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My Summer Faves

Posted on 28. Oct, 2009 by Lily.

I’ve been wrestling with a post about teachers and education for the past 2 months but I can’t seem to get to the end of it. So while I continue to thrash on that subject, I thought I’d share some of the books, songs, and movies I’ve enjoyed lately.

Fiction: Ethan Canin’s America, America
I’ve loved reading ever since my parents first introduced me to the library as a young child. I find literature to be both a way to escape your physical and mental surroundings and a way to empathize with the world around you. I read America, America while on vacation in Corsica. Something about my gorgeous & peaceful surroundings and the way the story unfolds really clicked for me. I love novels that weave different stories together and jump between time periods.

Non-Fiction: Essays of E.B. White
It’s hard to believe most of these essays were written over 50 years ago. His perspectives are still relevant for the problems we face today, and his description of New York City and all its vulnerabilities is eerily foretelling.

Poetry: Yusef Komunyakaa’s Neon Vernacular
This collection is amazing, from beginning to end. Even if you don’t like poetry, you will find something to like here.

Movie: Where the Wild Things Are
Yep, just count me in the sea of masses who loved the book and movie. I felt like I was riding an unpredictable and thrilling wave throughout the movie that travelled through all of the emotions you wrestle with as a child, and most likely throughout your whole life. I love the depiction of the wild things, and how utterly human and authentic the movie felt.

Music: Miike Snow, The xx, Kid Cudi, Metric, Florence + The Machine, Amanda Blank
I’m copping out here because I can’t pick just one. Sometimes I need music to keep me going in a workout, and sometimes it helps mellow me out after a long day of work. Listed is a big mix of different styles, although if I had to pick the one I’m currently listening to most, it’d have to be Miike Snow. Download: A Horse Is Not A Home

So there you have it. I think art has the ability to revive, heal, calm, and generally have a magical effect on us. My high school writing teacher had this poster on the wall that he would point to repeatedly. It said “Life Imitates Art. Art Imitates Life.” And that’s all I need to say.

What did you enjoy reading, watching or listening to this summer? Would love to hear in the comments!

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You’re Never Too Old To Be Happy

Posted on 31. Aug, 2009 by Lily.

“Man is different from animals in that he speculates, a high-risk activity.”
- Edward Hoagland

Smile

I’ve parked my scooter in the same location next to my front door for the last 2 and a half years. I pull into the driveway and then turn 90 degrees to the right – easy, convenient, and completely repetitive. A couple days ago, I almost wiped out for the first time a foot from my door because I forgot the first lesson everybody learns in riding: do not brake and turn at the same time.

It got me thinking about how careless I can get with the things that are important to me, and how the end of something can often be traced back through multiple obvious steps. My first mistake was pulling into the driveway too fast. My second was still thinking I’d get the turn fine. My third was braking hard mid-turn because I realized I was still accelerating too fast. Luckily I was going slow enough that I was able to prevent myself from going down. But the feeling of WTF was quickly replaced by, “I’m a damn idiot.”

The same principle applies across so many scenarios though, like relationships, health and work. The minute you begin letting up in care and focus is the pivotal moment in hindsight. Take the person who’s quit smoking for 5 years and then starts again. From the surface, you can’t understand how or why that would ever happen. But they already quit for so long!, you think. And yet, it’s so seductively easy to fall under the spell of thinking you can control things instead of working to manage them. You can have just one cigarette because you’ve already quit, right?

We enter a milestone-driven culture the minute we’re born: first word, first day at school, first kiss, first degree. And then we’re suddenly ejected at our last graduation. Now what? We begin creating our own milestones because it’s the only thing we’ve ever known. I have close friends who are extremely intelligent, driven, and have very clear goals. Their goals include wanting to make 10 million dollars (a number reached through thoughtful calculation), getting married within the next 5 years, getting into a top-tier school for their MBA, and finding true love (you know who you are, my dear!).

I admire people who have this type of drive and foresight because I’ve never been able to know what I wanted very far into the future. I like what I like now, I suppose. And yet, I’m also skeptical that many long-term goals can truly be as fulfilling as the anticipation. We talk about goals as if they’re binary, but doesn’t the satisfaction of achieving a goal decrease over time unless you constantly watch it? Every goal seems to have a reverse path: marriage -> divorce, lose weight -> get fat, make money -> lose money.

Isn’t the natural order to slide into reverse if you stop tending to the present? Yes, you graduated from college, but what did you learn? You got married, but did you take care of your spouse and yourself? You exercised and dieted off the extra 15 pounds, but are you still exercising and watching your diet? Or, for me, I learned to ride a scooter and then, 3 years later, I forgot the first lesson.

It’s not that I don’t believe in goals, but I don’t trust goals as a measure of happiness. When I was in high school, I worked very (or, sorta) hard to be a good Asian-American daughter who did well and got good grades. And, as all Asian-American kids know, the pinnacle of your high school success is measured by your SAT score. So I worked really, really hard because I wanted to get a great score that made my parents happy. And the crazy thing is that I did really well. So I called my parents from my dorm at Milton and told them the happy news. They responded with joy and elation. But I felt nothing, or rather, I felt intense disappointment. It was a really eye-opening experience for me, and I’d have to say that it’s shaped a large part of my life and my philosophies about happiness.

You might ask what this has to do with never being too old to be happy. I would answer that I’m not quite sure, except that I’ve had long conversations with friends lately who find themselves unhappy with where they are in life. Yet, from everything I know about them, they are some of the most intelligent, kind and accomplished people I’ve ever met. It doesn’t compute to me. I would prefer the concept of a happiness that is not contingent on an achievement, a happiness that I expect to ebb and tide because isn’t that just how life really goes anyway? So I’m trying to think more about what I have and what I need, and less about what I don’t.

I went to a fantastic talk by Hartmut Esslinger recently, where he spoke about his career as a designer, and he said many things that resonated with me. I’m paraphrasing poorly, but when asked about what products he likes, he named the iPhone because you can readily see that a lot of care went into creating it. The idea that care and attention to detail can be a manifestation of love is one that really resonates with me. I think it’s also what makes the difference between being good at something and being great at it. Anyone can create a prototype, but it’s the follow-through that counts. And the reality is that we can only care and focus on so many things at once, and anybody who says differently is super-human, lying or deluded.

I’d rather have a smaller life paying great care to the people and things I love than a larger life that misses out on those moments that can only come from time, depth and awareness. Being in San Francisco and surrounded by amazing talents, it’s easy to get caught up on everything you haven’t done yet. This city is like none other, and that’s both a great and terrible thing.

Pescadero Beach I have no deep thought to leave you with, so instead I’ll just tell you a few of the things that have made me happy this past weekend: had empanadas and a beer sitting outside with a friend on a warm San Francisco evening, drove solo down the coast to Pescadero and laid out in the sun with a cool breeze and a fantastic book (<– photo), ate a yummy meal at Maverick with friends and many laughs (admittedly, some of them uncomfortable), met a bunch of new people excited about the future of education and working on their own ideas of how to make it better, and received a sweet message from a great friend I’ve made in the last year. Pretty awesome for just a few days, eh?

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My Name is Lily and I’m an Introvert

Posted on 23. Aug, 2009 by Lily.

I read an excellent post on extroversion and social media by Fred Wilson lately and it got me thinking about the impact social media’s had on my own life as an introvert.

These days, being an introvert feels like a bad thing. Any time I talk to friends or acquaintances and mention in conversation that I’m an introvert, the response I get back most often is, “Oh no you aren’t! You’re great at talking to people.” It makes me laugh, because I’m pretty sure introvert doesn’t have to mean socially-awkward hermit, but the reaction implies that there is something very wrong indeed. Here’s the Wikipedia definition from the Meyers-Brigg page:

The terms extravert and introvert are used in a special sense when discussing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. People who prefer extraversion draw energy from action: they tend to act, then reflect, then act further. If they are inactive, their level of energy and motivation tends to decline. Conversely, those who prefer introversion become less energized as they act: they prefer to reflect, then act, then reflect again. People who prefer introversion need time out to reflect in order to rebuild energy.

The extravert’s flow is directed outward toward people and objects, and the introvert’s is directed inward toward concepts and ideas. There are several contrasting characteristics between extraverts and introverts: extraverts are action-oriented and desire breadth, while introverts are thought-oriented and seek depth. Extraverts often prefer more frequent interaction, while introverts prefer more substantial interaction.

See, it’s okay, don’t feel bad for me and your introverted friends! (You can still feel bad for the socially-awkward hermit if you’d like) I actually very much enjoy talking to people, but when I have to meet a lot of people at a party or networking event, the moment I most cherish is afterwards when I get some alone time or time with just close friends. It gives me time to get a mental breather.

Here’s where I differ from Fred Wilson’s post though – I don’t think social media increases extroversion, I think it simply enables both introverts and extroverts to deepen the types of connections that they draw energy from. For example, I use Twitter and FourSquare quite heavily and enjoy talking to friends and “strangers”, but both mediums allow me to very selectively choose who I want to interact with. That’s an introvert’s dream! I love Twitter because I can have very interesting dialogues with people I’ve never met, but I can also let a lot of other content go by without response. I love FourSquare for exactly the opposite reason – I only want my close friends to know what I’m doing at any point in time, and I also don’t care about what strangers are doing (because I’m too much of an introvert to introduce myself if we happen to be in the same place!). I’ve also made the decision a few months ago to not accept any Friendfeed invites from people I don’t personally know. There is a point where it becomes too much sharing for me, and right now that’s where the line falls, but it’s constantly in flux.

I think there’s a need for both introverts and extroverts in society, and yet there’s this growing mentality that being an introvert means you’re just somebody who hasn’t progressed socially enough to be an extrovert yet. I disagree intensely, although I do feel the pressure to put myself out there more, especially when it comes to work/business and fostering relationships. But then it comes back to the difference between introverts and extroverts, I’d rather have a few very deep relationships than the burden of managing many shallow ones. I’ll never be the person who meets everybody in the room by the end of the night, and hopefully that will work out for me. At the end of the day, I’m quite happy that I can enjoy the pleasure of both my own company and yours!

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The Case of the Missing Post

Posted on 20. Aug, 2009 by Lily.

Once upon a time, there was this blog post that lived on lilychiu.com for months without a peep. And then a funny tweet went out, and suddenly everyone wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

There was intrigue, drama, and mystery, and then the post went *poof* in the day. Instead, people saw a bunny with a pancake on his head. They were pleased and yet not. Life went on, but Lily felt unhappy about the missing post.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Today, the post is back. Not for controversy or more intrigue, but because I thought long and hard about its content, and the larger topic of writing publicly, and it didn’t and doesn’t make any sense to take it down. Am I ever going to write a post that trashes a single person or company? Definitely not. But can I write a post about what I’ve experienced and observed that leaves interpretations open to the reader? Absolutely. At the end of the day, isn’t that what all great writing is about?

I would love for those on the other side of the fence (hiring managers, *maybe* my former employers ) to comment. As a postscript to my previous post, a former manager who I respect and like very much once told me that he couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t get bored in another 6 months to a year if he promoted me. It was a fair assessment, and helped move me toward the conclusion that I really needed to move on to another role and company entirely. I appreciated the counsel he gave me, and I really believe that that type of open dialogue makes a workplace a hell of a lot more happy.