Authentic or Not?

au·then·tic
–adjective

1. not false or copied; genuine; real: an authentic antique.

2. having the origin supported by unquestionable evidence; authenticated; verified: an authentic document of the Middle Ages; an authentic work of the old master.

3. entitled to acceptance or belief because of agreement with known facts or experience; reliable; trustworthy: an authentic report on poverty in Africa.

 

I recently attended a Women's Leadership Conference where much of the content focused on being an authentic leader.  Women, I learned, by their very nature, view the world differently than men and therefore bring a unique perspective to business.  For instance, men tend to be focused on one thing (hunters) and women consider many things at once (gatherers).  We were told not to emulate men but to be authentic, be who we are.  Have high expectations, advocate for other women and be comfortable in our own skin.

 

Sounds good doesn't it?  The only problem is that if I am going to be truly authentic, then the work world needs to change their idea of acceptable business behavior.  Crying when frustrated needs to be allowed, hugging people just because I am happy must be protected by human resources and dressing in sweatpants on 'fat' days must become the norm.  I mean seriously, can a woman really be authentic in the workplace? 

 

I love the idea of authenticism.  By virtue of its definition, it has to be real.  I have been in many meetings where men get angry, pound their fists and use expletives.  This is their manner of telling everyone that they are not happy with some outcome or that whatever is going on must change.  Put a woman in that same position acting the same way and she is instantly labeled as a b*tch.  The problem, as I learned this week, is she needs to stop emulating men and be authentic. OK, Do-Over:  same meeting, same people.  She listens to what is going on and after finally getting everyone's attention (which takes awhile because she doesn't yell, pound or curse and is being authentic) she tells everyone how very disappointed she is and sends everyone to time out! Ha! :)  Just kidding, but essentially she must suppress her emotional outburst while it is fine for the men in the room to express theirs.

 

At this point I feel it is important to specify that I am not a radical feminist or a man hater, nor do I frequent bra burning events.  I love being a woman and I love being treated like one.  I am not opposed to feminism although I believe that just like many other causes the movement gets labeled by the radical activists within it, none of which I can relate to or agree with.  I am angered that women only make .70 to every dollar earned by a man and that only 2% of all fortune 500 companies are run by women, but I still like to have the door opened for me and to be told I smell nice. Am I confused or do I suffer from multiple personalities? I don't think so.  I think I am just being authentic.    

 

 

Truths from a Frequent Flyer

I remember when flying on a plane was an exciting and enjoyable event. Everyone got really dressed up and it was special. The women wore hats and the men wore suits.  There were no security checks where you had to remove your shoes, coats and wristwatch, there were meals served to everyone and the flight attendants were all female, pretty and called stewardesses. They passed out decks of cards, airplane pins and models, and the children could go visit the pilot in the cockpit before takeoff. It was a luxury. 

I hate to fly. It has become a miserable experience. The airlines can no longer discriminate so the 'stewardess' on the flight I am sitting on as I type this is bald and grossly overweight. He is twice as wide as the cart he is pushing and he apparently thinks that if he keeps trying to be funny that I will forget that he smashed my right arm with his stomach when walking by. Yuck!

Looking around I see a variety of attire. Since the plane left at 6:10 am some people are still wearing their pajamas - oops sorry those are now known as lounging pants. Double yuck!  

I love to people watch and wonder why each person is traveling. I found out that the woman sitting to my left is on her way to a convention in Boston. During the traditional niceties while taking our seats I asked her what type of convention, and she answered, 'contraceptive'. I feigned sleep. 

Business travelers, military and students are fairly easy to recognize. Sometimes I imagine Grandparents traveling to see their new family member, or Snowbirds flying home for the summer. Regardless of the 'why' people just don't pay ridiculous money for this miserable experience without a good reason. 

I travel by plane a lot. My family lives on the opposite coast of the country and I typically travel for business at least once a quarter. I also love to travel for pleasure which often involves a flight. Being a frequent flyer, I  have learned the following truths which inevitably contribute to the misery of the flight experience:

1)  If the flight attendant is walking down the aisle with a seatbelt extender, it is for the person who is going to occupy the seat next to me.
2)  'Food for Purchase' means a selection of extremely small overpriced snacks with high sodium content. 
3)  Changing your seat to accommodate others who want to sit together generally results in a less than optimal seating arrangement.  
4)  Suitcases weigh a lot.
5)  Handles break, wheels fall off, and shampoo explodes.
6)  When they say, 'Use caution when opening up the overhead bins', they mean it.
7)  No one else on the plane knows how to wipe off the toilet seat.
8)  The person sitting directly in front of me has eaten beans in the last 24 hours.
9)  The plane is most often either too cold or too hot and rarely comfortable.
10) I am not getting fatter, it is the seats and the legroom that are shrinking.

Here are my travel tips and I hope they help to ease the misery of flying:

Dump your cheap luggage, it's cheap!
Pack your own food - it tastes better, is cheaper and better for you
Go to the bathroom on land and don't drink beer
Wear layers and bring a light blanket
Put everything you can in plastic
Don't book seats without checking seat guru online, some seats just suck....
Indeed DO open the overhead bin with caution

These tips and others that I would love to hear from you should help to make your flight as painless as possible.

One last tip: Don't forget to change out of your Pajamas!

Did I say that?

Money Madness

Much has been said and written about money. In fact, money consumes a great deal of our time. Our libraries, bookstores, newspapers and newscasts are saturated with information about money. How to save more, make more, invest wisely, retire early, pay for college and get a better paying job. We have Paypal, we wait for payday, and we use pay as you go phones. We can't escape this human obsession with money.

We all like to have it, it makes many things easier, and let's face it, it's fun to play with. We play the stock market, we play the slots, we play the lottery. Play, play, play!  And then we buy stuff...we buy things and gadgets and stuff we don't need and then we sell the needless stuff to other people that don't need it on Craig's list or at a garage sale so we can get more money to buy more stuff! We envy others that have more money stuff than we do and I was recently informed by a 12 year old girl that the most popular girls always wear the most expensive stuff. We play with money, buy with money, pay with money, fight over money and complain about money.  Liza Minnelli sang that Money makes the world go around, the Beatles taught us that Money can't buy us love, Madonna confessed to being a Material Girl, and who can forget Pink Floyd with the cash register "cha ching" written into the music?  Brilliant! 

One has to think with all the time we spend thinking, spending, paying, making, playing and singing about money that God would be a bit more understanding.  Nope - it is pretty clear that the Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil.  Ouch!  The root of a plant anchors the plant to the earth. It also collects the water and nutrients necessary for the plant growth.  This is getting heavy.

Sounds to me that the issue is not with having and playing and singing about money, and maybe not even wanting to have more money.  The issue is whether we can be completely embedded in a money culture and still love God more than anything that money can bring us.  That's tough, maybe tough by design.  After all, it wasn't easy for God to love us.  He made the greatest sacrifice of all time to prove his love for us.  Why shouldn't it be a little work for us to prove our love for Him? 

We live in a world where God is no longer very popular.  If you follow the wisdom of 12 year old girls, you may believe it is because those who follow him don't always wear the most expensive stuff.  It could be because we just don't like anyone telling us what to do, and we certainly don't like being seen as offensive or radical doing that which we believe God would want us to do.  How absurd!

God is constant - money is not.  If you believe in your money and what it can provide for you, wait awhile.  I guarantee at some point it will let you down. In fact, the more money we have, the more we worry about losing it.  Strange isn't it?  How different God is!  The closer we get to God, the stronger our relationship becomes and the less we worry about everything - money included. 

I had a lesson in this last week when we had a major sewer explosion at our rental property.  All of a sudden the money that was being saved for our fun vacation went bye bye...right down that sewer pipe!  When I felt myself starting to stress out about money and trust me, I DID, I realized that my hope is not in the value of the dollar.  After all, to root myself in something that is that unpredictable is completely foolish.  God didn't tell us not to love money to be a kill-joy, He did it because He knows how unstable and unfaithful the dollar is and that our roots need to be grounded solidly in the rock, not the dollar. 

But what about popularity?  Knowing that we will never achieve popularity while following a risen Savior I have developed a solution for you.  Do you want to be so popular that your phone is ringing off the hook?  Stop paying your car payment for a few months - you won't believe how popular you will be!

Did I say That?