Snapshots by Daniel Hindin

Status Is Everything

“Daniel thinks searching for a job is just as exhausting as having a job (if not more so), but it doesn’t pay nearly as well.”

Yesterday evening, after yet another long day of networking, penning cover letters, tweaking resumes, making phone calls and sending emails, I allowed myself a fleeting moment of weakness and entered the above statement into the “Status” box of my Facebook profile.

I quickly came to my senses, chastised myself and then changed the status entry before I shared my self-diagnosis with the world.

It’s not that the statement was untrue. Searching for a job IS exhausting. And it certainly DOESN’T pay as well as an actual job. But it sounded to me as if I was beginning to feel sorry for myself.

Self-pity is a fundamental aspect of human nature. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t, from time to time, think to themselves: Why me?

Why is it MY flight that was delayed? Why was it MY job that had to be cut? Why is it MY life that’s harder than everyone else’s?

The truth is that everyone’s life is full of obstacles both big and small. The difference is how we handle the obstacles. Some people allow themselves to become bogged down in Why Me Land. For some, it becomes a comfort zone, a crutch. Those people tend to lead very unhappy existences.

“Why me” is a one-way street that can’t possibly lead to anything positive. So what’s the point? Why get trapped in the vicious cycle?

So yesterday, in my moment of despair, I chose to straighten my slumping body and sit up in my chair. And I began to count my blessings. Sure, there are jobless people out there in far more dire situations than me – but that’s not my idea of a blessing. If I felt better about myself by knowing that other people are worse off than me, I could just watch a trashy talk show.

Real strength – and joy – comes from the inside. It comes from embracing yourself as worthy of good things. It comes from making conscious decisions that will bring you closer to that spot of sun that you deserve.

Part of the beauty of life is that there is always something new through that next door. It’s just a question of a person’s willingness to reach out and turn the knob.

My updated status: “Daniel thinks searching for a job is tedious and exhausting, but the possibilities are endless and exciting. The optimist continues to win out!”

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Culture Shock on Home Soil

Yesterday, I took the train downtown for an interview with a headhunter, followed by lunch with a new networking contact who I met through LinkedIn. As I was speaking on the phone that morning with the LinkedIn contact, she asked what I looked like so she’d be able to spot me in the crowd at Seven on State, the upscale food court on the seventh floor of what used to be Marshall Field’s and is now Macy’s.

I described myself and then told her that, because of my prior meeting with the headhunter, I’d be wearing a suit. As the words were coming out of my mouth, I remembered that midday on a business day in downtown Chicago a significant portion of the men at a popular lunch spot would be wearing suits – that it wouldn’t be something that set me apart.

And so it has been. As I continue to make this transition back from West Coast to Midwest, from beach town to big city, I’ve been experiencing what my college study abroad adviser liked to refer to as “culture shock.” It’s the biggest case I’ve had since I returned back to the U.S. from a semester in Vietnam.

Back in Santa Cruz, the town I called home for the past eight years, I often felt as if all eyes were on me as I walked down the street with a tucked-in dress shirt, slacks, dress shoes and some product in my hair on my way to lunch at my favorite Italian deli. In Santa Cruz, wetsuits are “in” and business suits are most definitely “out.”

During my first weekend back in Chicago this summer, two of my buddies took me out to a trendy River North hotspot. It was a baptism by fire. At home getting dressed for the evening, I thought long and hard about what would be appropriate for me to wear. As it turned out, I fared pretty well in that category for a rookie.

But that did nothing to temper the overwhelming rush that shook through my body as I walked in the door and observed the enormous mass of well-dressed revelers who seemed to move in a wave as they stood packed in across the entire room before me. It was at that moment – and not a few days before as my car emerged from the cornfields of Iowa and into bumper-to-bumper rush-hour traffic on the Dan Ryan – that I finally comprehended the enormity of the decision I had made in returning to live in Chicago for the first time since high school.

After five months, the learning curve continues to be steep. Wardrobe and nightlife are just a couple of the changes I’ve been busy adjusting to. There are certainly more, and I’m sure you’ll hear about many of them here if you continue to follow along.

And, speaking of following along, I know most of you are reading copies of this blog on Facebook, which makes me very happy. But, if you have a moment, I encourage you to take a look at the “actual” blog at danielhindin.typepad.com. There, you can sign up to receive each new entry directly in your email inbox and enjoy other added features. In the meantime, thanks for reading!

Who Made the World and Other Pressing Questions

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Over the past few months, there is one question that I’ve been asked hundreds of times. It’s a question I loathe. Each time is more dreadful than the last. Why did you move back to Chicago?

It’s an innocent and logical question. It’s almost obligatory. In fact, it would be odd if it weren’t asked. But I find the question similar to asking two people why they’re in love with each other. They can’t tell you exactly why. They just are.

I usually humor my interrogator with a simple answer. I wanted to live in a big city. I wanted to be exposed to greater opportunities. Chicago just feels like home. While it’s all true, it’s not the whole truth.

I’m a fan of gut feelings. I trust my gut. No matter how big it gets. On a day-to-day basis, my life is ruled by logic. But many of the most important decisions in my life have been made by submitting myself to faith in the mysteries of the world.

Take the way I first ended up in California. After growing up in Chicago, I spent my freshman year of college at Emory University in Atlanta. After about a semester, it was clear I wasn’t happy there. But would it be worth the trouble to transfer to another college? I would have to go through what would amount to a second freshman year in another strange place where, socially, I would be a year behind my peers. And after all the fuss, there was no guarantee I’d be any happier. It was a risk.

In the end, I knew in my heart that I couldn’t settle. There was no way to know what was waiting for me in California, but I owed it to myself to find out.

As it turned out, the years I spent in California have been the best of my life. And that includes the most recent year. In fact, the last year may have been the best of them all. When I decided to leave, I wasn’t unhappy like I had been in Atlanta. But as life goes by, we evolve, and our personal concepts of fulfillment evolve with us. I got this feeling in my gut that there was more for me to strive for, and I couldn’t ignore it. What else should I have done?

Who made the world? Who made the grasshopper? Many important questions are too big for logical explanation. What I do know is life is too fragile and precious not to follow your heart and take the time to make sure you’re doing the things that make you happy – to be amazed at the complicated simplicity of the world and to honor the bountiful blessings that surround you.

Thanks again to Roger for sharing the poem, “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver, in response to my first entry.

Why the Survival of This Blog Depends on You

All right! Thanks to all of you who commented on the inaugural post of what will come to be known as “Snapshots,” a blog that will be available not only on my Facebook page but also, hopefully, if everything works as it’s supposed to, simultaneously on www.danielhindin.typepad.com. This will allow the few remaining people on this earth who are not members of Facebook to also be a part of the fun! (Welcome, Uncle Steve and Aunt Toni!)

As some of you know, this isn’t the first time I’ve put my thoughts on “paper” for public consumption. For those of you who didn’t know me then, I used to write a weekly column for the newspaper I worked at called the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian. The job of a newspaper editor is often grueling and thankless, and the column became my shining beacon of hope and freedom, a venue where I could share stories and lessons I’d learned along the way.

But the idea of “sharing” is not accomplished with a one-way flow of information. And that’s why I’m so excited that technology has brought us the blog, which allows for so much more immediate interaction than did my column, which was written in the dark ages, when you had to wait for a letter to the editor to be delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.

While I do have a strong affinity for the art of writing itself, the writing is really just a vehicle for my true passion, which is simply the sharing of ideas between human beings – and sometimes dogs. I know my thoughts. They’re in my head. Yes, writing does help to focus them, but I’m more interested in other people’s thoughts. YOUR thoughts. My hope is that something I write will spark a thought in your head, and I encourage you to share that thought so that I, and the others following along, will be blessed with some of the richness that is YOU!

And that’s why I was so happy to receive Roger’s comment on my first post. If you didn’t follow his link to the beautiful and inspiring poem called “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver, I encourage you to do so by clicking here. (I’m not sure if these links will work on Facebook, but they should work on Typepad. If you can’t follow the link, then just paste www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html into your browser.)

Honestly, this post was originally intended to reflect on that poem, but it’s taken me so long to lead up to it that I’m now going to start another separate post and give it the attention it deserves.

I know, I’m sorry. I just got so excited about how cool it will be to play in the sandbox with all you wonderful people that I veered completely off task. But please, while I encourage you to interact with me and everyone else, I do understand if you don’t feel comfortable doing so. In fact, in many cases, I’m the one following along silently. So, please, if that’s what makes you happy, I encourage that as well.

So, anyway, check out my soon-to-come post on “The Summer Day.” And I’ll just leave you on this post with a shout-out to my amazing sister Jamie and my charming future brother-in-law Adam, who are now engaged to be married! The question was popped romantically while both were in their pajamas on Wednesday night. I love you both, and you both are so deserving of each other. Congrats!

The Start of Something Good

Bob Dylan wrote in his song “Talkin’ New York” about his first weeks as a transplant to New York:

Wintertime in New York town
The wind blowing snow around
Walk around with nowhere to go
Somebody could freeze right to the bone
I froze right to the bone
New York Times said it was the coldest
winter in seventeen years
I didn't feel so cold then.

Those words have been tracking through my head on a loop over the past few days – actually just the last three lines, to be specific. Apparently, we here in Chicago have already endured as much snow by mid-January – less than one month into winter – as the city usually receives over an entire year. Learning this from the Chicago television media has had the same effect on me as the Times article had on old Bobby D; I have to admit, I don’t feel so cold now! Well, maybe a little…

It’s a funny coincidence to probably no one but me, however, that Dylan’s first weeks in New York were as a 19-year-old who had left his home and family in Minnesota for the first time to seek his fate in the Big City. I say it’s a funny coincidence because it was as at the age of 19 that I moved 2,000 miles away from my family and the Second City (Ok, it was the suburbs) for the warmer climes of California.

Now, after 11 years Out West, I’ve returned to Chicago as a 30-year-old who has forgotten what winter is. The fun part has been buying a whole new wardrobe – especially amid the 70% off sales everywhere you turn! I’ve geared up with the obligatory wool coat, scarf and long underwear and have resolved to embrace my new/old home.

But winter is only temporary. My life, though temporary as well, is expected to last more than a few months. And beyond the cold and the snow, my move back to Chicago represents a hunt – well, not a hunt, a search maybe. The first things on my list to find are a job, a place to live – basically a life. Is that too much to ask?

Those things take time – especially a job in the throes of the big “R” word: Recession. In the interim, I find my mind filled with thoughts that I would like to – or maybe need to – share with others. And my intention is to use this outlet to document this life-altering decision to pick up my life and drop it 2,000 miles away in a place that is both as foreign and familiar as, say, your mother’s womb – though not as warm, of course!

I hope you will join me in sifting through some of both the lighter and heavier moments during this profound transition and wherever it might lead me. Feel free to comment if the moment strikes you, or to just read in silence. Really, it would make me happy to know you were reading at all. I know I will have one dedicated reader – my mother – but it is my sincere hope that perhaps a few others will follow along as well. To use Dylan’s words, maybe I won’t feel so cold then…