The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland...

Let me share something here that I’m not sharing over on the MySpace blogs. Rather let me gush for a second. Davos is truly spectacular. There is something about an invite-only conference that allows every attendee to walk up to one another and say hi, introduce yourself, make conversation. Everyone who is here has done something special to be here. Sure, there are a few lucky ducks (like myself) who have found there way here, but heads of states and CEOs and global leaders all under one roof make for very interesting conversation.

Which leads me to my next point – the people here care very much. There are a lot of conversations about just about everything you could imagine. Water conservation and sustainable of global fisheries, the future of the middle east, what the World Cup in South Africa this summer can raise awareness of current hot topic issues in Africa, the crisis in Haiti. There are a million things happening in the world right now and chances are someone here is an expert in that field.

There is a dark side here too. Or rather a pessimism. Last year, 9 of the global CEOs of banks were no-shows. They couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t have shown their faces in the wake of such a catastrophic global financial meltdown and so weren’t here. Last year, the infamous and exclusive parties featuring vertical wine tastings or grand-cru french wines were canceled. It was deemed inappropriate to be lavish and thought to shed a negative light on the conference. CEOs of global companies meet here in Davos, this tucked away Swiss ski town and who knows what happens behind closed doors.

But let me say this. There is a line from a TED Talk that I love that goes, “It’s too late to be pessimistic. It’s too late to think we can do nothing. We must look forward to the future. We must look to building something greater than what we have today.”

That is the essence of Davos. Optimism that the work everyone is doing here is inspiring something greater for not just the next generation but 7 generations out. Among these leaders within their communities, I feel as if anything is possible for myself. I feel a freedom to be bold, to keep pushing forward, to have faith in what I believe is my own personal mission in life – helping people discover cause and ways to give back. Here, anything is possible and if I take away one lesson from Davos, it’s an almost “Santa Claus like spirit” where we believe what we want to believe. And so I choose to believe in hope. I choose to believe in the future. I choose to believe in you.

Related posts:
Simple Ways To Make A Difference Today
On Friendship
5 Challenges for the Road

Poetry Wednesday #5 – Wild Geese...

A thank you to the the lovely Joanna Lord (fellow Vermont lover, social media maven and beach dweller) for passing along to me this week’s Poetry Wednesday poem.

***I was at a loss. Got all caught up in trying to find something perfect and was going to give up on the day and then I tweeted a quote:

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.” – Mary Oliver #quotes

And Joanna sent me that poem and it’s PERFECT. Why do we insist things be perfect and then trick ourselves out of stuff? Happy to NOT have gone to bed without writing this post.

Just a reminder, Poetry Wednesdays are a chance to get out of my head and find beauty and simplicity in something other than cause or the hectic schedule I create around giving back. So I hope you enjoy…

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

If you liked this post, you might like:

On Friendship by Khalil Gibran
Those Winter Sundays
This Is Just To Say

SloaneBerrent.com Redesign Is Live!...

You know that HUGE bucket list of things you want to do, want to get to, want to overcome? It’s hard right? To know where to start. Where to begin. Well, in an attempt to “start small, start anywhere” (by the way also my philosophy on getting involved in cause) the first step was putting a simple landing page up at my namesake URL, Sloane Berrent.com. That was breaking the seal, so to speak.

I had the URL but nothing there. Which means no search engines pick it up. Which means no SEO. Which means I know enough about the web to know that I should DO something about this, but fairly overwhelmed to push the GO button.

In come my friends. Brett Petersel redesigned his site and I loved it. Clean and simple and in essence all I need for right now. (*Note current site isn’t up, that man changes his homepage more than some people change socks). Do I want like a whole Zadi Diaz or Shira Lazar site, two rocking women I admire? Sure. Who wouldn’t. But with my current resources and desire to really just have something up there, I thought simple was the way to go.
(more…)

On Friendship by Khalil Gibran. Poetry Wednesdays ...

The fourth installment of Poetry Wednesdays is another of my favorite poets of all time, Khalil Gibran. Now for those of you new to my blog going “Why is she posting about poems?” Well, I decided a month ago that I was being bogged down by writing about cause and projects and wanted to have an outlet, after all, isn’t that what a blog is for? I was sitting in bed one night and reading the Norton Anthology of Poetry (ain’t my life a ball of fire, I know) and remembered how much I truly love poetry and the way the words come together in thoughts and images and time. Now every Wednesday, I’ll bring you one poem that is special to me. If there are ones you love, please leave them in the comments!

The poem below needs no introduction. I have read The Prophet maybe 30 times. Maybe more. I often have it near me and flip through the pages. It’s in my top 5 books of all time. I hope you enjoy, for the first or 100th time, On Friendship.

On Friendship
by Khalil Gibran

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
(more…)

Poetry Wednesday #3 – No man is an island...

Week 3 of Poetry Wednesday falls right in the middle of the EPIC Cause It’s My Birthday campaign and so I wanted to share a favorite poet of mine, John Donne and a poem that illustrates how connected we all are. It’s called No Man Is An Island. The title was turned into a song by Joan Baez and covered many times, a version I particularly like is below.

We are all in this together. It’s too late to think it’s too late. It’s too late to not truly care what happens to the next generation. It’s up to us, it’s up to you and me. I hope you’ll join me in the fight to do better and to be better. You can join today by making a donation to the #fightmalaria campaign I’m in the middle of. Donate HERE.

No man is an island
John Donne

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Poetry Wednesday #2 – Those Winter Sundays...

Last week I posted one of my favorite poems of all time, This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams. I can’t think of that poem without thinking of Those Winter Sundays and so I wanted to share this, probably my second favorite (before we get into the category of poems I just like) a classic by Robert Hayden.

Didn’t know I was such a renaissance woman, huh? It’s true, I like poetry, I bake a mean pizzelle, I once had a nice garden of herbs and tomato plants (ok this was YEARS ago but I haven’t had a backyard since), I have a life outside dedicating my life to others through what my good friend Alexa calls my “fierce commitment to philanthropy.” And truthfully, I need a little reminder about all those other parts of me since sometimes I seem to be falling down a path of just giving and giving and giving of myself and wondering why I feel raw at the end of a day, week, campaign, experience. To be the best to you – the world – I have to be the best to me too. So for now, and for a few weeks to come, I’ll be posting my favorite poems (on Wednesdays) and reminding myself of some of those “other parts of me” that can’t get lost as I expand and explore the Humanitarian me.

In that giving to others, I am strongly reminded of the poem below, I hope you enjoy it and please take a moment to really feel what the poet is saying, it’s palpable to me now, a good 13 years after I first read it in high school English class.

Those Winter Sundays

Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early
And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices

This Is Just To Say...

After posting So Much To Say But Where Are The Words, I was reminded of one of my favorite poems of all time by William Carlos Williams. I’m posting it below. I’ve found a lot of emotional relief in poetry this week, caused by finding an old poetry book in my stepdad’s house and reading it in bed at night. The poems from 100 years ago remind me of the Philippines where you have a lot to say and not a lot of tools of communication to do it. The simple and yet utterly complex imagery deeply move me. I’ll post a few more of my favorite poems in the coming week. To kick it off…

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold