There's a lot to be done for us to "Lean In"

I read Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" within the first week it came out. I watched her TED talk a few more times, I read the New York magazine article on the "Retro Wife", and I've listened to other successful women speak about their versions of "Lean In". I am happy that this topic has entered the public arena again, that various parties are giving their opinons, that people are arguing about it. But, what do we all want and how do we get there?

We can do anything we want to, within reason. Okay, anyone who knows me knows I won't be on Broadway any time soon, but I did grow up believing that there is no difference between what women and men can achieve. I was encouraged to behave as me, not as a protype of what a girl should be. I didn't see lines between men and women, I saw opportunity. Sheryl Sandberg brings this up often: women are beholden to certain roles that we seemingly can't break, and when we do, we're reprimanded for forgetting to be the perfect housewife. Part of our job is encouraging everyone to act and do as they feel, not what a society believes our gender roles are.

Feminism is about choice, without judgement. Women judge each other; I judge other women. The truth is, changing this can only happen when we're all happy with the choices and opportunities we have. While this can be interpreted as naive, I believe it can happen. It's because we feel we need to cut each other down to rise up , that we've been unable to. Men should be able to put their families before work without judgement just a women should be able to hate cooking.

What about leaning in, everywhere? The conversation has touched on the workplace (more flexible materning & paternity leave) and the home (having a partnership), but there are other sections of our society that haven't evolved. Specifically, the family court system. While this topic could become a diatrabe of its own, in short - how can we expect equality when we have a system in place that allows women to play the victim and expect men to be the provider?

In speaking with my Grandmother, we need to be proud about the progress we've made. The opportunities in front of me are so very different from what she had. But, that also leaves us with a great responsibility to continue this trend that will hopefully dismantle the lines society has drawn. I expect that there will be a lot more to come from me on this topic.

Share your comments below so I can incorporate into my next blog.

#26Acts of Kindness

My Dad wrote me an email asking me to tweet for him. He told me that he had purchased a turkey for my family to eat on Christmas Eve (chinese food is only a tradition on Christmas Day), but instead was going to a church to donate the turkey and clothing for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Of course my Dad would do this - he lives and breathes good deeds. But, I wondered why he wanted me to tweet about this for him.

He explained that Ann Curry had suggested we all take part in 26 acts of kindness to honor the victims of Sandy Hook Elementary school (#26Acts). After I initially realized my Dad was more up to speed on a social movement than I was, I did a bit of research on twitter. There was a ton of good deeds being done in the name of the victims. My Dad wanted to do this for Victoria Soto, the teacher who was killed protecting her students. She studied at Eastern Connecticut University, the same school as my younger brother.

I thought about this movement of paying it forward and that I do believe people are truly and inherently good. We know we can't change what happened, but we can put something great back into the world with small acts of kindness. Paying for the person in front of us, donating gently used clothing, writing a nice note - these are all positive pieces of energy.

In light of this blog's 2013 theme of doing something new- I want to spend January giving back. I have a few ideas:
     - NYC Cares coat donations (for homeless in and around NYC)
     - Cycle for Survival donations (for Memorial Sloan-Kettering and rare forms of cancer)
     - TapRoot Foundation volunteeing (Pro Bono Services)

What else would you suggest I do? What other causes should I look at? Leave your suggestions here and I will use them for my #26Acts.

Sandy Hook

It's been a week since the horrifying events at Sandy Hook Elementary school. Glued to the news, blogs, and social media I spent Friday trying to wrap my head around what had just occurred. Not much has been uncovered since. We don't know why it happened and unfortunately we may never get inside the killer's mind. What has happened is a palpable gut reaction from everyone in my network, from the government, and from communities just like Newton because we know that this was preventable.

Like I do on every Christmas, I went to the movies. At the AMC in the East Village, Zack and I sat down to watch Zero Dark Thirty and as the lights dimmed for the previews, I kept looking at the guy behind us. He was alone, kept fidgeting, and rubbed me the wrong way- so much so that it crossed my mind many times throughout the movie that he might try to hurt everyone in the theatre. It didn't happen. But, for the first time in my adult life I was scared in a public place.

I ride the subway, I walk past the 9/11 memorial to my office everday, I live in NYC. But, I usually feel safe- the safety in numbers, the notion that the police are the best in the world makes me feel secure. But lately I haven't. The Aurora movie theatre shootings, Ohio mall attack, the Sandy Hook tragedy have left me uneasy about how safe we really all are.

I am not naive enough to think that we can rid the world of evil. But I am hopeful we can start to understand why we have so many tragedies like this and put the right legislation in place. The facts don't lie: we have so many more gun-related incidents because the US laws are more permissive than anywhere else. The US makes up 5% of the world's population and has 50% of the world's guns.

I am not in politics, but we need to fix this. I understand that the rights within the Constitution are near and dear to many people - and I am not suggesting we take those away. We do however, have a right to protect civilians. That means more stringent gun laws that actually deny access for some. We need psychological evaluations, a real test to get a license, and an understanding as to why a civilian needs a weapon. What the NRA has suggested will not work - and if we don't push to have these laws revised, another tragedy will surely occur.

What I learned from noodles

A lot of us don't know what to do with diversity. As a nation we understand that the crux of who we are is rooted in our differences, but whether we fully accept that idea is an interesting question. Most of us have a set of preconceived notions when we encounter new situations. Sometimes it's an expectation and other times we are surprised by what we learn. It is important to keep an open mind, and like everyone else - for me it can be harder said than done.

As a holiday tradition at my new job we embarked on a noodle lunch in Chinatown. I've tried asian noodles before with my friend Kat - who is a ramen aficionado, but this was about hand-pulled noodles from the Chinese city of Xi'an. My expectation was for spicy, schezuan-type cuisine or possibly a noodle soup- something I knew. However, what I got was completely different: cumin-infused, papardelle-like noodles with lamb and cabbage. It was an intersection of Chinese and Middle Eastern flavors, and a nod to the importance of noodles in Chinese and Asian cuisine. I was pleasantly surprised.

Similar to New York City, Xi'an is a melting pot. It was the starting point of the Silk Road, which was a network of interlinking trade routes that connected Asia, the Mediterranean, Europe, and parts of Africa - essentially a mass dissemenation of ideas, cultures, and goods. It is on this route where silk was brought to Europe, where Marco Polo (possibly) showed Italians what noodles were, and isolated cultures were exposed to urban areas.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, this is the first of many experiences I will have in 2013 to help me understand more about my purpose. What I've taken away from my noodle lunch is that it is only with the exchange of ideas that great, new things (like cumin noodles) can happen.For instance, so much of what makes NYC great today would not have happened without the influx of immigrants and their cultures to New York Harbor in the 19th century. Little Italy, Lower East Side pickles, Pan-Asian cuisine- the list could go on forever. When we are able to keep an open mind and evolve with the influences that surround us the output is usually something quite surprising.

Welcome to 2013

I am getting ahead of myself. It's not here quite yet. But you feel change in the air, right? Holidays are approaching, work is slowing down (kind of), and people are beginning to reflect on 2012, with a hopeful eye towards next year. What is in store for us in 2013? Really, anything could happen. I know that's vague, but at a certain point we understand that only so much of life is in our control.

The act of making resolutions is a quick solution for a lot of us. We make a list of ten things we will absolutely, 100%, no matter what, do this year. "This year I will go to the gym every single day". "This year I will get married". "This year I will make $1,000,000". But, what if you break your leg? What if you haven't met Mr. Right, yet? What if you don't know what you want to do with your life? Plus, let's be honest, most of these resolutions are forgotten by March.

I hate resolutions. I like creating habits. I don't think our lives are a series of checks off of a to-do list. I do believe, however, that we can change our mindsets to get what we want or cope with what we actually have. Maybe going to the gym everyday isn't realistic, but spending a year working on a healthy lifestyle is. Focusing on the why will help us get to the changes we are looking for.

So this upcoming year, I will focus on seeking out what my purpose is. I want to find out what makes me tick, what I am most passionate about, and even what I never want to do again. Through new experiences each week, from trying new foods to attempting anti-gravity yoga, I will use this blog to keep track of my thoughts and what I've received in return. I know a few things that are certain this year like seeing close friends get married or a trip to a new country. But, as for the rest - anything could happen and I hope you'll be reading my journey.

Cycle of Friendship-Part III

Since this theme seems to be top of mind, I wanted to reference my last post on this subject. I said, "While it is terribly upsetting when someone does not accept this [change], it does teach a valuable lesson: it may be beyond our control to determine who is a constant in our lives no matter how we try." So it very well may be out of control as to who stays and who goes...at least to a degree. We can try to save it. We can forgive, forget, move on to a new chapter. But, what if the other person doesn't want to?

The truth is you can't make someone want to move on with you. You can't force someone to see your side of the coin. And when they finally want to move on, you might not be ready to anymore. So what happens? We have to understand that in certain situations there were too many bad things to salvage memories. Accepting that a relationship, any relationship ceases to exist when you thought it always would is the hard part.

I've been lucky, I haven't had a heart-wrenching breakup with a boyfriend. If I had, I might be better suited for these types of changes. I might be better at understanding that you can be close with someone and then, poof, it's gone. Whether you're the one who decides not to move on or you're the one who is shut down, it's a loss.

Do we accept the loss? We might never. We might always be hurt or angry. Only time will tell.

Settling in

How many of you have started a new chapter in your life patiently waiting to "settle in"? My hand is raised - I imagine most of yours are as well. We tell ourselves that the rough parts are the beginning of things. The anxiety of the unknown, the learning, the adjustment - it's all build up to the point where we wait to settle in. But, what if  settling in doesn't happen? And furthermore, what if that goal isn't what I want to strive for?

Let me explain this a bit more. The past six months (and moreover the past year) have been filled with tremendous changes, creating stress, sadness, happieness, newness, and lots of other feelings I can't quite recall at the moment. Both my relationships and my job seemed to constantly change and I waited for the EKG line of my life to flatten out. Or at least I thought so.

In August, everything piled on at once. My job that I had once loved morphed into a something completely different. Suddenly, I wasn't doing what I thought I would be, I was sought out unfairly by a boss who had it out for me (oh, there will be a blog on this), and the learning had stopped . At the same time, I left my roomates to move in with my boyfriend, while he simultaneously went out on his own with his business. The focus shifted from "moving-in" to creating a sustainable business (which I am happy to say he has). But all in all, I felt displaced. I didn't want to walk into work and my apartment was shared office space. Finally, I found a new job which I started in October. When I got the job, my mom kept telling me that once October hit- I would be able to finally settle in.

So, have I? Let me talk in business terms for a moment. When you set up a campaign there are goals (or KPI's) that success is measured against. When we don't think throughoughly about these goals,we pick the easiest, usually wrong, ones. So we can never understand if we actually achieved what we sought out to do. I think that settling into these new adventures in my life was not the right goal. Perhaps, "settling in" means complacent to me right now.

So, I don't want to be settled, I want to be challenged. I hope my new job brings a steady stream of new learnings and sometimes makes me uncomfortable. I want Zack to push me to be a better person. And most of all, I want to move forward through all of the ups and downs.