Do you believe in luck? According to Joyce Carol Oates, “The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.” Lots of folks who haven’t achieved the success they say they hope to achieve blame their situation on luck. They ascribe their circumstances to “bad luck” and dismiss the success of others as “good luck.” This attitude keeps them from reaching their full potential. As long as you are in any way guilty of blaming someone else for a situation in your own…..
I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Your ability to let go determines your level of success. Whether positioned as an ability to deal with flux or operate within the theoretical, the essential element that successful, independent people share is an ability to suspend their need to control situations or outcomes and to trust in the process. Almost every time I think of the phrase “let go,” I am reminded of the whale scene from the Pixar…..
Even if you are not particularly religious or attend a church, you are probably familiar with the scripture, ‘seek and ye shall find.’ What if you don’t know what you seek? Would you recognize the answer? From early childhood, I have been driven by the need to know the mysteries of the universe. Dogmatic conversations of a definitive truth aside, my specific religious teachings from childhood left me with the assumption that upon death, one would be privy to the…..
“How much longer will you go on letting your energy sleep? How much longer are you going to stay oblivious of the immensity of yourself?” — Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh The significance of this quote and its meaning really hit me between the eyes when I first read it. There are a couple of societal programming factors that contribute to my specific reaction: First of all, I was raised to feel as if “tooting my own horn” was boastful. Delivering results,…..
I am one of the few people who actually reads the dictionary for fun. To celebrate National Dictionary Day, I am sharing with you a childhood memory. Pictured above is the dictionary my grandmother gave me for my eleventh birthday. I’ve made reference in other posts that as a result of spending a lot of time in hospitals as a child, I learned how to read by age three. My grandmother was a driving force behind that. She and I…..
Pictured above is the V-Tech “laptop” that my oldest daughter used to bring with her when she’d join me at the newspaper while I was working on deadline. Trips to newspaper offices were part of her entire life, almost from the moment she was born. I pursued a journalism degree at a community college, beginning when she was four months old. My first role at the college newspaper was as a features writer. Two semesters later, I would serve as…..
Today, while walking around my neighborhood, I overheard a child’s voice call out, “Excuse me!” My mom instinct kicking in, I paused and looked over my shoulder, looking for the source of the voice. It was a little girl, about seven years old. She wasn’t trying to get my attention. Instead, I saw her untangle herself from her bicycle and step toward a young woman who was standing next to her dog — a full-grown Golden Labrador Retriever. “Excuse me!”…..
“People who speak ‘victim’ can’t understand the language of accountability.” This thought filtered to the top of my awareness one day while I took a walk around the neighborhood. It can get pretty dicey when using the word victim. It tends to activate the defensiveness-factor of others (usually among those who are still healing from physical or mental wounds). When I talk about victim mentality, I sometimes get accused of victim blaming. I can see where some may interpret it…..
When you factor in all of the social expectations of motherhood, types of motherhood, women who have lost children due to miscarriage or other reasons, and those women who do not wish to have children (and who are sometimes made to feel “less than” for that choice), Mother’s Day can represent an emotional series of land mines. In one of the first pictures taken of me at the hospital, you can see my mother: a 22-year-old woman, peering into a…..
Early on, when I first established a nonprofit to provide cars to women in transition, I had an opportunity to explain a central tenet of the organization. One of our first recipients was a single mother of seven children. She was 29 years old. The only reason I mention these statistics (especially as it relates to the quantity of her children) is because these facts about her circumstances were used by some as a cudgel against her and given as…..