Category: travel

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.

adventure, change, grateful, gratitude, happiness, New York City, travel

My Year of Hopefulness – A Real New Yorker

Christa Avampato

Yesterday I was running errands after work, collecting a few more odds and ends to organize my apartment. I had forgotten that when you go from a place with storage to a place with hardly any storage, you actually have to buy things to put your things in. 2 hours later at the Container Store…

It was hot and sticky and raining on and off. My bags were heavy and I was worn out from a long, tiring week. I was trudging along, past The Plaza, past Central Park South, toward the Time Warner Building, lost in my own personal fog. At the corner, I was waiting for the light to change so I could get down underground to the unbearably hot subway that would get me home with all my things to put my things in. I’m sure my face was a little crinkled. I’m positive I was sighing out loud.

Two guys, clearly visiting NYC, were in a Scooby-Doo style van, hanging out the windows and snapping pictures like mad. I must remember to start carrying my camera everywhere to capture moments like that. These guys were grinning from ear to ear, in awe of what they were seeing, what they were right in the middle of. They made me smile, too. One of them saw me, and asked “are you a real New Yorker?” and then snapped my picture, as if I was a rare species that they needed to capture on film to show their friends back home.

“I am a real New Yorker,” I replied. “Cool,” he said. And that made me smile even wider. Here I was sighing about how tired and worn out I was, and here are these guys, invigorated by the exact same environment.

I didn’t cross the street just yet. I sat down in one of the cafe chairs that sit at the corner of Central Park South and Columbus Circle. I took a big, deep breathe and looked around me. How lucky am I to be a New Yorker, to live in this insane, magical, always evolving place every day? I put down my load o’ bags to rest a while, to take in the glory and chaos and be grateful for the opportunity to be here in this moment.

I wish I had asked for the contact info of those Scooby-Doo van guys. I’d like to thank them for helping me fall in love with my city, again. When I picked up my bags to head home, somehow they felt lighter.

The photo above depicts Columbus Circle, New York City and can be found here.

books, choices, priorities, travel, writing

My Year of Hopefulness – 20-10

Christa Avampato

A lot of my friends are asking themselves weighty questions these days. I had brunch with a friend on Sunday who told me that someone we used to work worth just lost his mom to cancer. His mom was 58. It’s a sobering thought to consider how short life is, and how much opportunity for living this world offers us.

In the book In Pursuit of Elegance, Matt May talks about how Jim Collins left HP. One of his former professors gave him an assignment called “20-10”: Imagine you’ve just inherited $20M free and clear. The catch is you only have 10 years to live. What would you do – and more importantly, what would you stop doing? As a result of this exercise, he quit his job at HP, despite his success there, and pursued a life of teaching, researching, and writing. And we are the great benefactors of that choice.

This assignment takes great courage to complete, and even greater courage to put the results into action. It’s easy for us to think we have a long life ahead of us. It’s easy to think that we have all the time in the world to accomplish what we really want to do. It’s easy to just play the game of “let me just get by for now”. The trouble with that game is that for now very quickly turns into a long, long time. It might even turn into a lifetime.

This world is counting on us, on all of us, to do something truly extraordinary. And extraordinary can take many different forms, depending on our priorities. Depending on the outcome of our 20-10 assignment. I’ve been putting off this assignment for a solid week now. Too afraid to answer that simple question. $20M, 10 years. What would I do and what would I stop doing?

I would…
Travel
Have my family and friends close to me
Write and write and write, and read and read and read
I’d find a way to build a company or an organization around a product, service, or cause I care about, so that it would survive long, long, long after I’m gone
Fall in love one more time

I would stop…
Letting someone else tell me what my development plan is
Spending time in a gray cubicle
Worrying

A shorter list than I expected on both counts. I thought there was a lot I’d stop doing, until I realized that most of what I do that I don’t like doing is related to my worrying. I didn’t know that. I didn’t realize how afraid I was, of just living, until I wrote this list. I didn’t realize that falling in love one more time was so important to me. And it further confirmed that the writing life is the right life for me. When everything else fall away, it’s this act, this daily time translating my thoughts into words on a page that makes life worthwhile for me. And that is worth something – it’s actually worth everything.

The photo above depicts Jim Collins and can be found at: http://www.seeseeeye.com/uploads/wp_161.jpg

education, karma, luck, travel, Washington

My Year of Hopefulness – Food Trucks

Christa Avampato

One very positive outcome of the economic downturn is the return of food trucks. Recently, I’ve seen a food truck that specializes in Belgian waffles, a pizza truck (apparently all the rage in cities like LA), and every variety of cuisine you could imagine from Middle Eastern to Indian to down home American. One of my favorites is the Treats Truck, full of sugary sweetness that has a very loyal following and donates to a designated charity-of-the-month.

In college, I lived on the the food from food trucks all over West Philadelphia. I dare say that I would have gone hungry many times over without them; they were the only outlet that fit my meager work-study earnings budget. There’s something that feels so good about knowing that the food from those trucks is being made right in front of you and that you’re helping small business owners who are working hard, day in and day out, to serve their communities. At Penn, I had more in common with the food truck owners than I did with my classmates – I felt like we we formed a covenant of the scrappy and ambitious.

As my friend, Jamie, and I got lunch today at a food truck and happily chowed down on our chicken kabobs in the park, I was reminded of how far I’ve come since my college food truck days. Over the weekend, I was in DC and walked along the perimeter of the Capitol Building and past my old office building where I had my first job out of college. I thought about my very first few days in DC, a little lost after college, not quite sure what I was doing or where I was going. I smiled as I stood in the shadow of the Capitol Building, much the same way as I smiled eating my chicken kabob today. In these past few days I’ve felt my life come full circle, truly amazed that it all worked out so well, despite my bumbling and fumbling.

This world really does support us. Just when we need them, friends shows up with a smile and an understanding ear. Or a job really comes through for us when we need it most. Or a food truck provides us with some nourishment at a price we can afford. Lately, I’m marveling at how perfect timing shows up in our lives every day as long as we commit to showing up, too. The universe reminds us of its presence in big ways and small, in good times and tough times. We can take advantage of the opportunities it presents at every moment, so long as we stay aware and alert and grateful.

entrepreneurship, Examiner, technology, travel

NY Business Strategies Examiner: Interview with co-founder Airbnb, an innovative travel company a

Christa Avampato

Today’s post is an interview with Brian Chesky, one of the co-founders of Airbnb. I love this service and it’s been a clear whole in the travel market for years! The concept, like all elegant business solutions, is simple, straight-forward, and user-friendly.


How it works (from the Airbnb website): “Nice folks, folks like you, list their guest rooms, futons, and even couches on the site and set a price per night. Adventurous travelers looking for a place to stay can search the listings for an accomodation that’s just right. When they find a match, guests can book your room via credit card. You receive a notification to check out their profile, and decide if the guest is appropriate for your pad. When you accept a guest, contact information is exchanged, itineraries emailed, and the transaction is completed confirming the reservation.” Brilliant!

celebration, choices, family, friendship, relationships, Seth Godin, travel

My Year of Hopefulness – Boundaries

Christa Avampato

Seth Godin wrote a great post this morning about boundaries. It reminded me of the boxes that one of my leadership professors at Darden, Alec Horniman, talked about: the boxes we put other people into, the boxes we put ourselves into, and the boxes we allow others to put us into. We do this with our careers, relationships, friendships, hobbies, interests. We take on roles and keep them, and it’s tough to break the behavior patterns we develop in those roles. And we have a real knack for giving people roles in our lives, whether or not those are the roles they want.

To make sense of our lives and keep us from going crazy, boundaries might be necessary. The key is to make them flexible and adaptable. Seth puts it in perspective of a brand, and explains that the brand can be our own personal one or that of a company. He stresses that brand loyalists are much more forgiving than the holders of a brand give them credit for. We have to give ourselves permission to try new things that truly interest us. If we are authentic and sincere in our pursuit of something new, the people who loves us will help us get there.

I’ve never been one for being put into a category. I’ve always felt free to explore different careers and interests, and have made a concerted effort to bring a diverse group of people into my life. From the outside it might seem that I just can’t make up my mind about where to focus my time and effort. A recruiter once said to me, “seems like you’ve spent your whole life exploring.” This sounded like a positive thing to me — apparently he didn’t mean it to be positive!

In actuality I have made a very specific decision to follow my interests wherever they may lead. I’m not exploring because I’m lost; I’m exploring because I’m interested in making the most of my life. I want to be someone with a broad perspective, someone who loves traveling, and new experiences, and meeting new people. I want to make sure that when my time comes, I’ve lived as much life as I possibly could.

My close friends, family, and supporters have been very accepting of this choice. They’ve celebrated my patchwork life with me. With every new experience, they are there, cheering me on and sometimes my life has even inspired them to do something different that they previously didn’t think they do. It’s a personal passion to extend my boundaries and grow my comfort zone, and I’d like to help others do the same.

career, change, experience, family, friendship, love, relationships, travel
Christa Avampato

“Man can touch more than he can grasp.” ~ Gabriel Marcel

We have a very short time on this planet. While we might think that 80 or 90 years sounds like such a long time, in reality it is the bat of an eye when considering the length of history. In our lifetimes, we’ll see and take part in many different experiences with many different people in many different places. And while we might have the instinct to take part in any and every way that we can, we just can’t. We have to choose where and how and on whom to spend our time and energy.

Where will we have the most impact? Where will we find the most joy? Do we care about life-long learning or is it connection with others that is most important to us? These types of questions are critical for us to consider and answer when we think about what we’d like to do with our time here.

There are millions of ways for us to make a difference – there are so many places, people, and things that will somehow enter our lives. The only question we really have to answer is, “which experiences we will witness and let pass and which are the ones that are we will hang onto for longer than a moment?”

investing, travel, volunteer

My Year of Hopefulness – Costa Rica, here I come!

Christa Avampato

Last night I had dinner with my friend, Jeff, who’s turning 30 next month. To celebrate, he’s going to Egypt and asked friends to come along. Because of the economy, most of us backed out. Last night, Jeff told me he booked the trip for 3 people, $2000 each – includes airfare, tours, and most of their meals. I almost fell over. I missed out on Egypt for $2000 because I was a little bit afraid of losing my job. (I’m currently still employed.) What a lost opportunity!

Cross-Cultural Solutions contacted me today to see if I had any more questions about booking a trip with them. (They have incredible customer service!) I wrote back a very apologetic note saying that my company had just announced that we’d go through another round of layoffs next month so I had to hold off and see how that worked out for me. Even though a trip with Cross-Cultural Solutions is 100% tax deductible, I still hesitated.

A long time ago a friend of mine sent me a quote that rings in my head all the time: “The world is a very generous place. It gives you the same lesson over and over until you finally learn it and don’t have to go through it any more.” Costa Rica was my next Egypt.

The moment I got home, I dropped my bag, headed for my Mac, whipped out my credit card, and signed up for a trip to Costa Rica with Cross-Cultural Solutions. Like everyone else I know, I’m nervous about the economy. But does that mean I just go into a holding pattern? Do I not take advantage of a great opportunity out of fear?

Now, I will say that I am in a very good position to just take the money for my trip from my savings and it’s a huge benefit to have the trip be tax-deductible. Still, it would be very easily justified to hunker down and not take this trip. It’s a matter of priorities, and international travel and volunteering are important to me. So this trip is not an expense, it’s an investment opportunity. In me. In the world. And I’m grabbing it with both hands.

Easter, family, holiday, mother, religion, travel

My Year of Hopefulness – A Little Bit of the Divine

Christa Avampato

This morning I was on the Metro-North train to visit my family for Easter. Two little boys, twins, got on the train with their mom, who looked exhausted and worn out, with a couple of new toys. Another woman walked by – she was one of those classic old New York women who you know from her tone of voice have lived in this big city for the better part of their lives. I am sure she talks to everyone she meets as if she’s known them forever, and given all she’s lived through, she’s entitled to state any and all of her opinions as fact. These women also exactly what to say and when to say – their timing and level of appropriateness is impeccable.

“Where’d you get those toys?” she asked the two children. “Mom or the Easter Bunny?”

“The Easter Bunny.”

“Huh. You know Moms are much better than the Easter Bunny. You can’t trust a rabbit but you can always trust you mother.”

The mother smiled, grateful and confused. The boys looked at her with surprise.

“What if I know the rabbit?” one of the boys asked.

“And if I can’t trust a rabbit, can I trust my cat?” the other boy asked.

“Well cats are tricky, too. Even mine. And I guess you can trust a rabbit if you know him, but my money’s on your mother.”

And with that very simple statement, she was gone. When I overhear conversations like this, I sometimes wonder if I’m witnessing a divine moment. Maybe that woman is some angel who showed up right when this mother needed her most. It’s possible that I watched too many episodes of Touched by an Angel with my own mom when I was little. It’s also possible that I so much want to believe in the divine in some form that I’m willing to tell myself these elaborate stories as if they are proof.

Springtime does this to us. I’m having a hard time remembering the last winter that lasted this long and seemed this cold and unrelenting. And I like cold weather and snow, thick sweaters and boots. But this Easter, I’m really ready to wish it a fond farewell, hoping it doesn’t rear its head until December.

I’m ready to see some new life sprout up from the Earth. I’m ready for New York to transform itself with flowering trees and sidewalk cafes. I’m ready for a little bit of the divine, or even seemingly divine, to touch our lives again and bring us some hope that we are moving forward and evolving, and the most powerful vehicle for that kind of message is in watching nature take on different hues and textures. I’d like to see all this hard work we’ve been doing during this cold winter come to fruition through a rebirth of heart and mind and spirit.

business, nonprofit, travel, vacation, volunteer

My Year of Hopefulness – Cross-Cultural Solutions Part 2

Christa Avampato

Tonight I went to an information session for Cross-Cultural Solutions, an organization that organizes volunteer vacations abroad in 12 countries. In 2005, I spent a month in France and volunteered for an organization that rebuilt ancient architecture to help stimulate tourism in small town in Provence. I loved it and have been wanting to go on another volunteer vacation ever since.

While I enjoyed my experience in France, I was disappointed that the organization did not maintain any contact with me after I returned. I have no idea how the work continued after I left and I’ve lost touch with every person I met while I was there. I tend to thrive in situations with a high amount of ambiguity though I do remember feeling disturbed that there was virtually no preparation given to me before I flew to France. I hoped I’d find someone at the airport when I landed, though had no idea what or who to look for. I wasn’t sure how my days would be structured. I essentially went on blind-faith.

Luckily, I had a great experience in France, though it could just have easily been a disaster. Truly, I was just lucky. What I found most impressive about Cross-Cultural Solutions is their sense of organization, friendly demeanor, and care and concern for volunteers. I sent an email through the website several months ago expressing interest and within 48 hours received a comprehensive email and a phone call. The service was top-notch. The friendliness and enthusiasm by the staff and alumni (yes, they have an alumni network!) for the volunteers, the experience, and the people in-country who benefit from the program.

So what could be improved by Cross-Cultural Solutions? A big lesson for all of us: strike while the iron is hot. I was ready to fork over my credit card number after their incredible presentation and there wasn’t a way for me to do that. I went to one of the team members at the end of the presentation and asked if I could sign up right there. I knew the date I wanted to go and the program I wanted. There wasn’t a way for me to put down my deposit. I needed to go home and sign up on-line or call them tomorrow at the office.

They put forward all of this effort to promote themselves and then didn’t close the deal with a willing consumer. Chances are that someone who is so excited about the program at the presentation will take the time to sign-up once they’re home. However, why not have the option to sign people up on the spot? It would be a win for me and for the organization – and isn’t that what Cross-Cultural Solutions is all about?