Tag Archives: twitter

Houston by Taxi

Taxi

Image by Stephan Geyer via Flickr

I am a social being. An extrovert, perhaps. I like to go to parties and meet people. It’s the perfect way to mix business with pleasure.

I don’t like to drive at night.

In the past month, I’ve adjusted my budget and my priorities for safety and comfort. I now hire a driver when I have an evening event to attend — particularly if I plan to indulge in a beverage or two.

One evening during the holidays, we went party-hopping: from the Galleria to the Museum District, then to the Heights, and back home to the Galleria. We took a cab to a soiree in a part of town, the East End, where we always get lost if we drive ourselves. Recently we have found a driver we like (@AlextheDriver), and have had him ferry us to Houston Grand Opera, and to a fundraiser tonight on Houston’s far east side.

We met @AlextheDriver at a company open house that was attended by Houston’s Twitter set. Alex was working the door, checking ID’s (I always love being carded, even though I know the person is just being charming to a little old lady) and making sure people got name tags and wristbands.  We struck up a conversation in which I told him we were waiting for our taxi to arrive.  He mentioned that he was also a driver, and he would be happy to drive us sometime.  We started following each other on Twitter the next day.  I was happy to do business with another independent business person, and I’m happy to recommend him to others. Alex runs his cab as a business, not a job.  He gives excellent, dependable, and personal customer service.  It’s a business relationship that benefits us both.

Me, taking taxis to parties? It is a splurge, yes.  However, the peace of mind (as they say) is priceless.

Have you recently made a choice that improved your life?  What was it?

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#reverb10 – Day 9 – Party On!

December 9 – Party Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans. (Author: Shauna Reid)

I went to LOTS of  parties in 2010.  My partner and I are invited to many events, fundraisers for charities, and social media gatherings, and we enjoy going to as many as we can. Houston is a work hard/ play hard town, and you can always find an occasion to go out and meet people in a festive atmosphere.  Most memorable:

1.  The Primer Grey Block Party is definitely a party to remember.  It’s the place to see and be seen on the Houston social media scene.  Several hundred people, arriving in shifts/waves throughout the evening; inclusive, fluid, quirky, an open and friendly place to connect with friends and meet new people.  Cool funky loft offices on the near East side of downtown, ultra modern in a rehabbed warehouse space, with kegs of St. Arnold’s beer outside on the patio, and Pink Robot punch inside. Wii.  Sylvia’s Taco Truck pulled up in front.  Conversations, connections, creative energy.  Left before things got too crazy.  Made me wish, just for a moment, that I were 30 years younger.

2.  @DivergenceDiva Misha Penton’s summer solstice party in her beautiful and spacious home in the Houston Heights.   Fabulous  pick-up nibbles of all kinds, wonderful wine, fascinating people and conversation.  Music, music, music: fabulous classically trained singers performing a short and informal recital in the living room — piano, poetry, contemporary works by Dominic DiOrio, a who’s who of Houston cultural movers and shakers; hand-picked, intimate, fun and cozy atmosphere to balance the brilliant artistry, creativity, and sheer brain-power.  Stayed until the wee hours sipping wine in the garden on a perfect summer’s eve.  Magical.

3.  The Houston AIDS Walk.  Totally going to participate again next year.  You arrive around 8 a.m. downtown.  People gather, there’s music and crazy costumes and flamboyance and the Bayou Bunnies out in force.  Then, you walk right down the middle of freakin’ Allen Parkway, closed to traffic for the morning.  Belly dancers, a brass band, people out on a beautiful spring day to have a good time, support loved ones living and dead, and having the best time they can while walking.  Thousands of people participating in this huge fundraiser for a noble cause, and a spectacular party atmosphere.

4.  Party of the year:  planned a dinner party for my sweetie for his most recent birthday, which was “A Big One.”  He said he’d like to go out for sushi, as we do on most of our special occasions and celebrations.  I surprised him on the morning of his birthday by informing him that he was to pack a bag, because we were going to Chicago!  We were on the plane and wheels up just before noon

This was particularly satisfying for several reasons.  Firstly, we don’t just bomb away on a trip every weekend.  Secondly, it was a total surprise!  He had absolutely no clue.  I am amazed at my own potential for stealth, and at all of my clients and friends who knew, yet protected the secret without one leak.  My friends are not only fun, they are “trusty.”  This is a great gift to receive.

He had never spent any time in Chicago (my favorite city) except to change planes.  We dined that evening at a fabulous sushi restaurant with several of my dear friends from Chicago, and one Houston friend who just happened to be in the city that week on business.  So I delivered on the birthday dinner –  I just didn’t specify WHERE we’d be having dinner, or with whom.  The sushi was fresh and beautifully presented, the service was marvelous, and the surprise value was priceless.  What made the party?  I can’t believe I’m going to say this:  love, friendship, spontaneity, and the element of surprise.  He was completely, totally, utterly, dumbfoundedly, genuinely surprised. So so simple, very intimate, and BEST PARTY EVER.

When you get to be as ancient as we are, you don’t just celebrate one day.  You prolong the festivities for as long as possible.  So. . .

We stayed for 5 days in Chicago, as the party continued.  We stayed with friends in their fabulous condo in Lincoln Park, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  We did many tourist-y things, courtesy of CityPasses that I had procured in advance. We visited the Field Museum, the Shedd Aquarium, the Museum of Science and Industry, and went to the top of the Willis (Sears) Tower.  We hit some unique restaurants and savored every bite, and each other’s company.  We spent a few hours at the magnificent Art Institute, had our picture taken with the iconic lions, “worshipped” in the impressionist gallery, and had the extraordinary luck to be there on the first day that the luminous Chagall windows were re-installed in the new Modern wing.  We walked and walked and walked — The Magnificent Mile, South Michigan Avenue, up and down countless stairs for the El and the subway, and felt the cold wind off the lake foreshadow the winter to come.  It was just a long weekend, but an unforgettable one.

In 1999, I survived a life-threatening medical emergency.  Subsequently, I adopted the philosophy, “Any day above ground is a good day.”  Consequently, my standards for what makes a rockin’ scene are probably embarrassingly low.  Friends you love, time together, some good food and drink, enjoyed to the last drop — THAT, for me, is a great party.

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Obsessed with @CorpzFlowrLois

Amorphophallus titanum
Image via Wikipedia

Yes, I am.

Houston’s techno-bio–geeko-twitterati — myself among them — has been glued to their computer screens even more than usual, held in thrall by Lois, the exotic and endangered tropical plant. Lois is a rare and large “Corpse Flower,” so named because of the stench of decomposing flesh that issues from the blossom. Lois is potted in the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences.  Her claim to fame is that there are so few of her species, and they bloom so seldom — only 28 times since 1939, reportedly– that Lois’s imminent flowering is an event.

What is so interesting about a big, stinky plant?  Lois is captivating.  Disturbing.  Every “Attack of the Pod People” and “Aliens” fantasy or joke you can think of, all rolled into one.  She is gradually turning a deep shade of bruise-tone purple, and the stink factor is apparently a big draw.  To add to the fun, Lois has her own Twitter account — the microblogging service that gives real-time updates on everything from terrorist attacks around the world to the status of your friend’s hangover.  Lois has a personality.  Apparently she is PMS-ing, and she’s got a dirty mouth.  She is also camera-shy and reluctant to go ahead and bloom with all eyes watching.  She has informed us that plants don’t really like to be talked to, thank you — and that they, or she, at least, really needs someone to bring her an espresso first thing in the morning.

The museum’s web cam has gotten so many hits that many people have been unable to load the images.  The museum stayed open until midnight last night to accommodate the curious who anticipated a late-Sunday-evening unfurling, and now they will stay open around the clock — that’s right, 24/7 — this is a museum, mind you — until Lois does her thing.

I’m several days into what has become known as “Funkwatch,” and my attention is bordering on the obsessive.  I still see clients and take care of business, but at every break I am checking the twitter feed and reading more about Lois and her kind.  This event is taking up ALL of my “spare attention:”  that is, any extra bandwidth that is not devoted to the bare minimum of daily survival. I’ll be heading back to the museum this evening for another look at Lois — after all, I’ve been talking to her all day!

Lois is providing a lot of humor, entertainment, and education in return for my attention.  That rapt attention, the ability to engage with something for a long period of time, the playfulness all create the conditions for learning, and for change and growth.  I’m not just talking about Lois putting on another four inches of height each day.  I’m talking about how learning, at its best, brings out the best in us.  Sometimes the growth process, or the blossoming, doesn’t happen on schedule, or in some other way you expected.  That can stink.  But it’s worth hanging in there.

IN a too-good-to-be-true twist, Houston’s own Miller Outdoor Theater, right down the street from HMNS, is now performing — wait for it — Little Shop of Horrors.  Gotta love how things work out.

Maybe I’ll see you at the HMNS tonight!  May we all blossom and grow, like Lois.

Follow @hmns and @CorpzFlowrLois on Twitter.

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A Fine Spring Weekend

WIldflowers

Wildflowers near Industry, TX

Spring, and wildflowers, are the best thing about Texas.

For now, let’s not debate the relative merits of BBQ, SxSW, our beaches, monuments, fine universities, or major cities.  While each of those topics can get an argument started, the Texas wildflowers seem to bring out the best in everyone.

Every year, Chris and I go for a drive out from Houston on a sunny Saturday.  This past weekend, the flowers were at peak.  Guided by a fabulous map from www.lone-star.net/wildflowers, we set out from Houston.  Our route took us out US290 to Chappell Hill, Brenham, and Burton; down through Round Top and over to LaGrange; and then back via Lafayette, Industry, and  Bellville. Most of the day was spent on the back roads, or “Farm-to-Market” roads as they are known here, between little ol’ Texas towns.

We witnessed a springtime ritual that goes back to the dawn of photography, certainly — perhaps even to the dawn of painting.  Parents dress up their adorable toddlers in their Easter finery, take them for a long, exhausting drive to find the perfect patch of bluebonnets, and then plop them down for the quintessential Texas photo-op.  Everybody who has ever had a camera and a kid has done this.  The children dressed in bright blue, or even better, a blue floral print, are effectively camouflaged in the billowing sea of blue flowers.

Bluebonnet traffic

Bluebonnet traffic

In fact, these photo-seeking families cause huge traffic hazards where ordinarily you could probably sit in the middle of the road and have a cold drink between cars that pass by. Brakes slam on, the car abruptly veers onto the shoulder.  No emergency here, just a family capturing their annual bluebonnet portraits.   The fields are full of parents, grandparents, toddling children, and couples young and old.  The appeal of this ritual is universal.  We saw all ages, colors, sizes, shapes, united in the quest of wildflower photos.

It’s also completely appropriate to wax and gush about the beauty of nature.  Hungry urbanites will go looking for flowers in the spring, even if they have nothing else to do with nature the rest of the year.  The flowers are EVERYWHERE — in meadows, in highway medians, along the roadsides.  It has to be good for you to be surrounded with beauty for a day, in the presence of happy people having a good time, doing what they enjoy, with people they love.  A field full of flowers is a wonderful reminder of peace and abundance.  The sight changes you.

This year, I shared my wildflower quest with the world, via social media. I hadn’t really planned to — it just happened. I posted a link to the lone-star.net map on Twitter, and got picked up by USWildflowers.com. Although Chris has a wonderful Nikon digital camera, we took most of our photos with our smartphones.  I was able to chronicle our trip in real time by sending the photos and captions via text message, and posting them on Tweetphoto, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr. (You can view the entire album of 20 photos here.) Snapping, texting, tweeting: I felt like a travel writer!

My updates from the road are only interesting to — well, people who are interested.  However, via social media, you can find people who are interested  in anything you are.  As of this morning, almost 26,000 photos with the tag “Texas Wildflowers” have been uploaded to Flickr!  I found out (too late) that a friend of ours was in Industry as we passed through; and we received several suggestions of good BBQ places when I tweeted that our favorite roadhouse in LaGrange had closed.  Being connected to the larger world helped to enhance our experience.  Connecting in the digital world did not take us out of the present, embodied experience.  Strangers snapped photos of other strangers, swapping cameras and smiles, under the influence of intoxicating floral scents and dazzling colors. People come together around shared interests.

Shared interests brings us back to the Feldenkrais Method.  Devotees of this form of movement education, which gently and effectively improves “body intelligence” to reduce pain and improve skills, are every bit as rabid as wildflower hunters.  Some are there with a specific goal in mind (“make sure she keeps her hat on in the picture” for the flower children, or “get my shoulder to stop hurting” for the movers).  Some are there for pure pleasure, and some can’t help but share their experience with you.  Both groups are known for being curious, for “pulling off the road” to stop and notice the fascinating and precious details that add wonder, meaning, and joy to life.  Watch out for the traffic whizzing by.  Some folks don’t slow down, and they don’t know what they miss.

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Local, Global, Local

Each Feldenkrais lesson begins with an invitation to notice something. This noticing is gradually directed toward the observation of curious details about the way you move, rest, and solve minor problems. A movement that feels isolated, strange, and difficult quickly reveals itself to be easy, graceful, and that your whole self is involved. You learn a process of learning and exploration that can be applied in any setting. After awhile, most people report that the effects of the lessons have begun to generalize — to “show up” as improvements in unexpected places, like their relationships, their work, their outlook. What began exclusively as a personal exploration of a specific issue eventually affects the world around you.

This ability to change your viewpoint, from local to global, or self to environment, and back again, is a crucial skill. Without it, you literally cannot move. A changing perspective gives a more complete view, and yields the opportunity to take intelligent action. Individual actions make a difference. Last week, I saw several examples of this, “on the ground.”

One client, a zippy octegenarian, has a new lease on life. After two surgeries on the same shoulder and a slow recovery, she was discouraged with her lack of progress. After 14 months and several courses of frustrating and painful therapy, she still could not drive without pain, lift her arm overhead, or dress herself normally. After a little more than a month of Feldenkrais lessons, she has regained most of her range of motion, and can now drive and do household tasks without pain. She learned that her shoulder is connected to the rest of HER, and that when her whole self is involved in movement, her shoulder moves more easily. She has regained her independence and is now eager to get back to her social life. Another client, having survived a brain aneurism, still walks haltingly and has difficulties with balance. Our first lesson helped her to sense her ankles as she walked. She reported that later in the day, a friend told her she seemed to be moving better and with more stability. She was thrilled! One solution involved viewing the problem in a larger context; the other solution involved a seemingly minor detail that was an essential part of the whole. Both perspectives are needed for a fresh outlook and a new beginning. As Moshe Feldenkrais said, “The possibility of improvement is limitless.” The cumulative effect of many small actions can lead to a big result.

Here’s another story. Houstonians Ernie and Sheryl Rapp thought that our city should host its own version of the TED Conference, bringing the top creative minds to Houston to speak from their unique perspectives. They founded and launched The UP Experience (“Like TED, Only Hotter) in 2008. A second event is planned for October 15, 2009. Home-grown initiative and actions have resulted in an event of international caliber and influence. Through Ernie and Sheryl’s creativity and dedication, locals will get a global perspective we wouldn’t have had otherwise.

In another example, some Houston entrepreneurs, artists, and musicians have begun an initiative called “Support Local/Grow Together.” It’s a simple idea, really, do to business in your own community, with people you know, like, and trust. SLGT adds a personal, word-of-mouth, nice-to-know-you dimension to the buying decisions you make every day. Hang out at your local coffee shop, independent book store, or neighborhood mom-and-pop restaurant. Recommend your hairdresser, doctor, computer genius, or designer to your friends. You could purchase some fabulous vegetables at a farmer’s market, get your printing done at a local shop, collect pieces by a Houston artist, seek out Houston musicians and performers for your next party. Attend a local conference, sample a new wine, follow your curiosity into new plans for self-development! (I recommend the Feldenkrais Method.) Again, the cumulative effect of many small actions can lead to a big result.

If you live elsewhere, you can begin to promote SLGT wherever you are. The “top down,” big solutions to our economic woes are only part of the picture. SLGT is grass-roots, right in your own backyard. Global and local perspectives are points on a spectrum, and we must continually navigate between them. Individual actions, chosen with awareness and intelligence, will always make a difference.

You can become a fan of SLGT: Support Local/Grow Together on Facebook.

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Facebook Fan Page for Feldenkrais Method(R) of Somatic Education

Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement(R) lessonImage by divamover via Flickr

Please allow me to toot my own horn.

Back in 2006, almost as soon as “geezers” (i.e., non-college age people) were allowed on Facebook, I filled out a profile and started a group, “Feldenkrais Method(R): This Stuff ROCKS!” As Facebook has evolved, it became obvious that the party was moving to Fan Pages. So, I began the transition to a fan page a couple of months ago. I hope to phase out and eliminate the old group by July 1, 2009.

Here’s the power of social media: I sent out a message from the old group to the members via Facebook, and saw a jump in the number of fans on the new fan page. I also posted a “welcome” video.
http://www.youtube.com/v/Moz617dwpQU&hl=en&fs=1&

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Social media is here to stay. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. may disappear or morph, but the fact remains: people will connect, research, and make decisions based on the information they receive via social media web sites. Facebook is a good “gateway site.” If you don’t have a profile on Facebook yet, it’s time. I’ll be your friend, I promise. Just search for facebook.com/marybeth.smith and “friend” me. Let me know who you are in the message attached. Then, go to the Fan Page for “Feldenkrais Method(R) of Somatic Education.” Click “become a fan.” You’re in!

More social media posts to come. I’m a maniac.

Holiday Weekend Recovery

Memorial Day fun! #fbImage by K. Todd Storch via Flickr

It’s a Tuesday morning that feels like a Monday morning.

It’s the aftermath of something wonderful: the extended Memorial Day weekend. Most people I know packed as much flag-waving, barbeque-eating, beer-drinking, and all-out week-ending as was humanly possible. Add in your own favorite hypenated pastime: mine this weekend included Law-and-Order-marathon-watching and week-ahead-meal-preparation. Yours might be bike-riding, game-playing, kid-enjoying, tube-floating, wedding-attending, house-cleaning, or mega-shopping. You get the idea. When we have a long weekend, we do it up BIG. And today, Tuesday morning, for some of us, feels like — a HANGOVER.

I watched the Twitter stream for awhile this morning, as “Memorial Day” was still a trending topic. One person, @chadwicknorris, said

It’s almost 10 am and I’m still trying to get motivated. I call it “The Memorial Day Weekend effect”.

We leave work, feeling exhausted, and eagerly anticipating the extended weekend. We return to work, stil exhausted. What’s wrong with this picture? Why do we do this to ourselves?

I suspect that one aspect is an almost universal and unconscious belief that we “should” be like the Energizer Bunny. “He keeps going, and going, and going. . .” We expect nothing less of ourselves. Our idealization of heroes has become pathological: we revere the person who is least like, well, a person. At least superheroes have superpowers! We expect ourselves, without superpowers, to work relentlessly at peak performance, requiring nothing in the way of rest or routine maintenance. We are no longer satisfied with being “superhuman.” We now aspire to be like a super machine. And, when or if we are injured, we see no alternative but the scrap-heap. The imperfect machine gets traded for an upgrade. No wonder we are terrified to stop, even for a moment.

We kill the pain with more activity, more relentlessness. We can’t tell when we’ve had enough. Hell, we’ll never admit we’ve had enough. That’s the formula for a hangover.

The best antidote here is an ounce of prevention. Season the recipe of your life with some good, old-fashioned PLAY. Play is the ingredient that refreshes, renews, and re-energizes your life and your perspective. Re-discovering your ability to play can be the key to finding a more creative, innovative, imaginative, resiliant YOU. Most people have forgotten how to be playful.

The Feldenkrais Method can re-connect you with your innate abilities to move, sense, think, feel, and PLAY. Remember those long summer days as a kid, when you happily lost track of time, engrossed in whatever you had discovered? Like that. During a one-hour Awareness Through Movement lesson, your curiosity is tickled. You are invited to explore and experiment. How will it turn out? We don’t know. But we know you will feel safe and comfortable during the process. And we know you will feel DIFFERENT afterwards. People take this playful stance back to work with them, back home to their families, back into their daily activities. The fresh approach, the awareness, the courage to play helps them to reap dividends in the present moment as well as the future.

Stuart Brown, MD, is one of the leading researchers on the neuroscience of play. He says that the opposite of play is not work, but rather, depression. He argues that work at its best can FEEL like play: absorbing, enlivening, experimental, improvisatory, satisfying, time-expanding fun! Play has many beneficial after-effects, unlike the hangover of the Memorial Day Effect. You are in the present moment, happy to be where you are, and refreshed for the day’s tasks.

It’s summertime! Come and play with us!

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The UP Experience Blog

I’m lucky to be one of the writers for the blog for The UP Experience. Here’s a new post that speaks to some themes of the Feldenkrais Method:

Steve Wozniak started ballroom dancing five weeks ago. He’s had two weeks of competition. He is a beginner, and he is a fast learner. Having made some footwork mistakes on Monday night, he analyzed the problem, perceived the pattern, and was able to correct it. The studio audience gave him a standing ovation, and Twitter went wild. Dancers and audience members alike learn, over the course of the season, to make ever finer distinctions. Even though the back-stories can be a little cheesy and often seem like unnecessary padding in the bloated show, they allow us to witness the personal growth of the contestants. Real growth and development. That’s extraordinary, especially in prime time. Everyone learns, and the American Public learns to appreciate the process and the plain old hard work behind the scenes that leads to excellence and ultimately, to the best possible performance. Who knew that Dancing With The Stars would demonstrate — DEPTH?MaryBeth Smith, The UP Experience Blog, March 2009

Please read the whole article. I’m very interested in your comments, either here or there.

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Less, and More


One of the recent additions to my work and play life is an online social media site called “twitter.” The site and its associated culture are a phenomenon, hot and getting hotter. As a participant, aka “twitterer,” you agree to an interesting constraint: all posts to update the status statement, “What are you doing?” must be 140 keystrokes or less. To give you an idea what that is, if this paragraph were a twitter update, it would have stopped after the word “culture” in the second sentence. (Actually, that’s 138 keystrokes.) You see the challenge?

Yet despite this constraint, millions of people worldwide now twitter. Within the 140-keystroke limit, known as a “tweet,” twitterers share business and personal resources, music, movie and restaurant reviews, publicize upcoming events, comment on the news, ask and respond to questions, compliment and acknowledge their friends, and offer support in trying times. I’ve been amazed at the creativity and humor that are able to flower under this constraint, and at how large my world is becoming, getting to know people 140 keystrokes at a time. Twitter is growing because of this limitation, not in spite of it.

You can’t help but notice: in 140 keystrokes, you have to make your point quickly. You don’t waste strokes on unneeded spaces or redundancy. You use short words and abbreviations. You don’t try to say everything you know about a subject. Now that it’s the holidays, I’ve had an amusing cocktail party fantasy: cornered by the creepy office guy or the inappropriate sales pitch, escape is just 140 keystrokes away. THAT could be a wonderful world. . .

You don’t need to worry: the tweet will not replace the doctoral dissertation, nor the great novel. Moshe Feldenkrais often showed how behaviors that are useful in one situation are not necessarily useful in every situation. Twitterers realize this fully. Each tweet is an introduction, a curiosity-inducer, and an invitation to sample more in another format, like a someone’s blog or another website of interest. Feldenkrais based his work in movement and human development around the exploration of constraints, and the power of SMALL actions. (You can click here to download some short examples in audio mp3 format.)

I’ve learned through exploring constraints via the Feldenkrais Method, that a constraint is neither good, nor bad: it just IS. Now what will you do? Your habitual pattern of action probably won’t work under the new conditions. What else could you do? Is there another way? Slowly, easily, gently, humorously, a little bit at a time, something new, interesting, and useful emerges. A new possibility is created.

I think both twitter and the Feldenkrais Method have a lot to offer us now, in what many acknowledge to be difficult times. A constraint can be a limitation, but only if you struggle against it and keep doing what you’ve always done. Small changes, added incrementally, mindfully, yet lightly, can make a huge difference. In problem-solving, you might be tempted to spend your energy on removing the constraint. This may or may not be possible. A more interesting solution is to work with the constraint, embrace it, and let imagination and experimentation reveal new possibilities.

If you take the long view, life itself is a “tweet.” We have one life, or one life right now, depending on your viewpoint. If it’s just going to be 140 keystrokes, how do you want to spend them?

Follow MaryBeth on twitter: http://twitter.com/divamover