Category: dreams

dreams, good fortune, journey, travel

Step 242: Philadelphia Stories

Christa Avampato

This weekend, my traveling pal, Dan, and I went to Philadelphia. We stayed with Dan’s friends, Jeremy and Reese, who could not have been more gracious hosts. They also have a bulldog, Dolly – an added bonus. Jeremy took us on a tour of the neighborhood around Penn, my alma mater, and we went through neighborhoods that I haven’t thought about in over a decade. Truthfully, I wouldn’t have recognized them on my own. Philly has come a long way since the 1990’s.

Philly’s an under-appreciated city; it has been for a long time. Great food, art, culture, easily navigable, with a relaxed, casual feel. We had several great meals at local restaurants and gastropubs, went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, checked out the U.S. Mint and the Magic Garden, a public art installation of found objects. Some of the best education and medical facilities in the country are located in Philly. It takes 90 minutes to get to New York by Amtrak – even faster on the Acela train. Slightly longer to get to D.C. And did I mention that it’s affordable and filled with exceedingly kind people?

So why aren’t people moving to Philly in droves? Simple – business, sadly, has no incentive to move there, limiting economic opportunities. Philadelphia has a ridiculously high gross receipts tax and city wage tax for all business owners based in the city. These fees have been around forever, and different factions have tried over many years to reduce this burden on business owners in the hopes of spurring economic growth. All to no avail. Apparently Mayor Nutter’s administration is considering another fix to these fees. Like President Obama, Mayor Nutter was left with quite a bit to fix in Philadelphia before he could get started on new initiatives. It’s my hope that he will be successful in jump starting more businesses to set up shop in Philly.

I have a personal interest in seeing Philadelphia rise up to get all that it deserves. It is a city that has had a difficult, important history. In many ways, I came of age there as a Penn student. I had some of the very best, worst, happiest, saddest, proudest, and most disappointing moments of my life there. I learned how to love and care deeply about people and community. I discovered that one person really can make an enormous difference in the world. I learned how to fail, fall, and get up again, growing stronger every time.

When I graduated my friend, Derek, gave me a photo frame with a quote inside it. “Years from now, you’ll remember and you’ll come back and hang a plaque. This is where Christa began being what she can. ~ Stephen Sondheim, Merrily We Roll Along” I didn’t know how fitting that was until the trip back this weekend. I haven’t yet hung a plaque on any wall there, but I really did begin a journey of possibility there.

Philly and I have a history intertwined. I didn’t recognize the campus as I toured through the neighborhood on Saturday. Through the eyes of my 22-year old self, I wouldn’t recognize the me of today either. Philly and I have both grown and changed in dramatic ways, mostly for the better. And I’d like to believe that for Philly and for my own life, the very best of our days have yet to be seen.

career, dreams, education, work

Step 234: Public Education Needs Us to Set Sail

Christa Avampato

“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” ~ John A. Shedd

This week I read Paul Tough’s op-ed in the New York Times about innovation in public education. As I begin the journey to transition my career in corporate product development to innovation in public education, I’ve been doing a lot of research on new ideas in the education field. Tough, who wrote the excellent biography Whatever It Takes about Jeffrey Canada and the Harlem Childrens Zone, raises the flag on Congress continually commissioning fact-finding studies rather than putting new ideas into action in schools. This is equivalent to companies testing new product ideas in powerpoint rather than in market.

It’s safe to test in powerpoint, to commission research studies. The trouble is those acts don’t move us forward on our journey. Testing new ideas in the public eye takes guts and conviction. Innovation in any field is not for the faint of heart or the perfectionists. Innovation is for the ones who are willing to let go of today’s safety for the possibility that a brighter, happier tomorrow lies just beyond the shore. It is for the person who is willing to give up the perfectly acceptable for the hopeful promise of the truly extraordinary. Innovation, particularly in an area as critical to our future as public education, is for people who demand the ship pull up its anchor and head straight on toward the horizon. And if that ship refuses to move the innovator will pitch herself overboard and go it alone with the tides. It takes a certain amount of fearlessness mixed with equal amounts of curiosity and humility.

Paul Tough, Geoffrey Canada, and a myriad of others who care deeply about public education today are those innovators who would rather risk it all because the truly risky bet is to just do what we’ve always done; and what we’ve always done in public education is no longer working. We’re seeing the frightening effects in free-falling test scores, soaring drop-out rates, and ever-increasing desperation in the very poorest school districts. Public education needs you, me, and as many others as we can gather. Our government bands together to save the big banks, but not public education. Most government officials don’t understand that simply throwing money at the public education problems doesn’t make them go away. It takes just as much heart as it does money to have an impact in the lives of our children.

Some people ask me why I’d hop off the corporate product development track to pursue a career in public education. I have a plum position with a well-known company working on new technology development, a role that many MBAs would take in a heartbeat. I make good money. Most of the time the hours are perfectly manageable. By all accounts, I have found a safe harbor in the economic storm. I am beyond grateful for the opportunity. I could stay there and do well and move up the ladder. That life would be fine, but for the fact that it is not the least bit reflective of my spirit.

Here’s the rub: I don’t bring my heart to work. I show up to collect a paycheck. Nothing I do is building a better world, directly or indirectly. It’s just making more money for people who already have plenty of money, more money than they could ever possibly need. And I don’t want to wake up at the end of my career and look back at a broken public education system only to say, “I really should have spent my career trying to innovate in schools. That would have really made a difference.” I could sit back and years from now look around at a big pile of money in a bank account, and it would feel completely worthless. I would have wasted my time, and that’s just too tragic for me to bear.

So I’ve started to make my way out to sea, a tiny little row-boat paddling as fast as I can toward the sun. Call me an idealist; I’d welcome that. I’d rather live by my own ideals than by someone else’s. The mother ship is fading into the background and I’m looking for a way to do the work I was built for. Sometimes you’ve just got to set sail, no matter how rough the waters may seem.

books, diet, dreams, entertainment, film, food, forgiveness, love, movie, relationships, religion, simplicity

Step 225: The Best Way to Eat Pray Love

Christa Avampato

“In a world of disorder and disaster and fraud, sometimes only beauty can be trusted. Pleasure cannot be bargained down.” ~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love

The long-anticipated movie of a woman traveling through the world looking for delicious food, peace of mind, and love opens in theaters nationwide today. Last week I walked by a swanky home store advertising “get your Eat Pray Love scented candles here” in its windows. Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat Pray Love, runs an importing business with her new husband. That may explain the commercialization of the film. Still, the merchandising seems like an odd play destined for a less-than-stellar market performance, no matter how high the box office ratings are.

The sad truth is that Eat Pray Love is a well-written book, with lyrical language, rich imagery, and some important insights that, if put to good use, could actually increase people’s happiness. The problem is that it’s been so hyped that most consumers are sick to death of it. And the onslaught of book-related merchandise doesn’t help matters any.

Here’s my suggestion: don’t go to the movie at all. I’m not even sure I’d suggest you read the book at this point. You know how the story goes so it sort of takes the fun out of it. Here’s how you can really live the message of finding your own path, the issue at the heart of the story:

1.) Eat well and enjoy it. Stop mindlessly munching on whatever is within arms reach, enjoy your food with good company, and rather than beating the heck out of yourself for the calories, just exercise more

2.) Pray in your own way. I’m a spiritual person, meaning that the light that is within me honors the light that is within you. Be good to your family, your friends, and your neighbors. Stop asking what the world needs you to do, and just concentrate on doing what brings you joy. That’s where the real goodness is. Recognize that there’s something beyond the here and now, and that we are all intricately and beautifully connected. Honor that connection through service, which is at its essence a divine act.

3.) Love. Forget your past failures in love. Forget the heartache and the tears and the anger and the screwed up behaviors of people who hurt you. Get it all out in the open, let it go, and move on. There’s nothing worse that ruining our next relationship by imbuing it with the problems of the last one. I know it’s hard. I’ve had my heart broken in a million pieces more times than I can count. I’ve got a good family and good friends who help me pick up the pieces and put them back together, and I’m a better person for it, even though it was hell to go through in the first place. Keep loving. The alternative is what causes this world to be such a rough place to live – we shouldn’t make it any worse by carting around our disappointments from one relationship to the next.

And if you really want to know what Elizabeth Gilbert and her journey are all about, watch her TED talk on creativity. In 18 minutes it will inspire you to do something extraordinary, and the world could use a little more of that these days.

The image above depicts Julia Roberts as Elizabeth Gilbert in the movie Eat Pray Love, opening today nationwide. I like the sunflowers.

childhood, dreams, imagination

Step 216: Dreaming Impossible

Christa Avampato

“When we are dreaming alone it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality.” ~ DH Camara (as quoted by Bridget Ayers on Twitter)

As kids, we dream. Somewhere along the way someone told us to do things like “grow up”, “take responsibility”, and “get a REAL job.” Those people make me mad. I have a hard time understanding why dream must be mutually exclusive from growing up (whatever that means), taking responsibility, and having a real job. Who decided that dreams are by their very nature immature, reckless, and fake?

Reading several books about Pixar and one about bring games into everyday life strengthened my resolve to dream and bring others into my dreams. These books also strengthened my conviction that a company and a career can attain wild success and have fun as a core ingredient. I might even go so far as to say that to have a company, career, and life that attains wild success, fun must be the main ingredient. Today I decided that every day going forward I must play more, no matter where I am or who I’m with.

I don’t mean that I intend to goof off as much as possible in the hope that money falls from the sky and into my bank account. I want to roll up my sleeves and get to work building, creating, and playing. Walt Disney built Disneyland in a year, from empty blueprints to people walking into his first park. People told him countless times it couldn’t be done, until of course it was done. “It’s fun to do the impossible,” he famously said. I agree.

Pictured above: a young Walt Disney and his most prized creation. Ironically, when Walt first arrived in Hollywood he thought he was late to the animation party because Felix the Cat had gained so much fame. Little did he know that he wasn’t poised to develop characters as famous at Felix, but to set the new standards for the entire entertainment industry.

dreams, family, learning, relationships

Step 206: Dreams Must Be Lived

Christa Avampato

My niece, Lorelei, lives in her tutu. It’s one of the first things she asks for in the morning. She loves to put it on, along with her dancing shoes (little black patent leather shoes with bows on the sides), and tap around on the kitchen tiles. She’d be thrilled if we could tile the whole world like a kitchen. She’ll spin, belt out a few Disney musical tunes, and take a bow. She invites everyone else to join in.

Her tutu transforms her – she takes on a new persona with it. It’s her special everyday costume. As I danced around the kitchen with her almost every morning of my vacation, I wondered what my tutu is. What is that one thing I have that transforms me into exactly the person I want to be? What helps me put away any fears I feel for the sake of just living to the fullest?

I have a white puffy calf-length skirt that I bought several years ago. I live in it during the summer. I love to twirl around in it. It makes me feel like I’m in some far away place, like I’m an explorer. It’s one of the few things that survived the fire in my apartment building. I have no idea how the specialty cleaner got the smoke and soot out of it. I bet they bleached the heck out it, and I’m glad they did. That skirt is my version of a tutu.

I’m not a clotheshorse – I actually hate shopping, particularly shopping for clothing. I do think it’s important to have one item that helps us to actualize and crystallize our lives exactly as we wish them to be. It helps to keep dreams in the forefront of our minds.

This week, I worked on numbers, letters, and vocabulary with Lorelei. She taught me about the value of not only having dreams, but also acting out our dreams. I think I got the better end of the deal.

The photo above is my niece, Lorelei, dancing in her tutu. If you have your version of a tutu, I’d love to hear about it!

choices, creative process, curiosity, discovery, dreams, experience, productivity, success

Step 204: Better to Never Finish Than Never Begin

Christa Avampato

“Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes – work never begun.” – Christina Rossetti

I saw this quote this morning on Twitter courtesy of Bridget Ayers, President of Get Smart Web Consulting. Over this week in Florida, I’ve been planning some new projects including a new blog / book idea about yoga and personal finance, my LIM College class about social media marketing, and schools where I can pilot Innovation Station, my after-school program for middle school students that teaches them about product design. I’ve had some moments of doubt about these projects – Are they valuable to people? Do I have enough experience to pull them together? What if they don’t work?

Doubts are important in the same way that a healthy fear of the ocean keeps us from drowning. After doubts initially occur to me, I remember to be grateful for them. Doubts, if handled properly, can dramatically improve our ideas. Doubts should be incorporated into our product development, but they should not deter us from getting started.

We should always begin, and if our projects don’t work out, we should just begin again. There’s no harm in giving something a go. The real harm is in never giving ourselves a chance.

decision-making, dreams

Step 157: Choosing What to Do

Christa Avampato

“There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those.” ~ Michael Nolan

Opportunities run rampant, so much so that sometimes we miss them. They appear like streaks of light across our line of vision. They wake us up for a moment, and then when we’ve realized they passed, we sink back down and wait. But sometimes, an idea, a dream catches more than our eye. It grabs ahold of our hearts and just won’t let go. As Brian says, “True passion would rather chew its own arm off to free itself rather than die on the vine.” A bit grotesque, but you see what he means. You may even feel it, too.

I have notebooks and blog posts and diaries full of dreams, little sparks and glimmers that caught my eyes from a very young age. They are packed away in boxes in my closest (and thankfully, though not surprisingly, survived my apartment fire last year.) I remember their magic and beauty when I re-open them and read some of their words. I realize how many of my dreams changed and died and were replaced by other dreams. The real ones, the true ones, did not need to be written down. They took up residence in my heart, and they are the ones I still carry and will continue to carry:

1.) To travel
2.) To help
3.) To write
4.) To love

Simple dreams – 8 words in all that express my life as I want it to be lived, today, tomorrow, and always. They comprise the lenses through which I view all the opportunities that cross my path. If it serves one (or more!), I take it up. And if it doesn’t, I let it pass on by without regret. After all, a dream that only catches my eye is better served by being passed on to another person who holds it in her heart.

The image above was created by Eric Perrone.

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?

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.

dreams, meditation, yoga

Step 81: The Hand You’re Dealt

Christa Avampato

“I never worry about the hand I’ve got because I know how lucky I am to have been dealt into the game at all.” ~ ME

Meditation is a fascinating thing. I’ve been trying to do a few minutes everyday, either right when I wake up or just before I go to bed. There are a few remarkable things that have been happening since I started this practice. I’m not sure that the correlation is 100%, but I have to think that the extra yoga and meditation has something to do with it.

First of all, I’m sleeping much better, perhaps better than I ever have. For a long time I’ve struggled with insomnia, and though it hasn’t effected my productivity or health, I have worried that it’s taking a toll on me without my knowing it. The fact that I can now sleep 7 hours at a clip is a miraculous thing.

My dreams are also unfolding in an interesting way – it’s as if I am being read a story in each one. These little pearls of wisdom like the one above are spoken to me in such a dramatic way that I remember them when I wake up. They are often embedded inside dreams where I am doing something that I think should scare me, but doesn’t. For example, last night I dreamed that I was back in my old apartment building where the fire happened. I ran into my old landlord who told me that there were some items in my old apartment that I should go get. So I walked up the stairs and found items for my altar – statues of Vishnu (the preserver), Ganesha (the remover of obstacles), and Shiva (the destroyer). Jewels, gold, and silver filled my old apartment. I collected them all, my arms overflowing, and walked out of the building into the sunlight.

It’s now been over 6 months since my fire, and I can’t help thinking that it was the very best and very worst thing that ever happened to me. To lose almost everything in one breath and to gain such an appreciation and gratitude for life in the next is a tough thing to reconcile in my conscious mind. In my subconscious, in the place of dreams, I clearly understand all of the gifts that the fire gave me. It was a bad hand to be dealt, but with a lot of help I made the most of it. In the end, I am really glad that I still get to be a part of the game.

The image above depicts Shiva, the Destroyer, dancing in a ring of fire, clearing away from our lives what does not serve.