Forget the Olympics; I could put everything I’ve ever learned in the context of food. I don’t think there is anything in the world I think about more. Even writing those words makes me sad; how much time I have wasted (and still waste) on my best friend and greatest enemy.
As someone who has been far too interested in body shape since I was a young gymnast, watching the Olympics is an absolute feast for the eyes (pun intended). I find myself marveling at the shape of the athlete’s muscles, wondering what it must be like to look like that. It’s unhealthy. It’s superficial. And yet, at 44, I still do it. And damn…those athletes are h-o-t hot. Ha!
Seriously though, I couldn’t possibly summarize my issues with food into one lesson and I don’t want to give it more attention than that in this space. So I’ll put it this way—I don’t expect my issues with food to ever go away. I used to have hope that they would. Now, I have hope for something else.
Since I’ve been more open about my own issues, I’ve learned that rare is the person in America who has a healthy relationship with food. A lot of us are trying and failing and trying again. All I can do is try my best every single meal of every single day and, in the many minutes in between each meal. It’s not easy and it never will be. Every now and then, that reality reduces me to tears. But I pick myself up, and I keep trying, reminding myself to be grateful that I have another day to do so. My hope now is that with constant effort, I can find peace with the sweet things that torture me, one day at a time. (And today is Day 15 of a hard no-sugar reset.)
10. Money means choices, but definitely not happiness.
People like choices; it’s a core principle I live by as an educator and as a human. When I worked as an attorney, my salary (and bonus) were quite lovely. They helped get us a house. But I was a fish trying to climb a tree.
10. Money means choices, but definitely not happiness.
People like choices; it’s a core principle I live by as an educator and as a human. When I worked as an attorney, my salary (and bonus) were quite lovely. They helped get us a house. But I was a fish trying to climb a tree.
My sister was also an attorney at a big law firm and we joke that one day we will write a book about our experiences there. We have a working title: I know you're at a funeral but... One of the partners she worked for sent her an email with an "urgent" assignment and it started with those words. Needless to say, she left big law, too (and is now crushing it with the federal government).
Still, I will always be forever grateful to big law. It showed me a path to being stupidly rich. The path was right there and I know how fortunate I am to have seen it (I also know how hard I worked to be able to see it). At Ropes, I saw what I would need to do to make crazy money, and intellectually, I'm pretty certain I could have done it. But I also saw what that path would include: lack of sleep, unexpected travel, projects I didn't believe in, a money-driven mission, a work culture that was way too serious for me, a sad absence of music in the office, just to make a few. When I walked away and went back to teach, I took a pay cut well over $100,000. And I've never looked back.
I admit, my safety net is sturdy and the privilege that comes with that is undeniable. But I also know this: life is way too short to do something you hate. For me, no amount of money would ever be worth it.
11. Find your gift and share it with the world.
As much as I felt out-of-place in big law, I feel completely in my element now. I remember being on a week of summer vacation in my Ropes days, wanting to bawl my eyes out at the miserable thought of having to go back to my office on Monday. I felt sick to my stomach thinking about it, even on the Tuesday before.
Now, I work just as many hours if not more. I "work" every weekend and a bit on vacation, but it doesn't even feel like I'm working. I make less, and it's by no means glamorous. But I feel like a fish who finally found the ocean. And the ocean is clean, and fresh, and full of potential.
I'm pretty sure that I wanted to be a teacher the first day I learned about this thing called school. And I'm pretty sure I wrote my first book the day after I learned how to put a crayon to paper. I have had outside-the-box ideas since I was a kid, and I know now that I only feel truly alive on the days that I learn or create something new. I didn't know any of this twelve years ago, but I'm glad I know it now.
And so now, I get to choose my work people, and then as a team, we get to teach kids how to find their gifts and share them with the world. Have you ever seen the look in a kid's eye when they start to believe in themselves? I know it sounds cliché, but if you think I'm making it up, then you just have never seen it.
I have been blessed in the last few months to hired my first full-time employee, someone I consider a good friend even though we only reconnected months ago. Josh gave me a book about Steve Jobs. Jobs once said:
You really will.
12. Find your people, build a life with them, and value time like the most precious resource on Earth.
Being a parent and an owner of an education company, I often think about what the most important lessons are that we could teach the younger generations. And it's funny because maybe the most important thing is something we almost never talk about, at least, not explicitly. I think that the vast majority of a person's happiness or misery is based on their decision of a life partner. I'm not saying it's necessarily a spouse, although for many people it is. It could be a parent or a partner or a friend with whom you choose to spend the majority of our days and nights. Whatever way, it's a huge decision.
It's crazy to me that so many of us choose a life partner so young, before we have any clue about the real world, before our brains are even fully formed. I met Brian when I was 18 years old; we got engaged when I was 24. We knew nothing about nothing. I just had a miraculous stroke of good luck, paired with a decent instinct of who was a nice person and who wasn't.
Last night while we were watching the Olympics, I found myself Googling Tara Davis-Woodhall and her husband, Hunter Woodhall. Their love in the stands was palpable and their story, real and beautiful. Years ago, I would have stopped Lesson #12 there. Happily ever after.
But twelve more years of living has taught me that none of us have any clue what happens behind closed doors. We have no idea how a husband treats his wife, how anyone treats anyone, for that matter, when no one else is looking. I happened to build a life with someone who treats me with respect and kindness and compassion when no one is looking. I am one of the lucky ones. And yet, even in the best of cases, living life with other people can be challenging. I have so much respect for people who declare, This isn't working for me. It takes such insight and courage to make such a declaration.
Of course, I'm never directly going to teach my kids or (obviously) my students about how to find their people. But I can teach them to respect themselves, to value their voice and their worth. I can help teach them how to better understand who they are, what they want in life, and how to behave like their dreams are worthy of others' respect and support. I can try to best learn and then teach how to have difficult conversations, how to assert ourselves with grace and confidence, how to make hard decisions in key moments of life. None of us have these answers. But I hope to help ask the right questions and be there to help them find their answers. That's why time is the most precious resource on Earth.
