That’s the name of a terrific article in today’s New York Times that discusses how people deal with the shame of being out of work. The best part is the section about how one marketing executive responds to people’s sympathy in an empowered way:
“And so by last weekend, merely two days after Bob Adler’s finale as a market research analyst at a Fortune 200 insurance company, some people in Montclair, N.J., already knew, largely due to the efforts of the gregarious Mr. Adler.
I will be touring upstate New York and the midwest in early June, and hope to give my time management / antiprocrastination / joyful activism workshops in as many venues as possible. If you know of a meeting room, classroom or similar space in a
activist/community/nonprofit organization
religious organization, or
private home (living room or den)
in or around Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Cleveland, Chicago or Minneapolis, please let me know at lifelongactivist@yahoo.com . Please note that I will be requesting donations, so libraries won’t work.
Because I’ve been traveling a lot and haven’t been able to post as much, I’ve been saving up some links you might enjoy. Now, in the lull between NYC and California, here is a good one:
Chasing Utopia, Family Imagines No Possessions
It’s about families who are living super-simple, super-frugal and, in some cases, nomadic lives. This might not be for everyone, but to me it sounds like heaven: I hate owning a lot of stuff (with the associated maintenance burden), and would love to spend a large fraction of my time on the road, traveling, giving workshops and meeting people. I’m working toward that goal now – one reason for the recent bump-up in travel. The elderly dogs are one impediment, and my lack of mechanical skills are another. Another major barrier was that years ago I ran a budget and couldn’t make the numbers work. Apparently, though, you can: the people quoted in the article are living on the road for as little as $1,500 per month.
This cat is all over the Internet, and I’m addicted to her. My favorite comment about this video is, “Someone needs assertiveness training and it’s not the cat!”
1. A Serious Rejection
I’ve been a professional writer for decades, and while editors sometimes send my work back for revision, it’s been a long time since a piece was rejected outright. Well, recently it happened, and big time. The rejection itself was cruel – the editor not only critiqued the article itself, but the ideas underlying it, and in pretty harsh language – and, moreover, the essay in question was one I was really proud of, and had labored hard on.
To make matters worse, I had been “courting” this publisher (a liberal blog) for more than a year. I also thought that if they ran my piece it would not only give me huge credibility, but huge exposure – possibly even a career breakthrough. So there was a lot riding on this particular submission.
Everyone please watch this 16 minute speech by Clay Shirky , author of Here comes everybody : the power of organizing without organizations. It summarizes what’s revolutionary about the Internet and digital technologies, and how they’re going to change the world. Shirkey’s a great speaker, and this is a very worthwhile investment of 16 of your minutes, particularly if you have kids and want to understand the world they will eventually live in.
This article is by my colleague and friend Linda Marks, founder of the Institute for Emotional-Kinesthetic Psychotherapy. Linda is giving a workshop on Healing the Traumatized Heart in Newton, MA, on Saturday, May 18, from 1 – 5 pm. I’ve taken it, and it’s terrific. Click here for more information on the workshop and Linda’s other work. ©2008 Linda Marks
About 20 years ago, I had the opportunity to help design a stress management class for employees and managers at Digital Equipment Corporation. Because I was working as a body psychotherapist, I wanted to incorporate some body-centered experiential techniques into the training design. While our minds can understand self-care concepts, being able to actually apply them requires understanding them emotionally and in our bodies, not just intellectually.
I’ve written previously about Randy Pausch , the now-famous Carnegie Mellon computer science professor whose videotaped “Last Lecture” is a hit on the Internet and WHICH YOU ABSOLUTELY SHOULD SEE. Pausch gave his Last Lecture at an unusually young age, 48, because he was dying of pancreatic cancer and had only a few months to live. His lecture, on how to achieve your childhood dreams, contained much useful information, but it is really his courageous joy and vital energy in the face of a crushing personal fate – he will leave behind a wife and three young children – that inspired me and countless others.
I found out about Pausch’s Last Lecture from an article in the Wall Street Journal, which has now, about eight months later, published a follow-up article . I tried posting some excerpts but they are heartfelt and personal and don’t really work out of context; please check out the original.
From blogger John Cole :
“As to Wright himself, well, I have my own thoughts. First and foremost, I guess I am no longer the delicate fainting flower that most other bloggers and media commenters are these days. I spent several years in the early days of this blog being all sorts of outraged about petty bullshit. I spent days calling Ted Rall an asshole (he still is, I think), days opining about what an asshole Michael Moore is, and so on. I got my panties all in a bunch about Ward Churchhill (also a dick), and stupid things Bill Maher may or may not have said, and so on.
Today’s Link: Effective College Environmentalists Model the Joy of Sustainability Living
Bravo to the college environmentalists in this wonderful New York Times article , who are not just exploring sustainable living for themselves, but modeling it for others with creativity and fun:
“Lucas Brown, a junior at Oberlin College here, was still wet from the shower the other morning as he entered his score on the neon green message board next to the bathroom sink: Three minutes, according to the plastic hourglass timer inside the shower. Two minutes faster than the morning before. One minute faster than two of his housemates.
“Mr. Brown, a 21-year-old economics major, recalled the marathon runner who lived in the house last semester, saying: ‘He came out of the shower one morning and yelled out: ‘Two minutes 18 seconds. Beat that, Lucas!’…
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