Yes, and...

Let’s imagine that two people - let’s call them Jess and Stef - are having a conversation at the juice bar downtown.

One turns and says to the other, “So what are we doing tonight?”

This story can play out in two ways. Let’s take a look at the first.

“We should go to the movies. No, but I get antsy trying to sit through a full movie. We should go to the mall. No, but I don’t like shopping. We should go mountain biking. No, but I don’t like getting my pants dirty. We should go swimming. No, but I don’t like getting my hair wet. We should go to a concert. No, but I don’t really like big crowds.”

Now, let’s take a look at the second.

“We should go to the movies. Yes, and we should get some popcorn before the movie starts. We should go to Johnny Rockets to get milkshakes after the movies. Yes, and we should paint a giant ketchup face in the middle of the intersection outside of the restaurant. We should probably head to the airport after Johnny Rockets. Yes, and we should buy some plane tickets to Barcelona. We should leave tonight. Yes, and…”

So why did these two conversations, which both started with the idea of going to the movies, end up in such different places? In the first scenario, when Jess presented suggestions to Stef, Stef constantly shut her down. So the conversation essentially went nowhere. A few minutes passed with them going at each other, and they just ended up right back where they started. In the second scenario, when Jess presented suggestions to Stef, Stef couldn’t say no. With the option of shutting Jess down taken off the table, Stef was forced to build on Jess’s suggestions rather than always playing defense and thinking of any possible reason to shut her down.

As we find ourselves in the midst of conversations like these in our everyday lives, we have a tendency to be incredibly closed-minded. When a stranger turns to talk to us on a train platform, or a friend asks us to do something out of our comfort zones, our first instinct is to shut him or her down. Sometimes, we don’t even give ourselves the chance to sufficiently ponder over the option that they’ve presented us with before we spit out a cold, hard, NO. We live on the defense, with our guards up, always willing and ready to shut each other down, instead of building on the people and stories around us.

But what if we didn’t? What if shutting an idea down wasn’t an option, and you had to take what someone said to you and run with it?

As an actor, one of the primary rules in existing in different environments on stage is that we’re not allowed to shut another character down. Particularly when working on improvisation, actors must live and breath the idea of building off our co-actors and moving the scene along with ‘yes, and…’ instead of bringing the scene to a screeching halt by saying ‘no, but…’  In scripted stage productions, while the lines are well-rehearsed and drawn out for us, we still must maintain the same mindset to ensure we are not preempting our lines and are listening to the co-actor who speaks before us. If a co-actor accidentally drops a line or skips over an entire segment of text, we must be listening closely enough that we can deviate from the script and build off of what the character is saying in an imaginative, yet believable manner.

Imagine what would happen if you were sitting in the audience of a show, proceeded to see an actor forget his line, and saw the co-actor on stage with him turn to him and say “dude, that’s not your line…’ Not only would this break the fourth wall and take away some of the magic, but it would also go against everything we know about our role as audience members. When we sit down to watch actors perform for us on stage, we expect to be taken along on a journey, to be brought into a story that may take twists and turns to end up in any which way. We suspend our disbelief, and we expect actors to let the story take them where it must so that we are all jointly brought along for the ride.

If we so readily expect performers to build off of each other and refrain from shutting each other down, how is it that we have become so quick to shut people down in our own lives, rather than digesting their ideas and suggestions and building on them? As an actor, you are repeatedly told that acting is primarily about reacting as opposed to acting. Even if we say a line at the proper time in the show, the magic is lost if we spent the prior moment pondering over our next line in our head, as opposed to appropriately reacting to the actor who has spoken before us. In order to create the magic that comes with watching a play or movie unfold, actors must learn to build off one another, and to embrace the idea of letting go and being open to going anywhere that the story may take us.

Often times, we are so quick to act in our lives and to jump on our premeditated responses, that we don’t give ourselves the time to appropriately digest what other people are saying to us. We don’t react appropriately. Instead of listening to them, we spit out some preformulated reply without giving ourselves sufficient time to even consider their offer. While the conversation presented at the onset of this piece is sufficiently an exaggeration, its intent is twofold: to demonstrate how different conversations and scenarios can be from one another when we are open to listening and building off one another instead of shutting each other down, and to demonstrate how ridiculous our overuse of the word ‘no, but…’ sounds to a third party observer.

By being open to the ideas of those around us and consciously listening to what others have to say, not only are we setting ourselves up for a much more riveting night out, but we are also giving ourselves the chance to think about what we want to do and how to respond, rather than acting based upon how we have been programmed to respond.

So, here’s a little game for you.

As you go through your various conversations today (both as an observer and as a participant), I urge you to think like an actor. For just one day, imagine that you physically don’t have the capability to shut someone down, or to use the word no. When someone talks to you, don’t go on autopilot and blurt out the first thing that comes out of your mouth. Listen to what they have to say, bring the idea into consciousness, and formulate a reply in the affirmative. You can pivot the conversation, but every time you reply to someone, it needs to start with some iteration of ‘yes, and…’ instead of ‘no, but…’ It may feel a bit ridiculous at first, but I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised where the elimination of this one small word from your vocabulary may take you.

Besides, would it really be so bad if you spent your Monday night en route to Barcelona?

Maybe You're Not Crazy After All

Who designed this chair? It’s one of the most uncomfortable chairs I’ve ever sat in – and they claim to be a five star restaurant? There has to be a better way to make this. Did I finish that paper I was working on? I thought I did but I think I may have gotten distracted and forgotten to submit it.  The line of people waiting to be seated is making the dining area entirely claustrophobic – isn’t there a better way to structure the flow of seating? I feel like these people are standing on top of me. And I can literally hear everyone’s conversations at the tables around me. I can’t even focus on what this guy is saying.  Did I unplug my curling iron this morning? I hope it’s still not plugged into the wall. I really need to stop doing that. Why is he wearing that shirt? This is supposed to be a business meeting.  I wish business meetings didn’t have to be so stuffy.  If only every business meeting could be over ice cream sundaes, or maybe over bowling, or I’ve always wanted to have a meeting on one of those yachts that I saw in that movie one time.  He has green stuff in his teeth – am I supposed to say something about that? Hmm, better not. I’ll stick to the salmon just in case.  I wouldn’t want my teeth looking like that when I stand up to talk.  I’m so late.  There goes another one down the drain. I should really stop making three sets of plans in one night.  Should I get up and leave? It’s probably okay, right? I mean, I’ve been here for three hours – how much of my time do they really deserve? What excuse should I use this time – keep it vague or go specific?  This silverware is terrible.  My rice keeps falling through the holes in my fork, and I feel like a child eating it with a spoon.  I think it’s time I try to innovate on silverware – I mean, we’ve had the same three utensils for how long now? What were we talking about again? Oh, right – sales figures of some sort.  Let me flip through the presentation real quickly on my lap. Or did I leave it in my other bag? Am I supposed to travel tomorrow, or was that next week? If only I could find my calendar.  That’s a terrible idea.  I don’t understand why we’ve been talking about this for forty minutes.  We could have accomplished this in ten. Focus, Jenna, focus. Look at the person in front of you, and control your mind – control your thoughts.  Finish what you need to and flesh out your ideas later. Or maybe I should just jot them down on my napkin really quickly, because I might forget.  I doubt anyone will even notice.

Whether at a business meeting, dinner, a movie, or an event – these are usually the types of nonlinear thoughts that are flowing through my mind.  I can’t help it – it’s how I’ve always been. Since the time I was little, my mind has always gone to crazy places, and the gears are always turning.  As I started to get older, I began to wonder if everyone thought like this, if all people sat down for a meeting, starting out talking about revenue figures and then went to the beaches of Santorini, to analyzing the person at the table’s wardrobe choices, to brainstorming ways to make the table they're sitting at less shaky or the pen they're writing with stop smudging on their paper, all before the presentation is over.  When I came to realize that not everyone’s minds went to the imaginative lengths that mine did, I started to wonder if I was somehow ‘broken.’ 

I had never met anyone who noticeably had a mind quite like mine, until I crossed paths with an entrepreneur who had recently come to New York to scale a company he had started in Cleveland.  For as long as I can remember, I always wondered if I was the only one whose mind went to ten different places and back again all in the midst of maintaining a conversation about the movie that I saw last weekend; but when he started taking momentary pauses in the middle of dinner to write down the ideas that would come to him, I began to see that his mind was a lot like mine – spinning in circles and jumping from one place to the next in a nonlinear fashion.  Seeing the way that his mind worked in action simultaneously scared me and excited me, as nobody else’s way of thinking had so closely resembled my own.  Maybe I wasn’t crazy after all - maybe I was just ‘different.’ Or maybe we were both crazy, and our wandering minds would begin to feed off each other, stretching our imaginations to new limits.

His mind fascinated me – not only because it was the closest I had ever found to one that resembled my own, but because in many ways, he was even more divergent than I was.  In a midst of minutes, even seconds, he can rattle off ideas left and right – identifying countless problems over one dinner.  After all of the years that I had spent trying to mask my divergence to try to fall in line with the system, I couldn’t help but wonder how powerful my mind could really be if I started surrounding myself with people more like him - if I learned how to fully capitalize on my ability to think differently rather than trying to cover it up.

After meeting more and more entrepreneurs whose minds were somewhat similar to mine, I began to realize that I’m not broken, but simply different. Fitting in has always been hard for me; I always want to do things differently, to find a better way rather than accepting the conventions that society has placed upon me.  I used to wonder if thinking in this way was problematic, in fear that I would never be 'normal' or fit in.  But why fit in when you were born to stand out?  Though it may take a while to find your ‘group,’ to find those people who you can sit around a table with and feel like in many ways, you’re looking at a reflection of yourself – they’re out there.  You just need to keep looking – for people to collaborate with, for people to support you, and for people who can help you to channel your divergence into new ideas and products rather than encouraging you to fall in line with everyone else, when maybe you were never meant to be in that line altogether.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

You’re decadent. You’re timeless. You’re authentic. You’re brave. You're beautiful. You’re unique. You’re intelligent. You're independent. You’re one of a kind. 

So you’re not perfect – but who is?  So you have flaws – but who doesn’t?

Any man or woman would be lucky to hold you in their arms. Any manager would be thrilled to have you working alongside of them. 

When confronted with a challenge, you don’t just survive it - you own it.  When you walk into a room, you turn heads. When you open your mouth to speak, the room goes silent and everybody listens. When you smile, you smile not just with your lips, but with your eyes. When you want something, you let nothing and nobody stand in your way until you get it.

You’re unstoppable. You’re a powerhouse. You don’t take no for an answer.  You don’t let other people dictate your state of mind.  You command the situation.  You don’t push off what you’re most afraid of.  You embrace the challenge. You don’t play it safe. You live dangerously.

You fight for what you believe in.  You don’t let people walk all over you.  You’re not afraid of failure.  You’re not afraid of falling flat on your face if it means getting one step closer to what you’ve always wanted.  You’re not afraid of what others might think – because your opinion is the only one that matters.

You’re a force to be reckoned with.  You’re a leader, not a follower. You don’t follow rules. You define them.  You don’t surrender. You fight.  You don’t hide in the shadows. You step up to the plate and face your biggest fears. You color outside of the lines. You wander into uncharted territory. You’re not afraid to risk it all if it means maybe getting everything.

You can do anything. This world is full of color, and opportunity, and surprises.  When you walk into a room and imagine that everyone is staring at you, waiting for you to fall flat on your face – you need to turn around, look into the mirror, and come to realize that the only one holding you back is yourself.  Because all of the people who you think are looking at you, are not really looking at you, because they’re thinking the same thing that you are, and they are equally fixated on themselves.

If you look in the mirror and see a champion, you’re going to win. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, or the next day – but someday. We all strive for things that we think society rewards - like beauty, and intelligence, and drive – but in reality, they all come from within.  You alone hold the key to the world you want to live in.  There is no better time to be the person, that deep down, you’ve always known you could be.  So look yourself in the eyes, admire the person staring back at you, and tell yourself, that against all odds – you’re the one. 

No, but what do you really want?

When I was a little girl, people would always ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  And you know what I would tell them?  “I want to be an ice cream truck driver.”  While most of the other kids would say they wanted to be firefighters, doctors, or lawyers, I had this vision of riding around in a shiny pink truck covered in neon flowers, as I would put smiles on all of the children’s faces as I made them rainbow snow cones on a hot summer day.  I wouldn’t have the classical ice cream truck music playing; instead, I would have dance party music blaring from the speakers, and fluffy pink boas lining the windshield.  When all of the children in town would hear my music, they would come running out of their houses, pulling their parents by the hand as they raced to the front of the ice cream truck line.  What could possibly be a better job than that?  Life was simple back then – eating ice cream made me happy, and I couldn’t imagine anything better than surrounding myself with tubs and tubs of ice cream that I could share with other people to make them happy too.

While I no longer want to be an ice cream truck driver and would now tend to choose the chic black convertible over the shiny pink truck, I have never lost sight of the power of a simple action to change someone’s day, their weekend, or their life.  But in the midst of making countless children happy as they would drip SpongeBob ice pops down their pressed school uniforms, it is inevitable that even at age five, one of my underlying motivations for wanting to become an ice cream truck driver was that I would get as much ice cream as I wanted for myself.  It was a simple formula – I loved ice cream, I wanted as much of it as possible, and I would do whatever it took to make that fantasy a reality. 

Even at a young age, I realized something that I hated to admit, yet knew all too well was the reality – that no matter what I might say to try to convince people otherwise, that underneath all of the pink fluffy boas and desire to do good, that it really was all about me.  While it is an amazing feeling to change the lives of those around you, the true motivation underlying why we wake up each morning, eager to start working recklessly towards our goals is inevitably tied to what we want to get out of it.  It has to be. Otherwise, we might as well kick our feet up and let the guy next to us pick his brain about how he can create the next big thing.

As time passed, the social expectations that I was immune to as a child started to come into play, and I no longer felt it was socially acceptable to live in a state of ignorant bliss.  Deep down, I think that I always knew what really motivated me to work as hard as I did, but in many ways, I reached a point where I was too afraid that people would look down upon me if I was to admit what I really wanted.  So instead, I learned to sugarcoat things – to give a ‘political’ response when asked what I really wanted – to appear selfless and put the well-being of others before my own.  As much as I wished that I could be as compassionate as I appeared while giving my fabricated responses when speaking on panels and chatting with guests at dinner parties, I knew that there was a disconnect between what I was preaching to the choir and what was in my heart.

While there are undoubtedly times when I think it is beneficial to refrain from telling the whole truth when speaking to an audience, there is one person that you should never deceive (no exceptions) – and that is yourself.  The first step in achieving personal and professional success is to take the time to understand what it is that you really want.  What drives you to push your mind and body to unspeakable limits to accomplish the goals that you’ve written on the post-it note on your desk, or in the journal that you keep under your pillow?  What is in your individual pot of gold at the end of the tunnel?  What would winning in your lifetime really look like?  If you are not able to clearly identify and admit to your selfish motivations, then you are not going to feel fulfilled when you reach different milestones along the way. 

If you are truly putting yourself on the line and working effortlessly towards the deepest wants in your heart and mind, you should feel vulnerable every single day – excited by the wins, motivated by the losses, and intrigued by what is yet to come.  If what you do each day does not make you feel alive, it is highly likely that you are working towards achieving someone else’s dream, rather than working towards your own.  If this is the case, there is likely a disconnect between what you really want and your daily actions.  This disconnect can stem from a few different places: either you are not being honest with yourself about your true selfish motivations, you don’t fully understand what you really want, or you are afraid that you might appear to be a ‘bad’ person if you show the world what lights a fire in your belly.

While there was a period in my life when I was initially unsure of what it was that I really wanted, I think that over time, it was mainly fear that was holding me back from embracing my selfish motivations.  I was afraid that in many ways, if I was to admit to myself that I was driven by things that I claimed to look down upon (such as money, power, and status) that it would somehow make me a bad person.  But I realized that the first step in feeling a new level of personal fulfillment was to be honest with myself, and to accept myself for who I really was and what I wanted.  After coming to terms with the things that truly motivated me, I didn’t know what to make of it.  Over time, I realized that my day-to-day actions were not aligned with my true selfish motivations, and that I needed to make some significant personal and professional transitions in order to set me on a path that would allow me to achieve those long-term goals. 

Once I found it within myself to admit to what I really wanted, I finally worked up the courage to share my true motivations and aspirations with one of the people who I respect most in my life. While I was somewhat relieved that I was finally beginning to understand what I really wanted, I was nervous that once he (in addition to many others) learned these things about me, that they would think of me differently – that in many ways, everything that they had come to like about me would be nullified by motivations that were seemingly less pure on paper.  He seemed so humble and outwardly kind, that I was afraid that he might not respect me as much if he saw the raw and unedited version of my desires. But after sharing some of my selfish motivations with a self-acceptance that his opinions of me could absolutely change, he came to show me that admitting to being driven by things like money, power, and status didn’t make me a bad person, but rather an honest person. 

While I initially felt that because I had these selfish motivations, I was somehow worse than many of the seemingly kindhearted people around me, he helped me to see that almost everyone desired at least one or two things similar to the motivations that I had.  And while I was afraid that being honest with both myself and those closest to me would somehow push them away, it turned out that coming to terms with who I was and being accepting of what I wanted did quite the opposite –  while some of our underlying motivations and approaches may differ, he showed me that he could ‘respect someone who pursues their own desires passionately more than one who halfheartedly pursues what others will think is right or good.’

I came to see that if someone who I truly respected was accepting of these deeper and ‘darker’ parts of me, that maybe others in my life would be too.  While I don’t think that it is essential to share your personal motivations with everyone in your life, I do think that there are various benefits in sharing your motivations with those who mean the most to you.  Not only will this new level of honesty bring you closer to the people who you share your secrets with, but it will grant them the level of understanding that they need to have in order to help you to achieve your own goals. You deserve people in your life who don’t only tolerate but who celebrate who you are as a person – the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Now all you have left to do is to let them in.

Rather than telling you that you are wrong and trying to change you, they will help you to find your own way.  Your deepest motivations and desires are a big part of what makes you uniquely you, and if you give people that you trust the access to these deeper parts of your heart and mind, I think that while it may make you feel vulnerable, you will be pleasantly surprised by what comes out of it.  While each of us is ultimately our own biggest advocate, there are always people out there working towards the same things you are; and though not everyone will be on your side or be accepting of your true self, the people who truly care about you as a person will always be there to help you to get closer to what it is that, deep down, you really want.

Taking Yourself Public

I definitely go through my phases. But for those of you who know me personally, you can probably attest to the fact that I’m a pretty ‘public’ person.  On a normal day, I wouldn’t be surprised if my achingly long snapchats are constantly lingering at the top of your latest updates, my most recent Facebook photos are flooding your newsfeed, or my latest musings about education policy or innovation and creativity are streaming down your Twitter feed.  And for those of you who don’t know me personally, you can probably get a sense of my outward nature from my willingness to share some pretty personal aspects of my life in some of my previous blog posts. 

You know, the funny thing is, I used to be the complete opposite of the way that I am now.  I absolutely HATED social media, avoided Facebook like the plague, and was reluctant to share any of the intimate details of my personal life with anyone who I hadn’t known since I was a teenager.  I was an incredibly private person, and given that I didn’t live my life in attempt to obtain any source of external validation, I didn’t think there was any value that I could really obtain from putting myself out there and simultaneously exposing myself to the various vulnerabilities that come with ‘taking yourself public.’

When I first started using sites like Facebook and Twitter, I was amused by the fact that in many ways, people’s personal lives became democratic, with the number of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ dictating whose opinions mattered more and who looked shinier in their perfectly edited photos.  After toying with the multiple different social media channels on the market for a few months, I began to wonder what the significance really was in all of this. Did getting 30 likes on a photo instead of 10 really make me an incrementally better person?  Was it supposed to make me somehow feel better about myself or feel more significant if 10 people retweeted my article instead of 5? Because over time, I realized that it didn’t – but maybe that wasn’t what the purpose of these sites were in the first place.

Given how much time our generation spends on the multiple different social media platforms, I think it is extremely important to consistently stop and reevaluate what our individual motivations are in using these platforms in the first place.  While I think that there are various ways that social media can increase our level of personal utility, I don’t think that achieving ‘public validation’ is one of them.  In many ways, social media has tricked our minds into thinking we need instant validation; but the problem with our motivations being aligned with a public response is that our motivations are arguably never going to be fulfilled.  When you consistently start getting 10 likes on your photos, soon you are going to start wanting 20, and 30, and 40, and so on – and while you check your most recent updates every two minutes, waiting for a mass of people (many of whom you are only loosely connected to) to somehow confirm that your life is worthy of public approval, it is never going to be enough.  If you participate in the social media revolution for the primary purpose of seeking external validation, there is a good chance that you are never going to reach the point where you feel entirely fulfilled.

With that said, I do think that there are various benefits that can be obtained from actively utilizing social media – not only as an observer, but also as an active contributor.  Yet, in order to achieve the increase in personal utility that we are looking for through putting ourselves in the public eye, it is important to ensure that our internal motivations for doing so are aligned with the platforms that we are using.  Therefore we can control the way in which we share different aspects of our lives with those in our inner and outer circles, and position ourselves accordingly.  While I enjoy the various social media platforms that I participate in for various reasons, I realized that the channels that have allowed me to seek and obtain intrinsic verse extrinsic validation are those that are adding the most positive value to my life.

I think that many people would argue that, on a personal level, social media is primarily about connection – maintaining and expanding personal and professional networks, seeking feedback on ideas from a wider community of observers, and as a means to stay connected with those whom we might otherwise lose touch with.  However, I think that there is another primary way in which social media can contribute to our personal wellbeing, and that is by providing us with different platforms to explore our deepest thoughts and to serve as a source of stimuli to trigger creativity and innovation.  If we are driven by an intrinsic verse an extrinsic motivation, we are in significantly greater control of the outcome – so no matter how many likes we get on a photo or how many shares we get on a post, we will have achieved what we set out to do through exploring our thoughts and challenging each of us to be our best self.

While I think that there are a variety of reasons that different people allow social media to play such a large role in their lives, the most important thing is not that we align our logic and rationale with that of those around us, but rather that we take the time to analyze why we are individually ‘taking ourselves public’ in the first place, and reevaluating where and how it makes the most sense to do so.  In order to demonstrate what this type of self-evaluation might look like, I have briefly demonstrated what my personal intentions are in utilizing the different social media platforms that I actively participate in:

Snapchat – Of all of the social media channels that I use, Snapchat is by far my favorite.  While I was originally leery of the idea of sharing instantaneous and often ‘unedited’ moments with people, I came to love the idea of documenting the different parts of my day. My primary motivation for using Snapchat as frequently as I do is to serve as a digital version of a photo album, and to act as a platform for me to evaluate the different aspects of my life.  I think that far too often, we set lofty goals for ourselves in a variety of different walks of life – yet given that we cannot see ourselves growing and changing from the perspective of an outsider, we often overlook the progress that we are making and don’t place enough emphasis on all of the ways that we come to better ourselves each day.  For me, Snapchat has come to serve as a really important means of helping me to capture the various moments that I might otherwise overlook.  Given that my primary motivation for using Snapchat is not to share my life with others, but rather to reflect upon my own days, I go back through my Snapchat story every night before I go to sleep.  While this might sound like an odd practice, I have found that capturing the instantaneous moments throughout my day really allows me to reflect upon what the various people in my life really mean to me, and to see how my daily experiences shape who I am as a person.  While there are often photographers in the room to capture the ‘big moments’ that alter the paths of our lives, it is up to us to make sure that the everyday pleasures don't slip away from us – because in my opinion, it is the simple things that really make people who they are.

Twitter – I definitely go through my phases with Twitter, as my level of activity on the platform tends to fluctuate based upon where I am in my professional life.  In many ways, I initially became exposed to Twitter through working with the platform from a professional perspective, utilizing it as a tool for personal branding and consumer outreach for different companies that I had worked for.  In my day-to-day personal life, my primary motivation for using Twitter is to challenge myself to think outside the box, to stay up to date with the recent news, and to explore my new ideas or opinions on a particular topic.  I think that one of the great things about Twitter is that it allows us to share different aspects of ourselves with others; this often serves as a catalyst in spearheading new friendships and even potential business relationships.  Twitter further is representative of the fact that we are multifaceted individuals: a pilot can express his opinions on education policy, a fashion designer can share her newest dessert recipe, or a business leader can share his opinions on the story on the front page of The New York Times.

Facebook – Out of all of the social media outlets that I use, Facebook is the one that I feel allows for the broadest array of self-exploration.  Through allowing for the sharing of information in different mediums, I feel that it allows me to reflect on the various aspects of my life on one unique platform.  From sharing my latest blog posts, to uploading photos from my family vacation, to sharing an article that really inspires me, I feel that Facebook almost serves as a personal mood board.  While I don’t actively use Facebook every day, I love having everything in one place, as it serves as the perfect platform for self-reflection.  Often when I am having a bad day or trying to obtain a deeper understanding of various aspects of myself, I spend twenty minutes or so flipping through some of my old Facebook photos.  From silly photos from high school gymnastics meets to photos from Christmas Eve at grandma’s house, the depth of information that we can store about ourselves on Facebook really allows us to reflect on how we have grown as individuals over time.

Blogging Platforms – Until recently, the entire blogosphere was really quite a mystery to me.  I’ve always had a very active imagination, with constant thoughts flowing through my mind, but it wasn’t until recently that I had the courage to really dive in and see what might come out of trying to put some of my thoughts into writing.  When I first started blogging, I didn’t have any high expectations, and I didn’t necessarily go into the experiment with any serious motivations or intent.  Yet, over the past few months, blogging has served as arguably the most beneficial means of exploring my thoughts.  In many ways, my blog serves as a journal for me.  When I spend the time to put some of my thoughts on paper, it allows me to take my ideas to the next level, and to explore the various elements of a topic that might otherwise remain untouched and unexplored.  While I am always happy to learn when one of my posts has a significant effect on someone’s day, the primary reason that I blog is for the purpose of exploring my feelings towards people, places, and experiences in my life, thinking about the ways in which I can continue to grow as a person, and to initiate the exchange of ideas to further my understanding of particular topics.

While there are plenty of social media platforms on the market, these are the four that I have come to use most prominently – and for the reasons described above, they have all come to help me understand and reflect upon various aspects of my personal life.  In order to maximize the benefits that can be obtained from participating in the rapidly changing social media landscape, I would encourage you to similarly take the time to reflect upon why you are using each social media platform, and ultimately what you hope to get out of it.  These advanced technological platforms serve as wonderful tools that can not only act as a means of increasing our connectivity with those around us, but also as a platform for personal development and self-reflection.  If we keep our core motivations at the forefront of our daily actions, we will always be moving one step closer towards our goals rather than constantly sidestepping to chase the ever intangible sources of external validation that consume far too many of us.

Building a Happiness Agenda

For a long time, I felt like I was running on a treadmill.  It was as if time was passing, but somehow I was mentally rooted in the same place – tied to a state of being that was inevitably being manipulated by the world around me.  Even though I was working towards my goals for as many hours as I could possibly keep my eyes open, I felt as if I wasn’t going anywhere.  On paper it looked as if I was making progress, but isn’t progress supposed to come with a feeling of satisfaction - a feeling of excitement that should come in knowing we are one step closer to finally clenching that green light? But somehow, I didn’t feel that way.  I felt like I was a voodoo doll being puppeteered by the world around me and pushed to unhealthy limits.  I didn’t feel in control of my own day, and each morning I would wake up, feeling like I was already ten paces behind.  I thought that in order to keep up, I had to try to run faster – to chase everything that I always thought I wanted but never quite knew how to obtain.  But it wasn’t until recently, that I realized that the only way to move forward at a healthy pace was to stop running, and to finally take control of my own life one step at a time.

Far too often, we spend our days running, but instead of moving forward we end up running in circles – moving towards our goals, but leaving a part of ourselves behind.  After many weeks of self-reflection, I realized that in order to somehow ‘feel’ differently, to feel what I thought that I should be feeling, I had to step off the path completely and to ask myself one question, time and time again: ‘does this make me happy?’  As basic as this sounds, I realized that one of my biggest problems had been that for the majority of my life, I didn’t quite know how to find the answer to that question – how to freeze a moment and to assess whether or not something really made me happy.  When I looked at my life, I wouldn’t say that I was unhappy; I would say that I was simply content.   But after spending year after year feeling ‘content,’ I realized that eventually I no longer was – I no longer wanted to be stuck in quicksand, mentally constrained by the rules I had set for myself as society continuously dragged me forward.  I wanted to know if something different was out there, if there was a way to feel something stronger, something deeper.  And after freeing myself from all of the expectations that I had ever placed upon myself and going back to the basic question of what made me happy, I started to realize that there undoubtedly was.

For me, reaching a new level of personal happiness came with a lot of trial and error.  After mitigating the various aspects of my life that I was certain were making me unhappy, I was left with a sheet of grey.  And in order to paint my world in color, I started making every effort to consistently live in an active state of mind.  I assessed everything – and from the time that I woke up in the morning to the time that I fell asleep at night, I tried to isolate every single aspect of my day and place it under the microscope to see if it was really making me happy.  While some aspects of my life were initially harder to evaluate than others, I experienced a series of moments where everything became crystal clear – where I finally let myself go, let myself fall into a space that I had previously blocked off.  And it was in those moments, when I was laughing until I cried, or simply sitting there in a state of utter serenity, when I realized that this is what I should be feeling every minute of every day. 

After I was more easily able to pinpoint what aspects of my life were really making me the happiest, I put together a ‘happiness agenda.’  This list is composed of a set of ‘rules’ or ‘guidelines’ that I set for myself, which I could hang up on my wall and reference multiple times per week.  The rules on my list are a combination of practical and marginally ridiculous things that I aim to incorporate into my routine on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, that contribute to either my short or long-term happiness.  I developed this list over many months of self-reflection, and I continue to add things to my list as I learn more about what happiness really feels like, and what makes me freeze in a moment, subtly smile to myself, and feel confident that I want to experience that same feeling again.  While making an agenda of this nature may feel somewhat silly, I would encourage everyone to go through this level of self-assessment and put together your own happiness agenda.  Because now instead of feeling like I am running on a treadmill, physically moving along but mentally stuck in one place, I live each day dynamically, and instead of chasing time I feel in complete command of my day.  I have shared my happiness agenda below.

My Happiness Agenda

·       Start each morning by blasting music and dancing on my bed

·       Run 3 to 5 miles per day

·       Consistently write in a journal

·       Don’t make plans on Mondays

·       Plan spontaneous getaways

·       Get my nails done once per week

·       Don’t eat fried food

·       Take care of my health by consistently going to the doctor and dentist

·       Prioritize sleep; treat it like a meeting

·       Do small things to show people how important they are to me

·       Only stay out late twice per week

·       See more theatre performances

·       Only drink alcohol on special occasions

·       Listen to music on my way to work

·       Only spend time with people who inspire me

·       Don’t do anything that I actually don’t want to do

·       Take social risks

·       Make an effort to stay connected with my mentors

·       Give thoughtful birthday and holiday gifts and gifts just because

·       Wear bright red lipstick as often as possible

·       Learn something new every day

·       Talk about startup ideas at the dinner table

·       Make an effort to look my best

·       Turn off my phone for a few days every month

·       Spend time with my siblings

·       Eat a lot of ice cream

·       Sleep in once per week and then make chocolate chip pancakes

·       Ask people what they are passionate about rather than what they do

·       Continuously re-evaluate my list of goals

·       Write in pink or purple pen at work

·       Block out a few hours per week to watch the shows that I like

·       Go shopping every other weekend

·       Make grand gestures for my close friends and family

·       Write my daily to-do lists on neon sticky notes

·       Meet at least one new person every week

·       Stop talking to people who bring negative energy into my life

·       Read a book every week

·       Drink a lot of water

·       Spray relaxing mist on my pillow before I go to sleep

·       Go to as many concerts as possible

·       Take a few short walks outside every day

·       Consistently throw out things that no longer fit or I no longer need

·       Mentor younger students as often as possible

·       Go to an over-the-top affair at least once per month

·       Take a new path to work every day

·       Consistently call or spend time with my close friends

·       Snapchat lots of goofy moments

·       Print new photos to hang on my wall every few weeks

·       Keep my room and desk clean and workable

·       Write short notes to the people I care about

·       Find a new secret spot every week

·       Watch at least three gossip girl episodes per week

·       Spontaneously buy plane tickets and plan trips around them

·       Stop a few times per day to freeze the moment and breathe

·       Talk to strangers

·       Burn candles while I’m working at home

·       Go on occasional adventures by myself

·       Cancel days on my calendar and do whatever I feel like in the moment

·       Live dynamically