Assigned Seating

There should be a word for one’s instant feeling of allegiance to a seat after sitting down. Whether on a train, in a waiting room, at a restaurant, or on a park bench, making the choice of where to sit frees you up for everything else.

Meryl Streep said that life begins when you make a commitment. Or at least that’s what Anne Hathaway said she said during a recent The Devil Wears Prada 2 interview.

It takes a lot to move: a particularly disruptive neighbor, an unavoidable odor, a natural disaster. Baring such disturbances, we are all too happy to stay in place. Not because it’s special, but because we chose it first.

Work

Yesterday I did a good job at my job. Which made me think about the difference between jobs and work: jobs come and go, while work never leaves.

My dance professor introduced me to Corita Kent’s Ten Rules for Students and Teachers, which was posted on her office door. My favorite is, “The only rule is work.”

To keep taking care of yourself and your home, to keep getting dressed and figuring out your travel, to keep your stomach full and your body hydrated, to keep your mind and your heart open; these are the only rules.

It can be so satisfying when hard work for one’s profession pays off in day that goes well. It’s another thing altogether when one can look at the all ways they fill their days, see the trodden paths they carve, and continue on them with pride.

List of People With Whom to Not Publicly Feud

• The Pope

• Malala

• Dolly Parton

• Dalai Lama

• A baby

• Michelle Obama

• Leslie Jordan (RIP)

• Betty White (RIP)

• Mother-in-law

A Home

A year ago this weekend, my life began to fall apart. I realized this as I walked down the street one morning and started crying at the smell of spring in the air, realizing that it was this time last year, as the trees were beginning to bud, that my heart began to shrivel.

The year since has been the most challenging series of tribulations that I know so many have gone through, but would wish upon no one and never imagined for myself. It was an emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual gauntlet that at many times seemed unending and that I wanted to quit many times.

But life and time have mysterious ways of coming back. It doesn’t rain forever. It can take a long, long time. And things can be so, so bad. And the residue of trauma can linger forever. But there’s also a space inside you that you’ll learn how to access. There’s people who want to help you. There’s a way to get through one day and then the next one, and then one day, you may even feel happy.

The window I look out of when I write now is so much different from where I was before. It’s in my own place, in my own city, on my own terms.

It is, dare I say, a home.

Big Guy

I’m a big food guy. Big nature guy. Big running guy, big writing guy, big talking and big listening guy. Big reality television guy, big politics guy, big fancy candles guy and big Bud Light guy. Big coffee in the morning guy, big dancing guy, big deep conversation guy and big sleep guy. Big slippers guy and big shorts-with-a-sweatshirt guy. Big contemplative guy and big yearning guy. Big lover and big cryer. Huge.

A Message from the Leadership Team

Dear Company Corp. Family,

It has come to our attention that several staff members left the office yesterday at approximately 3:00pm because the weather was so nice. Many were heard making comments such as, “Let’s get out of this hellhole,” “To hell with this place,” and “These people can go to hell.”

Let us be clear. We understand that yesterday New York City saw its first unquestionably pleasant day so far this year. We also acknowledge our unwavering commitment to our board and shareholders to deliver value each and every day.

As such, any of those who left early are invited to stay until 7:00pm on Friday to make up for their hours lost. We believe our culture of trust and mutual respect is sufficient to serve as the only verification tool for such service.

Lastly, we are particularly concerned about the emphasis on “hell” in many of the sunbathers’ statements. If that is how any of our team members feel about this place, we invite them to consider taking a walk outside, and staying there.

Happy Spring,

The Leadership Team

P.S. - Many thanks to Operations for the new tulips in the flower beds.

March Gladness

It’s college basketball season, but who really cares? Gonzaga, Duke, UNC, all the other ancillary characters. Most people actually seem to be on vacation or making big moves or grinding through the doldrums of work or forecasting the year’s travel. Some days bring warm sun while others create yet higher snow piles. The world is in chaos and the local feels splintered. Mostly, it’s a time of the year when the here and now so easily becomes an afterthought.

A new candle, a new way to organize the desk. These are the small wins that feel big to me.

Important to Note

Someone reminded me this week that you shouldn’t shampoo your hair every time you take a shower, which got me thinking about all the things that are true but we don’t talk about because they don’t matter. Things like tomatoes being fruits, college stadiums being bigger than NFL stadiums, Diet Coke’s dubious relationship to cancer, and microplastics.

People in various states of malaise sometimes find themselves invigorated by these phenomena, compelled to impart their wisdom on otherwise happy people.

What these not-fun facts really reveal is the compulsions we all have to stay safe, in the know, and in control.

The Dallas Cowboys’ stadium seats 80,000 while Alabama’s seats 100,000, for example. You can take that one for free.

So Close

A nice guy asked me what interests me so much about endurance. Part of it is that so often endurance is not for something else, but a thing unto itself. To endure something is not necessarily to build, or produce, or achieve. It is to commit, to do, and to know that you can do it again.

Spring is so close, summer is so close. It will take endurance to get there, but the sun will soon be shining down more and more, illuminating all the life in the meanwhile.

The World is So Big

The pyramids and the sidewalks and the bus tops and the fields, the skies and the oceans and the deserts and the parks, the shops and the houses and the apartments and the theaters, the ticket windows and the breakfast nooks and the guest rooms and the pools, the innumerous places where you will happen, and oh, the places you’ll go.

Ways to Show Yourself You Care About Yourself

1. Buying something a personal finance expert would recommend against but you know it’s not going to break the bank and you work too hard to not have something you really want every now and then

2. Bathing with regularity and at an unhurried pace

3. Calling friends and asking how they’re doing and responding honestly when they ask you

4. Letting some days be Ls and others be Ws but still showing up for the next one

5. Picking things up and putting them where you want them

6. Lingering

7. Moving slowly

8. Laughing at, and with, yourself

With Love

“Alright girls, we really have to think of something different and special this year for the Valentine’s Day campaign. ‘Love the One You’re With’ was a flop last year and legal is still on my ass about the copyright case it got us into. Cindy, any ideas?” Rebecca asked.

“Well, we’ve been seeing a greater emphasis on expanding the definition of love that’s celebrated on Valentine’s Day, like family, friendship,community…so I was thinking, ‘Love Always, All Ways?’”

“Too woke. Amy?”

“Everyone is talking about Gen Z having less sex because they’re on their phones so much, so maybe something edgy like, ‘Get Off Your Phone and Get Off this Valentine’s Day?’”

“That’s better but still too tonally similar to the ‘Lady in the Streets’ collaboration we did with Brooklinen in 2018. Gertrude?”

“How about, ‘Would it Kill You to Do the F*cking Dishes Without My Asking?! Maybe Then I’ll Finally Stop Withholding Intimacy This Valentine’s Day!’”

“That’s it!”

Generative

Staring at a blank page and writing a terrible first draft is important. To think critically is to wade through the sludge, to sift and revise and refine.

Writing is chipping away at a block of marble until it resembles a person, or anything, or something.

Editing text generated by a software is wiping off a white cereal bowl made for you thousands of miles away, a bowl like countless others, one that, if it broke, would make you feel nothing.

Cutting Corners

The sidewalks are all shoveled, but the corners are all variant piles of snow and slush and mud.

No one owns the corners, the periods of transition and change.

In the messy middle, each of us must find our own imperfect footing.

Missing/Late

One of my favorite artists, Tehching Hsieh, punched a time clock every hour on the hour for an entire year. He took a picture of himself each time, so sheets of timecards and sheets of photos serve as the work’s documentation.

Equally compelling is the relentless discipline and the handful of moments when he misses his deadline. You can see the late time punches, or the missing photo. He marks and includes them.

Usually I send these essays out at 7:00am Eastern Time on Friday. I realized this morning that I had totally missed my deadline.

Late is better than never.

Deadlines come and go, but the work stays.

What to Expect When You’re Least Expecting It

There can be so much lag time between putting something in motion and seeing it done. The returned message, the built project, the delivered good or the sense of peace. So much of it requires small investments in the here and now, followed immediately with a willingness to let go, release, and forget.

I turned down a block this week and thought I had made a mistake. I saw a building I had never seen before. A man came out of it. “Did they remove the scaffolding?” I asked. “Yeah, finally,” he replied.

A day that feels like it will never happen, finally comes.

New York’s Hottest Club

This place has everything:

• Copious amount of happy, well-paid staff

• Hooks under the bar

• Happy hour until 7pm

• Fries with 3 sauces

• Dim, warm lighting

• On a side street but near a major subway station

• A cheeky yet elegant name

• A cheeky yet elegant wife after whom the restaurant is named

• A one-sided one-sheet food menu

• A leather-bound cocktail menu

• Low music

• An environment in which cell phone use is not only gauche but universally condemned

• A table available

Act Now

Many companies will encourage you to buy now because the price is sure to go up later. “Think of the money you’re saving,” they’ll say as you spend it.

The only arena where this logic is fully honest is when it comes to time. If you don’t spend it right now, it’s a loss you can never recoup.

The New Year often brings with it the Same Challenges. But if you Act Now, just think of the time you’re saving.

Resource Center

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We hope you’re inspired to be empowered to take control of the direction of the resources for you. And remember, you can always send an email to NOREPLY@PeopleConnect4U.com. No one will answer you, but maybe just typing it out will help you identify what it is you really need.

What They Don’t Tell You About Getting Older

It’s actually reinforced quite often. People tell you that time moves like a roll of toilet paper, disappearing faster as you go. They tell you that your body starts to hurt in odd ways and then in painful ones, that it’s harder to get a job and that your face gets wrinkled and that your relationships change and that suddenly you don’t recognize the celebrities du jour.

They also tell you that you gain wisdom, that you stop concerning yourself so much with the opinions of others, that some financial stability goes a long way and that each milestone age is the new 30. They tell you that if you’ve chosen what and who you love, then there’s nothing better than looking back on a life well lived.

What they don’t tell you is that no matter how much you’re told, it all comes as quite a surprise. The wisdom gained is hard fought, the body aches appear suddenly, the relationships change in devastating ways and the looking back on one’s life is as much a reconstructive exercise as a reflective one.

Few things that matter make sense. The joy lies in the doing despite of, even if, and again.