An Inspiration Edition

Arianna Huffington, Star Jones and Susan Lucci

And, we're back.

Another unwanted (on my part, at least) extended absence. But today provides a much-needed break that allows for some time to blog. And while I don't have any deep thoughts to share, other people do.

I had the good fortune to attend the National Association of Professional Women's annual conference today, and a bevy of inspirational ladies were in attendance, among them Arianna Huffington (I got to shake her hand), Star Jones (she re-tweeted me!) and Susan Lucci (who I awkwardly asked for an autograph when I happened upon her in the ladies' room. She was very gracious).

The inspiration was flowing like good wine, and I came home feeling a little hungover, but in a good way, like when you were young and stayed out too late drinking way too much but the next day you couldn't feel too bad about it because you know you had an awesome time.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes, and I use the term "quotes" loosely because I was taking notes by hand and not on my best journalistic game.

Lesley Jane Seymour, EIC of More, on the changing media landscape: 
It's a different world. When I started as an EIC, I came in, did the magazine and left. Now I have to do TV, social...you can't just lock yourself in a room anymore and say "I'm going to do this."

Arianna Huffington on the same: 
It's no longer about talking, it's about listening. We used to consume news on the couch and now we consume it galloping on a horse.

Huffington on staying healthy: 
When I wake up after a good night's sleep, I'm ready to take on the world. Isn't that a great way to live life?

Huffington on Lean In: 
We also need to learn to lean back to reinvigorate. Because that's when you get your best ideas.

Huffington paraphrasing Rumi: 
Life is rigged in your favor. Turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.

Huffington on how women judge themselves: 
If we can reduce the self-judgement we'd have so much energy freed up.

Monique L. Nelson, CEO of UniWorld Group, on what she would tell her 21-year-old self:
I'd forgive myself. Life happens. Either you can make it happen or it happens to you. I'd take things a little slower and not try to do so much so early. Eventually the environment took its course to slow me down.

Desiree Rogers, CEO of Johnson Publishing and the former White House social secretary, on the same: 
Don't allow people to tell you who you are.

Star Jones on the same: 
Place your health as a priority. I'm worth eating correctly, I'm worth exercising, I'm worth getting sleep.

Rogers on "having it all": 
It's a creation of my all. If I'm happy, everyone around me is happy.

Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, on the best advice she ever received:
Failure is life's way of telling you you're not on the right course.

Martha Stewart on taking a break: 
You should never retire. You should never even use that word.

Stewart's random tip on my favorite snack: 
Cook kale chips on parchment paper to make them crispy.

Stewart on hitting rock bottom: 
I've never hit a bottom. It's just a bump in the road.

The exchange Star Jones re-tweeted me on! 
Star Jones: Where does the toughness come from? Martha Stewart: Um, just dealing with crap.

Stewart on her one regret: 
That I didn't have enough children. It's just a totally different way of looking at things.

Photo: me

I wonder: What's the most thought provoking thing you've heard lately? 

Life, You Win.

Don't worry I'm not suicidal. That statement sounds more dramatic than it is. But in truth, it's quite freeing to have recently realized that I have no control over Life*, so I should stop trying to control it.

Those who know me, even marginally, know that I am a control freak. I like order, and I like to have plans. I always need to know what my next step is going to be, whether it's in Life or simply for the next morning's breakfast.

But lately, I don't care to see past the next 24 hours. In fact, I'm annoyed that my gym now requires you sign up for a class at least 36 hours in advance in order to guarantee a spot. I don't want to think ahead that far, because if I've learned anything this past year, it's that Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.

No one would argue that Life has dealt me a few blows when it comes to my Life plans. So now I'm waving the white flag. Admitting defeat. Giving up. But you know what? I'm okay with it. It actually feels good to not think about the future. I feel like this is something Life has been telling me to do for some time now, and I've been too headstrong to pay attention.

Well, Life, you have my full attention now. Right here, now, in this very moment. I no longer feel the need to have the next five years -- let alone five days -- of my Life planned out. But who knows? Tomorrow I could feel differently.

Still, I'm not going to think about that now.

*I feel compelled to explain why I'm treating Life as a proper noun here. It's because I often think of Life as it's own person, someone who is occasionally there to comfort me, and sometimes out to get me. Basically, I see Life as a frenemy.

Photo: Hannah's Hope

I wonder: Do you plan for the future?

It's Real Simple

Real Simple's Kristin van Ogtrop

Finally, someone puts into words this nagging feeling I've had about Sheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In.

The book is something no one can seem to stop talking about, whether they love it or hate it. I personally haven't read it, and don't plan to, as I think I've gotten the gist from those who have: young women need to be ambitious.

Sound advice for sure, but something bugged me about it. Enter Kristin van Ogtrop, the editor of Real Simple, who I had the pleasure of interviewing once. (She was very sweet and kind, and tolerated my fan girl gushing over her magazine with the best quip, which I've forgotten exactly, about how she loves nothing more than to hear how much people love the magazine).

But back to Sandberg. I'm reading van Ogrop's editor's letter in the magazine's May issue (something I always do and who a marketing friend once told me research shows no one ever does). About Lean In, she writes:

Here's the thing: I don't want to be striving bigger/better/higher/more every minute of every day. I don't always want to have a larger goal. That just sounds exhausting and worst of all, completely joyless. I want to enjoy my days: past, present, and future. 

And I thought: that's it. It's all this striving women are told to do that's bugging me. I certainly don't judge people who are ambitious; I've been there and to a certain extent still am. But it's this notion that we can't -- or shouldn't --  be happy where we are right now that I think is ineffective for everyone, female or male.

I spent a good portion of my young adult life striving and wanting something more. I've often thought to myself, "Things will be perfect when..." or "I can't wait until..." When I was in high school, I couldn't wait to get to college. When I was in college, I couldn't wait to get out on my own and work in the Big City. When I got out on my own and made it to the Big City, I still wanted more -- a better job at a well-known magazine with an apartment all to myself. I got all those things and more, and I value each and every one of them and the experiences that got me there. But the thing is, I never appreciated what I had when I had it, because I was always after this "something else." Looking back now, I often feel like I missed out on truly appreciating the awesomeness of where I was at that moment because I was so focused on the future.

And so I'm trying hard not to do that now. After reading van Ogtrop's editor's letter, it dawned on me that the reason I have no interest in Sandberg's book is because she's giving advice I don't necessarily want to follow. I also found it poetic how the editor of Real Simple managed to make a complicated feeling I had so, well, simple.

In her conclusion, van Ogrop nails it better than I ever could. Speaking of her own Lean In epiphany, she says, "When I stopped myself in the office kitchen, I suppose I was telling myself to lean back for a moment. I don't really want to lean back for long. But I don't want to lean in, either. I know I'm most comfortable standing straight up."

Me too.

Photo: Real Simple

I wonder: Have you read Lean In? What did you think about it?

Nagging Questions

I'm not a big believer in signs, but two big questions have been coming up a lot for me lately and so therefore are hard to ignore. 

Part of the genesis of these questions has to do with a series of articles I'm working on, and part of it has to do with the advice I've been seeking on my own as part of my current career-centric soul-searching. (And for the record, the people asking these questions are not new-age hippies.)

The first: Am I successful? 

Having recently been laid off and see my income drop dramatically, the obvious answer would be no. But it turns out, the best measure of my success is one that I never considered.
.
The second question, which I now realize is inarguably tied to the first, is just as easily answerable:

How happy are you? 

Truth be told, I'm pretty darn happy right now.

How does this net out, you might be wonder?

No doubt about it, certain things are a bit unstable, and I don't have everything I want at the moment, but overall I'm feeling fulfilled in the work that I'm doing, which is something I haven't felt in a long time. I'm really enjoying just simply writing and editing again, and I like the flexibility that freelance is affording me.

And when I consider the network I've built through my career, and how invaluable they've all been to me this past month, I feel incredibly lucky. This network helps me stay afloat -- and I'm talking about my confidence as well as my finances here.
 
Freelancing isn't a path I've purposefully chosen to follow, but I certainly can't complain that I am on it at the moment. I'm realizing a lot about what I value both personally and professionally, and more important, I have a better understanding of what I want to make of my life, both personally and professionally. And the interesting thing is, these conclusions are ones I never would have expected to come to.

So maybe it's time to condense these two questions: Am I successful at being happy?

The answer is, absolutely.

Photo: Deposit Photos

I wonder: Are you successful at being happy?

My Happy Place Is for the Birds

I've come to realize I have a bit of an obsession with birds. I'm not sure what this means, though I'm sure some therapist could tell me.

I know different birds symbolize different things, but I don't have a particular fondness for any one bird. Instead, I simply enjoy the sound of their voice. Their tweets are comforting to me, so much so that I occasionally crave the sound. In fact, birds are part of the reason I enjoy early mornings so much -- before the rest of the world is awake, it can feel like it's just me and them, and they could care less about me eavesdropping on their conversation.

Still, I don't think I could ever keep a bird as a pet. We had a few finches when I was a kid and -- besides the fact that they never lived long -- I always found it sad that they had to be caged up, unable to use their wings, like a human confined to a wheelchair. It seemed to me no way to live life, no matter how tiny your brain might be.

And so when I'm feeling stressed, the birds have become my form of meditation where I run to a park near my apartment, sans headphones. The fact that to start, I have to run an overpass of a major highway that parallels a loud, above-ground subway line only makes the moment I hit the park that much sweeter -- finally, quiet, and the sounds of the birds chirping, my breath, and my feet hitting the pavement always quiets my mind. When I can't run, I switch on the music of this composer I discovered, who often incorporates the sounds of birds in his music. It's totally the kind of music you'd hear at a spa (truth be told, that's where I first heard it) and makes me feel like a bit of a new age hippie who should be in New Paltz instead of New York City, but whatever, it does the trick in a pinch.

Lately, I've trying to find meaning in this obsession, which is something I do a lot -- try to find the meaning in things good or bad. So I have been thinking about this bird-mania for a while now, which seems to have intensified as of late, and it just dawned on me that yes, I enjoy it -- can't that be the meaning? 

Photo: Watch the Birds

I wonder: What inexplicable sound soothes you?

Debbie Downer No More?

I'm not gonna lie: Part of my reason for starting this blog is a way to vent, as I've been a bit down lately. I was laid off while simultaneously dealing with some health issues, and as a result, have been forced to put some life plans on the back burner.

Recently I was turned on to the book Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, a psychologist and one-time prisoner at Auschwitz. I'm only 17 percent through it (insane accuracy courtesy of my Kindle) but I'm constantly coming across passages that resonate for my life as it is now. That's not to trivialize what happened in Auschwitz, or even claim that my life is as bad as a concentration camp. It's not. Not even close. But suffering is something a lot of us can relate to, and Frankl believes -- and is a good example of -- how we give our suffering meaning by the way we react to it.

Howard S. Kushner points out in the forward how Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times.

When I first read that passage, I thought you choose one and hone in on it in order to find meaning in your life. Easy-peasy. But the more I thought about it, I realized I have all three of things in my life right now, and they are all complicatedly intertwined. And so, much like a bag of Lay's potato chips, it is near impossible to choose just one and be satisfied.

Still, I'm trying to remain optimistic (despite a tenancy toward Debbie Downer Syndrome) and follow Frankl's advice to, well -- just not think about it. He writes:  

For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: You have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run -- in the long run, I say! -- success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it. 

So while this blog may seem the antithesis to all that, this is me, not caring. We'll see how it goes.

I wonder: How do you find courage during difficult times? 

Photo: Notes From a Scattered Mind