So often, we’re down on ourselves for what we didn’t do right, what we couldn’t get done on time, what we wish we could do but don’t. Inspired by a blog post at Mocha Momma — a letter to herself at age 20, I want to know: What do you think you do well?
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My department has a summer intern with us right now, and he is so earnest. So enthusiastic. So smart. He’s eager to get to work each day, fired up in anticipation of whatever assignment will fall to him that morning. He has pithy, inspirational statements, penned in red and black on 4-by-6-inch note cards, pinned up on the walls of his cube. Nothing “Jack Handy”-ish — none of that “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and, dogonne it, people like me” stuff that gets parodied on comedy shows. Just the stuff the rest of us learned in school, stuff that applies to our trade, stuff that we assume we know but probably need to remember.

When did the rest of us stop being like that?
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When I nearing the end of my first maternity leave, my husband happened to mention to a neighbor from a few blocks away that I would be going back to work soon. She gasped, and asked, “So, who is going to raise your child?”

A new friend of mine recalls how, when she first mentioned returning to work, other new moms she met told her how sorry they were for her. And after story time at the library during my second maternity leave, someone I barely knew kept saying it was such a shame I couldn’t “find a way” to “do what’s best” for my children. (News flash! If your paycheck pays the mortgage, continuing to earn the income with which to pay it is, in fact, “what’s best” for your children!)

We’re quick to say that all moms are working moms, but if that’s really the case — and I believe that it is — let’s take things one step further: Staying home with your kids is a career choice, not a moral imperative.
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In the past, when you worked for a company you represented that company in anything you did. Now, though? You still represent your company, but in order to stay competetive, you also have to represent yourself.

That’s where personal branding comes in.

Earlier this week I was a panelist at Media Branding 2.0, an event hosted by personal branding guru Dan Schawbel, where we discussed personal branding, social media, and how to make yourself stand out in the crowded media landscape. The audience was made up of entrepreneurs, marketing and PR professionals, and members of the media who wanted to learn more about how to use social networking to their advantage, but the lessons on personal branding can be applied to anyone, in pretty much any field. All you have to want to do is stand out in a crowd — you define what that “crowd” is and how you navigate within it.
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Studies shows that parenting doesn’t make you happier than you already are — old news to anyone who has tried to salvage a marriage by having another child, I think, and probably old news to anyone who is going through or has survived either the Terrible Twos or the Terrible Teens (or both).

But I think there’s a non-parenting take-away from the studies: If you’re relying on other people to make you happier, you’re not going to get what you want.
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I read a great post at Strollerderby a couple of months ago, about former First Lady Laura Bush and how she hid her real view on abortion and gay marriage from the public while her husband was president, only telling Larry King this past May that she was in favor of both being legal. Former First-Lady hopeful Cindy McCain also came out in favor of gay marriage, a position she may have held in private for years but didn’t acknowledge in public until long after her husband’s bid for the White House was over.
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I’m in full-on decluttering mode, secure in the belief that, even if you can’t tell I’ve gotten rid of anything, every little bit counts and eventually it’ll look like I’ve really done something.

While in the basement, ruthlessly culling the piles of junk I’ve held on to for years, I came across a purple Rubbermaid bin filled with my old journals. I mean old — one of them dates back to when I was 12, an overly dramatic 7th grader who wore pink denim and turtlenecks and wondered whether her friend David liked her and felt bad because she broke Peter’s heart at the dance. Others were written during the first years of high school, with notes passed during class pressed between the pages, documenting things I was too young to realize that I’d always remember, even without a written record.
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