dare to dream

Say yes to you

When I suggest to my friends that they carve out a few hours, even minutes, a day to pursue their dream, sometimes I hear, "I just wouldn't feel right about taking time away from my home and family."

However, as we talk further, more often than not, I find that my friends do, in fact, spend decent chunks of time away from home volunteering at school and/or church and/or in the community.

Hmmm, I wonder.

Why is it that we feel comfortable, even good, about spending many hours/week (10+?) doing some type of volunteer work, which we may like, but don't love? But we would feel terribly uncomfortable, even bad, about allocating 2-3 hours/week to pursue a dream?

Is it because women are only feminine when we are doing something for someone else?

If so, then we are back to the double bind. Because when we are pursuing a dream, it's not for someone else, but for us: if we happen to get paid for that dream, then we're in for double the discomfort.

But if we don't pursue our dream, we can become desperate, if not depressed.

So may I make two suggestions?

1. Re-read the myth of Psyche. Remember that by saying "no" to others for just a moment, Psyche and we say yes to our self -- as well as to others.

2. If you're still feeling squeamish, go back and read Throw down your pom-poms.

Site I Like: kirtsy (formerly known as sk*rt)

There's about to be a terrific new space for women's voices.

Yes, there are some fabulous women's blogs out there. In fact, more than half of the blogs featured by Typepad during the month of May were blog-hers.

However, when it comes to social media platforms (just think "virtual watercoolers"), for those of you that have visited digg, if you're anything like me, you not only didn't dig digg, you ditched it.

Take a look.

The categories (Technology, Science, World and Business, Sports, Entertainment, and Gaming) are just not my idea of fun watercooler talk, especially when it's 10pm and the kids have just gone to bed.

Now take a look at kirtsy's categories: Around the house: Fashion; Entertainment; Out and About; Mind, Body, Spirit; World Wise: Parenting; Food; Arts, Crafts, Design.

I don't typically like to kirtsy to the issues, but with this site I'll make an exception.

As the founders (all women -- even better from the standpoint of finding our voices) describe it, "sk*rt is the place to find and/or link to anything and everything on the Web that you'd like to share with other women."

That's my kind of watercooler talk!

Is it yours?

A quote to dream by: Robert Atkinson

There is a power in storytelling that can transform our lives.

Traditional stories, myths and fairy tales hold this power. The stories we tell of our own lives carry this transforming power, too. We discover in the process of telling our life stories that we are more sacred beings than we are human beings.

A life story is really the story of the soul of a person. The most powerful life story expresses the struggle of a soul. The most important stories we tell about ourselves are those that express the timeless within us.

Inherent in the process is a risk that comes with telling a truthful story. Yet, a truthful story is the most validating story of all.

Robert Atkinson, The Gift of Stories

Salon-style systergy

There are two kinds of familial likeness: one based on genes, as in families... The other...is that of a flame lighting another flame: the likenesses between two flames are [often] much greater. Harriet Rubin

Occasionally I am asked what my aspiration is for our dare to dream community, and I have fumbled for words. I could feel what I hoped for, but I couldn’t articulate it.

Now, I think I can.

On the plane to Mexico this week, I read Harriet Rubin’s The Mona Lisa Stratagem, and was captivated by her discussion of the salonistes, all the while reflecting on my real-life experience with Boston's salon-style discussion group Fusion.

Quoting from Rubin:

When youth and beauty failed women in seventeenth-century France, when…institutional…rewards did not satisfy them, they relied upon moral courage to make history in their image...They [did so by] creating salons of talk and friendship, gathering…in which ideas of freedom and revolution…changed the world.

From dining room to dining room, the walls of each outfitted in dark red or blue damask silks and curtains, the woman at the center kept changing, but the circle stayed the same. These beautiful courts, which turned the most unlikely fellow travelers into kin, not just colleagues, enlivened and democratized the world more completely than any routine form of organization.

With these words top-of-mind, dear friends, here is my first pass at what I want for our dream to dream community:

As individuals, may we each do something that is uniquely ours to do, becoming each of us dare to dreamgirls. As a community, may we practice salon-style systergy, and in so doing, enliven the world.

What is your goal for the dare to dream community?

P.S. For those of you that find statistics intriguing, and because the brand dame inspired me to do so, according to Feedburner, during the month of May our dare to dream community grew from 71 to 94 subscribers (mostly RSS feeds), an increase of 30% plus.