“Plans are useless…planning is indispensible.” ~ Einsenhower
As a relentless planner and practitioner, I’ve sometimes wondered if I slog through this process in vain. After all, so few of my plans work out the way I want them to go, or the way I think I want them to go. Maybe planning is a waste of time.
Now, come on, you didn’t really think I’d throw in the towel on planning did you? How could I toss away this highly attuned skill for scenario mapping, decision tree drawing, and pro con list making? It took a lot of work to get here, and even if my plans don’t work out it’s not a waste to plan, is it?
According to Ike, it’s very valuable. And I agree. I do love the act of planning, outcome aside. I like to think about possibilities and compare them to one another. Planning gives me a chance to consider how I want to spend my time and with whom. It gives me time to reflect on past experiences and to relive their lessons. Planning makes me realize just how far I’ve come along in life and they get me excited for what’s ahead. Planning is the compass for self-discovery.
I’ve often heard it said that the act of giving is its own reward. I think that goes for planning, too.
I just finished watching the 8-part PBS series on the history of New York City. The PBS series on New York closes with former Governor Mario Cuomo quoting Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit paleontologist and philosopher. De Chardin said that, “One of the tricks in life is to convert everything into good.” You’re a sculptor and you have a stone with a scar in it. “So now you have to sculpt around that scar,” Cuomo says. “You’ve got to use that scar to make it part of whatever it is you’re going to produce that’s beautiful, and work with what you have. Play it as it lies. So whatever the circumstance, use it for good purpose.”
I don’t believe that everything happens for a reason. I don’t believe we are destined to go through this struggle or that hardship as some sort of predetermined development. As free thinking, free feeling individuals who have a tremendous ability to adapt to new information and new circumstances, we create reason and meaning from life. We can make good, as de Chardin encourages us to do, as Cuomo encouarges us to do. Even from the most horrible, tragic circumstances, we can learn and grow and help others do the same.
This work of making good is not easy. I’m not sure that it really comes naturally to anyone. However, on the other side of anger, grief, embarrassment, and disappointment, there lies a vast expanse of possibility if we choose to see it. Every day, we have the opportunity to take a look at our lives, the good and the bad, and draw conclusions and lessons to carry forward into tomorrow. Making meaning of what happens to us and to our communities is our greatest creative act. We are literally willing meaning into being. This is where our stories are spun, where our gifts come alive, where in the act of inferring meaning in our days they become meaning-full. Go there.
Photo from Occupy Wall Street“Find a small stream in which your strengths can flow and then see if you can carve it into the Mississippi.” ~ Marcus Buckingham
I am conflicted about Occupy Wall Street. So conflicted, that I have been conflicted about writing anything on the situation other than a tweet here and there. I certainly support everyone’s right to speak their mind and raise their concerns. The frustration that has served as the fuel for the protest is widely understood and shared, by me and nearly everyone else I know. Yesterday someone asked me if I’ve been down to the protest, and when I said no, they were a bit surprised. Given my outspoken and scrappy personality, this movement seems like it would be a natural fit for me.
Here’s the rub: I can’t show up at the protests authentically. I work for a financial services company, I have an MBA, and though I grew up in a family of very few financial means, I pushed myself instead of the government or the economy to get my life on track. I never expected anyone to do anything to get me a job. I always felt fully responsible for my own well-being. The world never owed me anything, and never will, except the opportunity to try. My happiness and success falls squarely on my shoulders, and my shoulders alone.
Entrepreneurs
Steve Jobs and every other entrepreneur out there didn’t expect anyone to create jobs. They actually didn’t want anyone to give them a job. They wanted to build their own careers, their own companies. They wanted to invent the future, theirs and the world’s. Their futures were safer in their own two hands.
Thrifty People Susan Gregory Thomas is a single mother who takes care of her family’s nutrition and personal needs on about $100 / week thanks to an oversized amount of curiosity, necessity, and a love for simplicity. To do so, she and her family went back to the land, reluctantly, in Brooklyn. She was a freelance writer who lost most of her income in the recession and had to reign in her spending in a serious way. Her story is inspiring and shows just how much we can do when the stakes are high and the options are few. We are far more resourceful and creative than we realize.
The only people I know who really make something extraordinary out of their days are those who roll up their sleeves and build it. I recognize that people feel badly about this economy and about our government. I feel badly, too. My days are not spent doing exactly what I want to do at every single moment. There is this pesky little matter of over-sized student loans that I really want to pay off as quickly as I can. I put myself through school twice, and my education is the very best investment I’ve ever made. And that investment has come at a price tag that I am responsible for paying. To do that, I have to delay my dream of working for myself for a bit.
Of course I’d like the situation to be different, but it’s not. Complaining about it doesn’t do anything except make me feel worse so I don’t complain about it. I made my choices and now I live with their consequences. I got myself a job that pays the bills and I work on my creative projects when I’m done with my bill paying job. It won’t always be this way, though for now this will do just fine. I can make short-term sacrifices for the sake of a long-term dream.
And that may just be the trick. We want short and long-term gain, in every area of our lives. Understood sacrifice is no longer a part of our national fabric. The moment we are made to make any compromises or trade-offs, the moment we are asked to be patient for anything we want, we are furious. I’m not sure how we can sustain this mindset, and there will certainly be pain in putting our economy back together. Lots of it.
It’s this very mindset, not big business, that got us into this mess in the first place. If we hadn’t been so eager to take on more debt than we can afford and if we hadn’t been more-than-willing to buy anything and everything that big business is selling, we may well have avoided this recession, or at least made it less severe. Now we are really in a tough place, and it is very painful to look in the mirror and say, “We are responsible.” That act is ALWAYS painful. Personal responsibility is a tough and often uncomfortable possession. We are looking for someone to blame, someone whom we can hold accountable for our unhappiness and our collective mistakes. And we are looking for someone to save us. The person we are waiting for is us; we must be our own saviors,
Banks, big business, and millionaires (even self-made ones) are easy, accessible targets. I’m not in agreement with the Tea Party or the GOP – I don’t think there is anything Un-American about Occupy Wall Street. I certainly think that big business prayed on our weaknesses and made their cheap, poorly made goods and services attractive in deceptive ways. But they didn’t force us to do anything. We chose where to spend our money and how much of it.
We are free thinkers and we make choices every moment of every day. Those collective small choices brought us to where we are today. And the choices we make going forward will determine how this whole thing shakes out. In no way do I mean to discourage people from joining Occupy Wall Street. Maybe their voices will raise a new and badly needed source of consciousness in government, in business, and in the minds of individuals.
But you won’t see me Occupying Wall Street. I’m inside the belly of the beast trying to make it more compassionate and raise its awareness from the inside out. There are a lot of people like me in financial services and big business trying to do the same. If we really want to change the financial system, we first need to understand how it operates. I’ve found the best way to do that is get in there, grab a front row seat, and then work like hell to make it a better place.
I went to dinner last night with a group of people and a friend of a friend of mine insisted that she has lived in New York City for 13 years and it is just impossible to be mindful here. Given my own experience, I had to disagree. It may be challenging to be mindful here, but it is certainly not impossible. Mindfulness is a choice. And if we don’t choose mindfulness, then what do we choose? To be mindless? How sad.
This brief, and rather uncomfortable, exchange prompted me to think of a picture recently shown to me by my friend, Allan. Take a look at the image at the top of this post. The world “investment”. Now look a bit closer and turn the picture 180 degrees. “Speculation” magically appears. The image is exactly the same; what you see depends upon your point-of-view, literally and figuratively.
Brian and I had a tough conversation this past week. I was lamenting my student loans and the time I’m spending every day doing things that help earn my paycheck but don’t help to change the world. He was not having it. He raised a number of topics and anecdotes that are each worth their own post. I’ll be sharing them with you in posts this coming week because they were so helpful to me, even though they were tough to hear. I think they may help you, too, particularly if you are contemplating a new, scary beginning. As I left his office, there was just one statement that kept ringing in my mind over and over again. “Christa, you’re free if you want to be.”
I just finished reading Nelson Mandela’s new book Conversations with Myself, a collection of his personal papers that he has decided to release now that he is in the twilight of his life. Of the 26 years he spent in prison, he continually said that his mind was very far from his cell. In his mind, his thoughts, he was always free, even though physically he was servicing a life sentence. This idea helped me to reason that if he could feel free, then any of us can, too.
Freedom is all in the mind, and the mind can be changed. We can be mindful even in the mayhem of New York City; we can see an opportunity as speculation or investment; we can either lift ourselves up or keep ourselves down with our thoughts. If it is change we seek, on any scale, then we must first go inward and change our own minds.
I’ve changed my mind a hundred times on which e-reader to buy, that is once I decided I did want an e-reader. I love books, the feel and smell of them. I even like the feel of the weight in my hands, but not on my shoulders.
I just finished Conversations with Myself, a collection of papers, interviews, and letters from Nelson Mandela’s archive. At 480 pages, it is a hefty item to tote around on the crowded NYC subway to and from work. I looked around the car and saw everyone on their devices that slide easily in and our of their bags, no sign of trouble when flipping the page or holding it close to them as they navigated the too-small space between them and their closest neighbors.
I, on the other handle, was fumbling to such a degree that I just packed the book away in my overstuffed bag, where it barely fit. On my subway car, I was the only person with a paper book, a book I borrowed from he library! Despite that I make my living working in mobile technology, I was a relic of a time gone by. Books made out of paper? They call those antiques!
And now it was time to take a serious look at my decision tree. I have been comparing models of e-readers since the first Kindle was a whisper in the market. I took my friend, Susan‘s, advice from job searching and applied it to my e-reader decision. I stopped comparing models and considered my perfect e-reader, available options aside.
Here’s what I need, in order of importance:
1.) A comfortable reading experience – I spend so much of my day looking at shiny screens and I’m already worried about my eyes. I need a near-paper reading experience.
2.) Borrow library books – I love the New York Public Library and I’d like to be able to download e-books from the library to my e-reader.
3.) An electronic notepad – I do my best writing while I’m traveling and carrying my laptop with me is getting to be a burden. I don’t need anything too fancy – just a way to easily jot down my thoughts and upload them to my laptop when I get home.
Now that I knew what kind of e-reader I really wanted, it was easier to evaluate options. By getting clear on my needs, the clear answer rose to the top: meet my new e-reader, the new Kindle Touch, featuring e-ink, library book borrowing, and personal annotation capabilities (Kindle does one better on this last point by sinking all my documents across all of my devices.)
And this is just the beginning of what it offers. It will be ready to ship around November 21st and I can’t wait to get started on it. My shoulders are going to be so happy with this decision. Already I can hear them sighing, “It’s about time!” Indeed, it is.
My friend, Susan, posted this up on Facebook last week and I love it so much I’m having it framed to hang in my apartment. This is exactly the kind of woman I aim to be. There are a lot of things in the world that I’d like to change, fix, and influence. It’s easy to get bogged down by the enormity of tackling even just one of them; quotes like this keep me going.
The only thing crazier than putting all of our efforts toward crafting a better world is leaving things just as they are.
“Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?
The Master doesn’t seek fulfillment. Not seeking, not expecting, Is present, and can welcome all things.”
~ Tao Teh Ching by Lao Tzu
We are raring to go. I know. I hear you. I’m with you. We want to will and action every idea we have into being right now. It’s understandable. We are ambitious people on a mission that the world needs fulfilled yesterday.
Retail enlightenment
I was at ISHTA Yoga last week for Douglass Stewart’s class (which by the way is one of the very classes I’ve ever taken in my 13 years of practice.) I was early and browsing around the little retail area by the entrance. I came across a t-shirt with the first two lines of Lao Tzu’s poem. I took note and went into the class.
Board member enlightenment
Compass Yoga held its second board meeting this weekend and I asked the board members to give their thoughts on whether or not we should begin to build a second program. There was a resounding call to get our program for vets running smoothly before diving in to assist a second population with serious healthcare needs. Noted. They are brilliant and thoughtful people.
Therapist enlightenment
Several days before the board meeting, I spoke to Brian about a bit of my angst around Compass Yoga. There is so much need and I’m growing impatient with the slow grind of legal, government, and nonprofit wheels. I’m looking for a way to grease the skids and get our projects moving faster. Brian listened to me with his trademark empathy and simply replied, “Christa, there are some things that are out of your control.” Noted, unhappily. I love control. Brian continued, “Go to your mat. Do your yoga and see what you find.” Okay, I like that advice better.
I finally get it
Brian, Lao Tzu, and the Compass Yoga board members are all sharing the same wise advice. It took the advice of all of them to get me to see the light. I am by nature unreasonable and restless. I have high standards for others and even higher standards for myself. Waiting is not my forte. But sometimes waiting is all we can do.
When the mud of our lives is clouding our vision and nothing is clear, we must wait for more information before we move. It doesn’t mean the right path will be easy; in my experience, the path has never been easy but I have always made more progress when the direction was clear. So these days I unroll my mat more often that usual, grab my bolster, sit, and listen. I breathe in and breathe out, and ask for guidance. The path forward will appear; it always does.
In the past few weeks, I’ve been wrestling through a next step I’d like to take in my life and career. My interest is in building healthy systems, whether those systems are in healthcare settings, work environments, schools, and in the personal lives of people. My conflict has been whether to continue my training in yoga (NYC is home to a few of the top 500 hour training schools), pursue a different path of training through another graduate degree, or start a new adventure in a form of healing other than yoga. I’ve pro/coned and decision-treed my way to bleary eyes on more than one late evening. All these paths seem to be evenly matched.
I revisited my friend, Susan‘s, advice on careers – compare options to what you really want, not to each other. With this particular decision, I had a hard time making that distinction. It seemed that all of these paths could help me down the road toward turning my career toward building healthy systems. No one way seems surer than the others. On top of Susan’s brilliant advice, I had to grab another piece of her advice from her book The Right Job, Right Now: I had to consider my life values outside of just career in order to make this choice. In other words, I need to look in more than look out.
In my gut, I know: 1.) I am so happy to be nearing an end to my student loans. Being free of debt is very important to me. 2.) I truly relish my free time when I can use to pursue my own projects 3.) No matter what I’ve faced in my life, my yoga and my meditation practices have been there for me, available wherever I go. They are critically important to me.
Though all of these options are good options, in my belly, my gut, it seems like the right choice is to continue down the yoga path for now. I am always open to more information and additional insight. In the immediate future, more training in yoga that focuses on anatomy, alignment, and keeping students safe in class feels like the right place for me to be. And I couldn’t know that by looking out into the world. As The Way and Its Power so beautifully conveys, the way forward is in.
“The grass isn’t greener on the other side. It’s greener where you water it.” ~ my pal, Sharni
Earlier this week I wrote about my decision to turn down a recent job offer in favor of staying at my current company and pursing my own entrepreneurial projects through Compass Yoga and my writing. I have been surprised by how invigorated I feel from the decision. There is something to be said for having a look around at the career landscape, being given the opportunity to move, and then realizing that I have it pretty good exactly where I am. My current company, while it has its flaws, offers me tremendous flexibility and the opportunity to work with a lot of people whom I truly like and respect. The process of considering another offer gave me fresh eyes to see my current situation’s benefits to my life.
Just before receiving this new offer, friends of mine cautioned me about leaving. I initially wrote off the caution as their own hang-up about change. However, their advice planted a seed of balanced decision making. I really did need to weigh what I was giving up at my current company and what I could potentially receive in return at the new company. Ultimately it came down to realizing that I was going to have to give up a lot (flexibility, relationships and a reputation that I have worked hard for, and a solid compensation package), and I wasn’t going to get enough in return (lower title and compensation than I had expected, and a real loss of my personal time). Once that became clear to me, I knew the new offer wasn’t the right fit for me.
I was away on a business trip when I received the new offer and on the flight to my destination I saw the movie Midnight in Paris. The movie follows the lead character who is obsessed with 1920s Paris and The Lost Generation. He has the opportunity to live in that era of history, and in the process realizes that the people of that period longed for the Belle Époque, Paris in the 1890s. While he realizes his life in 2010 needs some changes, he recognizes that we’re always longing for another time. Too often we think the grass is greener elsewhere when in fact we almost always have the opportunity to make the grass we already have greener through our own efforts.
My friend, Sharni, has been blogging about this very point-of-view and her tag line “the grass is greener where you water it” perfectly sums up my recent career decision. My cautious friends were absolutely right – I have a lot more opportunity right at my fingertips than I realized. I bet you do to!
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” ~ Nietzche
With my recent career decision, I had to get my priorities back in order. I used to think of priority setting as a one-and-done action. It’s actually a daily process, a constant tinkering based on new bits of information and insights.
To make my latest career decision, I relied on an old technique that has worked for me in the past: I write my priorities down on paper and post them just above the doorknob of my front door.
Writing – the daily posts on this blog as well as several other writing projects currently underway
Freedom – in terms of finances, time, and geography
These priorities give me broad context for how to cultivate and slot in opportunities. If an opportunity doesn’t support one of these priorities, then I can pass it on. These priorities are lenses and funnels, a deceptively simple decision tree of sorts. In Nietzche’s words, they are the “whys”. Now, I have a way to evaluate the “hows”.
“Plans are useless…planning is indispensible.” ~ Einsenhower
Christa Avampato 