Category Archives: Books

One Leg at a Time: The New Chillout Manifesto

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I’ve seen a couple Hotmail ads popping up around town and have managed to turn a blind eye, until recently when I got bombarded by them at SeaTac Airport. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, lucky you. You must not be the target audience or, “lifestyle fit” for “The New Busy”, according to the ads creator.

Introducing: The New Busy

  • Thinks 9-5 is a cute idea.
  • Puts their pants on two legs at a time. (ORLY?)
  • Woke up with a bunch of stamps on their hands. (Sounds like an SNL skit of Post Office Employees Gone Wild.)
  • Would be open to taking a class in their sleep. (I’d sleep through that… Oh come on, that was kinda funny.)
  • … And a whole bunch of other stuff that makes you go… wtf?

I am not the New Busy

I am the Normal Busy. Here’s how my life went the past couple days:

  1. Thursday: Went to bed @ 1:35am. Woke up @ 7:09am. 55-ish minute commute. Worked until 5. Taught yoga 7-8:30pm. Drove to the airport @9. Red-eye flight Seattle-Atlanta 10:55-6am local time. Sleep time: intermitten on the plane for 3 hours.
  2. Friday: Checked in hotel at 7:30am. Worked on presentation. Backed up computer. Crashed for a few hours. Went in the office @ 1. Went to the .NET rocks event @ 5. Dinner with team lead till 10pm. Back to hotel. Worked on presentation. Slept @ 2:18pm. Sleep time: 3 hours.
  3. Saturday: Woke up @ 7:35am local time. More prepping. ReMix Atlanta all day. Gave talk at 1:30pm. Met up with an old friend at 5:30pm. Went to the speakers’ dinner at 6:30pm. On the road again at 7:45pm. Got to ATL airport at 8:30pm. Flight delayed till 10:30pm. Got back in Seattle at 12:39am local time. Left the airport at 1:19am. Got to bed at 2:26am. Sleep time:5 hours 16 minutes.

(I know the exact details of my sleep and wake time thanks to the iPhone app Sleep Cycle.)

The New Busy Would Have a HeartBurn By Now

I did not put my life’s schedule here to show how “busy” I am. I know I’m not that busy. I know I’ve got *nothing* on a lot of people. I don’t have kids, pets, or plants. I’m not directly responsible for any living, sentient beings. My boyfriend and I see each other 5 times a year (okay, maybe 6). In other words, I live a very selfish life, concerning only with keeping one single thing functioning: me.

And I’m barely keeping up with that.

So, when I was going through the security line at Seatac airport and the Hotmail ads lining the trays smugly told me that “The New Busy would have had their belt off by now”, I was slightly irked, but amused. I’m surprised The New Busy even bother to wear belt, and not elastic waist pants.

When I got back to Seattle from Atlanta late last night, again, the New Busy was in my face. “The New Busy always has a suitcase packed.” That’s because the New Busy never unpacks, I thought, thinking of George Clooney and the movie Up in the Air. The New Busy would have had a divorce by now. How’s that for an ad?

Vienna Waits For You

Years ago when I was an intern at WaMu eCommerce (yup, *that* WaMu), my mentor Keith Willsey told me to read Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. I’ve since read it at least once a year, and it never gets old. Among many of the messages mentioned are: “Vienna waits for you”, taken from Billy Joel’s title song.

Slow down, you’re doing fine
You can’t be everything you want to be
Before your time
Although it’s so romantic on the borderline tonight
Tonight,…
Too bad but it’s the life you lead
you’re so ahead of yourself that you forgot what you need

The Imagination Needs Moodling

Here’s what Brenda Ueland said in If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit:

“I learned…that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness.” — Brenda Ueland

I love this book so much that after reading it over several times, I now subject everyone who even so much as breathes only one word about wanting to write to it. “YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK.” I’d insist. So, I gave my book to a coworker at work, and after reading that, he, in turn, gave me another book to read: Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie.

What You Don’t See is What You Get

On the flight from Seattle to Atlanta and from Atlanta back to Seattle, I grokked the book. As soon as I return this copy to its rightful owner, I’m getting one of my own so I can highlight and make notes on the margins to my heart’s content.

In the chapter, What You Don’t See is What You Get, Gordon says,

The invisible portion is equivalent to the time the cow spends out in the pasture, seemingly idle, but, in fact, performing the alchemy of transforming grass into milk.

A management obsessed with productivity usually has little patience for the quiet time essential to profound creativity.

…

A healthier alternative is the Orbit of trust that allows time — without immediate, concrete evidence of productivity — for the miracle of creativity to occur.

The New Chill-out (Chillaxin’?) Manifesto

So, I hereby would like to write The Normal Busy Manifesto, and I’d love it if you add to it as you see fit.

  • I’m going to resist the urge to get busy for busy’s sakes.
  • I’m going to put my pants on one leg at a time.
  • I’m going to look at the food I’m eating.
  • I’m going to sit on my cushion everyday.
  • I’m going to, as the Boss said, “I want to know if love is wild. I want to know if love is real”

Hatin' on the New Busy :)

Hatin' on the New Busy ads :)

The Pursuit of Happiness

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Throughout this past week and a couple before that, I have been randomly running into the concept of “happiness” everywhere I looked. My guess is, because it’s the end of the year and also the end of what TIME Magazine called The Decade from Hell (geez, sensational much?), a whole lot of us are reflecting more than usual, and movies like Up in the Air have got us asking, “What am I doing with my life?”, and “What is it all for?”

On Friday, I read the article This is the Greatest Good by Richard Layard, author of Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, who suggests:

So it is time to reassert the noble philosophy of the Enlightenment. In this view, every human being wants to be happy, and everybody counts equally. It follows that progress is measured by the overall scale of human happiness and misery. And the right action is the one that produces the greatest happiness in the world and (especially) the least misery. I can think of no nobler ideal.

Now, I won’t go into what exactly constitute happiness, because that in itself is a giant black hole, and it’s the crux of the argument that what Richard Layard proposes is not practical, nor desired, as this dude said in the counter-essay: The pursuit of happiness is a fool’s errand.

For one thing, pain too will be part of any rich human life as, say, when people fall in love. For another, pleasure comes in all sorts of different guises that can no more be compared than can the joy of reading a book with the buzz of dancing until dawn. Today’s utilitarians believe they have overcome this difficulty, since we can now observe people in scanners: pleasure centres light up in the brain, producing an apparently objective measure.

Only it isn’t. The problem is that there is no way to read a brain directly: no grey fold or ganglion is pre-labelled “happiness”. – Mark Vernon

I very much see where these two guys are coming from. Today my friend Andy briefly talked about why we haven’t been out and about partying as much like we used to, and I mentioned what my senior yoga teacher Judith Lasater said in an interview:

There’s a difference between fun and enjoyment. Fun is something I might want to do to get away from my life and enjoyment is something I can bring into my life. With fun, I’m thinking of trying to escape for the moment. Enjoyment is something that brings me into my life. It is the attitude I have within my life.

It’s not a stretch to say that we are all pursuing something called happiness. We all want to have fun, to enjoy life, to be happy. Why then, does happiness seem so elusive? I have a couple theories, but I want to hear from you. What do you think? What’s your definition of happiness? And according to that, are you happy?

You don't want to see my unhappy face, trust me.

You don't want to see my unhappy face, trust me.

What Should I Do with My Life?

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Recently, my friend Howard tweeted:

@howardcwu is holding his own Job Summit. What needs to be done to turn around the real economy (not just stock market) and add living wage jobs? #jobs

To which I replied:

@howardcwu my first inclination is to urge everyone to read this article “What should I do with my life?” by Po Bronson http://bit.ly/Z63wh

I wrote this blog post talking about the very same issue a while back in February in my Twentysomethingism blog, and thought it’d fit in nicely here.

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So, with the US economy exploding like a pot pie that’s been in the microwave too long, and layoffs now happening as often as we brush our teeth, most people are happy to just get a job, or have a job.

Is the question, “What should I do with my life?” still valid? I mean, is it a luxury to ask that kind of question? Really, who are *we*, the common people, the peons with a mortgage and no golden parachute in the wing, to ask that kind of lofty question?

I’m going to put out something really bold here, something that will probably stir up some pots: I really do believe that asking The Question is more important now than ever. I believe that when we lose everything, especially when we lose a golden handcuff, is when we dig deep down and ask ourselves a lot of hard questions, the ones we are too busy to think about otherwise.

One of my favorite writers about this is Po Bronson, and it is incredibly amazing what he wrote 7 years ago is still hitting the spot today. I’m going to quote some of my favorite passages from Po from the Fast Company article “The real meaning of success — and how to find it” printed in 2002 here.

It’s time to define the new era. Our faith has been shaken. We’ve lost confidence in our leaders and in our institutions. Our beliefs have been tested. We’ve discredited the notion that the Internet would change everything (and the stock market would buy us an exit strategy from the grind). Our expectations have been dashed. We’ve abandoned the idea that work should be a 24-hour-a-day rush and that careers should be a wild adventure. Yet we’re still holding on.

There’s a way out. Instead of focusing on what’s next , let’s get back to what’s first. The previous era of business was defined by the question, Where’s the opportunity? I’m convinced that business success in the future starts with the question, What should I do with my life? Yes, that’s right. The most obvious and universal question on our plates as human beings is the most urgent and pragmatic approach to sustainable success in our organizations.

People don’t succeed by migrating to a “hot” industry (one word: dotcom) or by adopting a particular career-guiding mantra (remember “horizontal careers”?). They thrive by focusing on the question of who they really are — and connecting that to work that they truly love (and, in so doing, unleashing a productive and creative power that they never imagined). Companies don’t grow because they represent a particular sector or adopt the latest management approach. They win because they engage the hearts and minds of individuals who are dedicated to answering that life question.

This is not a new idea. But it may be the most powerfully pressing one ever to be disrespected by the corporate world. There are far too many smart, educated, talented people operating at quarter speed, unsure of their place in the world, contributing far too little to the productive engine of modern civilization. There are far too many people who look like they have their act together but have yet to make an impact. You know who you are. It comes down to a simple gut check: You either love what you do or you don’t. Period.

…

Of course, addressing the question, What should I do with my life? isn’t just a productivity issue: It’s a moral imperative. It’s how we hold ourselves accountable to the opportunity we’re given. Most of us are blessed with the ultimate privilege: We get to be true to our individual nature. Our economy is so vast that we don’t have to grind it out forever at jobs we hate. For the most part, we get to choose. That choice isn’t about a career search so much as an identity quest.

Asking The Question aspires to end the conflict between who you are and what you do. There is nothing more brave than filtering out the chatter that tells you to be someone you’re not. There is nothing more genuine than breaking away from the chorus to learn the sound of your own voice. Asking The Question is nothing short of an act of courage: It requires a level of commitment and clarity that is almost foreign to our working lives.

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Every corporate cat eventually asks, "What should I do with my life?"

Every corporate cat eventually asks, "What should I do with my life?"