Category: hope

change, faith, family, friendship, hope, love

My Year of Hopefulness – Unwitting Angels

Christa Avampato

I believe in guardian angels, divine moments of intervention, and the continuous play between the world we see and the world just beyond our vision. While I do believe that angels walk among us, I also believe that we have the ability, at every moment, to be angels to one another.

In the aftermath of the fire in my apartment building, there is a lot of chaos. I am now dealing with adjusters from my renter’s insurance. (Thank God I have renter’s insurance. If you don’t, please stop reading this post and by it immediately through Liberty Mutual at http://www.libertymutual.com. A $181 annual premium buys you $25,000 worth of coverage with a $500 deductible.) I also have buyer’s protection on my charge card so I need to make an inventory for them so I can be reimbursed for damaged items. I have to find a new place to live. I’ll have to rebuild a stock of personal items.
And you know what? It’s all okay. I am monumentally lucky to be alive and physically unscathed. Much of that is due to the amazing love and support and concern of my friends and family, from people who read my online writing and follow my usually fun antics on Twitter. This is the power of community. This is the power of unwitting angels – people who show up as little rays of light just when we need that light most. It’s always there, it sometimes just takes a different lens of experience to see it.
My friend, Amber, one of my unwitting angels in this situation, has graciously offered me her apartment for the week while she’s out of town. I came to pick up the keys from her, and we got to talking about how incidents like my apartment building fire change our perspective. She thinks I will quickly adopt the policy of “omeletitgo” – I’m just gonna let it all go. From this point forward, all those little frustrations and annoyances that build up in our day to day lives just don’t matter. The physical stuff we accumulate just doesn’t matter. If all goes up in smoke, it doesn’t matter.
All that does matter is kindness. How do we support and love and care for one another in good times and bad? How can we help those in crisis? How can we serve one another to make all of our days a bit easier? How can we all be a part of the global brigade of unwitting angels?
The image above is not my own and can be found here.
animals, environment, hope, nonprofit, philanthropy

My Year of Hopefulness – Jane Goodall

Christa Avampato

Tonight I went to 92Y to hear Jane Goodall, one of the people I admire most. Today she released a new book, Hope for Animals and Their Endangered World. It’s been 49 years since Jane began her landmark study about chimpanzees in the Gombe National Park. She was a 26 year old woman, had never attended university, grew up in a family with very few financial resources, and attempted to document the intimate details of the lives of these animals when she had no formal training on how to do this work. I read one of her many previous book, Reason for Hope, about 10 years ago. Tonight she seemed even more hopeful about the fate of the world and our ability to reverse so much of the damage we’ve done.

Jane writes, speaks, and works for hope. “Without hope, there’s no action,” she said. “My job is to give people hope.” And in the next breathe she talked about the rapid melting of the ice caps and the immense negative impact we’ve had on our planet in a few short decades. Some times, like all of us, she loses heart and becomes overwhelmed with all that we have to do to improve the world.

“So in the face of all that’s negative in the world,” Howard Gardner, the moderator asked, “how can you remain so hopeful?”

“Well, there are several simple reasons,” Jane said:

1.) We have amazing brains that are very good at problem-solving, and they get even sharper when we have our backs against the wall and we need to solve a seemingly impossible problem. Individuals take action. In England, just today, there is a program that started called 10 10. It’s aim is for individuals and companies to reduce their carbon footprint by 10% in 2010. I’d like to see that spread and become a worldwide effort.

2.) Nature is resilient. If we give it time, it grows back.

3.) Young people have so much courage. Take the Roots & Shoots program we have. It is about young people getting together and taking action to do amazing things in the world.

4.) The human spirit is indomitable. Look at Nelson Mandela. 17 years in hard labor prisons, and he comes out still able to forgive.

I found her hope contagious. She has spent her entire life planting seeds within people she meets, encouraging them to action, and setting an example for the extraordinary things we can all do with our lives. Most of all, I was touched an inspired by her approach to her work and her life. She always approaches everything from a place of love. Her one dream in her life was to work with animals. A very simple cause that live in the heart, not the head. She spent so much time with the chimps in Gombe National Park because she loved them, not because they were some scientific experiment. She cared deeply about their welfare, and wanted to share their story with others.

I’ve always looked to Jane as an activist, as someone with a lot of courage and confidence, who braved the world of science for our benefit. What I did not realize until tonight is what a strong example she is for young women. When she was 11, she dreamed of traveling to Africa and working with animals there. Her school friends laughed at her, and yet the strong women who comprised her household encouraged her to dream as big as she good and then go after those dreams. In her work with animals, she’s made all of us more human. She’s connected us to create a global community of deeply committed, concerned participants.

After an extensive Q&A session, Howard Gardner took one more audience question: “Jane, how do you reconcile science and religion?” She sighed slightly and closed with a brilliant line that will ring in my head for days to come. “I wish we would stop worrying about how we came to and come together to figure out how we’re going to get our of this mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.” Jane’s been trying to figure this out for a long time – she’s dedicated her life to this cause – and it’s about time we all join her.

To learn more about the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI), click here. In 2010, a new movie, Jane’s Journey, will be released. It chronicles Jane’s remarkable life and career.

The photo above depicts Jane Goodall and is taken her the JGI website.

art, hope, New York City, science, South Africa, travel

My Year of Hopefulness – Hope Grows

Christa Avampato

Today I went to the New Museum of Contemporary Art with my friend, Allan. There’s a South African photography exhibit by David Goldblatt on display there that I wanted to see. On the third floor, the photographs are dire. “Is all of South Africa a desert, Christa?” Allan asked me. In the photos the land has been reduced to rubble, laid barren by years of struggle and negligence. “Where is the hope?” Allan asked.

We then made our way up to the fourth floor where there were a series of before and after photographs. Barren land had regrown some. South Africa seemed a little more green, not teeming with life, though certainly much improved. I felt a small flicker of hope.

I went to South Africa about 2 years ago and though I had a series of unfortunate incidents, I also had a set of really incredible circumstances that endeared me to that country and its people. I’m sure I’ll return some day soon. While there seems to be no hope in the structures of shanty towns that can be found throughout the country, there is a great deal of strength and ambition in the eyes of South Africans. They seem to always be looking up and over, at something brighter and better in the distance.

The handful of before and after photographs got me to thinking about how hope and life can regenerate without any outside influence. The first law of thermodynamics involves the conservation of energy and it states that energy cannot be created nor destroyed. In Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, he reveals to us that while the first law of thermodynamics holds true, energy can transform into mass, and vice versa. As I viewed the photos of South Africa, particularly the before and after photos, I thought about Einstein’s theory and how it applies to broader circumstances outside of science.

It seems to me that the re-growth of life, mass, could be due to the fact that energy, hope, cannot be created nor destroyed. It just is, then, now, and always. While it may change forms and go into hiding from time to time, we can be sure that it is always there, available to us if only we have the insight to recognize it.

faith, hope, love, relationships, religion, yoga

My Year of Hopefulness – Is Human Connection More Powerful than Prayer?

Christa Avampato

“The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.” ~ Buddha

How often do we raise our eyes to the sky and ask for help? I find myself doing that from time to time. Today I got word from a partner of mine on one of my projects that we are facing some critical obstacles. I asked if there was anything I could do to help. “Pray,” she said. “Lots.”

Now, I know she’s doing much more than praying. She’s actually working her tail off, jumping through dozens of hoops to keep us moving forward. I find that with any trying circumstance, the default solution is to pray. But what are we really doing when we pray? What am I doing as I go to my yoga mat in times of distress? What am I asking for and who am I asking it of?

Maybe prayer is better directed not up towards the sky, out of our reach. Perhaps it’s much more powerful if we turn in and not out. When I go to my yoga mat and create an intention for my practice, I’m asking for help and guidance and assurance. I’m tapping into my creative well. I’m actually searching for my soul and its wisdom. It’s an overwhelming idea if I think about it too long. Can we actually tap into the energy and light around us, all around us, by looking in?

My experience has demonstrated than the answer to this question is a resounding ‘yes’. Yoga and Buddhism have some basic tenants that I try to keep at the forefront of my mind, especially during difficult times: 1) the world will provide us the exact learning that we need at the exact moment that we need it and 2) to tap into the energy around us we must recognize that while we live in this world, we are not of it. Our souls are old. They have been through many trials. They are the ties that bind us to one another. They have knowledge far beyond what we carry within our minds and our own limited experiences. Meditation, yoga, or any other contemplative practice bring that soul knowledge to our consciousness.

While in Virginia, I used to teach yoga classes at my business school. They were my small way of making the stress that all of us felt in our studies a bit more manageable. (This Winter I’ll begin my 500 hours certification process. It will be a long road, though one I have wanted to be on for some time now.) I would close each class with a simple statement to my students that a teacher of mine used to use: “the light that is in me, honors that the light that is in you.” I’ve found that connecting with people, one heart to one heart right here on the ground, has brought me more lasting joy and peace than raising my eyes and prayers to the sky. I have more faith in us and what we can do together, here and now, than I do in anything else.
The image above can be found here.
care, career, celebration, hope, opportunity, work

My Year of Hopefulness – Marking time

Christa Avampato

Today is my one year anniversary at my job. Where did the time go? Oh right – into about 25 projects that I’ve worked on since I started! When I consider everything I’ve learned – about the company, the job, the industry, myself, it seems impossible that all of that could have been compressed into one year.

One year ago today, I attended a new hire orientation. A series of company leaders came into the room to speak with us and one of them said something that really stuck with me. He asked us to go up the elevator to our desks every morning with one simple question always at the top of our minds: what am I going to do to help someone live an extraordinary life today? I took that to heart, and I can say with complete honesty that I’ve started every day that way. It’s been a tumultuous year for this country – that elevator question helped me hang on during the most challenging times to help me not only survive, but thrive. And it helped me help others do the same.

So now I begin year two, every bit as hopeful and curious as I was at the start of year one. The unintended, and happy, consequence of helping others to live an extraordinary life is that it makes our own lives extraordinary in the process. I hadn’t consciously realized that until today when I looked around my office to see all the positive change that’s taking place right before our eyes. And I played a part. A small one, but certainly a part. And for that I am extremely grateful. We really do get what we give.

The photo above can be found here.

business, Business Week, economy, history, hope

My Year of Hopefulness – Let’s Get a Little Crazy

Christa Avampato

“We would not be where we are if our ancestors had not been kind of crazy.” ~ Edward Tenner, historian of technology and culture

I’m part way through the cover story for this week’s issue of Business Week, Case for Optimism. One of the people who worked on the story asked me and 12 other readers to take a look around our neighborhoods to provide examples of why we feel optimistic about the future. The quote above appears toward the beginning of the article, and references a very positive outcome of economic downturns: if we can look past the gloom and doom, we’ll find that economic downturns give us the freedom to get a little crazy. In other words, they give of the freedom to pursue our biggest dreams. Bill Gates and Paul Allen started Microsoft in the midst of a recession. Same goes for Steve Jobs and many others whom we now hold us as some of the most successful thought-leaders of our time.

When the world goes haywire and we lose our footing and live to tell the tale, something inside of us shifts. All of a sudden we realize that the leap we just made, whether by our own volition or not, didn’t kill us. We’re encouraged to take another, slightly larger leap, and then another. Before you know it, we can’t contain ourselves. We realize that the biggest risk is not taking a chance on our dream; it’s being paralyzed by fear and never pursuing the dream at all.

So here we go – off into the great unknown with a heavy, though hopeful, heart. We’re in the midst of a grieving process. Long gone are the fat times of real estate always being a sound investment and Wall Street being the dream of every bright, ambitious college graduate. We’re bidding a fond farewell to life on Easy Street, welcoming in a new era of innovation and creativity that our ancestors, the ones who got a little crazy, would be proud to acknowledge as their legacy.

There will be some bumps and bruises along the way, some near-term and long-term. We may have our dreams fall down in mid-flight, and we’ll have to get new dreams. The resilience we are building today will serve us well tomorrow, and for many tomorrows to come. My bet’s on us.

choices, discovery, friendship, hope, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – Disappointment as Fuel for Change

Christa Avampato

“We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

I’m now nearly 7 months through my 1 year commitment to actively search for hope every day and write about it. I’m in the thick of it and the remaining months of 2009 seem to be just around the bend. This is the side effect of working in a retail-focused business: I’m always one step ahead of myself because the industry I work in demands it. Looking for hope is sometimes an easy task and sometimes a game of hunt and peck. Some days I struggle to find something hopeful and positive, and other days it seems that the world is awash with hope, so much so that it’s hard to take it all in and stay still long enough to write about it. It’s these latter days that I try to focus on most.

I’ve become a fan of daily email delivery of my favorite blogs. I get why tools like Google Reader are valuable; I just prefer to use my gmail inbox as my to-do list. (Thank you, David Pogue, for that insight on email in-boxes!) And I like the idea that my favorite writers are sending me little bits of wisdom directly, or at least I feel like they’re sending them to me directly. Daily Good, a blog that posts a daily story about some piece of goodness in the world, is one of my favorites. Their stories always begin with a quote, and it’s responsible for many of the quotes that populate my “food for thought” section in the right side bar of this blog.

This week Daily Good posted up the quote above from Martin Luther King, Jr. He could have easily made the quote “We must accept disappointment, but we must never lose hope.” Still powerful, still emotional, still inspirational. Instead, he chose to talk about finite disappointment and infinite hope, and link the two together. In my 7 months of writing about hope, I have found disappointment. More than I would have liked.

Just this week, I decided I had accepted enough disappointment. I’d reached the finite limit that Dr. King spoke about and then decided that I could no longer wait to do what I really wanted to do. With the help of some friends who help me think clearly, who help to bolster me up when I get a little bit down, I made a plan to turn all of my attention to what I hope to achieve and away from what’s disappointed me. The hope was there all along, even through the disappointment. I just wasn’t seeing it. We can all do a lot more than hope for a change; there will be no grand arrival and entrance of change. It’s always there – we need only reach out and grab a hold of it.

business, Business Week, entrepreneurship, hope, Jack Welch

My Year of Hopefulness – Jack and Suzy Welch

Christa Avampato

I never thought I’d say that Jack and Suzy Welch give me hope. Sound business advice. Straight talk about tough issues. A dissenting opinion. Yes, yes, and yes. But hope? Pure, empathic hope? Yep. Believe it.

In their recent BusinessWeek column, Jack and Suzy Welch not only gave me hope, but they made me tear up. They talk about the entrepreneurs all over this country who are about to emerge as the bright shining light to lead us into economic recovery. “Those kids (the ones at colleges inventing businesses right this moment) and their ideas are the future of business, if we just hang on tight…you can be sure, too, that legions of people out there aren’t frightened by the economy. They’re called entrepreneurs. And challenges don’t make them surrender; they make them fierce.”

If ever there was a rallying cry, a mantra to hang on to in this economic mess that seems to get worse by the day, this is it! And if you, as an entrepreneur (or an aspiring entrepreneur), still had any doubt about whether or not entrepreneurs should really consider starting a business in this climate, isn’t a vote of confidence from Jack and Suzy Welch just about the best vote you could find? They don’t say things to be nice or supportive or upbeat. They say them because they believe them whole-heartedly.

I love this article so much that it is currently hanging up by my desk. So when I sit down to do research, to consider where my career might, could, should go, and to write about entrepreneurs, I’m reminded that Mr. and Mrs. Welch are on our side. And with support like that, it seems we’ve run out of excuses to not take our careers in our own hands. In their very simple language, Jack and Suzy Welch have not only given us their support, they’ve put all their cards on the table and told us that the world needs us – we are the people we’ve been waiting for to lead us out of these dark days and into a better world of business. It is not just an opportunity for us, it is a responsibility. The world needs us. Be fierce.

hope, personality, psychology

My Year of Hopefulness – The Hopeful Cynic

Christa Avampato

On occasion, my mom has referred to me as her daughter, Christa, the cynic. I’d really like to disagree with her, though after years of trying to refute it I’ve realized she’s right. She just forgot to add the word “hopeful” in front of “cynic”. This might sound like a contradiction, though as my friend, Trevin and I always say, “I live my life hoping for the best and expecting the worst.” It keeps my life full of wonderful surprises.

The balance between cynicism and hope is delicate and must be constantly maintained. There is a real danger in slipping much too close to either the happy-go-luckies who live their lives in a state of optimism bordering on delusion and the people who are so cynical that you wonder how they kept them from just putting it all to an end yesterday. The balance is important to maintaining the very best of both extremes.

I like to look at a whole situation – details and the big picture comprised of those details. I don’t mind being the naysayer so long as it gets us to higher ground when it’s all said and done. I don’t like nicey-nice cultures – I like and appreciate honesty and thoughtful discussion.

I also don’t mind being the voice of hope in a room full of doom and gloom. I like being able to transform a situation from helplessness to self-confident action. Someone has to be the initial spark that begins a gathering light and that role suits me fine.

There aren’t that many of us hopeful cynics. Frankly it’s a lot of work to have this personality. Everyday that I pick up the paper (which does happen to be everyday) I wonder what our economy might be like with a few more hopeful cynics. I wonder if we would have been better prepared for this crisis. Would we have saved more when times were good? Would we have questioned expenditures and “business as usual” more closely?

To this end, I developed a few guidelines in case anyone is interested in developing the hopeful cynic within them:
1.) Question everything, always, and don’t stop until you get a solid, logical answer
2.) Read works of fiction and nonfiction in equal amounts. Fiction keeps you imagining worlds that could be while nonfiction helps you see things as they really are, often from someone else’s point-of-view.
3.) Watch movies that make you laugh and cry, and especially watch those that make you think.
4.) Be wary of people who say yes or no to everything.
5.) Trust your instincts, even if no one around you seems to have the same opinion
6.) If a situation is 100% a dream or 100% a nightmare, do some more digging so you know what you’re really in for
7.) No matter what circumstances you’re in, good, bad, or indifferent, know that eventually it will pass. Change is the only thing that is guaranteed.

books, creativity, hope, TED

My Year of Hopefulness – It Only Gets Better from Here

Christa Avampato

33. How did that happen? When did I go from being a confused, maybe even lost, cute chick in my mid-20’s? I don’t feel any older. I actually don’t even look any older (or at least I tell myself that as I smooth on the anti-aging moisturizer.) I took a long walk in Riverside Park today and thought about my past birthdays, which very often have turned out to be pivotal moments in my life.

My first birthday after college I was promoted to a position at work that would set me off on 5 fantastic years in theatre management. Another birthday I had my passport stolen in South Africa and learned about the tremendous kindness of strangers, while simultaneously falling in love with the country and culture as a result of what I thought initially was a horrible tragedy and later turned out to be a blessing. In South Africa, I learned painfully that we are never alone in this world, that someone, somewhere is always willing to lend a hand if we have the humility and grace to ask for help sincerely and honestly. I’ve fallen in love on my birthday, and I’ve also had my heart broken on my birthday, none of which would I ever take back. I went snorkeling for the first time on my 30th birthday and so began my gradual letting go of the fear of water. (This is still a work-in-progress.)

So today, what is the pivotal moment that happened? Today, I learned to trust my instincts. I realized that maybe I learned to temper my wide-eyed, blinder-clad idealism with a bit of reality. I learned to see people and situations for what they really are and not simply for what people told me they were. I began to connect dots from my past to my potential future. I learned that while my days past were wonderful, my future days will be better and happier still. I learned to hear and acknowledge what was not being said, as clearly as I am able to discern what is being said.

Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love, gave a talk at TED this year that has had my mind spinning for weeks. She is funny, likable, and brutally honest, even at her own expense. She talked about success, and the concern and fear of many, maybe even of most, people who achieve success. “How will I ever top this?” “Is my greatest work done?” “Is this the very best I will ever be?” And her answer – maybe.

However, she counsels, keep showing up. Every day, keep looking forward, appreciating what we have and had, and recognizing that always within us there is the potential to achieve and be more tomorrow than we are today. Much of our creativity and inspiration comes from an other-worldly source that we do not control, but can only revel in and listen to. Pay attention. Or, as Ann Curry told me via Twitter “Inspiration often comes without warning.” And if that is the case, and I believe firmly that it is, then why not think that it only gets better from here? We have no reason to believe otherwise because much of it is likely out of our hands.

The photo above is of Elizabeth Gilbert and can be found at: http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/elizabeth_gilbert.html