You Can't Always Get What You Want, But You Can Always Get Back in the Game

I haven't been writing because of one very important, all-consuming project. We celebrated a few CEOs who have transformed their companies. Now that project is over, and I can sit back and strategize my next move.

Funny-- I thought I knew what my next move was.
Until a few weeks ago, it was absolute. Today...it is no longer an option.


When I realized that, I was so disappointed that I was angry. Embarrassingly, it took me two weeks to get through the "if I can't do this, I don't want to do anything" slump.

The only way I got through the slump, was by reframing this let down as an opportunity. That might seem like a comfort mechanism, but that's not what it is--and that's not why I did it.

I did it, I intentionally reframed the situation, because I know that it is a good way out of slumps. I know that people who do that are more successful and happier than people who don't. I know that people who intentionally reframe challenges tend to be more grateful and more resilient. And I want to be both of those in increasing measure as I age.

So I reframed. I said, "The best thing about not getting what I wanted was..."

Was that it forced me to want something else. It forced me to ask myself what my non-negotiables are, and to let go of brand names, titles, locations and salaries in order to find a good fit for my passions and talents.

The best thing about not getting what I wanted, is that I found out what I care about, what I'm willing to fight for, and even what I'm worth. Sometimes when you slip easily from one stage of life into the next, you don't have to ask those hard questions. Slipping into something is a whole different exercise than climbing into something, but I won't bother tracing that metaphor out right here.

So it was a good thing, not getting what I wanted.

Carrying Mattresses and Improving Processes

The people who ought to know the most about process baffle me with their disinterest in having one.

Process be not intuition. Or the other way around. Or both.

Intuition is unsafe, imho. Like institutional memory, it's hard to improve intuition. It's a gut feeling that comes from the same place that brings you bias, prejudice and a yearning for Snuggies.

Processes can be refined.
Intuition fails, and does so with an unshakable sense of righteousness.

I'm all for good, improvable processes. I work in the right place for it, too. At a center for quality, efficiency and competitiveness.

Meanwhile, in the second week back on campus at Columbia, we had a protest outside Low Library today. People carrying mattresses to support the student who was raped, and who has decided to make visible what would have otherwise been an invisible burden.

She is making it artistic. Making something felt into something seen. Would that we all had the craft for that. Or the will. Or both.

I talked with my favorite coworker, who used to be in publishing, about why I love NYC. I said, and I quote myself here, "I want to live and to be and explore. To feel what there is to feel in life. Just like every other twelve year old girl."

No, but really. I've found myself here, even if I wasn't lost before I got here. My colors have become deeper, my feelings stronger (or at least more obvious and interesting to me).

No, it's more than even that. I'm taking sides here. For some things and against others. I'm choosing things and rejecting things (people, too). I'm more well-defined than I've ever been and I fell less changeable.

Those may be the words that I look back on in twenty years with grief and self-pity. But somehow, I doubt it. I doubt that I'll look back on this time with anything but admiration and gratitude.

Remembering Existentialism, With Some Regret, Ministered By An Observant Me

Step outside
Gonna step outside,
I'm gonna step out
Heart's on fire, leaving all behind you
Dark as night, let the lightning guide you

-Jose Gonzales, Step Outside

I turned Jose on, reclining back on too many beige and white pillows.  "I have never ventured beyond..."the words in the novel said. What have I never ventured beyond? Harlem, for sure. Beige, at least in this room.  

Laying back, staring at both myself and the wall opposite me, my coral colored shirt begins to float away from me, and swirls into the walls and carpet. Finally, I see that this room is missing the color coral, and decide to cover the windows and the closet with coral cotton and paint. 

I can't ever forget the Tibetan village I stayed in at Xiahe; Oh!, the striped bedspreads and tablecloths--- so garishly red, green and then heaven-white in surprising places. .

I lay my phone on my chest with the speaker pointed at my chin.

Dark as night, let the lightning guide you...

I lay the weighty pages of my latest summer reading down on my forehead, and the gushing notes of the music fill the little triangular space between the speakers, the book and my self, until I squeeze my face up into a ball of emotion. 

Then I relax, as I see the girl who has let the emotion swell into her and knock her off course. By seeing her, I have anchored her. 

Then, finally, I resent that I ever became an existentialist. And wish that I had skipped from youthful naturalism straight to Christianity. How much less would I watch myself, I wonder?

I'm Not Exactly Who I Appear To Be (Who Is?)

We can choose to surround ourselves with people who couldn't possibly understand where we've come from, and in doing so, we can create a barrier between ourselves from the past and ourselves in the present.

This strategy breaks down if we then feel a great loneliness because we are not somehow "fully" accepted.