Wonderemployment

"I want to use my empathy, intuition, creativity, and leadership skills to help youth and young adults, particularly young women and girls, feel heard and valued. I want to help them build the confidence and skills to be healthy, resilient, and engaged individuals, so that they can in turn build healthy, resilient and engaged communities." This is my personal purpose statement. Believe me, it's scary to put it out there because it's not fully refined, it may change in a year or month or two, or I may never fulfill this "purpose". But for now, there it is. This all came about because my boss encouraged me to develop a professional development plan. I've never made one before, so I signed up for a workshop at Compass Point on exactly that. I don't know what I was expecting, but this far exceeded what I had anticipated and I left really energized. Through a few exercises, we were encouraged to think about and explore our: Unique contributi...

I haven't done New Year's resolutions in a long time because like most people, I fall off the wagon within a month or two and never get back on. It seems like a yearly ritual in letting yourself down, so I just don't bother with the self-inflicted punishment anymore. My old resolutions (or at least the ones I can remember) were pretty typical: Work out more (3x/week!) Read more (2 books/month!) Be better at keeping in touch with friends Cook more  Spend less money What I've realized is that the turn of the calendar is not going to change who you fundamentally are. I don't read more because I enjoy doing other things more than I enjoy reading... yet somehow I feel this pressure to read because that is what smart people do. Exercise is good for me, but where there is no will, there is no way, and most days, you guessed it... I have no will. Putting intentional effort into self-improvement is good, but I'm pretty tired of our culture's obsessive...

There have been some great conversations going on this month  about ambition and drive  on A Practical Wedding (yes, technically a wedding blog, but actually, so much more). It's been so interesting to read the perspectives of a spectrum of smart women, some who are hungry for it , some who aren't , and some who are just plain  burnt out . This burnout thread particularly got to me. As I talked about in my first blog post , in high school I always imagined being a really successful career woman, the kind that would wear great suits and save the world through consensus-building. Now I just get tired at even the thought of being a "successful career woman". What happened to that fire? Am I really burnt out at the ripe young age of 27? How terrible is it that I just don't care anymore? APW is one of the few places on the internet where I can stand to read the comments section. In fact, sometimes the comments are more insightful than the content. One of the c omme...

I got word recently that my job was going to be cut. It was sudden, unexpected, and sad. Thankfully I was offered another temporary, part time position to tide me over. There are a lot of things to be thankful for... my health, my education, my husband, the experience I've had there. But it still hurts. I was (mostly) a straight-A student in high school and college. Doing well in school was part of how I defined myself. I always imagined I would find an awesome job, be really successful, climb the ladder, and be a leader. After I graduated, I did go on to find some great opportunities, but I'm nowhere near as successful as I thought I would be by this time in my life. Disappointing your past self is painful. Losing my job suddenly really drove that emotion home. I've had a few weeks to process this and wallow in my self pity. But then one day on BART, reading O Magazine , I had an epiphany. I need to make something of this underemployment period. If I can look back...