What an exciting night at the Olympic Games! Swimming and gymnastics are two of my favorite sports to watch. I love the passion and the split between individual performance and team achievement. It is an incredible pleasure to watch people striving for greatness, to see them doing exactly what they’re meant to do, what they’ve trained so hard to accomplish. No matter what we love, no matter where we find greatest happiness, let’s do it in that spirit—to put in so much effort, energy, and love that our success is inevitable.
Tag: future
Wonder: The miracle of being where you are right now
“The miracle is that we are here, that no matter how undone we’ve been the night before, we wake up every morning and are still here. It is phenomenal just to be.” ~Anne Lamott, Stitches
Have you ever noticed the perspective that comes with sleep? We can feel agitated, angry, anxious, and upset, and the next morning we have the chance to try again. Getting back up after being knocked down isn’t easy. It doesn’t always feel good. There are times that we wonder why we even continue to try. And I’ve found that there is something powerful and empowering in the act of rising, head up, eyes ahead. I literally narrow my eyes, drop the tone of my voice, take a deep breath, and will myself to speak up and take action.
The chance to try again, every day, is a gift. And it is ours to use.
Wonder: It’s just the wind and shadows
This is a story for all of you who are on the cusp of the unknown: maybe you’re starting a new job or leaving an old job, starting a relationship or leaving one, moving to a new city or home, or embarking on a new project of some kind.
My boss is reading The Winnie the Pooh collection of stories to her daughter. In one story called “Don’t Be Scared, Piglet and Roo!”, Piglet and Roo, two of the smallest characters in the cast, hear scary noises and see scary shapes at night. Her daughter has read this story many times and as soon as Piglet and Roo show signs of being scared, her daughter calls out “Don’t worry, it’s just the wind and shadows!” And it is. And eventually Piglet and Roo learn that. When boss was telling me that story, I thought about how often our minds go to that place, how often we’re afraid of things that we don’t need to be afraid of. It is the perfect metaphor for being afraid of the unknown.
Don’t be afraid. Let’s go out into the unknown together, support one another, and see what we find. The wind and shadows won’t be so scary as long as we aren’t alone in our journey.
Wonder: Hillary Clinton builds a bigger table, not a higher wall.
I knew I’d be emotional watching Hillary Clinton accept the nomination. What I didn’t expect was the overwhelming sense of hope her nomination would give me. We have massive problems in this country. We have so much work to do to create true equity, particularly an equity of opportunity, among all people. What Hillary’s nomination shows me is that rolling up your sleeves and getting down in the trenches is how we rise to the highest heights, and how we also take others with us. She’s not focused on building walls. She’s busy building a larger table where everyone gets a seat. Everyone. And that’s a crowd I’m proud to be a part of.
Wonder: Heaven help us all
As this week kicks off, in light of the violent weeks and months that have preceded it, I find myself turning to music to quiet my mind and lighten my heart. Music is a great unifier, a powerful form of expression, and a vehicle to help us figure out how we feel, what we know, and what we hope to build. This weekend as I read about the shooting in Baton Rouge, the protests sprawling across the country, and that gathering in Cleveland, I thought about Stevie Wonder and his song “Heaven Help Us All”. I revisited its lyrics and meditated on the creation of a better world in which none of them applied.
Heaven help the child who never had a home
Heaven help the girl who walks the street alone
Heaven help the roses if the bombs begin to fall
Heaven help us all
Heaven help the black man if he struggles one more day
Heaven help the white man if he turns his back away
Heaven help the man who kicks the man who has to crawl
Heaven help us all
Heaven help us all, Heaven help us all, help us all
Heaven help us, Lord, hear our call when we fall
Oh, yeah
Heaven help the boy who won’t reach twenty-one
Heaven help the man who gave that boy a gun
Heaven help the people with their backs against the wall
Lord, Heaven help us all, Heaven help us all
Heaven help us all, help us all
Heaven help us, Lord, here we call, help us all
Now I lay me down before I go to sleep
In a troubled world, I pray the Lord to keep
Keep hatred from the mighty and the mighty from the small
Heaven help us all oh yeah
Heaven help us all
Heaven help us all
Heaven help us all
Wonder: Pay attention to your discomfort
“If you feel like you don’t fit in, in this world, it is because you are here to help create a new one.” ~Jocelyn Daher
We do everything we can to alleviate discomfort. I’m not talking about making yourself some chicken soup (or a giant bowl of ice cream) when you’re feeling sick. I mean that we will say and do things (or not, as the case may be) against our better judgement for the sake of avoiding discomfort or in an effort to fit in. My friend, Sara, posted the quote above and it is exactly what I needed to hear.
Discomfort is a great gift. It tells you where you shouldn’t be and what you shouldn’t be doing so that you move on and go where you’re needed, wanted, and appreciated. Discomfort is the motivation to go, do, and be something different. Learn from it. Use it. Recognize that discomfort now is leading you to exactly where you need to be tomorrow.
Wonder: Zoe
On Monday morning, Phineas and I are driving out to Virginia to meet Zoe, a beautiful 3-year-old chiweenie (half chihuahua / half dachshund) whom we hope to adopt. Zoe’s mom recently went into hospice care and passed away. One of her final wishes was for Dogs Deserve Better, an incredible dog rescue organization in Northern Virginia, to find Zoe a loving forever home.
Zoe means “life” in Greek. If she and Phin are a match, I promise her (and her mom, foster mom, and Dogs Deserve Better) that Zoe will have the happiest, healthiest, and most joyful life. She will be considered a gift that will be honored and respected and loved, as all lives should be, for all of her days.
Wonder: Telling stories takes you back in time
I’m working on a piece of writing for my dear friend, Amanda. She’s the best editor I’ve ever worked with, bar none. Whenever she asks me to write something for her, I jump at the chance every time. This particular assignment involved traveling back in time to the dark days of September 2008 when the world, my career, and my life was turned upside down by a frightening, unprecedented economic recession. I was working for a financial institution, an industry I swore I’d never join, and I was, in a word, terrified.
Rather than cower and hide, I rose up. To this day, I’m not sure where I found the strength. I guess the fear of losing my job and my livelihood was adrenalin for me. I took that energy that gets wasted by fear and used it to drive me forward, headfirst, right into the abyss of the unknown. I still shiver thinking about it. And then I smile. Time travel is a wild ride. We are so much stronger than we think we are.
Wonder: Music saves us
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” ~Frederick Douglass
I heard this quote over the weekend during a tear-jerking story by journalist Steve Hartman. This story is about a 78-year-old partially paralyzed pianist, Norman Malone, who learned to play with only his left hand after his father almost bludgeoned him and his brothers to death with a hammer. I sobbed. The light and beauty in this man is present in his voice, his eyes, and his music. Even that horrid night couldn’t take music from him. He grew up to become a choral instructor so he could share his love of music with children. After all, it saved him, so of course it can save others.
Recently, finally, he had the opportunity to give his first public performance and it was stunning. And on that stage, through that stream of tears, he couldn’t find the words to express what that performance and what music means to him. He kept it to himself. And I couldn’t help but see that somewhere in him that sweet boy who survived such brutality lives on. And shines on, 70 years later.
Frederick Douglass was absolutely right. It is so much easier to build children up than to repair adults from the trauma of life. The arts, music, dance, writing, and all creative outlets help us hang on to our very essence and give us the opportunity to share it with others. I am heart-broken by Norman’s story, and I am also immensely inspired by it. Art saves. Art heals. Art perseveres.
Wonder: Guard your time
The older I get, the more precious time becomes to me. I have always been painfully aware of the passage of time. I’m constantly evaluating and re-evaluating my efficiency, the value of my activities, and the good I’m doing with the time I have.
While this might sound like an exhausting way to live, it’s actually more exhausting for me to think that I’m not using my time to the fullest. Now, that’s not to say I don’t relax, unwind, and enjoy my life. I do. It’s a priority for me to be at my best, and my best requires rest. And even in the rest, I know my mind and spirit are doing the valuable work of recharging and evolving.
I’m lucky and grateful beyond measure. I wake up with a purpose and I go to bed counting my blessings – the big and the small, the expected and the unexpected, the wanted and yes, the unwanted. And I wouldn’t want to use my time any other way.
Christa Avampato 