i don’t need advice

I am a packrat.  I am horribly disorganized.  I have poor time management skills. I could stand to work on prioritizing.

I know all this, and accept these things about myself.  I read lots of blogs about how to be more productive, how to be more organized, how to manage time better.  I’ve tried a number of web hacks to achieve better flow in life.

But I have finally come to a simple conclusion.

I don’t need decluttering advice.  I don’t need organization hacks.  I don’t need a scheduling process. I don’t need 43 folders.

I need a personal assistant to take care of these things for me!

Let me be honest. Details bore me.  My job is to come up with the ideas… someone else makes it happen (and while they’re at it, they can clean my office).

Whoever said that a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind missed a really important fact. Some of us are able to find calm in the center of the clutter.  The clutter, disorganization, procrastination, time-wasting, what-have-you, is peripheral.  My focus is internal.

Because at the end of the day, I get the job done, and I do it well.  Messy desk notwithstanding.

rethinking goals

I’ve learned a little something about myself this week.  If I set a daily easy goal, I have little trouble accomplishing it.  Even easier is if it is a weekly goal that requires a certain number of days (ie, yoga 4x a week).  It becomes a daily-weekly hybrid with flexibility.

But what about a goal like “write an outline”?  That’s a monthly goal of mine, but one that is coming dangerously close to not being met.  What I need to do is make it more actionable on a daily basis, so I have something to track over the month.  Since I’m still in the data extraction process, I can break it down into reading X number of reports a day.  When it comes to the actual outline, I can count the number of sections needed (it’s a research paper, so it’s fairly standard) and maybe plan for a certain number of sections completed a day.

The important thing is that I add some concrete accountability to my goals.  Otherwise, they don’t really get done (as I’m learning!). So tonight, I’m going to sort through what I have and have not done, and then work my way through the number of days left to work out some daily goals.

How do you work out your goals?

always do what you are afraid to do

I spent the past week reading articles and posts about the economic downturn and its impact on people’s lives. It makes me start to wonder if leaving my job (right after getting a promotion + 10% pay raise) is such a smart idea. Certainly, my mom is freaking out about it.

In addition, I’ll be on a fellowship salary while in Mongolia, which is a major major paycut (like 75%). On the upside, the cost of living is much lower, so even though I might not be able to contribute to my retirement savings, I am not likely to go into debt.

I also plan to travel afterwards, which means I’ll be without any income whatsoever for almost 6 months (unless I can find something simple somewhere, such as teaching English).

Financially speaking, it seems almost silly. I’m taking a paycut, I won’t be contributing to retirement, and I won’t even have a salary for a while. I also will be eating up my savings quite a bit. If I were just out of college, it might make more sense, but I’m 30 and at a point where I should be more “settled” (as my mom likes to point out).

But some things, I think, can’t be measured in terms of finances (or even common sense, perhaps). Some things require a leap of faith and trust in long-term gain. This fellowships fills a critical gap in my work experience, and that it is with a prestigious institution will only open doors wider.

I am committed to my career path now. I could take an easier path and stay at my current job and still do relatively well. But I’d like to move beyond that and do something bigger. And for that, I need this fellowship and the future opportunities it brings. I also need some time to travel unencumbered with work constraints.

On the plus side, my financial issues will be clear. I’ll have renters in the condo, I’ll be debt-free, and I’ll sell most of my belongings. I’ll also have a healthy amount in my savings account. And, luckily, I’ve been very good about thinking about retirement savings for the past 10 years (thanks mom!), so I’m in very good shape now so that one or two years missed will not be a real problem.

And being in an LDC means I don’t have to worry about as much stuff. If anything, that’s the best part about this!

So it’s really not that big of a leap of faith, and from my perspective, not at all nonsensical. It is, however, a step outside the comfort zone. But as I think about more, I am less and less afraid of making a bad choice. For now, I am confident that this is definitely the next step for me.

out of clutter find simplicity

Lately I’ve been pondering my forthcoming flight from this city, and what that means in more practical terms.   Specifically, what I am going to do about the place I live, about my rental property, about all my stuff.

In the past year or so, I’ve decluttered to some extent, but I’ve also picked up some new items.  The difference this time is that the new items are essential and thought-out - they weren’t impulse buys to sit in a box for years.

As the pile of stuff dwindles, I find myself with fewer things to worry about.  More importantly, I find that I worry about more important things.  Without a car, I don’t fret about car repairs.  This leaves me more time to spend on interpersonal repairs.

Last year, when I had plumbing issues in the condo, I found that I spent a lot of time dealing with that issue, to the detriment of my work commitments.  As someone who always has too much on her plate, this type of distraction can be very devastating.

I would love to sell the condo, but this is not a good time.  So for now, I’m hoping to find renters who would do a 2-year lease.  I’m willing to lower the price and lose any profit in the hopes of reducing some stress and hassle in my life.  I would set up a system whereby they could handle maintenance issues and I would be billed directly (or they could take it out of the rent). In this way, I hope to find a little more simplicity.

Another thing I’ve discovered lately about simplicity is that it means that everything doesn’t need my full attention all the time.  I have learned to prioritize, mostly based on deadlines.  This means that even though I will want to sell furniture, I don’t need to worry about that immediately.  It is freeing to put that at the very bottom of my to-do list.

My life will never be simple, in terms of what I do and what I want to do.  But it can be simple in terms of where I focus my attention.

the unresentful life

I want a life free of regret and resentment.  This is easier said than done, because I think it’s a part of human nature to feel both from time to time.  Buddhism says this is because we are too fond of our attachments, and from there springs the majority of our problems.  Practice detachment, instead, and you find yourself with no expectations.  Then you can just enjoy the moment as it is.

There’s a saying that I love, about how it is better to regret the things you’ve done than the things you didn’t do.  I agree with this, but now, I’m practicing not having any regrets at all.  Regret can be useful in terms of reminding you not to repeat a harmful action, but it’s useless in terms of changing the past.  Instead, I try accept that something happened (or didn’t) and just try to move forward.

Resentment, on the other hand, is part and parcel of our human relationships.  It is hard to never feel resentment.  We are flawed beings, and it is inevitable that we will hurt and be hurt by others.  And so resentment breeds.

But unlike regret, resentment serves no purpose.  Being resentful means holding onto a past that you can’t change, and having unhelpful expectations about a future you can’t control.  Resentment discolors your friendships and partnerships and causes additional pain.  And sometimes, if the resentment builds up too much, it spills out and can cause irreparable damage.

I can’t change the way people behave.  I can’t prevent someone from hurting me.  But I can control whether or not I am hurt.  I can choose to take someone’s actions in any number of ways, and I would like to choose to believe that they are acting out of a self-interest that just might not coexist with mine.  And that is ok.  Not everyone is out to get you.

And more importantly, I would like to nip resentment in the bud.  I know what my trigger points are.  I know that I can swallow my tongue when someone hits those trigger points and leave things be.  If I choose to do that, however, then I also choose to let it go.  And if it’s big enough that I can’t let go, then I need to let it out.  But I need to do so in such a way that I can look back at my actions and say, “I have no regrets”.

the nonprofit life

I like to read a lot of career blogs.   There is always useful advice being offered, and more interestingly, some intriguing opportunities to view social psychology and organizational behavior at work.  But most career blogs are aimed towards the private sector, or life in the corporate world.  Often some of the advice given is not as useful for me, being in non-profit.

I used to work in corporate America.  I was at a start-up that eventually grew into a corporation.  It was fun at first, but I quickly grew tired of the corporate lifestyle.  I also didn’t like that i wasn’t contributing meaningfully to the world.  I tried to alleviate that by using my skill sets in volunteer work, but it wasn’t really the same thing.

So I switched jobs and switched careers.   In doing so, I hopped the line from the private to the public sector, without actually going public.  I now work in a unique slice of worklife - a nonprofit that is subject to many of the regulations imposed on federal agencies, but operates like academia.  It brings with it its own unique challenges too, in terms of navigating the work place.

Career advice is often about career progression.  i think it holds true in the nonprofit world as well, but not in the same way.  In corporate America, I found a lot more flexibility in terms of advancement.  Positions could be “created” to justify promotions, if the profit motivation was strong enough.  We don’t have that in nonprofit world.  I happen to work somewhere with a large turnover, so promotions are more forthcoming than otherwise would be.  But our “business case” is not as easily made as it can be in the private sector.

Another major difference between nonprofit and corporate life is the entry point.  i found entering corporate America far easier than I did entering the nonprofit arena.  At a nonprofit, it’s not what you know, but who you know.  Often, jobs are posted with someone already in mind; cold applications are rarely acknowledged.   In 5 years at a non-profit, I’ve learned a lot about the ins and outs of NGOs, government agencies, and foundations.  The one clear thing that emerges is the fact that your network is your most important career asset.

But besides these two issues, I really don’t think the differences are so stark.  In both arenas, I dealt with office politics, with restructuring, with salary and benefits issues.  Even balancing work and life is no easier at a nonprofit than it is at a corporation.  So I still think the career blogs are just as useful for me as they ever have been.

my 10 year plan revisited

A while back, I wrote about my 10 year plan.  I never expected it to be set in stone, but I didn’t expect it to change already.  I also didn’t expect to accomplish some of the goals so soon.

So my new 10 year plan:

1.  Hike Mt. Kilimanjaro.  I thought I would do this in 2010, but now I have different plans.  This will have to wait, hopefully not too long.

2.  Get a PhD.  I am still hoping to consider this.

3.  Get published.  This should happen this year!  And hopefully a few more times in the next couple of years.

4.  Take a crazy climbing trip.  I still would love this - perhaps in the Altai.

5.  Get certified in yoga teacher training.  I think I will do this in the spring of 2010 either in Dharamsala or Kerala (India).

6.  Go to Mongolia on a Fulbright.  This will happen next year!

7.  Visit China (particularly the Great Wall).  Ideally, I’ll be able to do this after Mongolia.

8.  Take a ride on the Trans-Siberian Railway.  The plan is summer of 2010.

9.  Work at the Google Foundation.  I am still considering this, though a few other places have come to mind as well.

10.  Be out of debt and well into savings.  I forgot about this, but it will happen this year… though I imagine a good chunk of the savings will be used up during my travels over the next two years.

the body gospel

Inhale, and God approaches you.  Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you.  Exhale, and you approach God.  Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God.  ~Krishnamacharya

Yoga means union.  It is from the base “yuj”, from which we also derive the word “yoke”.  Thus, we try to join together the spiritual and the physical, body and mind, earth and sky, atman (the soul) and brahman (God).  In doing so, we reveal ourselves to ourselves, and at the same time, connect to something greater than ourselves. Yoga simultaneously brings awareness of our inner and outer consciousness.

In the 5000 years we’ve been practicing, the tradition has branched and become as varied as human beings themselves are.   But the foundation remains essentially the same, and the rising awareness that yoga brings holds true regardless of practice.  In some ways, I like to think of yoga as the story of mankind. We are diverse and eclectic, but we are all, at the core, still the same.

You can put whatever trappings you want on your yoga practice (or you can strip it down the essentials), but in the end, we are all undertaking the same journey towards union.

I’ve been practicing yoga on and off for about 6 years.  I notice that when I’m “on”, life flows a little more smoothly.  And when I’m “off”, life stumbles along a bit more roughly.  This is not coincidental;  yoga is not only a good stress reliever, it’s also a reminder of what is truly important in life.  That is to say, being present in the moment and being thankful for what you have, as opposed to worrying and fussing about things over which you have no control.

I am ready to take my practice to a new level, so I have been thinking about teacher training.  In the US, most teachers are certified through the Yoga Alliance.   Certification is done at the 200-hour level (ie, 200 hours of instruction) and 500-hour level (ie, 500 hours of instruction).  Most of the instruction is contact, though some hours are reserved for personal study and reflection.  One does not have to be Yoga Alliance-certified to teach, but it is a nice standard by which to judge whether a teacher has the proper training so as to avoid injury.

My local studio offers training, so I thought about taking it there.  But the timing is not right, and it’s a difficult thing to focus on in the middle of the rest of life.  Instead, I plan to take teacher training instruction in India. There, I can spend 1-2 months at an ashram and devote myself fully to the instruction.   There are a few schools in India that are Yoga Alliance-registered, so I will be looking at those first.  Right now, my first choice is in Dharamsala.

the culture of exposure

I had a conversation once with someone who commented that Americans are very candid. It’s almost as if we lack the filter that separates what should be public and what should be private. The conversation was in reference to personal relationships, but it was a very good point from a societal perspective.

We are, as a nation, culture, society, very open and transparent. We have a history of it, from our governance and political systems, to our corporate responsibilities, to our international negotiations. And we take pride in this openness.

It’s not a surprise, then, that on social and cultural levels, we see the same degree of candidness. Americans love reality TV (though we aren’t the only ones), and we love the exposure of our celebrities. In fact, reality TV stars are the next generation of celebrity.

And we don’t just revel in others’ openness - we actively promote our own. We love to blog, we love facebook, we love putting our thoughts and ideas and opinions out there for the world to see. It’s not just about being well-known on tape, it’s about being famous online. Internet killed the video star.

In a recent New York Times Magazine article, Emily Gould talks about her own journey through public exposure 2.0, a sacrifice on the altar of oversharing. From her humble beginnings with her own blog (Emily Magazine), through her rise at Gawker, she makes insightful points about what it means to be be a celebrity, expose a celebrity, and expose herself.

While I am a fan of transparency, I do admit that I’m a little uneasy with how available we make our personal details. Madonna commented once that no one would ever be able to dig up dirty little secrets about you if you just told everyone everything. But information can be a powerful tool, and there is such a thing as saying too much.

But Madonna had a point. If you have no secrets, there is nothing with which you could be blackmailed. There is nothing you have to explain later, nothing you have to try and hide, nothing to be ashamed of. And if our cultural penchance for candidness and transparency continues to bleed into other aspects of society, then perhaps it is something to be actively pursued.

wealth is not a material gain, but a state of mind

The idea of wealth, and building wealth, has come up a lot lately. I’ve talked to friends about building financial portfolios, read blogs about various ways to increase wealth, and thought a bit about my immediate and long-term goals.

Part of what I’ve been mulling over is what exactly we mean when we use terms like “wealth” and “wealthy”. For me, it’s not just about my net worth. Or rather, my “net worth” is not just about dollars. It’s also about being in line with my intentions. Sure, I could make a lot of money if I invested in Chinese petrochemical companies, but do I really want that on my conscience? Is that really what wealth is all about?

Not for me. I have one retirement account heavily invested in “social choice” funds, or what are also considered “socially conscious” funds. Historically, these funds don’t tend to perform as well as traditional funds (though in an ironic twist of fate, they are currently outperforming everything else I have). But while I might end up with 15-20% less than I might have earned, at least I can feel better knowing that I’m not getting ahead by stepping on the less fortunate.

Of course, I will clearly disclose, I do have my fair share of traditional funds, chosen for their expected gains. In fact, my other retirement account is completely invested in your typical tech fund options. I also own shares in a number of companies with whom I might not agree. Some amount of diversification is necessary and smart, unfortunately. But there is something to be said for wielding a small amount of power as a shareholder and a consumer, and my letter-writing skills have been duly sharpened.

So in my mind, wealth is not just about my financial assets, but it’s also about my quality of life… and that of those in my global community. It’s also about my state of mind. A man with little means can be wealthy if he believes himself to be - if he’s happy with his lot in life instead of being resentful of those things he doesn’t have. There will always be things out of reach for us, but there are also many things within reach that we often forget about.

But wealth is also about opportunity. A man who has cut himself off from growth is not wealthy. But a man who can dream of other possibilities has infinite room to expand and explore. He can enrich his life and the lives of those around him. Wealth is not just in the current, it’s also in the potential.

And I also think that building wealth requires a little risk and some unconventionality. I sometimes think that my life has been a series of unconventional decisions. In retrospect, some have been quite ridiculous, but in the end, I’m at the place where I’m happy (I’m also alive and I have full use of all my faculties). Can we really ask for more?