Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

A Big Life

Monday, July 18th, 2011

It occurred to me recently that my life has gotten kind of small.  I go to work and I come home.  That’s about it.

I suppose this is somewhat normal for people with small children.  Kids take up all of your time, energy and focus – and rightfully so.  But now that my youngest is nearly potty trained and fiercely independent, I’m feeling the itch to expand my horizons a bit.

I was discussing this with my sister E this week.  She is my most reliable commiserator (that’s a word!) and confidante.  During our conversation, she told me about a woman she met who was in her 80’s who had run a chicken farm.  And she was a competitive ballroom dancer.  And she was a scuba diving expert who specialized in photographing sharks.  The list of interesting facts about this woman was seemingly endless.

Someday I want to be that old lady looking back on a life full of amazing experiences.  I want to have a big life.  I want to raise my kids and love every moment of their lives, but I also want to speak foreign languages and tap dance, and be a gourmet cook, and travel the world, and be a writer and speaker and mentor.  I want to create lots of different things.  I want to take a class…no, I always want to be taking a class.  I want to be creative and intellectual and worldly.  I want to be fascinated and fascinating.  I want my children to have big lives too based on my example.

So, I enrolled in a silversmithing class this fall and Willis is looking for an Italian instructor for the both of us.  It’s a good start.  I just turned 38.  If I’m lucky, I have 30 or 40 years to fill up with learning and adventure.  To get my life as big as I want it to be, I’d better get started now.

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Posted in Education, Intention, Joy, nurture, Self | 5 Comments »

50 Ways to Earn Your Big Girl Badge

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

“Promise me you’ll always remember:  You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”  – A.A. Milne

“To thine own self be true” – Shakespeare

“Every woman should have a youth she’s content to leave behind and a past juicy enough that she’s looking forward to retelling it in her old age.”  – Maya Angelou

Life is a journey.  Think about who you were ten years ago.  How much have your grown since then?  Would you go back?  You’re so much more incredible now than you were a decade ago.  Just think how amazing you’ll be ten years from now!

It takes a lot of living and learning, sometimes the hard way, to become a mature, healthy, strong, fabulous woman.  We all earn our Big Girl Badge in different ways because we all take our own path.  So the list below is not a checklist.  It’s a list of suggestions to continue learning and growing.  Take the ones that speak to you and discard the rest.  Hopefully, you will find them to be food for thought.

50 Ways to Earn Your Big Girl Badge

  1. Speak up for yourself
  2. Ask for a raise
  3. Enjoy your own company
  4. Get out of a relationship that isn’t good for you
  5. Travel by yourself
  6. Make your own money
  7. Manage your own money
  8. Have at least a basic set of tools (pliers, hammer, drill) and know how to use them
  9. Clearly define what you will and will not put up with in a relationship
  10. Clearly define what you will and will not put up with in a job
  11. Know how to admit your mistakes and apologize
  12. Trust your instincts, especially if your inner voice is telling you something different that you’re hearing from others
  13. Know how to put your own needs first
  14. Know how to say ‘no’
  15. Know how to find the lesson in your mistakes
  16. Introduce yourself to someone who intimidates you
  17. Shake hands like a man
  18. Ask for help when you need it
  19. Get yourself educated – in whatever way is meaningful to you
  20. Develop critical thinking skills and use them
  21. Accept responsibility for your own situation and behavior
  22. Understand your strengths and your weaknesses and be honest with yourself about both
  23. Know how to be financially independent, even if you’re fortunate enough not to have to be
  24. Be true to your integrity
  25. Know who you can trust and who you can’t
  26. Step outside your comfort zone
  27. Pursue your own interests, even if (especially if) you have a family to care for
  28. Never pretend to be someone you’re not
  29. Choose a life partner who satisfies both your heart and your brain
  30. Set and enforce your own personal boundaries
  31. Know how to change a tire
  32. Be true to your word
  33. Never build yourself up by putting someone else down
  34. Learn self-defense
  35. Know what you want and what you intend to do to get it
  36. Reach out to someone in need
  37. Do something that intimidates you
  38. Host a dinner party
  39. Respect the views and beliefs of others, but know how to disagree tactfully
  40. Know when to put your foot down
  41. Know when to let your guard down and let someone take care of you
  42. Honor your own needs and nurture yourself
  43. Be able to give a speech
  44. Thank all those who have supported you
  45. Know how to give a compliment and how to receive one gracefully
  46. Don’t put yourself down
  47. Find your passion and follow it
  48. Take personal responsibility for your sexuality and your reproductive health
  49. Tell the mean girl in your head to shut up
  50. Know your value

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Posted in Education, Intention, Power, Self, Wisdom, Women | 6 Comments »

What I Want for Her

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

“A strong woman understands the importance of creating space for personal well-being, spiritual nourishment and regeneration in order to maintain her authenticity, especially when the universe whacks her with its two-by-four and hands her days when it takes a great deal of courage just to show up.” - Laura Folse

“A strong woman understands that gifts such as logic, decisiveness and strength are just as feminine as intuition and emotional connection.  She values and uses all of her gifts.” - Nanci Rathbun

“There are times to stay put and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.” - Lemony Snicket

Pinky is just beginning to speak in sentences – “Where go Daddy?” and “Uh oh. Yucky mess!”  She is so smart, so funny, so headstrong, so stubborn (I don’t know where she could have gotten that).  She is an amazing little creature.  There are so many things I wish for her, and by extension, for myself and for all women:

  • First the basics – safety & good health
  • Confidence & assertiveness
  • To be generous & compassionate with a full understanding of how fortunate she is
  • A strong work ethic
  • A finely-tuned B.S. detector
  • A love of learning & knowledge in all its forms
  • An adventurous spirit
  • Freedom from perfectionism, anxiety & self-doubt
  • Resilience to learn from tough times & carry on
  • The wherewithal to take excellent care of herself – mind, body & spirit
  • Excellent posture & grammar
  • A razor-sharp mind and a tongue to match
  • A life partner who adores her
  • A strong circle of friends who support her
  • Work that she is passionate about
  • The financial freedom to follow her dreams
  • A never-ending sense of wonder about the world
  • A life of amazing experiences
  • Unlimited laughter and joy

Too much to ask?  I think not.

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Posted in Body Image, boundaries, Education, Friendship, Gratitude, hope, Joy, Kids, nurture, Wisdom | 2 Comments »

The F Word

Monday, November 15th, 2010

G is in first grade and never stops talking.  Pinky’s vocabulary will be exploding over the next few months.  There are so many words that they will learn, some of them wonderful, some of them not so much.  I want them to learn some of my favorites:  abundance, defenestration, and sphygmomanometer.

There is a small handful of words that are not allowed in our house.  Ones we simply don’t use.  Words that are ugly or hateful.  Fortunately, these haven’t been an issue yet with G.  The meanest words he knows are “idiot” and “poop face” – both strongly discouraged.  He prefers being gross to being mean.

There is one word though that he does know is against my rules – “fair”.  We don’t say ‘fair’ at our house.  It is known as ‘the F word’.  He will learn that other F word soon enough.  For now it’s not an issue.  I want my kids to know what’s right, but I don’t want to teach them that everything is going to be fair.  I think that kids who leave home expecting life to be fair have been done a disservice.  Here’s why:

  1. There is always going to be someone who is richer or prettier or more privileged or better connected than you are.  Sometimes you get what you have earned.  Sometimes you don’t.  That’s life.  But whining about it being unfair is the least attractive and least productive response.  It’s OK to have a moment of self-pity, but then you just have to get back up and get on with it.
  2. More importantly, 95% of the time when life isn’t fair, it’s in our favor.  For example, perhaps we should ask the people of Haiti how unfair your life is right after they’re done dealing with the poverty.  And the earthquake.  And the hurricane.  And the cholera.  Or perhaps the women of the Congo who have suffered the ongoing horrors of war including brutal and systematic rape – what would they say about your losing out on that promotion to the boss’ nephew?  In other words, there is always someone WAY less fortunate than you.  It’s distasteful at best to complain about our lot in life.

Although G and I sometimes talk about kids who don’t have enough to eat or don’t have nice toys like he does, he doesn’t really understand any of this yet.  He just knows that he’s not allowed to say, “That’s not fair.”  I hope that this is the seed for a lifetime of seeing the world beyond himself, feeling compassion, and counting his blessings.

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Posted in Education, Kids | No Comments »

No Education is Wasted

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

“Nothing we learn in this world is ever wasted.”   – Eleanor Roosevelt

I had the opportunity to participate in a junior high school career day this week.  In 20 minute increments, disinterested kids filed into the classroom and I talked about my job and took questions.  The best question of the day – “Do you have to dress like that?”  Ha!

The other best question was, “Do we really need to know algebra?”  The students looked stricken when I said, “Yes.  And you need to know history and science and literature too.  In fact, the more you know, the better life you will have.”  They clearly thought that I sucked, but I continued on with a story to illustrate.

When I was in graduate school, I had a choice one semester between taking a securities law class or a class called ‘Arts & the Executive”.  I later went into the finance industry, so the law class would have been helpful, but at the time, I went for the easier grade and spent the semester going to museums and theaters to learn the nonprofit side of business.

About seven years later, I was at a business cocktail party for wealthy clients & prospects for my firm. (I truly hate these events by the way.  I’m a terrible mingler.)  I ended up chatting with a man who was new in town and during our conversation, he asked me about the arts in our community.  Turns out he was a huge opera fan.  I had only ever seen one opera, but I told him it was my favorite and the conversation went on from there.

I didn’t give him another thought until two days later, when he invested six million dollars in a small investment fund that I was working on.  All because I had seen Tosca in grad school.  “So you see, everything that you learn is valuable,” I said.

Some of the junior high students were not at all impressed.  Some seemed at least slightly interested.  And it’s my sincere hope that at least one of them will give algebra another chance.

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Posted in Education, Kids | 3 Comments »