Becoming a Gay Adult

After a delicious dinner, singing along with Annie Lennox's new fab Christmas Album and dancing to older Annie in my living room, I'm settling in for requisite couch time. It's been a blessed day. I'm grateful for my supervisor, my co-workers, the company with which I work. I'm enjoying work because of them. I'm grateful for the colleagues who've trusted me with their concerns: they've allowed me many opportunities to show my value in the office. I'm grateful for my growth and development, my willingness to engage in the process of becoming the best gay adult Black man I can be on earth. I get feedback that I have positive impact on others. I'm grateful for the deep connections I have with my godson, family members, friends, mentors and mentees. My home feels blessed, my health has been touched by angels: I move with grace and ease and I love what I see in the mirror (inside and out), and my connection with something bigger than myself feel...

I'm paying it forward today. Got up for the run for those shut in and who struggle to feed themselves. I've been given gifts of mentoring, opportunity, protection, health and guidance from something bigger than myself. Without those gifts, I'd be shut in and in need of the help that God's Love We Deliver gives. So I'm doing something for them. It warms my heart and keeps me humble.

I overdo. Period. Ugh. So identifying the right actions to take is the name of the game. There are 24 hours in a day: go. It's the other tough thing for me to exercise right now. First moderation in eating (especially late night sugar, which just jacks up my systems). Second, next right action. What's the next right thing to do? Sometimes, it's listen. Sometimes it's breathe. Sometimes is fast twitch muscle activate and execute. Rarely though, is a successful day a frenetic marathon of action. I've developed a bad habit of ruthless checking the box. It's time to let it go. Even at the gym, I've been advised to select quality exercises, do less repetitions and feel the burn anyway. Most importantly, it was suggested I'd get better results. Even there, my fast-paced, BRING IT, do it all mentality fails. Ugh. Slow it down, focus on FORM and breathe. Work well.

I was 11 when I figured out that I wanted to be more thoughtful around 3 things. And at 41 I'm still thinking about those 3 things. Mysterious, I know. For the next 10 days, I'm going to dive into action about them. And I'll reflect afterwards about how I did. What have you always thought about making change around in your life? What can YOU do for 10 days about those things? Today, and over the last couple days, I've been reminded that I do have impact by the way I LIVE my life. It's humbling, and I'm grateful. I want to step up my game. Correction: I'm stepping up my game so I can be of service by example.

The A-list is Gossip Girl for gays: a frothy eclair for turning the brain off. And yet, in response to some who'd analyze it, I think there's something to say for the underbelly of distorted personalities depicted. I say it's a collective call for us to get better as a community in the way we tell our stories and treat each other, now that we've got some stuff. We've had a fiery time forging our identities in a world that can be hostile. The jaw-dropping cruelty (beyond dangerous liaisons) depicted during the A-list episodes borders on farce, and yet, I'd challenge us to notice that the farce is only a smidgen heightened for dramatic effect in the circles some of us aspire to enter. The face: one of utter disdain betraying no vulnerability or hurt and the collection of humans as figurines to decorate our coffee tables and scream, "I belong here," damage more than the pin prick to keep our lips supple, taut and puckered. The other places that we are cre...

This is the hardest thing I've ever done. Simple sugars are the thing to hurdle. I use them to moderate my feelings. I wanted what I wanted today, and I failed to get it: it could be anything on any given day: I just like getting what I want. And the soothe, the mother's milk is to suck on some chocolate. A good donut, or slice of cake, pie, there are other vague approximations that work too. And gay men (the ultimate sufferers of body dysmorphia) should never be told their body fat percentage. What does that 10% number MEAN anyway? It drives me to chocolate biscotti and drinking ginger beer while obsessing about the 18g of sugar in the ginger beer. What does this have to do with anything work related? Well, everything: I have to navigate an intense work day of hurdles, requests, concerns, and then in the midst, feed myself. I want to be thoughtful about the fuel I put in the engine. When sugar seems to be a comfort it challenges the very systems it's meant to soothe:...

I think time away from work is crucial to work effectiveness. Whether it's a break in the day, or a couple days away from work entirely (plus the weekend), this is time to put work into perspective and engage in the things that enrich a life. I'm cooking some carrot soup for dinner, and warming up some chicken and rice (leftovers) for lunch at home. I'm enjoying the fall leaves outside my home. I ran a couple errands. It's just calming me to have home cooked smells and the view from my window ease into my consciousness amidst reflections of what's really important. A friend of my mother's just died. An acquaintance my age has recently died as well. My cousin just got married. As I sit and reflect in peaceful quiet, it occurs to me that I want to be a kind person. I want to be thoughtful and present in my life, because I have no idea if it will end quickly now, or later. These types of reflections influence how I show up at work in a day or two when paid ti...

Whether we're gay teens or just workers who feel hassled, domination destroys and has little up side. When we feel we're right and someone else is wrong, conversation and kindness are more powerful than whipping someone else into submission. Afterall, human behavior is driven by more complex forces than usually meet the eye. There is often a whole world beyond the simplest act. We can use a little more compassion between Republicans and Democrats, Type A's and the rest of us, gays and straights (and all those inbetween), Whites and Blacks (and the rainbow ethnicities that have since become crucial to our world). We can use more listening, and less dogma. Start in the little ways. Notice someone who's been unheard in meetings and find time to get their opinion. The quiet among us have some of the most brilliant ideas, pressed into diamonds because they've taken on the pressure of all that is input around them. Be a mentor to an LGBT kid in your neighborhood. ...

I spent some time watching the It Gets Better videos last night. Moving stuff. My favorite is the singing from the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus. It's wild how song works. The world needs all our talents. I'm good at storytelling. I'm good at helping humans align their being with their doing. To get really good at what I do, I constantly have to get better at aligning my own being with my doing. It's hard work. I think our careers help us focus on our deepest wounding as human beings, and as we get better, we develop power in that very area where we're broken. We get stronger than most other humans around that and we can GIVE that strength to others to help them along on the human journey. And that's our career. I think firemen saw some hopeless stuff growing up and are COMPELLED to run into burning buildings to do the impossible task of saving someone from fire. Nurses run TO broken bones and tend to them. I run to broken souls: I see someone struggling wi...

Who do you want to be in the world? This is different from WHAT you do in the world. This is different than the service you provide to the universe. This is different from the volunteer work you do. This is who you ARE. Who are you? Who is the best you in the world? And what gets in your way? For me sometimes it's anger at something in the past. Anger at Carl Paladino and the many who agree with him who often feel compelled to silence, yet harbor such rage at who I am and act it out in laws, beliefs, actions, attitudes that leave me feeling spent without even lifting a finger. Sometimes it's sadness at the pain in the past: whether it is discrimination against me because of my social status, the color of my skin, my sexuality, my sero-status (HIV+), that I live 15 miles off the island of Manhattan, that I was molested as a young boy etc. Sometimes it's pure fear. Or rage. Or depression. Or such overwhelm at all that's left to do that I feel paralysis (self-conta...

Today is your best day. It's my best day. Today is the day to live life. Consider this possibility: what if the way you lived your life today mattered? What if you looked back on your life and this day was important? Live it as if you had to review it later and be accountable, to you, the best of you. Live well.

It is easy to get distracted by goals. It is easy to point the finger at the coal miners stuck, the sludge-filled river, the preacher accused of having sex with the most vulnerable in his care. However, this glosses over the fact that life is good. In fact, life is perfect--filled with good things. A perfect day: imagine how much it takes for a day to be perfect. Blue skies, great temperature for hiking or biking or lounging and looking out the window. A perfect day to ease someone's pain, to show up for a friend, to have a wedding. A perfect life: a job, people who I love working with, things to do I love, healthy body mind soul, a dance and a light in my eyes, people in my life who I love: the cousin who's getting married and her amazing son, my godson. I have bitched and moaned about so many hurtful things in my life. I was on the verge of suicide myself as a teen gay boy, wondering if all I was would be prey for older gay men, target of bullying and vengeful hate fr...

I've been particularly disturbed by the conversation on gay teen suicide. And upset by the gay bashing at the Stonewall Inn. And while I have no clear details about these events, it has me reflecting on the hurt around sexuality during my own shaping years: both what I experienced and how I participated in hurting myself, which formed me, and shapes how I show up at work today. How I express myself as a gay adult. I've made mistakes myself. I rarely re-post, however, it first strikes me that Dan Savage is doing some good in reaching out to teens to let them know, "it gets better." Because it inspires, I think, all of us to salve the wounding that happens to us as we grow up. It inspires us to stop bullying each other, and to be more loving and kind as we try to make it: to create the abundance through our work to live rich lives. And what made me cry was a straight father's comments through a story and a vision that came to him in walking his son: Jack Bak...

As alumni we're working on gathering as many of us under the tent as we can. It's amazing that I fall more in love with Colgate over the years. There are a few institutions I love: The Center in NYC, Colgate and Rowe. And what they have in common, is a sense of community. At Colgate, we believe that education saves the world. It is the enlightened mind that can form morals, and find ways to live abundantly within values. It is the university which can bring diverse thoughts together, catalyze them and form incredible variety in harmony. We have a new president's inauguration today: pomp and circumstance and regalia. Underneath it, are a million wings of souls yearning for lives well lived. Those who've been here, those who've yet to come, and all our families and friends who are touched by Colgate. Our alumni are over 35,000 strong from many countries, traditions, beliefs, and there's great variety in our socio-economic status. Our student body has more inte...

Monday is my favorite day. I declare it so: and so it is. And it's funny how once you make up your mind about something: the idea sticks. I guess that's what feeds some of our negative projections on people places and things. So I'm turning that ability of our minds to good use. I enjoyed today. So what also helped was a good weekend. I really enjoyed my time AWAY so I could show up with energy and joy today. And I chose to let nothing bring me down: even my errors or people pointing them out: I just CHOSE to have a good day. And so it was. I confess, it was hard work. There were LOTS of opportunities to beat myself up and think that a gaffe would go down in the history books branding me forever incompetent, or worse, fundamentally "slow." However, I brushed those crazy thoughts off and sent them packing...today. The wonder of the world in the whirly-gig of time is that tomorrow is another day! Laugh well...(and have you noticed how many packages and t...

I find the quietest place inside and breathe into it. That can serve as a center for the whirli-gig of work and life. There is a hurricane named Karl in the middle of the ocean. Even from that I need to find the center: the calm in the storm and find peace. It's never as crazy as it seems. How can I within the beginning and end of the waves of what SEEMS chaotic, breathe? Work well.

Life will never be perfect. I left the office today with a pile of "to-do" on my desk that makes my head spin. And yet, I carved out time today to do the following: 1. have a powerful yet shortened work out this morning that cleared my head and got my blood pumping. When I hit the office this morning, I hit it hard and strong, muscling through an anxiety of mammoth proportion about how I was going to get ANYTHING on my plate done. 2. pause and do networking at an industry conference. That raised my sights, beyond my little desk and day to day concerns and showed me the bigger picture. Seeing folks at a career fair quickly snapped me back to reality: I'm lucky to have a job I love in the industry I am most fond of, and in the function I care deeply about, working with people on my team I love and with colleagues to serve whom I respect. Bollywog that it's overwhelming: I'll find healthy, collaborative ways to slog through this period. 3. I managed my netw...

Ever feel as if you're in a whirlwind of a day? Fall leaves getting bright and wind starts to get chilly. Work spins faster on the email, phone and people wheel and it's hard to get on what seems to be a faster and faster treadmill. It's all good if you breathe, get rest and eat well. Bonus: get some exercise. My blood is pumping! That's the challenge today to stay pumped and balanced. Go for it! Work well.

I am refreshed and renewed. I even cooked yesterday and a couple days ago got 10 hours of sleep. Rowe-tastic retreat. Now, pace myself sustainably until the next break. Work and live well.

Heading out for rest and rejuvenation. Happy Weekend Long. Rest Well...Meditate Thoughtfully and Let Go Thought