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Soar by Reclaiming Safety, Trust, and Confidence

This week’s time is made possible by Prolificate.com where, for a limited time, you can sign up for one of a few slots I have for coaching. This is great when you’re working on a big decision – that maybe feels a little scary, or if you want to spend some time unpacking your own spiritual path. Sign up at prolificate.com/guide. Do you feel safe? What does that feel like? Have you ever felt UNsafe? What did THAT feel like? I think that feeling safe should be a human right or at least something that everyone should have access to at some point. Instead, it’s a privilege. I feel pretty safe. I’m uncomfortable sometimes… like the kind of discomfort that makes me squirm and get defensive or angry or self-righteous…. But really when I think about it, I’m not actually *unsafe.* Mostly, when I find myself reacting strongly to something… as if I’m reacting to a threat…. it isn’t actually my safety that’s being threatened. Maybe it’s something else. Lately, I’ve been spending time trying to understand the difference between comfort and safety – which is the topic for our time together today. Safety, Trust, Confidence, and Security. Where does it come from? What does it mean? Is anyone *ever* really safe? As an interfaith chaplain, part of my job is to accompany people from all faiths- and no faith at all – in some scary situations… It’s a reminder of just how UNsafe some people are – and of the comparative luxury I have most of the time. One thing that never fails to surprise me — some folks who seem the *least* safe… people who have seen hard things, lived through tough experiences… are sometimes the most serene, calm, patient people I’ve ever met. Think about this: Have you ever spent time around someone in this kind of position – say, a cancer patient? Somebody you think has EVERY REASON to be angry or resentful or suspicious because of what they’ve been through, but instead, they have this grounded presence… Why is that? Maybe they’re the one reassuring other patients and even staff in the hospital while they’re getting their treatment. Then, imagine leaving the hospital and on your way home, stopping by Starbucks for a coffee. As you walk in, someone in line is clearly agitated, maybe yelling or berating the person behind the counter because they got their order wrong. Is the Starbucks customer bad? Is the cancer patient good? It’s easy to praise the one and condemn the other. Clearly, life is short and we don’t need people creating more pain in the world just because you accidentally got whole milk instead of skim in your latte. What’s difference between that calm, saint-like cancer patient and the obnoxious, privileged snotty customer at the coffee shop? Here’s something to think about: What if both of those people are YOU? What if you just got done getting your radiation treatment and stopped at Starbucks on the way home – where I happened to see you yelling at the barista? Hmmm. Life’s complicated, no? I like to think in terms of black and white, but in truth, it’s often more complicated. James Baldwin, the American author, playwright, and social critic said, “Perhaps home is not a place, but simply an irrevocable condition.” Safety. Trust. Confidence. Security. Some religious traditions teach us that these things come from a God or something bigger than us. They can be given and taken away on a whim or maybe as a punishment. Other traditions teach us that we already have the tools we need. We have access to a feeling of safety, trust, confidence, and security all the time, regardless of what’s happening around us. Whatever your belief, I invite you to recognize that *both* of these potentials – the calm, reassured cancer patient, and the agitated, unreasonable customer at Starbucks exist in YOU. Right now. Safety. Trust. Confidence. Security. The next time I encounter you doing that at Starbucks, I hope I remember that you also were just at the clinic reassuring the other patients that everything is going to work out in the end, and reminding them not to miss the beauty of the spring crocus just starting bloom on the hospital lawn. The next time I encounter you at the clinic, surrounded by a saintly light, I hope I remember that you’re not proud of everything you’ve done in your life and that you’ll still make plenty of poor choices in the future. The next time I see you, I hope I remember that YOU are ME. I’m capable of all those things just like you. My safety, my trust, my confidence, my security, are all states of mind and ways of being in the world. Depending on how AWARE of them or CONNECTED to them I feel, I might behave in different ways. I hope when you see ME doing that at Starbucks, you might give me a wink and remind me that, whatever has me feeling so threatened, I have access to comfort and confidence. I hope that when you see me feeling safe, you give me a wink to remind me that not everyone has that same luxury and to be sure and do the work of lifting up those who aren’t as fortunate. Actually, I hope we both remember that we’re in this together… we can actually *create* a world with more safety, trust, confidence, and security just by reminding each other. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go put an extra dollar in the tip jar at Starbucks. Be well, my friend.

Bring the Right Steps in Focus

I’m Andrew Chirch, an Interfaith advisor and coach. 99 is a special weekly podcast series where we meet for 9 minutes to regroup, re-center ourselves, and prepare for the work ahead. Subscribe here to listen on your favorite podcast app, or you can use the player at the top of this post. A transcript is below. Are you impatient sometimes? Do you look to the future as the solution to your problems? (Like I sometimes do). I catch myself in this mode when I’m browsing eBay or amazon for the next cool piece of electronic gear, or I remember that time I bought a jeep. Oh was that 4 -wheeler going to change my life! I was going to be one of those intrepid adventurers who heads off to the wilderness on a moment’s notice… great hair blowing in the wind with the top down. As I drove by, people would probably notice my rugged good looks and want a jeep themselves. I would undoubtedly birth a movement. Now steps can be ableist… not everyone has a body that can take steps, so I also mean incremental progress. The reason I mention the story about the jeep is that it was such an example of my impatience —with myself— my dissatisfaction with the way things were going in my life. I’ve heard from other people who have their own version of the jeep story – whether it’s a hobby, a collection, a shopping habit, food, or anything that takes us out of ourselves. Out of ourselves…. ooh. that’s another layer to unpack. On this podcast, I often encourage you to move beyond yourself. To find ways to transcend what feels like the ordinary, and set off in search of majesty. Like anything, there is too much, there is not enough, and there is a middle path. Recently, we talked about living your life AS a work of art—how even the most ordinary seeming life can actually be a work of art. Every minute of every day like a brush stroke on canvas. Other times, I am reminded that part of the human experience can be boredom and staleness. It can take outside intervention – a tragedy, a traumatic event, or something unexpected to shake out of our doldrums. It’s important that we not waste our time in this life, no? After all, there’s a reason most people know what a bucket list is. (If you don’t you should look it up). Steps. Today’s theme. What is Andy talking about? Well, let’s see… he talked about the Jeep… which I guess was kind of like a step, but maybe in the wrong direction. Then there’s the danger of always running forward without looking around or savoring where the steps have taken me… Like too many steps too quickly. Then there’s the life with no steps at all – refusing to even come out of my house and face what life has to offer me. What’s left? I suppose in literary terms, we haven’t hit on the Goldilocks solution: just right. (or as my 12 year-old daughter pointed out… “actually, that would be the Baby Bear solution. Goldilocks is just colonizing the Bear Family’s experience.). So… What’s just right when it comes to steps? Hmmm. What would the baby bear answer be here? Well… let’s see…. your life is marching on every minute, every day… with your participation or without it. Are you present in it? Think about *that* — for better or worse, every step in your life has brought you here to this point. If you think that you were created with some purpose to fulfill, then there must be some value in your being in this place right now. If you think this whole experience is pure chance and random evolution, you’re still here, right? In fact, if this is all there is, then isn’t it even more important to look around and appreciate where you are at this step? Whichever you believe, none of us knows how many more steps there are, so what if we started taking notes about each one? I’m grateful you’re here on this step with me. I come back here each week to meet you and continue on this pilgrim mage together. You help me appreciate each step – whether it’s painful, sweet, messy, or easy… here we are. Dr. King said, “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.” And I’ll paraphrase Henry David Thoreau, “The price of anything is the amount of life you pay for it.” What are you buying with your life? If you feel stuck and stagnant, maybe it’s time to take a step. If you don’t know which way to go, or what step to take, move toward joy. Make just one step that direction. Even if it’s the simplest thing. Make a small step, look around, locate joy, and make another step. That Jeep I told you about? It turns out it wasn’t the Jeep that represented Joy for me. I liked the feeling of being admired and loved by others… remember… the great hair blowing in the wind, people noticing, starting a movement. I’ve since learned that my joy has to do with community. (whispers, “that’s you”), so drop me a line sometime. Especially if you want to take me for a ride in your Jeep 😉

Hands writing while covered in messy rainbow paint

Last Chance? Don’t wait to create begin.

Do you want to know what Maya Angelou, the great poet, says about you? She said, “…we are all created creative and we can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.” Did you hear that? Maya Angelou, one of the greatest minds of all time, Poet Laureate of the United States, says that YOU are creative! Do you think she meant it? Do you think she meant me too?! One of my favorite songs about this comes from a Unitarian Universalist singer songwriter named Jim Scott. May your life be as a song, Resounding with the dawn, to sing awake the light. And softly serenade the stars, Ever dancing circles in the night. My friend, what Jim wrote about in those lyrics has already happened. If you turn around the lyrics from a wish – May your life be as a song – to a statement of fact, you might see what I mean. The topic for this step of our time together is creativity, the creator or source of creation in you. A friend of mine has a father that spent over 30 years getting up in the darkness so that he could drive almost an hour to his job in a factory, then get off work in time to drive home and spend some time with his family and friends and do still MORE work around the house and his small farm. I’ve never told my friend this, but I’ve always thought of his dad as a master – cultivating and curating the life that he wanted in the way he wanted it. Like a work of art that I’ll never be able to make. I was recently listening to a great podcast about creative entrepreneurship – it’s called the fizzle show and in this particular episode, they were talking about how creative types can get stuck or blocked trying to make something. I instantly thought – HA! And you think it’s only artists or people who think of themselves as “Creatives” who suffer from this? As I listened, I was both excited and frustrated – part of me was screaming WE ARE ALL CREATING something – All the time! Sure, people who think of themselves as artists, writers, painters, or whatnot have a tidy measuring stick for what they do – did I paint today? Did I write today? Did I create something? But I feel like what was missed – and frankly what *I* miss too often is what Maya Angelou was getting at. From the time we are born to the time we die, everything we do is an act of creation. I had to look this up: as of 2016, according to the World Health Organization, folks live for an average of 72 years. That’s 37,869,120 minutes…. each one is like a brush stroke on a canvas. Sure, I can say, “Oh, I’m not being creative today. Thursday is my day to write. Today, I have to wash the car, pick up the kids from school, and call my brother.” But in truth, when you die, your obituary is going to talk about the painting you made over the course of your life. It’s going to include the mess-ups and the victories. It’s going to include what you said to your kids when you picked them up from school. It’ll include how you called your sister – or didn’t. All of it is a part of the life we’re creating every minute…. and yes, the sparkly Instagram moments count – but so do the trollish things we say and do. What are you creating? How are you creating it? If you think of your life as a bottle of ink, what letters are you writing? The possibilities are infinite. The supply of ink, however, is limited. What are you waiting to do that you want on your life’s canvas? The ink in your bottle is leaving little by little. You’re writing with it every minute. You are creating something. Is it what you want to create? Let me put it another way: Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.” Friend YOU ARE CREATIVE. You cannot help it. What are you creating? What’s worth more than anything to you? What kind of creative extremist are you just born to be? The world needs you now. Your audience is waiting for you, listening for you, watching for you. May you be a loving, radical, extremist. May you unleash whatever it is you’re here to unleash on the world. Whether it is something you think is art or not, get out there and sculpt the world that’s in front of you. Let yourself be amazed by something. Make a scene. Let yourself laugh out loud, or cry. Sing a new song, or an old one in a new way. May your life be as a song, Resounding with the dawn to sing awake the light. And softly serenade the stars, Ever dancing circles in the night.

Don’t Forget this Advice from the Buddha

This entry is part 11 of 33 in the series 99: a journey

Have you ever heard the saying, “there are no mistakes.” Or put another way, “there’s a reason for everything.” I’m of two minds when it comes to this episode’s theme, which is, the all-powerful force that puts you in a certain place at a certain time, and has you facing whatever it is that you’re facing. I’ll be honest. Sometimes these words have been comforting to me. As I face the loss of a job or an unexpected hardship, telling myself that “everything happens for a reason” takes me off the hook a little bit and allows me to relax. After all, I’m a big fan of Taoist and Hindu beliefs that (I think), encourage me to relax and not fight so much against what’s happening, but to find a way to work WITH the flow of things. Maybe not give up, but to find some sense of harmony in what’s going on – like swimming with a river instead of against it. Here’s where I have trouble with this though. There are no mistakes. How do I tell that to a starving child? How do I tell that to a victim of abuse? The truth is, sometimes religion and philosophy and sayings like this are luxuries that some people have the privilege of relying on, while others, well, let’s just say that if there’s a reason for starving children, it isn’t good enough. What is it that puts us on this path, in this place and time knowing which way to go? What is it that allows me to get up and face a day that I don’t know how to face? Is it courage? God? Is it some inner sense or instinct? If you can’t tell, I’m really wrestling this week with the hypocrisy I feel in mainstream culture… things like the law of attraction, and all the spirituality practitioners out there (I’m one, by the way), prosperity gospel, fake it till you make it, and so on. As I was writing this episode – on a nice laptop, in my comfortable home, with warm, dry clothes on and fast internet, I couldn’t help but think of – for how many people – these things are luxuries. In fact, what good is a laptop or fast internet if you can’t get enough to eat or you don’t know where you’re going to sleep that night. I know this may not be easy to listen to – I understand – if you just need to be supported and lifted up, maybe it’s better to go to a different episode where I do that. Right now, though, I want to ask you to consider your own power. If you’re anything like me, you question yourself and you struggle sometimes. You might wonder about your place in the world, or your soul’s purpose, and you might feel lonely, or disconnected, or need comfort. It helps me to remember that everyone needs love and comfort sometimes, and that love and comfort can look different to different people. If you’re feeling down or need comfort, may you be comforted—AND may we both be reminded of our own privilege as well. Maybe the thing that will comfort me is to go help someone else. The Buddha – Siddharta Gautama is purported to have said, “Those who have failed to work toward the truth have missed the purpose of living.” So here we are. Working toward the truth. What happens when the truth isn’t what we’d hope? What happens when it isn’t all unicorns and rainbows? What happens when we have our eyes opened and suddenly wish they’d close again – but there are some things that you cannot un-see? I think that’s just it. This week, I cannot unsee the hunger. I cannot unsee the injustice. I cannot unsee the suffering. What is even more uncomfortable to me is that as a straight, white man, I stand on the shoulders (or backs) of so many. I’ve suffered, sure, and I’ve worked hard, but the truth is, others who suffer more and work even harder will never have the opportunities I do. I don’t feel guilty for my opportunities, but, friend, my eyes have been opened. If anything, I want to work even harder to let you know that you are not alone. I have no idea what challenges you face, what battles you’ve fought just to be here, but I honor you for being here. Whatever all-powerful force has put me in this place and given me the challenges I face, I’m feeling called to share it with you. Be strengthened and built up so that you can do that for someone else, and they can do it for someone else. Maybe everything does happen for a reason. Maybe there really ARE no mistakes – or maybe mistakes happen all the time, and there are others of us who’ve been given what it takes to pick up the pieces – and we’re just not. May we do better. May we move forward knowing that we’re part of something much bigger than ourselves, and that the world is counting on each of us. 99: a journey Aspire to Kindness like Dumbledore Weird—You Only Have to Ask!

Prolificate Interview: Immigration expert Dr. Hugo Cordova Quero

As we talked, I couldn’t help but imagine myself in the situations he described, wondering what I would do. How I would react in the same situations.

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Race & Ethnicity: our Favorite Fairytales

This entry is part 3 of 5 in the series Immigration

What is race? What is ethnicity? The photo above provides the perfect opening to this story. Is the woman in the photo White? Latina? Middle Eastern? If you don’t know her, her name is Nimrata Randhawa, now known as “Nikki” Haley — daughter of Sikh immigrants from India and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Ms. Haley is considered by some to be the consummate American success story—self-made, politically conservative, and white. If we look deeper, though, the things we tell ourselves about race and ethnicity aren’t quite so neat and tidy. Photo credit: Wikipedia As before in this series, I am curious about both the apparent stories as well as the hidden ones. As I sit with the questions above, I can feel myself heading down one of two paths. Having to decide, I am reminded of words from the sage and prophet Yogi Berra who once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, you should take it.” And so, not being sure what that actually means, I will attempt to explore both paths. Everyone knows what race is, right? Race is the part of humans that makes us different from each other… but different in a group. Black is an example of a race. Members of the black race share certain traits like skin color, eye color, texture of hair, and athletic ability. Wait. That’s actually not true. Those are just traits that come to mind immediately because they’re part of the surface story. Digressing for a moment, this is why I have come to view surface stories with suspicion – or at least not be lazy and do the work needed to make a decision. Black, White, Asian – all are stories more than they are races. If I take a moment to look beyond the surface story, I know that the hidden story (or not-so-hidden, actually) is that there is no reliable definition of any race. In fact, hair and eye color, and skin and physical characteristics are more accurately called phenotype and even within what some might call a race, there are many different phenotypes. Being lazy lets me classify people by race. The moment I cease being lazy, though, and start exploring those classifications, I see how they begin to fall apart. Is a person with dark skin black? What about a person with light brown skin? What effect does the language they speak have? Are they still black if they speak English with a British accent? If they speak Spanish? If they speak Japanese? Is a person with light skin white? How light does the skin have to be? What about a person with a skin condition that makes their skin light, but they have curly hair and a broad nose? At one time, the Irish ancestors I almost certainly have weren’t considered white. Now they are. Which is correct? Paraphrased from Dictionary.com: race noun a socially constructed category of identification based on physical characteristics, ancestry, historical affiliation, or shared culture: What about ethnicity? ethnicity [eth-nis-i-tee] noun, plural ethnicities. an ethnic group; a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like ethnic traits, background, allegiance, or association: Reading the above definitions, I sense some ambiguity and overlap. That’s because race isn’t real. Race is a story – a narrative – constructed and told by human beings with different motivations and needs over time. What becomes interesting is when we start to confuse these stories. Immigration does that. When entire groups of people move from one culture to another, they often disrupt the narratives that worked so comfortably before. Dominicans who migrate to New York offer an example of this. Are they Black? Are they Hispanic? If they happen to speak English and have light skin tone, does that mean they are White? The needs of the original societies (pre-immigration) produced some narratives. It is those needs that interest me more than the narratives. Do we need to belong to a group? Why? What is it about being human that puts us in need of relationship? In order to belong to a group – something I can call “us” – there must be a “not us,” no? In religious studies, we call this approach apophasis – defining God in terms of what God is not. By establishing that God is not cruel, or not male, or not weak, I begin to get a picture of what remains and therefore must be God. In similar apophatic terms, I offer that race is one way to tell a story about who is not us so that we can get to the business of creating a story about who is us. To understand complicated narratives like race and ethnicity, we have to begin by understanding the characters in them. Race and ethnicity are ready-made stories that provide a sort of framework into which I can insert myself and try to make sense of the world. The danger, is that those ready-made stories are deeply flawed and cause more problems than they solve. What if there were a way to make sense of the world some other way? In the next installment, we’ll explore another concept that trys to do that, and is also fraught with as much uncertainty. Religion. Immigration Immigrant or expat? It’s about power. Why do Immigrants bring their religion with them?

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Immigrant or expat? It’s about power.

This entry is part 2 of 5 in the series Immigration

Immigration Series: Part II In the previous post, I talked about the word immigrant as a label for people who move into a country or place. Like all language, ours contains subtlety and nuance. Use of the word immigrant, though it may seem straightforward, implies a certain set of assumptions though, no? Hearing a sentence like: “Jessica was interested in issues of immigrant rights” or “The immigrants came and took our jobs,” one can pretty readily make certain guesses about context – about what kind of person Jessica might be, or what the worldview of the person making the second statement might be. As I mentioned in the previous post, I love a good hidden story. What one sees on the surface might be interesting or a curiosity, but looking deeper is where one finds the thrilling, the motivating, and the real story – the hidden one. In this case, I want to talk about power. Who has it? What are they doing with it? How does power influence or color or shade the ways that people perceive the world? I offer one word for your consideration: Expat. Expatriate. Wait, does that count as two words? Never mind. I, the author, having control of this particular narrative, can do whatever I damned-well please and I say it is one word. See there? It’s about power. expatriate adjective (ɛksˈpætrɪɪt ; -ˌeɪt) resident in a foreign country exiled or banished from one’s native country: an expatriate American noun (ɛksˈpætrɪɪt ; -ˌeɪt) a person who lives in a foreign country Do you know what the difference between an expat and an immigrant is? immigrant noun [im-i-gruh nt] a person who migrates to another country, usually for permanent residence. an organism found in a new habitat. adjective of or relating to immigrants and immigration: a department for immigrant affairs. As decided unilaterally by me, an expat is white, speaks English as a primary language, and has (or is assumed to have) a certain amount of wealth at his disposal (yes, I used the masculine because an expat is likely a man). Expat (or expatriate) is a label one might choose for oneself to connote privilege – to imply a degree of choice in one’s situation. An immigrant is likely brown (or other-than-white) skinned, speaks a non-English primary language, is presumed to have less money and therefore less choice about where to live. As you see from the definitions above (gleaned from the academically rigorous dictionary.com), an immigrant can also be an organism found in a new habitat. I’m unaware of any expat organisms, but there must be some in existence. They’re likely multi-celled complex organisms, highly-evolved, and Harvard, Yale, or Cambridge-educated, as opposed to the single-celled, more helpless types found in immigrant organism communities. Because I love a good hidden story, I have particularly enjoyed unpacking these particulars, as I do find the nuance of language useful (if painful). Power, the hidden story behind this post has such an impact on the ways we view the immigrant narrative. At this point in human history on earth, power is fairly concentrated in the hands of a relative few people. Whatever you think is the intent behind that concentration, its effect has been to characterize the world in a hierarchy of wealth & privilege with countries in the Global North – and particularly the North Atlantic at the top. As those powers fought each other for primacy, they colonized the rest of the world. A meta-narrative emerged to support this system – this way of seeing the world, and we are the living legacy of that colonization. The narrative is still in place, serving as a kind of lens through which we experience the world and our global culture is deeply influenced by it. As I write this, I find myself wondering if (or how) this narrative serves us. Was it useful at one time to assume that there should be this hierarchy of wealth and privilege? Is it useful today? Are there other narratives in which power plays a different role – and how might different narratives serve us? Though I sometimes (attempt to) use humor as a tool because I believe that stories are like bread – they need leavening, there is nothing funny about human suffering. Any time someone has power over, then it is incumbent upon that person to use care in exercise of that power. May we be mindful of the ways in which we have power over someone. May we use that power in service of those without it. As I sit with questions of power from this week, my mind looks ahead to two more concepts: Race and ethnicity. Immigration “Immigrant”: What’s in a name? Race & Ethnicity: our Favorite Fairytales

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“Immigrant”: What’s in a name?

This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series Immigration

This is the first in a 5-part series about immigration: the issue, and the very real human stories behind that issue. Inspired by work in a course called Promised Lands and Immigrants for my Master of Divinity degree at Starr King School for Ministry, I wanted to engage further with this subject. Today, I’d like to unpack the basics. I’ll explore why we choose to use the label immigrant. After all, who exactly is an immigrant but a person who chooses (or is forced) to relocate from one place *into* another. I use the awkward phrasing *into* because immigrant translates from the Latin meaning specifically “to move (migrate) in” to a place. Thinking in terms of who might assign this label to someone (and why) can become an enlightening exercise. Explicitly speaking, someone could call themselves an immigrant, though at least in the United States, one would be hard-pressed to imagine this happening. If I moved from Hungary to the U.S., I could imagine thinking of myself as a dozen things: a Hungarian, a European, a poet, a husband, or a doctor, but “immigrant?” Probably not. Implicitly speaking, though, we begin to understand the multiple layers at play here. While someone may be technically an immigrant, there is likely little motivation for them to think of themselves as such. It’s more likely that someone in the host society – on the receiving end of this move between countries or cultures – would use a word like immigrant to categorize a person. When we use labels for people, it makes it easier for us to make sense of the world. The world is complicated, right? My human brain needs to know if someone is a friend or foe, if they represent competition for scarce resources like food or jobs. I want to know if they are the much-needed help I’ve been desperate for if there aren’t enough hands to do the work that needs to be done. Emigrants are leaving. Immigrants are coming. What is of less concern is that both are people. People emigrating. People immigrating. What’s interesting to me is the hidden story. Why do we need words like immigrant? We already have words for people. Why not just use names? (Bill is moving here, or Oichi is coming) or labels like families, or Catholics, or farmers? The obvious story is that there must be something significant about the combination of a 1) person doing this 2): thing – moving between cultures – that is SO SIGNIFICANT that it becomes important to identify them solely in terms of what they are doing. Can you think of a time when you have been labeled by someone in these terms (by an action you have taken, or a choice you have made)? Have you been a conscientious objector? A voter? A volunteer? Perhaps the most common example I can think of is associating our label – our identity – with our work. I am a banker, or a landscaper, for instance. Those are often self-assigned labels, chosen for whatever reason, but typically ones that provide some positive sense of identity. What fascinates me is this notion that immigrant is a label often assigned by someone else. Labels: They help us understand the world in terms of our personal narrative – a story we each tell ourselves about how the world works and why things are the way they are. There is also a larger meta-narrative that is woven together into a tapestry we call culture.The issue of who controls that meta-narrative depends on who has the power in a given situation. It is that power dynamic that we will talk about next. For now, I hope I have given you some food for thought and questioning – if only a little – about labels, about the human desires that cause us to move ourselves great distances and at great hardship, and about power – who has it, how is it being used, and what effect that has on us all. Behind the obvious story is often a hidden one. Immigration Immigrant or expat? It’s about power.

“So, what do you do?” I HATE that question…Or do I love it?

I just quit my job. A perfectly good one. In fact, a really great one for a really great company. See, every five or so years, I do this. I change jobs. Like clockwork. When I was in my teens and twenties (a hundred years ago), the job would usually change FOR me (I would get fired). More recently, I’ve learned to recognize when something isn’t the right fit anymore and I move on before I wear out my welcome. I haven’t always known why, but I have always moved through experiences like chapters in a book. Like clockwork, I’ve found my next something and taken to it with all the passion of a new lover — eager to learn how this new skill or experience smells and tastes; what makes it unique and special. Because of my insatiable thirst for learning a new something, I have found myself often looking for a master under which to apprentice, and then immersing completely in that new something –– drinking in every detail, and asking whyuntil one or both of us were exhausted by teaching & learning. This process feels familiar each time, yet exciting and new as I progress from eager student to apprentice to journeyman. Sometimes I make it to expert. Most times I don’t. One thing is certain though: If I stay beyond this point, I begin to get anxious and feel like I am in a rut. An increasingly insistent inner voice keeps saying that there are other topics to absorb and life is fleeting. If I stay too long, I find myself casting longing glances over the shoulder of my chosen somethingat another seemingly more alluring one. Every time, though, I’ve come away enriched by these experiences. Twenty years ago, I was worried that there was something wrong with me. Fast forward to today and I understand that there’s nothing wrong, its just that I’m not cut out to specializein one thing. Not to toot my own horn, but I’m good at all kinds of things. There’s a good chance that you are too – if you’re a Polymath. This is a new term to me, but it means someone who is good at many things. [Greek: poly (many) + manthanein (to learn)]. It is important to note that there is always someone smarter than the Polymath at a given subject. The specialistis the other extreme – spending long periods of time, sometimes an entire life – developing and curating a deep knowledge of a given discipline. I have the ultimate respect for specialists. They are what I can never be. Let me try to provide you some color and context: I can write fairly well, though I have lots to learn. I can communicate — REALLY connect — with a ridiculously wide array of people. I learn languages (and even accents) well. I love to learn. I love to immerse myself in new experiences and imagine what it must be like to live someone else’s existence, yet make it myexistence. I learned, or taught myself how to setup and maintain computer networks, write code for websites, pick locks, crack safes, and decipher complex financial statements. I learned how to weld, how to do plumbing and electrical work. I can coach and motivate teams of highly successful salespeople, rappel down the face of a cliff, sail a sloop, and rebuild a car engine. I qualified as an expert marksman with my M16A2 assault rifle and can shear sheep pretty well. Because I’ve tried to exist and conform in a society that expects you to specialize in something (remember that cocktail party question: So, what do you do?),I’ve stayed in and around business and finance for the better part of 20 years. As a result, my disparate collection of knowledge lines up heavily around subjects like finance, organizational development, strategy, and finding efficiencies in operations. Back to the I just quit my job part. One other thing I’ve always been comfortable with is risk. It’s not that I have a masochistic need to inflict poor credit ratings and ramen noodles on myself. Quite the contrary. I always hope for the best each time I take a leap of faith out the nearest window. I’ve mostly been rewarded with positive results, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t scary. Part of this particular leap of faith is writing a book about what I’ve learned – at least in the context of how to help you turn dreaming into doing(I don’t suppose there’s a huge audience awaiting my book about sheep shearing!). In this process, I hope to start conversations and make connections that lead to the next chapter on my path. Is your idea part of that path? I look forward to learning more about the concept of the Polymath (a.k.a. the Renaissance Man or the Generalist). Now that I know that it is a thing, I feel much better. Can you hear it now? “So, what do you do?” “I’m a Polymath” “Wow, that sounds really boring. Sorry, but I hate math. More wine?” Here’s a TEDx talk about Polymaths