My mom keeps telling me I should write more and figure out how to make money along the way. This article is telling me the same…hmm…
Great profile on Andrew Evans of Digital Nomad on National Geographic
Letter to a Younger Me
Usually I stay away from the standard blogger posts like lists – top 5 ways to improve your love life/lose weight/get inspired. Included in that list is the “letter to my younger self” post. Part of me thinks it’s a bit of a cop-out; of course you have a dozen things you would tell the you of yesteryear. How to not allow your pride to be your downfall, the importance of humility and hard work.
As I get closer to 3o…ugh…I see more reasons to get my thoughts like this down. Five years out of school, my point of view about work, love and life goals has changed pretty dramatically. So without further pomp and circumstance, these are my thoughts to a younger Leisa. I won’t pinpoint the age of the younger Leisa, I can’t think of any number more than another, as I learn more about myself every day.
What Reading Means to Me – Then And Now
You can only imagine my pleasure at reading this headline: “Generation Read: Millennials Buy More Books Than Everybody Else.” As a person that currently has books in my passenger seat, ready to head back to the library return slot in exchange for another round of new picks, I can’t say I’m surprised. My sister described her weekend as a three-hour over-stimulated journey through Waterstones (the British version of Barnes & Noble). But the way people speak of my generation, you’d think we were dolts who cannot operate anything that doesn’t have an electronic touch screen.
Some of my favorite childhood memories are the visits my mom, sister and I made to the library, a red lacquered building that held so much wonder to me. It was the kid version of “Cheers,” where you walk in and the proprietor (the librarian in this case) knows your name and your favorite selection (The Babysitters’ Club in this case). It never failed that every Saturday, after the morning cleaning frenzy, there would be the reward: hours of time to wander around for new titles and authors. And at the end, you get to take some home with you. That was all the motivation I needed to make me do those dishes faster.
Though my desire to write wanes with the cycles of the moon, I never will turn down the opportunity to get lost for hours in a book. It is a trait that my sister shares as well – if the book is in my face, chances are I’m not hearing a word you’re saying to me. It’s never one book at a time. I like to imagine I can take on all the stories at once, letting my desire for adventure or romance or history decide which book I’ll pick up each time. I love the moments spent looking for my previous place, reinserting myself in the narrative and aligning my thoughts with those of the characters. And when I find the transformative story that draws me in, erasing time and other forms of entertainment…well that’s the ultimate experience.
As a page-turning enthusiast, my initial reaction to e-readers was one of “Ew, why would you do that? “ Nothing excites me more than when someone asks me “What are you reading?” Much as some people like to share their vacation photos or their kids’ soccer game video, I want to tell you about this great book. Some of the best conversations I have with my family begin with “So, what are you reading right now?” This usually leads to many shared Amazon.com and NPR books reviews, discussions about the genre, the background of the author and the best place to store stacks of the current reading list. (For my sister, it’s pretty much anywhere that you won’t trip over.) Over time, I was worn down and when I gifted myself an iPad, it was over. I downloaded the Kindle app and discovered that traveling with a tablet full of downloads beats lugging loads of novels any day and I didn’t look back.
A nugget of information highlighted in the Good article is that more and more readers are reading electronically, spelling doom and disaster for the brick-and-mortar bookstore. I wish I could say I was helping that cause but the lure of the library is still strong in me, and I’ll continue to go where everyone (at least in my imagination) knows my name.
Finding The Inspiration
This was written last month on a plane. I’m slow y’all.
Sitting here on the plane home (no worries, airplane mode is enabled on my iPad) and I’m thinking inspiration. My headphones are blasting Jay-Z and Kanye Watch The Throne. In addition to my intense admiration for Yeezy’s quotable quotes from life and songs, I get excited and nearly stan for Mr. West based on his evidenced passion for art: music, clothing, collecting pieces, name dropping Dali and Basqiat. Though this sometimes manifests in wearing leather aprons during performances – pause – it mainly comes through his fantastic albums and the story of grinding it out as an unknown, struggling to make ends meet. As he said, “that’s a different world like Cree Summers.”
The Vocus conference stimulated some passion for me. The overarching messages could be summed up as thus: be awesome, don’t tell everyone you’re awesome but instead tell them how your awesomeness benefits them. Never stop learning, innovate and have a good product and message. Great speakers and just overall passionate communicators. At the airport, I took the advice of one of the main speakers and fellow Houstonian Dayna Steele: take travel as the opportunity to expand your reading outside of your usual realm of comfort. For her, it was reading about NASCAR, which helped learn about new marketing tactics. Personally I agree with her; it’s men and a handful of women driving around tracks for hours on end, not sport. But they market the hell out of it!
So I picked up my first Forbes magazine. And I learned. I learned about the new Apple CEO, Jamie Dimon and the European economy. And I went on to use my American Airlines points to subscribe to Inc., Fast Company, The Atlantic (and Lucky, I still like pretty things!). It’s great to be able to hold a conversation beyond the latest pop news, both at work and with my friends and family.
So now as I move forward, not letting the “conference fire” die, where did you find your passion? And how did you keep the flames stoked?
Songs in the Key of Love
So this post has been in my mind for a while, finally taking the time to get it out online.
Some people can define their relationships through places they visited with their partner, or food they ate together. I think it’s most common to define relationships through music. Thinking back on the men I’ve dated, I can relate a song to each one and what that song means to me when I hear it.
High school: The first big deal. The sun rose and set based on him, because I was 16 and what did I know?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GvB9ySUJ3A&w=420&h=315]
He loved Cam’ron. Like, loved him. Loved Dipset, knew all the words. In my mind, the music was gibberish and I told him as much on many occasions. But over time, I began to enjoy the music for the creativity and spontaneity. It didn’t matter that half of what Cam’ron said was made up. Just have fun. That was the attitude I took with me to college.
Lenten Season
So every year I have to temper myself from this grand idea of giving up something grand for the occasion. I wouldn’t say I’m the biggest adherent to the letter of organized religion. In my ideal world, I’d attend the best church ever and every message would resonate within my spirit. I would follow every commandment, have no impure thoughts and all would be right in the world. But the reality is that life is a series of very complicated choices, and it is a struggle to retain a Christ-like attitude toward everything and everyone.
I cheated a bit and this Lent season. I’m repeating the concept of reducing the extraneous noise of life that, in many ways, defines my life: social media. For many, this is a fun way to connect with friends, family and the personalities they connect with, be they actors, musicians, thinkers and doers and those in their chosen field. Through reading personal and professional accounts of people I follow, social media has become as ubiquitous as eating and sleeping. Their phones or iPads are constantly by their sides from the moment they wake up. And Heaven forbid that facebook or twitter be down, whatever will they do with those 30 minutes of being disconnected from “life.” I don’t intend this to be a judgement but a review of the things that I hold important in my life. Will I allow myself to be that person who “has” to check twitter before I even wash my face and brush my teeth? Will I be that person that cannot enjoy the moment because I’m already thinking of how I want to present this in a Facebook post later?
For this reason, what better time to step away than in the season of Lent? I had a great text conversation with my boyfriend about what we were giving up between now and Easter and, more importantly, what we were gaining from the sacrifice. For him, he is regaining a focus on his health and wellness by focusing on healthy eating and exercise. He ultimately wants to train people, imparting his knowledge to transform their physical and mental wellbeing.
In our conversation, he told me that Lent relates to the period in which Jesus wanders the desert, being tempted by the Devil prior to beginning his ministries. Believers use this time to grow spiritually, and I believe that the time that I’ve dedicated to chatting and various gossip and fashion sites can be more beneficial when spent focused on my relationship with God. Not sure if this means that I will become the lead tambourine woman in the Sunday choir but it surely will bring me more peace of mind in the long run. And who knows, I may keep it going after I don my tangerine dream skirt suit on Easter Sunday!
Resolution… or Just Do It
I’m not a huge believer in resolutions. If you have a resolve to do something useful and dynamic, something outside of your norm that you think will take your life beyond, start immediately. Why wait for some special time of your life, like a 30th birthday or January 1?
So this won’t be a post about how I’m going to be so much more awesome in 2012, and how I’m going to do things differently for the new year. I’ve been reflecting on how to improve my professional profile, connections and knowledge for a while. In my personal life, I learn from my conversations with family, friends and my significant other and that informs the decisions I make.
As I’ve grown older, I recognize my personal symptoms of ennui: a sense of restlessness, a general irritation at stagnation. These all propel me into action to get beyond my “wall.”
Moving into the new job (gulp!), I am finding inspiration in a book I’m reading: Sophia Nelson’s Black Woman Redefined: Dispelling Myths and Discovering Fulfillment in the Age of Obama. I initially heard Ms. Nelson speak at the professional development conference from the Young Professionals subgroup of the Urban League of Greater Dallas. Although we are separated by a generation, and lots of income, her passion for empowering men and women to recognize their own power to make a change in themselves, their communities and their companies, whether they work for themselves or someone else, stayed with me after the event was over. I’ve been following her on Twitter, and she is prolific in her communication. She hosts #KnowURValue chats that bring some good advice from her community, and takes me to church almost every morning. Suffice it to say, you need to get up on her book.
Now that I’ve enjoyed a quiet New Year celebration, no club for me thank you very much, I’m enjoying these black eyed peas, cornbread and coleslaw. My prayers go to you and yours in 2012. Start it on the right foot with a prayer/meditation and then go be awesome!
Don’t Hide Your Light Under a Bushel
If there is one edict that has stayed with me from my impatient youth to 26-going-on-27, it’s that if you use patience and wait out the tide, eventually it turns and everything gets better. I posted back in October that some days are just “might don’t make it days,” where you have to chalk it up that life has the better of you and keep it moving. And sometimes those days string together to the point where you wonder where the end is.
After the past week I’ve had, I feel like I’m on a mountaintop after coming through a valley. And I’m not hiding my light and blessing under a bushel. On Friday a long-sought job offer came through. It was such an overwhelming feeling after a few seasons of feeling like my skill set was lacking, after getting the “sorry but no” call or email or no call at all (which is so incredibly unprofessional I can’t even speak on that). I went to my mental prayer closet before I got the call. I’ve always liked that concept, taking your prayers and desires straight up on high. No interruptions, no distractions, just a conversation. One shouldn’t reject the path He chooses, and that was my desire: to understand that if the answer was no, it didn’t mean “never” it meant “not right now.”
When I got off the phone, I was shaking like I’d just been in a fender bender (speaking from experience here). Hands shaking, nerves slightly raw. It was just joy, coursing through my veins. With this new opportunity, I feel a rejuvenation of energy. If there is one thing I can’t take, it’s stagnancy. Whether it’s work, education, friendships or romantic relationships, I think you should always be moving forward. Discovering new things, new concepts, new levels. In no way am I disparaging any past loves or jobs, but you do reach a fork in the road sometimes and you have to decide which way you’re going to go. It’s feeling like a road less traveled right now, but I know I chose the right one.
On Diet and Personal Choice
As part of my liberal (nearly socialist, if you ask my mother) indoctrination, I have grown to love NPR. When I got satellite radio with my new car about two years ago, listening to Michel Martin and “Tell Me More” became part of my morning routine much like coffee and email. On Friday, catching a rebroadcast of the Thursday program, I got to hear quite a discussion called “Put Down the Fork – Lay Off the Pork.” Michel had two guests: Natalie Moore, who recently wrote an article for The Root called “In Praise of Pork,” and filmmaker Byron Hurt (Soul Food Junkies).
As a recent convert to vegetarianism, I will say, bacon is one of the meats that I miss the absolute most. I can go without pork chops, would never touch chitterlings (or chitlins, depending upon your upbringing) and appreciate sausage. But there is something about that smell, the crunch, the combination of salty-sweet when you add it to pancakes…just joyful. I will say, my vegetarianism isn’t about religion or diet. It was a combination of my boyfriend’s eating habits (never had meat in his life) and me wanting to challenge myself. It’s the same reason I went natural: something I’ve never done before. Would it be difficult? The only thing I can say is that when I get hungry, bordering on hangry (hungry + angry) or tungry (tired + hungry), the only thing I can think of is a good fast-food cheeseburger. I’ve been tempted many a times to swerve into Whatburger after my Monday or Tuesday night class.
As I was listening to the very friendly debate on Tell Me More, one line that Natalie said struck a nerve. She mentions staying with a friend, who happened to be from the South. The family made breakfast, which included pork. Her explanation for going back on her no-pork stance (at that point in her life) was that she had “home training” and couldn’t say she didn’t eat it. I just can’t agree with that. I’m a Southerner, with home training, but if I don’t eat something, I’m not going to change my stance simply because a friend, or boyfriend’s, family cooked it. There is nothing impolite about simply saying “I’m afraid I don’t eat that, thank you.” Done, move along. This notion of Southern politeness, and to some extent, femininity defined by Southern edicts, really gets folks messed up in the game.
How long will I be a vegetarian? I’m not wholly sure. I will tell you this, I’m about to get it in on some turkey and stuffing come Thanksgiving. I call it a vacation of sorts, pretty excited about it.
On the school note, just wrapped (quite last minute :-/) my bibliography for theory class. Now I need to go into seclusion to start on the content analysis for research class and the literature review for theory. No…I’m serious. I need to go away from the Internet and text messaging, it’s the devil!
It’s All a Process
I think I hit my first wall this week, when I sat down to write my research proposal. As my boyfriend said, “It’s like telling someone they can go on vacation anywhere in the world but they can only pick one place.” I sat for three hours and felt that old frustration from undergrad. No, actually it was worse. In my early 20s, time wasn’t as valuable as it is now. You work on something, you nap, you play online, you watch a marathon of “Law & Order” and then you get back to work. Now it’s you work for actual money, you hustle for additional ways to possibly make money, you keep up on the news, you keep up with your friends who are becoming increasingly distant due to marriage, kids and their own work, you try to sneak in some TV and then you work on extra stuff like grad school.
I’ve had some frustrations this week, and I’m not quite sure when they’ll be resolved. As I mentioned previously, some days just aren’t for it. We all have them. The other day, riding and listening to NPR (also known as mental down time), they reviewed a graduation speech that the recently deceased Steve Jobs gave back in 2005 at Stanford. In it, he says:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
I was moved, to tears. How beautiful to have a death sentence over your head, and to live with such grace. I’m not sure what I’ll do with my frustrations, but I know I have control of where I’m going. I will not let the “noise of others’ opinions,” which can often be quite loud and press in from all sides, be the story of my life right now. Chin high, shoulders back, carrying on.