanity, promise me, promise me
If they bury me some place I don’t want to be
You’ll dig me up and transport me, unceremoniously
Away from the swollen city breeze, garbage bag trees
Whispers of disease and the acts of enormity
And lower me slowly and sadly and properly
Get Ry Cooder to sing my eulogy

Gord Downie & The Hip - 2015 - Seattle (5)There’s more, but you get my drift. The lyrics are smart. The Tragically Hip is Canada: Canada Post issued a stamp with them on it in 2013. And The Hip’s visionary leader, Gord Downie, is a poet and a gentleman. He’s a friend and a team mate. He’s a living legend who, much to the deep despair of many Canadians, is dying, as we just learned.

We are hurting for him, we are hurting for his family, and we are hurting because we can’t imagine Canada without him. Fans will celebrate his enormous presence and contributions at some point, like he no doubt wants us to; he did, after all, write the lyric “no dress rehearsal, this is our life.”  But not yet. Not yet.

https://laurazera.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Grace-Too-clip-Seattle-The-Tragically-Hip.mp4

Photos by Francis Zera / ZeraPhoto

Secrets Revealed: My Interview for Lorna Suzuki

By Laura Zera 12 Comments

As per The Beach Boys, “I’m gettin’ bugged driving up and down this same old strip, I gotta find a new place where the kids are hip.” This week, that place is Lorna Suzuki’s blog. Lorna interviewed me for her Featured Author segment, and I’m super chuffed, especially since it was just two Fridays ago that we met up for dinner in Seattle before she appeared at Emerald City Comicon (ECCC).

The Imago Chronicles Book OneIf you’re not familiar with Lorna’s work, she’s one of my homeys (Canadian), and is the author of The Imago Chronicles series, the first book from which is being made into a movie. While in Seattle, Lorna was finally able to announce that Don Carmody will be joining with Michy Gustavia to co-produce The Imago Chronicles, A Warrior’s Tale, with production set to start in the fall. Carmody has produced more than 100 films, including Good Will Hunting, the musical Chicago, and the Resident Evil series, so Lorna’s book is in fantastically-good hands. Everyone who knows Lorna is thrilled for her, because she’s a hard-working author who always makes time to connect with people and support other writers in their work.

On Lorna’s blog, I confess to plagiarism, and give away my most secretly-held writing-preparation technique, among other things. In addition to all the linky goodness above, here’s the direct link to my interview.  (No commenting over there, so please definitely for sure leave comments here if you are compelled.)

Here’s Lorna, her daughter Nia (who, by the way, co-writes a YA series with her mom), me, and writers Avery Tingle (sitting) and Andrew Beane before we stuffed our faces at Rock Bottom in Seattle last month.

Dinner w. Lorna Suzuki - Mar.2014 - web

And p.s. When I said up there at the top that I gotta find a new place where the kids are hip, I did NOT mean that the kids who come here aren’t hip. YOU ARE HIP. Maybe not The Tragically Hip, but that’s okay, because if you were The Tragically Hip, I would drive to your house and fangirl all over you, and that could get awkward.

I’m Giving Thanks that I’m Still Here to Give Thanks

By Laura Zera 20 Comments

Thank you, pumpkin pie

As a childless expatriate, holidays tend to be pretty mellow events around my house. I don’t even have to cook dinner—my husband is taking care of that. The arrival of Thanksgiving has given me pause for thought, however, and I have many things for which to be thankful.

Let’s start with my home. My bathroom is so small I can clean the sink while I’m sitting on the toilet and the basement gets water ingress in a heavy storm, but it’s my cozy sanctuary, a lot nicer than some of the crack shacks I’ve slept in, and I am grateful for it.Continue Reading

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