Becoming something…

I spent most of last week in Seattle, which is why my posts were so sparse. I was there for both a conference on experiential education and some personal meddling. My significant-other, Gregg, had taken the initiative a few months earlier to begin co-coordinating our conferences. We had one methodology, decide on a city first then conference second. Which of course we mixed up priorities. Then this is where he and I are different. Conference search, for me, meant days online looking at all the options possible. Cities first, then maybe find time to see what conferences were there. Plus I had some ideal, that nagged me during the search, that this was an opportunity to find a conference that had topics that I was really into (I scraped our strategy basically to look for the most perfect option) I’m exhausted all over again just thinking about it, aren’t you? As my list grew, Gregg’s list got smaller and he really was only considering the city because he thought, if someone else is paying why be so concerned. You can start to see a trend.

It might begin to look like I’m heading down the road of dissing the “open-minded-free-spirited” bunch but I am in fact pinning the tail on a much larger donkey. This post is for all of us and all those times when we find that “going with the flow” is really a guise for being indecisive. This causes tension in most everyone because being completely narrow-minded or open-minded isn’t really ideal, yet our society rewards making the most perfect “right” decision but only after being open minded enough to consider every option. We are destined to fail, how can we be both at the same time?

Through my whole process of looking, looking, looking, I exemplified my tendency to wander. While I was looking, Gregg forced us to make some decisions on his ever shortening list. In the end, my tactic led nowhere. City first, conference second had us removing more options from his list. We were left with one, Seattle, which was on both of our lists since the beginning (a slap in the face). Plus the conference was applicable to both of our work positions. I grumbled at the decision.

Part three of all of this was the beginning phases of looking at graduate programs. I thought, wouldn’t it have been better to have chosen an area with more college options? Quite the opposite was true, at least for me. Since the Seattle area didn’t have the plethora of options of say Boston, I was able to satiate my desire to look at all of them. I ended up visiting all applicable programs offered in my broad areas of interest at each of of the institutions.

There is a growing lesson from this. I could over analyze this whole ordeal but I’ll keep the lesson simple. Settle more often. Settling for Seattle led me to find the first graduate program that seemed to take into account all my interests, plus the institution is highly rated. I discovered an article in Psychology Today while in the beautiful Seattle library, just as I was wrapping my own head around this conclusion. Click here and check it out!

Here are some tips they suggest:

How to Make Options Your Allies

You can outfox your evolved emotional makeup.

* God is not in the details: Practice making decisions quickly about small things and routine purchases. Limit the time you spend comparing specs. Build confidence in your “gut” by attending to it.
* Don’t dwell: Refuse to spend too much time regretting a decision or blaming yourself for a poor outcome. Instead learn from your mistakes and determine to do better.
* Keep your expectations realistic: Needing it all is guaranteed to make you unhappy.
* Risk a wrong decision: Fight emotional paralysis by seeing that even making the “wrong” choice is often better than making no choice at all; you still learn through trial and error. It is better to blunder your way through life than to avoid making decisions.
* Don’t look back: Engineer your decisions so that they are binding and irreversible: Force yourself to buy final sale items or draw up a contract with family or friends stating that you will not reverse course on a larger decision.

This whole topic relates right back to a previous entry about focusing your options, specifically regarding those close to you. It seems like although settling has a negative connotation we must settle and focus in order to actually have time to experience something. Play to your evolutionary strong points and keep it simple stupid.

I think it’s nice to feel and see a change of pace. Don’t you?

Gays who are out of the closet at work have stronger careers

This is a guest post from Nina Smith whose blog is Queercents. 

I was out at work long before I had the courage to come out to my parents. As a twentysomething marketing coordinator, I would often shoot the breeze in my boss’ office, and during one such gab-fest she asked if I was gay.

I remember standing up, walking to her office door and shutting it before answering the question.

“Well, since you asked… Yep, I’m gay.”

I can’t recall what prompted the question and I’m sure her inquiry broke more than one human resources rule, but we were friends and she was genuinely curious — in a Jewish-mother sort of way– about why I didn’t date or have a boyfriend.

I’ve been out at work ever since.

There’s a lot to be said about showing our true colors. Corporate America rewards authenticity. Selisse Berry, Executive Director of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates said, “We know that when employees bring their whole lives to work, they are happier, more productive, and have decreased rate of turnover.”

This makes sense because it’s hard to come across as a “normal” when people don’t know a thing about your personal life. Or worse yet, you get pegged as the person defined by work and nothing else.

David Stocum, a Life Coach who specializes in working with members of the gay community writes, “Among the benefits of coming out is a potentially more pleasant environment with less stress and more mental energy to devote to your work. You also are less likely to have resentment and workplace conflict. All these factors combine to yield overall improved job performance, which you could expect would lead to more steady career growth, better advancement opportunities and a more successful career, not to mention the improvements in mental and physical health.”

I work in technology and I take a new job every couple of years. I’ve been out at every company. The process gets easier with practice. Now I typically out myself when someone asks if I have children. For whatever reason, after thirty, people stopped asking if I was married. Recently my response has been, “No, but my partner and I are trying to get pregnant.” The reaction is everything from silence to the gentle and sincere follow-up questions.

Proposed federal legislation aims to end discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, but we know that laws with the best intentions are limited in by realities of the workplace. Discrimination from employers and repercussions from homophobic co-workers are complex and slippery to squash with laws; social acceptance among colleagues will remain a personal journey for those of us in the LGBT community.

Still, for many people, no salary is big enough to compensate for being closeted at work. There are plenty of gay-friendly companies. And the idea that you have to stay closeted because of the town you live in is also suspect. Where you live should meet your highest priorities; surely being true to yourself is one of those, and there are many options for moving to an inexpensive city that is gay-friendly.

Keep in mind, though, that coming out at work is not an all-or-nothing decision. Gay.com columnist Russell Kaltschmidt says: “Some people choose to come out initially only to selected colleagues or just to their manager. Others seek to be out to everybody. You could just start responding more honestly to questions from colleagues about your personal life, or you could take a more proactive approach by informing all of your immediate coworkers.”

Coming out is not a one-time event, but a conscious choice we make every day. Richard Rothstein at QueerSighted writes about this recurring moment of truth:  ”No matter how confident you may be in your queerness, you nonetheless look for signs of trouble or discomfort. There’s a momentary pause as your co-workers digest the news; or you can see on their faces that they already knew, or you can see them struggling to pretend that they did already know and that it doesn’t matter. Occasionally someone ‘comforts’ you with the ‘news’ that you’re still the ‘same person.’ Yuck.”

And what happens when they see the real you? Kirk Snyder, author of The G Quotient writes, “The more people who get to know us as good neighbors, talented co-workers and company leaders, the less homophobia there will be in the world. Bigotry of any kind is rooted in fear of the unknown, so by coming out and being ourselves, we are changing the world.”

Don’t you feel like some things have been compromised. To get through life, what gives? what takes? This folder might be a bit of coincidental metaphor but share a piece of the real drama of getting the tools for success (as you define it) in life.

Drinking Success

It sometimes feels like a ocean
building up, as careful concern
increases pressure around the eyes.

Sweet silence. Open eyes find
paradise. The realization that
we have bathed in seas of expectation.

Overwhelmed input. Water pumps
out in gushes turning desert into
lush oasis. Curing everything.

Learning to write. Thinking selfishly was tough,
really actually difficult. The ink still
produces black gold. It takes time to write.

Leaves sound like rain, pouring rain.
This is when the wind brings
ideas and thoughts are speedy.

Growing towards nothing. Tripped,
manage this flood. Catch yourself,
desire the flood’s opportunities.

So I thought at first I would call out, name, the blog’s mission as “becoming twenty-something” but it didn’t fit. You know that deeper feeling where you wish you actually knew what you were becoming? The thing is, most of us don’t know. People mention steps, forward motion, and success. Now, post-grad, the refrain is stronger than ever. I had to think long and hard, painfully and artfully. I opened up to “becoming something.” I knew that expressing this confusion was important, part of the the something. Yet I’m not dumb, bluntly put, because I know in my heart that there is direction, the becoming.

I am becoming something.

Listen. Read. Watch. Contribute.

Where do you become, in what space, what time, what version of you, something?

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