Early Warning Signs

Are there some moments from your past that you can point to as an indicator of who or what you were to become? In third grade I came in second in our classroom spelling bee.  The word ‘hurl,’ an unknown word to me at that point, was my downfall.  At the moment when Mrs. Storm said that ‘h-e-a-r-l’ was wrong, the room felt much smaller and much warmer. I was so disappointed and fighting hard not to cry a couple of minutes later when she pinned a Second Place yellow ribbon and paper flower on my dress. But I look back and say that played a part in my love of words.

A few years later our assignment was to tell someone’s story.  I don’t remember the person or why I thought their life was interesting.  What I remember are people’s reactions to my speech.  My parents, classmates, and teacher were surprised that I could tell a story in a moving and convincing way.  Then, as a senior, we had to make a presentation from the podium in the auditorium, and, again, the feedback was that I appeared at ease and comfortable at the microphone.  Both of those exercises reinforced an internal thrill of storytelling and public speaking.

Now, the twist for me was that at that time I was mostly known as a musician. Performing came naturally to me.  I thought that music would take me through life, and while enjoyment of it certainly has, little did I know at the end of high school that I would mostly pack up musical performances just a couple of years later.  I’m very fortunate that in my professional and personal life there have been opportunities to shift direction and pursue what those early warning signs told me.

What about you?  As an architect, engineer, contractor, or demolition expert can you look back to building blocks and understand your role today?  Did you bring home every stray animal or bandage your Ken and Barbie?  It’s not too late to look back for those points when you felt a tug that said you’d like to explore something a little more and do something about it.

Oh, the person who won the spelling bee?  Amanda Cabot became a novelist and her latest book, With Autumn's Return, was just published.  Check out http://www.sff.net/people/amanda.cabot/

Marilyn

Connect the Dots

Yesterday would have been my dad’s 109^th birthday.  Early last week I was driving behind an AT&T van and thought about him because, as a repairman for New York Telephone Company, he had driven a green truck around Buffalo’s neighborhoods five days a week for 49 years. 

My father was thrilled when I went to work for Illinois Bell.  I wasn’t exactly following in his footsteps, but it was close.  However, as my career progressed, neither he nor my mother ever really grasped what some of my roles and responsibilities were and that frustrated them.  It made us both aware there was a white-collar/blue-collar gap in our lives.  Such was the norm playing out in many households of my generation.  We first baby boomers were expected to go to college and there were so many new types of jobs to pursue.  In the tradition of a parents’ wish for their children to have a ‘better’ life, one result for us was the creation of the largest gap of a professional connection to our forebears than any previous generation.

Telephone repairmen, at least as we used to know them, don’t exist anymore.  That got me to thinking about other professions from my childhood.  A favorite errand was when my mother stopped at the butcher shop.  A bell tinkled when you opened the door.  The sawdust on the floor was the smell that was prevalent, at least on our side of the counter.  A need was shared, options were discussed, and we went home with a package wrapped in thick white paper and tied with twine.  Thirty-five years ago I moved from the suburbs to a Chicago neighborhood where there was a little corner store that sold and butchered live poultry.  A coffee shop now occupies that location. 

Butchering is a skill that is still needed and it is a profession that I’m sure has been impacted by technology and by industry and cultural trends in ways I don’t understand.  There probably are still a few honest to goodness butcher shops around this country.  As an adult I’ve only met one butcher and that was more than thirty years ago.  

When I think of the era of my visits to the butcher shop, there are other professions that have disappeared or morphed or grown with changes in society.  Gone are the days when everyone had milk delivered, and while I know that industry has tried to revive the concept, I’m not sure how well that caught on.  Growing up, we had an egg man, and, for a while, a fruit and vegetable man, who brought their products to us regularly, but they had disappeared by the time I was in high school.  Morning and evening papers were delivered by the paperboy and you could count on the Fuller Brush man calling a couple of times a year.  Everyone knew their mailman and he knew everyone on his route. 

I hope you followed this musing that took me from the AT&T van to the mailman and that perhaps along the way you remembered a smile of your own. Oh, and by the way, imagine my surprise last Friday when I took a different route from work and discovered Mario’s Butcher Shop within a mile from my home!

Marilyn

Brain Power

When I was doing leadership development for supervisors at what was then Amoco, my favorite assignment was facilitating a weeklong class.  It started on Sunday night with a reception after which we kicked off the program with a 10 minute video called Brain Power.  The narrator was British-American actor John Houseman and the scene was a classroom similar to the one he oversaw in The Paper Chase. At the main point in this training film he looked at the camera and said, “You get paid to think, not just to do.”  That sentence triggered a lot of post-film discussion.

What company today would send an employee to a week of soft skill training, let alone admit that they valued thinking along with doing?  It is rare for any of us – in or out of the workplace – to put on our ‘to-do’ list a line item that says ‘think.’  We’ve become a people, a society, a world focused on action, actions that evolve from the various roles we play.  We’ve allowed those actions and those roles to become the definition of who we are, both as individuals and as a culture.  In doing so, we’ve lost something critical not just for civilization but for each of us. 

This topic came to the forefront as I listened to the nativity story, particularly one verse in Luke.  It’s the part where Mary, who must have been overwhelmed not just by giving birth for the first time but by visits from angels, shepherds, and foreigners, “pondered it all in her heart.”  I’ve always appreciated that portion.  These weekly outpourings are evidence that I, too, like to muse, to reflect, to ponder.

Just today I ran across these lines, “The world’s frivolities have robbed me of the time that I was given for reflecting upon God.”  Michelangelo wrote this at the end of his life.  Now I don’t know if he was lying on his deathbed, if his hands were arthritic and unable to control a brush stroke, or even if he personally penned or dictated those words, but this is quite a statement from a man whose lifetime of work has lasted for centuries and brought joy to countless people. 

Perhaps it is not God you would choose to reflect on.  Maybe you would like to ponder how, in all of our ‘to-doing’ we’ve lost ourselves.  We’ve allowed what we do to define who we are.  We all need some brain power time to reconnect with our true selves so that our contributions to society, to family, to friends, and yes, even to work, reflect our uniqueness.  What we do may not linger for hundreds of years, but our legacy that represents who we are can be just as powerful if we put some thought behind it.

Marilyn

Our Internal San Andreas Fault

You know how one morning you wake up and something inside has shifted?  Suddenly, for no reason you are able to name, you are not as angry or sad or grieving or lost.  The change can feel small and the shift is subtle but meaningful, or the relief can seem huge as though you’ve survived an emotional tsunami.  It can mean that you’ve passed a milestone and entered a new phase or stage of your life.  You realize you can go on without him or her or a particular dream.  The burden is lighter. You can handle the crisis or understand that what you’ve been trying is not what you need to do.  There is a sense of acceptance or knowledge of steps to take.

A part of maturing and growth is handling the truth that we must frequently revisit a primary issue of our life, those things that make us face our demons.  Whether it is addiction, gloom, interpersonal, spiritual, or even physical, particularly as we age, it is frustrating, even depressing, to face the same challenge over and over. Each repeat visit is a result of our internal fault line shifting, enabling us to go deeper into ourselves and find further learnings, a fresh perspective, and additional insights. 

The problem is we cannot schedule these shifts or draw upon them at will.  Like this time of year when we made some resolutions or promises of hope, only to already have failed.  It is stressful to think we are ready for change or want things to be different but the internal alteration remains elusive. Old behavior and outlooks seem more deeply engrained than our fault line will let us reach.

We know that change is hard even when it is desired.  I have no solace to offer other than this struggle is universal and that perhaps it is simply requires the passage of time.  After all, Mark Twain remarked that humor is tragedy plus time, implying that anything can be funny in retrospect once enough time has passed.  So, too, can we adjust to, accept, and know we can solve or resolve issues with the gift of distance.

I wish you patience this year as you wait and work for change, whether it is change in or for you or in society.

Marilyn

The New Year: In Others' Words

Ring out the old, ring in the new,Ring happy bells, across the snow:The year is going, let him go;Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

…Alfred Lord Tennyson, poet

People wiser than me have drafted resolutions for and reflections on the turn of the page that signifies the transition from one year to the next.  Perhaps some of their words will be helpful to you as you ponder your own hopes and dreams for 2014.

• Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.  Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist
• Your success and happiness lies in you.  Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.  Helen Keller, activist 
• Let our New Year’s Resolution be this: we will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word.  Goran Persson, politician
• For last year's words belong to last year's language and next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning. T.S. Eliot, playwright
• Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions.  Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.  Mark Twain, humorist
• I make no resolutions for the New Year.  The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life is too much of a daily event for me.  Anaïs Nin, author
• You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.  C.S. Lewis, theologian 
• Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.  Steve Jobs, CEO
• The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.  Eleanor Roosevelt, columnist
• Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. Henry David Thoreau, naturalist
• Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.  Winston Churchill, Prime Minister

  
• Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each New Year find you a better man.  Benjamin Franklin, inventor 

Wishing you a peaceful, prosperous, and healthy New Year!

Marilyn

Don't Go to Abilene

Nearly twenty years ago I tried an experiment.  I saved all of my holiday cards and opened them on Christmas morning.  The idea evolved out of the changes within my circle of friends and family when we started shifting from the tradition of gift-giving to doing something special together during the year.  As much as I agreed with abandoning the excesses of the 1980s, I worried about how I might feel with no presents to actually open on Christmas, and that’s when I came up with the idea to hold the mail. 

So, on daybreak of that December the 25^th, I curled up with Kimberly Katt (Millie’s predecessor), a cup of coffee, and a pile of news and wishes and pretty scenes.  Carols were playing in the background.  The hugs and greetings across the miles were better than any stack of boxes.  So, while there have been a couple of instances where I’ve missed an invitation or been a little late in sending off congratulations based on what was in a card, the experiment has become my tradition.

I’ve observed that some folks are struggling with traditions this season:

*        Some aren’t feeling up to the old traditions, whether it’s baking the cookies or decorating the tree.  That’s ok.  Take a year off.  See if you miss it or how you feel about it next year.

*        Some like me are in a new home.  Everything may not fit or you may need more decorations, but a move helps sort treasures from the ‘stuff.’

*        Some are in a new relationship or a new phase.  From baby’s first Christmas to a first holiday alone to hosting aging relatives, take heart in the fact that there are no rights or wrongs, only memories to make or cherish.

There is a Harvard study about a family’s trip to Abilene that is used in an organizational development process.  The gist of it is that early one pleasant afternoon as a family sat around on their front porch, someone floated the idea of a Sunday drive to Abilene.  The next thing everyone knew they were piled in the car for the hot ride.  Hours later when they returned home, exhausted, it finally was revealed that no one had really wanted to go – everyone thought they were the odd person out with no desire to make the trip.

Traditions matter.  But every so often they need to be examined to ensure they are still relevant.  So, this season share the origin of one of your traditions with a friend or around the family table.  Is it still working for you, connecting you to your past, fostering your present, or offering meaning to the future?  Does it need to be tweaked or even abandoned?  Make sure you are honoring the tradition’s meaning and not traveling to Abilene.

Have a blessed holiday,

Marilyn

Santa and the Tree

When I was four Santa brought not only the presents but also the tree.  And then he stayed and decorated it!  When I came downstairs that Christmas morning, the grown-ups waiting to watch my amazement and wonder at the transformation of the living room included my parents, grandma and her cousin Jenny, and Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Bob.  I hope that my reactions met their expectations.   My only memory of the day is my mother saying, “Santa only does this once for every child.”

By the following Christmas, the year I got my Annie Oakley outfit and a Japanese doll sent by my brother who was stationed there, things had changed.  A kindergarten classmate had spent her minute at Show & Tell really telling.  By the next year Grandma was gone, my brother was married and living in DC, and I was old enough to begin to understand and look forward to some traditions.

Four has got to be the perfect age for the magic of the season.  As an adult I can appreciate all of the work that went into that one evening, as the family lovingly created a corner of wonder for a child.  I hope there was laughter amid the stress of “more lights on top” or “too many red ornaments together,” that music was playing, and that those elves retained fond memories of that holiday night.

My four-year-old self remembers one other thing about Christmas that year.  The anticipation.  There is no picture of me sitting on Santa’s lap, but there is this, the picture of me that Christmas Eve, innocence, ready for bed and looking forward to the surprises ahead.  This season may we all find that piece of ourselves that can relate to wonder.  Whether for you the surprise is the babe in the manger, the need is the promise of a fresh start in a New Year, or you enjoy the camaraderie of peace on earth symbolized by time with relatives rarely seen, I hope you are able to approach the end of 2013 with a childlike view in some parts of your life.  

You may be amazed at what that child truly finds.

Marilyn