Showing posts with label volunteering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label volunteering. Show all posts

What I Stand For

An online community I participate in regularly offered up a probing question of the day recently: "What do I stand for?". 

Such a powerful question! I have a feeling this isn't a complete list, but here it is so far:

I stand for kindness: To myself, to others, to the earth and everything that lives on it.

I stand for justice: The recognition that we have had generations of injustice and deep, compounding harms that mean some people start out in a hole dug by official policies and actions and face a steeper climb than others. (Here's a graphic from the LA Metro Design Studio that illustrates equality, equity, and justice much better than the one you may have seen with kids shut out of a ballfield. I don't use the kids-on-boxes graphic, which still leaves the kids outside the fence.)

I stand for accountability: For recognition of my own privilege that I didn't understand until I started unlearning and relearning, and for what I do with that privilege to make a difference. (A couple of my blog posts on privilege and bicycling: Riding Thoughts: Privilege is a Tailwind and Privilege and Biking: It Takes More than a Bike Lane to Start Riding)

I stand for mother love: For my daughters. my stepchildren, and former stepchildren I'm still connected to, and for encouraging them to grow into themselves, not some version tied to what I think they should or shouldn't be or become.

I stand for love: My love for my husband, and every human being's right to love who and how they love.

I stand for friendship: For being someone who is there for hard times, not just fun times, and someone who nurtures friendships with time and attention.

I stand for engagement and connection: In my neighborhood and community, in policy and politics, in philanthropy and volunteering, in the everyday connections I can foster by connecting people to other people, resources, and ideas.

I stand for freedom: For the right to control our own bodies, for the right to be who we are in the world without fear.

I stand for environmental action, both personal and systemic: That is, I make individual choices to live more lightly on the earth but I know that even if everyone did the same we can't offset the actions of corporations and governments that engage in widespread damage and policy decisions that make things worse, rather than better. I'm fortunate that my professional life enables me to truly make a difference and gives me a wider platform, I vote for people who will move us forward toward survival as a species, and I shop locally, including food, to support local living economies.

Fundamentally I stand for making the world a healthier and more equitable place for all: Both close to home and far away, I support with words, actions, and cash the people and organizations making a difference.

Years ago I wrote a post about the 4-H pledge that somewhat relates to this question.

I expect to keep pondering the question and may come back.

What do you stand for?

Related reading:

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Yet another 11 little secrets

Read this post by Christopher Penn (@cspenn) and this post by Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder), then come back. With one exception noted below, these are right in line with what I do to feel happier and healthier. In fact, they were so good it was hard to come up with 11 new points here….
  1. Give the gift of time to things you care about. It’s easy to click a link to “like” someone’s statement on Facebook, become a fan of a page endorsing a political position, or hit the retweet button on Twitter. It’s more difficult to haul yourself down to City Hall to testify or show up for thankless committee meetings for a fundraiser to help feed people. Your effort input provides one of the multipliers in the psychic reward calculation: More in means more out. If you’re motivated by payback in the form of a paycheck, consider that you might end up connecting with a job working on whatever it is you care about through establishment of a reputation as a hard-working volunteer.
  2. Choose to be amused. Life is full of warts, wrinkles and speed bumps, any one of which can trigger grumping and growling. Or it can trigger a wry smile, a shrug, and an “Oh well, things happen.” Entirely up to you. Laughing is a whole lot more fun than sobbing any day of the week.
  3. Eat vegetarian. You may not want to become a vegetarian the way I did several years ago, but by making room on your plate for more plant fiber and less muscle fiber, you’ll lose weight (if you don’t go crazy on the cheese sauce), lower your fat intake, cholesterol and blood pressure, decrease the size of your carbon footprint, and discover amazing new taste sensations. Your mom will be proud, too.
  4. While you’re at it, eat real food. I already blogged about this, inspired by Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. If you’re eating meat, buy it from someone you can look in the eye and get meat that doesn’t give you a dose of antibiotics and growth hormones. Shop the outside edge of the grocery store and you’ll cut down (way down) on cost, sodium, weird chemical-ly additives you can’t pronounce and don’t understand, and packaging waste that you pay to have hauled away from your house.
  5. Ride a bike. Regain the feeling of freedom you had as a kid, when those two wheels meant you could get somewhere under your own power instead of waiting around for an adult with car keys. Even if you don’t make it your primary form of transportation, you’ll probably be amazed to learn how many destinations lie within a mile or two of your home if you live anywhere in or near a town. (If you live in the ‘burbs you might have to go a little farther to find a destination—that’s a choice you made. But little coffee shops and your local library might well make a pleasant loop on a Saturday afternoon.) Sure, you can walk—I’m all for walking—but if you’re the impatient type you’ll appreciate how much farther and faster you can go on a bike.
  6. Schedule time with friends.  That’s right, I said “schedule.” If you leave it to chance your calendar will fill up. So don’t leave it to chance. I had the incredibly sad experience recently of losing a dear friend who was far too young. I literally had her name on a list in my Outlook Tasks (yes, I’m serious) labeled “Set coffee or lunch” because I hadn’t seen her in a while. I was too late. She was inspiration for a girlfriend group I started up years ago that’s still going strong and so many of them have said how much they like having a regular time on the calendar to sit and talk. Make a commitment.
  7. You love people. Tell them. We tend to reserve “I love you” for our romantic attachments. If you’re like me, there are special people in your life you love for all the gifts they’ve given you: understanding, a sympathetic ear, advice that grounds you in who you are, side-splitting gut-busting laughter, late-night discussions over a glass of something nice. Yes, it took the death of a friend to remind me of how short life is. Don’t pass on chances to tell people  you care about how deeply you appreciate having them in your life.
  8. Sing even if you’re lousy. I’m betting it’s been a while since you sang just because you felt like it. Don’t be shy. Unless you’re regular in attendance at some sort of religious service or you get paid for your awesome pipes, you probably have few occasions to sing. Some people sing along with a radio or iPod—that totally counts since I can never remember all the lyrics to songs I think I know. I live with two daughters who have beautiful voices that leave me in awe when they sing. They did not get this ability from me.  Nonetheless I sing (granted, sometimes with apologies for my unplanned key changes).
  9. Slow down. If you’re eating something delicious don’t fork it in as fast as possible. You’ll get more flavor sensations if you stop between bites. If you’re driving, time the difference in one of your usual trips between driving over the speed limit (you know you do it) and observing the speed limit all the way there. Bet you’re not cutting as many minutes off as you think you are. If you’re reading an amazing book (I’m really guilty of devouring books rapidly), stop a minute to reflect on how the author managed to create such vivid scenes. If you’re about to send an angry email—this one’s a biggie—stop, reread it, and think about how you’d feel if you were the recipient instead of the sender. Savor the flavor.
  10. Smile. At people you don’t know, neighbors out in their yards, the guy who holds the door for you on your way into the store, the person behind the customer service counter who’s going to sort out this whole gnarly warranty mess you’re holding. Smile when you’re on the phone—it makes a difference in your voice.  I already said you can choose your response to life's hiccups, but this is about the physical act of smiling. It appears that our brains actually "listen" to our bodies to develop our mood and emotion, so smiling when you’re not cheerful will help you cheer up. (Seriously—there’s research on this.)
  11. Be kind. As I've said before, this is a lesson I learned from my mother. There is too little kindness in the world. Add to the supply.
  12. (Bonus item!) Create your own version of “what I did on my summer vacation” that does not involve electronic communication. Do it. I took a long blogging hiatus last year. The list of things I did instead of hanging out excessively online reflects my idea of the good life. You have your own. Live it.
In case you ignored my original directive because you wanted to plunge straight into the awesomeness that is my blog, here are those two posts again:
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3 Things My Mother Taught Me

My mother turns 88 today—September 13, 2009. Born in 1921, she grew up through the Depression, taught school, married a dashing World War II bomber pilot and hometown boy, raised six kids, had a brief stint as “Mother Trucker” working with my dad in a truck dispatching office after his retirement from a lifetime working for Potlatch, had some seasons as a snowbird heading to Death Valley with Dad and going on an Alaskan cruise—and got dementia.

Now everything from her long life is gone, except for her love for my father.

The number of her children and our names and faces: Gone. When I visit, my father does a good job of saying hello in a way that reintroduces who we are and how we fit into her life. She always smiles her best hostess-y smile when we arrive, but it’s clear that she doesn’t really recognize us.

Her actual age and what has and hasn’t happened already in her life: Gone. Sometimes she refers to her mother , dead in 1986, as still living. Sometimes she talks about whether or not she and Dad should have children since they haven’t had any yet. Sometimes she’s living in Spokane, although they’re in Lewiston. Sometimes she lives in the big house they used to own outside Lewiston, instead of in the dementia unit at Guardian Angels.

What she just said and where a normal conversation would go next: Gone. I like to describe it as running a lot of laps around a very short track. (I've written a bit before about what this is like. This means I'm repeating myself. This is of some concern.)

Her looping would be familiar to anyone who has spent some time with a dementia patient. As soon as she finishes a sentence—if she does, and if she uses English rather than throwing in a few Klingon words created by the strokes that cause her dementia—she might pick up that thread of thought and start all over again. And again. And again.

Fortunately, the thing she repeats more than anything is how much she loves my father and how well-suited they have been for each other through nearly 65 years of marriage. She repeats things about how they met or things they did together, and often gets those right: “He was always such a good dancer,” with an arch look and a smile.

If she has to forget everything else and repeat just one essential element of her life ad infinitum, at least it is love.

This essay is my birthday present to her, although I don’t know if she can still sustain enough cognitive continuity to read much.

How sad that makes me, when she turned me into an incredibly fast, retentive reader with her teaching skill. She posted names of things on flash cards all over our house so that I learned to see words as entire and intact units, rather than painful constructs of sounded-out syllables. This makes me a good proofreader because I know at some subconscious level that the shape of the word is wrong, even before I can tell you where the typo is.

The best gifts she gave me, though, were lessons in how to lead my life. Because of her, I have these qualities:

I’m a feminist. She told me stories about my grandmother—to be told here another day—to illustrate why I should be able to take care of myself as an independent woman before I married. Admittedly, she did assume I would marry and have children. Her wish for all her children was that we have a marriage as happy as hers (we all got there eventually).

I believe in service to my community. Long before I ever heard of the notion of privilege or paying it forward, my mom gave me both those concepts. She told me how lucky I was, to grow up in a home with two parents who loved each other, plenty to eat, never any fear of losing the roof over our heads, a college education.

More important, she told me there are lots of people who don’t have all those things and because of that, they may not be able to do and be everything they want in this world. So I need to use the gifts I’m given and whatever talent I have to contribute, because I can and because some doors will open for me that may not open for others.

I try to be kind, and I look for the good things that abound. Kindness is underrated in this world. My mother was kind and she taught me empathy.

If we saw someone who had any kind of problem that made life more difficult—say, someone with a disability, or someone who was morbidly obese—Mom said something like, “Oh, life must be so difficult for them. Think what it’s like just to try to go see a movie” (or whatever seemed relevant).

This wasn’t said in a patronizing way—it was said to help us put ourselves in someone else’s shoes.

My mother was almost always cheerful, too, and I have her sunny optimism most of the time. My dear and sometimes brooding husband knows I’m his Sally Sunshine. (Every marriage should have one.)

Thanks to Mom, for me the glass isn’t half-empty, it’s half-full, or maybe you need a glass that’s a different size, or we’ll get something to drink later instead of right now. The lines “We’ll just make the best of it” and “Things will turn out all right in the end” can carry you through many of the bumps in life’s road.

These were good lessons. Thank you, Mom.

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25 Random Things About Me, in Random Order


{{deJodie Foster bei der deutschen Filmpremie...Image via Wikipedia

Yes, I got tagged with this in Facebook originally. As long as I was free-associating, I thought I'd put it up here, in my ongoing quest to be myself.

  1. I would want Jodie Foster to play me in my bio-pic.

  2. I have never learned to do cartwheels. Probably won’t, at this rate.

  3. Once upon a time, I could name all of Henry VIII’s wives in order, and tell you how each marriage ended.

  4. I was born on Election Day.

  5. My mother voted absentee a few days before that, having given up on the belief that she would ever have me because I was born a month overdue.

  6. I’ve worn glasses since I was 5. I had radial keratotomy when I was 20, which corrected my vision for a while, but it didn’t last. I wear contacts most of the time because I'm vain.

  7. Back when I worked as a Kelly temp, I typed around 110 words per minute with almost zero errors.
  8. I used to be a member of Mensa. At the first meeting I attended, I met the man who would become my first husband (but not my last, nor my second-to-last). Draw your own conclusions about my intelligence.

  9. My dad’s birthday is Nov. 3. Mine is Nov. 6. My oldest daughter’s is Nov. 12. If she ever has children, she has to have one born Nov. 24 to continue the pattern.

  10. I think my daughters are really, really amazingly wonderful.

  11. My longest one-day bike mileage (so far) is 94, when we did Tour des Lacs in 2007. (This is a beautiful ride from Spokane into Idaho and back. If you're a cyclist, come check it out!)

  12. I used to read enormous amounts of science fiction and fantasy, and at one point subscribed to 3 science fiction magazines (Asimov's, Analog, and Aboriginal, which no longer exists).

  13. Every single time I have ever tried to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey all the way through, I have fallen asleep.

  14. When my second mother-in-law died of lung cancer I was there with the rest of the family. It was amazing and intense and exhausting, and after she died she was so beautiful, like marble.

  15. I was captain of our High School Bowl team. This was a quiz show hosted by a local TV station, kind of like Jeopardy.

  16. When I tore my hamstring a few years ago doing yoga, it sounded like a rifle shot. (Yes, I still do yoga.)

  17. When I bought my first PC in about 1986, I stayed up late many nights writing DOS *.BAT files for fun.

  18. I object to raisins in cookies. They are just masquerading as chocolate chips to deceive the nearsighted.

  19. I’m subject to vertigo attacks that make me feel as if I have the drunk whirlies, without benefit (or enjoyment) of alcohol.

  20. Sometimes when I sleep, my eyes are open—just a little. This is apparently very creepy. At a sleepover birthday party in my childhood, two of my friends thought I was dead.

  21. My college nickname was Greenie because there was a Barb Green going through sorority rush at the same time and I was Barb Greene-with-an-E.

  22. I went to a Seventh Day Adventist school for first grade because my birthday was after the cutoff date for Idaho public school. Once I was a bona fide first grade graduate, the public school could take me for second grade. Go figure.

  23. Unless I go back to before I started 4-H and Bluebirds in about second or third grade, I can’t remember a period in my life when I was not involved in some kind of group, committee, board, or other volunteer or civic activity.

  24. As far as I know, I’m not allergic to any foods or medications. I’ve had morphine once and it nauseated me but that’s about it.

  25. I once had a poem published in one of those books they try to get you to buy after accepting your work for publication. I may still have my copy somewhere around here….

  26. Bonus item: I am (finally) married to the love of my life, after learning a lot (I hope--and he hopes!) in my first two marriages. Third time IS the charm, for me at least.







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Tweeting, Twittering, Friending, Following: My Connection Policies & Practices

If you’re here, it’s because you followed a link from one of my profile pages (or for some strange reason you actually read my personal blog—I needed a place to park this). I will keep revising this as I think of new points and as policies change.

I’m on several social networks and use slightly different policies for deciding who I connect with in each. This will explain why I did or didn’t accept your request, follow you back, friend you, or whatever verb you’re expecting, and what kind of content you’re likely to see from me in that space.

Twitter: If you follow me, I look at your profile. Reasons I won’t follow you back include seeing any or all of the following, which are just my preferences (so it's not you, it's me):

  • No bio.
  • No tweets.
  • Tweets that reflect only a desire to sell me something that doesn’t interest me.
  • Most of your tweets tell me what you're doing moment to moment, including when you get up in the morning, what you had for breakfast/lunch/dinner, and when you went to bed. A few of these, sure--I do a few myself. Blow-by-blow daily itineraries--not so much.
  • You don't appear to share much in the way of information or resources. If I had my way, the Twitter prompt would read, "What are you sharing?" I'm more apt to follow someone when a certain percentage of tweets contains something interesting-looking: a blog, a news item, a site that does something cool, fun, or useful.
  • Page after page of @ messages without general tweets to all. I appreciate a mix of @ conversations and general "y'all come!" comments and questions--goes along with the sharing mentality I appreciate. If all your tweets are interactions with individuals, I don't feel as welcome, somehow.
  • No @ messages at all. So you're not in any direct conversations at all; you're broadcasting.
  • No interests in common from my perspective. You may be interested in some topic(s) that I tweet about, while the reverse may not be true. I’m not looking to build a huge following, and if you unfollow me it’s no big deal—you’re just changing the channel.

If you choose to follow me, I really appreciate it if you send me an @ message to tell me why, or what interests you in my tweetstream. I do that for people I follow to establish an initial connection.

Why I’m on Twitter: For me, the point of Twitter is learning and conversing. I typically follow people with interest or expertise in the same things I tweet about: social media, communications, PR, higher education, bike commuting, active transportation, public policy, government, urban planning, health care, environment, the nonprofit sector, and my geographic region of Spokane/Inland Northwest.

Twitter accounts I manage: @Bike2WrkSpokane, @WSUSpokane, @FriendsofFalls.

Facebook: This is the most “closed” of my social network spaces. If you send me a friend request, I will only accept it if I know you personally. Even if we have common interests, or have a connection through a project I’m involved with such as Bike to Work Spokane, that doesn’t mean I’ll friend you.

My status updates there are fairly personal: what I’m up to, what the family’s doing, my latest blog post, with a little work stuff mixed in. I also manage the WSU Spokane page, and hope you’ll be a fan if it interests you.

LinkedIn: I will accept an invitation to connect if we have had enough interaction that I feel I know you professionally or personally. This could be direct personal contact, or through the medium of discussions on Twitter or via email that have given me some understanding of who you are.

LaunchPadINW: I’m actually still figuring this one out. I am somewhat reluctant to “friend” someone I haven’t met who actually lives in my town. For now, I’m using my Facebook policy, so I have to know you in the real world before I’ll accept your invitation on LaunchPad.

The rest of the world, outside social networks: My email is widely available, so if you want to establish a connection get in touch with me at work.

Better yet, jump into a cause that we both care about--I'm always recruiting for volunteers!

I’m always happy to build new relationships in the actual real world where we have faces, voices—you know, all three dimensions, or better yet four (being acquainted over time) :D.

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Overdoing: The Seven-Course Meal Approach to Life

As my family and friends will attest, I have a serious tendency to overload—a craving, in a way.

My excuse is that I’m at my best when I have lots of things asking for my time. I finish projects faster when a deadline looms than when I have plenty of time. I’ll get all the notes from all the meetings cranked out to the attendees with the associated task lists, if I have lots of meetings to chronicle. When I chaired the Bike to Work Spokane effort last year, I sent and received over 3,500 emails in the course of 6 months to stay in touch with volunteers, promote the activities, and communicate with the participants. I cook better on all burners.

That goes for cooking, too. If I’m making a meal I often make everything from scratch, not just one or two featured dishes. If you come to my house for hors d’oeuvres, the odds are pretty good that I’ve cut up all the veggies on the veggie tray and made the dip myself, rather than letting Mr. Rosauers and his talented deli crew do the work.

When I volunteer, I do the same. I don’t just join a group; I end up on the board. I don’t just join the board; I end up chairing it, or heading a subcommittee, or running the publicity efforts. Mind you, this whole cycle starts because when people ask me to join a board, I say yes.

None of this is said to boast. I started writing this New Year’s Eve, and finished New Year’s Day, to remind myself of these tendencies so I can work on curbing them.

In the book French Women Don’t Get Fat, author Mireille Giuliano speculates that people in the U.S. overeat because our food often isn’t all that good-tasting. We’ll plow through a whole Hershey’s bar, when a one-ounce square of really fine chocolate would satisfy us more. We supersize our portions. We fill our plates three times at all-you-can-eat buffets.

As recent research showed, overweight people actually cue themselves differently in these settings. They sit facing the food lines. They grab a plate and start filling it before they even look at all the choices. They go back for refills before the stomach has had a chance to tell the brain "Enough!"

Thinner people will cruise the buffet line first, often without a plate; make more selective choices; and are more apt to sit facing away from the food.

I have enough on my plate. This is my year to sit facing away from the selections and enjoy what I’ve already selected. It’s good; there's plenty; and I’ll feel satisfied when I finish it.
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