Unsettled routine

Sidewalks express embellishments of stories that have already taken place.  My eyes have traced the sidewalk as I've walked mile after mile, recording fragments and forgotten details.  Discarded food containers, dropped reminder notes, store receipts, cash, broken glass, candy wrappers, leaves, fallen fruit, crushed flower petals.  Used dog waste bags left for someone else to deal with.  Cigarettes in every variety, some still in the pack.  Lost homework pages scribbled on wildly by little hands still learning how to write.  Trash escaped from the transfer to the collection truck.  Gardening equipment.  Broken sprinklers.  Screws, bolts and springs.  Business cards, shopping bags, coupons and dirty rags.  Jackets and underwear.  Expired squirrels and birds.  Uncollected yard sale signs.  Unwanted furniture and appliances waiting to be free-cycled.  Ruined couches and chairs.  Faded messages drawn in sidewalk chalk, paint, marker.  Inscriptions and paw prints left before the concrete had set.  Survey marks and the shorthand used to mark places for repair of the unseen, underground network.

Remnants of ordinary, daily life.

I've walked past a particular block on almost every route I've taken.  The routine of it is comforting.  The same dogs that regard me with sleepy eyes and casually alert ears.  They are bored with my regularity and stopped barking at me long ago.  Regular.  Routine.  Unchanging.

Today, the sidewalks showed evidence of a different story. An exception to the routine.  An event that unsettled the comfort of ordinary.

I noticed two officers, taking notes in a yard across the street from me, shiny badges on dark uniforms catching the morning sun out of the corner of my eye.  It seemed odd not to see a police cruiser close by.  Half a block later, I realized I was walking on more than dropped, dried fruit from the trees along the street.  I was walking on someone else's blood, a trail of burst droplets growing more urgent and leading all the way around the corner.  It was fresh and heavy enough here to be accompanied by more officers and a line up of police cars, but old enough not to smudge or take an impression of my footprints.  A spattered, wavering line ran from the public sidewalk up to a front porch.  Pools of blood on the porch and over the threshold of the open front door.  Something dramatic had happened to someone here.  An accident, maybe.  A crime.  A misunderstanding escalated to the point of being unrecoverable.  Latex gloves sat left behind from an investigator trying to piece it together.  A stillness hung in the neighborhood punctuated by the mumble of police radios and my footfalls as I continued home.

The sidewalk knows the story.  It was there the whole time.  But it's not telling any more than it already has.

-Andrea

Needy is needy for a good antonym

A local headline helped me find a puzzling burr in my bonnet this evening:

Needy children get ready for school at Santa Anita Park

"Needy" is defined as being in want or lacking.  "Less fortunate" or "underprivileged" are also similarly used.

You and I have become accustomed to hearing these words and understanding their context .  Reading them just now probably evoked an image in your head.  Don't worry.  I'm not going to ask you about the image.

But I am going to ask for your help.

"Needy," "less fortunate" and "underprivileged" have something in common.  They are descriptions framed in negative perception. It's easy to depict a situation by hitting the negative items first. Think about what you notice when you walk into a room or meet someone.  Think about the last time you were in traffic. We are trained to diagnose, to identify weakness, to solve problems.  We're good at it, too.  So good that noticing a defect is more natural than noticing a strength.

This is exactly why it is so difficult to describe situations from a positive reference point, to use strengths as an index over weakness.

Is it possible for the headline to adequately capture the story from a positive reference point?  Would we understand the events that took place if the headline read "School supplies donated to community students" or "Volunteers give time to prepare children for school"?  I believe so. But I don't believe it is automatic for us to hit that perspective first, especially if the intent is to grab attention.  

Does it feel more appropriate to focus on the act of giving or the act of receiving?  Help me explore this, my friends, by sharing your thoughts.

-Andrea

The peril of easy money

The nuggets: 

• You can reap fresh-fallen fruit or even low-hanging fruit just by walking up to the tree, but so can everybody else.  You can win by always being first to the tree, but you're just doing something anyone else can do.  
• For a bit more effort, there's much more fruit to be had.

Ever have a bit of luck and hope it happens again?  How far do you go with that hope? Are people losing money for your benefit or are you delivering something of value?

During a recent evening walk I found a receipt folded up with some cash on the sidewalk.  A few steps farther was more cash.  By the end of that block I had picked up $41.

Last night I walked past that same place. I knew another find was improbable, but I slowed my pace and looked around more closely that whole block.  Of course I didn't find any more cash.  But that didn't stop me from looking.

By the time I reached the next block I felt silly.  I had fallen into the trap of doing something again, knowing it probably wouldn't work, but giving it a shot anyway just in case.  I could walk miles all over town and never find more than a penny.  If I really wanted to make sure I found more money on the sidewalk, I would have to focus on getting cash thrown about in public than random treasure hunting. Doesn't sound like an attractive business model, especially the part where people lose money purely for my benefit.

What is the result you're hoping for, and how can you let go of what you're doing now in order to try something different?

Are you going for a long-lasting result, or just a quick windfall?  Are you betting that if you do what worked once before enough times, eventually something will happen?

-Andrea

Resentment and customer service robotics: It's all about you

The nuggets:

• Resenting a task doesn't make it faster or more pleasant.  Choose to accept.
• Don't treat the humans that help you do a task like robots.  Choose to be human.

Grocery shopping.  Pick up from the dry cleaners.  Mail a package.  Deposit a check.  Get gas before you have to push your car home.  Typical errands, right?  Ugh.  

Want to know something about all those errands, all those mundane tasks you have to do as part of, well, life?  They take as long as they take, whether you resent them or not.  Resentment doesn't feel very good to hold on to, so there's not much risk in simply accepting the things that need to be done.

What about all those times you've waited in line, growing more irritated at how unprepared the people ahead of you are, at how much small talk is being exchanged?  How many times have you reached the counter or cashier and been so focused on getting done that you completely ignored the person on the other side?  If you treat these interactions as if they were disposable, that's exactly the kind of experience you're going to get.  As emotional beings, we don't like feeling disposable.

Think I'm wrong?  Next time you go to the grocery store, smile, even just a little, as you walk up to the line.  The person in front of you may not acknowledge you as you walk up, but if they do, give them your smile and I bet they'll smile back. 

Give the cashier a smile, too, and the most sincere greeting you can muster.  Can you imagine what it must be like to deal with customers that treat you like a robot, as a purveyor of inconvenience?  Chances are you shop at the same grocery store with the same cashiers every time you shop.  Find a favorite and be happy to see them again.  

The opportunities for human interaction as we go about our routine business are less than before.  We have automated phone menus, ATMs, pay at the pump gas stations, even self-checkout lines at some stores.  It is possible (and dreadful) that we can go through a series of errands without ever being acknowledged by another person, without having our questions answered, without any emotional involvement other than what we bring to the situation.  If by chance there is an actual human waiting there to help you, be human. Because being acknowledged is so much better than being ignored, right?  And is there anything more enriching than sharing a smile with someone?

It's your choice.

-Andrea

Why choose separate burners when you can build a big fire instead?

"I’ve said all along that life-work balance is overrated. If you’re not happy with your life, you should change it like plenty of other people have done. If your job sucks and you’re miserable, you should quit." From Chris Guillebeau's post The Four Burners Theory - Your Thoughts? If you're not reading Chris Guillebeau, you should be. You can find him at The Art of Non-Conformity and depending on where you live, you might even be able to meet him in person during his Unconventional Book Tour kicking off in September 2010.

Reviewing a bit, the Four Burners Theory says that our lives have four burners: family, friends, health and work. To keep life under control, it might be tempting to keep all the burners on but set them on low heat. The theory proposes that successful people sacrifice one burner and really successful people sacrifice two in order to burn hot somewhere else.

The Four Burners Theory doesn't jive with me, not right away at least.  Dividing life into separate burners implies having to control them all.  This feels too rigid for real life, like freedom is slipping away. Without freedom there is no play and without play, the flow of fresh air stops and the fire suffocates itself.

From this perspective, a really successful or even just successful life doesn't seem satisfying.  How can an unsatisfying life feel...balanced. Are you following me with this?

Another word for balance is equilibrium. It's something that can be re-established when there has been a shift.  Think about gymnasts or ice skaters.  There are inconsistent athletes, the ones that either hit their elements in perfect form all the way through or execute a disaster from start to finish.  They never fall in-between.  Then there are the ones that are much more consistent because when they bobble, they quickly recover their equilibrium.  They have an inner strength that allows flexibility and readjustment when the unexpected happens.

Here's how I think it works.  First, you have to know what you want out of your life.  It's not about what other people want out of theirs since the only person responsible for living your life is you.  An interesting way to find out what you want from life is to write your obituary.  I've had the opportunity to do this (which you can read about here) and I recommend going through the exercise.

Second, you have to decide how you're going to use your energy to get what you want.  As the Cheshire cat told Alice in Wonderland, "if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there."  This is where strength comes in.  You have to be strong enough to say no, to stand up for what you want.  Some of your most important decisions are not about what you will do, but what you won't do.  If you're not willing to be that strong, is there any point in worrying about your life balance?

Third, you have to be willing to be out of equilibrium, to let balance shift from time to time.  Re-establishing equilibrium is often uncomfortable, but worth it because you get better at it the more it happens.  Think about our ice skater friends learning a brand new routine or skill.  Over the course of a career they will have to learn many routines.  They get past the falls, the uncertainty, and eventually they get through it.  You will, too.  Lance Armstrong reminds us that "If you worried about falling off the bike, you'd never get on."  Do you dread the shifts or welcome them?  Do you put off making changes because you'd rather stay in an unsatisfied state of balance than experience the adjustment towards a new equilibrium?

Ultimately the life you feel you are living is where your emotions are present.  Achieving life balance is not about analysis, magic equations or helpful analogies.  You can divide up priorities in life, give them equal attention and be unsatisfied.  What's important is to be fully present wherever you are giving your attention.  If you're not distracted, you detect when your foot is slipping so you don't have to land on your bottom to realize you've lost your balance.

-Andrea

Connecting recreation to occupation: Part 2

"You work so hard at it.  Just put it down and let it lie.  If you work that same spot over and over again, it's going to get muddy." 

Ever work hard at something, but the harder you worked the more elusive the desired outcome became?  You knew exactly what the result had to be, what it needed to look like.  Even if by sheer brute force, you would make it happen.  Except, it didn't quite work.

It can be quite discouraging.  It can even convince you that you are not a maker.

Several years ago I received one-on-one watercolor painting lessons from a woman in her 80s that was full of stories, curiosity and quiet observation.  She would introduce a concept, give me an assignment and then leave me to paint by myself for a while.  She would glance over periodically and return to her own painting without a word.  That is, except for the time I was trying to paint a clematis flower from reference material she had brought.  I was struggling with it, adding more paint in one color and then another, over and over, knowing that my persistence would be rewarded with a crisp, realistic reproduction of the reference flower.

She watched my painting for a bit and as she turned back to her work, she said, "You work so hard at it.  Just put it down and let it lie.  If you work that same spot over and over again, it's going to get muddy." 

The next time I showed up for class she handed me a packet of colored tissue paper, a bottle of Elmers glue and the same reference material I was using the week before.  She asked me to tear tissue paper into pieces and glue it on the paper so that I could paint the flowers over it.  She responded to my skeptical look by telling me I needed to loosen up, to learn to just go with it.  A collage painting was the prescription for my relentless style.

The painting I made from that exercise was my first finished painting.  She convinced me to enter it in the student portion of a show at the gallery she belonged to.  It meant I had to get my painting professionally framed and I had to sign it.  As a first painting, it was understandably amateur, but later when I had my own office at work I hung the painting above my desk.  At the time, it was reminder that I had interests outside of work.  Now that I finally understand the lesson, it is much more significant.  It was my first glimpse into how lessons from my "side" interests could carry over into my professional life.

-Andrea

Connecting recreation to occupation: Part 1

Are you a "maker"? Do you know what it's like to create?  Think about the last thing you made and keep that in mind while you consider this series of tweets I posted over lunch about a week ago.

Don't think that you are a maker?  Do you assume that you are not a creative person?  Let's just see.  Humor me for now.

Art = series of deliberate actions & reactions to circumstance that add up to something beautiful & elegant.  

Every line, every brush stroke is a deliberate choice. The outcome informs the next action, changes the overall picture. 

Every action & decision you make is a choice. Is it deliberate? Where does it fit into the overall picture? 

Life can = art.  

Are you living accidentally today? Or are you living with intention? 

Intention is not the same as control.  

Control restricts the end big picture result. You think you know in advance what the masterpiece is going to be.  

Intent pauses, observes, experiments. The end result is a natural evolution. Not forced. That's what makes it beautiful.

Hmmm....seeds for thought...

Are you really convinced that you are just not cut out to be a maker?  Stick with me through this series.  It's not about changing your mind.  It's about expanding what you are able to see.

-Andrea