Twenty-Seventeen... The Year of More Love
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What have you failed miserably at? 

2/5/2016

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So last month I bragged about how easy peasy I found February’s challenge (you can read all about that here… http://www.theyearofmore.com/blog/do-you-remember-charlies-surname) and now I’m here to tell you how miserably I failed at the challenge I’d set myself for March.
 
I could not have done worse if I had intentionally set out to fail.
 
Bad bad bad.
 
So. Very. Very. Bad. 
 
But as Mark Rashid says…
 
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Too right Mark. You’re clearly a very wise man. I like you. I like you a lot.
 
The challenge I chose for March was going to bed at 9pm from Sunday – Thursday nights.
 
I was inspired to do this after reading the following article which discusses the huge physical and psychological benefits of going to bed early.

https://medicineandsergebenhayon.com/2015/09/20/the-science-of-early-to-bed/


It’s not just about getting enough sleep but apparently what time you go to bed is of equal importance. The work our brains have to do is done more efficiently and effectively if it gets cracking on it at 9pm rather than 11pm. I can see the logic in that.
 
But I failed my brain and body for two reasons:
 
  1. March is a mega crazy time for me at work so I’m often working back late or starting early.
  2. I really didn’t put much effort into achieving my goal.
 

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You would think that going to bed early would be appealing if I’m working long hours, wouldn’t you?
 
But do you know that feeling when you get home late from work and you just need to spend some quality time unwinding once you’ve had something to eat and done whatever else needs doing?
 
An expanse of time specifically earmarked to do Nothing.
 
Or to do something relaxing like watching a movie or reading a book. If you get home from work, have dinner and then go to bed within an hour or two, it feels as though all you’ve done is slept and gone to work. And you end up feeling like a mouse on The Great Wheel of Life.
 

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Image from www.cartertoons.com
So I would stay up late even though I knew that getting more sleep was actually the key to helping me get through this crazy work period.
 
It’s a conundrum that’s for sure.
 
I do like the word conundrum. It’s an excellent, excellent word.
 
So 9pm would come and go and I’d still be relaxing rather than going to bed to get a good solid eight or nine hours sleep into my weary mind and body.
 
I think I would have done better at this challenge during a different month so I’m going to try it again later in the year when work slows down a bit. October will probably be a good month so I shall aim for that.
 
Or perhaps I’ll just spend October sleeping in a hammock in Mexico; one never knows what’s around the corner you know.
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Me. In a hammock. In Mexico.
So I had a talk with myself (I do that quite regularly) and reminded myself that I didn’t really fail, I just chose a really bad time to set this particular goal for myself.
 
I didn’t have a Very Good Plan.
 
Sometimes when we set goals, we don’t actually factor in what we need in order to have the best chance of succeeding. Like choosing the Right Time.
 
Clearly I wasn’t very mindful when I chose to do this challenge in March so the odds of me actually doing it were quite slim from the outset.
 
And as they say in the Hunger Games…
 
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Image from www.firstcovers.com
So before you start, ensure the odds have the best possible opportunity of actually being in your favour.
 
Plan.
Plan.
Plan.
 
And ask yourself these questions…
 
Do I believe my goal is achievable?
Do I understanding why I want to achieve it?
How badly do I want to reach my goal?
What do I need to put in place to make it happen?
If I fail, am I willing to try again?
Do I have a supply of champagne to celebrate with when I kick some Major Goal-Setting Ass??!!
 

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Champagne courtesy of my fridge
I wrote about failing to learn how to ride a bike in an earlier blog post http://www.theyearofmore.com/blog/what-have-you-done-because-everyone-else-was-doing-it and how much that lesson taught me. We can have our greatest Life Lessons through embracing our little friend, Failure.
 
He’s here to help us. Truly.
 
I can obviously do this challenge. It’s not like my goal is to perform brain surgery; I simply want to go to bed earlier. And apparently at one time in my life, I was quite exceptional at it.
 
Mum told me that when I was a little girl, I would come home from kindergarten, have dinner and put myself to bed because I was so tuckered out.

That’s all I’m trying to do now. And my job is way more exhausting than kindergarten ever was. Although all that interaction with new little people is rather draining for us introverts.
 
I’m not sure if I was in kindy or Prep but I remember being given a bottle of milk - with a little silver cap on the top that you’d peel off and lick the cream from – and then we’d all lay down for a wee nap. Every single day.
 
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Image from www.runselfierepeat.com
So do I little girl, so do I.
 
Now, I’m sure they probably do something similar at workplaces like Google and Facebook (perhaps minus the milk) but maybe the rest of the working world needs to get back to basics and implement this well-being strategy? My workplace is gung ho this year about Work Life Balance and Well-Being so perhaps I’ll suggest it.
 
Naps all round.
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At work, we each have an Individual Development Plan which we work toward each year. And as the organisation is focusing heavily on staff well-being this year, I decided to put ’10 minutes of colouring-in each day’ as one of my goals for Twenty-Sixteen. I wasn’t quite sure if it would be taken seriously but thankfully my manager thought it was a wonderful idea.
 
So I am absolutely loving being able to colour-in at my desk and not feel as though I’m wasting time or slacking off.
 
Although I’ve been a bit slack with my colouring-in over the last six weeks or so as I’ve been working long hours and have lost sight of those things which help keep me balanced. Which is a shame as it really does make a difference to completely stop what I’m doing and spend 5 or 10 minutes totally immersed in nothing but playing with my pencils and being creative. I can honestly notice a difference in how I’m feeling on the days that I do colour-in at work.
 
So once again, I’m not doing something which I know is ultimately going to be better for me. It’s funny how us humans can do that isn’t it?
 
We go to bed late even though we know sleep is exactly what we need.
 
We eat the wrong foods, date the wrong people and stay in the wrong jobs for far too long.
 
We ignore the gorgeous little colouring-in Desk Calendar on our desks and keep rushing through the ‘To do’ lists of life.
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Clearly 18 February was a Colouring-In kind of day
And just as the Tibetan monks do with their sand mandalas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10084L3Pqsc, I throw away my fabulous works of art once I’ve finished them.
 
To remind me how impermanent everything is. Including Life.
 
If we’re lucky, we get to spend 80 or 90 years being our fabulous selves on this incredible planet.
 
And throughout those 80 to 90 years, we are most definitely Going to Fail on occasion.
 
And that’s okay.
 
In fact, it’s mandatory.
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When I was younger, I was often too scared to take a chance in life because I was so worried about failing and what that would mean. I used to be too scared to change jobs/houses/partners/friends/whatever it might be, because I feared the unknown space that lay ahead. I worried about what would happened after I’d taken that next step – even if I knew in my heart and soul that the next step was absolutely perfectly right for me.
 
I know it sounds ridiculous but I would get completely stuck in my fear around what would happened after that – and I don’t mean as part of that first step, I’m talking about way after. For example, if I was contemplating a new job, I would be terrified of what would happen at the end of that job, rather than focusing on how much growth and experience I'd have doing that role which would lead me on to something even more amazing.
 
So I'd not take the job or not move house or not leave a relationship because of some unknown place down the track. A place which had no semblance of shape or form or space in my life. I find it really strange now but that's how I lived my life until I was in my late thirties.

​My comfort zone ruled my life.
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But occasionally Life sends me a reminder of how I used to deal with the opportunities and decisions presented to me and I slip back into that irrational space of Fearing the Unknown.
 
But greater than my fear of the unknown is my fear of going back to being that woman who didn't trust and act on her intuition. I’m scared of once again being that woman who never wanted to acknowledge her doubts and fears and shortcomings. A woman who didn’t celebrate her accomplishments and creativeness and worthiness; my greatest struggle in life, as I believe it is for many of us beautifully flawed human beings.
 
But self-awareness and experience are a formidable team so I know I will never completely be Her again. She may creep back in on occasion to remind me there's always work to do on myself; and to remind me never to become complacent or to think I'm completely healed or that I can't grow any further. She keeps pushing me to learn and grow and reflect and to take responsibility and to acknowledge where my strengths are and where they aren’t.
 
So although I don’t want to be Her again, I am grateful for her presence in my life and thankful for the continual lessons she presents me with.
 
We sometimes forget that We – our messy, imperfect, inspiring, fabulous, coloured-outside-the-lines, shiny selves - are one of the greatest teachers we’ll ever have in life.
 
Joyful hugs,
 
Karen  xo
 
‘Imagine the choices you’d make if you had no fear – of falling, of losing, of being alone, of disapproval.’ Martha Beck
 
 
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Have you ever taken a drop in pay in exchange for greater job happiness?

31/7/2014

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I taught myself to touch type when I was ten years old. 

Yes, my journey down Nerdy Lane started quite early on in life.
 
I was given the choice of a bike or a typewriter for my 10th birthday. My brother had gotten a bike for his 10th birthday. Surprisingly enough, I don’t remember a typewriter being an option for him. One nerdy introvert in the family was probably enough. 

To this day I still don’t know how to ride a bike properly. But boy have I had a lifelong love affair with The Written Word.

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Oh my goodness, that’s him, that’s him!!!! (Well, it’s a photo I Googled, but it COULD be him).
I can’t even begin to tell you how many delightfully wonderful introverted hours I spent tapping away with Ollie - he’s an inanimate object so yes, of course he had a name - inside my blissful little creative bubble. We made up stories and plays that made no sense. We wrote letters. We typed up my book of 101 Elephant Jokes and endless newspaper articles (nerdy columns were our specialty… it’s all about the spacing folks!).

I can still remember the feeling of slowly releasing the Paper Release Lever (the Official Technical Term) and the sound of putting a clean white sheet of paper through the roller. And then clicking the silver bar* across the front of the paper back into place. Followed by a huge sigh of contentment.

* The Official Technical Term is ‘Bail Rod’ but I doubted you’d know what that was… my sincere apologies if I’ve just insulted any equally nerdy old-fashioned typewriter lovers. (I am secretly hoping I’ve offended at least one person reading this… please reveal yourself so I know I’m not alone in my skip down Nerdy Lane).

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I would regularly and carefully lean forward, my hair tickling Ollie’s cold metal casing, to unjam keys that had become stuck together in my eagerness to put my thoughts down on paper. 

And ribbon changes, how I LOVED those. The anticipation of forever embedding an ocean of My Words onto a pristine new ribbon.  We’re talking sublime nerdy territory here.

Seriously, check out the following instructions for ribbon changing… it’s like an excerpt from Fifty Shades of Grey for Nerds. As I read it slowly, it’s as though Liam Neeson [insert sexy-voiced man or woman of your choice] is whispering sweet nerdy nothings into my ear. Another sigh of contentment.

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Admit it, you’re itching to read more of the User Manual now aren’t you? Come on, I won’t tell anyone…

Ollie was such a great companion and with his patience and guidance, I taught myself to touch type. Yes, at the age of ten. That probably isn’t such a large feat nowadays given children are learning to program DVD recorders at the age of three, but back then, it was something I was extremely proud of. Anyone - okay, almost anyone - can ride a bike but not everyone can touch type when they’re in primary school!

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By the time I started Typing Class in Year 10 at high school, I could type fifty words a minute without ever looking at the keys. Which by the way, wouldn’t have helped anyway as The Typing Teacher was so intent on us learning to type that she put liquid paper on all the keys so no-one could peak at them! I’m sure this is an official form of typewriter abuse. 

I would never have done such a despicable thing to Ollie.

I’m still not sure if my typing ability impressed or annoyed The Typing Teacher. Let’s face it, it did allow me more time to distract everyone else in the class. Something I spent quite a lot of time doing throughout high school, despite my nerdy straight-A student status. I always suspected the teacher felt ripped off that I didn’t need to look at her liquid paper-graffiti-covered keys anyway. You’d think she’d be grateful it was one less teenager to teach.

So my ability to type was the one defining factor in the First Tentative Steps Toward The Career of My Dreams.

Oh, and the fact I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.

After much searching and more rejection than I care to remember, I got a job in the typing pool of a large stockbroking firm in Melbourne. 

When I say pool, I should point out there were only two of us, so it was rather more of a puddle. Just in case you were picturing a room filled with women all lined up in rows tapping away on their typewriters.

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It all sounds very Mad Men-esque but it really wasn’t. I worked in the ‘back office’ where, amongst other things, we typed up list after list of the names of people who had bought shares. 

Sorry, are you asleep yet? 

Clearly, it wasn’t the most exciting or stimulating job but it was a hugely fun environment in which to work and that firm put on The Best Work Parties Ever! You know, the kind of parties where at least one staff member needs to resign out of embarrassment the next day? This was in the late 80s and although it wasn’t quite ‘Wolf of Wall Street’, it was a ridiculously huge amount of fun… until someone had to resign from embarrassment of course. And I’m not kidding; they literally resigned because they were too embarrassed to stay.

Okay, seeing you insist, I’ll share a couple of stories.

Embarrassing Resignation No. 1

Let’s call him Tom… just in case, almost thirty years later, he stumbles across this random blog and decides to sue me for defamation. Tom decided it would be a good idea to remove his pants at the staff Christmas Party. In the middle of a ballroom. On a brightly lit dance floor. Surrounded by 400 of his colleagues. And management. And the partners of the firm. And by remove his pants, I'm talking The Full Monty.

Embarrassing Resignation No. 2

Let’s call her Sally… (I think this actually happened at a later job I had but it still makes for a good example of What Not To Do At A Work Party). Sally was a young secretary who had consumed rather too much alcohol at the Friday night boardroom drinks (a weekly occurrence in most large firms in Melbourne at the time). And while Sally was at her desk collecting her belongings before stumbling home, she threw up on her typewriter and passed out. As you do. A couple of hours later her boss (a partner in the firm) went back to his office to find her asleep on her desk. Being the gentleman he was, he pushed her on her secretarial chair to the hotel adjoining the building we worked in (I’m not making this up) and booked her a room to sleep off her hangover. She was so embarrassed (and quite possibly very unsure how she got to the hotel room) that I don’t think she even came back long enough to resign, she just sort of left a message on someone’s phone and disappeared. 

Oh, and that’s not one of those stories where The Writer is actually talking about themselves. I’m not Sally.

Really, I’m not. 

I worked at that firm for three years and diligently achieved my yearly goal of Not Doing Anything Embarrassing Enough That I Had To Resign Over, while I saved money to go and live in London. 

Three years after leaving high school, my first major career goal was sorted:

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I had some fantastic long-term temp jobs during the 18 months I lived in London. 

I worked for Bethnal Green Neighbourhood (part of the London Council), which was like living amongst the characters of the TV show ‘EastEnders’. What a delightfully colourful group of people to work with. And they were so fascinated by an Australian Girl (which I always found quite amusing seeing as London was absolutely covered with young Aussie girls at the time). 

One lady, quite seriously said to me one day, ‘I didn’t know Australia celebrated Christmas in the middle of the year instead of December’ and I said ‘ummm, we do celebrate Christmas in December’ and she said ‘but they had Christmas lunch on ‘Neighbours’ on TV last night’. Bless her cotton socks! I tried my hardest to keep a straight face as I replied, ‘Oh, I think the episodes are 18 months behind here so that’s why it’s being shown in July’. I think she appreciated the fact I didn’t make fun of her but boy did my flat-mates laugh when I told them that night!

I then had a job temping for a large law firm called Stephenson Harwood who had their own building across from St Paul’s Cathedral. I did various jobs there over a six-month period and one of them involved working for the Graduate Recruitment Officer who recruited all the graduates (err, you may have gotten that from her title…) and part of my role was to show them around London. How cool - I was being paid to go sightseeing! Best Temp Job Ever. The grads thought it was hilarious that a young Aussie girl was showing them around the capital city of their own country. 

When I returned to Melbourne from London I got a job as a legal secretary, which was the start of a very long journey of Not Wanting To Be A Legal Secretary. 

I always knew I was Destined To Do Something Else. Something which helped people. 

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A few years later I moved from Melbourne to Brisbane to work for the same law firm and I went from working for the most lovely and down-to-earth man to working for the biggest egomaniac I'd ever met! Which was the best thing that's ever happened to me as that was finally the push I needed to make a change.

But initially, I sadly discovered that my desire, motivation and steadfast belief in My Destiny To Do Something Else didn’t appear to be enough. I met with a lady at a job agency who very bluntly said ‘you’re not going to ever get out of secretarial work because you’re simply not qualified to do anything else!’ Oh, that was so disheartening to hear. I had finally been brave enough to take that First Step Toward Something Else and was quickly told I Wasn’t Good Enough. 

Even sadder than that, was that I actually believed her. 

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Then I used her words to inspire me to prove her wrong. 

I got a job at The Smith’s Snackfood Company (where they make chips and Twisties) and I absolutely loved it. It was still a secretarial role but it involved more coordinating and organising and I worked with a fabulous group of people (mostly men) and felt as though I was finally working in The Real World.

And it led me to my career in the not-for-profit sector where I happily remain today.

I still remember sitting on the floor of my unit in Brisbane one Saturday morning in 2001 reading an ad for a job as an ‘Administration/Volunteer Coordinator’ at the Starlight Children’s Foundation and as I read through the criteria for the job I said out loud to myself, ‘I’ve never done that’, ‘I have no experience in that’ and ‘I definitely can’t do that’. 

And yet I applied anyway. And it was one of the best decisions of my life.
 
I got an initial interview with the employment agency and spent an hour talking about what I couldn’t do and she kept nodding and making notes and at the end of the interview, she said ‘that’s one of the most enjoyable interviews I’ve ever done’ and when I asked why, she said ‘because you were so refreshingly honest’. So this particular time, my honesty won out over my skill or experience and she arranged an interview with the Queensland State Manager, who is one of the most fabulously dynamic women I have ever met. That day she saw something in me – the potential to do the job well I guess - and she believed in me more than I believed in myself at that point. And I got the job. 

And that was my Very First Experience of Taking Less Money in Exchange for More Job Joy. And what an experience it turned out to be.
  
To this day, that remains my ‘Dream Job’. Anything after that has been an absolute bonus in my eyes. Working at Starlight for four and a half years was the best work environment I’ve ever experienced – the joy and enthusiasm that people brought to their roles and the fun we had together was just incredible. And we cried too. A bit too often sometimes but at the same time it was comforting to know we were doing something positive for the families we worked with. We all worked so well together and everyone was willing to put in 110% every single day. You don’t find that in many workplaces so we knew just how fortunate we were.

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My desk after coming back to work after a holiday. She was nicknamed KDD for obvious reasons.
I then spent four years working at The Wesley Hospital in Brisbane managing the Volunteer Department. If only I’d been writing a blog then ☺ Although, I wouldn’t have been able to share any of the crazy goings on of course, as much as I might have wanted to. Let me just say this, working with more than four hundred volunteers is both the most rewarding and most challenging experience ever. 

I knew I was ready to leave that job a year before I actually did but a Rather Large Pay Rise kept me there longer than I should have stayed. It was lovely to have my work acknowledged in that way but it always felt as though I was just putting off the inevitable. 

You cannot buy job satisfaction; it’s just not possible.

A year later, I took a Rather Large Drop in Pay to go and work at The Smith Family and I’ve never looked back. I started as their Volunteer Relationships Coordinator and I am now a Program Coordinator working on one of our mentoring programs. I really do adore going to work every day. I love being part of something that evokes change and growth and empowerment in people – adults and young people alike. I am so very grateful to be doing what I’m doing and I will stay working with them for as long as they will have me. I’ve been there almost five years and I’m currently doing my fifth role so it’s also the first workplace I’ve had where I’ve been able to move around and try new things.

So learning to type at the age of ten has taken me on a long windy road of interesting experiences, and some days, as I mindlessly type away at work or at home, it occurs to me that I would quite possibly be capable of typing if I were ever in a coma. I’m not making light of people who have been in comas but if I’m ever unfortunate enough to be in one, please pop a keyboard beneath my hands as I’m fairly certain I will start typing away. Or if you can get your hands on an old Olivetti, that would be just perfect.
  
I know I could get paid more as an executive assistant back in The Corporate World as I was born to Type and Organise but I also know I was born to Support and Empower so the not-for-profit world is Exactly Where I’m Meant To Be. I find so much joy in the work I do. It feeds my soul. And I adore the challenges it brings and the professional and personal growth I’ve had from the various jobs I’ve done. 

And the people I’ve met. I can’t even begin to describe how much I’ve learnt, and continue to learn, from the often quite simple interactions I have with all sorts of fascinating and fabulously unique human beings. Random strangers reach in to squeeze my heart on a regular basis. I just adore connecting with people.

People who give their time as volunteers, people who work in schools and community organisations, people who ring up asking for support who Simply Want To Be Heard, my colleagues who I work with day after day To Make Stuff Happen and the students I work with who make me laugh and who unknowingly inspire me to continue to follow my dreams as they take their first tentative steps toward discovering their own.

I am so very grateful the State Manager of Starlight saw something in me that day that I didn’t quite see or believe in myself at the time. I see it and believe it now and it has been the most enjoyable journey getting from where I was back in 2001, to where I am now. Still without any 'qualification' to speak of Miss Blunt Agency Lady. But what I do have is an abundance of life experience, a set of ears, a desire to learn and grow and a willing heart. Ollie would be ever so proud of how far we’ve come.

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It now comes naturally to me To Not Make Job Decisions Based Solely on Money – as long as I have enough money to slowly pay off my mortgage (ever so slowly perhaps!) and to have enough left over to enjoy life through my Joy Creating Indicators, I am a happy little camper.

Money is something which allows us freedom and exploration and most of all, it gives us The Power of Choice, but never having to spend Sunday night dreading work the next day, now that’s priceless.

Joyful hugs,

Karen xo


‘Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.’ Steve Jobs


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    This is me

    Hi, I’m Karen Young and I live on the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Australia. I'm a passionate, nerdy, loud, quirky introvert who loves words, elephants, people, the beach, champagne, chocolate, sunsets, trees, travel, books, Joy of every kind but especially Letterbox Joy, Writing Joy and Theatre Joy. I adore being inspired to Live More, Love More and Be More. I love fiercely and hurt deeply. I make mistakes, lots and lots of lots of mistakes! And I learn from most of them although some lessons seem to take me a lifetime to learn so Life is most definitely a constant Work In Progress xo

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