http://www.markpneyer.com/wp/2009/08/13/a-mathematical-model-of-happiness/

By the numbers, I don’t think so!

I’ve compiled annual reports and statistics; this week  I am figuring budget cuts and real-life budget woes with a spouse laid-off…is this the measure of my work and my life? I don’t think so.

My annual report at work didn’t really tell the story. The statistics (compiled, configured and calculated every which way!) seem, well, delusional.  I usually find beauty in numbers, formulas and graphs; but, faith in numbers, and much else, eludes me this summer.

I was directed to an article detailing a study on  academic Libraries and their ROI (return on investment.) From the story, ”ROI is one tool for measuring and demonstrating the value of the library,” I’m not sure many people know what ROI is and just how would we measure it?  I know that I did not mention ROI in my annual report. But again, the whole report detailed who we serve and how we serve them…with instruction, resources and reference.

What is the return on investment of a day, of a job, of a life? Can numbers even begin to tell the story? I don’t think so.

How do you measure job satisfaction? How do you measure friendship? How do you measure love?  I celebrated a birthday last month and am now obsessed by these bad middle years. I live in the DC area and have been devastated by the heat and the commuting…so many days over 90 degrees, the hottest month in history, the longest and maybe worst summer of my life!

Yet, in this hard summer there have been visits from good friends and family;  I’ve heard beautiful music outdoors; I picnic-ed with nieces and nephews; I spent time with my sons; I was soundly beaten at Boggle by my darling daughter-in-law. I spend lots of time watching the man I love struggle –  I admire his fortitude and good humor. I have lost my fortitude…if you see  it, please return it!

What is the measure? Drops, buckets, or oceans of anxiety? Comments, columns or rants from every media direction on any subject you choose? Giggles, chuckles or guffaws at the plans we make and find thwarted at every turn? All of the above… and more.

This summer doesn’t tell the story of my life. I will continue to just do good work, hold his hand and look for moments of grace. As for measuring…being here, being there, being in the moment is my only measure.

(I can hear you rolling your eyes at me and my too many ellipses, my son!)

I think April’s big question is…will this semester ever end? But, others think April’s big question is:

Isn’t this an ever-expanding universe of tech goodies? Will we be forced to chase hot tools and social platforms to stay competitive? How the heck are we supposed to stay up to speed on all the latest stuff and be successful using it personally and professionally?

How do we keep up?

I like new technology tools. I love getting my “news feeds” from twitter. Have you seen Neil deGrasse Tyson’s tweets on aliens? They makes me smile! So, we all learn and use technology tools to “keep up.”  My newest tool is  Prezi – I learned it works better in Firefox than in IE; and, if you put in graphics, they need to be very high quality to project well. I also learned about QR codes, but am still figuring out which is the best software to use on my phone to read all QR codes. All QR creator sites are not created equally good.  So, yes, I use technology tools to keep up.

But, as it is the end of the semester here at the Catholic University of America, and the end of my first academic year on the job. I need to find time to reflect about what worked this year…and what didn’t. To learn my new job I’ve read management books, built LibGuides, “selected” for subject areas, kept track of seven subject budgets and two  staff budgets, all the while, still learning how to commute. And I’m thinking, maybe – every now and then – I need to step back to keep up.

It was kismet then today when I read a lecture [delivered to the plebe class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in October of last year reprinted in theAmericanScholar.org Spring 2010] by William Deresiewicz (essayist and critic) on Solitude and Leadership: If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your thoughts .

So it’s perfectly natural to have doubts, or questions, or even just difficulties. The question is, what do you do with them? Do you suppress them, do you distract yourself from them, do you pretend they don’t exist? Or do you confront them directly, honestly, courageously? If you decide to do so, you will find that the answers to these dilemmas are not to be found on Twitter or Comedy Central or even in The New York Times. They can only be found within—without distractions, without peer pressure, in solitude.

It reminded me of the Thomas Merton quote that I have always loved and think of often:

“It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am the more affection I have for them…. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.”

Deresiewicz talks about the new technology tools – and why reading books is better than reading tweets. [Though I love the heavenly irony that I found this lecture through a tweet.] When  he rhapsodizes about the importance of solitude and friendship… well, I am still reflecting about why this speaks to me…but it does!  Read the whole essay…and then reflect about it for a while.

On tweets and books…

So why is reading books any better than reading tweets or wall posts? Well, sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes, you need to put down your book, if only to think about what you’re reading, what you think about what you’re reading. But a book has two advantages over a tweet. First, the person who wrote it thought about it a lot more carefully. The book is the result of his solitude, his attempt to think for himself.

Second, most books are old. This is not a disadvantage: this is precisely what makes them valuable. They stand against the conventional wisdom of today simply because they’re not from today. Even if they merely reflect the conventional wisdom of their own day, they say something different from what you hear all the time. But the great books, the ones you find on a syllabus, the ones people have continued to read, don’t reflect the conventional wisdom of their day. They say things that have the permanent power to disrupt our habits of thought. They were revolutionary in their own time, and they are still revolutionary today. And when I say “revolutionary,” I am deliberately evoking the American Revolution, because it was a result of precisely this kind of independent thinking. Without solitude—the solitude of Adams and Jefferson and Hamilton and Madison and Thomas Paine—there would be no America.

On solitude and friendship…

So solitude can mean introspection, it can mean the concentration of focused work, and it can mean sustained reading. All of these help you to know yourself better. But there’s one more thing I’m going to include as a form of solitude, and it will seem counterintuitive: friendship. Of course friendship is the opposite of solitude; it means being with other people. But I’m talking about one kind of friendship in particular, the deep friendship of intimate conversation. Long, uninterrupted talk with one other person. Not Skyping with three people and texting with two others at the same time while you hang out in a friend’s room listening to music and studying. That’s what Emerson meant when he said that “the soul environs itself with friends, that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude.”

And, in this reflective mode I have checked out the book Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton and will leave you with his prayer [because I often have no idea where I am going] as I reflect and hope, as my friend Adele says, that the big guy/gal is indeed pleased.

I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. - from “Thoughts in Solitude” by Thomas Merton

I’m chagrined. I have not been blogging often enough. My feeble excuse is that I don’t want to write to complain and bemoan my trying existence (which includes daily trials and tribulations with commuting in the DC area!) OK, I know that this existence is really not so trying… no death, sickness or pestilence for me and mine …so I will count my blessings in this new year. Learning is one of my blessings.

As the first semester at my new job concluded, a favorite blogger of mine, Professor Hacker, reminded me to “Write an End of the Semester Roundup Post” on my blog. But, he also suggested to unplug at the end of the semester – so I did that first! For about a week!

A new semester gives me a chance – not to start over – but to build on what I’ve learned (and what I need to learn) about my new workplace. Reading helps me learn.

Who’d have thought there was so much to learn about management. Daniel Pink, who first taught us about A Whole New Mind, has a new book I highly recommend – Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. What motivates us? Autonomy. Mastery. Purpose. More importantly, to do work  “ in the service of a cause greater than ourselves.”

We know that human beings are not merely smaller, slower, better-smelling horses galloping after that day’s carrot. We know – if we’ve spent time with young children or remember ourselves at our best – that we are not destined to be passive and compliant, but designed to be active and engaged. And we know that the richest experiences in our lives aren’t when we’re clamoring for validation from others, but when we’re listening to our own voice – doing something that matters, doing it well, and doing it in the service of a cause greater than ourselves.

I’m also reading Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life by Bruce Rosenstein so that I can particpate in a SLA-DC book discussion group with fellow librarians in January.

I’m trying to be positive while commuting, the job is good and Science Librarian and blogger, John Dupuis tells us why in this post: Optimism?

What I learned in my first semester…

• Building Physics, Engineering & Architecture LibGuides.
• Serials…I have a lot to learn.
• I like to learn and most of my best moments this past year were spent learning.
• Don’t forget to be inspired by the art in everyday living and go to an Art gallery whenever you can!

Before 7AM I am looking up at the sky as I stand on the VRE train platform at Burke Center. I peer over the tree line to see if the shade of blue of the sky pleases my eye. I peer down the track to determine the mist quotient to determine just how hot and steamy will it be today.

Immersed in reading and texting while riding on the train, I remind myself to look out and look up as we cross the Potomac River approaching Washington DC. I don’t want to miss the majestic Washington Monument and greet Thomas Jefferson as he steadfastly stands in his memorial. Interestingly enough, it was said of Jefferson that

he had placed his house and his mind “on an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe.”

Between the L’Enfant train stop and Union Station, I look over the massive parking lots and up at the rear of the United States Capitol. Those parking lots remind me that real people go to work there everyday and what they accomplish there is not insignificant to all of our lives.

Coming up out of the tunnel from Union Station on the struggling red line Metro train I look up to see first government buildings, then neighborhood streets and finally I see the dome of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and the Knight’s Tower. I have arrived at the Brookland-CUA Metro station to come out from underground and look up at my new workplace the Pangborn Engineering Building at Catholic University of America.

As I approach the building…
I look up…
I laugh as I realize that’s what librarians do …look up information.

I’m ready to :
…up the stakes
…raise the bar
…reach for the stars
…stretch my mind
…elevate my game
…boost morale
…advance the front
…spread the word
…promote …enhance …progress …anticipate …dream…

To look up and look farther and do more.