The case against missionaries

Without getting too political, the whole “Haitian Incident” involving the American missionaries really rubbed me the wrong way, particularly the people I’ve heard defending their actions – ‘they had some parents’ permission’. And that makes it OK? If a van pulled up in rural Appalachia and offered to take kids to a ‘better place in Mexico with opportunities’ Americans would demand that they be arrested and any acquiescing parents be investigated by Child Services. Why on earth does anyone expect Haiti to have a lower standard for its children? Poverty, even extreme poverty, is no excuse to break up a family, a culture and a country. Poverty is not abuse.

Unfortunately it’s not an uncommon attitude. I see it in my fellow volunteers working with foster kids too. Surely ballet lessons with a middle class adoptive family should trump street dancing in the projects with her recovering birth mother? The problem is, it doesn’t. Connections with who and where we come from are some of the most powerful on Earth. Which is why we are somewhat inclined to believe that helping someone else means bringing them into our world and our connections; we value them that highly. But if we do it at the expense of someone else’s points of contact with family, culture, language, food and their world we are doing more harm than good.

Value your connections, your food, your culture as unique to you; special, not better.

Have a different opinion? Share it in the comments…

Technorati Tags: perceived value, self-perception

Success or identity? Do you really have to choose?

I was doing some catch-up reading of blog subscriptions when I came across this guest post, Why James Chartrand Wears Women’s Underpants, on Copyblogger. The gist of it is that James Chartrand, the voice behind the website and company, Men with Pens, is in actuality a woman and has been all along. I read it, shook my head a little and went on to other things, but it kept nagging at me.  I’m not judging her (his?) decisions, they just left me feeling sad.  She’s right, women have written under male pseudonyms for generations and gay artists and politicians have had straight covers for even longer – it’s all sad.  Whenever people feel that their best option is to deny something that is truly a part of themselves we all lose something.

I can’t deny that there is unfairness and bias out there on a number of different variables. There was a time in America when some light-skinned African-Americans “went White”, cut off contact with their darker-skinned relatives and moved to the Whites-only part of town, schools, and jobs.  My own great-grandmother denied she was Native American for similar reasons.  Better access to education, higher pay, and social acceptance are hard to turn down for yourself and your children when the alternative appears to be prideful poverty. But with that decision their descendants lost a part of their identity and their culture.

There is almost always a third choice to any either/or situation.  It just takes some work and some alternative compromise to find it.  On my first trip to Dublin, Ireland I encountered a cab driver from Northern Ireland.  Every day he drove across the border and down to Dublin to work and then back again at night because it was too hard for a Catholic to get a job in the North.  I asked him how anyone could tell and he told me it was all in the names – Patrick if you were Protestant and Padraig if you were Catholic. So I asked him why they didn’t just use another name on their applications and his reply was joking but I think it’s really a serious thing.  He would have given up something too important by the switch in spelling.  Something that had been built by generations and that was too easily preserved by simply enduring a long commute and a border crossing. Of course it’s not fair and think how easy it would be to spell your first name just a little differently? But then think about what it would mean in daily life -never talking at work about your family  life, holiday celebrations or growing up.

The online world really isn’t that different.  Trust is fragile when it’s so easy for someone to hide behind the screen and we have to take so much on faith that they are who they say are. Much of the time it doesn’t even really matter – a how-to article either works or it doesn’t. But how much more would we learn and connect if the author opened up an extra 10%? We all have different lines of privacy because most of us figure out pretty quickly that once you say it online you can’t pull it back. It’s not really that different from living in a small town. Your neighbors really don’t need to know if you buy 2% or whole milk but if you somehow feel the need to hide it and go to the grocery store just before closing to prevent people from finding out… It seems to me there is a huge difference between being private and hiding.  Hiding will eventually hurt your career and your relationships because people look for connections and things in common whether it’s in a board room or a chat room.

If you find yourself at this kind of cross roads try to find the third option – the one where you get to stay you -  because there’s real value in that even if it’s not readily apparent.

Technorati Tags: being yourself

The secret of patience

How many times have you told yourself  or been told ‘Be Patient!’?

Patience is often described as a lack of action; ‘buy those shoes now or be patient and wait for them to go on sale.’  More times than not though, when people are struggling with patience and wishing for more of it (right now!) it has to do with too much activity, not too little – ‘why won’t this work? I’ve been struggling with it for hours!’  ‘I’m ready to strangle David, he’s been whining nonstop’, ‘Why isn’t this traffic moving, I’m already late!’ etc. and so on.  Not all activity is physical, sometimes it’s passive like listening or worrying in the earlier examples.

So what’s the secret to getting back in the groove of patience?  Simply stopping.  Stop what you’re doing and switch to something else.  Getting frustrated because the computer keeps crashing and you can’t get that report done? Stop working on it,  do another task and come back to this one later.  Even if that report was due yesterday – frustration never creates much value anyway.  Caught in traffic? Stop worrying and start thinking about what you want for Christmas so you can get your list out to friends and family early – worrying does not make lights turn green or cars move (really, it doesn’t.)

Technorati Tags: dealing with impatience, patience, reducing stress

What words can tell us

life visual juliet read beauty
excuses growth feed excuse book
project motivation required posts bravery
green tidbits art adventurer entertainment
stairs happiness labels alone new
subscribe journal isn april september
meditation amazon it’s archives doing
juliet’s books fun attachment bookshelf
love journey resources august boundless
personal meditate becoming work imperfections

It’s not some new form of poetry or stream of consciousness rambling.  The list above are the top 50 words Google’s crawler says are on this site.

Earlier today I was doing some tweaking and reviewing of various reports with some occassional ‘oops, I messed that up six months ago’ here and there. It’s good to realize how much you’ve learned by catching yourself in mistakes every so often. Although it doesn’t hold a great deal of meaning in terms of web traffic the list of top 200 keywords in the Google Webmaster Tools fascinated me.  7 Green Stairs is the blog where I talk most about myself and what I’m doing, so once the site structure words like Juliet’s and October are subtracted these are the keywords that sum up “me”. Words like:  books, projects, adventurer, journey, love, romance, etc. It’s a very curious thing to see yourself in a spreadsheet of single words.

The words we use most often truly do describe who we are in thought as well as personality.  But it’s hard to be conscious of those words while actually using them. While it might be a lot of work to start blogging just to see this list, if you already have one I’d recommend taking a look from the personal perspective as opposed to your site’s performance.  What do those words say about who you are and who you want to be?  Are you surprised by them?

Technorati Tags: self discovery

How to be more creative quickly

The simple answer is to have an overwhelming need combined with no easily accessible solution – bored kids or broke adults can be some of the most creative people out there if they let themselves.

As I’ve been getting ready for my upcoming trip to Florida (today) there were two things I truly need for the trip that I don’t have the money or time to order; a loose sieve for metal detecting on the beach to separate the sand  from the treasure quickly and a sun hat that will fit my head that consistently proves that one size does not fit all.  I’ve no idea if what I came up with will actually work, and it does require a serious commitment to looking a little strange on the beach but I really enjoyed the process of solving these two problems.

For the sieve, I spent $4 at the hardware store for some plastic gutter netting and then stitched it together with some plastic cord I already had and used the rim of a large cottage cheese carton to reinforce the top – it looks like a really funky fishing basket but I think it will do the trick.  For the hat, I simply went through my stockpile of fabric and found the lightest possible one I was willing to part with which turned out to be pale pink and used the only hat pattern I had that had a brim – so it looks like a confection for race day but it didn’t cost me any money and it’s ready to go in the suitcase.

I didn’t have prior skills here, I just trusted that it was possible to solve the problem within the parameters I had set.  It was a lot more fun than buying either item ready made, although I agree that would use less of my time, but there’s no creativity in letting someone else always solve things for you.

Technorati Tags: crafting a creative life, feeling uninspired

5 tips on how and when to label yourself

Labels are tricky things.  The world might well be a better place without them, however conversations would drag on forever. If you’ve ever watched someone converse in sign language you may have seen them spell a person’s name letter by letter and then create a spacial reference point so that they can refer to that instead of painstakingly spelling the name each and every time – that’s what labels do, create a common reference point so that we can get on with what we are trying to say.  The downside is that they tend to stick and there’s no language on earth that has enough words to be completely accurate.

1. Do spend some time thinking about what labels you apply to yourself and whether they describe the person you want to be. Get rid of as many as you can and rewrite the labels that are useful but don’t fit perfectly.There’s a lot of advice out there on never labeling yourself however there are some that are a good idea – are you single or not? are you an adult?

2. Be confident in any labels you do use – be ‘independent’, not ‘trying to be independent’. There’s a wealth of power in claiming it.

3. Don’t label yourself unnecessarily. Your Facebook page probably doesn’t need any labels whereas your LinkedIn page probably does.

4. Take the time to find the right words and be open to relearning words you already know.  Words change over time and our early understanding isn’t always complete. For whatever reason I grew up defining the word ‘artist’ to mean a painter or a sculptor. I have no idea why, but that was my internal definition.  So when I went hunting for a career label that would describe jewelry design,writing, photography and other creative pursuits I was stumped.  Until it occurred to me to look up the term again – the first definition on Dictionary.com is: a person who produces works in any of the arts that are primarily subject to aesthetic criteria.

Look at that, I’m an artist!  One word to describe all those things. Even though it’s a broad term it will do for filling in the blank on websites and forms.

5. Don’t exclude essential parts of yourself, just to conform to what’s normal or expected. Watch this
Gap ad with Eisa Davis, who juggles more than one passion simply because it’s essential and doesn’t pick just one.  She definitely fits the definition of what Barbara Sher calls scanners although that’s another label I don’t particularly like because scanning implies a lack of action.

Words have power, choose wisely!

Technorati Tags: self-esteem, self-perception, self-talk

What are baby steps, anyway?

I’ve been reading This Year I Will…: over the weekend and finding even more things to think about then the last time I read it. One thing in particular that stood out for me was the chapter on making changes by taking baby steps – only these were minuscule steps. For example if you wanted to be more consistent about flossing your teeth, starting with just one tooth and then working your way up.  I’ve been used to hearing about people that worked their way up to marathons by running one block and then one mile etc but not by running past one house and then two! Possibly I need to dial down my efforts a bit and they just might stick better.

The question I’m now wrestling with though is what are these minuscule steps if the topic is neither flossing nor running?  If the goal is widening your social circle to include both friends and potential dates, does that mean simply varying your routine by going to a different Starbucks?  Or doing one web search for local lectures? Or something else entirely?  It’s a puzzle, but one worth figuring out.  The alternative path would be do jump into yet another online dating site or speed dating etc.  That might seem like baby steps, I would have categorized it that way before, yet clearly that’s bigger than what we’re talking about here. No wonder the success rate of those things is so low; people are overwhelmed.

I’m also wondering if I could start running if I did just try it house by house – whee, I’m up to running past three houses!?  It might be an interesting experiment. Who cares how long something takes if you reach the goal?

Technorati Tags: achieving goals, baby steps

A letter from your future self

I was reading a book on accomplishing goals this morning and came across an exercise where you imagine yourself one year in the future and then write a letter to the you of today.  It’s a fun thing to think about.  I’m sure there are variants of this exercise out there in various books about visualization and manifesting but something made it stand out to me today.

Five years ago when I was trying to fit into big corporate America I would have certainly hoped that the coming year would bring more money, better projects, true love,  and everything else I’ve ever wanted. I’ve always had plenty on the want list and the to-do list but even so the odds were that the next year wouldn’t look all that different from the current one.  I might have renovated a room or made it to a travel destination but the day to day stuff didn’t vary that much.

This last year I’ve made so many changes and taken so many risks that the one thing I’m certain of is that one year from today will look different from today. I’m not sure how or in what way but there is so much in motion now that it can’t possibly stay the same. Some projects will succeed and move into a new phase, others will fail and be put away. This blog (had better) settle into a pattern that feels right to me and the readers.  All that change is a little bit scary but mostly one big relief – I’ve finally stopped treading water! I may not be swimming with great style but even flailing around tends to attract help. Big risks simply can’t be maintained as risks for very long – they turn into other things before you know it.

I’m not sure what my 2010 self has to say to my 2009 self besides beaming pride for trying all these things and promises that true love stands a better chance of appearing in the next twelve months than it did five years ago.  The more “me” I am the more likely that the right things will come into my life.

What does your future self have to tell you?

Technorati Tags: design your life, risk taking, visualization

Volunteering is not a cure

There is a lot of advice out there that has about as much depth as the message in a greeting card.  It sounds good on the surface but when you go to apply it, something doesn’t fit.  Years ago I was unhappy with the region where I was living and where my career was going so I looked around for some tips on feeling better.  What I found was a lot of advice, similar to this article by Susan Jeffers that promised that the path to feeling better about just about anything was to stop thinking about yourself and volunteer for anything – just serving others would fix everything. The real problem with this kind of advice that speaks to ‘everyone’ is that if you’re a person that doesn’t fit that mold it’s not socially acceptable to speak up.  When was the last person you heard say ‘I volunteered at X and I hated it.”

While I’m all for volunteering as a form of social participation, it isn’t a treatment for depression or any other form of mental illness or social anxiety unless it’s being coordinated by a counseling professional. Sometimes a little more thought about self, and dealing with personal issues, may need to come before extensive thinking about others.  Again, an issue of balance more than one extreme over another.  If you hate your job and you volunteer after work to feel better about it – wouldn’t everyone be better off if you found a job you liked and did only a little volunteering?  Angry, frustrated, unhappy volunteers can be a drain on the very people they’re trying to help.  And in a sense, they’re not there for others but rather to use them to make themselves feel better.

The other fallacy that’s out there is that all volunteering is the same. It isn’t by a long shot.  I’ve tried enough of them to know it’s ok to say this one isn’t for me and try something else.  Organizations hate that because they hate training as much as any company but everyone will win when you find the right fit and you will eventually.  Sometimes it’s a matter of the work, sometimes it’s values or maybe just the way it’s run.  I briefly volunteered for an organization that did horse-back riding therapy for disabled kids – I shared the values, loved working with the kids and had no experience with horses whatsoever which the organization just waved away.  When a horse reared away from another inexperienced handler in front of an oncoming car I had to conclude that their need for volunteers had outweighed good safety standards and training.  Sometimes good intentions aren’t enough. The organization closed down a few years later.  I love the volunteering that I’m doing now – it suits my skills, my personality and my lifestyle.  In part that’s because I took time out ( a few years) to work on myself and what I wanted out of life first.

If you volunteer and love what you’re doing, great!  But if you’ve not felt ‘that feeling’ that ‘everyone’ describes then maybe that’s a sign that you have other things that need your attention more; maybe you need to volunteer with yourself for awhile or find another opportunity to give your time that may be a better fit.  Keep any existing commitments though – it’s not doing anyone a good turn to just walk out.

Technorati Tags: how to be happy, volunteering

The ego isn’t necessarily evil

I’ve recently concluded that the ego is getting an undeservedly bad rap, if it even really exists. It’s not like the ego is a kidney that can be identified on an x-ray;  Freud came up with the term and like most pioneers he got a lot of things wrong. But we continue to carry the concept forward and I’ve read several authors recently that proclaim it to be the number one obstacle to well, just about everything. The argument made by established self-help authors like Wayne Dyer and wanna be gurus like Ekhart Tolle is that humans are made in the image of [insert preferred spiritual source] which does not have an ego and therefore we gain elevation and enlightenment if we move closer to said spiritual source by eliminating the ego as much as possible.  I’m paraphrasing pretty heavily but you’ve probably encountered this concept somewhere already.  The flaw in this argument is that we all have egos and thus if we were created in a source’s image or divided from that source, or designed in any way then the ego may be misunderstood, like having an appendix, but it’s there for a reason and serving a necessary purpose. Any time we seek to sublimate or deny a core part of ourselves we create negative consequences which is something Freud acknowledged as well.

That doesn’t mean I’m advocating for “egotistical” behaviors – that’s simply going overboard in the opposite direction.  And most of the truly ego-overloaded people I’ve known had rock-bottom self-esteem underneath all the bravado.  I think the universal challenge in being human that is being overlooked is the one of finding balance: the right midpoint between “I” and “we”, how to follow your bliss and still get the garbage out, play and work, work (of any sort) and care for children/pets/elderly, traveling to expand your horizons and staying home to cultivate them.

In place of the ego and the id, I prefer to think in terms of Martha Beck’s ’social self’ and ‘essential self’, the first being equivalent to the ego in terms of being in charge of social interactions and behavior – why we wear deodorant, try not to say mean but true things, and all the other stuff that wouldn’t be an issue if you lived alone on a desert island with no expectation of seeing anyone ever again. Whereas the essential self is the sense of “me-ness”  that would still exist on that desert island, ageless, eternally delighted with sparkle crayons, etc.  Here too, there is a balancing act but there is acknowledged value in both aspects – one part without the other would be fundamentally unwhole.  We are, after all, each created whole.  We don’t see physical growth from baby to teenager and beyond as the correction of flaws so why should spiritual and personal growth be any different?

That’s my take on it, you may see it differently – please share your thoughts in the comments:-)

Technorati Tags: guru, life design, Personal Growth

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