Month: August 2012

“To those I love.”

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

This post is in memory of my lovely, beautiful grandmother whose memorial party I had the joy of attending this past weekend.

I am blessed to be surrounded by curious, fascinating, lovely family who chatter, chirp, and move like I do. We gathered to celebrate of the life of an amazing woman–my mother’s mother–who brought to life so many of my favorite people: my siblings, my mom, my cousins, my future descendants, my aunt and uncle, my relatives.

In the afternoon we spent with each of her friends and close colleagues, I learned story after story of her life, of things I knew and didn’t know–and above all, was grounded with a sense of how much my grandmother did for others, and for her community: she loved being active, she loved events, she knew how to throw a killer parties, she was crafty and full of ideas, and she couldn’t stop making things and putting things together. Born of another generation, I get so much of who I am from her, and I am grateful. Continue reading ““To those I love.””

Prizes, prizes, and more prizes! Donate to the water adventure and WIN BIG. Oh, and help the world.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Magic doesn’t happen without a whole lotta hustle.

With the start of a dream, you put your thoughts to the world, you whisper a promise, you believe that something is possible—and then you get out there and you chase it.

On July 12, I opened my big mouth and made a promise. We made a promise—you all made a promise. In fact, 225 of you have already jumped on board, as well as a whole lot of companies, start-ups and organizations.

Then the Huffington Post even featured it.

Amazing.

But we’re not done yet!

Nope, not even close.

(You don’t stop hustling until you’re done. Quick movie trivia–who said it? “Never stop–Never stop fighting until the fighting is done.” Answer here.) Continue reading “Prizes, prizes, and more prizes! Donate to the water adventure and WIN BIG. Oh, and help the world.”

The Proust Questionnaire

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

On wandering and lost conversations.

Do you have a minute to wander? How about an hour to stop, pause, reflect, and think? Take notebook, some scratch paper, a word-document (if you’re brave, and can trust yourself not to wander over to the vast glorious internet pages in the middle of a thought stream, then do it on some online forum–personally, I, at times, cannot trust myself to navigate the internet-world-of-focus, and thus devote my wanderings strictly to pen-and-paper, humoring myself in a cubby-hole in nature, watching in silence and thinking, speculating, pontificating. But already I digress).

If you don’t have an hour to wander, ask yourself for a few minutes: why not? What are you doing instead, and what is taking up the time? The best part(s) of my week are the four to ten hours I spend analyzing, reflecting, planning, and escaping the manic nature of the “doing” to think and observe on what I’m trying to achieve in the macro. Coupled with action is an ability to wander, explore, and lean into new realms first within your mind, and soon after, with action. Continue reading “The Proust Questionnaire”

“What I Do”

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Option 1: Landscape Architect, Explorer 

What do I do?

I never know how to answer this question. Do I start with swimming? Architecture? Writing? All of the people and things and quirks I love about San Francisco? My incessant love of traveling? I’m never sure how to answer or what people are really asking. I find the question a confusing one, and I think a lot of people find also it difficult. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. So for a while, I’ve been thinking about precisely this question: What are we really asking? What are we trying to find out about each other? Are the current answers we give and quip satisfactory? And how might we better answer it? (And lastly, what is it that I do, as an example–if you’re curious, I answer in long form, a style I do enjoy).

First: the question. In a previous post I asked whether or not the question, “What do you do?” is a bad question, and it generated several good, thoughtful questions. As I wrote:

“Is ‘what do you do?’ such a bad thing to ask? …I love the topic of this question, and I don’t think that it’s necessarily a bad question. Let’s look at the heart of why we ask it, and also, where it comes from. First, we ask the question because we want some way to find out–to hear–the stories of other people. We want to connect with other people and find common shared experiences that tell us whether or not we can understand them, become friends with them, get along with them, etc. We should pay attention first, to the intent of the question–is the asker curious? Do they want to connect with you?–before we judge them on the semantics or sophistication of their ability to connect. In short, be gracious with people who are inquiring earnestly. 

Second, the reason that we predominantly ask the question “What do you do?” — comes from a century of focusing solely on work and security as our livelihood. For the last several decades (or more specifically, 1930 – 1960) it was very important that you find a stable job, and you keep it. Couple that with a burgeoning corporate structure and a society that was embracing larger and larger businesses (and benefits, and corporate institutions), and the easiest and quickest way to figure out who someone was — was by asking what they did for a living.

We realize — and most people know — that asking “what do you do?” as the only question to probe into someone’s fascinating, interesting, complex set of stories is very superficial. There’s a lot more. And I think each of us can ASK more interesting questions and learn, once again, how to tell our stories to each other in a way that lets us connect. Because we’re human, and we’re curious, and we want to know what the other humans around us are, well, doing.  Continue reading ““What I Do””