This post is dedicated to Alicia Parlette, her family and best friends.

Photo Credit: Monique Sady, Alicia Parlette's Facebook Page

In 2005, Alicia Parlette, a copy editor who had just started her career at the San Francisco Chronicle, was diagnosed with a rare form of incurable cancer at age 23.  Some people might have chosen to deal with a cancer diagnosis and treatment privately, but from those early days of testing and diagnosis, Alicia had an opportunity to write about her experiences.  She embraced that opportunity fully, and as a result, touched thousands upon thousands of lives.

This morning, I was saddened to read about her death.  And as my eyes devoured the Chronicle story, I found myself moved to tears, and became thoroughly inspired by the way she lived her last few years.  Alicia might have spent only 28 short years in this world, but  she had taught us so many of life’s precious lessons by showing us how to live.  What are these lessons?  Here are my top three, and I’m sure there are many, many more…

• Find Blessings in the Midst of Tragedy – Alicia wrote that “tragedies are linked with blessings, and that among my many blessings is a chance to write my story.”  Instead of moping and shutting down, Alicia wrote about her experiences with courage and warmth and opened up her world to many others who may have had to face similar situations.  Her Facebook page is full of wall posts from people thanking her for having inspired them.  Here are a couple:  “My dad has cancer, and reading about her struggle helps me and continues to as my dad fights against this horrible disease.” (Leslie Beebe).   “To her family and closest friends… I, too, watched and waited as I lost my best friend… the longest and yet most meaningful three weeks of my life.” (Linda Petsche)

• Pursue Your Dream – Come rain or sunshine, sleet or snow, or even the dreaded Cancer, Alicia never lost sight of her dream to become a writer.  She wrote that that “if I go through this life-changing ordeal and my body just wears out and I die, I will die a writer. The one thing I’ve always wanted to be.”  Indeed, the one thing she had always wanted to be, she became.  Shortly after the very first part of her series titled “Alicia’s Story” was published, the San Francisco Chronicle received an outpouring of feedback – more than 2,300 people from around the world wrote, emailed, called or posted online comments.  Alicia had struck a chord.  Alicia’s story was their story.  Alicia, you became a writer indeed, and one who will not be forgotten for a long, long, long time.

• Life is Never Too Short to Love - I read of the love between Alicia and Lucas Beeler, about how they met on BART back in October, and how even as her last days drew closer, they decided to have  a private commitment ceremony.  And by the time I got to the part about Lucas giving her the wedding ring worn by his mother and grandmother, I could not stop my brimming tears.  
  

As one of the thousands of others who relate to your story, having had parents who were diagnosed with cancer, and having lost my dad and having survived cancer myself, I thank you deeply, and salute you for sharing your story and your life with us.  You may have lived 28 short years, but from the number of people you have touched, the lives you have changed, the pure soul that so clearly shines through in your writings, you must have lived at least 200 years, not!?

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Note:  Contributions in Alicia’s memory may be sent to the Alicia Parlette Fund for Aspiring Journalists, Reynolds School of Journalism, Mail Stop 310, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557.  You can also share your thoughts, memories, prayers, or make a donation in her name at www.msparlette.com.

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This is a guest post by Jarie Bolander, Author of Frustration Free Technical Management.

Innovation and creativity are wrought with setbacks, stumbles and failure. All creative endeavors have that one point where all you want to do is stop. Stop working. Stop thinking. Stop worrying about the project. This place comes by many names – the wall, the edge or the brink.

Defining Moments

All artists, innovators and creative folk have defining moments that test their mental strength. These moments are brink moments when, for brief moments, we let the self doubt, insecurities and negativity get the best of us. These are the places we give up on our dreams. These are the places that make us not want to ever try again. How many of you have let these moments defeat you? How many of you just could not muster enough positive energy to push past this point? It’s sometimes hard to channel enough positive energy when trouble strikes. Remember all those negative people who told you that your dream was stupid. Can you visualize them? Shaking their head. Waving their finger. Telling you to go get a safe, secure, corporate job. Telling you that being an artist, poet, musician, writer or inventor is fine for a hobby, but a job, c’mon, that’s just crazy talk.

Teetering on the Edge

The brink is that defining moment where all hope is lost. Whatever you are working on is just not converging. It’s the point of exhaustion where going on seems impossible. This spot is the single most frustrating point in your life where you question everything. It’s a nasty cocktail of melancholy mixed with terror that feels like your whole world is collapsing in on itself. At this point, where all hope, dreams, desires and ego are on the brink of collapse, will be your most creative moment if you let it.

Embracing the Brink

Creative people need to embrace the brink and the defining moments it creates. The clarity that brink moments can bring is truly astonishing. The brink is the culmination of your creative process. It’s that last little push to finish your blog post, the marathon session to release your software or the one defining experiment that proves your invention. When you feel yourself teetering on the brink, wanting to give up, try these techniques to push past it:

1. Take a step back: Too often, we get wrapped up in a problem that we lose our objectivity. Take a step back. Let your mind rest and regroup. Then, attack the problem again.
2. Attack one problem at a time: Inventors sometimes face a myriad of challenges that hit them all at once. The desire is to attack them all at once. This method just distracts from the focus needed to solve difficult problems. The best method: list your problems and work on one at a time.
3. Adjust expectations: Reaching too far can create artificial barriers that should be carefully analyzed. It’s fine to delay a feature or adjust the form factor as long as progress to the end goal is being made.
4. Stop making it perfect: Probably the biggest barrier to all creative folks is the perfection fallacy. This mostly stems from critics that might look at your work and find a flaw. Well, get it over it. Most of them will never see the flaw – they will just be happy that you shared your work and ignore the critics – they are just jealous that you released something.
5. Set a deadline: Real artists release their work. Without releasing your work, you are not an artist, inventor or writer. Sharing your work is how you touch people.
6. Talk it through with a friend: Just talking through your challenges can inspire different approaches and ideas. Take a friend to coffee or drinks. Candidly discuss your setbacks and ask for advice.
7. Collaborate with someone else: Sometimes your art is just missing that one piece to make it whole. In these cases, it can do you a world of good to find another artist that can help complete your work. Even sharing credit for your work is far better than not releasing it at all.
8. Sacrifice something you enjoy till it’s done: Nothing will motivate you more than to sacrifice something you enjoy doing till you solve one problem or release your art.
9. Celebrate the little wins: The little wins will sustain you until you can push past the brink. In reality, the little wins will build into the big wins and that will lead to your success. So, celebrate a bit when all seems lost.

Embrace the Process

An important thing to remember is that some brink events will momentarily break you. Be ready to accept this, learn from it and move on. None of us is perfect. At times, we will fail but that does not mean we are failures. Whatever you create, the process of creation is also art. Embrace the fact that you put yourself out there, created something and let the world see it, even if it’s not perfect or not what you originally intended.

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About The Author

Jarie Bolander is an engineer by training and an entrepreneur by nature. He is presently working on breakthrough technology that will reduce medical errors. Jarie also blogs about innovation, management and entrepreneurship at The Daily MBA and has recently published his first book, Frustration Free Technical Management.  You can also follow him on Twitter @thedailymba

I haven’t stop thinking about 94-year-old Carmen Herrera ever since I read about her in The New York Times. Her story is such a shot of inspiration that I just have to write about it here.

The story goes that Carmen has a deep love for painting.  It was a compulsion, something she simply couldn’t stop doing.  She started painting back in the 1930s, when she was in her ’20s.  Her paintings focused mostly on geometrical shapes and lines, forms and colors, and were considered  “ahead of her time.”

Carmen Herrera's Painting, Image by cliff1066 via Flickr

Carmen was born in Cuba, lived in New York and Paris and eventually settled in New York.   Through the years, she labored quietly and produced a huge quantity of paintings.  But it was many, many years later, at age 89, that she sold her very first painting.  Today, her art is in in high demand and a recent painting sold at a whopping $44,000!

Now, at age 94, while homebound, resigned to a wheel-chair and afflicted with arthritis, she receives a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Walker Art Center.  The New York Times story quoted several people on her late-life success:

To bloom into full glory at 94 — whatever Carmen Herrera’s slow rise might say about the difficulties of being a woman artist, an immigrant artist or an artist ahead of her time, it is clearly a story of personal strength,” Mr. Zugazagoitia said.

We have a saying in Puerto Rico,” he said. “The bus — la guagua — always comes for those who wait.”   This came from her good friend Tony Bechara.

Indeed, the bus did come for Carmen and she is now basking in her success.  Reading Carmen’s story teaches me one thing:   If you have a passion, keep at it, keep at it, keep at it.  I’m willing to bet that even if Carmen didn’t receive the recognition she recently received, she will still paint, paint and paint and love, love and love it!

If you enjoyed this post, you might want to read these as well:

• Success Or Failure, Does It Matter?
• How Did A Poem Save Nelson Mandela’s Life?
• Moments Of Gratitude
• Wishing You Time… To Do The Things You Love

Have you ever had moments in your life when someone or something kindles a spark of gratitude within you and changes your perspective on life ever so subtly, or not so subtly?

Image via Wikipedia

I remember one instance, back when I was barely out of my teens, while attending college as a bright-eyed freshman.  It was the first day of a “Psychology 101” class.  Everyone in class looked around my age, except a 60-plus-years-old African American woman.  I will never forget what she said as we went around a seated circle introducing ourselves.

I have worked hard all my life.  I have made sure my five children grow up the right way,”

She began as her heavy-set chest heaved up and down.

“And now that my youngest has graduated college, it is finally my turn.”

Her happiness, well, glee, was apparent as she flashed a ear-to-ear grin at us.

The class greeted her story with spontaneous applause.  She became my inspiration, and taught me several things that day.  I was reminded of everything my parents have done to give me the opportunity of a college education.  I was inspired by my new friend, who may have delayed her dreams, but never let them out of her sight.

Have you had moments in your life when someone or something kindles a spark of gratitude in you?  Do share, for in sharing, and in knowing gratitude, lies the secret behind a happy heart.