Category: choices

choices, decision-making, priorities

Step 163: Stones, Gravel, and a Jar

Christa Avampato

This week O’Reilly Media sent me a book entitled Your Money: The Missing Manual by JD Roth, the author of Getrichslowly.org. The book is chock-full of helpful money tips and resources. No matter what your level of financial management, the book has something useful for everyone. I’ll review the book in a later post, though wanted to share an anecdote in the book that applies to goal setting and how we spend our time.

Let’s say we have a mason jar, a few big stones, and a lot of gravel. We need to get all of the gravel and all of the stones into the jar. What should we do first? We could pour in all of the gravel to create a nice level surface and then try to stack the big stones on top of the gravel. If we take this approach, we find that the big stones don’t fit in the jar neatly. Now, let’s put the big stones in first and then pour the gravel on top of the big stones. This second approach allows the gravel to do what it does best – fill in the small little spaces around the big stones. Everything fits.

This analogy sheds light so many areas of our lives: how we set up our to-do lists, pack for vacation, design our living space or office, decide on a career or a job, and build relationships. We need big, clear priorities (the big stones) and then we have lower priorities (the gravel) that can fit in and around the bigger stones. Getting the big stones, our biggest priorities, placed first helps us meet with success, and ultimately drives our happiness.

On Friday afternoon, I started to feel overwhelmed with my weekend. I have friends in town, a birthday party tonight, and lots of personal things to get done on my to-do list. The jar analogy helped me organize my time:

Big stones
See my friends who are visiting
Finish the rough draft of a syllabus for a class I will teach in the Fall
Work on my e-book on entrepreneurship

Gravel
Friend’s birthday party – it’s an all-day / well-into-the-evening party so I have lots of options of how to attend
Clean my apartment for a friend who will be in town on Monday
Grocery shopping
Some blog writing
Planning for a SWSX presentation I plan to submit in the next few weeks
Get in some yoga
Doing some prep work for my Greece trip in a few weeks
and the list goes on…

Now I have a much clearer path to a successful happy weekend. Make progress on the big stones first, and then fill in with gravel when and where I can. I hope this analogy helps you, too!

change, choices, decision-making, dreams

Step 156: Take What You Get or Make What You Take

Christa Avampato

“It is–as we see it–our life. To live … or lose. To form … or allow to be formed.” ~ Tom Peters

Tom Peters has knocked it out of the park this week with his quotes. I wonder if he and I have some secret psychic linkage. Someone once said to me that I have two choices in life: be a narrowcaster or a broadcaster. I think about that choice a lot. Tom Peters says the same thing in this quote. Either form your own road or hop on a road that someone else formed, not for you, but regardless of you. Said that way, I don’t have a choice. I have to go my own way. That’s my nature and I’ve got to be true to it.

I don’t begrudge people who take someone else’s road and do well. I kind of envy them. That must be an easier path than the one I’m choosing to build. I just can’t stomach it. In the very depths of my gut, it feels like the wrong way to spend my days. Brian tried to tell me that yesterday. “The safe road is actually not safe at all,” he said. I sort of believed him at the time.

And then I woke up this morning with a great big illustrative light bulb over my head. Of course I have to build my own road while I’m walking it. One brick at a time. One foot in front of the other. My own instincts as my light in the dark. Would I really be happy any other way?

adventure, change, choices, decision-making

Step 155: Crossing the Chasm

Christa Avampato

“The word … is REFRAMING. Taking a task … and turning it into something-that-makes-a-difference.” ~ Tom Peters

Today, crossing the chasm means more to me than the gap between early adopters and mass appeal as explained by Geoffrey Moore in his excellent business book by the same title. I have two very competent halves: my logical, fiscally responsible side who has done an excellent job of helping me strive, survive, and thrive, and the daydream believer side who must make a difference in the world by doing spiritually meaningful work. Between them exists a very wide gap and I spend a good deal of my energy making the leap on a daily (and sometimes more than daily) basis. To use Tom Peter’s sentiment, I want a better frame.

Where else could I put this energy so that it better serves the bridging of this divide? How can I live my work and work the way I live? Fully. Passionately. Deeply giddy about dreaming and even more giddy about rolling up my sleeves and physically birthing those dreams into the world.

I refuse to believe that these are the idle words that an idyllic life represents and that few can actually achieve. I know that the two can reconcile. And actually, they must reconcile. The chasm has grown too wide for me, and rather than putting my energy into jumping further every day, today I started to build the bridge. Here we go…

The photo above can be found here.

career, change, choices, faith

Step 134: The Life Waiting For Us

Christa Avampato

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.” ~ Joseph Campbell

I walked to the subway last night with a friend of mine from yoga class. She asked me how I got so interested in so many things, which lead to us talking about the idea of life paths. I went to school with a lot of people who were on a straight and narrow road. It must be nice to have that consistency. Surprise is the constant in my life.

When I started college, I was going to be a civil engineer. And then I became a history / economics majors. After a brief stint on Capitol Hill as a legislative aide, I made a career in Broadway theatre, which eventually took me into fundraising, followed by business school. From business school, I started working in the innovation field at a toy company and now I’m a product developer in financial services, on the verge of starting my own social enterprise around my impending yoga teacher certification. I’ve moved to a new home almost once a year since I was 18 – which was a long time ago. Such a linear path, right?!

At a job interview, a VP once looked at my resume and said, “Wow. sounds like you’ve done a lot of exploring.” He didn’t mean this as a compliment. Smiling, I replied, “Yes. Yes, I have.” I did get the job, despite his disapproval of my life path. He was also a very unhappy, lazy man who was let go shortly after he interviewed me. I guess being an explorer pays off in the long-run.

Truth be told, I was always out there in the world looking for opportunity and very often I found it. While some people worry about taking too many turns, I hang on and enjoy the ride. I’ve met so many fascinating people, traveled, and done everything I always wanted to do. It is a charmed life, but one I did not plan. I was just always prepared to be lucky and happy.

Sometimes I had to let go of the life I had for the promise of adventure. I had to trust that the opportunities before me were meant for me, that my life was out of my hands to a certain degree. And while it sounds scary to say that, it doesn’t feel at all scary to live it. Control is an illusion.

Whenever I was ready to leap, somehow I grew wings. Whenever I was ready to climb, there was some gentle hand that helped me rise. The life I was meant for was always waiting for me to just show up and be there and live it. So that’s what I do: I just show up, try to be present, and smile, and laugh, and learn, and trust that where I am at every moment is where I am supposed to be.

choices, decision-making, dreams, history, television

Step 120: Forget the Odds

Christa Avampato

“All quests worth undertaking … require audacity. And willpower. (Of course.) And persistence. (Of course.) But frankly, a persistent misreading of the odds.” ~ Tom Peters

The History Channel is running a series called America: The Story of Us. In each episode, the series talks about a specific chapter of American History. VSL highlighted it last week in their daily listing and I added it to my calendar. I could always use a little more history in my life.

I saw the series premiere and thought about how unlikely it was that we’d ever become a nation. The odds of success at the beginning of the Revolution had to be near zero. We are the most unlikely story ever told, and lived. This week I’ve been thinking about that episode in the context of pursuing my most unlikely dreams. The quote above by Tom Peters showed up in my inbox, and it reminded me how much courage comes from consistently misreading the odds, or seeing them and paying them no mind. If the people who fought for our early nation got out some paper, drew up a business plan, and calculated the NPV of America, risk factors and all, we’d have British accents.

I’m not suggesting that we throw every caution and hesitation to the wind. I’m suggesting that we have this one life, this one opportunity to do something extraordinary. People may not understand where we’re going. They may not understand why we’re making certain choices or taking a chance on a dream. That’s okay. They don’t need to understand. They’re crunching numbers and drawing up pro-cons lists and calculating odds. You’re out there living the life that you want to live, the way you want to live it. And in that scenario, there’s so such things as odds. You either live fully, or you don’t.

change, choices, decision-making

Step 107: Irons in the Fire

Christa Avampato

I got a chance to catch up with my friend, Amy, today. She is one of my dearest friends and will be visiting New York soon. She’s about to transition out of her current job and isn’t sure what will come next. Amy’s considering a number of different paths as she winds down from a wonderful job she’s had for the past four years. I’m so excited to see how everything plays out for her.

We talked about the need to put a lot of irons in the fire when we’re in the midst of change. When I was considering my next career move a few months ago, I applied to a PhD program, applied to a yoga teacher training programming, looked inside my current company at a number of positions, and started to look at external jobs as well. I explored every possibility that seemed interesting, and I ended up moving forward into a yoga teacher training program and finding a new job at my current company that I love where I can leverage all of my interests, from social media to technology to innovation. Exploring a lot of different options made the possibility of finding a combo I really wanted all the more likely. I found a little luck along the way and was dedicated to having my next move be one that really made me happy. Having options, and giving myself the freedom to consider all of them without being wed to one single path, was a key component for my next successful jump.

Our lives seem to move in concentric circles, Amy and I. It’s probably why we’ve been such good friends for so many years. I know her next step is going to yield a glorious new beginning because she’s worked so hard for so long and because she’s not afraid to live her life in many different directions. I’m glad I can be there to cheer her on.

choices, decision-making

Step 99: Planning for the Future

Christa Avampato

“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

The future is a funny thing – we do our best to shape it, even when we know it has a mind and a plan of its own. I don’t think our planning efforts are a waste. I just think we have to be prepared to change direction, and even to change our convictions, when presented with new, compelling information. We were meant, as a species, to evolve.

I’ve found that a lot of prep work that I thought I was doing for a certain path has served me well as I took a completely different direction, often one I never imagined. My theatre work lead me to yoga and gave me the best business training of my life. My time living in Florida gave me an amazing mentor and taught me the art of fundraising. That fundraising work led me to join a nonprofit board once I had crossed back over to the for-profit world with a bank (go figure!) My unique childhood lead me to become a writer. Groundwork is laid when we’re not looking. After all, we need to put down the tracks before the train can arrive.

Often the plans we’re making don’t turn out to be for the result we assumed. And that doesn’t matter. Plant that tree. Go on that trip. Take that class. Meet that person who showed up in your life when you least expected it, and smile. There’s no telling where this all will lead, and truthfully where it’s leading is none of your concern. Just show up, heart open, awareness heightened, and just commit to bear witness to what unfolds.

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

choices, decision-making

Step 97: Keep it Together or Take it Apart?

Christa Avampato

In a number of areas of my life, I’ve been thinking about whether to keep it together or take it apart:

Online – do I set up a new blog or twitter feed to explore some new topics or do I keep it all centralized here on this blog?

Entrepreneurship – do I just choose one idea for a new company I’d like to start or do I try to whip up a combination of a few of the ideas?

Vacations – do I link a few together for an extended break or take smaller trips that give me more frequent, albeit shorter, breaks throughout the year?

Work-life balance – do I seek to have a schedule that’s more fluid between work time and me time or do I want a line when work ends and me time begins?

There are valid arguments for keeping it together or taking it apart. What I’m wrestling with is which option in which areas of my life generate the most happiness. Which is more efficient? Do I want a life that’s jumbled and fragmented because I like to mix it up? Or would I be happier, and maybe even a little bit more sane, if I took on the mantras of simplicity and consolidation?

Lately I’ve found in my life that I have many more questions that answers. “I don’t know,” is a recurring reply that keeps bubbling up to the surface. In Sanskrit there is a wonderful phrase that is often used when a student asks her guru a question: “neti, neti” (“not this, not this”). The connotation of the phrase has come to be “maybe, maybe not” or “it depends…”

When I consider these questions about keeping parts of my life together or taking them apart, I often feel myself shaking my head slightly and silently repeating, “neti, neti.” I’m wondering now if we should just test it out without worries that we may have to fold and walk away if our new experiments don’t work out the way we want them to. Keep some of it together, take some of it apart, and see how it goes. The prana will point the way.

choices, decision-making

Step 92: Settling

Christa Avampato

Brian often uses the following phrase when I talk about “ideals” – the ideal job, relationship, apartment, friendships, life: “you get what you settle for.” I’ve been sitting with that phrase lately because something about it didn’t sit right with me. I have never thought of myself as someone who settles for anything. And then this weekend I realize that I’m exactly the kind of person who settles. We all are. We all get a job, choose a place to live, develop relationships, decide how to spend our free time. So there’s no more need for me to worry about settling because settling really just means choosing a path, making a decision. In this light, settling doesn’t sound bad at all.

We all settle, but the question is what are we willing to settle for? Said another way, what is it that’s going to make us happy and want to get up out of bed today. Either it’s something that makes us really happy or something that doesn’t. It either leaves us fulfilled or it doesn’t. Brian, as usual, is right. What we end up with is what we decide is good for us. We do indeed get what we settle for – it’s a matter of choice.

change, choices, decision-making

Step 51: Fixing Broken Systems

Christa Avampato

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Band-aid solutions are tempting options. They tend to be inexpensive, fairly easy to implement, and make us feel like we’re doing something good for the world. The trouble is that they are temporary fixes that soon need to be replaced, reworked, or repaired, often at a higher cost in time, dollars, and effort than the first band-aid solution, and all the while, the original problem we were trying to remedy gets further out of hand underneath.

Fixing root causes can be tiring work. It’s almost always expensive, and it usually requires a good deal of risk and a whole lot of courage. However, it’s the only fix that is truly a fix and solves a problem rather than covering it up.

This week I’ve been thinking about root causes for challenges that concern me. Some of these challenges, in order to really be overcome, are going to take significant action on my part. I can’t take care of all of them, at least not all at once. Now comes the critical step of deciding which fixes are worth doing and which fixes are better left to someone else.

I’m staring at the Magic 8 Ball of my life and asking “where do I start” and for some issues it says, “ask again later”. Right now there may be no clear cut action plan and so rather than develop a band-aid solution just so I feel like I’m making progress, I will have to let some of the challenges persist until a clear way through, even if it is a difficult path, emerges. Fixing broken systems require action, and it also requires patient inquiry. It is a great balancing act between the two.

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