Sonia Marsh - Gutsy Living

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Life is calling. How far will you go?

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Lately, I’ve noticed a trend in blog posts addressing the following questions:

  • How can I make my life more meaningful?
  • What is my life purpose and what can I do to make a difference?
At first I thought those questions were geared towards middle-aged and older people: those who start to re-evaluate their life after the kids leave home or they retire, but then I noticed how this question is becoming more prevalent in today’s youth.Perhaps a shift is taking place in the way people see their future life, the economy forcing people to rethink their short and long-term goals. It seems as if people are seeking alternatives to the 9-5 jobs?

What do you think?

Since our return from Belize in 2005, I have volunteered once with a group of nurses in a Mayan Village. Since that day, I’ve thought about joining the Peace Corps. Last Saturday a recruiter from the Peace Corps offered a seminar at Borders Books in Costa Mesa, California. I decided to attend. Here are a few points for those of you who might be interested.

  • There is no upper age limit for volunteers
  • Entire application process takes 1 to 1.5 years.
  • Safety and security of volunteers is highest priority
  • 27 month commitment, (includes a 3 month training period)
  • Living allowance covers cost of housing and other necessities
  • French and Spanish a plus
  • 48 days vacation to visit country or go home
  • Graduate school opportunities before and after
  • Develop skills for global marketplace
  • Receive advantages for federal employment
  • Earn $7,425 for transition when you return
  • Health and dental benefits, extended up to 18 months after your return
Peace Corps Programs:
Education 33%, Youth and Community 18%, Health and HIV/AIDS 18%, Business and IT 17%, Agriculture 8%, Environment 7%.Peace Corps Main Locations:
Africa 41%, Latin America 23%, Eastern Europe and Central Asia 17%, Asia 8%, Caribbean and N.Africa and Middle East 8%, Pacific Islands 3%.

The one comment I keep hearing from all Peace Corps Volunteers is: “I feel like I received more than what I gave.”

Your thoughts and opinions are truly valued.

Do you belong?

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Do you feel more secure when you belong to a group or a community?

Well, you’re not alone. Right from birth, children of every race, color, creed and background go through the same developmental stages, one of them being: establishing a personal sense of identity.

As we grow up we try to identify and discover the following:

  • Who am I?
  • What makes me me?
  • Where do I fit in my family and group?

Indeed, some of us spend a lifetime working on those discoveries.

Whether it’s your community, your neighborhood, your church, or perhaps your culture, most of us like the security we get from belonging to a group.

So what happens to those of us who feel like we don’t belong? Those who are minorities, or a mixture of different cultures, or who have been raised in many different countries, and call themselves TCK (Third Culture Kids.) Where do we fit in?


Well fortunately, there are groups for us too.

The one that caught my eye recently is called, “The Art of Non-Conformity,” and was created by a remarkable man named Chris Guillebeau. He blogs about unconventional strategies for life, work and travel.

Chris Guillebeau is a writer, entrepreneur and world traveler. He started the movement, The Art of Non-Conformity based on the principle that, “Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” One of his goals is to visit each country in the world, (192) by the time he’s 35. So far he’s visited 151 and he’s 32.5 years old. He is an honest, kind and down-to-earth, type of guy, who is passionate about the movement he has started.

If you’re a writer, a world traveler, or simply a person who feels different in their outlook on life, and needs a place to belong, you might want to watch the interview with Chris Guillebeau on David Garlands’s Risetothetop. 

Talk about a creative person, Chris Guillebeau has launched his own book tour around the fifty states in the U.S. called the: “Unconventional Book Tour.”

Unlike traditional book tours, Chris talks about his book for only seven minutes at each stop, then lets the audience talk about whatever they want. Since he’s a world traveler, most of the time conversations range from Frequent Flyer Miles to business startups to blogging… and a range of other things. If you’re a writer you may want to get ideas from his own success. Chris believes, “Publishers (and some authors) think that book tours are no longer practical. I think it’s because they’re doing it wrong, and I’m setting out to prove my case.”

Thanks for reading and for your all your comments. Please comment on whatever sparks your interest.

I’d love to get more readers, so if you like my posts, please return the favor by using the icons below. I don’t want to be tacky, only Gutsy so I’m following in the footsteps of another one of my female role models, Annabel Candy in Australia. I subscribe to her awesome blog: GetintheHotSpot, Annabel Candy.

Why everyone should take a one year sabbatical

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I agree with Matt Koenig, “Everyone should take a one year sabbatical.” Next year in June, Matt and his family, plan on taking one year off. I love the way his blog has the countdown to the day with minutes and seconds.

Matt gives four reasons why and I agree with his reasons, but being older than him, I’d like to add a fifth one.
1)      Find Your Purpose
2)      Health and Rejuvenation
3)      Family Time
4)      Travel & Experience the World
5)      Live your life today. Don’t postpone by using excuses of kids, health, money, elderly parents to take care of etc.
I would argue that too many people put off doing what they want to do, until retirement. How many times have you heard people say, “We can’t move now, the kids would hate to leave their friends.”  Or, “We can’t move to (name favorite place you’d like to move to) until we retire.
Before my family moved for a year to Belize, (both my husband and I craved adventure and change) we heard different comments like, “What about your kids? What do they say?” To which we responded, “It will be good for them to experience life in another country.” Now that we’re back in the US, I would do it again in a heartbeat.
My mother died when I was 25. For those of you who have lost a parent at a fairly young age, I believe you gain a different perspective on life.
Many people go through life unhappy. Get up, go to work, and as Matt puts it, “live for the weekend.”
We expect our kids to go to school, get a good education which we hope will lead to a good job, purchase a nice house and car and then save until retirement. (I might be a little guilty of that myself, as far as my sons getting a good education, however, if they choose to live abroad, or do something they’re passionate about in a third world country, that’s fine with my husband and me. We just want them to find their own thing.)
As Matt says, “It’s the typical delayed or deferred life plan that all of us are so familiar with. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. For many it works. The thing is for others like me it is what makes us so miserable.Would I ever find the thing that I was truly passionate about and then be able to turn that passion into a life quest?”
Matt mentions what Chris Guillebau says in his life manifesto, “The Art of Non- Conformity: “Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” 

Now Chris Guillebau is a man I truly admire. I just listened to a half hour interview with Chris Guillebau on David Garland’s blog: The Rise to the Top.
There is so much good stuff for writers and bloggers building a platform and for those who want to travel to each of the 192 countries around the world, like Chris. The difference is he’s visited 151 countries so far, and will achieve his goal by the age of 35.
But enough for today. Chris Guillebau, has such a fascinating outlook on life, and as a person who loves to live a Gutsy Life, I shall talk about him on Thursday. Hope you join in the discussion:
Do you agree with taking a one-year sabbatical?
Why? or why not? If so, what would you do, and where would you go?

Would you like to live to be 100? Here are some secrets of Centenarians

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 Esther Tuttle 100 years old today.

I have always had a fascination with people older than myself, and a yearning to learn from their “wisdom.”
Perhaps being an only child, and often surrounded by my parents’ friends and older relatives, made me realize that I could learn from listening and maybe bypass certain “mistakes,” by following their advice.

Here are three reasons why I believe we should listen to, and respect older people:

  • You never know what snippet of information can make a difference in your own life.
  • An older person with wisdom can often soothe your fears and worries about how you are handling issues in your own life.
  • Older people often offer the same secrets. We all know we might benefit from following their advice, but don’t always listen.

After watching Secrets of Centenarians, you find some common threads.

Esther Tuttle now 100, is amazing. Listen to her beautiful clear voice. She says, “It’s partly genes, and also being conscious of your body.” Esther explains your body is your instrument, and stresses the importance of yoga, stretching and walking. Also, we need to eat and drink in moderation. Esther still drinks today and claims that, “Moderation is a wonderful thing.”

Mae Anderman 103, agrees that genes play a role, and that keeping your mind alert, and having family helps. She also says many people today are anxious and ambitious, and that people have changed and become more “brash, and much less friendly.” She states there’s no use in saying, “I should have or could have. That doesn’t matter.” Also the future will take care of itself. Live in the present.

Travilla Deming 100, says her secret to living long is, “Don’t emphasize anything that is evil or bad. Get rid of it or rise above it.”

The following New York Times article, claims that: Genes do play a role in longevity, although Esther Tuttle’s parents died at 42 and 50.

According to Dr. Nir Barzilai, a geneticist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, “Centenarians are 20 times as likely as the average person to have a long-lived relative.”

A Swedish study of identical twins separated at birth and reared apart concluded that only about 20 to 30 percent of longevity is genetically determined. Lifestyle seems to be the more dominant factor. If true, then this gives hope that we can live longer and healthier lives by taking care of ourselves.

I want to thank Marla Miller, founder of Marketing the Muse, for posting this on her Facebook page, which prompted my post.

Do you have any words of wisdom, or stories from an elderly person you’d like to share?

Waiting for Superman: a documentary about the state of our education.

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 waiting for superman

 

“Even if you don’t have kids, you should care about public education,” says Lesley Chilcott, producer of Waiting for “Superman.” “If we want to solve global warming, poverty, health care and the economy, we need to have an educated society. Education is ground zero for tackling all these issues.”

Photo (cc) via Flickr user Editor B.
Tuesday was a miserable, wet day in southern California. I felt guilty about taking the afternoon off to go to the movies and justified it as follows: I want to learn more about what’s going on with education in the U.S. and why so many schools are failing. Education needs to be reformed, the standards are deteriorating, and I worry about the future of our kids. Even Bill Gates said there won’t be enough educated young people in the U.S. in 2020, to fill the
job openings.
Waiting for Superman  is a movie, not about Superman, but about the state of our education here in the U.S.

Without getting into a political debate, which is not the point I’m trying to make here, I’d like to share five points that shocked me while watching this movie. You may already be aware of all of this, but I wasn’t.
 

  • U.S. students ranked approximately 24th out of 29th in math and science in the developed world.
  • There have been no improvements in raising overall standards in reading and math over the last ten years. Almost every state is failing to reach minimum standards.
  • Children are placed on a “track system,” the lower track or the upper track, and generally this will follow the student throughout their schooling, from Kindergarten until 12th grade. Lower track kids don’t get the best teachers. Who decides on the track? Well that is left up to the viewer to determine.
  •  Apparently teachers were offered an alternative: get paid up to $122,000/year and give up the “tenure” system, whereby teachers who are lazy, not teaching properly, or are simply not getting the job done, can be laid off. They refused to vote. (This is in the movie, not something I read or heard.)
  •  A student had a hidden camera in his back-pack to film a “lazy” teacher on the tenure system, who read the newspaper and didn’t teach, and the high school kids were playing games and doing whatever they wanted. (I remember one of my sons telling me that his 10th grade teacher was showing videos and making them color in maps, almost every day, instead of teaching. She was getting ready to retire and was so fed up with her job, she didn’t care.) 

There are so many points covered other than what I brought up, as we follow the lives of inner city kids around the U.S. and how many can only attend their “failing” inner city schools.

Those who struggle to get into the “better” schools try the lottery system. One little Hispanic girl, Daisy, wanted to become a vet. She worked so hard every day and unfortunately, her name was not called out during the lottery, so she had to stay in her “failing” school. 

I could feel the frustration of parents trying so hard to give their children a better education, and who are “stuck” in a school where the standards are ridiculously poor. I hope you take the time to watch this movie. As with any documentary, facts may be distorted, however, there is a real crisis in the U.S. educational system today.

I’d like to say a BIG THANK YOU to all the GREAT teachers.

Message from Davis Guggenheim, Director of Waiting for Superman: “We are never going to have great schools without great teachers.

Please see the film. Any thoughts?

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