horsepigcow

Last night, as I was getting ready to head out I started to look for excuses to just stay in. I was feeling sorry for myself. I had tried to recruit others to join me out dancing to no avail. The week had been a series of missed connections and frustrating cancellations. I had more will to lay on the sofa sulking than get my coat on and head out the door.

But I did it. I headed out the door and went all by myself to hear a friend spin at a club. And I had an amazing time. I danced to great music and discovered a fantastic local band. I met interesting people. I got to know a new friend a little better and enjoyed a fun conversation. I found out about more events I need to head out to in the near future. I collected some business cards. I learnt a trick with limes. I flirted. I laughed. I ended up at home at 5:00 am.

And I think of the opposite scenario: “What did you end up doing last night?” “Nothing. Fell asleep staring at my ceiling again.” No thanks.

Why am I talking about this? Why should you care about my night out dancing? Well…because it relates to everything else. Without pushing ourselves to do something uncomfortable like going out alone, walking up to someone to introduce ourselves at a networking event, starting a new business, talking to that person who looks interesting or trying a new cultural experience, we don’t open ourselves up to new opportunities. What is it that Wayne Gretzky said? “I miss 100% of the shots I never take.” Sure staying at home would have been more comfortable for me, staying at the dead end job (and not taking a risk with a business idea) would be more stable and not talking to that person I find interesting would save me from potential rejection, but in all cases, I’ve created a scenario for failure 100% of the time. When i go out, I potentially meet people, get some exercise and learn something new. When I become an entrepreneur, I can potentially grow to places impossible for me to grow to as an employee of an organization. When I talk to a stranger, I could meet my future mate, business partner or best friend. I’ll never know by staying at home and staying safe.

A while back I wrote about luck and success, in which one of the characteristics of lucky people is that they get out of their regular routines/situations and try new things. They leave their comfort zones. They strike up conversations with new people. Most lately, I’ve been settling in pretty hard and forgetting that. This is reminding me to get out more and explore and meet new people. I’m pretty sure my ‘settling’ and my feeling like I’m in a stand-still rut are related.

So, from now on, I’m promising myself to do at least one small act of getting out of my comfort zone a day (talk to an interesting stranger or the like) and one bigger act of getting out of my comfort zone a week (joining a book club, going dancing by myself, reading a book that isn’t part of my usual interest, etc.) and get out of my rut.

Now…if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready to head out to do some swing dancing.

Alright. So just in the past couple of years, we’ve seen two HUGE disasters that negatively affected hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of people (livelihood AND health-wise) emerge because of deregulation, yet there are people who would still support it? I’m confused. Am I missing something here?

First…watch Sam Harris’ TED Talk from earlier this year:

I’ve been ruminating on it ever since he gave it. I went through all sorts of emotions when I watched it. Some anger and dismissal, but also some a-ha moments. His argument is, basically, there is a right and wrong morality (and some grey areas) and that science, not religion, can help us determine. And the determination is to maximize the human condition. His talk is worth watching and discussing and Chris Anderson asks some compelling questions at the end.

Ironically, it is the recent debates in the US over healthcare and the subsequent BP Oil Spill (both failures of science) that has got me thinking about this talk again. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t think it’s healthy for us to be tolerant of values that infringe on the lives of others for personal gain. And I don’t know if science is the answer, but I’m willing to support the pursuit of finding out what maximizing the human condition means and how we can get there.

Just this morning Christopher Carfi pointed a most excellent post on the Blogher Blog entitled, “Manifesto: I am not a brand.” For those of you who have seen my live rants (aka speaking gigs), you know that one of the zinger one-liners I have delivered from time to time is: “Instead of a personal brand, why not just get a personality?” So I ran off to read Maureen Johnson‘s most excellent post (and wonderful rant – I so identify with her on the half-sized water bottles) right away.

I’ll make you go and read it yourself, but I do want to clip a portion or two of the manifesto that struck me as “OMG yes! WTF?!! Exactly!” moments:

We can, if we group together, fight off the weenuses and hosebags who want to turn the Internet into a giant commercial.

and

Make stuff for the Internet that matters to you, even if it seems stupid. Do it because it’s good and feels important.

Not only does her language pull on my heartstrings (totally using the word ‘weenuses’ from now on), but her general outlook. And the thing about her general outlook is that it is gorgeously utopic like mine. That neverending, undying even if the crap is kicked out of it faith in the core goodness of humankind and the possibility that things CAN be made better and more people just have to believe in it and get behind it and the world will transform into a better place for all of us…cause what we are doing right now just ain’t working. I mean, it looks like it’s working for some and then we are promised we can all have that if we’d just get off our lazy asses and work a little harder and step on a few people to get there. And when I say “that to which we are promised”, I mean some sort of luxurious life complete with high end handbags with big logos and more legroom on flights. But somebody has to sit in cattle class, eh?

Let me back up a bit here. I had a bit of a tipsy debate with a very smart person I know (who, in any case, one should never argue with sober OR tipsy, but I gave it a go) and afterwards he said the sweetest thing to me, which made me realize I was right all along:

“I enjoy your un-ending optimism..”

Because I argued that, much like Maureen, I believe there is a better way to approach the world. Why have we structured everything around ourselves to be about the almighty dollar? And why is the almighty dollar pretty consistently the reward for weenusism? For hustle? And stepping on other people? In the end, there is only so much of the almighty dollar to go around, so as I said earlier somebody has got to sit in cattle class and it isn’t always the lazy arses. Quite often it’s those people who are “making stuff that matters, even if it seems stupid because it feels good and important.” You know, people like artists, writers, teachers, inventors (before they sell to 3M), academics, activisits, non-profit workers, small business entrepreneurs, volunteers, musicians (before they sell to Disney), open source coders, the people who serve you your triple shot latte extra hot, students, dancers, actors, yoga instructors, mechanics, etc.

Not that those of us that sit in cattle class don’t want to make gobs of the almighty dollar, it’s just not at the top of the priority list. And thank god for that! Because if everyone was focused on the hustle of making the almighty dollar at any cost, this world would be a lonely cesspool none of us would be particularly fond of living in. We need the people who don’t prioritize the almighty dollar. Too bad we don’t value them.

I’ve been luckier than most. I’ve sat in the parts of the plane with lots of legroom, been served by an in-flight sommelier, laid flat to sleep and gotten the high quality free socks on the overseas flight. It’s an awesome feeling. Mostly because I know that it’s rare and tomorrow I’ll be flying in cattle class again and treated like a number. And I’m not saying that cattle class needs to go away or that we’d be living in a better world where we didn’t have to struggle at some level. But I do wonder why the hell having an in-flight sommelier is more important than making sure nobody in the world goes to bed hungry. And I wonder where the hell the venture capital is that will fund the projects “that matter, even if they seem stupid because they are good and important”.

I spent four years in SF Bay area watching all sorts of hustlers and weenuses get funded for their projects that didn’t really matter, were going to be the next Google and were certainly not good or important. Many of those projects are long gone along with the VC money. I also watched as really good people working on really great projects that were good and mattered struggled to find funding. Some are still working (on the side) on those projects. Some have been hired by companies like Google and Microsoft (and believed they can incorporate their good and important ideas into the big machines). Some have seen awesome community traction and found homes to support them (like and VRM). And though there is a fund for social enterprise in existence, it can’t handle all things that are good and important.

Our priorities are seriously off in this world. And I know that a good number of people agree with me. I would venture to say that there are enough people that agree with me that, as Maureen says, can “group together, fight off the weenuses and hosebags who want to turn the Internet into a giant commercial.” The voice is growing, we just need more examples. Look, I don’t have money. I’m still trying to figure out how to pay my rent next month. But there are people who do. And I believe strongly that social enterprise…or the “stuff that is good and important” is and can be profitable, too. It’s just more equitable, that’s all. And if it fails monetarily, well, at least there is a net gain for the world (not just a bunch of auctionable foosball tables and aeron chairs) just for the sheer existence of that project, which contributes to fighting off the lonely cesspool world we don’t want to live in.

Now…only if we could find that benefactor for our startup that is about being “good and important” while I’m at it.

I found myself having a taste of love recently. It was in the form of a friendship that became more for me. One that filled up little caverns of longing I forgot existed. Because I knew that friendship could be the basis of an enormous heartbreak down the road I realized that I hadn’t really chosen greatness over love after all. That my desire for romantic love was just lying dormant.

“…faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” the bible

“All you need is love.” John Lennon

etc.

Throughout time artists, philosophers, poets and everyone else who has ever published anything about human relationships has come to the conclusion that the very fundamental drive in our lives is love. We do it all for love…greatness included.

The problem – and I’m pretty sure this has been my core driver – is that love also can become such an enormous disappointment that we tell ourselves all sorts of stories about not needing it. Not wanting it. Being above it. Whatever we can possibly tell ourselves that will dull the aching need to have it. Psychology Today had a brilliant little piece this month about the worst advice we’ve been given. I think that the worst advice I ever got was that “you couldn’t love anyone else until you love yourself.” Why? It seems so sound, right? Well sure. Self-esteem is important and, for most people, is a long road and ongoing process. The world is full of self-doubt and people who will let you know you won’t make the grade. But I think better advice is that you can’t receive external validation for something that is lacking internally…but denying yourself love until you get there isn’t positive either. And truly, how does one even know what one is missing unless one experiences it?

Sure, Lady Gaga’s recent quote in Cosmo made me jump for joy:

Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore.

Because it captured that ennui I had been feeling for so long regarding love. Something so fundamental to our lives had become an utter disappointment for me so I wanted to reject it outright and embrace something that I could actually control. But it doesn’t work that way. It’s like being hungry. You can only ignore the stomache pains for so long, but then there are more adverse effects on your body. Love is like hunger. It’s essential to living.

I think I read it in Goleman’s Social Intelligence, but there is actual research on how heartbreak DOES lead to death. It’s slow and it works in tandem with a weakened overall system, but a human being without love will eventually die. That’s why you see widows and widowers pass away shortly after the death of their partner. Our bodies work better when we have love.

Now sure, I always have love. I have my son, my dog, my family, my friends and my worldwide community of amazing interweb friends who show me uber amounts of love. Therefore, I’m in no threat of keeling over from lack of human connection. But having a taste of someone I can build a deeper, more intimate, more meaningful relationship with made me realize that mentally, I could really use the occasional ‘rock’ to lean on to help me grow. The problem has been that, to date, my ‘rocks’ have been rocky and the results of that in my life have left me mentally more anguished than satisfied. In my case, my heartbreaks didn’t lead to physical death, but they definitely led to metaphorical illnesses – where each one scarred me a little more emotionally.

And the biggest issue is me, of course. I’m the common denominator here who can’t just fall in love a little. I’m a jump in with both feet kind of girl, often leaping far before I’ve decided to look which has led to some really bad decisions. Decisions that were bound to leave me disappointed. And so here I am after taking several years now to avoid love and focus on greatness feeling like I’m missing something that I know I’ve been terrible at identifying in the past anyway.

But I’m rethinking it. I’m recognizing it. And even though I haven’t changed as a person (still can’t seem to fall in love slowly), I think I’m a little more aware of who I am and what I need. And guess what? I need love. Because that is, at the end of each day, the meaning of life.

This being said, I’m not about to dive in head first without looking like I used to. No more bad decisions. And I’m also going to try and balance the two – love and greatness – which means the love will have to be a net positive in my life and the greatness can’t be obsessive. So for all of you who, on the original post, told me I was being too narrow about this…you were right. Because it’s not about choosing between one or the other, but recognizing that both are complicated and hard to accomplish, but cannot exist isolated from one or the other.

So yeah. I choose both. And even though that scares the bejeebus out of me, I’m kind of excited to see where this new direction leads.

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