Mickey's Meanderings

Redesign #6 - Feb. 10, 2012

2012-02-10T19:08:00.000-08:00

Redesign

I leased a beautiful, brand new home back in 2007 when I moved to the east coast of Florida to work at the LPGA. At the time, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to live, but I was fortunate enough to stumble upon a development that was stuck in the bad real estate market. The owner needed cash flow and I needed a place to live. We struck a deal and I moved in.

But the irony was during that time, while the LPGA underwent numerous staff changes and restructuring, I never hung my framed pictures on the walls of my home because I never felt secure with my own job. Those pictures – still wrapped in moving paper – leaned against the walls for four years.

Finally, last fall, I felt at peace in my workplace and decided to decorate the walls of my home. The pictures were carefully positioned on the walls and I even joked to a friend that it took me four years to do it. And then, in January this year, I lost my job. Trying to find some humor in my new predicament, I joked to the same friend that I should have left the pictures leaning on the wall.

I doubt the framed pictures had anything to do with my present set of circumstances, but they have symbolically morphed into a greater concept of “redesign” that has taken center stage in my life. In fact, sometimes I think God -- or the universe -- puts things out there as hints for what you need to see and what you need to do as you stumble along in your daily existence. And as I follow the metaphoric breadcrumb trail leading me to who-knows-where, I’m struck by this whole concept of redesign. It is everywhere.

And not just on the walls of my home. The neighbors across the street, for example, have been sawing and hammering for weeks to redesign the interior rooms in their home. A few days ago, I walked with my neighbor -- a very thoughtful former Catholic nun -- and she talked to me about where I am right now – “redesigning” my life. Those were her words.

And that’s what it is. I’ve come to believe that is the healthiest way to view this hiccup called job loss. Even in those deep moments of fear and despair, I have to remind myself that all of these hints, messages and directional coincidences are there for a reason. I just have to be observant enough and intuitive enough to “get it” and to realize the options I have in redesigning my life.

I also have to see this redesign as an opportunity for growth and not a time to be angry. I don’t want to spend this precious time being pissed off at the LPGA or at anybody else, but rather, to see it as a space that has been opened up to shape my future and to restructure the floor plan of my present. Just as the neighbors cut and saw closets and flooring in modified patterns from the original design, I have to find comfort in my own redesign and see the rest of my life as “here’s where I want to go and here’s how I want to do it.”

The concept of redesign for me is very important because it allows me to take an unforeseen and detrimental situation and turn it into an opportunity to redefine my objectives and to more clearly see how I want to live my life. It also has forced me to explore what I want my purpose to be. Sometimes when life is easy and the pictures are hanging nicely, you sort of operate on cruise control. You never dream of taking a wrecking ball to your own peaceful existence. Happy or not, fulfilled or not, challenged and stimulated or not, you settle for status quo, draw your paycheck and marvel at how fast the years are blowing by.

These days, I shake my head a lot at so many coincidental reminders. From the screaming band saw across the street, to the wise and even-keeled nun walking her dog, to a friend who is a cancer survivor who assures me that “everything is happening right on time,” and to the tourist from San Francisco in a restaurant who overheard my conversation about spirituality and stopped by my table to say this is a “peaceful place to be,” the directional hints seem to be as abundant as my many blessings.

I am doing a redesign right now. I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know how all the pieces of the parquet are going to fit together or even if they will. And I have no idea what the “windows” will look like or even how to anticipate the feel of the finished product. It’s all up for redesign, but it is happening. It seemingly takes some degree of demolition to produce the optimal environment for contentment and comfort.

Maybe if I just go with it, do the hard work, try to initiate movement, network, ask good questions, follow up and really give some thought to what I want the rest of my life to look like, this redesign could be the best thing that ever happened to me.

So what if I finally hung up the pictures after so many years? Even if I have to take them down, pack them up and leave, the few months of pleasure I received while they adorned the walls of my home were – unbeknownst to me – the real beginning of a new plan. And maybe as my friend says, everything truly is happening right on time.

- Lisa D. Mickey, Feb. 10, 2012

Structure #5 - Feb. 2, 2012

2012-02-02T19:57:00.000-08:00

I was scratching my head during that first week away from the office. Normally, I'm a pretty buttoned-up kind of person. I make lists each day and scratch out what I have completed as I go down the list of things I hope to accomplish. Typically, that list keeps me busy well before sunrise to well after sunset.

But I was a mess that first week! Not because I missed getting up at the crack of darkness, stretching for 30 minutes, riding my windtrainer (bike) for 35 minutes, packing my breakfast and lunch (to be eaten at my desk), grabbing a shower and getting on the road no later than 8:11 a.m. Nope, I was a mess because the very structured life I had created was now disrupted.

My routine had been jolted and now I would find my morning teacup on the front door step -- outside!! I also misplaced car keys, cell phones, turkey bacon, flip-flops and notepads. I would enter one room and forget what I came into the room to do. When I told one of my friends that I had suddenly turned into a scatterbrain, he laughed and said, "Well, your brain is probably enjoying some time off. You have always been heavily scheduled."

Scheduled? Indeed.

When you lose your job and now must put yourself on a new schedule, it is an awakening. What you learn is how jam-packed your life has been. And while I certainly could pack a lot into a day -- and still can -- what I'm learning is that sometimes my busy-ness caused me to miss a lot of living. True, you don't always have a choice when you are working in an office setting, but over the last few weeks, I've noticed things I've never seen in the nearly five years I have lived here in this Central Florida town.

For instance, I never realized the flight path between Orlando and Jacksonville regularly stripes the skies with contrails over my house all day long. I never knew a pair of bald eagles regularly perch in the top of a dead tree in the woods behind my home. I never knew how many dogs and dog walkers were in my neighborhood. And I never knew how many people of all ages hammer away in their daily workouts at the gym around the corner. I also didn't know how often my home phone rang each day with people trying to get me to buy or upgrade something. I'm a pretty observant person, but I didn't even actually know where the sun rose and set each day.

Structure is a funny thing. In one sense, it's like it puts a spine in your day. You get up and think of what you need to accomplish and what you want to do. When I went to the office each day, I was on autopilot and did nearly the same thing at the same time each day just to stay on schedule. When or if there was any time left for leisure at the end of the day, it was like a rare bonus. But what I have realized since losing my job is how little of my day was actually spent on myself. And the cumulative result of that is suddenly, nine years later, you realize that it's been like running in place on a treadmill. What do I have to show for that time? And in the course of life, what did it all actually mean?

As a culture, we are busy and most work places are currently understaffed, meaning that workers come to know their slammed-jammed work days as normal. After a while, it became normal to eat breakfast at my desk and several hours later, to also eat my lunch in front of a computer. Some days, I would be so focused on getting through my "to-do" list that I would look up and realize I was one of three cars left in the parking lot as the sun sank into the trees. My goal each day was to leave the office before the staff attorneys finally headed home!

Now, I know that focus, stress and dedication to complete a lengthy list of tasks was in vain. It didn't save my job. It didn't really make a difference. I lived my life faster and missed so much for the sake of making deadlines. But at the same time, I would probably do it all over again. It's ingrained. Maybe it's even generational to work hard and feel a sense of pride in your work. It's also satisfying to give your best efforts at all times even though, admittedly, I would like to take back a few sleepless nights in which I awoke and found myself muttering in the dark about the use of a "better verb" than what I had written earlier that day in the crunch of deadlines.

I still have my lists and I'm still busy as I settle into a new routine. Now, I can stay up later and sleep a little later. I can hop on my bike whenever I want. I can interview people on the phone for freelance projects in my bedroom slippers. I can write freelance stories at my dining room table with my hair sticking up like a woodpecker. I can work away on various projects with my cat sleeping in the chair beside me.

There is structure in place, but this time, I'm trying to do a better job of juggling real life with work. I'm trying to pay attention to where the sun comes up and where the day ends. I'm also trying to say, "How are you today?" to the lonely older lady down the street and to truly listen to her answer.

I know that someday in the near future, I'll get back on that "treadmill" to work, but this next go around, I hope that the structure of work won't ultimately supersede the essence of living. Ultimately, it's not worth it. And I don't want my friends and family to see me as so "heavily scheduled" that they need appointments to get my attention. If I have learned anything in these last few weeks, it's that structure might keep me on task, but too much of it only snatches away chunks of my life that I can never reclaim.

- Lisa D. Mickey, Feb. 2, 2012

Grace #4 - January 16, 2012

2012-01-16T09:34:00.000-08:00

I've always admired people who can make the best of every situation. They seem to be at their finest when they can convert a bad turn of events into something not as daunting, detrimental or devastating. They're like magicians who can take unwelcome circumstances and turn an incredible hurdle into a catalyst for positive change. I have friends who have that ability to operate with grace in everything they do. They're like experienced diplomats in the face of life! They're so constructive in the way they conduct themselves with others, as well as in how they treat themselves when circumstances out of their control suddenly and dramatically impact their lives.

I think to operate with grace in your life is such a gift. Maybe it's something you are born with or maybe it's something you can learn. I'm not sure. I believe I have some degree of grace because I don't usually blow up and make a mess all over the place, but I think I can be better. Perhaps that comes with maturity and experience as I gain perspective with things that happen throughout my life -- both good and bad.

I also think that grace is dependent on how you view your many blessings and the things you have learned in your realm of understanding of creation and respect to the universe. It's about being respectful. Grace seems to be a concerted understanding that everything is not just about you. It's about something much larger than yourself. It's about what was here before you got here and what will be here after you're gone.

To me, grace seems to be about embracing where you are in life and embracing the world you are in and respecting it. It's also about trusting it and believing that in spite of hiccups along the way and surprising mishaps that catch you in the worst surprise, grace is reacting with a sense of acceptance. In the case of athletes, of course they want to win every contest in which they compete, but the reality of losing more often than winning sculpts a sense of practiced acceptance to negative outcomes. That said, grace is about reacting with a sense of peace and a sense of gratefulness to all of the other things that are good. In spite of the bad things, there's so much for which to be grateful.

I had an amazing colleague when I worked at the Golf Digest Company a few years ago. He was diagnosed with ALS, an inhumane disease that slowly diminishes the body's functions. He was a young man in his early 40s with a wife and a young child. He knew he only had two to three years to live so he dealt with the disease and his own certain early death, and then went to work every single day until he died. Before he lost his ability to speak clearly, he made a video for his son to watch someday when he was old enough to understand. He wanted his son to grow up and to know something about his dad. The video was a father talking to his son about important things in life.

I remember how my friend never tried to hide the terrible symptoms of this disease. He was eventually reduced from a scratch-handicap golfer with a steady swing to a man in a wheelchair completely dependent on others. He needed help eating his lunch and visiting the restroom. He had to have help just to pull up his socks. He eventually could only write his stories by using a special computer that typed letters by the movement of his eyes. But this man showed such courage in incredibly dire circumstances. We all watched both with horror and amazement at what was happening to our beloved colleague. He never complained. He showed grace with death literally hovering as the clock ticked down. He showed us how to live. And he demonstrated with each day the very preciousness of life. When he died, it was easy for all of us to feel that this kind man had been dealt a bad hand in life. We were sad and angry, but what he showed us while he struggled each day was how to not spend the energy he had on being angry about his circumstances, but rather, on how to shift his focus to the things he could control and to appreciate every single minute and every single breath he had remaining. His life was our lesson in what grace looks like!

While I am not dealing with the same life-and-death challenges as my former colleague, I also aspire to have grace. I aspire to understand grace and to exemplify it in my behavior -- especially in times of trial, where everything I have and know and believe is being tested. I genuinely respect those who have their acts together to be graceful under fire and masterful in reacting in a way that shows a sense of self-control. When bad things happen, others can't help but watch to see how you react. Will you rant and storm about your misfortune? Will you melt down? Will you absolutely wallow in your sorrow and disappointment? Will you withdraw in isolation? Will you become bitter? Or will you stand up, dust yourself off and know that there is nowhere to go but forward? There is no point in looking back. People who spend too long staring into their rear-view mirrors are destined only to crash into what lies ahead.

A kind person recently called me on the telephone when she heard that I had lost my job and said, with a sense of cheerfulness, "Lisa, losing your job is not the worst thing that can happen to you in life." She's right. It hurts and sometimes it is confusing and scary, but the unemotional side of me understands that today's workplace is ruled by numbers. When not enough numbers show up in the right places in the accountant's ledger, other numbers must shift. It's small consolation, but it is reality. I get it. It's not personal from a business perspective. It's survival for them and then, in another way, it becomes survival for you.

So while I transition forward with whatever is next for me, I hope people will think I have some degree of grace in my little journey. I want to have a sense of grace about my daily living, a sense of peace, a sense of respect, and a sense of responsibility in how I handle my disappointment. I know that the way I react is a reflection of me, my family and all that I've ever known and done in my life. I suppose if I had to choose between having a job and a genuine sense of lifelong grace, the decision is easy. Jobs come and go, but grace is that underlying essence that shapes your acceptance of everything that lies ahead.

- January 16, 2012

Egalitarianism #3 - Jan. 11, 2012

2012-01-11T20:21:00.000-08:00

It's been one week and one day since I lost my job and I've had a lot of time to think about it. It's probably human nature to wonder what I did wrong, or if I did anything that earned me future eligibility for unemployment? I'm certainly not perfect, but I made my deadlines, haven't had a sick day in several years, often don't use up my vacation, work around the clock, take complaints from people when it's not my job (and actually try to help them), and generally, came to work every day excited about my assignments. I certainly was not one of those people who burst out the back door to the parking lot each day at 5:30 on the dot!

Interestingly, there is one thing that probably did not help my cause, and that one thing is something that is essential for all people who go into newspaper reporting. It's a sense of egalitarianism. That's a big word, but the dictionary defines it as "a belief in human equality, especially with respect to social, political and economic affairs." In other words, a big part of my professional training, starting as a "Teen Page Correspondent" at the Winston-Salem Journal/Sentinel (N.C.) around age 16, was the required sense of treating all people equally and not getting star-struck. I can remember my old editor telling me that I had to be objective and impartial if I wanted to "make it in this business."

People in the news industry are around movers and shakers all the time, so you have to program your brain early to see sports figures, entertainment figures, political figures and the Donald Trumps of the world with equanimity. So what if they are the greatest basketball player, actor, world leader or richest man in Manhattan? At the end of the day, why should that make him or her different than the UPS guy or the cat sitter or the person who dumps your trash cans each day at the office? And truthfully, do you have the most contact with the sports hero and bazillionaire or with the UPS guy and cleaning crew?

I've done a pretty good job with that throughout my career and honestly, I think the only person who caused me to get a tiny bit rattled was tennis legend Billie Jean King. Maybe that's because I had a poster of her up in my room as a kid beside Swedish tennis legend Bjorn Borg and Australian tennis great Evonne Goolagong, and in my mind as a kid, it was almost as if Billie Jean invented women's sports. After all, she started Women's Sports magazine and was a founding influence in the Women's Sports Foundation. She helped put women on the map in sports and insisted to newspaper editors around the world that women athletes were relevant.

But what does all that have to do with why I lost my job? Maybe nothing, but also, maybe a lot. Everybody knows how office politics works. The "squeaky wheel gets the grease," right? So if you just hunker down in your office and work and don't "play the game," maybe you are regarded differently. Maybe you are perceived as not being fun or even respectful. You're not awed by much. You're not genuflecting or kowtowing. And if you treat others equally, which, ideally, should be an admirable trait, could that potentially come back and bite you if you don't stroke egos?

Maybe it's a case of genuine misunderstanding. I behave professionally as I have been trained. Perhaps others want or need another kind of person as a colleague or staff member -- one that does not have an egalitarian view of the world. If that's the case, then showing me the door was the only option because it's seemingly not in my DNA to alter my approach to people. Sure, it's fun and interesting to see what "stars" are like and to engage with them in conversation, but for me, unless it's Jesus Christ, Gandhi or Buddha, I'm probably not going to get too rattled in my interpersonal dealings. People are people. I believe that and respect them all on the same level. If that's a bad thing, then let me open my own door.

Anger #2 - Jan. 11, 2012

2012-01-10T21:15:00.000-08:00

Anger might be one of the most primal human behaviors. It can flare up like a flame and cause a lot of damage. It seems to take shape sometimes before the brain even realizes that this deep, seething wave of energy is steamrolling through the body.

But as you mature, maybe you just have more experience in snuffing out the flame of anger. Maybe you recognize it faster and take action. Maybe you're old enough to not want to embarrass yourself by saying or doing things you will later regret.

While anger is not an admirable trait, it is a "normal" reaction, but if left to linger, anger is debilitating and destructive. It can totally compromise your objectives for happiness or success. It can eat you alive.

I was told by a close friend who is a practicing Buddhist to try a different approach to the things in life that are hurtful or cause anger. She told me to embrace the moment and to feel the things the moment causes me to experience. Through that process, the anger begins to dissipate. I'm not sure why it works, but it's almost as if you meet the source of your anger face to face, stare it down and then it slinks away.

Sure, when bad things happen, anger comes and goes, but I have learned to again, feel what I'm supposed to feel as a human being, and then let it go. Be angry, understand why I am angry, peel away the layers of that anger, and then release it.

Another thing that helps me is to go spend time on the beach. So many times when I have been angry or irritated, I have gravitated to an oceanside spot to try to escape the personal misery I have created. Standing there looking at the sea, comprised of wave after wave on a beach comprised of zillions of grains of sand, I realize what a small dot I am in the universe. I realize that God is pretty busy. I realize that my anger is not even worth a grain of sand in this beautiful place. And if I am fortunate enough to stand in such beauty with the gift of a new day, I am a fool to waste my emotions on the ugliness of anger.

Jan. 11, 2012

Capacity - #1

2012-01-08T13:49:00.000-08:00

THE TRAILHEAD

I've been wanting to publish a blog for a long time, but I didn't know it would take losing my job to motivate me to do it.

So, I plan to explore some simple topics for however many more weeks or months it takes for me to get a new job. Each word will reflect a thought in this new journey, and each thought is considered a stepping stone in my growth as a changing person and as a human being engaged in the process of reaching some unknown and distant destination.

Sometimes the path is linear and sometimes it meanders and seemingly feels off course. The objective is to make my own path and to be fine with it, and also to understand there is no one way of getting anywhere.

Destinations and goals are always subject to change, just as status quo is subject to disruption. But while change has a way of rocking our world, it is not only good, but should be expected. It's just that most often when it happens, we have become comfortable, and suddenly, a change has forced into a scrambling mode.

True, I'm patting my pockets right now, looking for the cell phone or the compass and wondering exactly where I am? The truth is, I am where I am, and where I'm supposed to be at this very moment. What I'm learning is there is a difference in being lost and not exactly knowing where I am.

Anyway, I'm taking you on this journey with me. Come along. We'll learn together.

- Lisa D. Mickey
January 8, 2012

1. CAPACITY

Capacity is an interesting word because it means so much. It means we have the capacity to live a life in a place that makes us happy. It means we have the capacity to think thoughts and to explore the world. We have the capacity to be whatever we want to be in life -- to live, to learn, to love, to explore, to work, to rest, to recreate and to move comfortably toward the end of our mortal existence. It means we have the ability to be what we want to be.

Capacity is the absolute potential to do anything or to, at least, attempt anything, but it requires effort. You can have the capacity to do anything, but if you don't exert or extend yourself, or if you don't explore or dream, then you will never know what your capacity is. The thought without effort is a mere concept.

Your capacity can take you in places you never knew you could go, doing things you never knew you could do, or even thinking thoughts that never before interested you. Capacity is the threshold for infinite possibility. That's what human capacity really is -- possibility with effort.

And when you're looking to move ahead or beyond any transition that feels uncomfortable, or if you're just looking to move to the next destination, wherever it is, whatever it is, you have to have a belief in your own capacity to accomplish those goals, to engage and to venture forth. I think human capacity is the enabling aspect of human existence. Without capacity, we're mere objects -- stationary, transfixed, immobile, dreamless and without goals. Fortunately, we all have capacity. And because of it, perhaps the objective is to explore what our lifelong capacity is and where it can take us, fearlessly moving forward.