Sylvia's Journal

This is the fourth day I get up with the sun this week; tomorrow will be the final day and then it is Memorial Day weekend.

Today is a little sad because Tessa and Chicha are leaving, just before Sita is getting back home. Joe has also gone. He did play the beer game yesterday after I dropped him off at the Hyatt for his two day workshop on Systems Thinking. He told Axel they have gotten up to page 75 of the Fifth Discipline. What a dream: the Fifth Discipline book came out in 1991 and now, 17 years later this cow is still being milked. C’est genial, the French would say. If one of us could dream something like that up our ship(s) would surely come in. Alas! For now, nothing on the horizon.

Our worldwide meeting is unfolding as planned, and planned it was. All of my young(er) colleagues were mobilized to run with the meeting, not just the logistics of it, a big piece, but also design and facilitation. They are doing a wonderful job and the energy they bring to the job multiplied (and is still doing this) around them. I am becoming more and more conscious of the shift that our generation is making (or if not, has to make) in order to create space for these new saplings. I am getting a kick out of seeing the talent, creativity and energy.

When I was that age I was in Lebanon, trying to figure out how to be (and stay) married, have a family and a career all at the same time. I was clueless and floundering. The marriage unravelled, the family expansion was, under the circumstances, luckily postponed while the career was adrift in a swirl of non compatible options. The experience of failure propelled the urge to have a meaningful career to the top of the list and has much to do with where I am now. Even so, compared with the path my younger colleagues appear to be following, it was a very crooked path. In the end I found a way that allowed for a relatively peaceful coexistence between career, marriage and family. Much of the credit for this goes to Axel with his steady and wonderful presence that allowed me to travel and build up my ‘experience’ capital starting when Tessa was just an infant.