Christa in New York: Curating a Creative Life: The moment of giving

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

The moment of giving

"Generosity lies less in giving much than in giving at the right moment. — Jean de La Bruyere"

The saying "It's all in the timing" tends to be related to a stroke of good luck, a serendipitous moment that occurs quite by accident with some great fortune attached to it. I am a huge fan of surprises. When I think about acts of kindness that I have experienced in my life, they came in the form of a surprise. My memory of the kindness has nothing to do with the actual gesture, but with the time that the kindness arrived.

My friend, Alex, is a fan of sending cards and little surprises in the mail. She sent me a magnet that I just love when I moved into my new apartment in New York. And she sent me a card during the summer I spent in Atlanta, which was miserable for a variety of reasons. She had no idea how much I needed a smile those days, though her timing was impeccable.

Even a well-timed, unsolicited compliment becomes an act of generosity. Occasionally I change out my picture on my blog or my Facebook page and I am always so touched when someone writes to me to say how much they like the new picture. The same goes for friends of mine who read my blog and reference it to me. I feel so touched when I know they've taken time out of their day to read what I'm thinking and writing about.

Simple phone calls do the trick, too. I am always excited to get a surprise call or voice message from someone I wasn't expecting to hear from, especially when it's not around a holiday or my birthday. I love those cards, emails, and messages that arrive just to say hi, for no reason in particular except to say "hey, I was thinking about you."

As I consider gifts I'll be giving this season I'll be thinking about the experience they create, how much joy they'll generate afterwards and hopefully for a long time to come. And this quote also gave me a third dimension to consider, timing. While the secret to a happy life may be to have low expectations, it may also be that we can generate happiness for others by providing unexpected generosity just when we sense that those around us need it most and expect it least.

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Christa in New York: Curating a Creative Life

My writings are inspired by art, books, travel, and the characters of New York City, a wondrous and turbulent place that I am privileged to call home. In 2009, I wrote a piece every day about something that made me more hopeful. In 2010, I am writing about 365 steps I'm taking to build an extraordinary life.

I have been featured on ABC's national television program 20/20 and Screen Gabber on the subject of social media. I have been quoted in the Wall Street Journal on the subject of social media and the rise of economics blogs during the 2008 / 2009 recession. I interview inspiring entrepreneurs at Examiner and have contributed pieces to Business Week, Rypple, Daily Worth, Owning Pink, and The Journal of Cultural Conversation.

I recently gave a presentation at Hunter College on the subject of Social Media and Popular Elections. The presentation is available via Slideshare.

My Twitter address is http://www.twitter.com/christanyc.

Food for thought...

"Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater." ~ Gail Godwin, American novelist
"Where there is great love there are always miracles." ~ Willa Cather
"Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling." ~ Margaret Lee Runbeck
"Let each man exercise the art he knows." ~ Aristophanes
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." ~Sam Adams
"There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication ... Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing." ~ John Dewey
"Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living." ~ Anais Nin
"Of all the things I have learned in my lifetime, the one with the greatest value is that unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly and most underrated agent of human change." ~ Bob Kerrey
"Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking." ~ Antonio Machado
"Music is an immediate art; it's always happening right now." ~Sam Andrew
"With confidence, you have won before you have started." ~ Marcus Garvey
"He wakes desires you never may forget; he shows you stars you never saw before." ~ Tennyson
"All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." ~ Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
"A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her." ~ David Brinkley, TV newscaster
"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." ~ Howard Thurman
"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." ~ Buddha
"Why is the first question most children ask. With this question we express, to the delight and chagrin of our parents, our power." ~ Andrea Batista Schlesinger
"The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers." ~ Ruth Benedict, American anthropologist
"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way." ~ Babe Ruth
Don't be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week's value out of a year while another man gets a full year's value out of a week. ~ Charles Richards
"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
"It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story." ~ Native American Proverb
"And sometimes it's the very otherness of a stranger, someone who doesn't belong to our ethnic or ideological or religious group, an otherness that can repel us initially, but which can jerk us out of our habitual selfishness, and give us intonations of that sacred otherness, which is God." ~ Karen Armstrong
"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own." ~ Benjamin Disraeli
"Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?" ~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Revolutionary times demand revolutionary projects." ~ Tom Peters
"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity." ~ Louis Pasteur
"The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going." ~David Starr Jordan, ichthyologist and peace activist
"I've always tried to go a step past wherever people expected me to end up." ~Beverly Sills, opera singer
"Wisdom is a habit." ~Aristotle
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." ~ E. F. Schumacher
"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Do not turn back when you are just at the goal." ~ Publilius Syrus, Latin writer of maxims
"Artmaking is making the invisible, visible." ~ Marcel Duchamp
"Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again." ~ L. Frank Baum, author of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"
"We are what we believe we are." ~ C.S. Lewis
You can stand tall without standing on someone ~ Harriet Woods
We must be silent before we can listen. We must listen before we can learn. We must learn before we can prepare. We must prepare before we can serve. We must serve before we can lead. ~ William Arthur Ward
"If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at the people he gave it to." ~ Dorothy Parker
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant. ~ Max DePree
What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. ~ Pericles
A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes
I've read a ton of stuff (such as George Leonard's Mastery) that says successful people--in sports, the arts, biz, and life--are those who most enjoy practice. ~ Tom Peters
Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed. ~ Thomas Moore
Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision. ~ Anthony Robbins
You may be whatever you resolve to be. Determine to be something in the world, and you will be something. "I cannot," never accomplished anything; "I will try," has wrought wonders. ~ J. Hawkes
Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
Let us realize that the privilege to work is a gift, that power to work is a blessing, that love of work is success. ~ David O. McKay
Three keys to more abundant living: caring about others, daring for others, sharing with others. ~ William A. War
For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. ~ Nelson Mandela
Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger. ~ Ben Okri
If care were a stock being offered on the market, it would be a wise commodity to invest in at this time on the planet. Care will soon be on the rise because everything else has been tried. ~ Doc Childre
An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth. ~ Bonnie Friedman.
The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps -- we must step up the stairs. ~ Vance Havner
Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us. ~ Wilma Rudolph
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. ~ Nelson Mandela
Whenever you see darkness, there is extraordinary opportunity for the light to burn brighter. ~ Bono
A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people. ~ Will Rogers, American comedian and humorist
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties. ~Erich Fromm
A problem is a chance for you to do your best. ~ Duke Ellington
Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. ~ Voltaire
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious -- the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. ~ Albert Einstein
If your everyday practice is open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that -- then that will take you as far as you can go. ~ Pema Chodron
The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers. ~Ruth Benedict, American Anthropologist
The years teach much which the days never knew. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever. ~ Henry Drummond
When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life. ~ Greg Anderson
I quit being afraid when my first venture failed and the sky didn't fall down. ~ Allen H. Neharth
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. ~ Hans Hofmann
You’ve got to give the people what they want. ~ Tim Russert
But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing. ~ Thomas Paine
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. ~ Lin Yutang
Meditation will bring you sensitivity, a great sense of belonging to the world. It is our world -- the stars are ours, and we are not foreigners here. We are part of it, we are the heart of it. ~ Osho
The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people. ~ Woodrow Wilson
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. ~ James Oppenheim
The best vision is insight. ~ Malcolm Forbes
Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
Some thing have to be believed to be seen. ~ Ralph Hodgson, English Poet
It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how things are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it. ~ Carl Jung
People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech. ~ Edwin H. Friedman
What flatterers say, try to make true. ~ German Proverb
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust
Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! ~ Dr. Seuss
When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened." ~ Alexander Graham Bell, American Inventor
If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse". ~ Henry Ford
I thought I was in the business of transporting goods and then I realized I was in the business of peace of mind. ~ Fred Smith, Fedex
The difficulty in life is the choice. ~ George Moore, The Bending of the Bough
Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live. ~ Jackie Windspear
Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting. ~ William Arthur Ward
I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. ~ Martha Washington
"From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free." ~ Jacques Cousteau
"Pleasure is the only thing to live for. Nothing ages like happiness." ~ Oscar Wilde
"The greatest danger to our future is apathy." Jane Goodall
"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today." ~ FDR
"The waiting is the hardest part." ~ Tom Petty
"To play it safe is not to play." ~ Robert Altman
"Write it on your heart that each day is the best day of the year." ~Emerson
A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others. ~Author Unknown
A moment of insight is worth a lifetime of experience. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen
Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries. ~ John Albert Michener
Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. ~ Thomas Merton
Have nothing in your houses that do not know to be useful, or believe to be beatiful. ~ William Morris
Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a mater of opportunity. ~ Hippocrates
Heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen. A quest may not simply be abandoned; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever; a happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story. ~ Peter S. Beagle
I am a great believer in luck. And I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. ~Thomas Jefferson
I touch the future. I teach. ~ Christa McAuliffe
If you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright
Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple. ~ Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
It is incontestable that music induces in us a sense of the infinite and the contemplation of the invisible. ~ Victor de LaPrade
It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else. ~ Erma Bombeck
Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns. ~ Anonymous
Life has been your art. ~ Oscar Wilde
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. ~ Anais Nin
Once our personal connection to what is wrong becomes clear, then we have to choose: we can go on as before, recognizing our dishonesty and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort to change the way we think and live. ~ Wendell Berry
One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. ~ A.A. Milne, author of Winnie-the-Pooh
One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?" ~ Rachel Carson
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone." ~ Audrey Hepburn
The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it. -- Richard Bach
The best way to predict the future is to create it. -- Alan Kay
The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention. ~ Julia Cameron
The first duty of love is to listen. ~ Paul Tillich
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. - Eleanor Roosevelt
The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been. ~ Madeleine L'Engle
The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves. ~ Lawrence G. Lovasik
The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves. ~ Joseph Campbell
The only real voyage consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes; in seeing the universe through the eyes of another, one hundred others -- in seeing the hundred universes that each of them sees. ~ Marcel Proust
The pioneers get the arrows. The settlers get the land. ~ Unknown
The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are, first, hard work; second, stick-to-itiveness; third, common sense." ~ Thomas Edison
The three rules of work: Out of clutter, create simplicity, from discord, find harmony, and in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. ~ Albert Einstein
There are three ingredients to the good life - learning, earning, and yearning. ~ Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels
This is about profound and unsettling changes. There's nothing we French love more than a good revolution. ~ Maurice Levy
Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind, the second is to be kind, and the third is to be kind. ~ Henry James
Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. ~ Denis Waitel
To fly, we have to have resistance. ~ Maya Lin, architect
We have met the enemy and he is us. ~ Walt Kelly, creator of Pogo comic strip
We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. ~ Joseph Campbell
What is truer than truth? The story. ~ Jewish proverb as told by Isabel Allende at TED
What you truly acknowledge truly is yours. Invite your heart to be grateful and your thank yous will be heard even when you don't use words. ~Pavithra Mehta
When it's all over, I want to say: All my life I was a bride married to amazement. ~ Mary Oliver, Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet
When the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, it may be that they take better care of it there. ~ Cecil Selig
When you are through changing, you are through. ~ Bruce Barton
You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants. ~ Stephen King
“Celebrate what you want to see more of.” --Thomas J. Peters
“This is about profound and unsettling changes. There’s nothing we French love more than a good revolution.” – Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis Group
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle
“You can’t improvise on nothing, man.” – Charles Mingus, jazz great (relating to the value of constraints on creativity)

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

The moment of giving

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Christa in New York: Curating a Creative Life

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