Have you ever had one of those days where you get the same message repeated to you in various forms? Well, by the end of yesterday I was saying "Okay! I get it!" and my mind was shutting down from all the information processing... needless to say it was a very good sleep.
It started early in the morning with a call from a friend to go for a walk followed by a birthday breakfast for one of her friends at a local restaurant. We walked and talked and got our day off to a lovely start. We both admired the idea behind the breakfast: her friend simply posted on facebook and made a few calls around to let people know she would be at the restaurant and would love it if anyone who wanted would just show up, wish her a happy birthday, and enjoy breakfast. She knew what she wanted, asked for it, and got it! It was such a wonderful opportunity for an interesting cross section of her friends to meet as well... there was so much wonderful networking and storytelling.
That was when the message started for me... it was there under the surface all along in various conversations, yet when Reinette (a friend of the birthday girl's and our town mayor actually) mentioned the time when she did the Iditarod alone (yes! I can't wait to hear about this story at her performance on Saturday night)... well, she said she was just recently enlightened to the idea that she wasn't alone at all. She couldn't have finished the race without all the help of the villages and villagers along the way who taught her skills and helped her achieve her goal.
This struck a cord with me because that's the way I have felt about my life and especially my business. There are so many people who help me and have helped me along the way in various forms. After breakfast I received an email from a fellow jeweler who is thinking of hiring some helpers. I gave her some pointers from a business perspective, but definitely encouraged her to do it. I'm not always sure why our American culture wants to put so much emphasis on doing things alone or being the best or trying to do it all. I'm a huge fan of teamwork or delegation and being proud of it. That's why my website isn't just about me (I am in the phases of simplifying it for various reasons, but I still acknowledge other people who help me on the In the Studio section of my website.
The rest of my day was filled with business errands and various emails. I was surprisingly exhausted from the early part of the day yet knew I needed to keep my energy up for the evening event at the APPLE Center where See Jane Do was hosting an event. Eleven women stood up for 5 minutes each speaking about the projects they are involved in, mostly based around food, the environment, gardening, and community. It was a powerful night, and each speaker acknowledged that she was merely a leader who brought other people together (actually, most of them didn't even feel like leaders since they were all deeply involved workers in their projects). There were no loners in this group, and each person made an appeal for volunteers and thanked the community for its various forms of support and encouraged everyone to get involved on some level.
Soon after I had to head home just to crash, but first a phone call to a friend who reached out in a time of needing an ear. To wind down I crawled into bed and finished the book "When Everything Changes, Change Everything" which ends of the note of "you can't do it alone," and why do that to yourself. Sometimes to not be alone you have to be the one who reaches out (and don't we all want people to reach out to us and know just when we need to hear something? well, people aren't mind readers, and to get what you want you have to go for what you want). The writer (Neale Donald Walsh) clarifies that solitude and meditation are different from being alone. Often times to be alone is an effort where you are shutting yourself off. When you have gratitude and appreciation and understanding of what your soul needs, you will not be alone.
That's hardly the message of the whole book... it's very interesting if you need more control in your life based around changes that are happening to you (it turns out you are making them happen!) or simply to change your perspective on all the change and turmoil happening in the world. The end kept emphasizing the "not alone" message, though, which was just interesting based on the events of the day.
