Color of Happiness » volunteer

Throwing Caution to the Wind: Over-Scheduled Style

suslane — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:28:50 +0000

Photo via Flickr by eliazar

There is a can of paint in my car with lines of dried dripped paint all down the sides. There are rollers and brushes that were yesterday wet with paint, wrapped in bags and tape and fear of messiness and today are probably dried and ruined also in my trunk. There is a friend’s ladder, another friend’s paint rollers and any number of things that I should have attended to yesterday, but did not. And it was wonderful.

Yesterday, I biked along the river, sat in a new, thriving church, painted a wall, installed lights, sang at the top of my lungs with no fear of judgment, went to a movie I hadn’t researched the times for 3 days before, ate gelato and pizza and hung out with some great friends and did not check my email for hours at a time. One of them said to me yesterday, “you do too much.” I was torn between immediately agreeing with him and defending my over-saturated schedule.

To give a little background here: I tend to say yes to things that I think deserve my attention and once I am committed, I am committed 300%. Fortunately or unfortunately, I think a lot of things deserve my attention. Therefore, when I look at my 7 color-coded calendars to see what is coming for the day, I am excited. I get to play kickball, or Frisbee, train for my next triathlon or volunteer at church, indirectly care for women in Rwanda by being their voices here through trying to learn how to run a non-profit advisory board as its youngest member, install a photography show, work for a cause I believe in, and try to be a good friend to quite a few different groups of people all over DC and the world.

Recently I asked another friend in semi-seriousness, “How do you know when you are doing too much?” He responded, “When it gets in the way of your life.” The things in the paragraph above are my life, very purposely and passionately so, but I think he meant that it is too much when your activities begin to define you and control you. Therefore, how do I gain that sense of freedom I had yesterday which paralleled the freedom I felt in jumping on a plane to Peru a week after buying a ticket or during my job search (more on this later as to why I was the happiest I have been in a long time while unemployed…)? Do I plan less? Care about fewer people? Leave more open space in my schedule? Draw more boundaries? Or less? Or do I just keep moving forward surrounding myself with people who nudge me when I have become too confined by my schedule to throw it all away for a day and just have an afternoon of spontaneity?

In fact, I think I will just have to move in with said people. My friends who made my blissful Sunday possible, are my soon to be roommates come September, and I look forward to ditching my schedule more often and telling you the resulting tales.

Posted in Job Search Tagged: Art, Job Search, photography, Travel, volunteer

An Overview [Job Searching]

suslane — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:10:24 +0000

Here is an overview of upcoming posts on something I have spent large swaths of the last three years, and all of the last 3 months doing: the Job Search.

Topics will include:

How to be Laid Off Gracefully
Who Am I and What Kind of Job do I Want?
Career Coaches and what they can do for me
The How: Spreadsheets and Research and Spreadsheets and some more Research
Networking: On and Offline via LinkedIn, Twitter, Associations and Connections
Keeping Up: your Attitude, Productivity, Work/Life Balance
The importance of friends and family in a job search
Resumes: Rules of Thumb and Alternatives
Why Gen Y Rocks the Working World & how this can pose problems with Boomers in management
Career Tests: Which ones are worth it and why
Follow Up and Thank You Notes
Why the Job search Doesn’t Suck
Blog and Volunteer Your Way into a Job

Stay Tuned!

And let me know if there are other things that you want to know about.

Photo by Tom™5 via flickr.

Posted in DC, Job Search Tagged: Career, GenY, Job Search, LinkedIn, Networking, Twitter, volunteer

How to Get in the Way with Service

suslane — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 05:43:12 +0000

more about “How to Get in the Way with Service“, posted with vodpod

Photos, by me.

The morning before the inauguration, I joined over 1200 people to participate in Be the Change‘s campaign, ServiceNation’s MLK Day “New Era Of Service” breakfast at Ballou Senior High School. There were so many volunteers that they actually had to turn some away. Julia and I were invited to tweet and blog at the event, and we did so, happily! Julia’s blog post (on the not-blocked blogger platform, rather than my wordpress based blog which I couldn’t get to due to the school’s firewalls hence the extreme tardiness of this post) can be found here. For the play by play recap, My tweets are here and Julia’s are here.

The breakfast was star-studded and inspirational. I left with lingering anticipation and apprehensive questions as to what the year (4 years?) will hold for non-profits and service in general.

1. Volunteerism is in vogue. I mean, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher and their friends told me. So, what happens if one day service no longer is popular? And how did we get here (thank goodness we did)? To this state of public appreciation for do-gooders (vs. the indifference I recall from my childhood)?

2. How is this a New Era of Service? How will we approach it differently? More social media surrounding it, or more real action, better policies to prevent the need for volunteers to fix crumbling public schools, or simply more media coverage?

3. How does our current economic and political climate affect our volunteering? Time? Motivation? Fear?

4. And my favorite question in recent job interviews: How do you measure success? This is the real kicker isn’t it? Is success having 1000 people show up to volunteer and get to know the Anacostia neighborhood and it’s residents in a different light? Is success having 30 celebrities make a video about the need for us all to chip in? Is success having someone in the White House who backs communities and calls us all to lend a hand and get to work rebuilding our nation? Is success eradicating urban poverty?

Clearly, some of these are more attainable and realistic than others, but it helps to know what we are aiming for before we begin walking, building, advocating and organizing our way to it en masse.

Senator John Lewis of Georgia (my home state!) said in his speech, “We have an obligation to leave this nation a little greener and a little more peaceful for unborn generations.” (And now I may paraphrase a bit) “Continue to serve and never give up. You will not be arrested or beaten. Go out and do what you can. What you MUST. To make our country what it should be. There is a great spirit in America today, a spirit of hope. I believe we are prepared to travel on this unbelievable journey.” My favorite words from Sen. Lewis were his charge, “Martin Luther King, Jr. has called us here today to GET IN THE WAY. Stand up, speak out, and get involved in service.”

So maybe that is all we need to do. Get in the way of the injustice, the inefficiencies, the brokenness, and know that you will not be arrested or beaten as generations past. You will, we hope, be joined, by a host of other servants. And if you aren’t, maybe go grab some friends and teach them of the work that needs to be done.

You can start here: Sign ServiceNation’s Declaration of Service.

Still confused? Follow Stephen Colbert’s lead when he hosted Be the Changes’s Alan Khazei on the Colbert Report.

As my first live blogging (turned tweeting) experience, I could not have been more impressed with ServiceNation at the event and their follow up. Here is some of the great info they have available for those who want to see more: http://www.bethechangeinc.org/servicenation/happenings/inaugural2009/breakfast

Website: http://www.servicenation.org

Blog: http://www.changewireblog.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/servicenation

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/servicenation

Think.MTV: http://www.think.mtv/servicenation

Flikr: http://www.flickr.com/bethechangeinc

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/bethechangeinc

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bethechangeinc

Finally, how have more people not seen this documentary on Ballou’s marching band!?

Posted in service Tagged: band, Colbert Report, documentary, Liveblog, Martin Luther King Day, service, ServiceNation, Twitter, volunteer