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Living
Together
. Ask Gola: Advice from Gola di Montagni
Are your kids driving
you crazy? Well ... DownStreet can help {maybe}. DownStreet magazine is pleased to be able to offer a valuable and free service to our readers: Ask Gola. ... Gola di Montagni has graciously offered to answer readers' questions, readers like you. Gola knows that, especially these days, we all need all the help we can get. ... If you have a question for Gola, e-mail her at askgola@downstreetmagazine.com. But, without further ado ...
Ask
Gola ... For those of you who've been following this story, you'll remember that, last month, very uncharacteristically, Gola missed her deadline. We told you we'd found, somewhat belatedly, an e-mail from her, which she asked us to pass along to her readers. ... She was in Florida! If you want to see what transpired, you can read last month's goings on, below. But for now, simply know that Gola is still in Florida, and has asked us to join her. It sounds very much like she's been doing some soul-searching, but she wanted to talk with us in person rather than try to explain things over the phone or through e-mail. So ... After tonight's publishing deadline, we're taking a flight to Florida to catch up with Gola. Know, in the meanwhile, that she seems well. But, at this point, whether or not she will return to do her column is an open question ... something we'd told her we'd mention, in fairness to her readers. She had no objection. ... We'll keep you posted. ******* ******* We tried to hold off, hoping we'd see her copy before press time. But no go. The deadline came and we hadn't heard from Gola!?! So, we decided to run last month's Gola, at least for a few days, hoping we'd hear from her. It's not like her to not stay in touch. And it's much less like her to miss a deadline. What was going on? That's when it dawned on us: We'd been so busy getting this issue together, none of us had checked our personal e-mail for a week! Sure enough, when we did, we found an e-mail from Gola. In it, she let us know, not simply that she wouldn't be making the deadline, but that she'd penned a little something she wanted us to run in her column. So, straightaway and without further ado, here's what Gola had to say: ******* ******* Dear DownStreet Readers,
I’m in Florida right now. I just finished unpacking my bag and am about to go down to the pool for an afternoon swim. This wasn't an expected trip, or even planned much at all. But when the staff were working on the piece on cheap airline tickets {Ed. Note: Click here to check it out.} and I read it, something came over me. I went on-line, at first just to look around, and then I found myself making an offer on a round-trip ticket for the next day. After I clicked that button to submit it, I nearly panicked. What are you doing, Gola, I asked myself. You've got a deadline to meet! I reprimanded myself then, and the better part of the night. But that was hours after I'd learned that my offer for the ticket had been accepted, and now I was equally reprimanding myself for even thinking about not using a ticket I had just paid some hard-earned money for. So, off I went, the very next morning. Now, I won't make excuses. I had several letters from some of you and I was working hard on them. I had every intention of going to press with the rest of the magazine. So let me apologize for not finishing the work and answering your letters. But when that wave of what must have been Cabin Fever washed over me, I felt like I was going to drown if I didn't do something. It was selfish, mind you. I won't try to pretend it wasn't. And those of you who know me know that that's not usually at the top of my list. I'm not usually one of those people who has elevated selfishness to a religion. In fact, when I hear people say things like, "I did it for me," or "I just needed to take care of myself," I confess, most times it makes me cringe. It might just as well be chalk screeching on a blackboard. But there I was, washed out to sea by that wave of Cabin Fever, and the next thing I knew, I bought a ticket and found myself on a flight bound for Florida. I don't regret it, though. It was selfish, I know. But already, I feel my sanity returning. As soon as I stepped off the plane and the warm air and sun descended on my, I knew I'd done what I needed to do. It wasn't "the right thing." In fact, it was wrong. And I can't even pretend to myself, the way I was tempted to do for a moment, that it was "necessary." It wasn't. I could have stayed and finished my work. And I might have even managed a reasonably good job of it. But I didn't. The one thing that comes to me at this point is that what I did is humbling. Not because I'll have to face the rest of the folks at DownStreet when I get back. If they were like that, that would be humiliating, not humbling. And besides, they're not like that. They know me well enough to know I'm not a flake. But it's a humbling experience anyway. Because even though I didn't realize it at first, I let things get too far. I needed to get away for a while so badly I couldn't resist the temptation when it came. And it was humbling also because of the way it happened. When I went on-line, I had no idea I was going to buy a ticket. And when I made that offer, only on the plane on the way down did I realize that when I clicked that button, I was as good as gone. While I was doing it, I somehow managed to convince myself that "I probably won't get the ticket anyway." But that was bogus. I jacked my offer up by $30 when I saw that the odds were less than 14% of getting that ticket. Who was I kidding? Myself. That's the short answer. ... I know there are lots of things in this world a whole lot worse than to learn a little humility while getting to lounge on a sunny beach in Florida. And even now, I'm thanking God for the benefits that have come with this particular lesson. But it's a lesson anyway -- about Cabin Fever, about putting things off too much, and maybe most important, about a capacity for self-deception that I didn't know I had. Please accept my apologies, then, especially those of you who had written to me hoping for an answer in this month's issue. I promise, I'll take care of it as soon as I get back. Ciao, . ******* ******* If
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