My Year of Hopefulness - Thanks for Making My Childhood Dream Come True

Last year I wrote a few posts about Randy Pausch's Last Lecture. I first watched him give the Last Lecture on YouTube through tear-filled eyes and had to take myself for a long walk 3 months later when I read about his passing. His Last Lecture, devoted entirely to his pursuit of childhood dreams, reminded me of how important our earliest dreams are and how they shape us in adulthood. Randy Pausch reconfirmed my belief that childhood dreams, those daring, bold expressions of our deepest desire before we ever realize we have limitations, are some of the most valuable things we own. We should celebrate them and go for them with gusto, no matter what our age is.

This morning, I watched Lorelei, my two year old niece, open her gifts with wild abandon. She threw her head back and laughed with each one, regardless of how big or small it was. She liked the wrapping paper and boxes as much as the gifts inside. Watching her, I wondered how she would remember our Christmases together when she gets older. I want to do everything possible to make her childhood a blissfully happy period of her life, a time when great dreams were formed inside her beautiful heart.

Children change us, whether those children are our own, in our family, part of our friends' families, or children we work with in our communities. We rediscover a sense of wonder and magic through their eyes, and Christmas magnifies that wonder. They use that same wonder about the world to formulate the ideas that will become their childhood dreams, and if we spend enough time with them we'll find that they can help us formulate new dreams, too, while also reminding us of everything we dreamed of as children.

When I made up my list of childhood dreams, one of the big things I wanted to do was to be a published author. I thought that meant convincing a publisher that I was good enough for print. I never imagined there would be free (on-line) tools that would make this dream possible to achieve regardless of whether or not any publisher believed in me. I did spend a good amount of time worrying that no one would ever read what I wrote. In the past two and a half years writing this blog, I realized this incredible childhood dream with your help and support, and I wish I knew how to thank you all enough.

This Christmas, I am deeply grateful to all of you who have come to this blog to read about my journey. Your comments, emails, text messages, conversations, and face-to-face opinions and advice mean more to me than I could ever adequately explain. You made one of the great dreams of my life come true - you made me a writer. I hope you'll stick with me, and that my writing will continue to be helpful to you. I hope we'll be able to build some more dreams together. Wishing you a very Merry Christmas, this year and always.

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

My Year of Hopefulness - Doing What We've Never Done

All week I've been trying to write curriculum for my after-school pilot program. I'm not a trained teacher. I've tutored and I've volunteered in classrooms. Mostly, I've just been up there at the wipe board (apparently the blackboards and chalk of my youth are long-since gone) winging it.

Rather than writing curriculum, I've been staring at a very blank white screen on my laptop, complete with blinking cursor. And that little tiny voice, the one I just dread, decides to show up at the most inopportune time to make me feel even worse. "Who are you to be writing curriculum?" it says. "You don't know how to do that." And as much as I want to turn down that volume, the voice grows louder, adding more doubts, more concerns, and more insecurity to my already frazzled mind. I have no idea what I'm doing. There's no denying that.

At 11:00 last night, I closed down my laptop without having written a single word. "The voice was right," I thought. "Who do I think I am? An untrained "teacher" writing curriculum. I can't do this." I did what I often do when I'm frustrated with my writing. I read. The latest issue of Yoga Journal just arrived in my mailbox so I cracked it open and began reading from page one.

There is a belief in yoga, and I believe in Buddhism as well, that the Universe will provide us with the exact teaching we need exactly when we need it. Kaitlin Quistgaard, the Editor of Yoga Journal, wrote this month's editorial note about how to show up for life and begin something we want to do even if we aren't sure how to do it. "It seemed like a life lesson designed to show me the value of doing my part, even if I don't know what to do," she says of a recent incident she had. This sounds like valuable ammunition against that little voice that was doubting me. I keep reading.

A few pages later, I come across an article by Julia Butterfly Hill who talks about finding your purpose and growing with it. Hmmm...sounds like another good one. The whole article is one beautiful quote after another. "Who am I supposed to be in my life?...what do you want your legacy to be?...We approach everything backward...we live in a production-driven society rather than a purpose-driven society." And here's my favorite line that I'm considering having made into a t-shirt: "We don't have to know how to do something before we begin it." Though I'm a product developer, paid to produce, I am much more concerned with living my life with purpose than with things.

So that's it - that's all I needed to know to silence the little voice nagging at me. It's true - I don't know how to write a curriculum. I don't know what material will resonate with the kids I want to teach. I don't know how to actually do anything related to this project. I do know that I am a fast learner, and that I was born not knowing much of anything except how to breath, (and even that breathing isn't something we do consciously!) I do know that I want to live in a world where every child has the opportunity to learn anything and everything that interests them. I want them all to grow up happy, healthy, safe, and excited about the possibilities that lay before them. I want them all to have a chance at a good and decent life. And that's more than enough purpose to keep going.

The photo above can be found here.

My Year of Hopefulness - New Life

Today my friends, Alex and Shawn, welcomed a new baby boy into the world. 7 and a half pounds, 19 and a half inches of new, beautiful, perfect, healthy life. Alex and Shawn will be amazing parents. They're the funniest couple I know. Their love story is one of my favorites. Having met their freshman year of college, they've gone through so many life changes, together and apart. After more than a decade together, they remain intensely interested in the other's interests and they support one another endlessly in all their pursuits. Spending time with them has always made me feel optimistic about the fate of love and marriage.

And now they begin this new piece of their history with a new member of their family. I went to Providence a few weeks ago for the baby shower, and they were both so happy. Though neither of them seemed stressed or worried or afraid. This was just another great event in their lives.

With everything we hear in the news about the difficulty of remaining in love, raising kids, and keeping a marriage strong and healthy, it's easy to feel like it's just not possible to have all three. And then I watch Alex and Shawn and realize that marriage and family and love are what you make of them. Too often we imagine that they are entities unto themselves that we have no control over, as if our own feelings of love live outside of us, independent of the rest of our lives. What's amazing about Alex and Shawn is that their love resides firmly at the center of their lives, while also giving them the confidence and freedom to pursue their own independent ventures, too. It's really something to behold, especially when you consider how young they were when they first met.

I can say with certainty that their son is one of the luckiest little guys in the world. He has these incredible parents who will provide such a prime example of what love can and should be. I can't stop smiling when I think about how much happiness he will know in his life. All kids should be so lucky.

The photo above can be found here.

My Year of Hopefulness - Do You See What I See?

Today I went over to the U.N. to see a photo that my dear friend, Amy Marsico, worked on. The photo exhibit is entitled Do You See What I See? It captures the thoughts and emotions of displaced children living in refugee camps in Yemen and Namibia. The powerful images and the words of the children reacting to those images ranged from loneliness to hope to intense memories of the experiences they've been through in the camps and in their home countries.

The exhibit is the output of work my friend, Amy, and her colleagues did in support of the UNHCR's Convention of the Rights of the Child. The Convention puts forward that children have the right to actively participate in the decision-making that effects their lives and communities. It has been ratified by nearly every country in the world. The U.S. is one of the few who have not adopted it.

What struck me about the thoughts of the children featured in the photo exhibit is how easy they were to understand. They had all the same concerns we have - being liked, companionship, future opportunity, learning, a desire to be safe. On my way home, I considered how children might see these streets of New York I walk along every day, what they might think as they walked through my life.

I considered how the child I used to be would view the adult I am now. What she'd be happy about and what she'd like to change. She'd want me to be having fun, freely voicing my thoughts, and making a difference. She'd want me to be excited to get up out of bed in the morning and out into the world. And she'd never want me to sit still. Ever.

I like to think that I carry the little child I used to be in my heart and mind as I go through my adult life. I'd like to think that though I've grown older, I've kept that young, optimistic, idealistic view on life. I'd like to think that what I see now is what I've always seen: a world full of opportunity and hope, a world where I can make a difference.

The photo above can be found at: http://www.refugeechild.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/090406.jpg

My Year of Hopefulness - The Day I Grew Up

I am in the midst of preparing an essay for a contest with the theme "the day I grew up." I've been racking my brain, conjuring up old memories, to get to that one realization that defined the end of my childhood and the beginning of my adult life. Trouble was I couldn't think of any one moment. It seemed to happen gradually - actually, I think I'm still in the midst of that transition. Or at least I thought I was until today.

Two events happened to me today that signaled to me that I had turned the corner - leaving my childish insecurity and lack of confidence behind, tossing it off in favor of the confidence and self-assurance I have always admired in adults. I recognize that it's odd that it would take me 33 years of living to make the leap. Better late than never.

Event one: I was told that I may have to stop writing, or at the very least have my writing approved and heavily edited, if I am to continue my association with an organization that I am currently involved with. It seems that they think my writing reflects upon them, even if I'm writing about a subject entirely unrelated to them.

That means that this blog would go silent and that my Examiner.com column would grind to a halt, just as I am finding my own voice and rhythm. I would have to stop doing the one activity I love most in the world - writing - because someone else demanded it. Without a second thought I decided that if I cannot have my writing life and be associated with that organization, then that organization would cease to be a part of my life. As a child, if my mother told me to stop jumping on the bed, I stopped jumping on the bed. As an adult, I won't stop doing something I love because someone else say I have to.

Event two: I was asked to put my name on a request that I cannot support because "that's the way it's always been done." Even though the request doesn't make any sense, and everyone involved with the request agrees it doesn't make sense, I was still being asked to push it forward. I will admit that I got a bit exasperated. My emotions got the best of me. I'm a passionate person.

As if someone was asking me to dishonor my name and my sense of judgment for the sake of being compliant to a rule I disagree with, I was handed the dare: say yes, even though you disagree, or face the consequences. A child would flinch at the thought of the consequences. I chose the consequences. I know the value of my name and judgment, and they're worth so much to me that I'd rather suffer any consequences that their defense may trigger.

When I was a kid, I always imagined that growing up would be this phenomenal achievement. It would be a welcome release. And it is, sort of. But it's a little lonely, too. Today, I shut some doors. I made a few decisions that cannot be undone. And while I am confident that they are the right decisions for me to make, those doors are still a little painful to shut. It means there's one less avenue, one less path to take to wherever it is my life is headed.

It's almost as if I didn't even make the choices in the two events today. The world made them for me. It handed me a set of circumstances, already knowing which direction I'd take, in order to push me forward. Fate's a funny thing. On one hand, it's comforting to know that the world has something in store for us that's far better than anything we can dream up on our own. On the other hand, we have to cede control to a grander plan that we don't entirely know. One thing is for certain: in order to grow up we have to let go of all the "might-have-been's" to focus on the "all-that-will be's".

My Year of Hopefulness - Ball, Dog, and Oprah

I spent this weekend with my niece, Lorelei. She's one year old and came to New York to visit me with my sister and brother-in-law. We've been playing in the park, at the Children's Museum, FAO. She is running around, beginning to say words that actually sound like words, and tearing up everything in her path. She gives me hope.

It's easy to look at the situation directly in front of us and feel like it might not be such a good idea to get out of bed. Spending time with children forces you to take the long view. Some day they will grow up, they will continue on their respective paths. Every day they are learning something new. They discover and wonder at every moment, and we discover along with them. Her best words at the moment are ball, dog, and Oprah. I've never had such fun say those words, or any words for that matter, as I have saying them with Lorelei.

I think whether or not you want to have kids of your own is irrelevant. I do think spending time with them in some way, whether they're nieces and nephews, kids of friends, kids you coach, teach, or volunteer with, they will change your life by changing the way you view life and the world we live in. They really are the most optimistic people you can ever meet. And in time when so many people feel like they're down and out, it helps to spend time with kids who feel that their best times are yet to come.

My Year of Hopefulness - Dr. Seuss's Birthday

Today 105 years ago, the world received the gift of Dr. Seuss. His work has been a part of nearly every American childhood since World War II. Through his furry, colorful creatures and rhyming prose, he has inspired us, taught us, and given us clarity during the hazy, difficult transitions of childhood. I have several Dr. Seuss books and every once in a while when I have had a really tough day, I take them down from my bookshelves and flip through the pages.

His creativity and ability to be poignant without being preachy or intimidating has won him fans the world over. How the Grinch Stole Christmas is a holiday tradition in my family. We can recite the entire movie, sing the songs, and even do impressions of the characters. Though I never met Dr. Seuss, he was an influential part of my childhood and continues to be an influential part of my adult years. A copy of Oh, The Places You'll Go! was my favorite graduation gift and I'm not ashamed to admit that there are times when I have gone back and re-read it because I felt disappointed by some part of my life. Dr. Seuss helped me keep my head up, even when my morale was down.

So dear Dr. Seuss, happy, happy 105th birthday and thank you for creating timeless tales that have kept us feeling hopeful even during bleak and uncertain times. We need you now more than ever.

The image above appears courtesy of Google and Dr. Seuss Enterprises.

March of Dimes Petition for Preemies

My friends over at the March of Dimes have put together a campaign to address the health and well-being of the tiniest members of our communities. They put up a beautiful post on their website and I want to share it with all of you:

Petition for Preemies

My best friend just gave birth to her first child – a baby girl named Milana.  I can’t tell you how excited I am to share in my best friend’s happiness!  But to be honest, I’m also a little nervous. That’s because Milana was born prematurely, and babies who are born preterm face special health risks.

Milana isn’t alone.  In the U.S., 1 in 8 babies are born prematurely. In fact, more newborns die from premature birth than any other cause. That’s why I signed the March of Dimes Petition for Preemies.

The Petition for Preemies will help give all babies a healthy start by putting public officials – and all Americans – on notice that it’s time to focus on the growing problem of premature birth.

Show your support by joining thousands of other moms in signing thePetition for Preemies. If you’re a blogger, write a post about this issue or put our purple widget or button on your blog. Get information about how you can help more babies come into the world healthy.

Thankfully, Milana is home now and doing just fine.  Let’s help more moms have healthy babies!

Want to lend a hand in the effort? Sign the petition:http://www.marchofdimes.com/padpetition/index.aspx?a=1&z=1&c=1&l=en

Randy Pausch

A few months ago, I wrote a post about Randy Pausch after seeing The Last Lecture on YouTube. I followed his blog, read his book, and thought a lot about my childhood dreams. At 47, Randy passed away on Friday leaving us inspired to have as much courage to live our dreams as he did living his. Even as he was dying from pancreatic cancer, he was still having a blast, still living out dreams. 

As adults we sometimes forget about those dreams we has as children. We become too realistic, too practical. We box up our dreams, tape that box shut, and shelve it under the title "nostalgia". We can lose sight of ourselves, living out lives that we never intended to have. Who we really are is housed in that little box, and it's worth re-opening. 

One New Year's Eve, I made a little list of the dreams I had for myself. I've lost track of the paper in all of my moves but I remember some of the dreams I had. Of the 7 I can remember, I've done 3, and I'm working on a 4th:

To travel to a foreign country

To go on an archeological dig

To be fluent in a second language   

To make an artistic contribution to a film

To go on a safari in Africa

To publish a book of my own writing

To run a marathon

A lot left to do, and I need some new dreams, too. It's easy to let a list like this fall by the wayside because we're too busy, too consumed with being an adult to remember how to dream like a kid. The greatest thing that Randy Pausch taught me is that it's possible to do both at the same time. He had a career, a family, and many demands on his time. And he still made it a focus of his life to live those childhood dreams with equal parts of gusto and grace. He knew what he wanted and he went after it. 

For sure, his life was cut short. With his imagination and talents, he would have been able to usher in more sweeping advances in our technological world. He still had so much to teach us. The best way to honor him and the incredible life he lived is take that box of dreams down from the shelf, dust it off, and rediscover ourselves. At the very least, it's worth the trip down memory lane, and we may just find a new road take.