Step 4: The Gift of a Fallen Branch

"Use the talents you possess - for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except for the best." ~ Henry Van Dyke

In that tangled tree diagram of life options, I had assumed that my life would unfold a certain way this week. Instead, the option I considered least likely came to be. The trouble, or perhaps the beauty, is that this unlikely branch is entirely under-developed. Beginning today, I get to imagine a future I didn't think I'd have just yet.

Brian and I talked tonight about the idea of prana, the intelligent undercurrent of energy that makes itself at home beneath of the narrative of our lives. In times of authenticity, that current supports our actions. When we're acting against our nature, living our lives to a lesser extent than what's possible, our prana breaks through, making room in the world for our true selves to emerge. Try as we might to suppress it, our prana will not be kept down for long. Eventually, we will have no choice but to live our lives to the fullest. We have to show up in the world and be everything we are capable of being.

I was willing to take the other branch, to remain in a holding pattern that would delay where I really want my life to go. Today the universe took that option away. No more delays allowed. Sometimes not getting what we wish for is the best gift we can receive.

The photo above is not my own. It can be found here.

My Year of Hopefulness - Spirit on Bone

"Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don't want it. What appears bad manners, an ill temper, or cynicism, is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone." ~ Miller Williams

I was struck by the last line of this quote by Miller Williams because it relates perfectly to a situation that a friend of mine encountered this week. My friend was in town for a business meeting, and when he went to say good-bye to his boss, his boss pulled out a holiday gift and card for him. The card detailed everything he admired about my friend, and given my friend's talents, I am sure that the list of admirable qualities was long. The oddest thing about this encounter is that my friend's boss never gives Christmas presents, never says what he admires about others, and would be hard pressed to give anyone a heart-felt compliment unless there was some personal gain to be had from doing so.

My friend's boss was saying good-bye with this gift and card. It appears that his boss's time is up at their company, and parting is a difficult thing for someone who thought he was playing the game by all the right rules. He probably was; the trouble is that with this economy the ground shifts so quickly, and with it the game and subsequent rules change as well. It's just that no one tells you when a change has occurred. My friend's boss learned this lesson the hard way.

For about a year, I've been upset with my friend's boss. He's been manipulative and cruel, someone who took some kind of sad, sick pleasure in making someone else feel small. He was the consummate bad cop. Now, I'm not so sure. Maybe that bad cop was a front. Maybe there was always a good guy underneath that tough veneer. Maybe there was a heart there all along.

I guess we never really know what's going on inside someone's mind and soul. All we truly know are their actions and words. I suspect that my friend's boss was motivated by fear, and that caused him to behave so badly for so long. Now his number's up, and he's regretting some of his actions and words, wishing he could change them and knowing that it is far too late to fully make amends. The gift and the card is the best he can do, and perhaps that's enough.

A number of years ago, I had a boss who impressed me with one lesson that I think about all the time. A team member of ours was horribly rude to my boss, in public, and a few days later the team member came into my boss's office to apologize. My boss accepted the apology, no questions asked. I was stunned.

"How could you do that?" I asked him.

"Christa, asking for forgiveness is the hardest thing we do in life. You have to let someone apologize. If someone has the courage to come to me and apologize, then I can have the courage to forgive them."

It was one of those light bulb moments for me and I try to keep it close to my heart, even when someone has hurt me terribly. We have to let people say they're sorry, in their own way, in their own time. Sometimes it's in the form of a present or card, as it was between my friend and his boss. Sometimes it's a phone call, or an email, or a simple face-to-face conversation. By asking for forgiveness and granting it we can help one another to ease any tension that arises where the spirit meets the bone. And that might be the greatest gift we can ever give or receive.

The images above is not my own. It can be found here.

My Year of Hopefulness - More Than We Can Do

"I have always admired the ability to bite off more than one can chew and then chew it."
~ William C. deMille, American screenwriter and film director

Challenge is an important thing in our lives. Without it, we lose a certain zest. We become too complacent. By taking on more than we think we can handle, we rise to greater levels than we ever imaged possible. I highly recommend it.

It's with this thought in mind that today I submitted my application to Columbia's Teachers College. I have applied to their PhD program in Anthropology and Education. I've been thinking about a PhD since graduating from business school. I thought a PhD would be something I'd get to somewhere down the line. I have known for some time that I love teaching, and that a PhD was the best way for me to do that with a great amount of freedom. I just didn't think I had enough to offer students until now. And after my 2009, I realized that we don't always get to decide when "down the line" is. "Down the line" has to be now if we want to do something phenomenal with our lives.

After so many months of standing on the edge, I took the plunge today and threw my hat into the ring to the best darn education PhD program out there. As luck would have it, "out there" is 20 blocks up the street from my apartment (literally!) I went to the orientation and I felt right at home, a similar feeling to the one I had when I went to visit Darden. I knew I belonged there.

There are certain places on the Earth where we feel ourselves fall right into the flow of life. There are times when we know we are on the right track because it all seems to fall in line with an uncanny timing. All of a sudden what seemed to be disparate parts of lives fit together perfectly and a new dream for our life emerges. For me, now is one of those times. Perhaps it's biting off more than I can chew, but then again, I wouldn't want to live my life any other way.

My Year of Hopefulness - Just Enough

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." ~ Lao Tzu

We live in a deadline-conscious world. Every day there is another to-do list, another crisis to attend to, another stress we didn't count on. Sometimes I feel stressed by my to-do list. This weekend even though I had a lot to do, I focused on enjoying every task. Even studying for my GREs. My stress of to-do's comes from always thinking about the next item I need to accomplish on my list. By enjoying every moment, even the busiest ones, I felt a greater sense of satisfaction, and I got my list completed faster than I thought I could.

I wonder if nature takes this same approach with her own to-do list. Nature operates on the principle of "just enough". Just enough consumption and production. Natures conducts life in seasons, surging at certain times and resting at others. Renewing and replenishing when needed. Taking the opportunity to grow and flourish when the conditions are just right.

As I worked through my to-do list this weekend, I wondered if we could build lives that more closely resemble nature's way of working. Could we place just the right amount of effort into the different parts of our lives? Could we learn to eliminate waste in all its forms as much as possible, take advantage of positive circumstances, and learn to retreat and wait when the skies above us grow dark? Could we find a way for all the pieces of our lives to integrate into one beautiful landscape? Can we gracefully adapt to change?

With nature as such a healthy example, I'm hopeful that we can find greater harmony, within ourselves and with others if only we set our minds and hearts to it.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

My Year of Hopefulness - Good Grief

One of the things this year that has brought me so much hope is my new ability to ask and receive help. By nature, I am not good at asking for help, though I am fantastic at providing it. A few weeks ago I told my friend, Rob, about my strong desire to make all of the change I've been through this year into a positive experience. I want to look back on 2009 and see that it was a decisive, magical turning point in my life. Enter, Brian.

Early on in my life, I spent a number of years in therapy to acquire tools to help me handle certain aspects of my childhood in a healthy way. They've served me well for 33 years and now I need some new tools to help me manage a whole new set of challenges. Brian is a social worker by training who has an incredible gift for helping people to get the most out of the lives they have to help them achieve the lives that they want. He sets about his work with the desire to help people turn their experiences and dreams into action. He is exactly the kind of person I need right now.

I began my weekly sessions with him today and because I am so open about my life's circumstances, we were able to get to the root of our work together very quickly. It helps that I found Brian based on Rob's strong recommendation. Because I trust Rob, I immediately trusted Brian. Because I trust myself and know how I want my life to take shape, it was easy to ask someone as knowledgeable as Brian for help. And so, it begins...

Being a forever student, I asked for homework at the end of our session. "I want you to be still and allow the feelings of loss you've had this year to surface. You're so busy getting away from grief that you never really look it in the eye and see how it can actually help you." True, and scary, and difficult, and necessary. I was so concerned about getting through my losses this year that I didn't stop to look around and see what they really had to offer me. I just wanted to be done, and in my desire to be done, I forgot to let myself grieve. I took a "well that happened so now get on with it" approach without letting myself say "that was frightening and sad, and I'm going to miss those things and people in my life."

Grief is difficult; suppressed grief eventually becomes unbearable and makes itself a nuisance and makes us tired. With Brian's help, I'm going to figure out how to make grief serve me well.

My Year of Hopefulness - Take Up the Torch

“Life is no brief candle, it’s a torch. I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

I saw this quote by George Bernard Shaw on Twitter over the weekend. Someone sent it to me after reading my blog posts about my trip to Costa Rica and my plans for the future. Thinking of life as a torch, something we can and should wield as a powerful instrument to light up the world around us, reinforced my belief that if we are just subsisting and not doing our life’s work every day, then a change is necessary, sooner rather than later. As my mom often says, “we will not pass this way again. So make this pass count as much as you can.”

Yesterday a friend of mine was telling me about a conversation he recently had with his dad. His father told him that his job was my friend’s life’s work. My friend objected and then his dad asked him a few questions:

“Son, where do you spend the most hours of your day?”

“At work.”

“What do you think about for the most number of hours per day?”

“Work.”

“Then your job is your life’s work. How do you feel about that? Is it fulfilling?”

“No. I don’t get any fulfillment from it. It’s just a job,” my friend answered.

“Sounds like you better change it. You don’t want your life’s work to be just a job.”

These are harsh words that could have been said with a kinder voice, though the point is crystal clear. Where and with whom we spend most of our time is our life’s work. I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about where my energy and time is spent, and what that’s accomplishing. I spend a lot of my time volunteering, and a lot of that volunteering is done in the field of education. I come alive in a classroom of any kind whether I’m the student or the teacher, and classrooms can be found throughout our communities. It’s that learning environment that is so invigorating, that gives me the most hope for our future.

And so, in the words of my friend’s father, I am about to set to work on making a change to make that time in education my life’s work. When I think about how much good can be done there, how much I have to offer in that setting, I realize that my torch is growing brighter.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

My Year of Hopefulness - I Got my Whole Future in My Hands

"Put your future in good hands - your own." ~ Anonymous

I read this quote a few days ago on Owning Pink's Twitter account (@Owningpink), one of my very favorite accounts to check. It is always brimming with inspiring ideas. This one spoke to me quite clearly and was just the advice I needed. Taking our future into our own hands is a brave and frightening act, though once we accept it as a way to move forward, it really can move mountains.

Today I had to have a conversation that I have been dreading for some time now. I knew it was coming and I was nervous about it. I was afraid of what the reaction of the of the other person might be and I was afraid of my tendency toward blatant honesty. How delicately did I need to plead my case? Would I have to tap dance around what I really wanted to say, playing politics, or could I just get on with it?

No surprise that I went the honesty route. I explained how I wanted my future to unfold and where I thought the best place to do my life's work would be. And a remarkable thing happened - the very person I was frightened of, the very person who I thought would not at all support my decision, stepped up and offered his hand. This person and I have on occasion had a rough go of it. We haven't always seen eye-to-eye. As a matter of fact we've butted heads so often that it's become a habit for us. And yet, there is some kind of magic that honesty breeds. Once he understood my point-of-view, he realized that he had the opportunity to make my dream come true, or at least to help it along in a significant way. And so, he did.

Before I went to see him, I took a deep breathe, smiled, and told myself, "you can do this. Just go in there with an honest heart and say exactly what you think." I did. He listened. And before I even had to ask for help, before I even dared to ask for help, he offered it up with a smile. All my worrying had been for naught. He asked me to think it over, and make sure that this is really the direction I want to go in. I thanked him, knowing that I'll be back to see him tomorrow, to tell him I'm ready to build the life I imagine, to thank him for his help, and to take my life into my own hands.

My Year of Hopefulness - Thankful for the Unknown

"Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively, unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

An opinion article was published in the New York Times on Thanksgiving that gave thanks for the unknown. It struck me so profoundly because of all the surprise that entered my life this year. Through it all, I never stopped believing that something good would come from it all, that I'd be able to raise my head up eventually, shake off the sadness, and rejoin the human race as a more empathic, compassionate person. What I didn't expect is that I would emerge so brazenly fearless, that I would myself feeling more secure once everything extraneous was stripped away.

The great joy of living through something that we imagine we cannot live through is that we become unable to tolerate the act of wasting time. Tragedy makes our vision crystal clear; it helps us to see things with a sharp focus that we never had before. I sometimes wish that we could obtain this kind of clarity without having to live through tragedy. One of my business school professors talked to us about the sad necessity of the "burning platform" that inspires change. I wish my platform, my home, didn't have to literally catch fire, bringing a whole new meaning to the term "burning platform". It certainly did inspire me to change my life in profound and daring ways. I've been putting off a PhD program for over a year; I've been settling in my career and my relationships; material possessions were beginning to wield too much importance in my life. I needed a shake-up, a change, and I got it in spades. Now I'm studying for the GRE, pumping up my efforts on the relationships in my life that are truly valuable to me, and embracing a lifestyle that places far less value on material valuables.

The unknown is a scary, precious thing. The holidays are a great marker for us, a time of reflection to consider exactly what we want our lives to be about. This is an opportunity for us to be with friends and family and truly consider Eleanor Roosevelt's great question: are we challenging ourselves or resting on our competencies? Are we stepping up to meet the world or taking a comfortable seat and just watching the world go by? As we take a bit of time to relax this holiday season, it's my great hope that we will seriously re-consider our priorities and how we spend our time and effort so that we do as much good in 2010 as we possibly can. There is no time like the present to take up a new adventure.

My Year of Hopefulness - Unquestioned Answers

While in Costa Rica, I continued reading Lynne Twist's book The Soul of Money. So many of her sentiments about the use of money, sufficiency, and abundance have resonated with me. At the end of one particular chapter she challenges readers to explore not unanswered questions, but unquestioned answers. I have not been able to get this term out of my head. I spent a long night in Costa Rica, tossing and turning, wrestling with the unquestioned answers in my own professional life.

Since going to business school, I have been on a track - to pay back my loans, to believe that I must make a certain amount of money in my single paycheck, to climb, climb, climb as high as I can in the field of business. We hear so often that there are not enough women at the very top of business world, that people from my socioeconomic background are under-represented and needed in large corporations, as are those who embrace empathy and innovation and change. Up until now, I assumed that these sentiments were a given, answers to timeless questions and concerns in business, and that I must heed this call.

With this latest economic downturn, these very things that I have held to be true without question are now up for scrutiny. Everything is up for debate. I went to an innovation conference several weeks ago, hosted by Roger Martin of the Rotman School of Business. My former boss, Bob, invited me because he knows of my deep interest in change and design. Tim Brown, the CEO of IDEO and one of the panelists at the conference, discussed the dilemma of big business today as it relates to change. IDEO runs workshops throughout the year that are training sessions for business people to encourage more creativity within their companies. They are wildly popular events, and there's only one problem with them. "Once people open up their minds to the world of design," Brown said, "they can never go back. Many times, attendees of our workshops leave their jobs shortly after they complete the sessions. They can't accept a life in typical big corporations anymore. They know better."

Big corporations have been trying so hard to make innovation and change a part of the culture, or at least trying hard to pay lip-service to change. The difficulty is that only a handful of corporations really believe in the power and necessity of change. Target, Apple, Nike are among the few. By and large most big corporations just want to return to the good old days of fat profits, zero regulation, and big, big bonuses. Those individuals who really want change, innovation, and design to be incorporated into the fabric of a company get too frustrated with bureaucracy and the slow, lumbering gait of a company strangled by its own size. And so, they leave for smaller, more nimble, freer pastures. Who could blame them?

These are the brave souls questioning the answers that business has for so long assumed to be universal truths. Now, the truth is not quite so clear as it once was. The people who have long-benefited from business as usual (so much so that BAU has become a common acronym in their lexicon) are getting very nervous because their lifestyle is being threatened by those asking why, those who are questioning the 'given' answers.

For those brave enough to ask why, their dilemma now lies not in how to get their ideas heard by the ones who phone it in, but whether or not it's even worth it to ask why at all. Many are leaving to build their own dreams, to bet on themselves rather than on a big corporation. The world of business should be afraid. To survive in this new economy, corporations need the questioners much more than the questioners need the big corporations.

I laid in my bed, realizing that these questioners are the next great breed of entrepreneurs, the next batch of people who are on the verge of jumping from the safe, secure cliff and changing the world as we know it. And then I asked myself the question, "Will I be brave enough to count myself among them?" I waited long into the night for an answer to come from the darkness, and with the sun my own heart rose up to speak a quiet, strong, clear "yes".

My Year of Hopefulness - Holy Water

In the center of Cartago there is a church known as La Basilica de la Virgen de los Angeles. In 1635, it is told that a statue of the Virgin was found in the forest by an Indian girl. She took it home and put it in a box. When she returned to the forest the next day, she found the statue again in the same place. When she went home, the statue was gone from the box. This same sequence of events happened to her several more times. She told her priest about the miracle and he took the statue from the forest and locked it in a box in his church. The statue performed the same miracle, and so it was decreed that the Virgin must have wanted a church built over that very spot in the forest.

On August 2nd every year, Costa Ricans come to La Basilica as a pilgrimage, some walking for days across the country and crawling on their knees from the start of the aisle up to the altar. Several of us went to the church yesterday and today to witness the extreme devotion that Costa Ricans feel for this church and for the Virgin Mary. They come here to ask for help and healing and peace and luck, something we can all use a little more of. There is a river that flows under the church and there is a small spring where people collect the holy water in bottle, wash their faces in it, and drink it as an elixir of all things in their lives that they wish to come true, things that they wish to change.

I am not a religious person, and haven't been for a long time, though I do find religion to be a compelling area of study and I do believe fervently in a higher purpose and power. I do believe we are all connected; my religion is simply kindness. Hearing the miracles that the church has performed for people in Costa Rica, I felt compelled to pay my respects, to ask the Universe for help me now at this time in my life as I make big changes to transform it into the life I want to live, and I did wash my face in the holy water.

Sometimes, we must accept that there are things that do not make sense to us, things that happen and sources of power that we cannot see nor explain. I don't know if the Virgin appeared in the forest and I don't know that a church needed to be built on that site in Cartago. I do know that faith is a very powerful feeling, that it is capable of accomplishing that which we cannot possibly accomplish without it. I do believe in our ability to change, and every once in a while I believe that miracles really do happen. Today, was one of those days.

I left the church and I did feel a little bit more brave as I headed back to the house. Perhaps bravery and our ability to change that which we do not like in our lives is a miracle in and of itself.

My Year of Hopefulness - Turn Right at the Fancy House

(Internet has returned to my house in Costa Rica so I can begin recording all of my experiences here so long as the connection holds - 'via a Dios'.)

I am famously bad with directions. I never know where I'm going, even with a map. I have to repeat the same path many times over and mentally make note of landmarks along the way. I suppose I could hunker down and just get a little bit better at this skill, though to be honest I've just gotten comfortable feeling lost. I enjoy it because every road, whether I've been on it or not, is a new adventure this way.

Imagine my great happiness to learn that there is an entire country full of people with this same issue! In Costa Rica, there are no postal addresses. There is barely a postal service at all. Address are something akin to 'go 25 meters east from the large yellow building with the slat windows and blue shutters, then turn north at the Soda Pollo (literally means Chicken Restaurant) and go another 100 meters until you reach two little stray dogs, one brown and one black, that are always outside an orange house'. As our program manager, Santi, said when giving us directions to our volunteer placement, "Turn right at the fancy house and walk up the hill."

This is the greatest pleasure of travel - to learn the customs and history and culture of other people, to realize that our little lives in our little cities, no matter how big they are, are just one tiny slice of life on this planet. We learn that there are so many other options to conduct our lives. For people like me who are considering a jump off the cliff, travel helps us see that what to us seems like a big risk is not really a big risk at all. It is just a step change; it is just a different choice and this realization is a great comfort.

There are so many people on my program who made this same leap into a different life. Their courage is encouraging me, inspiring me. I know I am here in the lovely town of Cartago, today, for a very specific reason. I know I was brought here at this time in my life to help me see that this different way forward that I imagine is not only possible, but probable, bordering on certainty. The comfort I am finding in this house, with these people, in this town, in this beautiful and loving country, is a great gift.

My Year of Hopefulness - Finding Pura Vida

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen." ~ Leonardo Da Vinci I don't know how the folks at Daily Good are able to sit in my head 24/7 but they've done it again. This quote showed up in my inbox today, the day I leave on a vacation I've been planning for almost a year. I’ve had the good fortune to travel a lot as an adult – both for work and for leisure. It should have come as no surprise to me that my travel to Costa Rica would be just what I needed to lift myself up out of sadness, disappointment, frustration, loss, and anger of the last few months. I agree that so often what’s needed is a change of self and not a change of scene – I just find that a change of scene, even if it’s just for a short time, kick starts the change of self.

I left for the airport at 5am – my preferred leave time when I’m traveling. I like to jump up out of bed, throw on my clothes, grab my bags, and run to the M60 bus that carries me away to LaGuardia airport. On the bus this morning, my mind was still reeling from some circumstances in my life that I cannot change. I just couldn’t let go; I couldn’t clear my head.

I boarded the plane and stashed my carry-on bag. I was worried. “Are my disappointments going to follow me around for the next weeks? Are they going to ruin this vacation I’ve been planning for almost a year?” I thought. And then I heard the announcements come over the loudspeaker in Spanish. I have been practicing my Spanish, reminding myself of vocabulary and grammatical structures that I haven’t thought about in years. The excitement began to mount.

I leaned my head against the window as we backed away from the gate, my Spanish phrasebook in hand. “Please God, let this go well,” I prayed. The whirring of the plane’s engines put me to sleep for about 30 minutes, and I woke up to a face full of sunshine. We had broken through the cloud cover. We had soared to a place where my disappointments could not go – I literally felt them fall away and go crashing to the ground below. I imagined them as angry little characters down there on the ground I could no longer see, shaking their fists at me as I went on my way without them. And then they hung their heads and sulked away, lamenting the one, me, who got away.

In Costa Rica, the common greeting that people exchange is “Pura Vida”, which literally translates to “Pure Life”. From the moment I set foot in this beautiful country, I vowed to embrace that as my motto going forward, no matter where in the world I am. I will be my one guiding principle for how to live each moment: with the feeling of being truly alive. The time of contentment and “good enough” and “maybe tomorrow” is not an option anymore – I left those sentiments back there with my disappointments, far below the cloud cover.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

My Year of Hopefulness - You Get What You Give

"What I know for sure is that what you give comes back to you." ~ Oprah Winfrey

I'm off to Costa Rica tomorrow on a volunteer project with Cross-Cultural Solutions. A lot of people have asked me why I chose to do a volunteer vacation. Why would I spend my vacation working? There are several small reasons: I did a volunteer vacation in the south of France in 2005 and loved it, it's a great way to truly experience the culture of a new country, it's a fun way to travel alone without being alone, and I enjoy meeting new people more than I enjoy just about anything else. The true reason I'm volunteering on vacation? It's good for the world - Oprah's right, as usual. What we give comes back to us, and I would add that it comes back to us 10-fold.

Though I am volunteering to help others, truly it's me that I'm helping. I am certain that the Cross-Cultural Solutions program will teach me and help me far more than I could ever teach or help anyone else. It's an interesting fact about service - you go into it to help others and you're the one who ends up with the greatest benefit from the work. In theory, this doesn't make sense. In practice, it is most certainly true.

For the past few months I've heard a lot of people wishing out loud. They need a better job, a better place to live, better relationships, better health. They have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to acquire these things, and I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I can help them. I wonder if service might be the best remedy for wishing.

I wonder if it's really true that what we seek for ourselves we can obtain by providing that very thing for someone else. Love, confidence, money, health, a positive outlook on life, trust, friendship, courage. Our list of wishes is never-ending, and therefore the number of opportunities for service is unlimited. How do our lives change if we take on the view "we only get what we give"? And in the process, how can this view change the whole world? I'll let you know if I find some answers in Costa Rica. Talk to you tomorrow from beautiful Cartago!

My Year of Hopefulness - Safety in Change

"It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power." ~ Alan Cohen

My friend, Rob, and I were talking about safety a few weeks ago. Rob talked to me about how we've conned ourselves into believing that a company, a job, can give us some feeling of security and stability when really it's a house of cards. I've seen it happen to so many of my friends - they are cranking along in their jobs, exhibiting exceptional performance and results, and then the pink slip. Rob's advice on my news of moving on: "You've done the hard part: making the choice to step outside the box that hems one in, and keeps one from dreaming bigger dreams...know you are supported from many quadrants. More as it goes..."

I emailed some friends about my impending jump off the cliff. I told them that it feels great to have made this decision, though my friend, Eric, in his characteristic empathy sensed that I'm scared. And then in his continuing characteristic empathy, he responded : "Don't worry, Christa - I already hit rock bottom underneath that cliff - so I'll be there to catch you!" Not at all surprising since Eric honestly saved my life as I muddled through my MBA. My friend Laura simply responded "I am 150000% behind you." My friend, Allan, said "You are very brave and thoughtful." These are the very messages I needed today to lift me up.

When I think about finding security and stability, I'm reminded that it's in our friends and family and in the chance we take on our own abilities that we can find a haven. The safest route for me is not to stand on that cliff hoping that it doesn't crumble beneath me; it's to jump, knowing that friends like Rob, Eric. Laura, and so many others are there to catch me if I need catching. They are the ones I can place my faith and trust in.

My friend, Jamie, finished up his last day at his job today. We went for a celebratory dinner, yummy cheap Thai food around the corner from my apartment at Sura. We toasted to our new adventures, to our choice to be free and to build the lives we want to live. And while there is still that underlying ripple of fear of the unknown, fear of what's next, there is also a tremendous sense of excitement, of realizing that we are on the edge of becoming more ourselves.

I was reminded all day today, through so many different channels, that in September I came very close to never getting a tomorrow. I stood on West 96th Street, watching smoke billow out of my building, realizing I was living a life of great comfort and little meaning. That great "what if" hangs over my head every day, and rather than being plagued by it, I am so grateful for it. What if I hadn't made it out of that building? What if that was the end? Could I have looked back on September 4th and said, "yes, I'm so glad that I was living that life?" No - not at all. In that moment, change became not an option, but an inevitability, and it's been driving me forward, upward, and onward toward a life lived with greater meaning, greater purpose, every day since.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

My Year of Hopefulness - Climb Up A Ways

One of the first Broadway shows I worked on was Cabaret at Studio 54. I would sit in the back of the theatre night after night and watch that story unfold, every show more beautiful than the show before. One of my favorite lines is from Herr Schultz (played by Ron Rifkin) to Fräulein Schneider (played by Blair Brown). Herr Schultz is trying to convince Fräulein Schneider to enter into a relationship with him, despite the fact that he is Jewish and the world is looking a little bleak for people of his heritage. He tells her that the apples at the base of tree are easy to pick up, though the fruit at the top of tree, if she is willing to climb up a ways, is so much sweeter. I worked on that show almost 11 years ago, and still I think of that line and how applicable it is to our lives every day.

I feel comfortable admitting in this blog post that very soon I will be moving on to a new position in my career. I've had an honest conversation with my boss and explained my intentions. I hope she understands. At the end of the day, the future of her team that she's laid out is just not what gets me going. I completely understand that she's in charge of the team and has every right to change the direction of the bus. My obligation is to decide whether or not to whole-heartedly get on the bus. I've decided to actively look for a new bus, and there are some stupendous options on the horizon.

Some people think I'm a little crazy for making this move. I've done a lot of good work in my position; I've built solid relationships that would serve me so well and get me promoted quickly. If only I could put my head down, keep my mouth shut, and phone it in just the way that I've been scripted, I'd be just fine. I could coast right through to the end of this recession no matter how long it lasts.

Those who know me a bit better just smile and nod when I say I'm looking for new opportunities that get me up out of bed in the morning. They know I'm not built for coasting. Yes, coasting is much easier in that it requires no exertion on my part. The trouble is that for me coasting is just an unbearable existence. Putting the pedal to the metal and 'trying to get up that great big hill of hope' is more my style. Herr Schultz was right: The vistas up there are so much wider and more open and beautiful. Fräulein Schneider didn't know what she was missing.

The photo above is not my own. It can be found here.

My Year of Hopefulness - The Great Progression

"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

The Universe is trying to tell me something. Here I am on Day 2 with no voice. I can get out a squeak here and there. My friends have commented that I sound like a cross between Marge Simpson and those people on talk shows who want their identities to remain hidden. There is an odd kind of peace found in being silent. I can be silent about as long as I can sit still, which is to say roughly 5 seconds or so. At the moment, the universe is not giving me any choice in the matter. So I'm parked on my couch, being vewy, vewy quiet....

Those telepathic folks over at DailyGood sent me this quote last night about silence. I have definitely felt conflicting messages flooding my life lately - how to keep up and slow down at the same time, how to balance the effort to enjoy our lives with a constant eye on achievement and success. These are tough things to do. They don't all play nicely together in the sandbox and often make us feel like we are at odds with ourselves.

So what if we begin with silence. My great hope is that you have not been forced into silence like me, but that it's something you can choose, just for an hour or two. What can we find in silence? What kind of ideas can we get by sitting and being and doing nothing else? What do we listen to when we quiet our audible voice and the narrative inside our own minds?

Today, I am listening to the message that my life has many options. I don't feel trapped at all - right now I feel like I have more options before me than I have ever had in my life. I am now most concerned with how to provide myself with the greatest amount of flexibility and freedom possible. And I'm learning that there are many ways to be free. We are free as soon as we choose to be.

I've also found that every day for the past several months I am learning so much about myself. I am becoming increasingly aware of what I enjoy and don't enjoy, what makes me happy and what makes me sad, what kind of people I want to surround myself with and sadly which people I must release from my life, at least for now. I'm learning about the contribution I want to make to humanity, and I'm learning how my actions and words effect others and vice versa. To tell you the truth, it's fun, albeit sometimes a little exhausting, to be in a state of hyper-learning.

And now the preparation. I was on the subway yesterday riding home from work and reading the following on one of the NYC subway posters: "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it. ~ Abraham Lincoln, A House Divided" This sentiment was true not only for the U.S. in 1858, when Lincoln made this speech, but for our own lives as well. Silence and listening leads us to know the first first piece of Lincoln's statement so that we can then prepare, serve, and lead our futures.

I'm finding it very hard to have different segments of my life call for a different kind of personality. I certainly believe in and practice the principle of knowing my audience, though I also believe ardently that we must be authentic at every moment, we must be more like who actually are at every moment. In this new life that I am creating for myself, filled with freedom and flexibility, I am preparing the way, offering myself a variety of options for income and making way for opportunities to pursue whatever makes me happy and piques my interest. Yoga, teaching, creating products and services, writing, travel, and research. With solid preparation, it is all possible.

All this preparation leads us to serve the world and our own happiness in the best way for each of us. We all have unique talents and abilities. The way to happiness for one of us is not necessarily the way to happiness for someone else. We have different priorities and interests, we have different goals and different paths we'd like to take to get to those goals. The key is to always ask "is this the best way forward? Am I providing an optimal amount of service by going about my life this particular way."

And then finally all of our service leads us naturally on to leadership. Leadership is a funny thing. While there are some that feel the best way to lead is with strong opinions, to develop a clear delineated chain of command structure, I couldn't disagree more. To me, leadership is service in its highest form. As a leader, and by leadership I don't mean a title but a behavior, my only role is to serve those I'm leading, to lift them up to be the very best people they can become, to lead the very best lives possible.

I have been abundantly blessed with great leaders in my life, in my family, at work, in school, and among my friends, people who actively gave me tough advice and great support and love all at once. The greatest hope of my life as I begin Act 2 is that I can bundle up that advice, love, and support for others who I will lead going forward, whether they are in a classroom, at work, or people who come to me for any kind of advice or help. Success will be that I can impart any wisdom on them with the same degree of grace and humility that my leaders have shown me. And then I will be certain that the great progression that Williams Arthur Ward discusses will be well on its way.

The images above is not my own. It can be found here.

Examiner.com: Interview with Lorin Rokoff and Laura Paterson, Founders of Hot Blondies Bakery

I learned about Hot Blondies Bakery through Crain’s. They were the headline business in a feature article about online bakeries. A friend of mine from business school is considering a similar avenue so I opened up the Crain’s article to have a peek at what these ladies were up to. Laura's and Lorin's story of making the leap from stable jobs to entrepreneurship was inspiring so I hopped over to their site. Their market positioning and branding is unique and fun – I like the edge they take with their baking and they clearly have the business savvy to match their sumptuous baked goods!

Find the interview here.

My Year of Hopefulness - The Invitation

I am still sort of getting my new home set up. I’m having a hard time getting myself entirely set up. I’m sure this is being brought on by some left over emotional fall-out from the fire. I suppose I’m scared and worried that all of this will just got up in smoke again, literally. On Friday night, after a very long tough week, I rounded the corner to my apartment building to find my street littered with fire trucks and flashing lights and big brawny fire fighters in their gas masks and black and yellow suits. Pre-September 5^th, my first thought upon seeing this kind of scene was “I hope everyone is okay.” On Friday night, my first thought was “not again”. As Dinah Washington said, “What a difference a day makes.”

The fire on Friday wasn’t in my apartment building, it was across the street, and no one was hurt. I asked the fire fighters. I went upstairs to my apartment grateful that everything was still the exact way I left it Friday morning. Just inside my front door, there’s a piece of art that I read every morning. It’s a poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, an Indian Elder, which I wrote out many years ago in my nicest penmanship on fancy paper. It was one of the few things to survive my apartment building fire, and I am sure that is not a coincidence.

There are a few lines in this poem that have really effected me as of late:

Can you disappoint others to be true to yourself?

Can you stand in the centre of your sorrow and still shout at the great Silver Moon, “yes!”?

Do you like the company you keep in the empty moments?

Being true to yourself:

This can manifest in our careers, relationships to others, in how we spend our free time. It’s hard work to be true to ourselves, it’s tough for us to get over the guilt of what we think we owe to others. And too often we disappoint ourselves for the sake of others. In truth, we let people down even more when we aren’t authentic, when we feign happiness instead of actually being happy.

Stand in the centre of our sorrow:

Disappointments and sadness are a part of life. I’ve known people who deal with their sadness by using it as fuel for creating happiness. I consider all of my friends who have recently lost their jobs and used their job loss as an opportunity to do something they’ve always wanted to do. These are the people who shout “yes”, yes to the goodness of life, even if life at that very moment is not very good at all. These are the people who keep me feeling hopeful in times that seem so bleak. They are my inspiration.

Unfortunately, I’ve also known people who use their sadness and disappointment as a way to make themselves and everyone around them miserable. These are people who can’t commit, who can’t seem to build healthy relationships, and as a result feel constantly alone and disconnected. They stand in the middle of their sorrow and sulk. Temporary sulking is okay – we all need to sulk once in a while. We just can’t let it get the best of the us.

The empty moments:

Someone who smiles when no one around is a person who is truly happy. These are the people I want in my life, people who like their own company. My friend, Ken, is someone I look to as this example. Ken could spend all day in his house by himself and have the best day of his life. He is someone who loves the empty moments.

Below is Oriah Mountain Dreamer’s poem, The Invitation. I hope it helps you as much as it has helped me for so many years:

"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments."

My Year of Hopefulness - Making It Happen: The Great Opportunity Before Us

In the past few months I've become a big fan of the DailyOm. I don't know how those people on the other side of that message know exactly what to say at the exact moment I need to hear their sage words of the day. All I know is that every time I open their emails, I feel like they're living inside my mind. My pal and writing partner, Laura, introduced me to this email and I've been basking in its glow ever since.

Today's message: "There are times in our lives when all the signs seem to be pointing us in a particular direction. Our thoughts and dreams are echoed in the songs and stories we hear and the media we see. And when we are open and listening, the next step is to take action and go for it. Wherever your dreams are pointing you today, take a step. Take action and manifest your inner urges and soul whisperings."

Now is the moment of our own reinvention. Tonight I went to a Darden alumni event about innovation and entrepreneurship. I had the chance to speak with one of our Deans who was hosting the event. I asked him how the students are feeling, how the faculty is feeling. Are they scared, nervous, concerned, anxious? In his signature calming style, he said that there is a lot of concern flying around Charlottesville, though this is really the time to reinvent, to become a better version of ourselves. Yes, we could hang our heads low and bemoan all of the change that we are facing. We could pine for the good ol' days. Instead, the Dean was advocating for a new and crazy good way forward. I couldn't agree more.

Yesterday evening, after a day spent in bed not feeling so great, I got up and stretched and went to my yoga mat. I meditated, moved through a series of asanas (the fancy name for yoga poses), and let myself accept a new way forward in my life, free from fear and anxiety about change. In the words of my brilliant yoga teacher, Johanna, I assumed a strength pose with the intention "bring it on". I am ready for massive upheaval and change within my own heart and mind, a crazy good way forward.

I rolled up my yoga mat, logged onto Mac, and signed up for a yoga teacher training class at my yoga studio which will begin in February. I've wanted to have this full certification for a long time, and the time has arrived. This is my next step toward a life of multiple income streams pursuing things I love. This is my next bend in the road of reinventing me.

The image above is not my own. It can be found here.

My Year of Hopefulness - Kant, Darwin, and Child

I never thought I'd be able to draw a common connection between Immanuel Kant, Charles Darwin, and Julia Child. In the context of gearing up for my second act, I've been coming across a remarkable number the stories about people who came to their calling and made their significant contributions to the world later on in life. Perhaps it's true that we find what we're looking for, and I've been looking for inspirations for my act 2. In this quest, the stories of Kant, Darwin, and Child bear repeating.

Immanuel Kant is recognized as one of the greatest philosophical minds, creating such constructs as the categorical imperative and transcendental idealism. I learned about Kant's works through Michael Sandel's on-line class, Justice. Kant received his first paying job at age 31. He was a university lecturer paid on commission based upon how many students attended his class. He published his first work at age 51 after a decade of near silence and introversion. Odd, yes. Worth the wait, absolutely. His first published work, Critique of Pure Reason, was the beginning of an entirely new branch of philosophy now known as Kantianism. Of course his brilliance did not sprout overnight - it took 50 years of training to condition his mind to be able to think clearly enough to write such a complex piece of work.

Like Kant, Charles Darwin wrote his seminal work, The Origin of Species, in his early 50's. This work revolutionized life sciences by putting forward the ideas of evolution, natural selection, and survival of the fittest. He spent many years as a student, as did Kant, and he followed his own interests rather than cow-towing to the desires of others to plan his life. His father wanted him to be a medical doctor, even though Darwin always had an inclination to be a naturalist. Eventually his will won out and he got to build the life he wanted, albeit a little later than he probably would have liked.

I get a lot of inspiration from food, and it's impossible to over-emphasize the contribution of Julia Child to the culinary field. Following the pattern of Kant and Darwin, Child published her best known book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in her early 50's. She didn't even entertain making a career in cooking until she was awarded admission into Le Cordon Bleu, the famed French cooking school, at age 36. She freely admitted that she had been looking for a career all her life; she had several other careers as a copywriter and as a government worker before falling in love with cooking. Once she discovered that love, she never looked back and by her own hands, literally, changed the world of food forever.

These stories give me a lot of hope for the futures of people who follow different paths early on in life, who pursue their every interest with wild abandon and passion. I know some people who have known exactly what they wanted to do since age 5. I used to date a man who at age 5 decided he wanted to be an attorney. Today, he does exactly what he always wanted do. He probably always will. I'll admit that I hate him a little bit for knowing what he wanted so early in life. Or at least I did hate him until I heard the stories of Kant, Darwin, and Child.

For some of us, our calling just doesn't find us that way. We have to follow lots of different paths to find our way home. We're in good company with Kant, Darwin, and Child. The only important thing is to not give up until we can finally find our true selves, until we fully realize our own great contribution to humanity. In the long-run, tenacity pays off.