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Kayla's Only Heart

~ Always learning. Always progressing.

Kayla's Only Heart

Tag Archives: movie

The Absence Of Success

20 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by KaylasOnlyHeart in Essay, Journal

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big picture, Cameron Crowe, career, Elizabethtown, failure, fiasco, future, loss, Martin Luther King Jr, movie, perseverance, perspective, risk, road trip, smile, success, work

Tonight I have had the pleasure of watching one of my all time favorite movies. In Elizabethtown, Cameron Crowe paints such a beautiful picture of failure and loss. Drew Baylor finds himself facing a failure at work categorized as a fiasco, a failure of mythic proportion, right as he finds out his father has died. By the end, he embraces his carefree, deep spirited love interest Claire’s mantra to “fail big and stick around. Make them wonder why you’re still smiling.” It’s all about perseverance to get that success.

While I haven’t exactly faced failure in the same sense and haven’t experienced any significant loss lately, I still want to take that philosophy with me on my journey to improve my career and life right now. Recently, I have interviewed for a position at a company that sounded like a job I’d absolutely love and was in the perfect location. I have since found out that they have decided to choose another candidate. Not having that kind of job secured makes it more difficult for me to determine my living arrangement. All I can do is keep pressing forward, and that’s what I do. Part of that means I have to take a seemingly greater risk by moving prior to landing my dream job. At least I can transfer my retail job to whichever store I choose.

The area I choose may ultimately be the landmark of my “success.” On his way home from his father’s funeral, Drew honors his promise to Claire to take a road trip across the country. As he starts in Kentucky, he visits special places on the way back to Oregon. One place of particular interest involves the music scene in Memphis, Tennessee. The screen shows signs for big record companies and posters with Elvis. He stops to talk to a bar owner after eating a bowl of the world’s best chili. Drew even stops to visit scenes of tragedy, including the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and the survivor tree in Oklahoma City. This mix of success, failure, and tragedy culminate the movie’s theme that the bigger picture always extends far beyond the scope of a current failure, even beyond a fiasco. As the movie points out, Martin Luther King Jr.’s “death was only the beginning of his success.” Maybe the fiasco at work is merely the beginning of Drew’s success. Either way, he maintains his smile and pursues a relationship with Claire and moves forward after losing his previous job.

I too keep smiling through the potential disappointment of not getting jobs for which I interview. The odds always are greater that I will not hear back from a company after filling out an application, let alone get an interview. Yet the odds only go up when I fill out another one. Keeping a smile on my face, I appreciate the situation in which I find myself and my determination to take efforts to increase my odds and make my environment the best it can be for myself. That perseverance will get me my next job one of these days.

Hold It Up High

23 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by KaylasOnlyHeart in Journal, Photography

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blog, boombox, Cameron Crowe, experience, friends, In Your Eyes, John Cusack, movie, music, perspective, Peter Gabriel, Photo, photography, quotes, relationships, Say Anything, social media, song, stereo, trial and error

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Last night, my friend Hannah and I finally got to watch Say Anything together when we had a dinner and a movie night at my house. Hannah was cool enough to go along with my photo idea and posed with me in the vein of the iconic image of John Cusack’s character Lloyd holding his boombox over his head.

Hannah caught several good quotes from the Cameron Crowe film, including, “The world is full of guys. Don’t be a guy. Be a man.” My favorite came at the end of the film when Lloyd and Diane were sitting on a plane together on their way to Europe so Diane could attend a prestigious school. She pointed out that no one thought their relationship will work out, to which Lloyd wisely replied, “No, but you just described every success story.” I needed that advice for my own life, a reminder that trial and error, a conscious effort, leads to success.

Sometimes, as Diane illustrates as she dates Lloyd, we face adversity in how others view us, our relationships, our jobs, our situations. We satisfactorily progress these facets of our lives when we consciously move forward. Diane and Lloyd don’t start off together. Lloyd and Diane go on their first date because Lloyd asked her out and because she agreed to go. They continue to get closer because they learn through trial and error how to best relate to each other as Lloyd teachers Diane how to drive, Diane discloses her family past, Lloyd declares his love. For a period of time, Diane breaks up with Lloyd. The relationship rekindles after she breaks up with him because he tries every venue to reunite; he leaves numerous voicemails, and he plays their song (“In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel) from a stereo he holds over his head outside her work window. Both sides of the relationship faced disbelief and discouragement from those closest to them. Yet they still continued with their trial and error to find out what they needed in a relationship and how to best reach those goals.

A lot of trial and error stands before me, but what matters is I see the overall picture of what I want to do. I must step forward to accomplish that. Not all steps will lead to immediate success; some initiative, to gain experience and exposure in social media for example, will not get the desired results. I plan to try my hand at writing posts about beauty. It can lead to an ultimate career at a business like Julep where I can share my nail art; I may also realize I will never be cut out for that writing even after practice. I won’t know if that’s another potential style for me until I do it. My experimentation with photography will yield similar prospects. I must take the camera out and use my keen eye to point and shoot. I will continue to learn how to consider angle, lighting, composition; a lot of that will result from me moving the camera in my hand to see what happens. As always, I will take some bad pictures, sometimes getting no good shots in a day; but, as I see what works, I also see what does. All I have to do is take the camera out when I see a subject I want. Trial and error will lead me to success. With the ultimate goal of shining Light, it’s hard to fail so greatly I can’t continue or make a speck of difference to someone along the way, sharing the wisdom of trial and error experience and the ultimate success it I’ve seen.

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You can't make advances if you don't take chances. These posts share my perspectives of my journey as I step forward, walking in the Light.

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