Liminal

If you ask me if I’m a person who lives in regret I’ll say no, but a friend recently helped me to see that I’ve been wasting a fair amount of time wallowing in the “if-only”.  A fantastical place of intense longing for wishes that seem impossible to fulfill, it’s an endless reenactment of the proverbial fork in the road that we believe has somehow had a hand in negatively altering fate.  The “if-only” is tracing an unpleasant situation or unmet desire back to a specific action we’re holding accountable for the present state of affairs.  It’s about yearning for reality to be adjusted, ever so slightly, to make space for the outcome we’d like to see. Particularly pernicious and invasive, it attacks both choices made in the past and hopes for the future:   If only I’d married a different man, maybe I wouldn’t be divorced today.  If only I’d been more vigilant about homework when my kids were younger, maybe they’d be self-motivated today.  If only the man of my dreams wasn’t committed to someone else, I could date him.  If only my peer wasn’t holding the position I want, I could be in my dream job. You get the idea.  The “if-only” is all about standing in front of closed doors, blinded by the belief that the only path to our desires is blocked by circumstances beyond our control.

The crazy thing about the “if-only” is that it’s stochastic; there is no way to gauge whether the true catalyst is identified, or whether a single action, situation or choice plays any role at all.  It’s impossible to say whether the results would be any different with a pointed redaction, yet we convince ourselves they would be.  If I’ve learned anything about my own imagination, it’s that I can count on nothing playing out in reality the same way it does in my head. The beauty in this is that it leaves us free to delight in the most arcane of possibilities.

And this is exactly what we should be doing with our imaginations, using the infinite creativity of our minds to envision the “what-if”.  The “what-if” is about hope and promise.  It’s about standing in front of open doors and thinking about how you can make great things happen. It’s about understanding what you control and capitalizing on it.  The “what-if” channels all of the energy wasted on the “if-only” into positive change.  Powerful beyond measure, it unveils opportunity we never dreamed possible. 

This revelation feels a little bit like a breakthrough. I’m now convinced that if I commit to replacing the “if-only” with the “what-if” I can make a potent shift in my life.  Focusing on the opportunities in front of me that I can act on leaves little time to welter in what I can’t affect.  In situations where I’m blaming myself for a decision in my past, abandoning the “if-only” makes room for forgiveness, grace and the clarity needed to solve or move on from the current situation.  Where I’m feeling stuck in a state of perpetual hold I’ll be able to walk away and pursue instead an avenue that holds promise.

Unloading the “if-only” is a little bit about faith, too, a belief that all of the vigilance in the world doesn’t guarantee a specific outcome. Yes, sometimes bad things happen to us no matter how hard we try to guard against them.  But sometimes good things come to us for no apparent reason at all.  They just do.

Ferocity

A woman on my team asked for a few minutes of my time today to go for a walk. An approach that’s getting some press lately as a creative way to inject a little exercise into the workday, a walking meeting is perfectly suited for 1:1 coaching conversations requiring nothing more than brain power, that is, unless you’ve decided to don your stilettos that day.  I admit I liked it.  In a facility that’s a little over a million square feet, there was no shortage of corridors to traverse; we could have easily talked all afternoon without seeing the same space twice.

The ground we covered today is tierra del fuego. A hot topic I find myself consulted about frequently, it’s the deliberation over career choices and making the right next move, a dress rehearsal any starlet insists upon before stepping onto center stage in a brand new role.

Today’s spin was on the appeal of the prescribed career path and the question as to whether we should all take it just because it’s there and we can clearly see what’s in front of us.  It was a healthy discussion with a woman at the beginning of a very promising career.  I admire her for challenging the status quo when most of us might be tempted to fall in line.

For some the decision to follow the progression from Assistant to Manager to Senior Whatever is rote. It’s certainly what I did.  Everything went pretty much according to plan until I found myself at the end of the line standing in utter despair, wondering what I would do next.  In some ways I didn’t think I had a choice all of those years, so when the road ended abruptly it took me a while to find my way. 

Last week I had sushi with another woman at an impasse similar to my own experience. Unable to articulate what she wants for herself next, we talked about the powerful role culture can play in women who limit themselves.  Some of us really do grow up thinking we don’t have a choice. We take what is handed to us, whether we like it or not.   Interestingly enough, what crept into our conversation was the admission that self-doubt adds an element of fear to the risk of something new; the idea that we simply cannot ask for what we really want because we’re afraid we’ll bite off more than we can chew.  There seems to be this notion with women that if we ask for the job we want and then fail to deliver, well, we had no right to ask for it in the first place. Better to be safe than risk that disgrace, right?  It makes me wonder if for some women, the issue isn’t that they don’t believe they have a choice, but that they’re unwilling to make a choice for fear of committing when they’re not entirely confident they can deliver.

The good news is it’s all in our heads.  I find the research in this HBR blog post about The Power of Intent compelling.  If we have the resolve to make something happen, it will. 

Several years ago when I was offered a new leadership position I told my manager at the time that I was going to take my team from the worst performing to the top performing on the account.  Tired of being associated with the mediocrity I was certain our group was capable of rising above, my statement came more from the humiliation I felt as a member of the last place team and frustration over the fact that I knew we could do better, than from any concrete plan to rise to the top.  The words fell out of my mouth without even thinking and were quickly forgotten once I immersed myself in the job.  I was startled to find myself quoted in my own year-end performance assessment, my manager having remembered my comment and acknowledging that I had done exactly what I said I’d do.

Was that a bold statement?  Hell, yes.  Did I have any way of predicting at the time that I would be successful?  No.  But I wanted that role, that opportunity, that chance to make a difference so badly that there was no way it would not happen.  This is the power of intent.  It’s a Catch-22, though.  You need to be willing to put yourself out there. Many of us aren’t, and so when confidence wavers, we waffle and wilt, the new opportunity pushed to the wayside in favor of what someone else says we can do, not what we want to do.

I speak from experience when I say (brazenly) that when you are doing what you absolutely love, there is no one who can do it better than you do.  Others will do it differently and find their own success, but you are the only one who can bring your heart and soul into what you do.  I’m no stranger to stage fright, for sure.  But what I observe is that neither are most others.  Standing in a lambent spotlight is not as daunting as it seems when you recognize that you can choose what you stand for.

You always have a choice.  Be brave enough to make it.

Hew

“Love yourself” is the sweet nothing I’m whispering to the women in my life this Valentine’s Day.  The need to adopt this as my campaign for an occasion so obviously meant for romantic love materialized when I discovered it is pretty much impossible to say out loud that I love myself. For me it’s more than a little uncomfortable.  Adjectives like narcissistic, conceited, egomaniacal and just plain icky cross my mind.  How could the l-word possibly roll off my tongue and not leave me wondering if I am hubristic?  Which suggests that maybe I don’t find myself to be worthy of my own love.  Ouch!  Could I be any harder on myself?

I wish I was alone in this.  I really do.  Unfortunately there are women all over the place questioning their worth, holding themselves up to a higher standard than they would ever hold anyone around them, withholding self-love until their own idea of perfection is achieved. 

In a world obsessed with pulchritude, we look at ourselves from a distorted, unilateral position.  When we hear the sound of our voices on a recording, or catch a glimpse of ourselves in a mirror from an angle we rarely see, we’re mortified.  The irony is these vantage points which appear so foreign to us are exactly where others view us from every minute of every day.  And no one has run away screaming yet, right?

The damage goes beyond meeting elusive standards of physical beauty.  Trying to juggle the responsibilities of our demanding lives, we learn to tell ourselves we are not enough.  A friend recently said to me that she feels like she doesn’t have enough time to get to everything.  And you know what?  She doesn’t.  None of us do.  But too many of us spend time feeling bad about this, believing that we are somehow letting down our families and friends, that we don’t measure up if we can’t fit it all in.

It might seem like there is no harm in not loving yourself.  But I have to disagree.  If you don’t cut it in your own mind, self-confidence suffers.  It doesn’t matter if you’re an over-achiever and everyone around you sees your value.  If you don’t believe in yourself, you’ll never be able to achieve your dreams, never break your own glass ceiling. 

I do think it is possible to fall in love with yourself.  The method lies in this quote from Rumi:  “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”  What I find compelling about this is the idea that love exists at our core.  If we strip away the superfluous, the imagined expectations, the self-imposed demands, we’re left with no reason not to love ourselves.

Logic would tell us that if we’re feeling like we’re not enough the answer would be to do more, but it’s the opposite.  When we accept that our time is finite and prioritize what matters, we’ll start doing less.  And begin to feel better about ourselves.  Much has been written lately about the burn-out suffered by leaders who don’t take time to do for themselves. The latest argument for working less found last week in the New York Times is here:  Relax! You'll be more productive.

Michelangelo applied this idea of subtraction as well, saying that he could envision his work of art within a block of stone; he sculpted to allow the world to see what he already knew was inside.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent a lifetime building a fortress in my mind to fend off self-love.  Recently I’ve started chipping away.  What’s coming into view is even more beautiful than I ever imagined, and has likely been visible to others all along.   Maybe someday my own sweet nothings will be a little easier to hear.

Vicissitude

Love lives inside.  

Early Saturday morning my heart skipped a beat when a dreamy house set back from the street on a snow-covered lawn captivated me with his quiet charm.  He’s a compact Cape Cod, gentle and warm, with a majestic brick chimney adorning the north side of the west facing facade, covered in intricate vines which I imagine bloom gloriously during the spring.  This picture doesn’t quite do him justice, as my camera caught the overcast sky muting his brightly painted front door and shutters which twinkled fetchingly to my naked eye; their true blue color like jewels more closely resembling Pantone 15-5519. Exactly where I’ve always thought I would find a home suited just for me, on the road less traveled. It was love at first sight.

Pantone 15-5519

I never bother to look too closely at the houses on the main thoroughfares because those spaces are too busy to call home. It isn’t often I find myself in this particular neighborhood, but the search for six miles of smooth, dry pavement for a morning run took my companion and I off the beaten path.  Our usual weekend trails rendered treacherous when footprints cast in last week’s soft snow froze impenetrable, we forged a new route rewarding me with a glimpse at my idea of an ethereal haven.

This has me thinking about how we all wear traffic patterns into the road of life, and wondering what other glorious suitors would enrapture me if I cajoled myself into braving new territory.

It’s not an easy thing to do.  We’re busy.  We know exactly how long it takes to get from point A to B, and that’s how much time we allot for it.  We fill up at the same gas station, buy coffee at the same corner shop, and purchase lunch at the same sandwich counter in the cafeteria.  We’re even at these places at the same time every day of the week. No wonder it can sometimes feel like we’re stuck in a rut, that there is nothing or no one new in our lives.

The truth is changing up things enriches us; makes us more interesting.  Our new experiences bring us new dimension, adding yet another quality, skill or perspective we have to offer to those around us.  They also bring us happiness.  It’s not necessary to move mountains to affect change.  Drastic measures are not required.  You don’t need to wait for a new job, a new relationship or an exotic vacation to shake things up. You can start small, like a run in an unexplored neighborhood. Who knows, you just might happen upon an attractive Cape Cod who puts his heart out there for you, right on the front door.  

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the human heart can hold. -- Zelda Fitzgerald, novelist (1900-1948) 

Zooids

Teenage boys:  Can’t live with them, can’t live without them.

 

They are unclean, uncouth and unctuous.  They wear clothes that don’t fit.  Duct tape is their material of choice when cobbling shoes.  They abhor outerwear of any kind.  Unless it’s a knit skull cap worn indoors. Their feet smell, sometimes so badly it makes me gag. They are impish, impulsive, and impudent. Known to divert probing questions, they avoid the truth at all costs when coming clean brings the possibility of disciplinary action.  In spite of hearing the same direction countless times, they are unable to articulate any type of outward signal indicating what’s being said is being absorbed. Brazen brigands I’d like to bridle, they are often my incubus, leaving me feeling bewildered, besieged and beguiled.

Yet they are delightful, decorous, and demonstrative, capable of expressing a deep and real empathy.  They are fiercely loyal, speaking up for the underdog, fighting for social justice. I often think that if they can make it through high school with their passion intact, they’ll change the world with their indomitable spirits. They are remorseful, reliable, and responsible, shoveling the driveway without being asked or cleaning and vacuuming a bedroom. They are attuned, attentive, and atonable. They can sense when something is not right with me and will ask if everything is okay. They make me laugh. Their creativity and imagination astound me.

 

They are capable of existence without me right now, more or less. This is the struggle.  And so I vacillate, wondering when they’ll be ready to leave and how I will ever cut this cord.

Belay

I’m sitting in the San Jose Airport next to a bird.  Not kidding.  She’s walking around picking at the speckled carpet.  I thought I saw her flying in the restaurant earlier, but convinced myself I was imagining things.  This is a unique airport, at least in my limited foray into travel, not only because of the bird. Free wi-fi is available everywhere and all seats in the terminal are powered so you don’t need to waste precious battery on your computer when you work before boarding the plane.  The coolest part though, is the surround to the multi-story parking garage fashioned into an ingenious piece of artwork:  A massive mural depicting the hands of 54 Silicon Valley residents waving hello and good bye.  It’s a pixilated image created by snapping over 400,000 plastic inserts into a chain link fence, much like the paper cup messaging in the fencing of a high school football field.  Brilliantly simple, it is enormously impactful. I love this airport.

It’s been an exhausting week.  I never did acclimate to the time change, up at 4AM and yawning by 7PM.  I’ve been bogged down by the nagging feeling that I have an overwhelming amount of work to do.  I’m starting a new job, having not yet unraveled myself from the old one. I thought I would feel better if I organized myself, so I created a spreadsheet categorizing my new responsibilities, documenting deliverables and due dates, but was surprised this normally therapeutic exercise didn’t do the trick.  Studying my list intently, it became evident that it’s not about how much I have on my plate, but how much I have on my mind.

 

Settling into my aisle seat in the row I had all to myself on this empty flight, without the bird, in case you were wondering, I powered up my laptop and got to work.  That is until the flight attendant informed me that my wireless mouse is a device that cannot be used in the air.  Really?  Sadly, really. I’m embarrassed to admit I am lost without my mouse.  I’m a speedy typist, having logged countless hours of practice as a kid on the manual Smith Corona in the basement of my parents’ home.  Fast typing garners me amazing productivity; however, take away my mouse and I’m crippled.  Unable to tolerate my own inefficiencies, I slapped down the lid of the computer and opened my book instead.

This is very similar to the way I feel at work these days.  I’m staring at the same keyboard; however, I can’t move around at will like I’m used to.  Everything looks the same, but it feels as if I’ve landed on the board of a different game.  The players are unfamiliar and I’m learning the rules as I roll the dice.  The mistakes need to be made in order to learn how to play. This really messes with my mind.  I like to read the directions in advance, play a practice round or two while my generous colleagues offer helpful hints, warn of hidden dangers and suggest successful strategies. Finding this blog post from box of crayons (love the name), describes exactly what this feels like:  http://www.boxofcrayons.biz/2013/02/notknowingtherules/

We all get attached to our structure, whatever that is.  We’re comfortable when we know where to find things, who to connect with, how stuff gets done.  We achieve a certain level of success when we’re entrenched in what we know, ensconced in familiar hands. Stretching to the next level is risky. This new space can leave us feeling less confident, less intelligent and overwhelmed.  We wonder if we’ll be able to be as successful in a new role, if we’ll ever be able to find our way around this board, be able to win at this new game.

It’s funny, though, as uncomfortable as all the ambiguity can be, I can’t seem to stay away from it. It’s like some macabre accident that’s so gruesome you just have to look. Having spent some time last year working in a stable environment where everything was always status quo, I found myself going out of my mind with boredom. I revel in environments that are transforming and evolving.  There’s something juicy and enticing about leading when I’m not quite sure exactly where we’re going.

 

Maybe my gift is my curse.  Maybe helping hands are in plain view if I just take off the blinders.  Maybe I need to buy a tethered mouse. 

Bespoke

Last September I was determined to watch the Harvest Moon rise.  The year’s biggest and brightest, it’s ascension over the horizon is a spectacle not to be missed.  I researched the exact time of its scheduled appearance and scouted my seat in the open field at a nearby high school.  In spite of the fact that my home is literally a one minute drive to this location, I missed the moment entirely.  I had no idea that the window of time for this monumental event is so tight. 

Anymore it seems like time “vaporizes”, an apropos descriptor supplied by a friend observing how her life has changed in the year she’s been back in the saddle of full-time  employment.  When the work day is over it’s time to conduct business running a household, leaving room for little else if you’re interested in sleeping, that is. So how is it possible to fit the fun in your life when it feels like you’re moving from one job to the next?

I once worked for a man who informed my teammates and I that we could attend a social event if all of our work was done.  No lie.  We laughed.  Who is he kidding?  All of the work is never done.  If we waited for that day to come, we’d never enjoy the perks of our jobs.  And that’s the truth outside the workplace as well.  With most household chores, the best you can do is break even, there is no getting ahead.  There will always be more laundry, dishes, food to prepare, bills to pay, clutter to pick up, teenagers to drive around.  If you wait until everything is done, so to speak, you’ll never have a moment to yourself.

Time will not tap you on the shoulder, saying “I’m here, take me.”  You need to steal it.  I mean it.  Steal time precisely when the urge hits you. I have set an alarm clock on vacation to catch the sunrise over the Atlantic Ocean.  I have stopped what I’m doing in the middle of a workday to go for a run on a 50 degree day in January. I have skipped out on a mess at the dinner table in favor of nestling in a patio chair on an early summer evening to find out whether it’s the stars or the fireflies who are the first to twinkle in the gloaming.

These made to order moments in life are all over the place, every day, but the thing is they don’t wait for us. If we welter in the business of living, we’ll inevitably miss the pleasure of life.

I decided to give my Harvest Moon rise another shot, knowing that it technically was not a full moon the second evening, but close enough.  I made it to my spot in time but moonrise preceded sunset and the lingering daylight dulled what I hoped would be a spectacular glow. This stunning three minute video is what I had imagined my experience in the field could be, and it’s also why there’s no shame in stealing time. http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2013/01/full-moon-silhouettes/272673/