so jealous, wish i could run again, jogged on average at least three or four days each week for maybe 15 years, in my obsessive phase much more, and then had back surgery four years ago. i miss it, was therapeutic. walking isn’t the same, and swimming is too much of a pain to do in chicago and i hate chlorine. my body has turned to mush.

Sadly I learned a lot from this sentence of yours and it couldn’t have come at a better time. A few weeks ago I finally – after three or so plus years- parted with a group that I’d been basically trying to- unsuccessfully- help out with social media, or with exploring new ways of getting important information on city programs and local commerce and such out there. This group uses taxpayer dollars and decides how to spend money in this fund which is not theirs, but belongs to the taxpayer’s.

My ideas were all about saving money and using less money to get more of a message across, and a lot of my “tantrums” (best word to describe them, I wish I were more mature) probably fell on deaf ears because I wasn’t “doing my job” in the correct way.

In this case, while I care less about having the credit, what I was ultimately seeking was a contract or their business. And while that didn’t happen, they prefer to just give contracts to those with city clout, or who look the fancy part and can impress with powerpints and billing $125/hr for “social media services” while knowing very little about social media, what I did learn was that sometimes it’s better to just back off and put energies into other things. By executing backwards and allowing other people to do some of the work I was trying explain I can do, it gives my ideas more power because more people are buying into the ideas by implementing them than just myself. Also, I have way more support now from a lot of little people, which has now made the larger group come back and ask for my assistance in the form of smaller contracts.

Excellent as always.