When I was a kid, I read the book The Amityville Horror. It scarred me for life. I am not kidding – when the movie came out, all my friends were keen to see it, but I knew better. Nothing had ever scared me like that book. There were several events that haunted me long after I finished reading. One of them was that the main character would wake up every night, look at the clock radio at his bedside, and see that it was 3:15 a.m. (It turned out that 3:15 was the estimated time that several grisly murders had taken place in the house).

After reading that book, I lived in fear of waking in the night to a clock that reads 3:15.  Consequently, it seemed to happen with regularity through my teen years. Each time, I would lie awake listening to my own fearful breathing, waiting for something bad to happen: an apparition, the sound of a footstep or a crash in the next room. (It should probably be noted that I was afraid of the dark itself well into my adult years.) Eventually, I began to wonder: was something outside of myself waking me at 3:15? Was I subconsciously waking myself at 3:15 because I was focusing my fear there? Or was I waking at all times of the night but only remembering the 3:15 a.m. times because I had loaded that time with so much strong emotion?

When the only bad thing that ever occurred as the result of a 3:15 a.m. clock viewing were some seriously messed up dreams, I stopped paying attention. If it happens now that I wake at that time, I might take a moment to laugh at my youthful self, then roll over and go back to sleep.

Throughout my life there have been other – similar if far less sinister – examples. Recently, Big Coffee entered into a relationship with Oprah, resulting in new sleeves for each cup which bear motivational/inspirational Oprah quotes. In the course of a busy day, I’m grabbing sleeves and handing off coffees with no notice of the message printed there. However, when I did happen to focus, the same quote kept appearing over and over. “Your life is big. Keep reaching.”

Once I noticed this, I tried playing games to see if the experience would continue when I was intentionally looking for it – for example, I noticed that a sleeve was backwards in the dispenser, so I flipped it – and sure enough it said, “Your life is big. Keep reaching.” In a slow moment, I asked a coworker to name a random number less than 10. She said, “Six!” I pulled sleeves until I reached number six, which told me that my life is big.

As you might guess, I started wondering if there was a personal message here. I mean, I know that millions of these sleeves have been printed and handed out. It was obviously not the corporate intent to use them as a vehicle to speak directly to me. But was there some Other Intention out there, trying to send me a message?

“Your life is big. Keep reaching.” On the up side, this admonition suggests that it is important to keep striving to reach further and higher; to set your sights and ambitions beyond the ordinary and then go for it. On the down side, it could be taken as an indictment – that you are currently living small and need to step it up. The more I thought about it, the more confused I became as to what its meaning was for me. How big IS my life? How big is my life SUPPOSED to be? What exactly is Oprah talking about when she says “big” anyway? And don’t even get me started on “reaching”.

Before I quit my job and moved to Minneapolis, I told people that (in my experience) it takes at least a year to become truly acclimated and comfortable in a new city. July 1 was my one-year anniversary here. Which may shed light on why six words on a coffee sleeve were commanding so much brain power and reflection time from me. From Earth Day to Thanksgiving 2013, my life felt expansive. I felt I was on the cusp of creating a Big Life – which to my thinking meant one which would both incorporate the investment of my strengths and talents in meaningful endeavors AND would offer inspiration to others to make the necessary choices to invest similarly. With winter came the Polar Vortex, and my own personal vortex of anxiety and despair. I had forgotten to take into account that life doesn’t follow an uninterrupted upward trajectory.

No. In fact, the graph of a life is a crazy zig-zagged chart that may or may not make sense at first view. The unexpected happens. The disastrous and the exhilarating happen, and in between are all the moments sloping up to or down to those points. The trick is to learn how to accept with gratitude whichever part of the graph you’re on at this moment – without using that acceptance and gratitude as excuse to stand still. We tend to think that acceptance implies a cessation of striving. But in truth, they are not mutually exclusive.

In truth, achieving the life we want has to begin with where we are. Devaluing where you currently stand is a rejection of the beauty and gifts that are extant in your life. No matter how closely (or not) your current life matches the life you’ve imagined for yourself, there are worthy things in it right this minute. Things that are worth celebration. With my one-year anniversary as a Minneapolitan looming, I’m glad I remembered this.

And here’s something else. When I wake in the middle of the night, whether or not the clock reads 3:15 a.m., what I am thinking about is: how big my life already is; how big it can be; and what new ways I can strive to reach further. If you want an expansive life, as I do, you have to keep in mind that even expansion doesn’t happen at an uninterrupted rate.

With regard to the Oprah coffee sleeves, just yesterday I conducted an experiment to see if the “magic” would still happen. I reached into a brand new box of them, eyes closed, and selected one. Sure enough, it clearly stated that my life is big. And it admonished me to keep reaching. I’ve decided that there’s nothing supernatural happening here, that the only intention at work is my own. Truth be told, in navigating this life, my own intention is the only one that ever mattered anyway.

Several years ago I read an article in a women’s magazine by an older woman who took out a personal ad in which she, very directly, asked for sex partners. Her ad stated that she had not had either as much sex nor as many sexual partners as she had hoped in her life. As a woman in her 60s (if I remember correctly), she felt that these experiences were not forthcoming on their own. She hoped the ad might create more opportunities – which, according to the article, it did indeed.

Setting aside questions of morality or values or even those of health and safety (all of which could be amply debated here) what this woman did was, in my experience, unusual: she asked for what she wanted. Directly; unapologetically; without shame; without suggesting in the same breath that she probably didn’t deserve it anyway.

In her widely viewed Ted talk (titled “The Art of Asking”), alt-rock icon and crowd-sourcing pioneer Amanda Palmer discusses how others have repeatedly attempted to shame her for asking, as if asking for what she needs is lazy, exploitive, inappropriate somehow. But Palmer believes that real connection happens between two people when one asks and the other responds – whether what changes hands is a flower, a floor to crash on, or over a million dollars for a Kickstarter campaign.

What got me started on these musings was a conversation with my friend Kathe. It was a beautiful afternoon at Lake Calhoun, and we were enjoying both the sun and a little leisure time to catch up on recent hectic weeks. Kathe and I both moved to the city last year (Kathe from the suburbs and me from Iowa) and reset our lives. There’s no blueprint for recreating your life in your early 50s, so we’re both making this up as we go along. And we’re both learning a lot about our strengths and our shortcomings. Kathe’s new career in real estate requires her to continually reach out to others, expand her circle of connections, and ask them to consider her services. We had similar visceral reactions – clearly recoiling in distaste – to the idea of repeatedly asking others for what we need. I recommended Kathe watch Amanda Palmer’s Ted talk, thinking about the part where Palmer tells viewers to “ask without shame”.

Many well-known wise men and women have admonished us to ask. From Rumi to Jesus to Maya Angelou, we’ve been told that the first step toward getting or achieving what we really want is to ask for it. Whether we are asking a specific individual for a specific thing, we are putting an intention out into the universe, or we are making a supplication in prayer the act of asking – saying the words – is important. On an intellectual level, I get this – goals and desires stated aloud are more compelling than those kept quietly in our hearts; others cannot offer us the tangible support we need if we haven’t expressed our need. On an emotional level, the idea of asking tangles my gut in knots of fear and anxiety.

Author Elizabeth Gilbert, in a short gem of an article in Oprah magazine, suggests that this is a common experience for women. She says:

First of all, you must know what you really want, which can be hard if you were raised to please others. Secondly, you must believe that what you want is worthy – again, a tricky prospect for women long trained in the dark arts of self-deprecation. Thirdly, you must face the possibility of rejection. That’s the worst bit…and so, like trial lawyers, we often ask only questions to which we already know the answers. Which means: no risk. Which further means: no reward…

…I think men have always understood — that a glorious failure can sometimes be more life affirming than a cautious win. This is why men are constantly asking for stuff they night not even deserve or maybe aren’t totally qualified to handle…I wish more women would do the same. Because sometimes you get a yes, and even if you weren’t prepared for that yes, you rise to the occasion. You aren’t ready, and then you are. It’s irrational, but it’s magical.

Gilbert’s article closes with her assurance that there are many ways to ask, and that you may need to employ a variety of styles and tactics, but the bottom line is this: “Just freaking ask.”

My experience bears out Gilbert’s suggestion of gender differences in the approach to asking for what we want. When I am with male friends or relatives, I am sometimes astounded by their capacity for asking – for everything from free stuff  (t-shirts, bags, tickets) to people’s contact information to whether their organizations may have any positions opening in the near future. Usually, I am in awe – not only of the ask, but also of the end results. Often, a yes is forthcoming, but a no doesn’t incapacitate anyone.

Which leads me to the this: If I only ask for things I’ve pinned my hopes of success on, a no will be devastating. The hesitation to ask unless it is Something Very Important holds us back, and is part of what Gilbert refers to as “the dark arts of self-deprecation”. I don’t want to bother anyone, it’s not that important – that’s how the thinking goes. What it means is: I’m not that important, so what I want isn’t important either. Believe me, I’m not thrilled to discover that I am still thinking this way at my age. Not thrilled to discover the ways I’m holding myself back at a time when pushing forward is so critical to establishing the life I hope for. But I am willing to work on it.

What about you? We can either continue on the path of fear, small-thinking, and self-negation or we can change. And here’s the thing – we already know what all those wise people have tried to say. We already know that asking precedes receiving. We already know that true connection with others is achieved through the process of asking, giving, accepting – a river that flows in both directions. We invest ourselves in saying yes to those who ask for our support, for whatever we can uniquely contribute to their wholeness and success. Why can’t we allow others to invest in us? Isn’t it time, as Elizabeth Gilbert says, to just freaking ask?

What I point out to people is that it’s silly to be afraid that you’re not going to get what you want if you ask. Because you are already not getting what you want. They always laugh about that because they realize it’s so true. Without asking you already have failed, you already have nothing. What are you afraid of? You’re afraid of getting what you already have! It’s ridiculous! Who cares if you don’t get it when you ask for it, because, before you ask for it, you don’t have it anyway. So there’s really nothing to be afraid of.   — Marcia Martin

When we left off last week, I was sharing that when I moved to Minneapolis, I fell hard for the city right away. However, it is taking longer to feel at home in this youthful, creative, fast-paced city suddenly recognized throughout the country as the hot place to be (figuratively hot, not literally!). In new places I often feel I start at a deficit, being naturally reticent and an introvert. I admit to sometimes feeling outpaced – my reaction times, my overall sense that I can keep up – swamped in the wake of the amazing twenty-and-thirty somethings who are making waves and pushing this community forward. Many Baby Boomers and GenXers have dissed Millennials as lacking a strong work ethic, carrying a sense of entitlement, being unable to focus. In the now famous rant by the character Will McAvoy on HBOs “Newsroom”, he accuses a young questioner of being “…part of the Worst. Generation. Ever.” In her article for NYTimes.com, “The Truth About Millennials (in Boomer Eyes)“, Kate Dries shares a list of negative articles about Millennials which blame them for everything from killing the NFL to destroying the housing market.

My own anecdotal witness is that much of the negative press about Millennials is untrue. Millennials are nothing if not change-agents. A few years ago I hired my first true Millennial employee, Layne. As her supervisor, I spent the first few months trying to determine the best ways to mentor and guide a creative dynamo who saw no absolute boundaries. To her, everything was permeable and up for renegotiation. Hiring her changed both my professional life and my personal ways of interacting with the world. Despite the early disorientation I experienced, I regard hiring her to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Which leads me to my adjustment to Minneapolis. As I have observed, read, attempted to parse the lay of the land and come to love not only the structure of this city, but also the people who embody this community, I’ve been learning some valuable things from the Millennials around me. There are qualities and/or approaches that seem to be widespread among Millennials that are not standard equipment in the tool kits of GenXers. That Millennials experience and express their generative impulses differently than previous generations seems undeniable. Layne first taught me how to work with and love the energy of Millennials – what even GenX apologist Gordinier grudgingly but admiringly calls their “confidence and entitlement”. Since moving here, I have been learning to appreciate more than their optimism and belief in possibility. I have a growing respect for their ability to get shit done. Not necessarily or only work, in the traditional sense. But important stuff, nonetheless. Stuff like making the world a more inclusive, kinder, more joyful place.

Below, three things I’m learning from Millennials I’ve met and how I’m hoping to emulate them in my own life :

1. Millennials grew up during the Nike revolution. They took in the motto: Just Do It! with their mother’s milk and have been living it ever since. For Millennials, ideas and action are inextricably linked. The caution shown by previous generations, the overdone analysis of whether the idea is feasible before engaging in the action, is considered by many Millennials to be the very reason nothing changes. They “Just Do It”, and see where it leads.

The reason this is an important take-away for me, and for many in the generation(s) preceding the Millennials is that we tend too far toward caution. Even when we are in the midst of building something new in our lives, we over think, over-plan. From Millennials, I’m learning that sometimes jumping in with both feet is the only way to do it. Tentative and overly-analytical isn’t self-motivational. And if you’re not self-motivated, forget convincing anyone else to come along.

A Millennial who typifies this approach is Patrick Stephenson, cofounder of 30 Days of Biking. Not only did he and a few friends have a thought (“We should bike every day in April”), they decided to act on the that thought and invited others, via social media, to join them. Five years later, thousands of people the world over took that same pledge this year, sharing their experiences and photos in a joyful explosion of bike-related community. Patrick, known as @patiomensch on Twitter, was named one of the top tweeters to follow in the Twin Cities, and his energy, enthusiasm and contagious activism draw others to him and into collusion with his spontaneous ideas. He is aware, however, of his own generation’s downsides. Last week he tweeted what could reasonably be considered a response to the Millennial tendency toward narcissism: “Fellow Millennials, don’t worry about cultivating your ‘personal brand.’ Just do cool, fun shit that you BELIEVE in. It’ll all work out.” If any Millennial I know has a personal brand, it could be argued that Patrick does – but he’s about the doing; the spotlight is a side-effect of that, not the focus.

2. Millennials are not hampered by the idea that their revolutionary actions must always have life-long effects. When they decide to see where a creative idea or impulse leads, they are prepared for the possibility it will turn out to be a stepping stone to something else. I like to think of this as Millennials’ “pop-up” mentality. Pop-up stores or restaurants appear, have their moment, then give way to the next great thing – and that’s how it is intended to go. Millennials are good at seizing an idea, building something with that idea at its base and being prepared to let it go when the time is ripe – their version of Tibetan sand-painting. I think this comes, in part, from the redefinition of failure which has taken place in our cultural consciousness in the last decade. Michael Jordan has said that his failures, much more frequent than his successes, are what truly built his greatness. Millennials believe that failing is a natural part of creating a life – whereas I, along with my age-mates, was taught that failure was not an option. If failing is an o.k. option, why wouldn’t one take risks?

One evening in April, on a group bike ride, I met Diana Neidecker (@dianapantzmpls) who mentioned that she “did a thing from home” when the subject of work arose. Later, I asked about her “thing”, and Diana’s answer was, “I’m starting a kindness revolution.” We went on to have a wide-ranging conversation about Millennials, making things happen, and creating nontraditional pathways in life. Diana has several projects underway, including a business in which on-line subscribers receive a monthly Be Nice Box ($1 of each box is donated to charity). Diana also has a vegan lifestyle blog, is training for some serious athletic endeavors (triathlons, duathlons, etc.), and this past weekend planned a kindness flash mob. Will all of Diana’s projects be equally successful or have long-term staying power? It is too soon to know – but Diana told me that, “I feel certain in my own heart that I’m doing what I’m meant to do with my life.” One of the great things about being a kindness revolutionary, in my estimation, is that even your duds or flops are likely to bear lovely fruit.

3. Inclusion is only a “thing” for Millennials because the world was already divisive, discriminatory and oppressive when they got here. This fact spurs Millennials to engage in social activism – though it takes new forms through their engagement. One example that I love is the marriage of social justice and entrepreneurialism. In Minneapolis, we have some incredible examples of this including Finnegan’s Beer (100% of their profits go toward hunger alleviation), Full Cycle (a nonprofit bike shop that works with homeless youth) and many more.

To be fair, Millennials who are taking on social issues aren’t all located in Minneapolis. I recently interviewed Frederick Newell, founder of The Dream Center in Iowa City, home to a unique academy for single fathers (among other innovative programs). Frederick didn’t begin with a dream to found a nonprofit – but he saw a need and challenged himself to find ways to meet it.

For Millennials, inclusion isn’t just about social justice or adopted causes, though. It has often been noted that Millennials are adept at putting the “social” in social media, and many of them cast a wide net – interested in and engaging with friends and strangers with the same degree of openness. Since my arrival in Minneapolis, I’ve discovered that – used as a tool rather than an end in itself – social media can help make real connections between people who would otherwise not have crossed paths. The #30daysofbiking community is a perfect example of this, as is Thursday night #bikeschool. What began as very topic-specific interactions have blossomed into voyages of discovery as connections, shared interests and commonalities are unearthed. Millennials are comfortable with the cross-over from media to in-person interactions For me, translating the connections I’ve made through social media into IRL connections and friendships is still an awkward process. But I’ve had the opportunity to both observe and experience how this can happen – and I intend to practice until I can make this transition with the ease of the Millennials I’ve met.

This is already an incredibly long post and there is still so much more to say – more stories and more people to introduce. Last week, I closed by asking the question: can I change generational affiliation? Do I want to? Scott Hess gave a great TedX talk titled, “Millennials: Who They Are and Why We Hate Them” (which you can watch, below). He answers the title question with this nugget of wisdom: because we are jealous of them. For me, and for several GenXers I’ve talked with since my original post, Hess’ hypothesis is partly (if not wholly) true. More than that, though, we find ourselves drawn to the energy and excitement of investing in and playing a central role in each day’s endeavors. For those of us who grew up comfortably operating in the margins, out of the spotlight, being in the center of the fray is a new experience. And I’m not the only one who wants to create an “intergeneration” that marries the best qualities of Gen X and Millennial. The Millennial in me says that’s entirely possible – just do it!

A couple of people asked me this week where I was with regard to weight, so I thought it was time for a post. Slow but still moving in the right direction.

In many ways, I feel it is a victory every time I step on the scale now and the weight I’ve already lost has stayed off – and if I continue toward my eventual goal, even better! No worries – I will keep you posted!