Compassion Challenge -- Day 15

I'm encouraged to participate in this November challenge with my church congregation.

Inspiring Compassion: The 30 Day Compassion Challenge. 30 days to explore the topic of compassion: Mindfulness, Compassion for Friends & Family, Self-Compassion, Compassion for All, Compassion for Our Planet.

Today, I went out of my way to be inclusive of Bonnie in our movie group.

She annoys me. She gets every plot confused. She goes off on wild tangents. She wants even the darkest film noir to end with a wedding and babies. I want to box her ears.

But you know what? She loves classic movies and has every right to participate in our meet ups. So maybe I shouldn't be such a judgey bitch. When I mentioned that I was delighted that this week, "Bonnie got her happy ending," a smile crossed her face.

Now how hard was that? Not at all. I gave another person a moment of joy by doing the smallest thing.

However, as I try to be more compassionate, I refuse to be a hypocrite. Marvin droned on ... and on ... and on ... and kept explaining to us there's a difference between "ex-plicit" and "im-plicit." I really wished someone would tell him to shut the fuck up. So having a compassionate heart does not include having a false one.

File this one under Compassion for All.

 

 

Done!

I buckled in and buckled down and wrote six pages of copy for a booklet about investing for retirement.* I'm not tickled about working a full day on Sunday, but it felt good to be done.

I have to pick up another project first thing Monday morning. Not as difficult as the brochure: just a pair of emails about health insurance. I shouldn't say "just," because this email blast is important to my client's business plan. It's simply a less complicated task than a booklet with a bullet point devoted to "tax loss harvesting."

I am tired. 

It occurs to me that I have been doing this 43 years now. GULP!

My first copywriting job was for the Sears catalog. Sears closed their last Chicagoland store for good Sunday. It's fall and the trees are bare. I take all of these as signs that this part of my life is coming to a close.

The thing is, right now my stock at my agency is high as it's ever been. There were (many) times in the past that I've felt I was about to be canned and I was scared because I wasn't ready, financially or emotionally. I'll be 64 next week, which means I have Social Security to factor into my retirement plans, so looking at the finish line no longer causes anxiety.

*With the charts the client requested, I think it will be an 11-page brochure. Which cannot exist because a piece of paper has two sides. But right now, that's not my problem.