Category: Bonus Content

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Bonus Content Engagement Guest Posts Inspiration Philanthropy

A plan to change the world

I have a dream book. Not the kind where you put your sleepy, bleary-eyed memories of the night before under shut-eye, but the kind where you sprint to write down all the excitement in your chest before it escapes you forever. The kind where you write down how, exactly, you plan to change the world.

I’ve had this dream book since Christmas of 1998, a gift from my mother. I read it over the other day, and smiled at this entry –

“I want my generation, the time that I live, to be great and remarkable and groundbreaking. I want my generation to be the one with the first black and woman presidents.”

This was before Obama and Hillary declared their intention to run for President of course, and before I knew how close my dream would soon be a reality.  And as I read those words, I got goosebumps that something that I desired so badly had come true.

Most of the dreams laid forth in the book aren’t as grand though. They’re more to do with me, less to do with the world. And yet, for eleven years, the same themes keep popping up. Keep returning and haunting the page. For eleven years, I’ve wanted to change the world in the same ways, and for eleven years, I haven’t.

Now, to be fair, I’ve done quite a bit. And an outsider would probably say that my involvement in changing the world, while not extraordinary by any means, is passable for the average human. I’ve made a difference. And that’s good.

But in my dream book, the one where it’s quite visible that my mind is racing faster than my pen can keep up, I don’t want to be average. I want to inspire and empower and make change. Like in education. And equality in design. And the environment. And public art. Things that connect people and community and show our common humanity.

And at the end of my life, I hope it’s goosebump city from so many of my dreams coming true. Today though, I’m going to stop writing in my dream book, because there are enough words. Now it’s time for action.

This was originally posted on Akhila Kolisetty’s Be the Change series. Go ahead, take a peek, and share your comments over there. 

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Bonus Content Guest Posts Happiness Knowing yourself

Gratitude is hard for me sometimes

Note: This was originally a guest post for Sam’s Appreciation Revolution. You should check it out.

I’m an extremely lucky person. Really. Sometimes I can’t even believe how lucky I am. I have the best mother, best job, best boyfriend, best condo, best everything.

And yet still, I want. I still have that hunger for more. Selfishly, I am often found in dark corners brooding over the infallibility of life, the unfairness, the annoyances, and over that stupid guy who cut me off this morning in the white Dodge Ram with a ladder strapped to the top and a license plate forever seared in my memory. I did not feel lucky that I didn’t skid off the road to my untimely death. I just wanted to hurt him.

In retrospect, I do feel grateful, immensely grateful, that when I sped up, tailed, and yelled obscenities at the man in the Dodge Ram, that we were going sixty-five miles per hour and there’s no way he could have heard me. I’m grateful that at the last moment I decided not to show him the slender nature of my middle finger. I’m grateful that my exit to work arrived before I really gave him a piece of my mind. I imagine – as he well should be – he was grateful as well.

This is the ugly side of appreciation, the not so fluffy and pillowy kind. There are chapters of my life when I am overcome with the sweet and sugary kind, when I am surrounded by rainbows and treats and sparkly revelations. But mostly, I have little patience for swaths of gratitude to envelop me.

Gratitude is hard for me sometimes.

I imagine it’s hard for most people, even the big teddy bears of appreciation. It means accepting a whole litany of injustices and bending your eyesight towards what is beating both in and outside of you simultaneously to which, I’m sure, only the heartfelt natures of Gandhi or Mother Theresa have fully mastered. It means not being afraid of the past, the future and the ever-so vast present, because really, gratitude is about living in the now.

So, you could write about the things you are happy for daily – which I do. Or, you could take a moment every Monday morning to reflect upon the previous week, which I do. Or, you could look up at the ceiling occasionally, through the drywall, up through the six floors above you and up to the roof, all the way through the clouds and at the sky and say, “thank you.” I do that too.

Or you could just drive to work like you do every day, embracing the good, the bad, and the dick in the Dodge Ram. Sometimes, that’s gratitude too.

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Blogging Bonus Content Personal branding

Personal branding, integrity and blogging

This is a short video I created at the request of Bret Simmons who teaches a college class called Entrepreneurial Psychology. Since I couldn’t speak to his students in person, this was the next best thing.

While it’s longer than most of my videos, I share a story that I have never talked about publicly before, and discuss personal branding, integrity and how blogging can affect your life.

This video will not show up on the home page. The post was shared exclusively to my subscribers and Facebook fans as bonus content. Thank you for being such a great community!