Know the difference between your wants and needs

Then I asked if they knew anyone at their church, work, or any family members that might want walnuts. My son, a cross-country runner, was fast. Go on ahead, I said. He nodded and picked up his pace. I watched him go, fifteen years after I'd first held him in my arms. I slowed to a walk, then stood still, overwhelmed by a thundering, simple peace. My son would run to the end of the road, turn around, and come back. I would be there, my cheeks hot and my eyes filled with tears. He'd smile when he saw his mother. All the fear of the first sober months, the exhaustion of searching for another way to be, the confusion of finding a new tribe in the middle of a life, the nights I wanted just one sip or a whole bottle of Chardonnay. The cans and cans of seltzer. Usually, out of the tens, hundreds or even thousands of audience members, only a few will put up their hands. In a world where robots are predicted to dominate the replicable processes in our work, leaving the more creative tasks to us humans, this is not a good result. Creative skills are particularly important because they help us solve problems, find new ways to do things, challenge the status quo and ultimately move the human race forward. Creativity, therefore, is a key area of Forever Skills and it's one we all need to develop. The question is, Why don't we think we're creative? Perhaps it's because we seem to think creativity is something that happens magically or intrinsically, as opposed to something we make happen. Consider some of the language we use around new ideas and creativity. It was `an act of genius', `a flash of inspiration', a moment when `the muse struck', or that `the idea just came to me'. All of these cliches reinforce the misguided notion that creativity is a mysterious force available only to the special few, or something that happens randomly or as a result of luck.

While a solution may indeed occur to us seemingly out of nowhere, the reality is that we have probably been working on the problem, even subconsciously, for some time -- gathering stimulus and input and attempting to solve it. For many, rest tends to look like numbing, checking out, avoiding, or suppressing. This might sound surprising, but it's much more common than most of us realize. Take a moment to contemplate the last time you felt relaxed, restored, or deeply replenished. If that was recently, congrats; If you can't remember the last time you felt that way or it was really long ago, don't worry; A big part of the issue is that our world is moving at lightning speed. With so many demands on our energy and time, it is no wonder most of us feel burned out and depleted at some point or another. For me, running a full-time practice, writing, being in a relationship, planning for a family, taking care of myself, and making sure to see my loved ones requires me to function at a very high level most of the time. For those of you who are also full of passion and energy for the work that you do, it can be challenging to hit the pause button and reset. I've learned the hard way over many years of trial and epic errors that working with my exhale has ultimately been incredibly rewarding albeit very challenging at times. The lesson of Zaleski Forest--in which we can observe not only the power of the earth to rejuvenate itself but also the evidence of human life one and two centuries and even twelve centuries in the past--is that we cannot be sanguine about the restoration of forest or farmland. More topsoil is lost every year due to construction than to bad farming practices. Industry and development have begun to compromise the water quality of even Big Darby Creek in western Ohio, one of the twelve cleanest waterways in the country and a designated national scenic river. The state's largest stand of old growth forest--Dysart Woods in Athens County--is threatened by longwall mining. Meadowlark and bobolink populations are declining due to habitat loss. Manufacturing, timbering, mineral extraction, and construction interests have powerful lobbies, which impede efforts to preserve forests, waterways, and farmland. Toxic algae blooms caused by agricultural runoff and rising temperatures poison the water in western Lake Erie. In its centennial year (2016), the Ohio Department of Forestry increased logging from 40 percent of annual growth to nearly 100 percent in some state forests. This practice threatens species already rare like the cerulean warbler and wood turtle.

As oil and natural gas have replaced coal as the state's most valuable fossil fuel, horizontal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) poses the largest threat to water, air, and soil quality. Instinctively I had asked for referrals. They were glad to give me phone numbers of people they knew would want them. Both of my grandmas bought five bags each. My maternal grandmother gave me the telephone numbers of her friends. As a kid, I hated calling or even talking to someone I didn't know on the telephone--but I forced myself to dial the numbers. Even though I stuttered when I made my pitch, I sold all four of Grandma's friends. The next day, when we showed back up at the 4-H leader's house, she didn't say a word as I handed her the money and asked for double the amount of bags again. The contest only lasted until the end of summer, and Mom had Dad take some bags to work, and I wrote up a little paper on all the things walnuts could be used for him to show his co-workers. Mom drove me to Seattle to deliver Grandma Carley's walnuts. Nan had a list of her friends that lived nearby and Grandpa heard that dad had sold five bags, so he bought seven bags from me to sell at work the next day. Tears on Jardine's couch. The moon emerged overhead and I knew: it was for this. August on Long Island, and I'm seven and standing with my family on the dock; There's haze and brine in the low sky today. The moms--in giant 1970s sunglasses--light cigarettes and talk as they sunbathe in the cockpits of the boats. The fathers are cowboys, hip-deep in the gray dazzle of the bay, holding beers aloft. After lunch, we all walk across the narrow island to the ocean side, where we kids spend hours riding the surf, high on the crest of a wave, falling, getting tumbled, rising again. As the sun sets, milky and pink, we putter home--everyone alone with their thoughts, tired but together--in the potbellied old boat. On the shore, an egret primly picks her way through seaweed and driftwood toward dusk.

That night, I close my eyes to sleep and all I see is the endless cycle of turquoise water, the beautiful and terrifying surf--because I'd been consumed by the ocean that day, part of something bigger than my tiny self, and so alive. Compounding the perception of creativity as random and fickle is the fact that many people are confused about what creativity actually is. At a conference recently, we were lucky enough to sit on a panel discussing the importance of creativity in business. One of the other panelists was a very intelligent, highly educated senior leader from an enormous global technology company. She enthusiastically regaled the audience with her tale of how the company's staff now occupied some of their time with painting, drawing and even sculpting to demonstrate their commitment to creativity. Let's dispel some myths about creativity. Creativity is not artistry. It's not an ability to draw, or play music, or even to imagine a compelling fictional story. In fact, these tasks can sometimes (although not always) be rather formulaic exercises in replication. Computers have in fact already composed songs, written advertisement copy and are more than capable of creating, in either intricate detail or loose inky lines, portraits and landscapes in the style of any great artist you can name. Software applications even offer filters that you can apply to make `art' happen in an instant. It has led to a deeply spiritual journey of learning how to listen to my body and move at a pace that is comfortable for it, rather than getting caught up in the speed of my mind or world around me. With patience, time, and practice, nearly everyone I have worked with has developed a new relationship to their exhale, and it has proven time and time again to be a real turning point in people's lives. The power of the exhale lives in the invitation to slow down with presence, which is completely different than checking out, suppressing, or numbing. The power of the exhale lives in our bodies' inherent wisdom that we need to hit the pause and refresh button on ourselves just as much (and I'd argue even more) as we do on all of our technology. The power of the exhale not only helps us reduce anxiety and find our ground but also supports a wider range of resilience, which opens us up to a world of possibilities for our health and well-being. Just for fun, try holding your breath for a minute while feeling joyful. Challenging, isn't it? Breath is directly connected to the amount of spaciousness or freedom we feel in our bodies; This affects our capacity to tolerate intense and pleasant emotions and experiences.

Our window of tolerance correlates to our breath, and if we breathe with ease, depth, fullness, and flow, all aspects of life can feel more expansive. In this process--exempted by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 from sections of seven environmental protection laws--millions of gallons of water mixed with hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals are pumped into the ground at high pressure in order to break apart shale deposits and release natural gas. Toxic chemicals from fracking can leak into neighboring water wells, and about 20 percent of the contaminated water flows back to the surface along with volatile organic compounds and radioactive drill cuttings, which are stored in waste pits until they can be transported by tanker trucks and injected into old vertical gas wells--mostly in Ohio. High wall strip mining, Belmont County, Ohio (Photo (c) Cheryl Harner) The strength of the eastern deciduous hardwood forest is evident, but whether even second-growth woods will become wilderness depends on the conviction of those who have lived on the restored land and who believe in the rejuvenating process of the wild. IN MY WALKS, I would fain return to my senses, Henry David Thoreau writes in Walking. He begins the essay by tracing the etymology of the verb to saunter, which he says derives from the word Sainte-Terrer, a person who walked about the country asking for charity under the pretense of walking to the Holy Land as did Saint Theresa, and he declares that those who do not go to the Holy Land in their walks are vagabonds or idlers, that all true walkers go forth in a spirit of adventure. Others derive the word from sans terre (without land) and Thoreau argues that those without one particular home are better able to be at home everywhere. I agree that true walkers enter a holy land, for they come to know the spiritual as well as visible landscape. The American Heritage Dictionary, however, provides the Middle English santren (to muse) as the verb's ancestor, and surely to saunter is to muse. We return to our senses when we walk because the human body evolved to walk long distances. Gramps was really helpful too. One day, when I went with Mom to get groceries, I saw some of the older kids who had made fun of me for not having a calf trying to sell their walnuts outside the store. They looked miserable. They obviously had been there for a while, because their clothes were sweaty and their faces sunburned, and it looked like none of them had sold a thing. Don't let anyone steal your dreams. Get your family and loved ones to believe in you by showing determination. That 4-H lady didn't believe in me, but instead of letting that stop me, I let it make me more passionate about succeeding. Know your product. Sell something that is consumable and that you are excited about.