My Year of Hopefulness - Prepare Yourself

"Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world." ~ George Bernard Shaw

For the past few months, I've been thinking about preparedness. For whatever reason, my life has taken some unexpected, wonderful turns that I didn't expect during this time. And for some other reasons that I don't fully I understand, I have been prepared for them. Ready to raise my hand, ready to make time in my life to pursue these new opportunities, ready to be surprised.

We owe it to ourselves to be able to accept and relish happy circumstances. And I have found more often than not that happiness largely depends on our desire to be happy. My friend, Kelly, and I love to quote the movie Say Anything when John Cusack says, "how hard is it to just decide to be in a good mood and then be in a good mood?" If we keep ourselves always looking up, aiming high, and seeking good fortune, then we at least have a decent shot at living a life that's good, honest, and worthwhile.

This life requires that we be prepared for things to go our way. We spend so much time preparing for disaster, disappointment, and hardship. I've spent a lot of my life hoping for the best and expecting the worst. But what if I spent even a small amount of time at least anticipating if not expecting the best outcome? These last few months have taught me that the best of times can be upon us now, even when many world circumstances look so bleak. While the world may not be clean and bright, our attitude and outlook can be, and perhaps that intention is enough to change not only our own circumstances, but the circumstances of those whose lives we touch.

The image above can be found at: http://lh4.ggpht.com/_wZoiN6j9b2k/R0s8rN24ETI/AAAAAAAAALc/57869_Jfv9E/100_3377.JPG

My Year of Hopefulness - Know Where You're Going

"The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going."
~ David Starr Jordan, ichthyologist and peace activist

I have come across a slew of powerful quotes recently. This quote by David Starr Jordan is one that had special meaning for me this week. I have been considering a number of different new business ventures, cranking along in my writing, and moving ahead with projects that have been in the queue for a while. This week I started to notice that while I am extremely busy, I'm in a groove. The world seemed to remove all obstacles from my path and allowed me to pass through with ease. And more than once, I noticed that a happy coincidence and helpful resources presented themselves. I've even found my typical junk mail helpful!

Nothing has recently changed in my life. I make the same amount of money, have the same skill sets, know the same people. So how did I cross over? How has life managed to somehow get easier as of late?

For one thing, I am asking for help, input, and advice with greater frequency. This is not something that's easy for me. I pride myself on being tremendously self-sufficient. However, the projects I'm most excited about at the moment require expertise beyond my own knowledge. And therefore, necessitate my reaching out. I've been blown away by the willingness of others to help me.

I've also noticed my confidence, in my writing and in my business ideas, has also grown. I've been playing 'fake it until I make it', and guess what? It works. My years of writing and developing idea, products, and services is paying off as I cross over form being a novice with an interest to someone with concrete experience and tangible work to show for my efforts.

Finally, I know where I'm going, making me more aware of the help that has been around me all along. I'm on the path to starting my own company, and I know what I want it to look like and how I want it to function. Knowing where I'm going has made articulating my vision and values much clearer, to myself and to everyone else. It might be a long and winding road, though it's much easier to keep going when the world provides its encouragement and assistance.

My Year of Hopefulness - Awareness

"The art of awareness is the art of learning how to wake up to the eternal miracle of life with its limitless possibilities." ~ Wilfred Peterson

Today, I was painfully unaware. I tripped out of my shoes twice on my way to work, had to go back into my house after getting halfway down the block because I realized I forgot my wallet, and by 4:00pm I wondered where on Earth the day went. I was hopeful this morning that a night of sleep had lifted my fog. Not today.

Bringing awareness to our lives amid tough circumstances is difficult. People insulate themselves from pain by building their own little world to live in. For a short time, that's helpful. But as Ani DiFranco said, "Self-preservation is a full-time occupation," and we can't live in our own world on a full-time basis. If we want to survive and thrive, we eventually have to join the rest of the human race, aware of circumstances all around us, most of which are far beyond our control.

So how do we wake up without being scared half to death? The world is tough, especially now, and being aware can be terrifying. How can we curb the anxiety induced by being completely conscious of what's going on around us? Even the idea of limitless possibilities can be overwhelming.

Here's what I do to get back my awareness while also keeping myself calm:

1.) I focus on my breathe, my heartbeat, and the movement of my joints - things I typically don't pay attention to. Recognizing the effort it takes to keep these things going makes me feel stronger.

2.) Consider that while there are limitless possibilities for my life, there are only certain things that I am good at and that I enjoy. If I overlay these two things over all the possibilities available to me, the list shrinks dramatically to a manageable number of options.

3.) Remember that many options are better than none.

4.) The flip side of awareness is ignorance, and ignorance is the thing I hate most in the world. I'd rather be aware and scared than ignorant and thoughtless.

5.) Those in history who have truly had an impact on the world are those who are keenly aware. My desire to have an impact is incredibly strong, and if the way to impact is awareness then I must take that road. My wish to make a difference is stronger than any of my fears.

"Man can touch more than he can grasp." ~ Gabriel Marcel

We have a very short time on this planet. While we might think that 80 or 90 years sounds like such a long time, in reality it is the bat of an eye when considering the length of history. In our lifetimes, we'll see and take part in many different experiences with many different people in many different places. And while we might have the instinct to take part in any and every way that we can, we just can't. We have to choose where and how and on whom to spend our time and energy.

Where will we have the most impact? Where will we find the most joy? Do we care about life-long learning or is it connection with others that is most important to us? These types of questions are critical for us to consider and answer when we think about what we'd like to do with our time here.

There are millions of ways for us to make a difference - there are so many places, people, and things that will somehow enter our lives. The only question we really have to answer is, "which experiences we will witness and let pass and which are the ones that are we will hang onto for longer than a moment?"

My Year of Hopefulness - Trade-offs

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars. --Henry Van Dyke

A friend of mine recently lost his father and as we talked about loss, we delved into the topic of trade-offs. It's part of life to enjoy good, happy times for a while. And yet somewhere in the back of our minds, we are conscious of the fact that these moments are fleeting. Part of experiencing life, and love, and a connection to others also requires us to have the ability to let go. It's an odd and scary thing if we think about it too long, so it usually comes to us as a passing thought, and then we send it away.

I used to have a very hard time dealing with the loss of someone. It seemed so unfair to me to have someone we love taken away. Was it really worth it to feel a connection to people? Did it make sense to spend so much of our very brief time on this planet cultivating relationships with others that eventually fall away, for one reason or another.

Many years ago, a friend of mine was dealing with the loss of his grandfather. Knowing how much he loved his grandfather and how close he was to him, I expressed my extreme sympathy for his loss. And without a tear in his eye or a choked up feeling in his throat, he said, "Please don't be sorry. I'm not." I just couldn't understand. How on Earth could he not be sorry?

"I had this amazing person in my life for so many years. I was so lucky to know that kind of love and closeness to someone for so long. He taught me an amazing amount throughout my whole life that I'm able to pass on to others. He was such a gift and I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to have him in my life."

I think about this conversation every time I or someone I care about must deal with losing someone. It's so hard to imagine letting go, and I find that emphasizing the gift of their presence in our lives for however long we have them eases the sadness. It doesn't eliminate the sadness and it doesn't betray the person's memory. It just helps us keep perspective, and we helps us to begin to understand that it is all worth. The cultivation of relationships is what this life we live is all about. They are the very essence of human experience.

GEL2008 - making time for special moments

There are a pile of posts just waiting to be written about my experience at the GEL conference. They will be coming shortly. There are a few points that I think are worth making in a separate post.

I have never been to this type of conference - it's not focused on a particular industry, but a particular aspect of every industry. Good (G) Experience (E) Live (L). From the first female film maker in the UAE to the Chief Innovation Officer at the Cleveland Clinic to a Brew Master, this conference was filled with speakers and participants that are all interested in making time for and creating special moments for employees, for customers, and inspiring others by reaching out and sharing the stories. This is particularly interesting to me because of my early career in theatre, which was very much focused on experience and taking people out of their element by sharing a story with them.

The first day of GEL2008 was filled with different activities to choose from - I chose the game of Werewolf and a trip to a farmstead cheese farm in NJ. And then Day 2 had a slate of speakers, most of whom I had never heard of. I walked away inspired and energized. I felt like the creativity of the world was buzzing all around me. It was empowering, and made me believe that there is no end to the extent of the work and impact that impassioned people can have.

Posts to come on the speakers...stay tuned.

If I were Proust

I am a devote Vanity Fair reader. My favorite feature in the magazine is the Proust Questionnaire put to a variety of celebrities. http://pagesperso-orange.fr/chabrieres/proustquestionnaire.html is a link to an on-line version. Give it a go! Below are my answers:

Your most marked characteristic?
The fact that I am so tiny in stature and yet so large in personality

The quality you most like in a man?
Courage, the ability to laugh at himself, intelligence, and concern for others - people and animals

The quality you most like in a woman?
The ability to carve her own path and not allow others to put her into a box she does not want to be in

What do you most value in your friends?
honesty, loyalty, and humor

What is your principle defect?
I am incapable of hiding my feelings regardless of situation

What is your favorite occupation?
Writing

What is your dream of happiness?
Life-long love

What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes?
To die with the music still in you

What would you like to be?
A world adventurer

In what country would you like to live?
Any one with a government that has respect for life as its guiding principle

What is your favorite color?
Green

What is your favorite flower?
Lillies, sunflowers, and lilacs

What is your favorite bird?
Hummingbird

Who are your favorite prose writers?
Those brave enough to tell their stories with honesty and grace, without ego or self-pity

Who are your favorite poets?
Frost, Emily Dickinson, Maya Angelou

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?
Harry Potter

Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
Alice from Alice in Wonderland and through the Looking Glass

Who are your favorite composers?
Nino Rota and Vivaldi

Who are your favorite painters?
The French Impressionists, Brian Andreas, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Johannes Vermeer, Alexander Calder, Joan Miró, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Picasso

Who are your heroes in real life?
Those who meet life with an exuberance that benefits humanity

What is it you most dislike?
dishonesty, irresponsibility, laziness, and those who take advantage of the kindness of others

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
To freeze time so I can enjoy happy moments for just a bit longer

How would you like to die?
Happy

What is your present state of mind?
Forward-looking

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
inability to resist chocolate-covered donuts

What is your motto?
There is no time like the present

The picture above can be found at http://www.mercantilelibrary.org/groups/images/Marcel-Proust-1.jpg

Learning from Charlie Wilson

Christmas night I went to see Charlie Wilson’s War with my mom. We both loved the movie. All of the Golden Globe nominations are quite well-deserved. The most poignant point in the film came at the very end with a quote that helped me to apply the lessons of Charlie Wilson to my own life.

After all is said and done, Charlie Wilson is credited with saying, “These things happened. They were glorious and they changed the world. Then we f***ed up the endgame.” He’s right. The United States spent about $500,000,000, and then matched by the Saudis for a combined totally of $1 billion to aid the mujaheddin and defeat the Soviets. Once the Soviets were defeated, the country of Afghanistan was in shambles. We could scrape together half a billion dollars for ammunition and weapons though we couldn’t come up with $1 million dollars to build schools. As a result, the young population of Afghanistan grew poorer and angrier. The result was what we see today, and try as we might to deny it, we are at the very least partially to blame. We cared about winning the battle though not about winning the war, and as a result, we’re still fighting. The seeds of our problems today in that area of the world were planted by our own actions in the 1980's.

This quote at the end of the movie made me consider how I look at situations in my own life when I put up so much energy and effort at the start and then question whether or not to put forward another small amount to complete a job in the best way possible. I am in no way suggesting that any aspect of my life is even remotely close in gravity to what the U.S. faced in the situation that the movie captures. That would be absurd.

What’s worth considering is whether or not we consciously acknowledge that we are in the game for the long haul. Are we willing to see a project through to completion to make sure that it is done as well as possible? Are willing to do what it takes to protect our investment of time, effort, and heart? If yes, then proceed. And if not, then maybe it’s best to not even begin and place our energies elsewhere.

The photo above can be found at http://www.worstpreviews.com/images/photos/charliewilsonswar/charliewilsonswar3.jpg

Get down to wise up

"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer." - Albert Einstein

We spend most of our life dashing around, especially during the holiday season. Parties, meetings, errands, and the endless circuit of email to phone to internet to TV and back again. I’m not convinced that this dexterity at multi-tasking is a good thing. Of course, I say this as I eat my lunch, read a magazine, check my email, and write this blog post. There are numerous scientific reports being released now with the theory that multi-tasking is ruining our ability to think clearly.

We look to people like Einstein as a genius, and to be sure, he was. I do not in any way mean to take anything away from him. I am a great admirer of his works, and have read several biographies on him. When I was 18 I wanted to go to Princeton so I could somehow develop my own inner-Einstein in the very place where he did so much important work.

In all of his glory, he has these quotes like the one above that just bowl me over. Was Einstein brilliant because of his enhanced natural ability? He claimed no. He took the time to wrestle with problems and complications in the world around him, and then formulated ways to make sense of them. Literally, when he came across a problem, he sat down (or went on one of his famous walks) and thought. Toward the end of his life, he hired a scribe to follow him on his walks and jot down things he’d mutter to himself so that he could later sit with the notebook and piece together the thoughts.

I’m not suggesting we run out and hire scribes. One, it’s probably prohibitively expensive, and two, it just looks plain weird unless you are some recognized genius like Einstein. What we can do is sit down and breathe. In our rush to do everything quick quick quick, onto the next thing, hurry up, we gotta go, my to-do list is growing every millisecond, etc. we are losing perspective. We are losing our ability to reason and thinking through challenges and choices.
We all have an inner-Einstein. The question is whether or not we will take the time to listen to him.

The picture above can be found at http://www.brainboomer.com/.

Get your head in the clouds

I spend about 8 hours on my computer, and roughly 10% of that time belongs to some Google application. I stand in awe of a system that can pull up exactly what I'm looking for, regardless of how obscure the subject, in a fraction of a second. Until today, I had resigned myself to the fact that there was some magic Google elf pulling the info for me. I have confirmed that not only is there an elf, there could actually be a million of them out there in the Googlesphere, known increasingly as a "cloud".

While it focuses on Google and one engineer's story, Business Week's cover story this week talks broadly about how our information world is increasingly being built upon this idea of clouds, a group of hundreds of thousands of computers that are all bolted together to store massive quantities of data. While many companies are struggling this holiday season to stay afloat, Google is contemplating world domination of information. Their mantra can be described as "Whatever you can dream, dream it bigger." Imagine being at a company that tells you you're wildest dreams are too small, and that you need to formulate projects that are far more outlandish than even your wildest expectations.

There is a lesson in this wild dream making: every dream can be broken down into very small pieces that can be handled by individual "cloud elves" and then aggregated to get you exactly to where you need to be, all in about half a second. And there is no finite number of tasks. The possibilities are truly endless.

While many companies are in the mode of tempering expectations, pulling in spending, and plummeting morale this holiday season, Google is doing the exact opposite. They are determined to fly high and make sense of the massive amount of knowledge out there. They are so optimistic about what they are capable of accomplishing that they feel these clouds may ultimately push the limits of human imagination. Talk about a tipping point! We have been told for centuries that the human imagination is the most powerful tool on Earth - is it possible that when we pool our imaginations together, we can build something larger than our own sense of creativity?

One last astonishing thing about Google. In all of its success and dreaming, they maintain a public humility that is staggering. They are absolutely fearless when it comes to failure so long as there is learning involved. Their CEO, arguably one of the most powerful and wealthiest men on the planet, sits in a cubicle and moves around from building to building so as to interact with different people at all levels of the organization. And he responds to emails from people at all levels at a unbelievable rate. He is respectful of people's time, both on and off the job. With someone like this at the helm, it's no wonder that Google believes in defying limits.

The Business Week article can be found at http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_52/b4064048925836.htm?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories

The picture above can be found at http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/07_52/B4064magazine.htm

Something is blooming in the state of Denmark

I work for a toy company and we are always watching what's happening in Denmark, mostly because there is such a rich history of play there, spurred on by a little company called Lego. Toys aren't the only innovations they're making. There's something so wonderful happening in the world of business education in Denmark that it almost makes me want to go start my own b-school based on this model.

On one of the Business Week blogs, I learned about Anne Kirah and the 180°academy, a business school that seeks to mesh creative thinking, design, and business in one curriculum. Kirah is convinced that this approach will help keep the Danish economy in tip top competitive shape. And Kirah is very convincing.

The 180°academy's goal is simple: innovation. She argues that doing what we know best won't help us be better tomorrow. The whole idea is to break people of their comfort zones so that they can be comfortable anywhere in any situation. Kirah herself is an anthropologist by training, and as such is incredibly focused on human behavior patterns and cultural shifts. Best of all, she is able to apply what she's observing in order to monetize it to a business's advantage.

The school has corporate buy-in at the very highest levels. They believe in value of foreign immersion throughout the education process. For about half the cost of an American education and asks the each student commit to conducting an innovation project at their employer using all of the tools taught to them in the program. Kirah is concerned with having a complete mash-up for a student body and a faculty. She believes in bringing together as diverse a population as possible in order to have them draw on one another's talents.

Very simply, Kirah is changing the paradigm of business school education. She is innovating to the extreme. She thinks different and as a result, may help all of us in business think different.

Take a look at the full article: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/dec2007/id2007125_072960.htm?chan=innovation_innovation+%2B+design_innovation+strategy

Words on the street

I am fascinated by language. My dad spoke six of them. While I didn’t inherit his ability to learn language, as is evidenced by my sad attempts at French, I did inherit a love of hearing different languages and dialects. I particularly enjoy studying how a language truly shapes a culture and national behavior patterns. And the dynamism of language allows it to reflect societal trends.

It’s no wonder that my recent discovery of Urban Dictionary, http://www.urbandictionary.com/ , brought a smile to my face. The more tech-saavy readers of this blog will think that I just now have emerged from the dark ages. I fear that this is proof that my long, slow slide from hip, urban chick to crusty old broad may have finally begun. Nevertheless, I think this may also be a new find for some of you, or a refresher of knowledge gained long ago, so it is worthwhile to post the link.

Those out of the know may be asking, “So what is this urban dictionary all about?” It is a slang dictionary that is based on user-generated definitions. Literally, it is helping to define this quickly evolving world around us. And then there is a feature that allows the community members to vote on the definitions added. For example, "wOOt" is top of mind on Urban Dictionary today. It means “an expression of joy”. 3106 people give this definition a thumbs up. 565 shot it down.

The other cool feature that I love is that community members are recording the history of these words. From many definitions, we can learn where words come from, their original use, and how they’ve been adapted to become more main stream. So not only is this a dictionary, it is an anthropological history book. I’m so excited about this, it’s hard for me to sit still!

"WOOt" was recently voted word of the year for 2007 by the dictionary gurus at Merriam-Webster. Facebook was the runner up. In years past words like “google” and “blog” have received the top word honor – not a bad track record as these words are now commonplace in daily conversations. Is "wOOt" destined for this type of fame and recognition? Unclear. But it’s found its place in the American lexicon and I’m all for anything, or any word for that matter, that spreads joy.

Have a Good Experience

I recently attended the book launch of "The Landmark Herodotus", a new edition of the ancient text edited by Robert Strassler. The event was put on by Good Experience, the dynamic duo of Mark Hurst and Phil Terry. I joined the reading group to get through this text, which begins in March, and was recently poking around on Mark's blog: www.goodexperience.com/blog.

I'm recommending the blog to all my friend for good reason: it provides concise, well-written information that helps you become more aware of your own experience and the experiences you create for others. In this effort, Mark is incredibly generous in providing kudos to companies and people who are entrenched in the pursuit of good experience and delivering results.

One such find is his post "Three websites to be thankful for" which includes links to http://www.freerice.com/ and http://www.dailygood.org/. One is a trivia game that helps in world anti-hunger efforts and the other is a daily post of good news happening in the world. Both are home runs. I hope you'll check them out, and log into Mark's blog!

Disconnect / Reconnect

Disconnect / Reconnect

My Darden email address is being deactivated tomorrow. I didn’t anticipate the emotion that would come along with this. I took my laptop to the helpdesk and Randy helped me to back up all my old files and emails and then I went off of the domain. The background picture on my laptop changed to a generic windows photo of that grassy knoll. I got the chance, again, to start over. A new electronic slate.

There have been other last minute errands to do as I disconnect and prepare to leave Charlottesville. I went to Comcast Cable and turned in the form to take my name off of the account. I’ve taken down all of the pictures from my walls. I’ve rented a mini-van to drive my things to a storage unit that I’ll rent as I search for my own apartment. Couch is gone, bed is gone, and dining table and chairs are gone. Even the rugs and bookshelves have been sold. A new slate at home.

Soon the pictures of our class that have been in the hallway for two years will be taken down and replaced with those from the class of 2009. Our mailbox name tags will be tossed away. Someone else will be renting our home and living in my sunny bedroom. I went to JavaJava today, my favorite coffee shop in town, and saw the owner. He asked me to please find my replacement so that he could keep the steady stream of income I’ve provided to him for the past two years. I said I’d do my best. I’ve had to say “good-bye” and “see you later” to friends every day as their leases run out and they begin their journeys to new homes in new places across the world.

The Ying and Yang movement of the world even applies to moving. So as I say good-bye, give away belongings, change over accounts, I am setting up new connections. A new roommate for the summer as I rent my friend Anne’s sublet. The opportunity to see friends of mine back in New York that have not been a part of my daily life for years now. I’ll see my family more – my main motivation for moving to New York. One of my professors has made a connection for me with a theatre producer in New York that I have never worked with. I have coffee meetings with friends of friends who are also relocating to New York. And I’ll be back in my city, the only place I have ever felt at home. While it may be different in many respects – new restaurants, stores, high rises – so much of it stays the same. My friend, Nathan, upon seeing New York for the first time last fall was fascinated by it because of its many icons that he had only previously seen on TV or in movies. These icons are old friends to me – comforting familiarities as everything else around me changes.

I sold my dining table and chairs at a deep discount to an interesting woman who saw my posting on Craig’s List. She just bought her first home. She and her boyfriend of 7 years have just separated. As they were separating households she looked around and realized that none of the big items in the home, furniture, etc. were hers. She had spent almost 7 years living among someone else’s things. We figured out a way to strap the dining table to her car’s roof rack and she drove off with it to her new life.

I gave my bed away to a woman in Charlottesville who was coming home from Iraq and she had no money to set up a bedroom for him. We maneuvered the mattress set down my narrow, windy stairway and with the help of a friend’s pick-up truck, she was able to have the beginnings of a room for her son as he readjusted to his new life.

As we clean out remnants of our old life, other people can use those pieces to create something new for themselves. I’m excited to see what remnants I will find in New York, what people I will meet, that will help me to build something new as I disconnect, somewhat, from one place, and reconnect to my old home.

Quick Conversations

Why does a burning platform need to emerge before we adopt change? I wish it didn’t take life altering events to help me get my priorities in order. I wish I could always find what Alec Horniman, one of my professors, calls “a clearly perceived better way.”

I am always amazed how the shortest conversations have the most incredible impacts. I spoke to my mother recently and the conversation went something like this:
“Well, I’m glad everything’s going well.”
“Thanks, Mom. I’m going to run into Mellow Mushroom to play trivia and eat some pizza.”
“Okay. I just wanted to tell you one more thing…..They found some abnormal cells in my mammogram.”
“Are they going to test them to find out what is abnormal about them?”
“They already know what “It” is.”
(Long pause)
“Are you telling me you have breast cancer?”
“That’s what “It” is.”

I capitalize “It” here for a reason – I have a lot of respect for cancer, for its power to change how we look at the world. I can’t think of a six letter word that has ever had a more immediate effect on me. There have only been a handful of situations that have truly altered the way I perceive my future – 3 to be exact. This one tops the list.

I blinked, and my life was different. In that moment, I had no words despite my usual gift of gab. My only thought was, “I want my life to go back to the way it was less than a minute ago.” I know now that it never will.

Yes, I will worry more. Though I idolize mother for her strength and courage, I am forced to recognize that she is not immortal. However, I have found that there are many more good things than bad that come from this situation. I will be more grateful for time with my mother. I will criticize less and praise more. I will forgive and forget in a way that I have never been able to before. I will be even more conscious of how short life is, of how important it is to do what I love everyday – in both my personal and professional life.

I have set a record for the number of times I have apologized to friends and family for not returning their calls or emails more quickly. My excuse is always, “I just don’t have time.” In actuality, I do have time. We all have time; we just make choices about on what and on whom to spend it.

It is as if my life has permanently found a home under a magnifying glass – everything, the good and the bad, are amplified. The highs higher and the lows lower. Maybe this is better than simply existing in a world that is even-keeled. Those highs and lows do make the game more interesting.

My friends have been incredibly supportive, and I am very grateful for them. Their obvious first question is always, “Is your mom going to be okay?” Usually I answer, “I hope so.” The other answer, the one that’s almost always impossible to articulate is, “I don’t know.” Truthfully, we never know. From one moment to the next, life twists and turns in ways we never expect, and often does so at break-neck speed. I blinked, and my life was different. And that’s not always bad. Things that don’t scare you to death will scare you to life.

Dear Terrified Adults

Dear Terrified Adults

My Uncle Tom always tells me if I’m not in debt and not afraid at least 50% of the time then I’m not doing enough with my life. Whether or not that’s true, it’s been a great comfort to me since I’ve been in debt for over a decade now, and have spent far more than 50% of that time afraid of all sorts of things.

Often what I fear and what I believe I fear are different things. I always thought I was afraid of swimming because I was afraid I’d lose control somehow and drown. I like to splash around (as long as my feet can touch the bottom) and I like being near the ocean, a lake, or a river. I’m not afraid of swimming; I’m afraid of being incapable of swimming; I’m afraid of uncertainty.

Think of all the things I can’t do because I can’t swim! 75% of the world’s surface is under water. If I never learn to swim, and never learn to scuba dive, I’ll miss out on exploring ¾ of the world. If I don’t learn to swim, I’ll never be able to do a triathlon. I’ll never learn how to surf. I’ll never get to be a trainer for a day at Sea World. In August, I decided I had to get out there and conquer this fear.

When I signed up for a beginning swimming class, I expected to meet an Olympic look-alike swim instructor who wouldn’t understand my lack of natural swimming ability. Instead, I met Karla, a woman who’s at once scrappy and incredibly supportive. She’s been teaching swimming for 50 years and proudly boasts, “I haven’t had a student fail yet.” My mother always said I was one-of-a-kind; let’s hope I don’t ruin Karla’s record. “I teach the terrified adult class, levels 1 and 2,” Karla said to me at registration. “How do I know which level I’m in?” I ask. “That all depends. How terrified are you?” “I get a little nervous in water more than 5 feet deep,” I say. “Yep, you’re a terrified adult, level 1. But don’t worry, I can fix that,” says Karla with her smiley, grandmotherly eyes. I’m to report to the AFC pool the following Wednesday, goggles and personal injury waiver in hand. “And don’t be late.”

On Wednesday, there’s a giant sign on the locker room door that reads: “Dear TERRIFIED ADULT swimmers (to be) – DO NOT SHOWER, we start swimming on dry land!?%#$!?? See you in the classroom by the pool. Karla”

I arrive at the classroom, and watch the swimmers intently. My heart’s racing. Karla’s right – I AM a terrified adult. Look at all these people, paddling along as if they were born to do this. It looks so easy for them. Why isn’t it easy for me? Why am I so scared?

At that time I didn’t realize that I had already done the scariest part of this process and I hadn’t even touched the water yet. I signed up to do something that I may very well fail at, all under the watchful eyes of dozens of other people enjoying the pool. I was risking public humiliation, failing to learn to do something that a five year old does without even thinking about it. I realized that ‘fessing up to fear is a lot harder than conquering the fear itself.

I’ve been working with Karla and six other terrified adult classmates for a few weeks now, and this past Wednesday for the first time in my life I swam properly, breast stroke, frog kick, with my head under water. I’ve graduated to what Karla calls the “moderately terrified adult class”, level 2. I took the sign off the locker room door from that first night of class and taped it up at home near my desk to remind me to face up to fear more often.

Our finest hour often comes out of moments of fear and disappointment. We’re conditioned to think that success, and doing things we’re naturally good at, brings out our best self. I disagree. Our best self comes shining through when we are most alive, and we are most alive when we have much to lose and yet we forge ahead anyway – head on into that fear and uncertainty. We emerge from the other side stronger, healthier people for having faced up to what frightens us. In the spirit of continuous (self) improvement, I’m making a pact to do things more often that scare the hell out of me.

A Sense of Place

A Sense of Place

May 20th would have been my grandmother’s 88th birthday so my Darden graduation on that date has a dual-significance for me: it is the celebration of my greatest academic accomplishment and of a woman whom I consider to be my greatest teacher. She was born Sarah Louise Gagliardi, though I knew her as Sadie Lupinacci. She was born to blue collar immigrant parents on Barber Street in Hartford, Connecticut. She was a life-long employee of Traveler’s Insurance Company. She had two children: my mother, Sandy, and my uncle, Tom. She was married to my grandfather, Alfonso Lupinacci, for over 40 years until his untimely death in 1982. They were childhood sweethearts and grew up around the corner from one another. She led an ordinary life. Nothing extravagant. Nothing extraordinary.

Yet she was an extraordinary person – the kindest, most loving person I have ever known. She had a remarkable sense of forgiveness and an endless supply of support for those she loved. When anyone asks me what kind of person I aspire to be, I consider that I wish to love and be loved the way my grandmother was, and still is. She came from so little, and I have so much which is why I feel a tremendous amount of gratitude for the opportunity to be a part of this community and this graduating class.

I came to Darden to attain traditional financial skills because that was a clear hole in my resume. This was the explicit learning. While I was able to reach this goal, there were implicit learnings that I did not expect to find which are just as valuable, if not more. I learned about the idea of lifting as we rise, that there is so much more satisfaction in climbing the ladder with people we admire and care about along aside us rather than climbing over others and being alone.

I spent a lot of time here considering the idea of happiness, of accomplishment. Defining it, setting benchmarks, reflecting on what’s working in my life and what’s not, and then taking on the responsibility to change, even when that change is painful or frightening. And I am continually reminded of the idea that what we wish to have in our own lives we set about attaining by providing that very thing for someone else. So if it is happiness we seek, we can begin to have it by providing happiness for another. The same goes for success, personal and professional, for peace of mind, for friendship, and, as my grandmother showed me, for love.

I learned how devastating it can be to think I’m on a road that I built going one way, and all of a sudden the bottom falls out and I end up on a path I never knew existed and probably would not have chosen by my own volition. Surprisingly, I learned to love the new road, and even became grateful that the Universe presented it to me. Resiliency and the ability to see possibility in all opportunities are great blessings that I found here.

And most importantly, I learned about the power of place. I have a friend who talks about the metaphor of a great vein of life running just beneath the Earth’s surface. Sometimes we come upon physical places that have special significance though we cannot pinpoint the underlying reason for that feeling. She says that at those points, the vein of life emerges for us to grab a hold of and experience an intensity of emotion that we do not find in the course of our everyday lives. The places where the vein emerges makes us feel alive; make us feel connected to one another and at cause with the world around us. Darden has been one of those places for me, and I hope it has been for everyone who has the privilege to call this beautiful place home, even just for a little while. I look forward to returning again and again in the years to come, and I am so excited to see how our lives unfold, intertwine, and connect.