I normally like Penelope Trunk’s blog. At Brazen Careerist, she offers a somewhat calculated yet insightful approach to job issues affecting US workers. But I think Penelope went a little over some imaginary line with one of her old posts about “Steps to figuring out your next career move.”

Some highlights:

• Cross off your list all the stuff that you like to do but that pays well only if you have the career-equivalent of winning the lottery…. Then eliminate all the stuff that you think would be fun but probably will never pay well: working in a nonprofit, working in local government, being a travel writer.
• If you’re not making time to do it regularly unpaid, then you probably don’t love it. Here’s the litmus test: Sex. We do it regularly, unpaid, and we love it. Run this test on other stuff you supposedly love. Do you crave it like sex? Then you probably don’t love it that much. You probably love the idea of loving it, the idea of who you are when you say you love that thing.
• …[S]top deluding yourself that you have so many interests that you can’t choose. Really what you have is no clear interest and only a bunch of things you would consider if you had nothing to do.

This is, I think, the saddest philosophy I’ve ever contemplated. I can’t imagine making decisions about the rest of my life based, in order, on how much money it brings in, whether I enjoy it more than sex (hello!), and on ignoring everything that fascinates me in favor of things that don’t, simply because I have the misfortune of being fascinated with many things.

My current “day job” pays … well, pretty lousy, actually. Certainly a whole lot less than the prior 9-to-5 job I held. According to Penelope’s philosophy, I should have stayed with the prior job, even though it gave me high blood pressure and any number of migraines. (I certainly didn’t enjoy it more than sex. But frankly, although sex is admittedly a lot of fun and I’m glad I live in a country where I can actually have some without getting my head chopped off or large stones thrown at me, I certainly don’t hold it out as some bellwether of joy.)

I guess what I’m saying is: I think at 41 I’ve earned the right to be happy, and not have to simply punch a time-clock and collect interest on my 401(k).

You’ll eventually see a whole long list of categories on this site, as posts get published. Usually, with my other blogs, I just make them up as I go along, except for a skeletal framework of 4 or so that occur to me right off the bat.

This blog was a bit different. First, some work had already been done on the categories when I came on board. I liked the general approach, and so I kept a bunch of them, though I tweaked a few to be shorter and more direct. Also, I wanted to keep a better (read: tighter) handle on this blog’s focus than I have with other blogs littering the landscape of my virtual past.

So, here are the categories for this blog and what they’re all about. I don’t promise that they’ll never change, mind you. But I think they’re fairly thorough and provide a nice, long-term architecture for the site’s posts.

• Eros ‘n Aphrodite – love and sex; has the capacity to become my most-used category initially, not for the reason you might think but because it’s MISSING right now (grrr)
• Godddess’s Work Is Never Done – careers, jobs, and professional issues.
• Goddess Stories — I’m not really sure what I want to put here but I inherited it and I love the concept. Probably this will ultimately be a place where other goddesses can write in or submit their stories as guest posts, and I’ll publish them here. I love to hear about successes — means there’s hope for me yet….
• Goddesses Generally — the default category when I don’t choose a category; just what it means — sort of a catch-all.
• Interpantheon Relations — I’m really not thrilled with this title, but it was better than “Relating to Other Gods and Goddesses.” In any event, it’s about our relationships (apart from the romantic/sexual ones).
• Lakshmi’s Story — any of my personal journal entries about my experiences with reinvention will also come under this category, as well as the appropriate subject categories.
• Making Change — this is all about the process of reinvention and how to manage the big “change my life” projects.
• Managing the Offerings — financial reinvention, including debt management, investing, saving, emotional issues about money, etc.
• Meditations — every now and again, I’ll share some of the guided meditations I’m using. What I have in mind is a podcast of sorts, complete with nice new-age-y music, if I can find some I don’t have to pay a ton of cash to license (see immediately preceding category)
• Omniscience — intellectual pursuits, keeping our brains sharp and using the full measure of our intelligence
• Other Resources – other websites and books that might help in this reinvention thing
• Rituals — Fun little things we can do to honor the divine within and put an exclamation point on our work with ourselves
• The Art of the Divine — using, developing, and honing artistic skills/interests to help us reinvent ourselves
• The Temple — all about the hearth-and-home life/work; our home environments. Might also refer to things like cars, gardens, etc.
• The World — another one I didn’t like, until I began thinking of it as the Tarot card of the same name; I see this as the category for big “change the world” type posts and discussions.
• Tools and Methods — posts about using the “Law of Attraction” concepts of visualization, vision-board making, affirmations — anything that helps us create the ideal life
• Writing Prompts — points of departure and writing exercises for journal work

So, there you go — our categories!

From my “About This Site” page:

This is a website devoted to creative change - to helping women everywhere reclaim their divine power to make their lives over, or any aspect of their lives, according to their own desires.

But this wasn’t always my blog. Originally, the fabulous lady who dreamed up this blog and commissioned the ultra-fabulous design from Lisa Sabin Wilson of E. Webscapes (author of Wordpress for Dummies) had a very business-like vision for this site. It was going to be a place where she could write a book about reinvention for women in blog form, and simultaneously offer e-coaching services to women who were interested in reinventing themselves. There were plans for incorporating ad-based revenue, for creating a membership site eventually where members could buy subscriptions to get access to one-on-one coaching, books, and other resources. Pretty cool stuff, if not exactly unique on the web.

But, as it does from time to time, life intervened and our benefactor goddess, Sherrie, came to the reluctant conclusion she just didn’t have the time or energy to devote to this site that it deserved.

Which brings us to me. I’m Lakshmi. It’s not my given name — consider it my pen name for purposes of this blog. I really dug the idea of adopting a goddess name for this project, and Lakshmi’s one of my faves, being the Hindu goddess of abundance. And frankly, if I’m missing anything these days, it’s abundance.

Being a writer, I have a very different purpose in mind for this site — I couldn’t just put the original concept into motion, and wasn’t sure I wanted to. It’s just not me, but more importantly, it would be the height of hypocrisy because I’m far too in need of reinvention myself to be offering instruction and advice to anyone else on the subject.

So, the new focus is this: the new Goddesses in Progress is a journal of my experience with reinventing myself. You can read more about why that’s necessary, what I’m sloughing off and what I’m trying to create in Lakshmi’s Story.

I also figure I’ll write about resources and different topics related to reinvention, self-improvement, or self-acceptance issues from time to time, apart from the pure narrative of my experience. So, instead of being other-centered, it’s going to center around me, Lakshmi, as I scramble to extricate myself from a life gone horribly awry and recreate myself in what I think is my true image.

That might not seem so radical, but for a relatively private person (me) who’s more used to writing about other people, it’s huge. (And hugely scary, as most worthwhile things usually are.)

So how is that supposed to help others? Well, if it goes like I’m hoping it will, I will be your guinea pig goddess. I’m going to experiment with various strategies and tools and programs, and report back on what works, and how well. You can learn from my mistakes (and successes — I plan on having those, too), and thus inform your own reinvention.

If you want to get in touch with me, I’d love to hear from you. Use this form to contact me. Drop me a line and let me know how your reinvention’s going, ask a question, rant, rave, throw a divine goddess hissy fit — it’s all good.