As much as I hate dishing out 60 bucks a month to keep my phone alive, every once in a while I receive a phone call that would easily be worth a $10,000 phone bill. This time around it, it came from my insanely intelligent and captivatingly candid mentor, Bill Connolly. You may remember him from my bike-across-the-country blogs, but if not, I'll give you the shorthand version of the story:
Ginger John, a friend of mine that's frequently featured in my blog posts, was working a boring data-entry job last summer to make some extra cash. While sorting through a particularly lengthy excel file, he came across a Bentley grad who'd written a book with a brilliant title: The Success Disconnect: Why the Smartest People Choose Meaning Over Money. He ordered the book on Amazon, read it within 2 days, and called me to tell me the good news. At this point in time, I was somewhere between Minnesota and South Dakota, already having been in my bike accident, already spending every day in the support van with unlimited hours to think about how stagnant I felt, already having made the decision to defer my City Year experience, and already feeling the pressure of figuring out what to do next in life. Ging called me and told me to call Bill, the author of this book that so quickly validated our shared success-related belief system. So, as he suggested, from the peak of a mountain in the beautiful St. Mary's, Montana, I called him.
Ginger John, a friend of mine that's frequently featured in my blog posts, was working a boring data-entry job last summer to make some extra cash. While sorting through a particularly lengthy excel file, he came across a Bentley grad who'd written a book with a brilliant title: The Success Disconnect: Why the Smartest People Choose Meaning Over Money. He ordered the book on Amazon, read it within 2 days, and called me to tell me the good news. At this point in time, I was somewhere between Minnesota and South Dakota, already having been in my bike accident, already spending every day in the support van with unlimited hours to think about how stagnant I felt, already having made the decision to defer my City Year experience, and already feeling the pressure of figuring out what to do next in life. Ging called me and told me to call Bill, the author of this book that so quickly validated our shared success-related belief system. So, as he suggested, from the peak of a mountain in the beautiful St. Mary's, Montana, I called him.
From a single phone call, it became abundantly clear that we shared a mentality, a curiosity, and an energy for life. He, however, had what I didn't - experience. I had a feeling he'd play a crucial role in my future based on his ability to match my eccentric opinions and outlandish life strategies. He was inherently great at grounding my idealistic instincts with his own personal experiences and accumulated wisdom. I needed this then, and I need it now. We've continued to keep in touch since that day in Montana.
I called Bill the other day to ask his opinion on a potential career move. I anticipated a simple "Do this" or "Do that", but to my delight (and shock), I hung up with a degree of clarity I've never before had - clarity on much more than whether or not to extend my time with City Year. Bill's a big picture kind of dude and consequently, really great at making it clear that this decision isn't as linear as I'd imagined it to be. We could've had a quick, 5-minute yes/no conversation, but instead, we visited some of the more pressing themes that emerge from my decision-making track record. Main topic of conversation: chaos.
Though he's known me less than a year, Bill noticed that I jump around a lot. I make chaotic moves to distant locations and wildly new environments. He met me in Montana, biking 80 miles a day and living out of a van. He watched as I moved back to Boston and spent some months as a barista and a tortured victim of house centipedes. He then sat shotgun to my expectedly chaotic move to Miami to work with inner city youth. Nine months of pure chaos. His theory, which I wholeheartedly agree with, was this: If I continue making these chaotic moves every few months, and then spend the few months I'm in a new location doing nothing more than digging myself out of the chaos I've created, eventually my sole purpose in life will be to dig; to figure out what the heck is going on, and what kind of purpose is that? "I don't believe you that chaos is your goal", he said.
And he was right. It's not. This conversation uncovered a reality I'd always sensed but never actively understood. You see, for years now, I've been sitting on the same goals; the same ideas, the same desires, and the same dreams. I'm confused, discouraged, and ultimately embarrassed by the fact that I've made little to no progress on most of these. I have this overwhelming instinct to make sure people find me impressive, so to keep my lack of genuine achievement off of people's minds and under the radar, I false-achieve in ways that are distracting. I blindly move to Chicago to intern with a cool startup. I relocate to Colombia to "explore my roots". I sign up to bike across the country, work in the broken school systems, and even tell a well-branded story as to why I'm making cappuccinos right out of college - all in an effort to distract everyone from the fact that I'm not making progress on any of my real goals. Chaos is a crutch that I never noticed - good, not only for distracting people, but also for justifying within that I'm not wasting my life. The more chaos I can infuse into my every day life, the less I have to pay attention to the truth of it all. Slowing down is the last thing I want to do. But I've spent years employing this strategy and it's not gotten me very far. Thanks to Bill, I think I'm about ready to call it quits.
I was ready to jump again - leave Miami and frantically figure out what's next, but I now see where it'd be just another hole to dig myself out of. Bill helped me to see that life is chaotic enough as is; it surely doesn't need my help. When I'm not forced to dredge through the chaos of a new move, my efforts can be focused on genuine growth and achievement. When the chaos of my life subsides, all the creative potential I've been sitting on has room to come alive.
When ready to change one's life, most people do the crazy things I've already done: move to a new country, sign up for a challenging service year, live below the poverty line, bike across the country - whatever it may be. But I've done all these things, so crazily enough, the craziest thing I can do - the biggest "risk" I can take - is ditching my old strategy and staying here. Sticking around another year. Doing City Year again. Taking things slowly and letting the chaos subside. Struggling through the beginning stages of achieving my real and true goals.
I see change on the horizon and progress in the forecast. I'm nervous, of course, but excited to stick around and break ground on my real, true goals. I have a feeling that chaos is on it's way out of style and that my path will soon be defined more so by strategy, creativity, and courage. I'm excited about the authenticity and awareness with which I'm moving forward.
FEEL GOOD MOMENTS (of the month):
1. Seeing my name signed on this legendary beam next to my two partners in passion, Jake & Ging. We did it!
I called Bill the other day to ask his opinion on a potential career move. I anticipated a simple "Do this" or "Do that", but to my delight (and shock), I hung up with a degree of clarity I've never before had - clarity on much more than whether or not to extend my time with City Year. Bill's a big picture kind of dude and consequently, really great at making it clear that this decision isn't as linear as I'd imagined it to be. We could've had a quick, 5-minute yes/no conversation, but instead, we visited some of the more pressing themes that emerge from my decision-making track record. Main topic of conversation: chaos.
Though he's known me less than a year, Bill noticed that I jump around a lot. I make chaotic moves to distant locations and wildly new environments. He met me in Montana, biking 80 miles a day and living out of a van. He watched as I moved back to Boston and spent some months as a barista and a tortured victim of house centipedes. He then sat shotgun to my expectedly chaotic move to Miami to work with inner city youth. Nine months of pure chaos. His theory, which I wholeheartedly agree with, was this: If I continue making these chaotic moves every few months, and then spend the few months I'm in a new location doing nothing more than digging myself out of the chaos I've created, eventually my sole purpose in life will be to dig; to figure out what the heck is going on, and what kind of purpose is that? "I don't believe you that chaos is your goal", he said.
And he was right. It's not. This conversation uncovered a reality I'd always sensed but never actively understood. You see, for years now, I've been sitting on the same goals; the same ideas, the same desires, and the same dreams. I'm confused, discouraged, and ultimately embarrassed by the fact that I've made little to no progress on most of these. I have this overwhelming instinct to make sure people find me impressive, so to keep my lack of genuine achievement off of people's minds and under the radar, I false-achieve in ways that are distracting. I blindly move to Chicago to intern with a cool startup. I relocate to Colombia to "explore my roots". I sign up to bike across the country, work in the broken school systems, and even tell a well-branded story as to why I'm making cappuccinos right out of college - all in an effort to distract everyone from the fact that I'm not making progress on any of my real goals. Chaos is a crutch that I never noticed - good, not only for distracting people, but also for justifying within that I'm not wasting my life. The more chaos I can infuse into my every day life, the less I have to pay attention to the truth of it all. Slowing down is the last thing I want to do. But I've spent years employing this strategy and it's not gotten me very far. Thanks to Bill, I think I'm about ready to call it quits.
I was ready to jump again - leave Miami and frantically figure out what's next, but I now see where it'd be just another hole to dig myself out of. Bill helped me to see that life is chaotic enough as is; it surely doesn't need my help. When I'm not forced to dredge through the chaos of a new move, my efforts can be focused on genuine growth and achievement. When the chaos of my life subsides, all the creative potential I've been sitting on has room to come alive.
When ready to change one's life, most people do the crazy things I've already done: move to a new country, sign up for a challenging service year, live below the poverty line, bike across the country - whatever it may be. But I've done all these things, so crazily enough, the craziest thing I can do - the biggest "risk" I can take - is ditching my old strategy and staying here. Sticking around another year. Doing City Year again. Taking things slowly and letting the chaos subside. Struggling through the beginning stages of achieving my real and true goals.
I see change on the horizon and progress in the forecast. I'm nervous, of course, but excited to stick around and break ground on my real, true goals. I have a feeling that chaos is on it's way out of style and that my path will soon be defined more so by strategy, creativity, and courage. I'm excited about the authenticity and awareness with which I'm moving forward.
FEEL GOOD MOMENTS (of the month):
1. Seeing my name signed on this legendary beam next to my two partners in passion, Jake & Ging. We did it!
2. Spending Easter much like a "Friendsgiving" - thrift shopping and manatee watching at a local park.
3. Making the decision to watch the sunrise every Saturday morning (and then actually doing it).
4. Finally learning how to do box braids like those below (bout to make some serious money off this) and then having multiple conversations about the extent to which it would be cultural appropriation for a white-passing yet technically latina girl like me to have them done.
5. Starting a Step Count challenge with my teammates. My record is 17,000 in one day but I'm aiming for a 25,000 step day in the near future.
Thanks for reading, sharing, subscribing & caring. May all your days be free of chaos and full of genuine achievement!