Month: January 2010

books, Obama, politics

Step 11: It’s the Little Things

Christa Avampato

“Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh

It’s easy to pay attention to the big emotions of our lives: Falling in love, grief from losing a loved one, pride for a hard-won accomplishment, or disappointment caused by betrayal. There’s no way to avoid those huge swells, positive or negative, because they take over our lives. Reading this Van Gogh quote made me think about all those tiny emotions that we feel at every moment, and that often pass by unconsciously: frustration at getting on a crowded subway car, wincing at the sting of the cold weather, gratitude when someone holds the door open for us, and joy from an encouraging message from a friend. These smaller emotions, while less significant in size, can add up to a great deal of our happiness quotient.

How do we feel about lives in the empty moments, when nothing particularly emotional is happening, when our lives are just humming along without any type of massive shift? In those quiet moments, we get a sense of our base emotions and attitude. The trick is to recognize and appreciate that empty moment. With all of the opportunities to fill up empty space, it’s easy to avoid ever having an empty moment. The empty moments are important because they allow us to take stock of the little emotions; they let us get a sense of where we are on the happiness curve.

On the way to work this morning, I was thinking about how we handle the constant tweaks of the little emotions that every day circumstances cause. Because I just interviewed Sasha Abramsky, author of Inside Obama’s Brain, I’ve been considering Obama as a role model for how to conduct our daily lives. Whenever Obama is thrown a curve ball, and isn’t quite sure how to react, he smiles. We can observe this behavior in his debates, during his press conferences, and during one-on-one media interviews. The smile lets him pause, gather his thoughts, and remain outwardly composed in the process.

This tactic gives him the opportunity to work through his small emotions, rather than having to obey them. And he looks good all the way through the process: he looks as if nothing ever phases him and provides a thoughtful, articulate response. A wonderful example to manage the little emotions we all experience.

clarity, decision-making, happiness, opportunity, simplicity

Step 10: A Place to Go

Christa Avampato

“I learn by going where I have to go.” ~ Theodore Roethke in the Poet’s Corner at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine

I keep a wipe board in my apartment that tracks my to-do’s for my projects. This confined space helps me to sort out where and how I’m spending my time and energy. It’s a helpful, simple tool that keeps me on track by giving me a very concrete visual of my priorities. It tells me where I have to go to create the kind of life I want.

In 2010, this chart has been heavily influenced by Innovation Station, my after-school project with Citizen Schools. With Citizen Schools, citizen teachers build the curriculum backwards, starting with the construction of the final project, called a “WOW”, and working the lessons backwards with the final project always in mind. Rather than using the forward-working paradigm of “what comes next?”, I have to start with “what needs to happen right before the WOW?” I decided to try this approach with my wipe board, too. On the far right side I wrote down the goal, and then only included the projects in my life right now that work toward that goal.

This exercise helped in a number of ways:

1.) I have some projects in my life that aren’t serving that goal, and they didn’t make it to the wipe board. These projects have value; they just aren’t the right projects for me given my goals and in comparison to the other projects I have. I also noticed some very clear holes – things I needed to be doing, places I needed to be going, that I didn’t realize before this process.

2.) I breathed a great big sigh of happiness to see how the projects all fit together and support one another. A cohesive plan breeds confidence and conviction.

3.) Having the plan laid out gave me a lot of energy. I spent a lot of time carefully thinking through options and allowing them to play themselves out in my mind while I made some key decisions. With this plan laid out, I freed up the energy that I was using in the decision-making process.

4.) The plan provides me with more down time to be with people. These projects lay out the main interests of my life, and by knowing those interests, I can strengthen relationships I already have and start new ones based on commonalities. I am always inspired by feats that people can accomplish through collaboration. Having a very clear sense of what we want to accomplish helps us to meet others who have those same goals – our kindred spirits.

5.) The wipe board gives me a place to go. There will always be new opportunities and new projects that will appear. It can be hard to say no. With a clear sense of what I want, I can go to the board and see where the new opportunity fits. If it doesn’t fit, then the decision process is made that much easier. It’s an effective sorting method.

Clarity of mind gives us a wonderful sense of freedom, a radiance that we can feel and that others can see. By working toward clarity, decisions become easier. The tough work of getting to clarity is well-worth the reward of simplicity.

children, design, education, New York City, student

Step 9: Perseverance

Christa Avampato

“With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.” ~ Thomas Foxwell Buxton

I’ve known some people in my life who are so brilliant, so capable, and yet they never seem to reach heights that are well within their grasp. They toil away in jobs that aren’t quite right. They miss the opportunity for love, for community impact, for profound influence because they weren’t willing to put in just a bit more effort. My father was one of these people. He had a truly brilliant mind and could have been the leading clinical psychologist of his day. Unfortunately, he thought the world should reward him specifically because he was brilliant. He didn’t realize the world doesn’t work that way.

And then I’ve known people of fairly modest talent who were just relentless in their efforts, and achieved not only what was within their natural reach, but also successes that no one else thought possible. It’s the people in this latter group who have been my greatest teachers. They showed me that the world rewards those who work as hard as they can and give the best they’ve got everyday. The world rewards commitment, particularly commitment that perseveres in the face of great adversity.

I thought about this ideal this morning when I found out that my after-school education program with Citizen Schools starts the week of February 8th, not the week of February 25th as I had originally planned. This accelerates the time line I now have to work under. I’m going to have to shuffle around some other commitments so that my first few lessons plans are created and edited in time for the class. I’ve been collecting resources for several months and now is the time to just sit down and plow through the work.

And then I paused as I looked at all of these resources, most from designers of incredible talent. I appreciate design and use the tools of a designer in my profession as a product developer, though I am not a traditionally trained designer. I didn’t go to art school and I’m not an engineer. My product development skills have been self-taught. I’m a volunteer teacher, though I don’t have a degree from an education school and I don’t have a teacher certification. My teaching skills have also been self-taught. To top it off, I’ll be teaching in a school in East Harlem with more than its fair share of challenges: it is the lowest performing school in the Citizen Schools portfolio. 87% of the students receive free or reduced-price lunch (this is an indicator that 87% fall at or below the poverty line), 86% read below grade level, and 78% have math skills below grade level.

I leaned back in my chair, and asked myself, “What exactly are you doing, Christa?” But I didn’t ask this question with an air of despair or fear. I asked myself the question to mean, “What is the heart of the matter here? What gifts do you have to give these children who need you so much?” With that motivation in mind, any trace of trepidation disappeared.

I have modest design talents with extraordinary passion, empathy, and determination to back them up. I grew up below the poverty line, and still many adults believed in my talents and abilities. Now its my turn to manifest that same belief in these children. I’m paying forward the great and good gifts that so many people gave me when I was in school.

My idea to use design as the backbone to engage students in the learning process is not revolutionary; many people have thought of this idea, and many of them are far better designers than I am. No matter. There are so many children who need help, so many children who need an adult to show up for them and take a vested interest in their lives and education, that it is impossible for me to not have a profound impact in this field. My own individual commitment and perseverance is the only limitation on the amount of good I can do with this program, and I’ve got both of those in spades.

blog, education, teaching, writing, yoga

Step 8: Yogoer.com

Christa Avampato

With my yoga teacher training starting on February 27th, I’ve been thinking about how to document that journey. I’ve been practicing yoga for 10 years and in 2004 I took a 30-hour weekend course that gave me a very basic certification. I used that certification to teach free yoga classes to my stressed out classmates at Darden Business School. I’ve been wanting to build on that training for several years in the hopes of opening a studio, running a yoga retreat, or using yoga for medicinal purposes and athletic training.

When I moved back to New York in 2007, I started looking around for a studio program that was Yoga Alliance Certified. I found them to be very expensive – far beyond my means – so I had to put that dream on hold for a bit. About a year ago, I stumbled upon Sonic Yoga in Hell’s Kitchen, which runs an affordable program expressly because they feel that many of the current programs are too expensive for most people. They are also incredibly flexible with the timing of the class and off a night and weekend program for people who work full-time. After attending classes and meeting with one of the instructors, I knew the program was the right fit for me.

Now that I am registered for the training, I wanted to share my experience of becoming a Yoga Alliance certified teacher and was struggling a bit with where to do that. On this blog, I really want to focus on my 365 steps toward an extraordinary life. Some of those will absolutely be linked to the yoga teacher training, though I didn’t feel that this was the best venue to record the full process of getting certified. So I went hunting for a better place.

It didn’t take long before I found Yogoer.com, a site run by Erica Heinz, a freelance graphic artist, wellness blogger, and Huffington Post columnist. I will be featuring Erica and Yogoer.com in an upcoming Examiner.com piece. With all of its incredible information about yoga in New York City, Yogoer.com seemed like an ideal place for me to record my training process and connect with other yogis.

My first piece is up on Yogoer.com today and talks about some of the preparation work I’m doing for the training. You will be able to view a full set of my posts here. I will post on this blog each time I have a new post on Yogoer.com. I hope you’ll join me over there as I start this new journey and check out everything that the site and its iPhone app have to offer! Ommmmm…..

career, courage, friendship

Step 7: Nothing Left to Lose

Christa Avampato

A friend of mine is making his final pitch tomorrow. In a job that he’s grown tired of, and quite frankly is far too talented for, he’s going to the powers-that-be (and I use the word powers very lightly) to see if he can get funding for a project that interests him. The chance to work on this project is the only reason he would stay at the job. Otherwise, he’s leaving to get his own business going. His bravery inspires me.

My friend has been looking to make this move for a while, though like so many he wanted to do the reasonable, responsible thing in a difficult economy. At a time when so many are out of work, he was nervous about voluntarily leaving his job. As much as some economists will tout that the recession is over, there are many dissenting voices who say it will be a long, slow climb out of this hole. So what changed for my friend? How did he make a change within his own mind when little around him has changed? Where did his boldness come from?

“Well, Christa, I have nothing left to lose now,” he told me today. “This is the only project on the table that interests me and if I can’t work on it, then I’ve got to make myself useful somewhere else. I just can’t stay where I am anymore.”

On the phone today, I was bursting with pride for my friend. He flipped that switch, recognized and embraced his own talents, and recognized how they could be used in his current situation. More importantly, he realized that if his gifts couldn’t be utilized where he is then he has to make use of them somewhere else. Leaving them unused is no longer an option in his own heart.

To be sure, in the last few weeks leading up to this decision he has at times felt completely terrified. I’d argue that this means he’s really on to something here. It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we realize that the direction of our lives really is up to us.

books, economy, education, yoga

Step 6: The Roots of Ideas

Christa Avampato

I double majored in Economics and American History and got a minor in Psychology at Penn because I was interested in the energy of money, its influence on major world events, and its effect on the human psyche. Through the lens of History and Psychology, I found that Economics was much more a moral discipline than a disinterested field. Early on, we learned the name John Maynard Keynes and the underlying theories of Keynesian economics: a system of checks and balances, a fervent acceptance of the role of uncertainty, and a logical, predictable linking of specific actions to specific consequences. Because of my interest in the human impact of money, I was made to be his student.

He was an economist who loathed an over-reliance on data. Data can say anything we want it to say; it can be twisted and turned and reinterpreted to suit any hypothesis. To really understand a situation, we’ve got to pick our heads up, knowledgeable of the current data, though able to correlate it to easily expressed principles and moral values.

This morning I started reading Keynes: The Return of the Master by Robert Skidelsky. From the very first words, I re-discovered how important it is to read original theories and primary source material, not just interpretation of that material. As I got out of the subway, I thought about the other books I’m currently reading. I’ve started to gravitate toward these primary sources: books of Yogic scripture to prepare for my yoga teacher training class, works by John Dewey to understand the underpinning of our education system, autobiographical accounts of world events, and original documentation that established our government.

While it’s one thing to observe, practice, and read the works of experts and influencers, it’s only in reading the original grounding work of a philosophy, of a movement, that we can develop our own views and deep observations. If all we do is interpret and translate someone else’s interpretations of primary material, eventually we enter into a game of telephone, and the original beliefs are likely distorted beyond recognition.

To truly understand an idea, we have to go to the source, to the seed that gave that idea to the word. As Keynes so brilliantly stated and Skidelsky rightly echos, “ideas matter profoundly…indeed the world is ruled by little else.” The roots of those ideas matter profoundly, too. Get to the root.
dreams, education, goals

Step 5: Your Sentence

Christa Avampato

My friend, Richard, just sent me this clip with Dan Pink’s advice on how to transform our lives in 2010 with two simple questions: “What’s your sentence?” and “Were you better today than you were yesterday?” The people I admire most can sum up their contributions to humanity in one succinct sentence stating a very specific contribution. This is also true of my favorite books, blogs, artists, writers, activists, and cause-based organizations. They all have a singular focus and purpose. Is a succinct reason for being the secret ingredient to every extraordinary life?

It’s amazing that this paradigm of a single sentence describing an extraordinary life holds true no matter what great personality I consider. Thomas Jefferson penned his own epitaph with a single sentence. No copywriter, no editor. “Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, of The Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.” This is the summation of his life in his terms. These are the things that mattered most to him. Nelson Mandela’s book, Long Walk to Freedom, remains one of the greatest influence on my life. I could only read a few pages of his story at a time because each word is packed with such emotion and power. His unwavering confidence in and passion for his beliefs is overwhelming. Very simply, his sentence is “I am the Father of a free South Africa.”

So maybe that’s it. Maybe we can all get to extraordinary if we can find our sentence and manage our lives in support of it. By the end of 2010, I want to write my one sentence. I’ve written some blog posts about how I want to be remembered when my time has come and gone, what lasting impact I’d like to have on the world. After 364 days of living a life trying to make each day better than the day before, I think I can get it down to one brief sentence. This is the initial sentence that comes to mind, in rough long form:

“Christa was someone who created a global education system that used creativity as the backbone for all learning, gave 1 million children a second chance at a better life, and offered an entire generation the opportunity to be job creators instead of job seekers.”

It needs some polish, but it’s a start.

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

guest blogger, Muppet

Guest Post on World’s Strongest Librarian

Christa Avampato

I’m thrilled that today I have a guest post on World’s Strongest Librarian. I compared WSL’s author, Josh, to four Muppets. Here is a peek at the intro. Click here to read the full post.

“Some of my fondest childhood memories involve sitting around the TV with my family watching the Muppet Show. That show spurred my interest in theatre, a career I pursued for five and half years right after I graduated from college.

I write about the characters of the Muppet Show, Sesame Street, and all of their spin-offs with great regularity on my blog and have read numerous books, blogs, and websites about these fabulously funny and furry creatures and their creators.”

change, dreams, gifts, nature

Step 4: The Gift of a Fallen Branch

Christa Avampato

“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.

guest blogger, owning pink

Owning Pink Feature

Christa Avampato

I am thrilled and humbled that Lissa and Joy over at Owning Pink made one of my recent posts the Mojo Monday exercise. The post was inspired by World’s Strongest Librarian. Much thanks to Josh for inspiring my writing. Here is a short intro and a link to the post:

“This Mojo Monday, let’s put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, heart to mind, and consider what memories made us who we are today, right now, in this moment. Profound or silly, happy or sad, painful or joyful, what are the “when” moments that created and crafted beautiful, gorgeous you and what truths did they reveal?”

Snapshots of When