This weekend the members of the class of 1969 at John F. Kennedy High School in Plainview, NY got together for our 40th reunion. Unfortunately, I was not there and judging from the pictures I missed a wonderful event. I chose not to go for several reasons. However, the primary reason was that I was just back in NYC in June and I will have to go back again this fall. I felt that three trips back east in such a short period of time was too much. As it turned out, I got to see several people here on the west coast before they left for NY. I told them to take lots of pictures which they then generously posted on facebook.
My dear friend Jan whom I’ve written about in prior entries here and here visited me this past weekend. We met during our freshman year of college and have been close friends ever since. In 1971, Jan transferred to another college for the remainder of her education. I frequently visited her there and became friends with many of her new friends. One woman in particular named Deb was especially fun to be with and very smart. I would spend time with her whenever I came to visit Jan. Although we have kept up with each others’ lives through Jan, I hadn’t seen Deb in probably thirty years. Coincidentally, Deb ended up being in town at the same time as Jan and the three of us had a reunion this past weekend. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday, a friend sent me a link to a blog post entitled “Don’t Keep Up With Social Technology” by Alexandra Samuel who blogs for the Harvard Business Review. Her comment accompanying the link was “has ‘opportunity’ written all over it.” You might be wondering how NOT keeping up with social technology can provide a powerful opportunity but both my friend and Alexandra Samuel are absolutely right.
Samuel’s point is that given that there are so many new social technology applications online right now and that so many new ones will continue to proliferate in the future, the only successful strategy for successfully using this technology is to stop trying to keep up with each new application that is produced. If Alexandra Samuel whose field is social technology can’t keep up, what hope do regular people not involved in the field have? So give your self a break and surrender. Keeping up is no longer a plausible response. Read the rest of this entry »
When was the last time you were silent in a conversation for more than 30 seconds? Go ahead, take a moment and remember. What did it feel like? Were you anxious or could you luxuriate in just receiving what was being offered in that moment?
The world seems to be a loud and noisy place these days with few spaces for silence, listening and reflection. I’m very aware of my own silence these days in situations where until just recently I normally would have offered a quick and unconscious response. What has kept me quiet? Ironically, it is my newly recovered ability to hear. Read the rest of this entry »
I came across this short movie by Peter Reynolds via Patty Digh’s excellent blog 37 Days. Bonding with our “inner child” has been all the rage these past couple of decades. Personally, the whole idea of an inner child has not particularly thrilled me. It has always felt trite and too contrived. Yet I know that a part of me still has my childlike wonder, creativity and incessant desire to learn new things. This child part of me was also not afraid to fail in the service of learning of new things and was much more authentic in expressing her feelings before she learned what was appropriate in her family and the world. The child in me who has now morphed into an adult still lives and still longs to express herself in both good ways and ways that are not always best for the adult version of me.
“He Was Me” provided me with an opportunity to ponder the many experiences that I have chosen to forgo because they are not appropriately adult. Most of these experiences involve having fun, pretending, being silly and much to my surprise, involve a healthy amount of creativity. It’s sad for me to realize that I have an unconscious picture of adults being stodgy, serious, uptight and definitely not fun! This could describe my parents who were my first role models in the world of adulthood. Read the rest of this entry »
Gretchen Rubin posts many interesting suggestions and queries on her blog, “The Happiness Project”. I came across this question today: Do you make the mistake of describing a task as “easy” or “no big deal”? She points out that research shows that people persevere longer when told something is difficult than when they think it should be easy. Being the optimistic person that Gretchen is she has often told herself and others that something is easy in order to be encouraging when in fact, the task is difficult. While motivated from the best of intentions, this behavior can have the exact opposite effect.
Reading this, it reminded me of the importance of honesty. When we negate another person’s experience in favor of our own or our own wished for experience, it creates a disconnect and a loss of trust in the relationship. Ultimately, negating another person’s experience creates more work for both us and the people we negate. At the very least, we must repair the trust lost in the relationship if we intend for the relationship to continue. A more difficult task is to help the other person rebuild their trust in their own experience. Read the rest of this entry »
This weekend the members of the class of 1969 at John F. Kennedy High School in Plainview, NY got together for our 40th reunion. Unfortunately, I was not there and judging from the pictures I missed a wonderful event. I chose not to go for several reasons. However, the primary reason was that I was just back in NYC in June and I will have to go back again this fall. I felt that three trips back east in such a short period of time was too much. As it turned out, I got to see several people here on the west coast before they left for NY. I told them to take lots of pictures which they then generously posted on facebook.![[del.icio.us]](http://theopportunitygame.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/bookmarkify/delicious.png)
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