Tag: Life

creativity

In the pause: With enough time, life and career come full-circle

Christa Avampato

Yesterday, my life and career went full-circle. The company where I work now is a service and product provider for the Annie Russell Theatre at Rollins College. I worked at the Annie from 2003-2004. What’s more, our products and services are mainly used by the person who now has my former job. I spoke to her yesterday. She sits in the same office where I used to sit, and many of the same people are still at the theater. And to further bring it all around, I found my name and contact info at the Annie in my current company’s opportunities pipeline. (Apparently, I even got a cold email from my current CEO as he was prospecting for the business at the Annie and he sent me his first book on email marketing!)

This reminded me how often our circles cross and overlap, how timing really is everything. Every once in a while, an opportunity comes around a second time, perhaps in a different form, and it clicks in a way that it couldn’t the first time. A missed opportunity today always has the possibility to find its way back to us. I wonder what other opportunities will find me again.

creativity

In the pause: An unlikely life

Christa Avampato

Yesterday I spent some time talking to a friend of mine who’s a real estate agent. She’s helping me get on a path to homeownership here in New York, which is not a task for the faint-hearted. After talking about my financial picture, we talked about the idea of willing dreams into existence. This last set of years have at times been extraordinarily difficult for me and greatly blessed. All in, they have led me to the place I am now: in my favorite neighborhood in my favorite city, starting what I have high hopes will be a dream job, and a book 8 years in the making about to be published in just over a month. A year ago, this scenario was unlikely. Hell, it felt flat-out impossible. Today, it’s my everyday life, and I don’t take a single moment of it for granted. It’s not perfect, but I’m extraordinarily grateful for it, even in the moments when I’m most challenged. With effort and a belief in the wisdom of what we don’t yet know or understand, life becomes exactly what we imagine it can be. Every difficulty and blessing I’ve had was needed; each one played a role in making my life today possible. Perspective is a beautiful thing.

creativity

In the pause: What would be the title of your autobiography?

Christa Avampato

It’s daunting to think about what you’d title your autobiography, right? How do you sum up a life in one line? Let’s try.

I love tough challenges and I’m happiest on a vertical learning curve. If I had to pick one phrase to describe myself it would be “endlessly curious.” As such, the title of my autobiography would be I’ll Figure It Out: The Christa Avampato Story.

What would be the title of your autobiography?

creativity

In the pause: Advice for surviving tough times

Christa Avampato

I talked to a neighbor this weekend and learned that she’s also a yogi. She’s had a rough couple of months. She’s working hard to clear out her life and restore peace. There are remedies for surviving a tough time.

Give it space.
Give it time.
Talk it out.
Walk it out.
Read it out.
Celebrate small victories.

Understand that this is all temporary. Everything. All there is, in the end, is change. The shifts won’t always be comfortable or quick, but let them happen. Something better is falling into place.

creativity

In the pause: How to reorder life’s messy moments

Christa Avampato

“It’s all messy: The hair. The bed. The words. The heart. Life…” ~William Leal

Sometimes this is how life feels—messy. We want everything in order, in place, fixed, neat, perfect. I get this in moments, but overall life seems to trend much more toward messy. It’s nature. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that there is a natural tendency of any isolated system to degenerate into a more disordered state. In other words, entropy naturally increases unless there are outside influences that restore or re-balance the system.

If we apply thermodynamics to our very illogical, emotional human lives, those outside influences are critical to prevent the systems of our lives from disintegrating. Friends, family members, passion projects, exercise, eating well, hobbies, art, books, spending time outside. All of these forces help to re-balance our messy lives. They help us restore some sense of order, peace, and equilibrium. Life will always tend to entropy. Don’t be afraid to reach out and ask for help to put it back together. We can only fight entropy together.

creativity

In the pause: A day fully lived

Christa Avampato

Today was an upside down, turned around kind of day. Today I can say that I lived. Really lived.

My pup, Phin, happily played at daycare for 12 hours while I: ran about a dozen errands, set up his gate and noise dampening curtain, and had two very solid job interviews where I spoke my truth and it was appreciated. A sweet, cuddly, adorable 10-day-old baby slept on me for 2 1/2 hours. A dear old friend needed a shoulder and an ear, and I gladly and gratefully offered mine. And I lost a friend today whom I had not seen in a long time but will remember as someone who was always focused on how others were doing. She was whip-smart, incredibly capable, and never afraid to speak her mind. I admired her for all of that, and she will be missed.

Today had incredible highs and incredible lows. Moments of activity. Moments of calm. I am trying hard to remember that life will flow if we let it, for better or for worse, through difficulty and ease, through discomfort and freedom, if we believe that it can. I wish you a day full of life, and all that it brings.

creativity

In the pause: What I’m doing in New York

Christa Avampato

“What are you going to do in New York?”

It’s a logical question when you move to a new city. My neat and tidy answer catches people off guard: love every minute of my life. Someone cracked me up yesterday when they responded, “No, really. What are you going to do here?” My answer stands.

I do have some more specific answers for more specific questions. For work? I’m looking at many avenues that bring together my passions and my talents. For love? I’m dating. For my writing? I’m promoting my first novel, writing the prequel chapter by chapter, writing my second novel that is the next in the series about Emerson Page, and pursuing freelance nonfiction writing. For fun? Phineas and I will be enjoying our long walks in the park. I’ll be spending time with my wonderful friends here, and making new ones. I’ll be at the theater, in the museums, listening to live music, creating art, and following every interest I have. I’m hoping to teach writing classes, mentor young people, and volunteer in my community. I’m going to try to learn to play a real song on the piano.

Anything can happen here in New York City, and it often does. While the city has a reputation for making people hard and tough, I think it’s much easier, and more enjoyable, to be a little soft. People can be gruff and self-absorbed. You have to stand up for yourself and then shrug it off. This city moves fast and carefully crafted plans have a way of disintegrating at the most inopportune times. Flexibility is key. If your dream today doesn’t work out, tomorrow you’ll have a new one. That long night of disappointment in-between is a tough thing to endure but you have to endure and persist and be determined to keep rising in spite of it all. New York is a tall order, and it’s the only one that really fits me.

creativity

In the pause: Write and live like you’re running out of time—another lesson from Hamilton

Christa Avampato

“Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” ~Aaron Burr, “Non-Stop” from the musical Hamilton

Sometimes the best thing you can do with your neuroses is accept them and work within them. I think that might be the secret to life.

Hamilton has a way of teaching us so many lessons, about history, economics, and life. There are many ways to describe Alexander Hamilton and I think there is one that stands above all others—non-stop. Something in him knew his life would be short; he had seen so much loss at such a young age. He understood how fleeting life can be. He wrote and worked and loved and lived like he was running out of time because he was. We all are.

I’m not suggesting that this is the only way to live. I’m not even suggesting that it’s a good idea to focus so maniacally on what we’ve lost as Hamilton did. I just know that this is how my mind works. I see time ticking by and do what I can to make the most of it because I can’t make it slow down. This is what keeps me moving forward, especially in times of difficulty.

I’ve never been good at waiting and biding my time. No one I know would ever call me patient. I sit for 18 minutes a day meditating, and that’s about what I can handle. I don’t dwell on things I try that don’t work out—and that goes for baking a pie to landing a job and everything in between. I learn from my experiences and try something else. “Netflix and chill” is never going to be a phrase I embrace (and by that I mean the clean version, friends). I wish I could; I just can’t do it and be happy. And I like to be happy so I embrace my work, my friends, and my curiosity. Those are the things that matter to me.

We’ve just got this one life, and no one is ever going to find a way to manufacture more time. Time is the most equitable resource on Earth. We all get the same 24 hours. Let’s use them in ways that mean something to us. Hamilton certainly did.

creativity

In the pause: The courage to go your own way – a lesson from Mitch Albom and Tuesdays with Morrie

Christa Avampato

“What if you just did it your own way? No rules, no right or wrong, just what you think is beautiful?” ~Sandra Magsamen, Living Artfully

There’s really something to be said for going your own way. I often talk about my Darden professor who warned us to “stay away from the boxes”: the ones people (will try to) put you in, the ones you put yourself in, and the ones you put others in.

I was reminded of that idea again today when I watched an interview with Mitch Albom.  He was a sports writer who wanted to write a book about his dying professor and the important lessons he was learning about life by visiting him. Publishers didn’t want the book. They told him to stick to sports writing. That’s what he was good at. That’s what he knew. And this book was too depressing. “No one will want to read that,” they told him.

Albom persisted because he wrote the book in hopes of being able to pay for Morrie’s medical bills. One publisher finally took it, several weeks before Morrie died. And it was a very slow build, not an instant best-seller. Fast forward 20 years: Tuesdays with Morrie is read all over the world. It’s sold over 15 million copies in 45 languages and is read by kids, seniors, and everyone in-between.

Albom has grown, too. He’s gone on to write novels, nonfiction books, and stage plays. On one of those now famous Tuesdays, Morrie asked Albom how he supported his community and Albom told him he wrote checks to charities. Morrie told him he could do more. And he has. Albom founded an orphanage in Haiti that he visits once a month and has 9 charities total that he runs. So much for all those publishers who told him to stick to sports writing. Thankfully for us, and the world, he didn’t listen to them. He refused to stay in that box.

Albom, and so many renaissance men and women around the world and throughout time, teach us that it’s okay to not be neatly defined. It’s okay to do a lot of things as long as they are meaningful to you. Look at the people who founded our country—not a single one of them was just one thing. Somewhere between then and now we got into this rut in our society of having one narrow focus for our careers and our lives. Let’s embrace the idea that we are complex, intricate, and multi-talented beings. Be proud of always growing in new directions. Let’s be all that we are.

creativity

Wonder: The greatest lesson of life

Christa Avampato

One of the greatest blessings of being Phineas’s mom is that he makes me remember that every moment counts. There isn’t a single walk, snuggle, or smile that I take for granted with him. Yesterday when I had to take him to the ER for his back again, I was reminded, painfully so, that we have only so much time and that every day is a gift that we are never promised. Each day deserves the best we can give. There isn’t any time to waste. While I wish that realization wasn’t so heavy, maybe it needs to be. Maybe that truth is so significant that we need to feel the weight of it to really understand it.

For the next few days I’ll be home for most of the time monitoring Phineas to make sure his medication and rest is working. I’ll be writing, doing yoga, and meditating on just how lucky I am to care for a being that has taught me the most important lesson of life with absolute certainty—that we must do as much good as we can wherever we are with whatever we’ve got, and be grateful for the opportunity to do so.