Week 7: How Do You Create Change?

Time to read: 58 seconds

Goodness, owls are cute!

All summer we've been talking about feeling well-used and being responsible for creating your life. I want to shift to how this applies to living in a chaotic world where it seems like people have lost their decency.

You can't choose the news cycle. You don't choose the driver who cut you off, how a stranger talks online, or whether the world gets kinder this year. If you could change these things, you would have a long time ago.

Here's what you are responsible for: how you treat the person in front of you.

That sounds small next to the size of national politics. It's the most important lever you have to enact real change, and it matters. Every interaction you have is a chance to either add to the noise or subtract from it.

Being the change doesn't mean fixing the world. It means refusing to let the world's worst behavior become an excuse for your own. Someone is going to be rude to a service worker today. It doesn't have to be you. Someone is going to assume the worst about a stranger today. It doesn't have to be you.

You're not responsible for how the world behaves. You are entirely responsible for how you do.

I find this concept liberating.

Week 6: How You Spend Your Day Is How You Spend Your Life

Time to read: 1 min, 10 seconds

We've been talking about creating your life so you feel well-used. I saw a great quote from Annie Dillard that said, "How you spend your day is how you spend your life."

Your day comprises a series of small choices: what to eat, how to talk to others, what to do with your time, and how you show up.

There's a common finding in psychology: people rarely regret the things they did, even the things that failed. What haunts people is what they didn't try.

You don't regret the bad relationship you left or the business you tried and failed. But the person you never told how you felt, the chance you didn't take, the conversation you kept postponing? Those are the ones that stick.

There's a reason for this. When you act, and it goes wrong, you get an ending. You get information. You grieve and learn. But when you don't act, there's no ending, just an open wondering about what might have been.

Inaction feels safe in the moment because nothing bad happens. But nothing good happens either. Doors don't stay open forever. Many doors close quietly, without you noticing, and by the time you look back, the choice is gone.

This is the wild part of "wild and precious." Not recklessness — just refusing to let fear of a bad outcome be the reason you stopped.

So here's a question worth sitting with: What's the thing you've been not-doing? Not because you decided against it, but because you never decided?

That's usually the one worth looking at first.

Week 5: How To Live With Integrity In a Chaotic World

Time to read: 45 seconds

Here's the part nobody puts on a poster: living well doesn't mean your circumstances match your values. Often they don't.

You value connection, but you're isolated. You value health, but your body won't cooperate. You value stability, but everything feels uncertain. This is where a lot of people quietly give up and decide that living well is only available to people with easier lives, or money, or beauty.

I think this is exactly where "well-used" gets tested.

Integrity in complexity, as I put it a few weeks back, doesn't mean the complexity goes away. It means you keep choosing your values inside it, however imperfectly, instead of waiting for circumstances to improve before you start living the way you actually want.

Some of the most well-used lives I've seen belong to people whose circumstances were challenging. They just refused to let that be the end of the story. They made one small choice after another until they looked back and realized they created their life.

This tenacity is available to everyone.

Week 4: Do You Have To Choose?

Time to read: 41 seconds

Ah, wonderful costume jewelry.

Yes, you always choose. If living well is something you get to create, then not choosing is also a choice, just often not a good one.

Most of us don't refuse to live intentionally. You just let the calendar decide. The inbox decides. The next obligation decides. Weeks pass. You were busy the whole time. And, do you feel well-used, or were you drifting?

Drift feels safe because it seems like you don't have to choose. When in fact, you are choosing to drift. The cost will come later, in regret, missed opportunity, chances not taken.

This week, pick one place where you've been drifting. Keep it simple. Choose one. A relationship on autopilot. A habit you fell into. A "someday" that's been someday for years.

You don't need a five-year plan. You need one choice, one action, done intentionally, today.

Next week: What to do when your values and your circumstances don't line up.

Know someone who would like a dose of optimism, positivity, and action this summer? They can sign up here.

Week 3: Was Your Day Worth It?

Time to read: 59 seconds

One thing I do with my wild and precious life is buy and sell beautiful things, mostly jewelry.

Last week I promised to talk about being"well-used." Here's what I mean.

A well-used life isn't one where nothing goes to waste, where every hour is optimized and every talent monetized. That's maximizing, not meaning. And honestly, this form of well-used is exhausting. (Believe me, I know.)

Being well-used means your days are in service of something that matters. Your effort, attention, and particular mix of skills and quirks are spent on things worth spending them on. Who measures that worth? YOU!

Some days that looks like showing up fully for someone who needs you. Other days it's the quiet satisfaction of work done carefully. In my world it's a coaching session where someone has an ah-ha, a team functions more effectively, connecting a beautiful 1950s necklace to its new person, or a conversation with my young adult children where they actually hear me. :-) Well-used is rarely dramatic. It is showing up, again, for the thing you've already decided matters.

When you drop into bed tonight, ask yourself: what did I spend myself on today? Was it worth it?

More on how to actually answer that question next week.

Week 2: How Will You LIVE?

Time to read: 46 seconds

1920s Camphor Glass Necklace. Think flappers and speakeasies. Yes, it's for sale.

This summer, I am talking about creating life…your life. In a complex and chaotic world, you are still the creator of your days, weeks, and years.

Last week, I talked about how the world you want to live in starts with you. Today, I'm taking that a step further. Fair warning: my father's death has made me philosophical. :-)

Death is certain. None of us will escape it. So, it behooves you to decide how you want to LIVE.

You have "one wild and precious life" (to quote Mary Oliver), and I think each of us gets to, actually, have a duty to, live well. How you define "live well" is based on your values, interests, and life situation.

Living well doesn't mean that everything is great all the time, that you always get what you want, or that life is always easy. It means finding your way through complexity with integrity, looking for slivers of joy and beauty, finding the good in people and situations, and feeling most days like you were well used.

Being "well-used" is next week's topic. Stay tuned.

It All Starts With YOU

Time to read:

Lilies from my garden

A few weeks ago, when I asked what keeps you up at night, overwhelmingly you answered, "the state of the world," "how to go about daily life when so much is going on," and "people no longer caring for each other."

First, I want to acknowledge that you are right. There is so much going on. It's a constant barrage of bad news, chaos, and reasons to despair.

And…I hope.

I believe in the power of humans. Humans get seduced by power, money, greed, and ego and justify terrible things to ourselves. That is not all we are.

The world you want starts with you. Each of us has a responsibility, a duty to put out into the world the energy and behavior you wish to see in other people and in our culture.

That means:

• Be kind, even when others are not.
• Take care of yourself so you have the energy to choose your behavior. Being tired leads to unconscious reactions which are often not helpful or productive.
• Actively find ways to serve the people around you in big and small ways. What do you have to share? What can you give? As an example, we have a cherry tree in our yard, and I invited folks from my Buy Nothing FB page to pick cherries. People brought their kids. A refugee family was so happy to have a taste of home. Sharing those cherries was not a big thing. And it breathed the energy of generosity and abundance I want to feed.
• Take responsibility for yourself. This is a big one that I will break down over a few weeks. You are the agent of your life. Make your choices accordingly.

This is a start to a bigger conversation. More to come....