Tag: sarah kathleen

Does money make you crazy? The Money Toolbox: leave debt behind, build your savings, and grow your wealth.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Want money?

Money advice often boils down to some basic tenets: spend less than you make, or conversely, make more than you spend. Increase your earnings, then maximize your returns.

Sounds simple—in theory. But the difficulty lies in the application. How do you actually do it so that it changes? What do you do when change is so incremental that it seems barely noticeable? Is the snowball effect worth it?

Enter, stage left: J.D. Roth

JD Roth 2

I met JD Roth at the inaugural World Domination Summit. He was the popular blogger of Get Rich Slowly, although, to be honest, I didn’t know that at the time.

Instead, I danced with Adam Baker’s lovely daughter on a concrete barrier, did cartwheels with a goofy lady named Laura, and laughed with J.D. about how inordinately excited we were to be in Portland at this new conference series. At some point we eventually got to talking about our professions and careers, and once we did, we geeked out over books like Ramit’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich, The Millionaire Next Door, and ways to be frugal, savvy, and more importantly—happy.

Over the years, we became good friends, sharing tips on savings, wondering whether or not I should sell my car and go car-free (ps, J.D., I don’t know if I told you, but I sold it! And I used the cash to help start my own business). We’ve crashed in each other’s houses (because when you want to be a millionaire, who springs for a hotel?), and giggled about how we each own jackets that are more than 10 years old.

J.D. has been both a friend and a mentor, and when he told me he was working on a master series called the “Money Toolbox,” I knew it would be full of good stuff.

The Money Toolbox: leave debt behind + grow rich.

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“By following a few guidelines and completing one small step each week, you can master your money and build wealth for the future.” —J.D. Roth

J.D.’s story is familiar to many: a decade ago, he had more than $35,000 in consumer debt—credit-card balances, personal loans, car payments—and was living paycheck to paycheck. In a world where we’re taught that debt is fine, J.D. wondered: what processes actually work to make change with regards to money? And how can I become rich?

Today, he’s debt-free and has more than a million dollars in the bank.

My own story is similar—minus the million dollars part, at least at the moment—I started my twenties with piles of student-loan debt and promptly did the next smart thing all 20-somethings do: I bought a car, because someone told me it was an “investment.” Instead, my car loan was barely approved because I had already acquired so much debt. I began my first job nearly $100,000 in the red with a job that barely paid my rent—let alone the massive student loan payments that were due. I worked nights and weekends as a tutor and swim coach to bring in enough money to afford to buy groceries (My food budget was directly linked to whether or not I taught that week—some weeks were rice and beans).

And yet by the time I turned 30, I was in the black—and it wasn’t because of a miraculous scheme or a magical job. It was through small habits and the power of time.

Just like J.D., I didn’t turn straw into gold, and the process of changing my life didn’t happen right away.

Get the guide and toolkit, here: The Master Your Money Toolkit.

In his guide, J.D. documents the time-tested principles of putting his money to work.

What he learned surprised him: getting out of debt and building wealth wasn’t just about pinching pennies. He focused on reducing expenses and increasing income. For the first time in his life, he began to accumulate savings and invest wisely.

“Getting out of debt and building wealth isn’t just about pinching pennies—wise strategies for spending, saving, earning and investing can add up over time.”

Over the past eight years, J.D. spent much of his time writing and sharing these lessons on GetRichSlowly.org, a popular blog he initially founded to share his own quest for self-improvement. With over three thousand articles and more than a million words, this work still exists as a public archive.

From the mastermind behind the blog Get Rich Slowly comes his latest project: Get Rich Slowly: the year-long course, a money-makeover toolbox designed to help people leave debt behind, master their money, and achieve financial independence. Featuring a “Money Mondays,” email series, 18 audio interviews with money experts, and a comprehensive “Be Your Own CFO” guidebook, this course collects wisdom from financial gurus Ramit Sethi, Pam Slim, Adam Baker, and more.

With a 52-lesson guide to help people master their money, he created a road map to financial freedom, developed for anyone seeking to ‘master their money’ by getting out of debt and building independent wealth.

The Master Your Money Toolkit.

What’s your money story?

As important as J.D’s story is, the new Get Rich Slowly guide isn’t really about him. It’s about you. It’s a road map for your financial freedom, and it includes a 120-page “Be Your Own CFO” guide, 18 interviews with experts who offer specific advice on important topics, and plenty of additional resources. To ensure you don’t get overwhelmed (as I sometimes do!), you’ll also receive a different lesson with simple actions every week for an entire year. I’ve just started reading my own CFO guide, and I think the “Money Monday” emails are brilliant.

If you want a copy, JD is —naturally— offering budget-friendly options, and the three different scales of the program are all discounted for the launch (meaning you can get a copy without breaking your own bank)—because what good is a money guide that sets you back even further?

Get your copy here: Get Rich Slowly: The Money Toolbox.

Congrats, J.D.

The masks we wear–how we hide who we are.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

We all wear masks from time to time: in our words, our habits, and our practices. We have an arsenal of crutches and shortcuts that slowly but surely hide who we are. They are things that prop us up and help us hide. We hide from our feelings and our desires. We hide from who we might become.

We drink coffee as a mask for how tired we are, or to replace what is really a lack of motivation for a certain project we’re involved in.

It masks how tired you are of caring for a newborn infant, or how miserable your boss’s cutting remarks make you.

The alcohol that you drink at night masks the fear and the stress feel from not having control during your day. Perhaps it helps to cover up the loneliness of your cubicle or help you get  through another night.

We project false smiles of protection to hide our fears, to be desirable. We wear high heels and new clothes and carry certain bags and advertisements to show a sense of self, a projection, an idea. We use extroversion to be well liked. We chase busy to mask our fear of not leaving an impact.

We cover a lot of things up. Scars we carry, stories we hold, work we’re afraid of doing.

Our selves, deep inside.

It’s not always bad to have a mask…

It’s not terrible to have masks, but they can’t be our only way of dealing with the world. If we spend the entire time warding off the world and hiding from ourselves, we’ll miss the best parts. By hiding from the world, we hide ourselves, and we lose a piece of our souls.

Many of us have lost touch with ourselves, our souls, with the tender, tired, scared part of itself.

Here’s the catch…

Releasing a mask requires feeling. It requires having a real, honest, scary, less-than-desirable feeling. Letting go of your mask means you might need to say,

By golly, I’m tired.

And no, I don’t want to do this.

Or, I’m scared. I’m scared of messing up. I’m scared of doing a bad job. I’m worried that I won’t be liked. I’m worried that I might try and I won’t be good at it.

Letting the barrier down requires Guts. Honesty. Softness.

Looking at the impulse before we rush to snatch a cover, and breathing in recognition:

Your feelings are clues.

These feelings inside? They aren’t enemies. They are clues. Feelings are way points in an uncertain world, direction markers that guide us back into the brilliance of ourselves, if we’ll allow it. The trouble is it can be uncomfortable and downright painful. Feelings you haven’t had in years might surface to remind you of areas of internal work you still have to do.

And your masks were protection, once.

The masks aren’t all bad. Sometimes pulling down the mask and showing your face requires gentleness and slowness. Your mask might have served you at some point. A therapist in my yoga training reminded me that these coping mechanisms shouldn’t always be disarmed quickly. Children of abuse who learned how to harden and deaden their senses built masks in order to survive those times. These mechanisms and masks were useful–they helped you survive. They got you here. They protected. Unlocking them too quickly without new ways of being can also be damaging.

But at some point, perhaps you might notice you’re still wearing one.

What masks are you wearing?

What masks do you carry?

What do you hide?

Can you lower it for a bit?

With love,

sarah signature

 

 

Looking for a place of love and kindness? Join our upcoming Grace & Gratitude micro-workshop, a two-week journey to cultivate grace and gratitude in your life. Two weeks of daily stories and exercises designed to bring light, love, and joy into your life–one photograph, project, and quote at a time. Sign up here (or give as a gift this holiday). We begin December 1. 

The power of breath: why breathing happens before anything else.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

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It’s not always easy to breathe.

Breathing—the intake of oxygen and the exhalation of carbon dioxide—is life’s essential force. It’s the first step our physical bodies take towards making all other actions possible, including thinking.

In swimming, the rhythm of breathing is essential: you only have a few opportunities to catch a breath; it’s about timing your intake with your arms, kicks, and rotation. Without air, you can’t work the water.

Breath happens before anything.

Out in the open water, in the waves of the ocean, with the salt water sprays and the swells that take over, sometimes I turn my face upwards and a wave slams me in the face. I close my mouth, pass by that opportunity, hold the air in my lungs, and try again on the next cycle. Sometimes it takes a few turns before I get to suck in some oxygen.

My relationship with breathing has always been tenuous: when I was eleven, I was diagnosed with asthma. I learned my lungs were restricting my airways—and it would jump on me like a sudden cold, onset in minutes, causing breathing to be painful.

I would hide my inhalers, because I didn’t want something that gave me a crutch or a reason that I couldn’t be as good as anyone else. I learned how to push my back open against a floor, to rub my lungs to clear them, and how to hold my breath to stop my body from panicking.

I also learned how to hold my breath for a really long time. Getting into the pool every day gave me an intimate familiarity with the ways my lungs worked.

Swimming actually taught me how to breathe again.

Today, three years later, I’ve become an open water swimmer, chasing longer distances with each ocean adventure I find. I will routinely be late to work or leave for long lunch hours just to spend those hours in the ocean, my friend, the place where my soul is restored.

I need to touch the water, to splash, and to feel the curve of a wave beneath my hands. I’ll grab a board, and float out to sea, heart and head against the board, listening and feeling the rhythm beneath my body. My breathing will inadvertently sync up with the ocean swells, and the anxiety of my digital, corporate life gets left ashore. I’ll get up early, earlier than the sun, wander down to the ocean, and get into the water just to tune my body back into the rhythm of the earth.

But I had to learn how.

Your breath: check in with yourself:

First, right now, as you’re sitting at the computer or staring at your screen to read this post: what does your breath pattern look like? Do you notice it? Are you breathing? Some people stop breathing while they are reading, and they raise their shoulders and hold tension in their bodies while at the computer. (A telltale sign is if you let out periodic sighs. Listen to others if you’re in a room, or set an audio-recorder on yourself for an hour. You’ll forget about it and can then listen to the breath sounds play back. It’s fascinating.)

Next, find a space to lie on the floor. Take a deep breath. Take ten slow breaths, with your eyes closed. Push the air all the way in and out of your lungs. Where are the bottoms of your lungs? Where are the tops of them? Can you fill the space entirely?

Practice changing the cadence of your breathing. Take 10 very quick micro-breaths. Feel your rib cage move in and out. Feel your heart race, your pulse jump, feel the reaction.

Breathe again, slowly.

Your breath is the foundation on top of which every other activity takes place. You can train it, just like you can train everything else. Change your body rhythms by controlling your breath.

Breathe.

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I originally wrote this post for Julien Smith’s Homework series during the epic campaign to swim naked from Alcatraz to San Francisco. Breathe is powerful, so I’m reposting as part of this November series while I’m away in Bali. 

Bali, bliss, and a big old birthday: taking a life, work, and digital retreat.

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

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 “Do great work, and love–that is the meaning of life.”

Bali, bliss, and a big old birthday.

It all started with a single post in February, 2010.

I had just gotten an extra job as a writer paying $10 per post, and I snapped it up. It was my side project. My writing was terrible. I was paid to give advice to new college graduates on how to navigate the corporate world, and despite being a few years into my own career, I still felt like I didn’t know what I was doing.

I started my blog–a friend set me up on a wordpress site and domain (which I didn’t quite understand). I wrote about not working too hard, how to recover from long work days, staying motivated, and allocating for food costs on measly budgets. I wrote book reviews and interviewed my professional friends in sports medicine, biotech, web design and more–to get their insights on what they’d learned on the job and how they crafted their careers.

Did I know what I was doing with the blog? Nope. No idea.

I just knew I wanted to write. So I wrote, every time I felt like I wanted to write about something.

I probably didn’t hit my stride until well after the first year, and I’m still learning. Each post, each month, and each iteration I continued to refine and hone my writing. I wandered through styles and posts and wrote about topics that felt like I should write about, but that truthfully I didn’t adore. But even though I didn’t know what to write about, I still wrote. I whittled. It got better. I adjusted. I said more about what I was thinking and feeling, less about what I thought people wanted to hear. It got better.

Fast-forward nearly four years later:

I’m celebrating. Big time.

I love (LOVE) what I do. I discovered an incredible connection with the written word, and I write as often as I can. I get to share it in community with other like-minded and incredible souls. I am blown away by the people I’ve met, and I’m so grateful to be a part of this. I celebrate through hard work, through experimentation, through hugs, and through trial-and-error. Tears and laughter are part of the process.

Because I’m celebrating a lot of things in this life right now, I’d love for you to join me in celebrating my birthday, this blog, and the community we share.

When I left my job earlier this year, I left in order to focus on a couple of things: movement (or health in my body), writing, and teaching. In the last few months, I’ve also started my own business, enrolled in yoga teacher training, launched several programs, and taken action on several dreams that had been sidelined for too long.

In order to do this, I saved for five years, paid down big piles of debt; gave up clothes shopping for a year; experimented with minimalism, sewing machines, and free-cycling; worked several side jobs, and hustled to make things work. I sold my car (finally), soaked up and swept up as much knowledge as I could, met incredible souls, friends and teachers, created new things, and built project after project.

Big, sweeping changes have happened alongside smaller, less outwardly-visible changes. Across all of this has been an emphasis on health, healing, and happiness. On mindfulness, movement, and growth.

Beyond the tactical and structural (quitting my job! signing up for yoga! moving! God, it sounds so much easier writing it!), there are also mental shifts changing, aligning, and expanding as I spend time listening and growing.

“You don’t have to be so busy,” the softer voice in my mind reminds me. “It’s okay to pause, reflect, and live inside of this quiet, vibrant stillness.” When I feel things–the sadness, the anger, the fear, the totality of being human–I spend more time resting in it, moving in it, moving through it. We work together, me and my emotions. It’s the human condition.

amber zuckswert teaching yoga in Bali

Amber Zuckswert teaching yoga in Bali.

Birthday bliss: taking a break in Bali.

In the spirit of health and healing, for my 30th birthday–and in honor of the work I’ve done over the past several years–I’m taking a digital sabbatical and sojourning to beautiful Bali paradise with Amy Rachelle and Amber Zuckswert for two weeks of meditation, yoga, reflection, and emotional healing. Bali is known as one of the most healing places in the world, and I’m joining a retreat group that’s focused on learning how to craft raw foods, heal the soul, and engage in mindfulness and meditation practices.

Nearly a decade ago, I started my career in architecture and design and I’ve been working nonstop ever since. For the last few years, I’ve been dreaming of taking a restful vacation–and yet I kept pushing it off. I promised myself that when I hit thirty, I’d take at least a few weeks to rest, recover, and recalibrate.

Beyond just a “vacation,” I’m opening up the mental space (and nooks and crannies!) for a reconsideration and reflection on what I’ve done, who I’ve become, and what I want to build. This marks the beginning of a different year in my life: one that’s less focused on being frenetic and more focused on being present. It’s time to celebrate, reflect, restore, and be fully Sarah–in the present, and in the moment.

I’ll be offline while I’m gone – completely unplugged and digitally unavailable – but in advance, I’ve written a series of essays that are coming out over the next few weeks.

In the spirit of reflection, birthdays, and changing decades:

This week I’ll transition out of the twenty-something decade and into the next decade (Holy smokes! I’m turning 30!). Last year we celebrated by raising $32,398 for charity: water for my 29th birthday, and the year before I wrote 28 in 52 notes, a years’ worth of lessons in one post.

In the spirit of letting things go, moving forward, taking care of yourself, and celebrating the year, here’s my annual birthday post–although I’m sure I’ll have a bigger round-up of notes and thoughts from unplugging in Bali. It can’t be a birthday without a bit of reflection on some of the learnings and highlights from the year. Here’s what I’ve learned (and am always learning):

Going pro, turning 30, and the biggest lessons from this year.

Place a lot of bets.

Try a lot of things. A year is a long time, and five years is a great amount of time to make more than just one thing happen. You can work a side hustle on the side of your day gig in a few minutes a day–write one page every other day and see what happens in a couple of months. Throw your work into the ring, and keep making your work. Try one connection or conference, and another. Don’t put all your money on one thing if you’re just starting. Get started, and test out a few things.

Be modular.

Build in iterative, successive capacities. Try things until something works, then adjust it so it works better. Put it out there. Keep going.

Do not work in isolation.

Seek feedback.

Ask for help.

Ask for everything. The more you ask, the more you get.

You don’t have to do what anyone else does.

You can do things no one has done before, you can be weird, you can be strange, and you can decide to do it differently than anything you’ve seen before. Be aware of the sheep mentality. Ask for exceptions. Modify the program to fit your needs. Learn about yourself, and make it better so you get better.

Take care of yourself.

You are the only one who can take care, and those small things—like going to sleep early, giving hugs, smiling, eating good food? They mean the world. Take very good care of yourself.

When you get better, the world benefits.

It’s not selfish.

The more you push, the more resistance there might be. Do it anyway.

The ego yells a lot of loud and scary things at you when you’re heading into moments of insight and brilliance. The more brilliantly you shine, the louder your ego–the voice that wants you to worry, to stay comfortable, to stay the same, to do things that feel safe–the louder it shouts. Listen to it like the dull roar of a stadium filled with fans, and not the shouty-shout voice it’s trying to be.

It really can be wonderful.

Be you.

“Be Sarah,” I write on my wall. (Thank you, Gretchen Rubin for the reminder to “Be Gretchen.”) Be you. “There’s nobody you-er than you,” says Doctor Seuss. Let yourself be you, deliciously and deliriously you. And the more YOU you are, the more wonder there is.

We all have self-doubts, demons, and critics.

And we all have stories. The person across from you is holding pain, hurt, and fear just like you are. We’ve all got something. Be kind and generous with their soul, and kind and generous with your own. Cradle your heart in the softness of the hammock of your ribs. Let it rest, fully, in the feeling of a breathe. Fill your lungs with love for you and the world around you, despite the pain.

Give up on dreams that you’ve tried on or dreams that you realize aren’t yours.

It’s not giving up if you don’t want it. For the longest time I had a dream to run a marathon by age 30–until I realized that I loved swimming, singing, dancing and yoga far, far more than running. And picturing myself at the end of a marathon just made me feel tired, not thrilled or excited. So sweep! I let that dream head on out the door. It wasn’t mine–it was just visiting. Finish it or punt. Know when to quit.

You don’t have to know how to explain yourself perfectly.

You can use as many words as you like, and you can screw up many times. It’s all fine. Start somewhere, tell a little story, and bit by bit we’ll get the picture.

Stories are how we understand and see the world.

We use stories to understand complex phenomenon and hang onto information. Watch, study, and listen carefully to the stories you’ve programmed in your brain and the stories you tell yourself about who you are. Changing the stories you tell yourself (through visualization, practice, and manifestation) can be incredibly powerful.

If it’s too big to do, make it smaller.

Seeing is an art, a study.

We’re designed to throw away most of the stimulus we receive because it’s too much to comprehend—we’re constantly simplifying things in our mind in order to understand them. The challenge of writing and of art is to learn how to see the world around us anew. If you want to learn how something works or how its made and marvel at it, try to draw it. Pull out a pen or pencil, a sheet of paper, and practice mapping the object onto the page. Rather than say that it’s impossible, or say that you’re terrible at drawing, study why you drew what you did. This is your brain schema, at work. This is the translation of space in the world into products in your hand. Keep practicing. Fix the little wiggles. Notice when you make a simple curve instead of the parabolic curves of the real thing.

Good is the enemy of the great.

(From Jim Collins): Iterate towards great, but also remember that complacency, comfort, and “good enough” are some of the most insidious enemies of making great work.

Being comfortable is not my end goal.

There’s so much joy on the other side of myriad discomforts: freedom, expression, learning, connection – many of these things can come after a bit of leaning into your edge. Yoga poses unlock freedom despite various levels of discomfort held in our joints. The payoff is expansion, self-awareness, reducing pain, and freedom. It’s worth it.

At the same time, understand when you’re pushing too hard, and when to yield to the universe.

When to soften, because the things will arrive in their good time. When to yield to grace, and move without force. Leaning into discomfort is not the same thing as pushing forcefully into all arenas.

Healing, health, and care are critical.

We all work too hard. It’s not about hustling indefinitely, although many folks hustle for decades before getting a break–it’s also about taking the time to heal yourself, help yourself, and be kind to yourself in the present moment. Health is critical. In my pursuit of projects, I’ve often sacrificed wellness in the aim to create great works. I’m softening this, and attempting to learn how to receive rest and healing even amidst the busy-ness.

And when I get back…

When I return, I’ll be hosting a micro-workshop focused on cultivating gratitude and grace in your spirit, life, and daily practices. It will begin on December 1st, and I’ll share the full details when I return. If you’re looking for inspiration to reflect, restore, and to practice more grace and gratitude in your lives, I encourage you to check back in late November for how to join the workshop. It will be delightful.

And as my birthday present:

By the time this post goes live, I’ll be curled up into a sleeping position with my jammies and my hat in an airplane heading forward in time to my destination. I’d love to hear from you while I’m gone, however, in the comments: share with me something–a gift, joy, or grace–that you’re giving to yourself of someone else this week.

How are you taking care of yourself? What gifts of grace can you give to yourself? What does healing look like for you?

With big internet hugs,

sarah signature

Why I Write

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

Someone asked me recently why I write, and I thought to myself, it’s because I must write. My brain knows that I have to do it. I can’t possibly imagine myself not writing. The question was silly, so it seemed. But then I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking to myself: I write because I have to. I write, because I need to.  And I realized that I ask other people all the time why they do what they do, what motivates them, and how they achieve their goals. And thus, in response to that same question I always ask others: this is why I write.

Asking me not to write is like asking me not to think. I write, because it helps me understand the world. It lets me put thoughts down in a place outside of my head, look at them, wonder about them, and push them further. I write, because it’s how I think.

I write, because I love stories. I am continually inspired by the people around me, and know that everyone has more experience and stories to share than could ever be recorded. I love hearing what people have to say, and learning from the amazing adventures of people around me.

I love ghost-writing. I like being able to help someone put ideas into word, to craft their mission statement, to fulfill their potential.  I have worked on many occasions as a ghost-writer for students and international people who have learned English as a second language. I know that for them, they must be much more articulate in their native tongue; I like being able to help translate these ideas and visions into print. I write, not because other people don’t have ideas, but precisely because they DO have ideas. If I can help capture your spirit, your ideas, and your thoughts in the tangible, printed form, I can think of no better gift to give you.

I write, because I love people. I am fascinated and star-struck by the wonderful, creative, talented, motivated, exceptional people around me. I can’t get enough of you. I think of life as the greatest blessing, and I love learning from other people.  When I get too busy, too full of myself, when I feel depressed, or when I get distracted: the people around me gently re-direct me towards a better being, they help me figure things out, they keep me grounded, they lift my spirits. I write about other people, and this act keeps me grounded by granting me a wider frame of perspective.

The interviews that I do are by far one my favorite things to do. I love talking to new people, listening to their stories and travels, and learning something new. You know the feeling you get when you walk away from a store, just having purchased something? With a delicious new gadget in hand, wrapped up in tissue paper and placed carefully into a shopping bag, ready for your eager consumption? The shopper’s high is the best metaphor I can find to describe what happens to me when I walk away from an interview. I’m happy. There are other forms of work that tire me out and leave me exhausted: listening to stories energizes me.

I write, because writing helps me to remember things. Writing lets me put down into a more permanent state the fleeting emotions and whims of each stage of my life. When I look back on my writing, I can dive back into the feeling of being twelve and awkward, fifteen with teenage angst, seventeen and leaving my family for a small college in Ohio, twenty-one and beginning graduate school in the biggest city I’d ever lived in, and twenty-four and headed home to California again. When I go back and look at my scribblings from my younger years, and the diaries of my middle-school, high-school, college, and even last year’s writing, I can see how I’ve changed, grown, and become different. Sometimes I don’t like to look back at my old writings: my memories of the harder times are tough to look at. At the same time, having the drafts, the memories, and the experiences are each lessons I can learn from, despite how embarrassing or hard it is to look back on things past (there even posts from last year I can’t believe I wrote!).

I write, because I want to be a better person. There’s nothing harder than looking at yourself squarely in the metaphysical mirror and really asking yourself what you want to be, who you are, and why you do what you do. I write to explore myself and to figure out what I want and who I am.

I write, because I love ideas. Writing helps me think. I love thinking about new ideas, about shifting our imaginations towards different ways of conceptualizing the way we work, why we do what we do, and the physical, tangible places and spaces we live in. (Oh that’s right: my day job, in architecture / urbanism / design). I love capturing a thought or an idea into an “ah-HA!” memo to myself, even if the memo becomes an impossible-to-read post-it note that sits unreadable next to my bed, because I was too tired to turn the light on in the middle of the night and the markings on said post-it end up being completely illegible.

I write because if I don’t, I can’t sleep at night. I often wake up in the middle of the night thinking of new ideas, stories, and things to share. My family is all-too-familiar with my 3AM emails and text messages (thank goodness for “silent” on cell phones).  I sometimes sit up for hours at night, reading by myself, mulling over new ideas.  If I don’t write it down, I’d be up all night, churning, wondering and thinking.

I write, because writing well is a great form of listening. If I’ve done my research and looked carefully and critically someone else’s work, the act of responding, through writing or listening, means that you’ve heard someone else’s ideas.  By meditating over the concepts and presentations of others, you can push yourself and others to develop new connections, possibilities and ideas. Much of the writing I do is not possible without the help and inspiration of others.

I write, because I have things to say and ideas to share. We are meant to be connected to each other, and writing, speaking, talking, laughing and drawing are some of the ways in which we share ideas. I love sharing my ideas and my thinking. And I hope that you, readers, find some use in what I say and why I do what I do.

A facebook addict’s confession

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

I have a confession to make:

Sometimes I think I am addicted to the internet.

And more importantly, addicted to the Facebook.  You know the one. You’ve probably seen the site once or twice.  It’s shiny and it’s blue and all your friends are on it? Yeah, that one.

A month ago, I had a friend tell me that I was addicted to Facebook, and I quickly denied it. I brushed it off, telling her that being addicted was “impossible.” Then I walked straight by her front door and said, “mind if I use your computer real quick?” And there I was, inside someone else’s house, checking my Facebook and ignoring the world around me.  I’m not sure I even stopped to see her roll her eyes at me — I was glued to the screen.

It gets worse. For two weeks, I would wake up in the middle of the night (usually around 2 or 3 AM), panicked that I had forgotten to reply to a certain email or a particular threaded comment on Facebook. You may be laughing, but I was dead serious.  I’d get out of bed, open up my computer, check the update, reply to a few emails, and then close the laptop and go back to bed.

I’m not addicted, I told myself.

I’m just going to move my laptop to my nightstand because it looks better there. And then I don’t have to get out of bed to turn on my computer.

And then the Facebook and endless swirls of internet browsing and other social networking tools crept into my work life. I added a google gadget to my homepage so I could “sneak a peak” here and there on my work breaks. I caved and started going to the full site to check out photos while I was at work (man I love those photos!).

It got so bad, I would switch over to the internet between saving massive files because I figured those 2 minutes for saving were lost time anyways.  Instead of working better, I found myself working longer, later hours, trying to get everything done. When I finally did leave the office, I found that I was thinking in 20 word phrases when I was out supposed to be enjoying the real world. My mind frame on Baker Beach wasn’t about the wind and the sand sticking to my arms, instead, I was thinking, Hey, when I get home, I’ll post: “Sunny glorious day at the beach with @friend and @acquaintence, could this day get any better!?” My status-centric thoughts began to invade the present moment; excuse me, I have to ignore what you’re saying because I’m in the middle of taking the perfect picture to upload to Facebook.

I’ve made so many Facebook posts, I’m sure all of my friends have hidden me by now. I’m that terrible person who clogs up your news feed and changes their profile picture incessantly. If I have any friends left, they are either my family, my poor grandmother who doesn’t know what a “news feed” is or how to find “those picture albums!” or other people, like me, addicted, devoted, and stuck. And perhaps a few creeps who know far more about me than they should.

Then disaster struck: my computer broke. I got the ominous quiver of a screen going black, and then the screen gave out. I could no longer see anything on the computer. I tapped on the screen a few times. Hello? Is anyone there? I looked up from the screen, stretched my cramped back, and realized it was after midnight and I ought to be in bed. I blinked a few times. Now what am I supposed to do?

It was like going cold turkey. Jumping into a bucket of ice water, if you will. I got shakes and quakes and all that’s associated with the withdrawal from anything that you crave and are addicted to. My mind started to think obsessively in status-related updates. Three sleepless nights ensued. If that’s not an addiction, I’m not sure what is.

And then I broke free. I got home after a week of being computer-free (well, computer-free at home; I still have a computer at work). I made dinner, wrote on a REAL notebook with an ACTUAL pen a few drafts for future posts. I sat and read a magazine outside and found myself occupied by consecutive, related thoughts for over three hours. The broken blood vessel in my eye finally healed because I was no longer staring at a screen continuously all day and into the wee hours of the morning. I could read books and sit still for longer than 15 minutes.

Distracting. That’s how my Facebook-centric life was.

The short (albeit unanticipated) break from my computer and social networking addiction gave me a chance to breathe — and to reflect.  Now I’m wondering why: why is an internet post to a random audience of two or three hundred people (most of who really just don’t care) so important to me?  Am I telling myself, hey, look how important I am? Check ME out because I’m having FUN? I certainly don’t rant and rave about the trivialities about my life: you won’t find me bemoaning breakups or glorifying parties or spending (too much) time talking about work (Hey guys, talked to the civil engineer for an hour today and we really nailed that cobble energy dissipater detail…that concrete is going to be washed, man, and the pH will be soooooo neutral). In fact, most of what I post on Facebook is just a tiny sliver of my actual life: I’m much more boring at work, sitting behind a desk (or as it happens today, in a coffee shop, writing) to warrant writing any post about my regular daily life.

Saturday morning? Slept in, and it was glorious. Didn’t you want to know?

P.S. My shirt is purple.

The truth is, if I posted about my actual life — and not just the happy-wonderful facebook-fantasty life that shines through on my rainbow-colored posts — I would bore even myself some times. I work. I sit around. I run a lot. I eat food. Some of it’s good, and some of it’s bad. I try pretty hard to eat the good stuff. Which brings me to my first post-obsession observation: Most of what I say on Facebook is irrelevant.

My second observation was that anything in excess can be destructive. And those Twitter feeds, Gmail popups, Facebook status updates, and continuously updating internet content can quickly become overwhelming and time consuming. For me, the balance was off: I was spending far too much time on the internet. My work was suffering, my writing was suffering, and I couldn’t focus on the tasks at hand because of my compulsion to be on the computer.

Third: living life in public is interesting — and I’m not convinced it’s the healthiest thing for all of us to do.  Living online — and putting information about ourselves online, shared with thousands of people — can be highly damaging if we don’t take some efforts to manage our public personas and understand how personal branding and networking can (positively and negatively) affect us. One only need to look at the results of the Live in Public movie experiment to see how quickly and drastically life online can change.  We’re quickly – and dangerously – learning lessons of personal branding, social networking, and making mistakes in the virtual public realm. Did you hear about the guy who married two women and his second wife posted it on Facebook? Whoops.

Living online should not replace living real life. And it shouldn’t distract you from real life, either.  There are wonderful, amazing benefits to having social networks, sharing information, and being a part of multiple online communities. But when life behind a computer screen inside a room replaces life outside in the world, you’ve got to wonder if the swap-out is a good trade.

But man, is it fun. And this post is not designed to de-rail the wonders of social networking: far from it, in fact. The Facebook is wonderful for many reasons (as is email, Twitter, Linked In, and many other social networking applications).  You won’t see me deactivating any time soon. I love staying in touch with friends, getting updates, hearing about new events, and seeing the beautiful, prolific photo albums of my friends on their travels. I’ll continue to be a Facebook fan. Just not an addict. Because I’d rather be spending time hanging out with you (OMG, IRL?) in person. After, of course, I post this article. On Facebook.

Give Yourself A Chance To Get Good

Posted on by Sarah K Peck

For the most part, I don’t like doing things that I’m not good at.

I prefer doing things I’m good at. Especially as I get older, I find I dislike being “bad” at something. The more expertise I gain in my respective fields, the more I find I enjoy — and gravitate towards — things that I’m already good at.

When we were children, we spent ample amounts of time being frustrated, learning and figuring out new things. We did it every day, a hundred times a day, sometimes even a hundred times a minute.

On a single day in Kindergarden, we learned how to tie our shoes, comb our hair, dress ourselves, how to share and play with others (sometimes not so well), what splinters were, whether landing from a big jump was painful or thrilling, how to make daisy chains, what paint is, what happens when put stuff in our noses, and how to stand in a line to get lunch. The teacher had activities for us planned every fifteen minutes and our brains were always expanding, never saturated.

As a result, we were tired — we conked out for nap time twice a day and consumed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and goldfish and apple juice. We were constantly running around, wondering why on earth adults were so tediously repeating to us that we ought to “slow down!” (Of course, as every five-year-old knows, why slow down if I can get there rightnow?)

And then, somehow, we became adults. We made it through the awkward-bobbly teenage angst years and even through college and asserted our independence, autonomy, and maturation through increased levels of responsibility, decision making, and ability. I have a general understanding of what a 401K is and why I need it; I believe in the time value of money through compounded interest; I hope to make informed decisions when voting in a democracy; I show up to work on time; I’ve made a life list and learned how to say no; I understand the value of saving for a rainy day, and I am, to every five-year-old, a boring adult.

Now what? Am I done learning?  I like to think that somewhere inside of every adult still lies our inner five-year-old, the monkey-ish person who bounces in meetings and runs in the halls instead of walks, who says what they think, and asks the most obvious (and the most interesting) questions about how the world works, and why it works the way it does.

I like to look back at my 5-year-old self and take a cue from the crazy girl running around on the playground and try to remember what it felt like to be at that pace of learning, growing, exploring, and being frustrated. When I get frustrated with learning new things, especially if I shy away because it’s hard or difficult — or i’m not yet any good at it — I think about how i would measure up to my 5-year-old self.

Quite frankly, she would probably kick my ass at her skill-acquiring ability. Granted, the complexity of the skills we learn as adults may not be comparable to our abilities as a kindergardener. But there are still lessons:

  • The first time trying something new is usually filled with effort, struggle, energy, and a low satisfaction-to-energy ratio. Why fall on your face 20 times trying to do handstands if you’ve already perfected sitting in a chair comfortably?  If, however, you only did what you were good at, then you would be done learning. Imagine, then: nope, I’m not going to try that because it’s something new. Can’t do it, sorry.
  • In work, it can take slow, dedicated, frustratingly long amounts of time to get good at something. At times, I’ve contemplated leaving my job because of the day in and day out exhaustion-frustration of tasks being difficult and new. But what holds me to my desk is the fact that I’m learning, no matter how discouraging it can be — and that staying at home, or doing something I already know how to do will not yield the same satisfaction or sense of accomplishment when I tackle, acquire and absorb new skills, techniques and knowledge.
  • The downside is that you can’t always tell how long it will take to “get good” at something. You don’t remember how long it took you to learn how to tie your shoes — now you just know how to do it.  And you do it automatically. And you’re probably pretty glad you practiced every day of that month in kindergarten, because the more you practiced, the more quickly you learned the skill.  You won’t be good at something for a while — not until you put in effort, energy and perseverance.
  • It’s inherently humbling to be in an entry-level job: the tasks vary from ridiculously easy to frustrating, over your head, and complicated. Sometimes the most difficult challenge of new tasks is figuring out how to figure them out: learning how to learn. Each day I walk into the office prepared to be surprised, to learn, to explore, research and discover. I’m never “done learning.”

And sometimes, it takes a long time to get good at something. It’s been said that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something.  Given that a year is (roughly) 2000 work hours, then figure it takes a least five years to become good at something. That’s five full-time years — it will take longer if it’s a hobby or a part time endeavor. Get grinding … see you in 5 years. So if you’re struggling in the first 1, 2, or 3 years of a new job, first, breathe a sigh of relief: you’re right where you should be.

Give yourself the chance to learn.  Leaving because learning is hard is never a reason to quit. The lesson in not giving up?

Give yourself a chance to get good at something.