47 - Birthday twins located internationally
Of these 7 - Birthday twins sadly no longer with us 15 - Birthday twins with available contact details 7 - Birthday twins who responded to my contact attempts 2 - Birthday twins who wish to remain in regular contact. They make the effort which went into this project worthwhile as I have gained two fantastic new friends :)
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It's been four months since my last post.
Seems there are a few of you out there who were born on 21 September in various years!! Thanks for the messages of support, I enjoyed hearing from you :) However, finding people born 21 September 1978 has been hard work!! Since my project began, I have managed to locate online 47 people globally who share the same birthday as me. 45 were from overseas and 2 were from New Zealand. My initial excitement at finding several matches quickly turned to feelings of sadness as I found obituary notices for 7 people who were born on 21/09/1978. I feel so sad for their friends and family, much too young to pass away. It makes me feel grateful that I am still alive. Of the remaining 40 people, only 15 of them had available contact details.This has been the major setback in this project as the others either had no contact details available, I would have had to pay to subscribe in order to get contact details or they do have a contact page but their website is in a foreign language and I can no more understand them than they would be able to understand me!! Of the 15 people with contact details, 4 needed to be contacted through an agency or management (which I have found so far not to be forthcoming with returning emails!) and another 4 people also didn't respond. Still no response from fellow New Zealanders :( 7 AMAZING people from overseas have returned my emails and most exciting of all is that 2 of these people want to remain in regular contact with me which I am thrilled about!! What did I learn from completing this project?
I noticed when I considered the answers given to me that there were three clear themes coming through... 1) Children, family, personal relationships and friendships are highly valued and vital to our well-being. We need to make these a priority and strive to maintain high quality relationships with the significant people in our lives. Loss of these relationships or guilt around them was a source of distress to many. 2) We need to be authentic, both with ourselves and with others. This means being honest and sometimes vulnerable, embracing failure and learning from it, staying true to ourselves and going after what we genuinely want from life. This can be particularly difficult in the work environment where we can face the dilemma between work we are passionate about and work which pays the bills, it can be quite hard sometimes to find both. 3) Enjoying and appreciating life, the simple pleasures that go with it, taking each day as it comes.... Below are the questions I asked and the responses I received.
I really appreciated the honesty and openness of each participant and their willingness to be a part of my project. Makes for very interesting reading with some common themes running through.. ACCOMPLISHMENTS - WHAT POSITIVE THINGS CAN I CELEBRATE ABOUT THE LAST 40 YEARS? (This could be personal or professional) *As I approach 40 I'm more clearer than I have ever been about who I am as a woman. In the past I have defined myself by being a mother, being a girlfriend, beautiful, being successful. I have defined myself based on my past falsities and accomplishments; however what I've learned along my journey is NO one thing can define me. I'm all these things and my accomplishments and failures helped to make me into the woman I am today and I am LOVING the woman I am today. *Actually making it to almost 40 is an achievement in itself as my lifestyle has not been kind to my body or mind. *Raising my beautiful family and helping other families through my work with domestic violence victims. *My family is my greatest accomplishment - not money, success and fame as I may have previously said. *My two little girls who show me that there is more to life than money and success, which was a lot of my focus for so long. I would also add buying a house as Sydney's market is beyond crazy these days. My acting work I always see as an accomplishment as it was my first love as a kid and it's difficult booking work. So, when I do I'm very grateful. *Being true to myself and going for what I want, not what other people want. *Finding a balance in my life - I finally feel at almost 40 that I have achieved this! ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - WHAT DO I NOT FEEL SO GOOD ABOUT? (This could include challenging times or things that have not gone as planned, for example illness or redundancy. These painful experiences can often shape us for the better if we learn and grow from them.) *I don't feel good about having to repeat negative experiences because I didn't get the lesson the first time. *I feel bad about some of my relationships which have soured. *Not taking care of myself as I should have done - neglecting my health. *I should have saved more money for the future instead of blowing it all. *It's always been working in corporate to pay the bills while for 20 years I juggle acting opportunities. It can be soul destroying feeling like you're selling your soul to the devil for the money when you don't love it. I've also been bullied twice in the workplace so know there are grander things so I need to keep dreaming. I've now added celebrant to my list of demands and with a young family there are always challenges. *I put my happy face on when I'm out in public, my real face when I get in. I'm not authentic. *I don't feel good that a relationship I was in for a long time didn't work out. ACCEPTANCE - WHAT DO I NEED TO LET GO OF? (This can include regrets/things you would have liked to achieve but didn't, for example a particular career path or personal ambition) *I need to let go of my failed relationships. I need to let go of my decisions to love the wrong men. I'm a Holmes's romantic who loves love and when the relationships fall apart I have a habit of kicking myself for it. My goal is to love differently. To love unconditionally but also not to accept love unless it's given in a form that makes my heart happy. My ultimate goal is to fall in love with my forever man. *I regret not having a back up career, something which I can fall back on when my current one comes to an end. *I don't have too many regrets, I don't think it's worth it. *Losing touch with old friends. *Not finishing my uni degree. This hands down plays on my mind constantly as it would have helped me now to do more of what I love work wise and given me more time with my family and friends. *I feel I have sacrificed my privacy for success. *I wish I had been there for my children more rather than working. APPRECIATION - WHAT LITTLE THINGS AM I GRATEFUL FOR? *I am grateful for life! My children, my business, the people who I get to inspire and educate along my journey. I think I need to appreciate where I am in this moment in life. Often we can get stuck in our failures and not appreciate failures. Our failure is nothing more than contrast showing us what we don't want so we can learn what we do want. I am learning to appreciate the contrasting experiences of my life. If I had 24 hours left on this earth in this body as (name) I would spend it with my children because they mean the world to me. *I am in my happy place in a deck chair with a good book at the beach. That's all I need... *Hanging out with my closest friends, either out in the clubs in my new dress and shoes (shh!!) or movie night in at home. Relationships are key to life appreciation. *Two words - music and dance. *My baby girls are my world! But, you cannot put a price on that. At the moment it's my newly acquired vinyl collection, and it continues to grow weekly. I love music, it's my happy place. I also like to sing so have a lot of fun with a microphone and my collection of vinyl. My brown RM boots are my new fav thing! They're comfortable and a great classic boot. I was gutted when I scratched the front of them. They're not cheap! I also love my acting, my movies, spending time seeing new places, travelling and learning. *I LOVE food! Cooking, trying new tastes, ingredients, recipes, restaurants and cafes.... *The simple pleasures in life are the best. ADVANCEMENT - WHAT AM I GOING TO FOCUS ON IN THE YEARS TO COME? (Goals, plans, ideas) *I am going to continue to focus on Me! I want to write a book about my journey, I want to continue my movement of motivating and educating women in business and entrepreneurship. I want to travel more, stress less, fall in love and continue to build empires! *I am going to take life one day at a time - not plan too far ahead. *Enjoy life now, make the most of the present moment. *Supporting my children as they graduate, find their way in life, have their own children... *Stop pushing myself so damn hard and take the time to smell the roses. Life is too short and we're not going to care on our deathbed how many "things" we had. Hopefully to work for myself doing more creative work and less corporate sell out stuff. *Continue to learn something new and work towards goals. *Peace - for myself, my home, my workplace and the world! NEXT POST: What my birthday twins taught me.. * I began by googling people who were born on 21 September 1978.
The search brought up many different people with this birth date but only a small number of these had contact details. I emailed each of these people to ask if they would consider being a part of my project and several of them replied saying that they would love to help. From various places overseas, they are amazing, talented, influential people from the fashion, T.V, music and movie industries who also juggle roles in family, business and community life. I emailed a list of questions to each and they promptly replied, giving me incredibly personal insights into their lives. As promised I am keeping individual identities anonymous but I am so very grateful to each of these people who opened up to me...a complete stranger from another country!...and shared their lives with me. So finding overseas interviewees was initially quite straightforward. Finding New Zealand interviewees was the opposite! * I contacted Statistics New Zealand and asked for help to find out the number of people born in New Zealand on 21/09/1978. They worked really hard to find out for me (as the records easily available only went back to 1980) and after a bit of research they told me that there were 146 babies born that day. I'm obviously one of them so there are 145 others out there somewhere! * I put a letter to the editor into almost every major newspaper in New Zealand asking for people who had the same D.O.B or knew somebody who did to contact me. This led to the Social Issues Reporter from the N.Z Herald newspaper contacting me for a story. She wrote an amazing article which was then published in newspapers and news sites locally, nationally and internationally. N.Z Herald also kindly offered to take photos and film a video in Auckland to further assist me, I sadly had to decline as I had only recently been to Auckland to celebrate my daughter's 10th birthday and my budget didn't allow another trip but I greatly appreciated the offer and regretted that I could not take it up. The N.Z Herald was amazing, thank you so much :) The story was shared on Facebook and I also tried other avenues to share it including Reddit N.Z news page, a very basic video, emailing links etc. The results were amazing and disappointing. Amazing because I had many New Zealanders contact me to say that they loved what I was doing. They were mostly older people born on 21 September who wished they could help but were born in the wrong year. Thanks to each and every one of you who got in contact, I really appreciated your encouragement and support. However... the 145 remain silent. Where are you all? I would love to hear from even one of you.....Please get in touch :) NEXT POST: What my overseas "birthday twins" shared with me... As part of a personal project I decided to interview as many people as possible who share the same date of birth as myself - 21 September 1978.
I wanted to find out about their achievements, hopes, plans and dreams, any regrets, life lessons learned.... As I approached my 40th birthday (next year 2018) I started to reflect on my own life. This led to thinking about people I went to school with and how life had turned out for them. I then started to think about people who share the exact same date of birth as myself and wondered about their lives. I wanted to know more... I had read about the movie "Google Me" where a man googles people with the same name as himself and then arranges to travel to meet them and interview them about their lives. I thought that I could do a similar thing by trying to get in contact with those who share my birth date and interviewing them via email. My next few blog posts will document this process, the findings and what impact (if any) the findings will have on my own life :) |
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