…because not all who wander are lost.

I am really, really good at not living for Someday. I believe that Life is Short. I don’t put off travel for Someday, or asking somebody out. I don’t wait for kismet or the stars to align…

I have been living life like it’s In The Meantime, though.

You know… until I get my career figured out or my business built… until I meet my match and settle wherever he is or we go off gallivanting together.

I’ve been filling time, waiting (not so patiently), saying, “Yes!” to what the Universe throws me… waiting for the Main Course, the Feature Presentation, the Big To-Do.

Have you?

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Let me be up front with you: slow & steady is not my way.

I’ve a tendency toward the frenetic, the disheveled, the hot burst of white lightning creativity… the wild banshee.

Not everything in life works that way, though.

And so it has gone with many things I’m up to lately. I just have to deal with it. There’s a learning curve. I am not graceful with it.

For years I’ve been working on… no, DEVOTED TO… a little non-profit event started by the fabulous graphic designer, TEDster and all-around good guy Jeroen Hermkens It was called the European Summit… now it’s called Connect & Act because that is exactly what we do: connect committed changemakers and social entrepreneurs from around the world with each other, funders and supporters. We believe we are stronger together than the sum of our separate parts & that we are each a part of a movement for Good on the planet. We need not work alone.

I cannot say it’s always gone smoothly. (Understatement!) Especially because we started it, you know, for fun as a hobby. Here we are 6 years on now and I need to present a business plan to investors. Learning, people… I’m learning. It is so exciting. Something this big you cannot rush. Somewhere along the line I went from being a young Professor to building a movement. I am humbled… and sometimes completely overwhelmed.

Another thing that’s slow and steady? Transforming this XpatAdventures Web site. Baby steps. So much slower than I’d like to take them. My baby steps were wild, off-kilter, “let me show you I can run already” things, I imagine. My Mother should maybe guest post on that.

Here’s a side story for your entertainment today (and then I’ll leave you with one last fun download):

About 16 years ago, in my 20s, when I’d started teaching at CU-Boulder, my Mom flew from Florida to Denver and took a bus to town. It was in the middle of the work day and I thought it would be fun if she saw me teach. She must’ve been running a little late, because mid-lecture I saw her in the doorway and accidentally exclaimed, “Hi, Mom!” She dragged her suitcase in, sat down and on we went with class. She told me later the student next to her whispered, “What was she like as a child?!” This still makes me laugh.

Here’s the one last thing for today. The new XpatAdventures manifesto. I hope you enjoy it!

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I’ve heard there’s this thing called a “TED moment.” As far as I can tell the phenomenon involves 3 elements (there may be many more):

• sitting in your seat at TED, tears running down your face, hoping no one will notice or think you a total freak,
• some major internal shift compelled by content and the environment that
• precipitates a realization or insight and usually remarkable behavioral shift.

I heard this from a delightful European financial services executive who’d had his moment a few years ago, run crying into the foyer of the theater in the middle of a session, and made a list of actions he took immediately. They involved selling and/or giving away land and much more.

I had my TED moment Tuesday evening watching Balazs Havasi pound on a piano. The more expressed, the wilder he got… the more difficulty I had containing my tears.

I wasn’t sure why. I sat in my seat running through possibilities:

• It’s beautiful, moving to watch someone play so full out.   (Yes, I know. I see that frequently in my life, though, thankfully.)
• Maybe I’m still, decades later, mourning the music career I didn’t pursue after years of classical training and performing.   (No, that wasn’t it.)

Tears welled up & spilling over, I got still enough to hear myself think. This is what I heard:

From the time I was a very small girl, I fragmented myself. I went to two schools every day: for three hours trained by a Juilliard graduate at one school, then to a gifted school for academics. Two schools, two passions, two sets of friends.

When it came time for Uni I’d chosen not to pursue music because I thought it would require ALL of me, that it would take everything, and I had intellectual hunger I could neither ignore nor neglect. I also had a rich social life. I pursued academics as far as I could: earning a world-class Ph.D. and teaching at the University level for over a decade.

Intellectual hunger sated, I went to work with some of the world’s largest companies. As you can see in the sidebar, that work takes me regularly to 5 continents.

Then there’s Connect & Act – the non-profit I event I run to bring high caliber young changemakers together from all around the world.

Let me be clear: there is no complaint here. Each of these incarnations has been an adventure, a blessing, a joy.

This is what struck me my very first official day at TED:

For the first time I was sitting in an event that spoke to nearly every part of me:

• the classically trained performing musician; (Danielle de Niese)
• the interdisciplinary Ph.D. bringing economics, political science, sociology & anthropology to bear on mass media usage and regulation; (Rebecca MacKinnon)
• the Professor standing fiercely for freedom of expression training a corps of journalist freedom fighters to go out into the world telling important stories; (Maajid Nawaz)
• the corporate consultant traveling the globe; (Geoffrey West)
• the woman running a non-profit bringing together changemakers from around the world (Julia Bacha)

Until that moment I’d not realized the labor, sacrifice and myriad consequences of the fragmentation I’ve done my whole life. I think I’ll be looking at the consequences (and how to mitigate them) for quite some time.

The tears were overwhelm, peace, shock and comfort at sitting in a theater amid thousands of other people, feeling like I was spoken to in my entirety… like I might be able to express myself fully here and not be too much or too intense. I might even belong, something I’ve not hoped for most of my life.

As an expat, a radical, a high-performing single woman, there are so few places where even contained parts of me fit. This is the first time I’ve ever felt that my whole self might be safe to express; it may even be embraced.

I don’t imagine that’ll be my last TED moment; I’m hoping it’s the first of many. Thank you TED, for the moment, the beauty, for speaking to all of it.

ADDENDUM: What do you think – is the fragmentation a way we make ourselves small, manageable? How often have you felt it implied that a talented, assertive, expressed woman might be, you know, a bit much? It’s not the same for talented men.

Check out these two talks from TED Global 2011:

• Maajid Nawaz: A Culture to Fight Extremism
• Let’s take back the internet! Rebecca MacKinnon on TED.com (ted.com)

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