 Good afternoon. Welcome to Finding Happiness in Hard Times. I'm Ken Birdness coming to you from Haleva on the North Shore. And today we're starting a new series called The Big Questions. Now for the past six months we've been doing, we've been looking at joy, finding joy. But I'm gonna, we're gonna talk about how to ask big questions of ourselves and how we can find happiness through asking those questions. And we'll do that in just a moment. Now again, you know, for the past number of months we've been focusing on really joyous things. And that's really a way to deal with the negativity that we're facing in our life. But it's not the only way to deal with that. And so today this new series about asking big questions is going to give us some direction. And that's what I've really been concerned about because because of the negativity. Because every time we turn on the television we're watching negative news. Every time that we are listening to our iPhone we're hearing negative news. Every time we're wandering about the internet we're running into all this negativity in the world. And it's just very hard to find one's direction. It's certainly hard because there doesn't seem to be any solutions. So this whole series that we're going to be going through is going to be asking some questions that will help us find that direction. And to help us get started with all this I have three very smart and talented ladies who you've seen before. And they're with me today and I want to say welcome to Debra Mone and Jamie McEwitt and Penny Smith. Welcome ladies. Well let's talk about how big questions can help us. A lot of people just seem to get lost and it's hard to find oneself. Many of us are walking around with all this negativity with the war, the mass shootings, the coronavirus of course. We're walking around in a fog and things don't seem the same today that they did in the past. We seem to be not the same person we've heard. And like I said we're sort of walking around in a fog in the present and we don't really know where we're going in the future. So to do that we're going to ask these series of questions and I've asked these ladies to join us again. And I'm sure you remember them from if you tuned in on March they were talking to us about freeing their imagination through writing which was a great show and really a happy time that I had with these ladies. And they're going to help us by asking probably one of the biggest questions I think that we all need to ask ourselves and that is what is important. What is important to us? And to do that I'm going to ask each of them to tell us a little bit about what they feel and then we're going to open it up to a discussion. And the first person who's going to start off is Jamie. So Jamie you've got the floor. Thank you. So I wanted to sort of set the stage that we are coming out of this pandemic and we have been totally reliant on technology during the time of it. And I think I also have a different perspective because when you have children what that does is not only disrupt your whole lifestyle but it's also created this generation that is so used to dealing with technology that their interpersonal skills have totally diminished. So what used to be important to me was activity. I'm very active. I have a lot of things going on at once. We would be you know during the week there'd be all kinds of sports activities or drama activities or enrichment activities in addition to school and I sort of kept that pace throughout the pandemic. But now what I'm finding is that I can't sustain it because it's sort of pre-pandemic technology has increased so much that I don't want to give it a bad name because I definitely had advantages with the technology. So being in touch with old friends, being in closer contact with family that's all over the world, those kinds of things enriched but the technology itself then became this addiction like the kids are suffering from as well. So you know I cannot go to sleep at night now without my words for friends and my French duo Lingo and you know the series of texts and emails and messengers and WhatsApps that have to be answered. So what used to be important to me was keeping these relationships alive but it was in person. So now it's the the relationships are sustained through this artificial means and I have tried very extensively to like use it to my advantage but I have found that I have fallen in that hole like everybody else where it's just like everything is powered by that. I don't know what I'm doing next unless I look at the digital calendar. Oh and did I actually remember to put that thing in the calendar? So my life has become just you know the same circus pace it always had sort of amplified three or four times. So what is important to me now is the quality of the time that I have left to spend on this earth the quality of that time now. So being in the now and being present and being fully present not trying to be not being pulled by the distractions of all the other activities. So I've gone from somebody who was career focused sort of educated focused for my son activity focused for social justice and causes and I'm trying now to learn how to say no which is something my good friend Ken is always telling me to do but in the context of the big picture my happiness now is more dependent on those quieter moments and I know during the pandemic a lot of people my age probably experienced a good length of time where they had time for self-reflection they had time to like really delve into whatever they were into but I didn't and so now I'm sort of okay what is it that I can do in my life to make me feel centered and fulfilled so I don't want to give up the level of activity but the quality of the activity and the interaction with people and you're always going on about the negativity in life and one of those one of my strategies has been to cut the negative out and that means negative influences that maybe you weren't even aware of before so that passive aggressive friend who is like yes supportive but very critical as well or my crisis is bigger than your crisis right now or yes you've been the support person for so long but um I can't really like take on your stuff because it's too big so I guess the biggest lesson that I've learned through this pandemic is that I am no longer that person that could do everything like I really had the perception like I can do this I can have a career I can have a gift I can have a family I can have a very full social life to going like oh no I can't do it and the reason I can't do it is because it's only I've only become aware in my 60th year oh things slipped through the cracks oh I missed that I don't even know what that person's talking about right now and I'm in this meeting and so um sort of becoming my younger self again where it's a it's sort of an open playing field I'm not necessarily in that one direction but whatever direction I am in at the time because become sort of this tunnel that I am there and present and not worrying about the next what the next thing is so I say the biggest thing is about pace all right well thank you I think we're over to Tamra okay well I also was thinking of this question what's important in terms of how COVID has changed um my relationship to my life and I think when COVID really you know first shut down everything a lot of people were doing one of two things they were either looking for a lot of distractions kind of pass all this extra time that we had on our hands or they were kind of stepping back and really thinking about kind of reassessing what their lives look like and what they valued I know I had friends who realize they no longer had these social obligations that they weren't too excited about to begin with so all of a sudden you didn't have to go to all those parties that you were sort of you know half hearted about and that's that was really telling like okay I don't really need to value those those kinds of appointments anymore and I think a lot of people have carried that on now that we're open and kind of you know entering our normal our normal lives again um for me what it really brought to the fore was how important my my creative activities are and how important my relationships are and both of those got very deepened during the last couple years and um it helps to have that kind of digital connection that I could ignite with people who were far away but I also I had a couple friends here who ended up you know being my podmates during um the shutdowns and the friendships I have now with those people are they're much deeper they just go way down to bedrock and it's just because we spent so much time together during 2020 and 2021 and um it made a big difference in the quality of our relationship um and for me I'm a painter and a writer and it was just crucial to spend time doing those things for my mental health and and just to be active you know in an intellectual and engaged way um for me in my life too I um I was in my very early 20s when my father died and I think that made a big difference in in my following life in terms of realizing that life is finite doesn't go on forever and if you don't do something during this life that's it that's your that's your opportunity that you just missed so COVID kind of intensified that and um I've realized you know if there are things that I really want to do with my life I need to do them right now I need to make them happen while I have the opportunity while I have my health while I have you know all the capabilities that I do have um and that that really helps snap things into perspective um so those are those were what I found to be important um and having a sort of drastic situation helped me kind of put a frame about what the frame around the things that I really wanted to be spending my time doing it also highlighted the things I don't want to spend my time doing and I tried to jettison those you know like at the end of my life I don't need to say that I spent a lot of time watching tv that's not very fulfilling for me so I don't you know and um so it just it every day I try to think about what's valuable to me and I try to prioritize what's valuable to me and it'll be different for every person but for me I know it's it's making and creating things and having good connections with the people who are important to me terrific thank you Tamara really appreciate that penny you're up holy moses well I think probably in some respects the pandemic was very good for me um and I really can't say it's because I was multitasking too much or any of that because a lot of the things that I do anyway I did during the pandemic I'm a writer I wrote three books during the pandemic and I love that that's my favorite thing in the world to do so that was not a hard thing I was with my partner which I love to be I it was great fun and you know that was good but the other thing about it was is that I don't know I think there's something about me that from the very beginning I think it was my probably my mother that said if you want to do something do it and we recently heard a woman in one of our professional groups who said the way to turn on creativity is to say yes from the time I've been a kid I said yes it's like oh there's an opportunity here should you do it or not well it yes because it's learning and and you and it's fun it's different and if you don't like it you can always walk away it's always about choices so for me relationships have been really really important I'm basically say bless you an only child my husband and I are the last of our line we have no family so the friend relationships are have been absolutely critical I have a pod they call it the girl gang in San Diego I have a girl gang in Palo Alto I and I go to see them and you know during the pandemic of course we couldn't so we zoomed twice a week all of us you know in each group and somehow or the that was fine it was enough but the other thing about it was is this thing about saying yes I can do that a lot of us here decided well this pandemic so what so three of us hired our favorite swim instructor one of his one of the women had a swimming pool and every every week we would meet at the swimming pool she would teach us we've been at different ends outside coming in with you know not going through anybody's house absolutely no concern about that um our art teacher went on zoom my Pilates teacher was on the art teacher if you can imagine putting clay outside of her door so that we could each individually come pick up our own and then we are all working together on Sunday in front of the camera it was different but we managed to keep going um but I guess the other thing about it is is that the biggest thing for me is I just turned 80 and so hearing 60 is sweet I don't know you know but you so you really do take a look and say well what's next and for me it's just kind of another step in the adventure I mean when we when I left home to go to college it was how's this gonna look when I left college and went into to work you know it was how's this gonna look what do I want what do I want and what choices do I have to make and I'm there now we're looking at and saying well what do you do when you're over 80 you don't want to deal with the management of a house you know all the things you're reading about in the press all the time right now is exactly where we are but I look at it I say okay I set up a strategic plan for it I've met with all kinds of people we've gone on to all these different places to look we know what we want for a place to live for the next step but I also know that I'm going to keep writing I'm going to keep painting my friends as long as we're all living are going to keep in touch with each other so you know I don't know I'm just a you know a perennial optimist number one and number two is somewhere down the line I've always believed oh I can do that and then as I got older it was well what is it that I want to do not just something but what are the choices and once you get into something you don't like it it's very easy to say mea culpa it's not right the best thing for all of us is for me to move along and I've done that several times here in the last couple of years with organizations and whatnot so um you know I'm looking at the next adventure I listen to the news I don't listen to all of the news anymore because it's pretty much the same um I pay attention we're ready for the hurricane season in case it should come but you know I don't know it's um it's just life and it's it's it's an adventure and it's it's you're a problem solver that's the way I look at it I have to solve some problems and make some choices and then get on with it and I know that sounds very polly anish but I hope that answers some of the questions well thank you penny yeah uh the one thing that I would throw back at all three of you is that you know what I hear from all three of you is change you know as we get older as we pass through the various stages of life we change and some of the things that were important in the past are no longer that important uh but some of the things that were important in the past are still important some of the things we did we no longer do but some of the things we did we're still doing so it's change and it's not change it's it's change and keeping some things and letting go of some things so I guess I would ask all three of you if we're talking about you know we've been talking about what's important in the past and what's important today uh if you could take a little more look into the future and say okay if I want to add something you know what would be an important thing that I would like to try or accomplish our experience uh in addition maybe to the stuff that I'm still doing that's still important like Tamara says uh but maybe there's something that's ahead of us that uh we have yet to delve into or to really give it the test of is this important for us it might be or it might not like Penny is saying you know we we have a choices there so can you can the three of you look a little bit into the future about what's important that may be coming up for you well I really like Penny's attitude about um saying yes to opportunities that come along and um I'm a great one for variety and change too so I really like um the accidents that happen with life uh and I I try to live as lightly as I can and be open to whatever comes along so if I was to have to you know if an opportunity came to move somewhere experience a different culture be halfway around the globe I'd be up for it it's uh it's hard to tell what's going to come along but um you just have to like I just don't want to be too tied down to my routines and and think that all my obligations have to hold me here forever well I can speak a little bit to that because for a variety of reasons we have moved something like six times in 10 years um you can't rent in Hawaii without having the house underneath your soul every two years so but even from that once or twice we've gone to the mainland and made decisions to do something else and and you know that gets easy and I think that has to do with how much how many years you have on you how how long you've had to deal with that because that will come up that was I guess a surprise for me as well my earlier life was that sometimes stuff just happened and you were kind of forced into making choices that you might not normally have chosen to make and and it's it's sort of a situation of saying okay um I gotta do this we're gonna go do this or I'm gonna go do this but how good can I make it you know of all the things that are in this scenario that I don't particularly anticipate or want what are the best parts of it and what can I make work and uh you know that's that's the phase you go through and age says age is the wrong word experience has something to do with that you know so I would say for me um one I never expected to be a mother as late in life as I became one and so there is something that I can't say no that doesn't work for me anymore which is parenthood right like I've got it I gotta slug out for however many years he's on the planet and I'm on the planet and um I think what has changed as far as my future visions of my life goes is that I want to instill in not just my son but the next generation coming up because I do a lot of work with kids anyways um the sense of value that we have on those very things that we have talked about the the friendships the connections your creativity doing something that's fulfilling in your life not being driven by numbers or prestige or whatever and I mean it sounds a very idealistic and I know it's not possible in our lifetime but leaving the place in a in some kind of better shape than I found it so here we are not only suffering from the throes of a pandemic that happened but a major war going on forest fires forest fires is wiping out my country of Canada right now I mean it's astounding so climate change all of those big big issues and to still be able to you know like do your social justice things contribute be a valid contributing member of society and not a me generation kind of atmosphere but to really show what the value of life is to that next generation and that they do have the power to change things that we may have made a mess of um and that like you I'm an eternal optimist but this is the first time in my life that I have to say I have even questioned that approach of like wait a minute I I do wake up every day and say whatever that disaster was yesterday it can't get worse and it does it does like I have been surprised how many times I've said that in the last not even pre-pandemic even pre-pandemic um how I just can't believe this is what's happening now so I sort of feel like we're living in this very surreal time it's almost like I don't know a superhero movie or something where it's just like one ping disaster after another and how are you going to put that fire out but in all of those movies there's always that feel good factor right of like oh they made friendships they bonded in they'll love each other forever um so my future movie I hope to encompass some of that no I would say something to that too and that is that sometimes this goes back to the absolute and can this is your area why you would probably know but it goes back way back to to yours who you are as a person from the almost the beginning or from very early in and you know I asked somebody asked me that question in a consulting thing one time you know what's important to you to you personally I well I need to I want to be considered or known and that's the wrong thing I want to be thought of as a as a good person as a good person second of all a person of fine integrity whatever I do that's something I want and then I want something I mean I need to be created that's important to me and and I think those internal things sometimes and for me as I've gotten older where I realized you know it's the thing of the value of the small or the virtue of the small I don't have to be a big thing in anything or make huge changes here or there as long as I get up every morning and do the best that I can that's kind of my mantra and and it's very under directed even though I am kind of known as an extrovert so I think that has a lot to do with it and the ability to define that as we get a little bit older and start throwing things off you know it's I don't need to be known as this I don't have to be that I don't do that do that do that as long as I feel deep in the core I'm a good person a person of integrity and I still get to be creative well we're sort of running short of time ladies as always there's a too little time and too much to think about one of the things I would simply add to what you all been talking about and I'll tell the audience this these three ladies one of the things that they characterize to me is that they're all open they're open to something new they're open to opportunities they're open to change and I think that's a big part of what we're talking about here is that's important to always be open to what the future may bring now the future may bring stuff that takes us in a direction that initially we don't want to go in but whatever direction it takes it to takes us to and whatever door opens up there's always something really interesting in behind that door and with these three ladies and I hope myself we can find that interesting thing and we can do something that's important to us and to other people last uh we got about 30 seconds for each of you last uh I have a bottle so this is the world according to Maria Scafidi fun don't do it and if you gotta do it make it fun I like it I like it camera I heard this the other day which I really like if can can if cannot try all right actually I have to go along with both of those I don't have a new one but it's just the thing of get up every morning and do the very best you can and just be happy try to be happy you know the thing is that you know when I wake up and I tell my friends this I have an open window by my bed and every time I wake up and I see that dawn coming and I look out and I look at my orchid tree and my garden and I look at Hawaii and I say wow you know it doesn't get much better than this so we've got a big advantage over a lot of people and I'm forever grateful for that and I'm ever forever grateful to my friends especially you three ladies and thank you so much for being with us thank you and we hope and I want to thank of course the audience that's tuned in today I hope you'll continue to tune in we'll be talking some more about the joy of things that make the brush away that negativity that we find ourselves in and we'll also be asking some other big questions that gives us some direction on where we want to go rather than just sort of floating along like a lot of us have been tempted to do in today's negativity and in case any of you are wondering if I'm ever going to have any male's opinion about this I'm also going to have three males a couple months down the line that are going to tackle the same question now I don't think that there's a whole lot of difference between the feminine and the masculine point of view on these types of things but we'll see it'll give us a chance to take a look in the meantime thank you ladies again and thanks to think tech Hawaii all the people there that have helped with us with the michael and ash and jay and hailey and everybody else and again thanks for tuning in hope to see you again adios thank you so much for watching think tech Hawaii if you like what we do please click the like and subscribe button on youtube you can also follow us on facebook instagram and linkedin check out our website think tech Hawaii calm mahalo