Hail To All Ye Procrastinators

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I bear glad tidings and even better news!

I've found a plethora of great gifts out there for those of us who like to do our Christmas shopping in the fast lane:  last minute.  Although I started shopping for gifts at the beginning of December, I was still shopping online yesterday and may buy some little gems today or tomorrow.  With sites like Amazon and eBay, you can get killer deals shipped free in one or two days.

Amen, Brother!

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This newfangled thing they call the internet is so beneficial to those of us who don't have all their little Christmas geese in a row. Of course, being an objective proponent of peoples' personal preferences, I should mention that I think it's just ducky that some people are so organized they have their holiday cards stamped and ready to go on Thanksgiving... the entire year before.  We may accurately assume that these are the same people who have their underwear drawer alphabetized by brand and color.

Again, not a judgment, just an observation.

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But I, for one, am not one of those people.  And yet, who cares?  I choose to be true to my nature, stick with my strengths, and retain some merriment of the season, rather than exhaust myself with other peoples' expectations.  That is why I now send out New Year's cards every year instead of Christmas cards.  And these are the paperless kind- on Smilebox Greetings.  (Another great invention for people such as myself, which tells me there may be one or two others like me out there, remaining incognito.)

This way I can drum up the best of the year's pictures, add in some little captions and call it a day.  I really enjoy (and am pretty good at) creating photo collages, and selecting accompanying music and backgrounds.  Most importantly, I can do it the week after Christmas, when the frenzy is over.


In doing so I have embraced my aversion to post offices, buying stamps, ordering cards in time, and hand addressing 100 envelopes.  I've officially declared myself free from my most dreaded part of the season. Plus I save a few trees in the process.

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I used to be much harder on myself, and I still find myself stressed and overwhelmed by the things that I am obligated to do.  For example, I do like to get everyone's presents to them by Christmas.  (I know, crazy huh?) And I find that a not-so-easy task, especially since that requires a lot of practical planning.

But I don't stress the stuff that really isn't necessary and just wigs me out.  So I send out e-cards versus snail mails, and go to a cookie party with bakery cookies versus home baked.

            (Trust, me the bakery I use does a bang up job on iced cookies.)  

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The way I look at it, the more people who rebel against the status quo the easier and more festive this  season will become.  Therefore, I am helping out society by being one of those "holiday slackers."

You may thank me later.

I have one last plea, however, and that is to the retailers out there who seem to chastise consumers for buying after December 15th.  I ask of these advertisers:

                      Why must thou rub it in? 

Why use phrases such as, "Last Minute Shoppers rejoice!  You still have time!" or, like the Land's End promotional e-mail today read, "On Dasher, On Dancer on Procrastinator."

(Seriously, at least be funny if you are going to chide us like that.)

Why must we be labeled as "procrastinators?"  Why not just call us "ne'er do wells" or "hanger-ons" while you're at it?  Don't you know we all prefer to do things differently?!!  Where is the love, the understanding, the compassion for individual styles?

Couldn't you say something like, "Hooray!  You did it!!!  You stuck it out for the really good deals!  Way to push the envelope, Ye Non-conformists!"

But alas, I have little faith my pleas will be heard.

And no matter!  I shall now enjoy a cup of steamed milk with cinnamon and honey, in this festive holiday mug pictured above, and see what else I can still get "guaranteed by the 23rd."

(Hopefully I'm safe to assume that's the 23rd of December, not February or March.)

"Mommy, Why Can't Girls Be President?"

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This question came from my seven year-old daughter's mouth, just the other day.

And then came my response, "Oh they can, Sweetie.  But, ummmmm....  Hmmm.  Let me think about that."

There are a million things I could have told her, but where does one even begin?

Since she was born, I had naively hoped that she would never question whether girls were as smart or capable as boys, or whether women could be just as effective leaders as men.  We're so much farther along than when I was her age, after all.  But, silly me, I had forgotten that numbers speak for themselves:

Male Presidents of the United States: 44
Female Presidents of the United States: zippo

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So why wouldn't she start asking questions like that?

Now, to make matters worse, here are the numbers for female corporate leadership representation  (note, she's not been privy to these stats yet):

Percentage of women in the U.S. labor force: 46.3%
Percentage of female Fortune 500 corporate officers: 15.4%
Percentage of female Fortune 500 CEO's: 2.4%

Sheesh.

(Click here to read the rest: http://www.womenonbusiness.com/new-us-women-in-business-statistics-released-by-catalyst/)

But back to the conversation at hand.  I managed to continue my response with:  "Women can most certainly be President.  There are female presidents in other countries for example.  However, here in the United States we've not had very many women run for President.  And to be President you have to be elected."

I decided not to throw out heavy hitters such as "sexism, patriarchal society, domesticity, women's suffrage, and historical ramifications of misogyny."  I thought that might be a bit much for a second grader.

But I dread the next question I'm going to get once she hears that the 19th Amendment wasn't added to the Constitution until 1920, which is:  "Why weren't women even allowed to vote, mommy?"

My answer will probably be something short and sweet like, "because the men running the show were ignorant- or afraid of-women's capabilities, honey." This barely scratches the surface, of course.

******************

As a career coach, I help individuals pursue a personally challenging and healthy path to professional fulfillment.  And although I absolutely encourage clients to pursue whatever career they design,  I wouldn't quite call running for President of United States the healthiest of all pursuits, especially for women.  Though male presidential candidates are under an unprecedented amount of personal scrutiny, women face sexism above and beyond the frenzied media probing.  For this reason alone, I am hardly surprised women are not coming out in droves wanting to run for Congress, much less for the Presidency.  I personally would rather have a root canal on each of my teeth than put up with the ummm... let's call them "shenanigans"... that go along with political campaigns.

Yet we all know the irony:  if more women who, generally speaking, have an innate ability to bring people together and decrease friction, don't enter the political arena, we'll stay put in our divisive American politics with a paucity of female presence.  Furthermore, once we gain gender diversity, problem solving will evolve to a much more sophisticated level than it remains today.

But in the meantime, I'm doing my little part with my daughter.  I show her how I share my talents by helping people thrive in their careers and lives.  I help her appreciate her joys in life and what makes for good brain candy.  I'm careful not to put down any career as "unworthy" or, at the other end, completely unattainable; she's only seven, for Pete's sake!  Even pro basketball is fair game in my opinion (and I can honestly say this only because she's is in the 5th percentile in height and has shown NO interest.)

As for the mother/daughter discussion of no female presidents, I borrowed a clever little book, Grace for President, from the local library.  It's a small step, but at least it's a step, in my own home.  And I'm not embarrassed to say that I cried a little bit when we read the book together.

Here's to the next generation of women:  may you have the choice to do whatever it is you are meant to do.

http://www.amazon.com/Grace-President-Kelly-DiPucchio/dp/B001Q3M5RQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318971658&sr=8-1