Category: change

books, career, change

Step 327: Your Career in Decades

Christa Avampato

I recently met someone who thinks about his career in decades. He got a PhD and spent 10 years as a particle physicist, is now about 5 years into his decade in finance, and believes his next decade of work will involve green energy. I was really struck by this framework for a career. He wasn’t the least bit phased about moving from field to field, taking an entirely different direction each time. Nor was he concerned with how to explain his jumps. He sees his career as a vehicle for learning, not as a way to build a resume. He loves being a beginner, charging up a vertical learning curve. I admire him for that.

About a year ago I wrote a post about Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers. In the book he discusses a benchmark for making a specific impact in a chosen professional field – 10,000 hours of work. Let’s assume someone works 40 hours per week for 50 weeks per year. That makes 2,000 hours per year, making it necessary to work for about 5 years in a given field. If an average career spans roughly 40 years, we have the opportunity to make a significant impact in 8 different fields throughout our careers.

My new friend and his decade rule seem to be on to something here. Why not leap? Why not strike out and try something entirely new? As long as we feel comfortable starting over, there’s so much good we can do, so many new experiences we can have. There’s no reason to feel stuck.

adventure, career, change, choices, decision-making, risk

Step 315: Risks Are Less Scary Than They First Appear

Christa Avampato

I’m a fan of the daily newsletter from Psychology Today. Every day they send over 4 stories that are loosely connected, and try to make their readers better people. A few weeks ago they sent over a set of article about fear and how the mind interprets different fears. My big take-away: we have a warped view of risk, real and perceived.

I think about risk a lot for several specific reasons:

1.) At the moment I work in financial services – an industry built around the ability to manage risk
2.) I’m working on starting a small business – a challenging proposition even when the economy is at its best
3.) I live in New York City, a city built and run by people who take their dreams, and all the risk that those dreams carry, very seriously

One of Psychology Today’s articles talks about the 10 ways we screw up our perception of a risk. The good news: we’re actually much more capable than we give ourselves credit for. I understand that the economy’s in the hole because we got way too confident, that for years we were living way out of the ballpark of our means. I’m not suggesting we get back to that place of too-risky living.

What I am suggesting is that we’ve gone too far in the other direction. We tell ourselves that we can’t take any risk now. Better to stay in the job, relationship, city where we are. New is scary. New is uncertain. New is overrated. I hate that we’ve painted ourselves into a corner. It’s true that we need to make smart choices, but it’s also true that we need to live, really live. We’re creatures of dreams and aspirations and joy. We won’t thrive if we don’t strive.

I’m not telling you to run out into the world, full tilt, throwing any and every caution to the wind. (Well, actually, I think it’s good to do that once in a while.) What I am asking you to do is keep in mind that we only get one crack at this go-around in the world and that this world needs you to live the best life you can imagine. We need you at your very best. It’s my firm belief that we’re at our best when we’re happiest, and we’re happiest when we’re out there in the world living the way we want.

So take a little tip-toe outside of that box you put yourself in. Try something new and different that does nothing but lift your spirits. If we all take some small steps, together we can leap.

change, choices, creativity, imagination

Step 312: Growing Imagination

Christa Avampato

“Even as you research, you are filtering out the things that do not resonate with your inner ideals and choosing what does. In doing so you are telling the universe to narrow down the infinite possibilities, focusing all the combined energy of co-creation on what you have chosen. This creates a channel through which your goals can find you, like a beacon in the vast darkness of the universe. Today you are the creator of your future, and your only limits are the boundaries of your imagination.” ~ My horoscope from DailyOm on Friday, November 5th.

My friend, Laura, introduced me to DailyOm horoscopes about a year ago and I am always amazed by their ability to strike just the right chord and help me to feel okay with where I am. I read the horoscope above on my phone just as I was leaving Brian’s office. I was talking with him about a shift in my career that I’m hoping to make in 2011, as well as some other plans I’m making for new projects. I’ve been toying with different ideas and filtering as needed. I explained to Brian that the filtering process can be a little frustrating because it seems to take so much time and the pay-off builds in such small increments.

I’ve started to believe that every creative act requires more editing than content. The initial recording of the idea is important, though the culling down, the focus, and the distillation of what matters and how to execute it are equally important. And that focus is needed if we want to truly expand and grow our imaginations to their full potential. And the incredible thing about imagination is that once we choose to embrace it, celebrate it, and nurture it our goals really do find us. This isn’t magic; it’s only the harvesting of all the seeds we’ve sewn for so long.

change, time

Step 311: An Extra Hour

Christa Avampato

“All my possessions for a moment of time.” ~ Elizabeth I

I never believed it would happen, that life would go by faster as I got older. This year has flown by for me, and the holidays are just around the corner. So many of my friends have talked recently about the passage of time, how one day falls into the next and before we know it too many days have gone before we’ve all gotten together again. I know every second of every day passes by at the exact same length as every second that came before it and everyone that will come after it.

I think times goes by more quickly once we fully realize just how fleeting it all is. When we see the lines start to creep around our eyes, when we see our parents start to grow older, and when we have to start checking the next demographic box on market surveys we realize time doesn’t have to ask for our permission to pass by and it doesn’t care about whether or not we accept it’s passing. It has a stubborn mind of its own. It will go on, with or without us.

I thought a lot about time yesterday as we got an hour of it back. The end of Daylight savings time is the one day when we get that 25th hour we so desperately crave. And you know what? It didn’t really matter that much, just like it doesn’t really matter if we have a little more money or a little more luck. We are remarkable creatures of adaption. If suddenly days shrunk to 23 hours, we’d find a way to still get everything done. We’d flex. We always do.

art, change, choices, faith, fear, politics, relationships, religion, theatre

Step 287: Review of the Off-Broadway Show, Freud’s Last Session

Christa Avampato

In 1998, I saw the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile in San Francisco. I remember being completely riveted watching the fictional meeting of two of the most inspiring characters of all time, Einstein and Picasso. This construct for a play appealed to me so much that I still routinely think about that show 12 years later. It was at times touching and sad, joyful and hopeful. Full of lively, passionate debate and intense discussion about timeless social issues, I always felt it would be hard for a play to match Steve Martin’s brilliance.

Lucky for us Mark St. Germain has succeeded in building a script that’s even more powerful and thought-provoking than Martin’s – Freud’s Last Session, now playing off-Broadway at The Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater at the West Side YMCA. Freud’s Last Session showcases the possibly factual meeting between a young C.S. Lewis, a devout Christian and the gifted author who would go on to write The Chronicles of Narnia and The Screwtape Letters, and Sigmund Freud, a life-long atheist, consummate intellectual, and founding figure of psychoanalysis, who is at the very end of his life and career, dying of oral cancer. Set in London on September 3, 1939, the invasion of Poland by the Nazis serves as the political backdrop of their meeting.

The piece made me laugh out loud one moment, and tug at my deepest convictions the next. The dialogue is so sharp and the acting by Martin Rayner (Freud) and Mark H. Dold (Lewis) so penetrating that the 75-minute show flew by, too quickly in my opinion. I wanted more of the debate and the history. I found myself rooting for their relationship, and wanting it to go on, in spite of knowing that 20 days later Freud would engage his long-time friend and physician to end his battle with cancer.

The show touches upon an incredibly diverse set of themes: religion first and foremost, war, death, sexuality, fear, faith, love, memory, humor, and change. While this list of topics seems overwhelming, they are in the very capable hands and words of St. Germain, who expertly weaves them together in such a seamless way that I found myself completely wrapped up in the story as if it were my own. The language he uses is so vivid and the mannerisms of the actors are so authentic that I truly felt I was peering into a window on history. This play is the most rare form of theatrical work – a perfect script. Every single word precisely and beautifully chosen. The set and lighting designs are so realistic that I felt transported across space and time to Freud’s London study to witness this single, emotional meeting.

This show has a special, very personal meaning for me because my father was a Freudian psychologist. He passed away when I was a teenager, long before I ever had the opportunity to have a conversation with him as Lewis may have had with Freud. I didn’t get the opportunity to understand his contradictions and complexities, though that may have been for the best. At the end of his life, he was in a great deal of pain physically and emotionally, as Freud was. Through the dialogue of Freud’s Last Session, I was able to put together some more pieces about my father’s personality, as if I had actually been placed there in that seat for a very specific reason – to help me get a little bit closer to understanding my childhood. My thanks to Mark St. Germain for this amazing gift; he has inspired me to dig deeper and learn more about Freud and Lewis. I’m confident that there are more answers there, waiting for me to discover them. And that is perhaps the greatest lesson of the show – that self-discovery is a journey that never ends and yet must be pursued. As he so adeptly has Lewis say, “The real struggle is to keep trying.”

Freud’s Last Session runs through November 28th at The Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater. Don’t miss it.

Image above depicts Mark H. Dold and Martin Rayner as Lewis and Freud, respectively.

change, family, work

Step 267: Thanks for the Wings

Christa Avampato

My mom and pop are on their way to Florida today, setting off for a new chapter filled with sunshine and only the things they love. The days of working for someone else’s goals are a memory for them. They’ve more than earned this new place in the sun.

I would be lying if I didn’t confess that there’s a bit of heartache in this decision for me. My parents are getting older, heading into the autumn of their lives and all that aging brings with it. They’ll be a 2.5 hour plane ride away now rather than a 1.5 hour train ride. Wit their move, I am reminded again that life is changing. Always changing, and fleeting.

At my mom’s retirement dinner this week, a large room full of friends gathered together to send her off in style and to thank her for so many years together. Some of them had such a hard time saying good-bye. I did, too. And I know it’s not good-bye to them, but it is good-bye to what has been for so long. And even though this is a wonderful, well-deserved and long-overdue change, there is a bit of mourning in it. There’s always mourning baked into change.

My brother, Joey, gave one of the speeches at mom’s dinner. It was a really beautiful sentiment based on my mom’s favorite movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. He simply said, “thanks for the wings.” And we all felt that. Even when mom couldn’t fly with us, she still pushed us out of the nest and sent us on our way so we could fly solo into whatever future we wanted. She lifted us up, and even if we didn’t always agree with her, she never prevented us from going where we felt we needed to go.

Joey got it right – thanks for the wings, Mom. And everything that you had to sacrifice to give them to us. Now, it’s your turn to get some wings of your own.

celebration, change, family, work

Step 260: My Mom Retired Today

Christa Avampato

When I was a teenager, I distinctly remember watching the news with my mom one night and there was a segment on retirement and social security. It was quickly becoming apparent to our nation that my generation would likely never collect social security despite all we would pay into it for many years. My mom said something like, “it must be nice to retire.” I replied with something like, “you’ll find out someday.” And then I have a snapshot in my mind of my mom hanging her head and saying, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to retire.” And it wasn’t for lack of wanting to but lack of means.

That all changed today. Just about now, my mom is packing up the last items of her office, clicking the door shut one last time, and bidding adieu to the life of full-time work. Today she will retire from over 50 years as part of the American workforce – an incredible accomplishment by any standard.

So what’s next for my mom? We’re aren’t 100% sure yet. She’s moving to Florida next week to be close to my sister and her family. She is eager to spend more time with my darling nieces and it’s time for her to spend more time in the sunshine, resting, relaxing, and reflecting. She’ll do that for a bit and then decide what’s next.

Maybe she’ll continue with her own small business, get a part-time job doing something she loves, or spend a lot of time volunteering in her new community. Maybe she’ll take up writing or painting or some other art. Maybe she’ll learn to be a clown and join the circus. My mom is full of surprises. It’s one of the many things I love about her.

I do know that she won’t take retirement lying down. She loves to be busy and active, and now she has the opportunity to really get to her life to-do list now that her employer’s to-do list is done. My mom is a firm believer in the idea that when a door closes a window opens. I can’t wait to see how everything unfolds for her. Happy retirement, Mom – no one is more deserving of it than you!

art, change, museum, New York City

Step 255: Matisse’s Unfinished Works

Christa Avampato

I went to MoMA today to see the special Matisse exhibition. It covers the period between 1913 and 1917 when Matisse began to find his groove that became his hallmark – the voluptuous figures, bold colors, and intentionally unfinished quality of seemingly simplistic forms. It is a collection of work gathered from all over the world, from a variety of public and private collections, that is a rare treat that showcases an artist as he gains confidence in his own voice. So often art exhibitions show an artist’s work that made him or her famous, that fully expresses a specific point of view. MoMA’s Matisse exhibit however shows an artist in the process of becoming.

My friends, Allan, Sara, Andrew, and I all commented on how much of Matisse’s work in the exhibit remains intentionally unfinished. He made very few comments on the work while he was alive, leaving the interpretation to his audience. On the audio tour, curators from MoMA and the Art Institute of Chicago commented on the work, largely guessing at what Matisse meant to say with each piece as he re-worked each canvas several times with different color schemes, adding new characters, and then taking them away, changing background colors and landscapes. Matisse never seemed to be satisfied or finished with a work. Rather, he just moved on.

Matisse’s work got me thinking about how we all work the different canvases of our lives. We move on from jobs, relationships, cities where we live, leaving each with some mark that we were there and yet giving them the freedom to evolve long after we’ve gone, all remaining open to interpretation of what our presence meant and what might have happened if we had stayed on longer. Maybe Matisse in his early career had it right not just about art, but about life – we are all in the process of becoming, no work (or life) is ever quite finished, and it all deserves celebration and reflection.

Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913 – 1917 is on exhibit at MoMA until October 11, 2010.

The photo above depicts Henri Matisse painting Bathers by a River, May 13, 1913. Photograph by Alvin Langdon Coburn. Courtesy of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester

books, change, community, government, politics

Step 250: An Answered Prayer for the City of Philadelphia

Christa Avampato

On vacation I started reading A Prayer for the City by Buzz Bissinger. The book recounts the history of Philadelphia from 1992-1997 while then-Mayor Ed Rendell (now Governor Rendell of Pennsylvania) held office. The book was published in 1997, one year before my graduation from Penn. Though I was largely unaware of Philadelphia politics aside from the fact that Mayor Rendell presided over a city run largely by corruption, I certainly experienced Philadelphia’s rough exterior as described by Bissinger while I was a student.

I distinctly remember the metal bars on my freshman dorm room windows that made it look more like a prison than the start of a bright college career. And of course I will never forget the homeless man just beyond those bars screaming vulgar obscenities as I rolled my suitcases through the doorway. My mother was horrified. The next day a graduate math student was shot and killed right in the middle of campus, just outside The Castle, which ironically served as Penn’s Community Service House where I was part of a pre-matriculation service program. Freshman women took a self-defense class as part of on-campus programming in the dorms. Locust Walk, the main campus thoroughfare, was lit up by an abundance of blue light phones and Penn Escort Service was heavily encouraged and fully utilized when students needed to walk around the perimeters of campus after midnight. Welcome to Philadelphia circa 1994.

My sophomore year I was mugged in the subway station at Walnut and 37th at knife point by a guy who wanted the cash in my wallet and politely handed it back to me completely intact otherwise. Looking back I think he was more frightened than I was. I remember scrambling up the stairs and running smack into a naval officer who helped me to get to a blue light phone to call for help. The Philadelphia police arrived in moments, storming down into the station, and I never rode the subway again until the very end of my senior year, and only then because my boyfriend at the time was with me. I was sadly not a unique case – I knew countless students who had incidents far worse than mine.

Once I moved into the high-rises at the north end of campus, it was routine to hear gunfire and watch the violence unfold out my window at Billy Bob’s Cheesesteaks as I studied in my apartment very late into the night. A solo walk past 40th Street was unheard of and a trip to the only grocery store, a Safeway dubbed “Scaryway”, had to be a group outing to increase our chances of actually making it back to campus with our groceries. Even that grocery store looked like a fortress – they had built a gate around it so the shopping carts could not be taken from the immediate perimeter of the store, forcing us to grab our groceries from the cart and then squeeze between the bars to get out.

So it was especially heartening to get back to Philly last weekend and see the change that has swept the city. Its rebound is nothing short of miraculous. The Saint Albans area, where Dan and I stayed a few weeks ago, would never have been a destination for me as a Penn student. Nearly every house on that block used to be boarded up, full of loitering by people I’d hope to never run into in any alley, whether at night or in broad daylight. Dan’s friend, Jeremy, drove us through neighborhoods that didn’t even exist 10 years ago. I was overwhelmed by the change, and Dan could scarcely believe the stories I told of vacant lots, littered with broken glass and drug dealers, now made over into Barnes & Noble, Sephora, and restaurants of every variety. It’s as if someone took a bulldozer to Philadelphia and started over.

After I left Penn, I moved to D.C. for 6 months and then headed for New York City, which became the center of my world, leaving Philadelphia as a distant memory. I don’t know much about what happened between 1992 and 1997 that laid the groundwork for all of the change that I could see taking shape when I graduated from Penn in 1998 that has now come to fruition over a decade later. I’m looking forward to finding out what Philadelphia did to turn itself around and I’m grateful to Mr. Bissinger for setting it down in print with such elegant description. What I know for certain is that Rendell fulfilled the promise he made during his 1992 inaugural speech, “Change must surely come…this city cannot only survive; it can come alive again…I cannot and will not falter. We cannot and will not fail.” From my vantage point, the people of Philadelphia have passed with flying colors.

change, learning, Life, relationships, values

Step 248: 8 Lessons From My Apartment Building Fire, One Year Later

Christa Avampato

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of my apartment building fire. In some ways, I cannot believe it’s gone by so quickly and in other ways I can’t believe how much change has happened in a year. So net-net, it feels like it has been a productive year with a lot of learning. Sometimes I still shiver at the thought of the circumstances and what could have happened if everything had gone horribly wrong, if I hadn’t followed my instincts. I wrote a series of posts on this blog that recount the difficult days after the fire. They begin with my post on September 5, 2009.

The building has reopened and the walls have been painted over a pristine white. You’d never know that one year ago a fire ripped through the hallways, but every time I walk by it, I still feel the gravity of what happened there one year ago. To commemorate and celebrate the occasion, here are the top 10 things I learned as a result of my fire:

1.) I now trust my gut 99% of the time. Trusting my gut on September 5, 2009 saved my life. I had every reason to discount the feeling of dread that I felt in my kitchen when I heard my heat pipes ticking. Something told me to look a little closer, and that’s when I saw the tiles on the floor heaving. I quickly got to my stairs, without over-thinking what was happening, and despite the thick black smoke, I kept running for my life. Had I delayed even a few minutes or second-guessed my gut, the consequences would have been dire.

2.) It’s okay to ask for help. In the days after my fire, I really tried to pretend that everything was fine, that I was fine, that I was strong and invincible. The truth is that I’m strong, and human. I needed help to sort out the trauma that followed my fire and started to see Brian, my life coach. We started on a journey of self-discovery together and it is one of the most rewarding relationships of my life.

3.) Someone who wants me to move through a traumatic situation at lightning speed for his own sake is not worth having in my life. At the time of my fire, I was dating a guy whom I had really fallen for. He was a prince the day of the fire, though as soon as he saw that this wasn’t just a little blip on the radar screen of my life, he showed the less appealing side of his character. Things quickly unraveled and while we tried to maintain some kind of relationship right after our romance ended, I quickly walked away and have never looked back. That departure started a year-long effort to only have people in my life who believe that love and friendship are a two-way street.

4.) There really is no time like the present. I was sort of floating through life a year ago. I had a job that was okay, but that I honestly felt no passion for. I had been thinking of moving to a more mission-based organization, and now one year later I’m fully on that path. Destination unknown, but I know I’m moving in the right direction now by taking steps toward moving my career toward public education.

5.) Empathy is a must in all of my relationships. At the time of my fire, I worked for a woman who can only be described as wretched. She was not the least bit sympathetic toward my situation, and actually gave me a hard time about taking one day off to work with my insurance company and loaded up my plate with additional work. That moment was a definite breaking point for me, and I decided from then on that I would never work with that type of person again. Empathy is now a non-negotiable in every area of my life. (I got out of the situation with that former boss several months later, and found my way to a better internal position at my company.)

6.) True friends can celebrate with you and cry with you. I’ve had people in my life who are fair weather friends and friends who only show up when the chips are down. Real friends are the ones who show up in both kinds of situations, and everything in between. I’m blessed to have so many people in my life who fit that description.

7.) Your stuff really is just stuff. I lost almost all of my material belongings in the fire. A few things survived, but I essentially had to rebuild my material life. I had gotten to a point where I really valued my material possessions. Now, it’s just not that important to me. I only replaced the essentials – I just didn’t want “things” anymore, and I still don’t. I down-sized in a big way and feel lighter. Even if everything went up in smoke again, so long as my health and the safety of others were preserved, I really would be okay. I am not what I own. (However, PLEASE go get renter’s insurance. The peace of my mind that my Liberty Mutual policy brought me was immense. I had enough emotional fall-out to deal with from the fire itself, so not having to deal with a major financial crisis on top of it was worth every penny of my $200 annual policy.)

8.) This too shall pass. And by “this”, I mean everything. Everything always changes, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. My yoga practice has helped me accept and embrace this fact that my fire so brilliantly illuminated. And it led me to pursue my yoga teacher certification and the founding of Compass Yoga to share these insights.

Not a bad year of learning. And despite the unfortunate circumstances, my fire is the gift that keeps on giving. The lessons I learned as a result have brought tremendous peace and gratitude to my life. It couldn’t have been more unexpected, and looking back I can’t say I’d wish it hadn’t happened. It woke me up, which is exactly what I needed.

The image above is a picture of one of the hallways in my apartment building after the fire.