My career journal is filled with scraps of paper, my dreams, countless questions, and thoughts; all of which bring a flood of memories with one powerful statement, which is “I wish someone would have told me this.” So, I’ll be the one telling you.
S = Slow down to reflect,
A = Acknowledge your current reality,
N = Navigate forward with intention and
E = Evaluate and adapt.
It’s the Little Things: The Everyday Interactions That Get Under the Skin of Blacks and Whites (2000, 268 pages) by Lena Williams is a thoughtful follow-up to Ms. Williams’s 1997 New York Times article, “The Little Things: Looks, Stares, Offhand Remarks, and Everyday Occurrences That Can Ruin a Black Person’s Day,” which explored how Black and white people perceive—and often misperceive—one another. She expands on those ideas through focus groups held across the country, examining the questions, assumptions, and attitudes that create social tension and everyday irritation. The book centers on perception: how Black and white people interpret both their own behavior and each other’s. It is not presented as a rigorous academic or sociological study, but rather as an anecdotal work that explores situations, language, and subtle social cues that can become sources of friction. Instead of offering heavy analysis, Williams organizes thematically linked observations—many drawn from roundtable-style discussions in cities across the United States—with greater emphasis on the Black experience than the white one. In an afterword, she notes how difficult it was to get white participants to speak candidly about their views of Black people, even with anonymity guaranteed. The book does not claim that any group’s perceptions are necessarily correct; instead, it highlights the existence of differing perceptions. Told largely through anecdotes, with occasional historical context and broad generalizations, it serves as a strong starting point for honest dialogue about race. Ms. Williams is a gifted writer, and I appreciate what she sets out to accomplish in this book.
Be Still My Soul
Don’t speak just yet.
Sink into this place.
Sit in your heart.
Close your eyes if you must,
Breathe in,
Breathe out,
Feel the beating of your heart.
When the mind is quiet,
You will understand
That sweet, deep awareness
Opens the gates
To another kind of land.
There’s no way to
Hold peace
In the palm of your hand;
It’s a mind-body-spirit state
Where everything
Holds
Abundance and magic—
Even a tiny grain of sand.
Be still my soul.
Hear the winds speak, and
Watch how the leaves on the branches
Blow to and fro.
There can be
Thunder and rain,
Pleasure or pain,
But here you are still,
And that is enough.
Stop, look and listen:
See how wonderful it is.
But don’t think just yet.
For thoughts can be
Beautiful pathways,
But they can make you
Forget
The truth of your Self—
How you were born
Of your own star stuff.
Be still.
Look, and
Listen.
Even a mind must rest
To create its best.
So, do not worry,
Dear heart, head, and hands—
You will have your season
To work and to play,
And there is
Time enough for all,
Every single day.
There is time to make no plans.
And what of the mysteries?
How to piece the puzzle together?
Must you always struggle
To know the unknown better?
No, you must be sure.
The silence
You scurry away from
Is misunderstood.
It is not nothing;
It is everything,
Like the color
White
Or the other side
Of the world,
At night.
If you stop and see
What is here to see,
And if you listen only to
What your ears hear,
You will feel your Self,
Dear Soul,
Melt into the moment, and
Peace will be near.
Even in the
Middle of the night,
The light of Life
Is right here.
In this space, always
This space, is
All you could ever hold dear.
Be still, old soul.
Feel yourself—
Alive—
Right here.
Stop waiting to
Start living;
Stop time, and
Be lived.
Hear the sweet melody of
Your stillness, and the
Music that it
Gives.
-Jennifer Healy
you are allowed to reinvent yourself and to explore this emerging season of your life with more curiosity than urgency.
Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging“, as I know each of these pieces represents something…
Positively Purging-I welcome your feedbacks in the comments and your likes and passing the real-life wisdom on to others as I embark on this new venture of “positively purging”, as I know each of these pieces represents something…
Real Life of an MSW 