Ditching “smart”.

You know what’s wonderful about air travel? Other than the snug living quarters, the occasional delays, and subpar provisions even on transcontinental flights? Breathing the same lovely, recycled air as your planemates. Specifically, the guy three rows behind you hacking up a lung the entire flight. Specifically, feeling a tightness in your throat even before going to bed that night and waking up the next day to a full on cold. Fever included, free of charge.

What’s that? Not wonderful? Oh right, true. It’s actually crap. But aside from the fact that I brought home with me an extra, microscopic souvenir (and arrived to find my car battery dead in the garage), my trip to San Francisco wasn’t half bad. In fact, I would actually classify it as quite good. On the business end, we got a lot of quality work done. And from a personal point of view, I walked away feeling refreshed somehow.

Was it the change of scenery, the change of pace? Perhaps. I can’t quite put my finger on it but for some reason, I tend to leave San Francisco just a bit happier than when I arrived. Last year was a no-brainer, what with all the jumping and the wine. This year was far more subdued, but it’s amazing what some good conversation, and coffee and pastries in the sun will do for you.

Lately, so many things have been flooding my mind as I lay in bed at night. Ideas, worries, dreams, hesitations. Sometimes they all converge at once and thoughts start coming at me rapid fire, my brain a frog hopping from one lily pad thought bubble to the next in no particular order. It can be, well, overwhelming to say the least. But ultimately I end up coming back to the realization that I make things far more complicated than they need to be. That I need less thinking, more doing.

In my last hour in San Francisco before I had to head to the airport, I did a bit of shopping on Market Street. At one point I looked up at the windows of the Diesel store and was struck by their new “Be Stupid” ad campaign. I had seen it before, but this time it started to sink in.

Smart may have the brains, but stupid has the balls. Smart sees what there is, stupid sees what there could be. Stupid is trial and error, mostly error.

Smart listens to the head, stupid listens to the heart.

I haven’t blogged about it much but lately I’ve been feeling sort of lost along the path of discovering myself. This path that I so brazenly and, in some people’s opinions, so stupidly, threw myself on. Granted, life has thrown me a few lemons. (Or just one nasty one, really.) (I’m not making excuses here, just trying to give myself a rare break from my inner critic, she’s one tough cookie.)

But the whole point of this grand experiment was to follow my heart. To maybe fall down a few times. Stupid might fail, but smart doesn’t even try. I threw caution, logic, reason to the wind once before. It was scary and it hasn’t quite paid off yet but I still feel it was right. I just need to keep doing it. Keep pushing comfort zones. Keep taking stupid risks. And maybe stop asking if we’re there yet. Because NO, inner critic, we’re not. Be patient. Sweeping, massive personal growth takes time.

I guess what I’m saying is, it takes more than just one great leap, what I’m doing here. You have to keep hurling yourself over cliffs. Again and again. So that’s what I intend to start doing.

Just as soon as I get over this cold.